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Johnny enjoys brushing hair.
To feel the warm, grounding weight of Slow Dancer beneath him, leaning forward in the saddle and onto her neck, grooming her mane, brushing it downwards slowly, starting from the roots and going all the way down, listening to her breathe, is comforting.
It’s strange, too, to have an appreciation for something relatively mundane, but it’s a chore he’s enjoyed since he was young, and even into his teenage years — an oasis from the world outside, and many times had he stood with the stable door bolted at home, owls hooting in the trees around them as he worked knots out of manes, out of Heartbreaker’s, Pirate’s, Kashmir’s, making his way down the paddocks one-by-one.
At one point he’d begun to dip his toes into braiding, too. He got pretty good at that, even if he had to take them out before dawn lest his father see what he’d been doing; after months of sneaking to the top of the estate at night he got used to admiring the transience of the work, consisting of dressage-style, which made his fingers ache at first from pinching loops around his fingers, French braids with flowers intertwined, and Western braids, when he’d stuff his pockets full of ribbons left over from escapades of girls that had stayed the night before, careful not to drop them as he ran up the ground’s fields.
He reminisces even now, sitting on his bedroll, fire crackling to his right. His comb works at long, blonde locks that aren’t, really, too dissimilar to Slow Dancer’s, if not only a little finer and thicker. Johnny hits a snag, and the owner of the hair jumps.
“Ow!” Gyro hisses, sat in front of him, legs splayed out, hat rested on his lap.
They’ve been going at this for a good five minutes. Earlier that day had they ridden through a dense pine forest, figuring it was a safe enough shortcut, and when Gyro glanced over once to shout something to Johnny he’d been hit, full-force, with a thick bracket of leaves and pine needles hanging overhead, which were now embedded in his hair like rabbit-skin glue.
He’d complained the whole way here, even while they were finally putting up for the night.
“Sorry,” Johnny mutters under his breath, and then he frowns, “can you stop moving about? You’ve still got thorns in your hair.”
“You were the one that offered to do this,” Gyro huffs.
That much is.. True. Gyro’s hair is long, and fair, and pretty; the sort of hair that Johnny used to like – still likes – on girls. He swaps to the next section, beginning to gently pry out a needle with his fingers where it’s embedded near Gyro’s nape, holding the locks by the root so they don’t pull on his scalp.
Maybe he can plait it one day, Johnny thinks, falling into silence once more. Once this is all over, perhaps.. Just to keep it out of his face while he’s riding. It’d look nice, a loose cable plait hanging over his shoulder; Johnny can appreciate that, at least, even to be sat here in this moment of intimacy with Gyro, working the comb down his friend’s back, and.. It scratches an itch he’s had for a very long time. They’re not typically this close, even if Gyro likes to get in his face a lot. Johnny convinces himself that this itch is one of nostalgia for the cool evenings of secrecy back in England, and nothing more.
He takes his time combing, and after another few minutes of running the tool down the same spot he’s fairly surprised to hear no objections from how long it’s taking. It isn’t as if Johnny’s trying to push Gyro’s buttons or anything, after all, just that moments similar to this have been few and far. Typically once they’ve hitched their horses at dusk they’ll eat and go straight to sleep — Johnny doesn’t have any quarrels to this, since he’s usually exhausted by dusk, but.. Still.
Why not ask to braid it, really? It’s all straight and shiny and smooth now, and Johnny’s sure he can conjure a ribbon from somewhere. He’s about to open his mouth to make the suggestion when he hears a soft snoring.
Ah. That’s why Gyro hasn’t been complaining.
Johnny takes his hands away, and Gyro begins to fall backwards against him; he has to brace one hand behind himself, using the other to keep Gyro upright, where his head’s now slumped to the side. To let him down now, though, would mean to undo all of the careful brushing.. Keeping him held up, Johnny reaches over to rustle around in his own pack where it sits just a foot away, and produces a hair band. It’s dark green.
Johnny can’t remember the source of it but figures, as he leans forward against Gyro to take the brunt of his weight, leaving both of his hands free, that it doesn’t really matter now.
Gathering the silky strands together in one hand and stretching the band between finger and thumb in the other, he ties Gyro’s hair into a ponytail, gently; and then averts his eyes from his now-exposed neck, from the skin that Johnny figures hasn’t seen sunlight in quite some time. He takes to wriggling out from under him, laying his head on the bedroll, and sitting up to admire his handiwork. Gyro’s face is turned towards Johnny, illuminated by the glow of the fire. Crickets chirp in the distance.
Somehow, it’s still nostalgic, seeing him like this, but more akin to his yearning; the same yearning he’d had throughout his childhood and his teenage years, the constant will for something more out of his life, the belief that he could do more, have more, be more.
At first, it was to surpass his older brother. Their rivalry was friendly, of course, but to be the second favourite would always harbour some sort of jealousy, no matter how amiable it might have been. Johnny had got his wish, alright, by some sick turning of fate, some small white mouse crushed between the cogs of life; and then it had been the Kentucky Derby, which he’d won just to spite his father, to win not directly for the riches or the girls, but to spit in the face of the man he’d been set up to please his entire life.
And now, to be more.
That’s why he’s here, after all. Once he gets the Corpse Parts he can get his life back on track too, although, staring at Gyro, at the sandy locks in front of his ears, at his painted lips and tanned skin and thick eyelashes and high cheekbones, he’s not sure what that really means. To ‘be more’. Gyro teases him, but Johnny feels adequate in his company. To ‘be more’.. Gyro’s never asked him for that.
A yawn pulls at Johnny’s lips, and he flexes his arms to stretch. He’s just tired — that’s all. Tiredness will have him thinking such inane thoughts.
He scoots over to his own bedroll, lying it flat, close to Gyro’s. One more glance has another wave of nostalgia rolling over him, icy cold and yet scalding hot at the same time; Gyro’s turned his head in his slumber, and a long strand of hair has fallen over his eyes. His hands are still resting over the hat on his lap. And Johnny doesn’t really realise what he’s doing when he pushes the strand off, tucking it behind his ear with a strange tenderness, as if he’s back in the paddocks, just nine years old, petting the horses with a sentiment of awe and unyielding love.
When he turns back to get back into his own sleeping bag, he swears he hears Gyro mumble his thanks; but Johnny sees that his eyes are still closed.
He’s smiling as he crawls into the bag. It’s a nice thought, that Gyro knows how much he means to Johnny, has meant to him in such a short span of time — but it’s only a thought. He closes his eyes. Never mind.
Tomorrow will be a fresh day, if not a long one, and longing during the rare downtime does him no good.