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“It’s so hot out,” Gyro complains, wiping sweat from his brow. “Are you guys not hot?”
“It’s hot as hell, Gyro. Stop complaining,” Johnny chimes in, tugging his hat from his head and tucking it into his saddle bag. “You’re not the only one sweating your ass off.”
Gyro slows Valkyrie to a stop and groans. “I need to take a break.”
He bonelessly slides off his horse and as soon as his feet hit the sand, he takes a long swig from his canteen. You watch as sweat glistens on his brow, water tipping past his lips and sliding down his chin and along his neck. More than just the sun heats the surface of your cheeks, and you find yourself following a rivulet of water as it creeps down the column of his throat and beneath the collar of his shirt.
Seemingly dissatisfied with how the water cools him off, Gyro moves to duck under a nearby rock ledge for some shade, and judging by the way he grimaces, the rocks do little to shield him from the heat.
“We can’t stay long,” you warn him. “If we want to make it to the checkpoint by tomorrow afternoon, we’re gonna have to keep moving.”
Gyro waves his hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Just-” Gyro takes another huge gulp from his canteen and sighs. “Give me a minute.”
You watch as he pulls his hat from his head to fan his face, and annoyance washes over his features when it doesn’t immediately work to cool him down. Disgruntled, he tosses it onto the sand and then moves to pull at his hair, lifting it up and down to fan it over the back of his neck.
The movement gives you an idea. Digging through your saddle bag, you find a length of hot pink ribbon you’d taken from the last checkpoint. You don’t remember what compelled you to keep it, but you’re glad to have it now — if only to quell Gyro’s complaints.
You dismount, and join Gyro under his little rock awning.
“I have an idea that might help. Do you mind if I try it?”
“God, I’d do anything.”
You crowd the space beside him and force him to turn away from you with firm hands on his shoulders, and when his back is to you, you set to work combing your fingers through his hair to ease some of the tangles. When you’re satisfied with how silky it is, you separate it into three sections. Delicately, you weave the hair together into a neat braid, and for the first time all afternoon, Gyro falls silent. As the braid comes to an end you pull the ribbon out to secure it in place, finally moving it over his shoulder and off the back of his neck.
With his hair out of the way, Gyro lets out a long, pleased sigh as if you’ve just relieved him of a heavy burden. “What would I do without you?”
Emerging from the rocks with renewed spirits, Gyro bends to pick up his hat and straightens his back with a proud hand on his hip. Before mounting his horse again, he fixes his hat into place and fiddles with the ends of his hair, a smug smile tugging at his lips. Squinting in the sun, he asks, “How do I look?”
His cheek is sticky and warm beneath your palm when you move to pat it. You don’t miss the way he leans further into your touch. “You look very pretty, Gyro. Now, are you ready to go?”
“Mhm.”
“Finally,” Johnny groans from behind you, snapping Gyro out of his revelry.
“Do you have to complain about everything?”
“Me?”
The bickering doesn’t stop until well after the sun goes down.
You’ve created a monster.
In the days after, Gyro seems hellbent on incorporating the hairstyle into his daily routine. Every morning, after he’s washed up a little and brushed his teeth, Gyro drags the ribbon between his fingertips and fixes you with this sheepish, almost shy look, so unlike him you can’t help but laugh.
“You want me to fix your hair again?”
He presses the ribbon into your palm then, splaying his hair along his shoulders and dropping into a chair or onto the ground, waiting expectantly for you to braid his hair. And every time, you click your tongue and scoff good-naturedly, teasing him for being so high maintenance, even as you begin to comb your fingers through his pretty blond hair.
Sometimes in the afternoon when you stop to eat, he’ll ask you to tie it again. It needs to stay out of his face when he eats, you know. And you’re more than happy to oblige, setting your silverware aside to collect his hair in your hands. You’ll braid it, or tie it up in a ponytail, sometimes even twisting it into a low bun before digging into your food.
Johnny rolls his eyes more than once at the obvious (but apparently not so obvious to the two of you) display of affection, grumbling under his breath about you two needing to get a room already.
Gyro’s smile is smug when he tells Johnny, “You’re just jealous you don’t have a pretty thing like this playing with your hair.”
It’s a comment meant to get under the other man’s skin, and it does… every time, but you can’t help the way your cheeks light up with its implications. There’s a reason you’re so quick to fix Gyro’s hair, to do anything he asks really, and you suspect it has something to do with the handsome way Gyro smiles or the soft sparkle in his eyes when he’s pleased with the way his hair looks.
The air between you starts to change one night, now weeks after the first braiding incident. Weeks spent playing with Gyro’s hair or sitting close to him at meals or resting on his shoulder during downtime. Johnny had turned in an hour earlier, you and Gyro opting to stay up and savor the dwindling embers of the fire, enjoying the comfortable silence settling between you. The moon hangs high in the sky and a chill works its way through the air, cooling your overheated skin. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch Gyro pick at the skin of his fingers.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
His fingers stop, a sheepish smile overtaking his features. “I was just thinking…”
“About?” You press, nudging your shoulder into his.
“Well, I was wondering,” he scoffs like even the thought of the words leaving his mouth is silly, “if you could teach me how to braid. I always get so happy when you do it for me, and I just…” He fixes you with a soft gaze, his expression bathed in moonlight. “I want to return the favor.”
“I-” you can’t even get your words out without smiling, the tips of your ears growing warm as you think it over. “I would like that.”
“Well, you’re the expert.” He unties the ribbon from his own hair and gently holds it in the space between you. “Teach me your ways.”
Just as you had done all those weeks ago, and just as you instruct, Gyro crowds the space behind you; his long legs sitting on either side of your hips. You walk him through the process: separate the hair into three even sections, cross an outside section over the middle and let it sit, repeat it on the opposite side, and keep going until you reach the ends.
He mumbles the steps to himself over and over again as he goes, and you smile to yourself as you imagine his brow furrowed in concentration, lip jutted out into a pout as he thinks.
The braid isn’t perfect, not by any means, and by the time he’s done (after starting and restarting more than once), the fire has long since burnt out. The moon acts as the only light to guide him as he ties the ribbon around the ends of your hair.
“I- It’s done,” he pauses, running his fingers over the braid. “I think, anyway.”
You reach behind you to feel it, and find that it’s a little bumpy, a little imperfect, but you adore it all the same. He’d tried, and that’s what matters. The thought makes your heart feel fuzzy in your chest.
“I love it. Thank you.”
“You can’t even see it.” He argues, a pout on his lips.
You turn to look at him and cup his cheek. “I can just tell it’s beautiful, and besides,” you pinch the apple of it as you assure him, “practice makes perfect, right?”
You catch moonlight and adoration in the green hues of his eyes, and as silence falls between you, you find yourself twisting so you can lean closer. You’re just about there, your lips almost on his, when Johnny pipes in, sleep evident in his annoyed tone. “Are you done? Can you please go to bed now?”
With the moment entirely shattered, Gyro affectionately rolls his eyes and pecks your cheek, fingers running over the end of your braid before he moves to stand. “Goodnight, sweets.”
He smirks, and on his way back to his bed roll, kneels down to plant a wet smack against Johnny’s cheek. Tone dripping with a teasing singsong, he says, “Goodnight Johnny.”
Johnny grumbles an “I hate you” as he rolls over and tucks himself further into his blanket.
These two, you think as you settle under your own blankets. That night, you fall asleep with a braid in your hair and a smile on your face.