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“You take that strand… no not-- that strand, Tobin. Right. You take that one and you twist it under. Like this, see?”
Etta threaded her fingers through Sterling’s hair and demonstrated the first twist of her braid. Sterling sat cross-legged on the hard dirt, cleaning their gun with the inside of their shirt while Etta and Tobin perched themselves precariously on top of a rock outcropping, twisting and tangling their two halves of Sterling’s long hair into what only occasionally resembled a well-weaved braid.
“You don’t--” Etta sighed. “Tobin, down like this. See? No, you…” She let go of Sterling’s hair to move Tobin’s hands to their proper place, and Sterling smiled a little while their face was turned away. Tobin huffed, and Etta nudged him. She shifted his fingers once more. “There," she said. " Now you can keep going.”
Tobin braided a few inches down and snagged his fingers, pulling sharply at Sterling’s scalp.
“Are y’all intending to leave me with any hair after this?” they asked, a thread of the amusement in their smile weaving its way into their words when they spoke and taking much of the weight out of their falsified exhasperation.
“Oh hush,” Tobin defended, “you’re the one who asked us to braid your hair.”
Sterling scoffed. “I asked Etta for a hair tie.”
“You asked for a hair tie because you lost yours,” Etta chided, leaning down just a little to catch herself in the corner of their eye, “because you don’t know how to braid your hair tight enough.”
They turned their head to face her, much to Tobin's chagrin. “I braid my hair just fine, Etta.”
She tugged gently, making their head list backward toward her, straight enough again that the two of them could continue their work. “If you did, your braid wouldn't have fallen out while we ran.”
Sterling opened their mouth to protest, but couldn't find the words under the tiny string of triumph in her voice. They tucked their gun back into its holster and shrugged. "I guess I'll have to put your braiding skills to the test then too," they mused, busying their hands now picking at the scabs on their palms.
She gave a satisfied huff and straightened back up, guiding her hands down Sterling’s scalp with practiced ease. She wove their hair into something easily tight enough to stay put, but did so with such care that Sterling barely felt the pull of it.
Nothing like what Tobin had managed on the other side of their head.
When Etta had nearly reached the end of her braid, Tobin had just reached his down the back curve of Sterling’s skull. Etta stopped her braiding and froze--Sterling couldn’t tell if she was holding back a sigh or a snicker.
Tobin took to humming away as he worked, fumbling through Sterling’s hair with unskilled fingers. Etta slowed her own work to a crawl and remained astutely silent up until the point that she tied the end of her braid up.
“I, uh…” She squeezed her words through what Sterling knew now just had to be a smile. “Tobin…”
Tobin gestured to his work, forgetting his hands were still tangled up in Sterling’s hair, and cheered, “Look! Doesn’t it look great?”
Sterling couldn’t help but chuckle. Etta whacked them gently on the shoulder. “Don’t laugh,” she scolded through a smile of her own, “he’s doing his best.”
Tobin gasped in offence. “Hey, I thought I was doing well!”
Sterling choked on another chuckle, and threw their hands up in surrender when Etta hit them once more for it. Still, a small smile clung to their lips.
They felt, if only for a minute, that they were back in school again, with the two of them rambling beside them. Back when they would spend every free minute infodumping about the newest book they had read or scientific miracle they had uncovered. Back when Sterling’s favorite part of the day was sitting back and listening.
Back before they left.
Etta fixed the part in Sterling’s hair and combed out her braided half, starting back at their hairline with easy, practiced hands. The gentle tugs on their hair worked some of the tension out of Sterling’s scalp, and eased away the last of their headache. Tobin took up his portion of Sterling’s hair again and started over, mumbling just a little under his breath. The smile on his lips was audible even under the muffled complaining.
So sure, maybe they had left, and maybe they’d dragged Sterling back into hell without so much as a sorry, but they were here now.
There, with their two friends beside them and the most recent of the awful gruesome horrors of the West more or less faded for the moment, Sterling thought the fire burned just the right kind of bright, with just the right kind of warmth--the kind of warmth that seeped into their bones and picked away at the first icy layers of something long-since frozen inside of them.
And, well, even if it couldn’t be melted all the way through in one night, and even if that frozen part of them ached just a little bit worse with the new attention drawn to it… it was warmer that night than it was before.
It was warm, and they were there, and Sterling was smiling.