Chapter Text
They both stink.
Johnny always suspected that the truism about getting used to your own smell was a lie. He’s keenly aware - as the days blend together and his clothes get stiffer and stiffer with sweat and rainwater and occasionally blood - of just how rank he is. Paradoxically, it’s a subtle terrible awful embarrassing stench. Unlike vomit, or shit, which demand attention - “Clean me up now” - the smell of his sweat is innocuous enough that he can put off dealing with it, especially as they head north, and the flowing waters they find get colder and colder.
It’s only when a strand of his hair, slick and shiny with sweat, fails to catch when Johnny carelessly leans over their cooking fire, that he snaps. “This is ridiculous!” he says once they’re both sure his head won’t burst into flames. “We need a bath!”
“To be clear,” Gyro says slowly, as Johnny maneuvers himself toward the creek where they’d filled their pot with water to disinfect, “You’re upset you didn’t burn your head?”
“It doesn’t matter why I realized it, we just need to get clean! It’s been -” He tries to count. How long has it been? “Too long!” is what he goes with. He positions himself carefully on the slippery rocks and tugs off his shirt.
Behind him, Johnny hears wavering footsteps and grumbling. Then, Gyro rushes forward and plunges, fully clothed, into the shallow water. Johnny shrieks as it splashes his bare skin, and Gyro bellows what Johnny has come to learn means “son of a bitch” in Italian. And then, they dissolve into giggles.
“It’s cold!” Johnny screams.
“So fucking cold!” Gyro agrees. “My boots didn’t even last a second!”
“That’s your own fault,” Johnny giggles as he pulls off his.
“I thought why not wash everything at once.” Slowly, Gyro lowers himself into the water, until his knees and then most of his thighs are submerged. His face is pained, but he scrubs at his pant legs with their dense bar of soap furiously all the same, a small film of suds rising to the top of the slow moving water.
Johnny considers his own clothes. “That’s really smart, actually,” he says. “It doesn’t make sense to get back into dirty clothes after you’re clean.”
“Exactly!” Gyro is in up to his chest now, half lying down and still shivering, but grinning at Johnny. “It’s not so bad once you give it a second.”
“Right.” He eyes the water warily.
“You want me to just pull you in all at once?”
Gyro’s so considerate. Johnny barely squeaks out a “Yes, please” and Gyro is dragging him off the rocks and into the almost painfully cold water. “Deep breath,” he warns before dunking both their heads under. Just for a second.
They emerge sputtering and gasping, Gyro’s hair clinging to his face and shoulders. Johnny’s isn’t much better, but it is too short to get in his mouth. There’s plenty of creekwater in there to make up for it, though. He makes the ugliest almost gagging noises trying to get the slimy feeling off his tongue.
“See? Not so bad, right?”
“It’s f-freezing,” Johnny says through chattering teeth.
“It’s warmer if you wash yourself.” He puts the soap in Johnny’s shaking hands and guides them to his chest. “I’ll wash your back if you wash mine,” he sings.
“Deal.”
There’s nothing erotic about it. Just both of them rushing through the bath, scrubbing as fast as they can until their skin is red from the cold and their rough soap. Johnny doesn’t even wash his hair, and he lets Gyro lift him out of the water and carry him to the fire pit. He’s too cold to care.
“Ouch!” Johnny yelps when he puts his hands close to the flames. He rubs his fingers. “It hurts!”
“We’re probably too cold.” Gyro drags him back a foot and plops down, arms around Johnny’s bare chest and his damp hair on his shoulder. “We should take a second to warm up without the fire.”
“How am I supposed to warm up with your wet clothes on me?”
Gyro all but physically smacks his forehead. “You’re right! We have to lay them out to dry.” He peels off his shirt with extreme difficulty. “You should get out of your pants too. I know you can't feel it, but it’ll still suck the heat out of your body.”
“I know.” He didn't know. He’s been discovering a lot about how his legs affect him in unexpected ways on this trip.
“You want help?” Gyro asks. He’s almost out of his shirt. “And I’m asking because I think I’ll want help with mine, so -”
“Like you don't do enough for me that I can’t help you with your pants without you owing me.”
“Not what I’m saying at all, Johnny.” Gyro doesn’t elaborate on what he is saying.
It’s also not errotic to help his friend undress, or to get undressed by him, even though it probably should be. They’re both too tired to do anything but huddle next to the fire, casually touching as they tend to do, sleepily watching the stars.
In the morning, they smell like the creek.