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Livio runs his hands through Nai’s hair. The plant is laying on his chest, both of them half asleep. It's a luxury, being able to relax like this. He glances at the man on top of him. A luxury, huh.
He hasn’t had the experience of touching a lot of people’s hair. That would be weird. But Nai’s hair feels different. It’s softer than Livio ever expected. It reminds him of toma down. Soft and warm.
Carefully, he scratches his blunt nails against the nape of Nai’s neck. Distant thunder rumbles from the plant’s chest and Livio can feel it in his own, dancing between his ribs and lungs. More careful scratches, and he coaxes the purr loud enough to hear. Nai hates it when they point out the noise, so Livio basks in the knowledge of how easily he can get the man to relax.
(The first time Razlo pointed it out, Nai got up and walked out of their shared motel room. He didn’t come back until morning. When Livio asked, Nai told him to, “Forget it happened.”
It was a month before they slept in the same bed again, and only after the plant had been fucking shot, and Livio unthinkingly feel asleep beside him, making sure the plant was still breathing. When he woke up, Nai was pressed against his side, purring. The noise hitched with the man’s painful breathing. Just under it, Livio could hear Nai’s heartbeat; he was awake.
Livio didn’t push. He took the olive branch, and laid an arm over Nai, pulling him closer. The purring stuttered briefly. Then the plant relaxed, and the dynamo in his chest kicked up a gear.)
But yeah, Livio loves Nai’s hair. Loves having the privilege to play with it. Asking about the purring is off the table, but he does have another question.
“What’s with the pokies on your head?”
There are little – not spikes, but hard somethings – all across Nai’s head. When Livio rubs them between his fingers, something on them falls apart and they unravel, leaving a straight core and soft somethings around it. Whatever it is, the plant’s black hair is now intermittently spotted with white remnants.
Nai grunts, thinks, and then speaks. His voice is laden with his purrs. It almost sounds staticy. Like a radio, Razlo says.
“Pin feathers coming in.” A moment later, he says. “Don’t stop.”
And who is Livio to refuse him.
He continues, carefully combing through Nai’s hair until he finds a feather, and then rubbing it between two fingers until the casing falls away. The shaft is solid in the center. Livio gives each newly freed feather attention, running his fingers up its length until the edges of it connect together. Once it feels like a proper feather, Livio gives it a few more pets, before moving on.
The feathers are mostly spread throughout the plant’s head, with thicker patches around his temples and at the base of his neck. Those around his face are the shortest while the ones near the back of his head are longer; maybe half an inch compared to two inches. They must be pure black. Livio can’t see them through Nai’s hair.
Nai drifts to sleep, and Livio must follow.
Razlo wakes up at the shower turning on in the bathroom. The comforter is pulled up to his chin, something it definitely wasn’t last night. Nai must have done it when he got up. Razlo smirks and rolls over facing the door. He dozes, listening to his partner moving in the attached room.
At the sound of the bathroom door opening, Razlo opens his eyes. Nai is halo-ed in the light. He’s fully dressed, ruffling a towel through his hair. The plant folds the towel, and gently tosses it onto the floor behind him. A hand is run through his hair, fluffing it up, before Nai makes eye contact with Razlo.
Slowly, Razlo blinks at Nai. A moment passes and Nai blinks back. Razlo smirks. Feathers and fluff like a toma, purrs and blinks like a cat.
Razlo sits up.
A yawn runs through him, cracking his jaw in the rising light.
“Mornin’”
Nai smirks and parrots the greeting back.
“Got your feather thing sorted out?” Razlo gestures towards his own hair. He doesn’t see any of the white flakey-ies from last night in Nai’s hair. Presumably the shower had taken care of it. “A plant thing, I’m guessing.”
“You’re guessing?” Nai says with a hint of incredulousness.
“I mean, humans don’t really have feathers.”
Nai cocks his head to the side. The image of a toma runs through Razlo’s head again before he knocks it aside.
"You… are aware that you have feathers as well, aren't you?"
Razlo blinks. "We have what?"
"You have feathers in your hair."
Razlo blinks again. Nai sighs. He pulls himself onto the bed, cross-legged and facing Razlo.
He makes a 'come'ere' motion with his hands and says, "Give me your head."
Abetting his request, Razlo leans forward. They undid their braid last night, so all of their hair is loose around their shoulders.
This is weird. Nai and Livio mess with each other's hair before, but the plant hasn't done this with Razlo. He doesn't normally do the tender shit.
Nai runs his hands through the length, taming the mess, before more intently searching through Razlo's hair. A few times he bumps something that sends a ping through his scalp. Nai pauses at it for a moment, touching it before moving on. His hands settle around the crown of his head. Touches ghost over a few of the nerves, before setting over one in particular.
There's a brief moment of pain, followed by pressure applied by Nai’s finger to the source. After a moment, the hands on his head pull away. Razlo quashes the fleeting want and sits up to look at Nai.
Huh.
Between the plant's fingers is a feather; pure white and about two inches long.
Razlo reaches out and takes the feather from Nai.
"How long have we had feathers?"
"For as long as you've been enhanced, I'd guess. I assume growing feathers wasn't an intended outcome and was instead an acceptable side effect."
Nai lowers his head. He holds his chin in thought, fingers pressing into his face and lips.
"I wonder," he says aloud, and then shakes his head. "No, definitely."
The plant must finish whatever he's thinking, as he looks back up at Razlo.
"Along with that, you also have strong piloerection muscles. They allow hair, and feathers in our case, to stand upright. Like this."
Nai gestures to his head, and his hair stands on end, quite literally. The plant's hair seems to grow in size, pushing away from his skull. Looking closely, Razlo can see the feathers moving amidst the damp strands. They're standing up, when last night they were flat against Nai’s head under Livio's fingers.
"Huh." Then he smirks. "So you do puff up like a toma."
Nai blinks, and then flushes red. In an attempt to avoid his embarrassment, he barrels on ahead. Razlo laughs but refrains from teasing, for now.
"Anyway, you do that as well."
Razlo laughs. "Yeah, Liv pro'ly does it when he gets thrown off his rhythm or-"
"No. You specifically do it instinctually. You're doing it right now."
This time Razlo is the one to cock his head.
Nai vaguely waves his hand as he speaks. “Any time you’re fronting, your hair stands up and appears spikier. It’s less obvious when you have your hair in the braid, but it is still visible if you look for it. It may be aposematic in nature as a result of your sympathetic nervous system. That stands to explain why only you seem to exhibit it, as you largely front when that becomes relevant.
“Your emergence from the headspace is often paired with an acute stress response, to the point that classical conditioning has set it, and it occurs automatically. Even if that is no longer true, extinction of the behavior has yet to set in.”
Razlo raises an eyebrow. “Okay, I got maybe every third word of that. You’re gonna have to explain it with simply-erly.”
He tosses the blanket off and slides off to kneel on the floor. Their stuff is under the bed. Razlo moves it out from underneath, and he opens the top to find clothes for the day. Back on the bed, Nai shifts.
Razlo glances up from their luggage to the plant. He raises his eyebrows and circles his hand – an invitation to speak, that he is still listening.
Nai huffs but starts speaking again. The sound washes over Razlo, splitting his focus between his partner and getting dressed. Most of the focus is on Nai.
“You’re a Protector, that’s what you are-” Razlo hear the capital letter on his title, “-which means your original ‘purpose’ was to protect the system. When you were developing and in stressful situations, you fronted in situations that could provoke what is known as an ‘acute stress response,’ aka a fight-or-flight reaction.
“A side effect of the fight-or-flight reaction is making your hair stand on end. That’s a leftover reaction from when humans had a more consistent covering of fur over their bodies – it would make them appear larger and more threatening.”
Razlo nods. That makes sense. In a fight, its better to scare off your opponent if the fight isn’t needed. Saves everyone the trouble. He digs around looking for clean clothes in the bag, but nod’s at Nai’s words.
“So anytime you front, your body would be in fight or flight. Eventually, it gets to the point where anytime you front, you provoke a fight or flight response, along with the feathers standing up. Even if there is no real danger.”
Razlo pulls out a shirt and pants. He tosses them on the bed. “From the sounds of it, our body is used to fighting anytime I show up, so it automatically gets ready anytime I show up.”
Nai harumphs. “Essentially, yes. There’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s an okay explanation.”
Razlo snickers. “ And here I hoped I was trying to impress a potential mate like a toma cock.”
That elicits a scoff and a blush from the plant. His hair is still damp, but the feathers on his temples are laying back down. As Nai had spoke before, his hair had stood up. Makes them appear larger and more threatening to ward off a potential fight, huh.
Standing up, Razlo shucks off the nightshirt and pulls on a button up. He talks as he continues getting dressed.
“Your feathers were all flakey last night. New ones coming in?”
A nod at that. “Pin feathers. They’ve been annoying me and will continue to do so for a few days.” The plant shifts. Turns his shoulders toward Razlo, opening his frame. His jaw moves slightly – he’s biting the inside of his lip in thought.
“You’ll probably have some coming in a couple of weeks. The seasons are changing. If they get itchy, I could help with them.”
Razlo blinks, and then smiles. The only ones on Gunsmoke that keep track of the so called ‘seasons,’ are apparently tomas, worms, and now plants. And Nai is offering to help him with something of the plant’s own volition. Razlo files that away to mention to Liv later. For now, he latches onto the last sentiment.
“Pin feathers are itchy?”
Nai squinted at Razlo like he’d just said that the suns had failed to rise outside.
“Yes? They are? Remarkably so, so that you’ll mess with them and unsheath them.”
“Huh. So that’s why our head is so itchy sometimes.” Razlo scratches just above the metal cover on the left side of his head. “I thought we had lice,” he admits.
Millions Knives, the Terror of No Man’s Land, Most Wanted Man on the planet, physically cringes backwards, away from Razlo.
Backwards, right off the edge of the bed.
Razlo’s hand shoots out and grabs Nai’s ankle. The plant’s arms flail, then freeze midair as Razlo keeps him from falling farther. The edge of the mattress is pressing into the back of the man’s thighs with nothing under his ass.
Nai stops moving. Once he is sure that he isn’t going to fall farther, he looks up and meets Razlo’s eyes.
He huffs, and says, “You do not have fucking lice. If you did, I wouldn’t be sleeping with you.”
Razlo lets go, and Nai tumbles ass over end off the bed with a squawk.
The protector cackles as his partner curses at him from the floor. Nai scrambles upright, staring knives at Razlo, who is doubled over the bed, pounding at the duvet with a closed fist. Taking a shaky breath, he glances at Nai, and starts laughing again.
The plant is fluffed up the largest Razlo has ever seen. His hair and feathers are pointing straight out, almost quivering with incandescent rage. God, he looks like a sopping wet cat. His very own angel, pissed off and on the path of Divine Retribution. Because Razlo thought he had lice.
In the back of their head, Razlo feels Livio flutter to wakefulness. At the opportunity to escape Nai’s wrath, Razlo retreats, nudging the groggy Livio to front.
Livio blinks. Razlo is laughing joyously and Nai is almost snarling in front of him, blushing to the tips of his ears. Annoyed angry, not angry angry then.
“Whu? Why is Raz laughing?”
Nai launches himself over the bed. He holds Livio’s head in his hands and shakes it.
“Because he’s an asshole and he’s running so I can’t throttle him!”
“Why are you trying to throttle him?”
“Because he thought you had fucking lice!”
Livio tilts his head. “We don’t?”
They almost definitely have lice. A few times a year, their head gets really itchy, and they have to shave their head. Neither Livio or Razlo are looking forward to it. They like their hair long. Now, it's long enough to braid and falls to about the middle of their back.
Nai pauses. Still holding Livio’s face, he looks him in the eyes. Slowly, and steadily, he enunciates, “No, you do not have lice. You have feathers.”
Livio blinks, confused. “Why do I have fucking feathers?”
— — —
Livio’s brain feels like soup and it’s fucking amazing. This is infinitely better than shaving his head three times a year. His head is pillowed on Nai’s stomach, a warm pillow through the plant’s soft shirt.
Nai scratches that spot and it feels like his brain is melting out his ears. If he was any more plant, Livio is certain he’d be purring.
(Every so often, Razlo floats to the surface and tries his damnest to mimic the noise Nai is making. Nai says they don’t have the extra vocal chords for it, but it does make the plant’s purr stutter in laughter.)
The plant lists off the parts of the feathers, explaining how petting (preening) the feathers helps to align the barbules, making the feather hold its shape. Something about oiling feathers to repel water. Vanes and velcro.
Their eyes are getting heavy. It's warm under the blanket, and their pillow is soft and sounds like joy.
Nai runs his hands through the strands. Forget whatever Knives preached before. Heaven is here. Hands in his hair, paradise beneath his head. It’s perfect, and nothing could be better.