Work Text:
CUT YOUR HAIR
I cut your hair
Every whisper of every hair
Dust the strands from your shoulders
Hold you up make you stand taller
I cut your hair
Little here and little there
Put your trust in my hands we’ll
Make you look how you should stand now
—Big Joanie
—————
The fire crackles angrily, hissing and spitting as it chews on the green branches the two horsemen had gathered to keep them warm. Rather, Sedgar had gathered the firewood after he’d pulled an arrow out of Wolf’s arm, bandaged him up, and left him slumped against a log. The fire isn’t up to Sedgar’s usual knightly standards, but as he’d performed the miracle of lighting the wood at all, Wolf won’t complain. He has sworn off demeaning him anyway, even over things that don’t matter. In all their years together, there has only been one time when Wolf has really yelled at him. He doesn’t wish to repeat it.
From that moment, three years must have passed, though time seems blurry to Wolf, like peripheral scenery from the back of a galloping horse. Such is the way of a life without routine. With the end of the war, the war historians call the War of Heroes, and the death of Coyote, the man they call the Dark Emperor, Wolf resigned from his post, abandoning the Coyote’s Men and the Archanean Army as a whole. Since then, he has travelled here and there, selling his skill with whatever half-decent weapon he’s able to get his hands on, his bow always at his side. There’s no shortage of skirmishes in Aurelis: for all of Kris’s talk about Marth being a man of peace, he hasn’t done much to stabilize the region, probably seeing them as a bunch of self-obsessed nomads and rubes. He’s not wrong, but Wolf is a bitter person, even when he’s got coin in his pocket from a hard life as a hired hand. Gold can’t cure cynicism; neither can blood-letting.
“Hellooooo, are you okay?”
At the sound of Aureli being spoken, Wolf jolts to attention, then winces as he jostles the fresh wound on his tricep. Squinting through the smoke, he can’t see anyone but Sedgar, who has come to sit cross-legged next to him on the ground. Given the awkward pronunciation of the speech, Wolf shouldn’t be disappointed that there's no ruffian of the night come to ransom their possessions. It’s still a surprise to hear it from Sedgar. No former slave knows a lick of Aureli—if they did before they were chattel, it was beaten out of them word by word. “What are you saying, Sagar?” he asks, also in their supposedly native tongue. He’d only begun speaking it a couple years ago, and his vocabulary is limited to business dealings, directions, and a few choice curses.
“Don’t call me that,” Sedgar replies in the language of the empire. “I can’t return the favor. I don’t remember your old name, I swear.”
“Lucky you,” Wolf mutters. Years after choosing his own name, childishly naming himself as a companion to the man who gave him his first kurta and riding pants, he remembers it like a badly healed wound. Even with all the scars he carries now, he still can’t forget how awful life was before Coyote. Now, after his death…
“I remember your first haircut, though,” Sedgar again interrupts, pulling Wolf out of the mire of his thoughts. He laughs at Wolf’s expense, leaning his elbows on his knees like it’s a happy memory. “Who could forget?”
Making a noncommittal sound, Wolf pointedly looks at the campfire instead of at Sedgar’s smile. That’s why when a hand hits his hair and ruffles it mercilessly, it catches him off guard. “Owww! Stop!” he snaps, his injury—and scalp—burning.
Though Sedgar heeds his words, his fingers stay in his hair, combing it back into place. “I like your hair now,” he compliments. Immediately, Wolf flushes, sure that the heat coming off his cheeks must rival the fire. He only hopes the darkness hides his coloring from Sedgar, who is staring right at Wolf’s face and still petting his hair. “Are you growing it out again?”
“No,” Wolf answers, feeling like he might explode. “Um, n-not on purpose. I just, forget to cut it.”
Sedgar hums. His hand leaves his hair to rest behind his head on the log and Wolf tries not to miss its touch. Just as he’s had that thought, his other hand pushes his bangs out of his face, tucking them behind his ear. “I could cut it for you.” He’s got an odd expression on his face, and his lashes flutter like he’s just woken up before his eyes refocus on Wolf’s. “I wanna take care of you, Wolf.”
Wolf doesn’t breathe. Sedgar blinks again, gaze shooting to the fire. He makes like he’s going to pull away and Wolf grabs him with the force of a viper. Together, they are frozen in stone until Sedgar’s throat bobs. “I worry about you so much. Half the time I think of deserting just to stay with you and the other half I think of dragging you back to the capital.”
Finally, Wolf inhales, tasting smoke. He can blame that for the sting at the corners of his eyes, too—he hasn’t cried in years. His head seems fuzzy with thoughts too evanescent to catch on his jagged edges. “Would you cut my hair?” he asks, barely speaking at all.
“If you want me to.”
“I would.”
“Then I will,” Sedgar promises. The arm behind Wolf’s back edges close enough to hold him, gentle with his injury. His smile is back, and Wolf finds his lips twitching in return. “I only know one style, though.”
“I’ll live.”
What happens next is almost like a hug. It must be a hug, because Sedgar’s head is on Wolf’s shoulder when he says, “Promise me you’ll do that and I’ll promise to cut your hair.”
Again, Wolf needs to remember to breathe, to fight back the tenderness threatening to spill forth. It’s all he can do to stare at the fire, burning his retinas while he thinks it over, the wound on his arm hurting anew the whole while. “Okay,” he finally promises.
This time, when Sedgar smiles, Wolf feels it.