Just Roll With It Stuff

weave to your heart's desire

Ollie can't sleep and Gillion tags along for the heck of it

Or

Gillion lets Ollie braid his hair as a coping mechanism

——

The thoughts of another attack plagued his mind. It's stupid to think that, they haven't been attacked in months. Sadly, it didn't stop Ollie from thinking about it.

He gets out of his hammock and makes his way up to the front deck. He goes to breathe in the salty environment, trying to take some amount of comfort in the splashing waves.

However the thoughts still kept coming back. The yelling, the smoke, the gunshots, the bodies dropping. The thoughts were screaming loudly at him every time he closed his eyes. Now normally, this doesn't happen much, it just so happens to be a bad day where he tends to overthink everything in a bad sense.

A slight shuffle happens behind him. Ollie whips his head around immediately as his paranoia kicks in. He notices a very familiar face.

"Gill?"

Gillion perks at his name, "That's me! Oh, and if I may ask, what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?" Gillion tilts his head in curiosity.

Ollie sighs. "I can't sleep, so I allegedly decided to stay up." He fidgets with his hands.

A simple "Oh" comes out of Gillion. "May I stay up with you?"

The half-elf tiredly smiles at him, "Of course, stay as long as you like." He gestures to the empty deck. Gillion just sits down with his legs crossed, Ollie follows in suit.

Shortly after an awkward silence envelopes them. It was a slightly breezy night. Cool gusts of wind blowing against their face. Ollie turns around to hear blowing from Gill. It seemed like he was trying to blow the hair out of his face and ended up unsuccessful. The triton's green hair had slowly gotten longer, now about  a hand length just past the shoulders. In the end Gill gives up and uses his hand to sweep the hair out of his face.

"Ollie, do you happen to have a hair tie on you? I would get one from Jay, but I don't want to bother her sleeping." Gill asks sheepishly.

Ollie looks at Gill's hair. Now that he's got a closer look, his hair appears to look soft and... fluffy. He's suddenly gained the urge to touch it. A comforting factor, playing with hair. He'd used to braid his mother's hair before he left. She had taught him many different styles to the art of braiding and weaving. She would rarely cut her hair and always let him braid her hair. The task had always kept him calm, whether it be a cup of tea or rain pattering on rooftops, nothing could compare to braiding. His hands suddenly yearn for the feeling of weaving hair. He begins fidgeting with his hands some more.

"...Yeah I have one." He says snapping out of his trance. Ollie hands him a hair tie from his wrist. "Here."

Gillion reaches out to grab it but hesitates, he notices that Ollie's hands seem a bit more restless than usual. He pushes the hair tie back to Ollie. "Actually, could you do my hair, if it's not such a big deal of course, I just can't really tie my hair in the wind. It's kind of difficult to tie it sometimes, but I could do it, though it might look weird." He rapidly rambles out, which wasn't a lie pre-say. He's perfectly capable of tying his own hair, but it does get quite tricky when there's wind.

Ollie's eyes light up. "Really?"

"Don't be silly, of course!" Gill beckons his closer. "You're free to do anything to your heart's desire."

—

"Your hair is really soft." Ollie marvels as he splits his hair into two sections.

The triton lets out a soft chuckle. "Thank you, all I really use is water actually."

"No way." The half-elf mutters, not believing the words coming out of his mouth. "I don't believe it."

"It's true." Gill admits.

"Like nothing at all?" Ollie lets out a smile. "I at least thought you used something, like seaweed or some kind of underwater sea product."

"Seaweed?" The triton raises his eyebrows. "Haven't heard of that one before." He lets out another chuckle.

"Oh hush up." Ollie playfully rolls his eyes.

—

Turns out braiding hair still worked at calming him down. All of those terrible thoughts disappeared.

"All done, how does it feel?" Ollie ties off the braid. "Anything too tight? Too loose?" He says checking every angle of the braid.

"No, no, everything is perfect. Thank you Ollie." Gill stands up and heads towards the rails. He looks down to catch his reflection. "It's beautiful Ollie, who taught you this skill?"

"Oh, my mom taught me when I was younger." He says, clearly flustered at Gill's praise. "It sorta just became second nature to do, it calms me." He notices that he isn't fidgeting with his hands anymore.

Gill runs a hand down on the braid, "Is this... a fishtail braid?" His eyebrows slowly quirking up in amusement.

"Is that offensive?!" Ollie blurts out. "I'm sorry, it's just that you came from the sea and there's fish under the sea, and then the sea was all I really thought about and didn't stop to think if you even liked being referred to as a fish, and then one thing lead to another, and we're out of the sea and-" Ollie rambles on trying to explain.

Gill chuckles at the boy's mind that was going too fast for his words to keep up. "No no Ollie, It's fine anyways. I think suits me quite nicely. Besides, my sister used to do fishtail braids too. It was the most common to use."

"Oh.."

"Ooh, did you ever learn the waterfall one? The triton asks enthusiastically.

"In fact, I do, here I'll show you.."

———

As the sun begins to rise, soft rays shine on Ollie and Gill. Ollie opens his eyes, greeting the light. He doesn't remember falling asleep, especially on Gill. He feels the triton's chest move up and down, in a peaceful rhythm. He was cozy and that's all that mattered at the moment. He closes his eyes and lets the peaceful sleep take him again. It couldn't hurt to sleep in once.