"Mikleo! Your shepherd is BAAAAck!"
Sorey hauled the armload of firewood to its spot beside the fireplace and dusted off his hands. Mikleo was kneeling over the bath basin, washing his hair, bent such that his butt basically had a target on it. Sorey briskly walked over to indulge in the opportunity.
Mikleo picked his head out of the water at the first pinch to his rear. His expression was unreadable, in that his beautiful yet copious sopping wet hair was stuck to his face. Sorey reached forward to comb it away just enough to get at his lips for a welcome-home smooch. As he leaned in he could see Mikleo's lips quirk upward in a smile – good, he'd take that as encouragement to make more awful sheep puns.
"Welcome home," Mikleo said, fumbling for his comb in the neatly-arranged collection of haircare items lined up next to the basin. He carefully worked it through his locks, starting at the bottom, working his way to the top; after a half dozen or so passes, Mikleo reached for a bottle of sweet-smelling oil and began to work it into the tips of his hair. Then came the comb again. "Did you get enough wood for the next few days?"
Sorey nodded and made an affirmative noise, watching Mikleo's haircare routine with a sense of wonder and mostly confusion. Sure, Mikleo had always been a stickler for keeping his hair neat and tidy, but with him growing it out seemed to come an exponential increase in the complexity of the process. Sorey had woken from his big sleep with a pretty awesome mane of hair himself – did everyone with long hair have to do this whole spa every other day, or was it just Mikleo's frankly excessive thing? Not that Sorey could argue with results…one of the many highlights of their incredibly highlighted evenings together now was smoothing his fingers through all that soft, soft hair, tugging it down from its ponytail and feeling it slip through his fingers like silk, breathing in how warm and good it smelled, pressing his face into it and drifting off to sleep. Mikleo's new spa routine was one of many contributors to their current domestic bliss, and Sorey wasn't complaining.
Mikleo swirled up his hair in a big fluffy towel, looked at Sorey, looked at Sorey, then gave that sigh.
"Did you get your hair caught in the bushes again?"
He had. He'd cut himself free by hacking at the caught bits with his ritual sword – it wasn't easy, since it was blunt, and Sorey was pretty sure he'd wound up yanking out a good chunk in the process. Also he didn't think he'd quite gotten all the leaves and twigs out. One was poking him in the back of the neck something fierce. Sorey scratched at it absently, then pulled his hand away with some surprise – the twig insect hopped off his hand and fluttered out the door. Mikleo gave another one of those sighs.
"Sorey, I'm sick and tired of getting poked in the middle of the night by twigs in the sheets. If you'd just let me give you a trim so you don't look like some sort of scruffy mountain yeti-"
"Yetis are awesome," Sorey said with no little offense. "And my hair looks awesome."
Mikleo paused in fluffing his hair dry with the towel and scowled at him. His hair looked so floofy and curly that Sorey could barely stay angry at the slight against yetis and also his 'do. A fat little ladybug climbed out of one of the tangles in Sorey's ponytail and fluttered out the door. Sorey maybe conceded a little of Mikleo's point.
"I get to keep the ponytail," Sorey stated.
"You'll get to keep the ponytail," Mikleo conceded, rolling his eyes.
This new spa routine, Sorey decided, definitely wasn't as bad as he thought. Mikleo's shampoo-slick hands moved expertly through his hair, gently working out tangles both big and small, gently murmuring commands to the water to help him along. When Mikleo's fingers began to scrub at his scalp, Sorey was truly putty in his expert hands. Sure, Mikleo had trimmed his hair when they were younger, but this – this was a whole new level.
A few more rinses of warm water swirled through his hair, then came that comb, then the scissors – calm down, Sorey, I'm only trying to do damage control where you got your ass kicked by a bush—then the oil – he'd never smelled this one on Mikleo's hair before, maybe Mikleo had gotten it for him and had been planning on seducing him into spa day all along – seducing him with nice-smelling oil and that wiggling butt, Sorey never stood a chance.
"Done. The finest-smelling yeti there ever was."
Mikleo fluffed his hair dry with another towel, and tied his ponytail back – his shorter ponytail, Sorey couldn't help but gripe, but an admittedly much neater and less bug-filled one. Sorey gave his stylist a quick peck on the lips, then decided to tip him on the bill by raining kisses down his jaw and neck. Mikleo gave an undignified squawk as Sorey burrowed his face into his unbound hair, snorting loud yeti noises.
"C'mon, Mikleo, this is how the yeti culture expresses gratitude-"
"Express your gratitude by starting the fire for dinner or you can go sleep outside with your bug friends."
