Gavin Toys with a Longhair Enthusiast 3 by Whittaker

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Author's note: Thank you for tuning in to Part 3 of 'Gavin toys with a longhair enthusiast'! I strongly recommend checking out Parts 1 and 2 for context. Each part has its own haircut that it centres around.

Gavin Toys with a Longhair Enthusiast (Part 3: This time with considerably less toying and enthusiasm)

***

It began gradually.

Gavin worked at the St Vincent’s University Teaching Hospital as a registered nurse. Specifically, he worked in the emergency department. Lately, staffing shortages had him staying later and later and picking up more and more overtime shifts.

Miles came home from his job as a prosthetist at the same hospital at 6pm. He found Gavin lying in their bed, eye mask on and blackout curtains drawn.

"Hey Gav", he whispered. "Everything okay?"

Gavin groaned feebly.

"Another headache?"

A soft grunt.

"Do you want me to call in sick for you for tomorrow?"

Gavin slowly shuffled himself up in bed and lifted his eye mask. "No, it’s okay. Thanks though." He replied quietly. "It’s been getting better. I’m sure it’ll be gone by the morning."

Miles sat on the edge of the bed and took Gavin into his arms, kissing him gently on the temple. "We need a holiday." He said. "Barbados?"

"Agreed." Gavin huffed and smiled.

The next morning, as he had expected, Gavin woke up feeling normal. He flounced through his rotation in his typical tour de force fashion, his high ponytail whipping playfully around him, teaching student nurses the ropes, making his colleagues laugh, breaking hearts, and saving lives.


***


On days when their shifts happened to match up, Miles and Gavin would drive to work together. Miles worked a fairly regular weekly schedule, whereas Gavin worked a rotating schedule of 12 hours shifts. So when they drove in together on the mornings that they were synced up, Miles would take the bus home at 5 and leave the car for Gavin to use when he left around 8 or 9.

It was 10:30pm, they had just finished sharing dinner. Gavin was doing the dishes and Miles had bundled up a bag of trash to take outside. He paused at the open door.

"Um, babe…? Where’s the car?"

Gavin paused his washing to join Miles in staring dumbfoundedly at their empty driveway. Then he burst into laughter. "Oh my god," he had tears in his eyes. "I’m such a space cadet, I forgot that we drove in today, I took the bus home, it’s at the hospital." He wiped the tears away.

Miles chuckled, shaking his head "You’re lucky you’re cute."

Gavin twirled a long strand of blond hair around a finger before flicking it cheekily over his shoulder. "You know you love me." He winked.

Miles wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist and gazed into his eyes. "Yeah, I do." He pecked the top of his head.

The next day, they rode the bus in together.


***


Miles and Gavin lived approximately 20 minutes away from their work by car, or 30-40 minutes by public transit. There were two options. They could either walk north 5 minutes to an underground train station, which would deposit them a few blocks away from the hospital. Or they could walk south for 10 minutes, to a bus stop that would take them directly to the hospital’s front door. The train stopped running from midnight to 5am. The buses went all night long.

Gavin was on a rotation of his least favourite shift type this week, the dreaded 2pm to 2am. The first half wasn’t so bad, but the second half always felt like it dragged on forever, and he absolutely hated that final 10 minute walk from the bus stop that he had to make at 3am. Especially in the winter time.

Miles woke up to an empty bed. Not terribly unusual when Gav was on the 2-2. He often chose to crash in the guest bedroom to avoid disturbing him, as well as to avoid being disturbed when Miles got up at 6am.

What was unusual, was seeing Gavin walk through the front door at 6:15, looking exhausted and grumpy in his salmon pink scrub set. His hair was hanging in a loose and rumpled braid over one shoulder.

"Oh no!" Miles immediately set his coffee aside and opened his arms, beckoning Gavin to come and snuggle with him on the couch. "Are you only just getting off work now? I’m so sorry babe that sucks so much."

Gavin slumped into Miles arms and curled up into a little ball.

"I missed my stop." He groaned.

"Aww, you fell asleep on the bus?"

"I guess, yeah. I had to do the whole loop. F*ck I’m gonna be so tired for today’s shift."

"Awe sweetheart, I’m so sorry love." Miles brushed his hair to the side and kissed him on the collar bone.

Gavin closed his eyes and nuzzled tighter against Miles’ chest. "I f*cking hate 2 to 2." He mumbled, and then promptly fell asleep.

Miles let him lie there until the absolute last minute before he had to leave. He picked Gavin up as carefully as possible and carried him to their bed. He checked Gavin’s phone to make sure his alarm was set for the right time, plugged it in and left it beside him. He left the car keys beside the phone and took the bus into work.


***


February rolled around and Miles and Gavin took a well deserved vacation to Barbados. Two whole weeks just for them.

They lounged around on the beach, they hiked, they surfed, and they ate out and drank fancy cocktails every night.

Miles had spent this particular day in the sand, with a book in his hand, peering over the top of it to enjoy watching Gavin have a raucous time in the waves. They had good waves back home, but it was never warm enough to surf without a wetsuit on, so Gavin was soaking up this opportunity as much as he could.

He looked gorgeous out there, in his small aquamarine swim trunks, practicing his tricks. Flipping his long, sopping wet, golden hair out of his face every time he got dumped. Even just a couple weeks in the sun and heat had been enough to enhance his natural highlights.

Gavin had taught Miles how to surf, but Miles was big and clumsy. He had figured it out, but he wasn’t very good, and he preferred to watch Gavin from the beach instead.

Gavin caught Miles looking at him while he was bobbing on his board in the lineup and waved, a massive grin on his face. He had made friends with some other surfer-types, and Miles watched Gavin’s mouth move silently as he said something to them and then watched them all laugh, and then they all turned to wave at him as well, so he waved back.

Gavin eventually left the water an hour later and jogged up to Miles, board slung under his arm. He set it down and flopped directly down into the sand, not seeming to care that it immediately stuck to his wet body and got all in his hair.

"How do you feel about dinner?" he asked.

Miles propped himself up on his elbows and removed the T-shirt that he had draped over his face. "I could do dinner. Do you have a craving for anything?"

Gavin shrugged. "I dunno, something seafoody?"

"I’m down. Wanna go back to the hotel and clean up and I’ll look up someplace to go?"

"Yeah", Gavin hummed.

Gavin did a crude rinse-off of the sand from his body at the outdoor beach shower and they walked the short jaunt back to their hotel.

Gavin jumped in the shower first while Miles scrolled through his phone using the hotel internet, looking for a restaurant that might appeal to his husband.

"Hey," he yelled over the sound of the water spray. "Were you thinking fancy meal, hole in the wall, or something in between?"

"Oooh, I’m in a hole-in-the-wall kinda mood."

Miles chuckled. "Alright you got it. I’ve found us a place to try." He pinned the location on his phone for later.

The spray from the shower stopped, and Gavin stepped out of the bathroom, wringing the water out of his hair.

Miles beckoned him to sit beside him. "May I?" he asked, gesturing to the towel and to Gavin’s dripping hair.

"Always." Gavin smiled.

He took Gavin’s towel and gently squeezed the excess water from his hair, then reached into Gavin’s toiletry bag for his leave-in conditioner, which he spritzed throughout the length. He combed the leave in through and then followed it up by working a small amount of oil into the very ends.

"Beautiful." He hummed.

It had been a little over a year since Gavin had cut his hair, or more accurately, since Miles had cut his hair for him. His hair had been long for the entire time Miles had known him, at one point even going so far as to almost reach his knees. Miles had cut it to around collar bone length, with gentle layering, shortly before their wedding.

It had never ceased to amaze Miles, how fast Gavin’s hair would grow. Already it draped down to cover his shoulder blades in their entirety.

Miles grabbed blow-dryer and began wafting air through the strands, raking his fingers across Gavin’s scalp as he did so. Gavin hummed at the pleasant sensations.

"You ever gonna cut my hair short one of these days?" Gavin teased.

Miles responded by grabbing a handful of hair at the back of his head by the roots and giving it a gentle tug. "Literally never. You’re cut off, remember? You’ve lost your haircutting privileges."

Gavin chuckled.

"Do you want me to style it for you?" Miles asked.

"Sure"

"What do you want?"

"Blut van grimmer." Gavin said.

Miles paused…

"Huh?"

Gavin looked at him, confused. "What?"

Miles looked back. Also confused. Then shook his head as if to try and clear it. "Did my brain just glitch or did yours? What did you say you wanted?"

"A French braid? Are you okay?" Gavin looked concerned.

"Yeah, I’m fine, that was just weird. It’s like my brain briefly forgot how to process words, and all I heard was gibberish."

"Oh, that’s super weird. Brains are weird." Gavin chuckled

Miles chuckled too, and then wove Gavin’s hair into a beautiful French braid. He left out a few shorter strands to curl artfully and frame his face.

Then they went and had a lovely dinner.


***


It began gradually, and then it happened all at once.

Miles was at work when he got a phone call from an unknown number.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Miles?" came Gavin’s voice. He sounded particularly small and uncertain.

"Hey baby, everything okay?"

"Um, not really, can you come pick me up?"

"Sure love, I’m just at work, but I’ll see if I can take my lunch break now. Where are you? Are you hurt?"

"Um, no, um, I just got lost, and um, my phone died. I’m calling from a restaurant called ‘The Honeysuckle Café’?"

Miles quickly put the name into his phone. It was a place way outside of town.
"Okay, I’m getting in the car now. Can you stay on the line with me?"

"Mhm." Gavin’s voice trembled.

"How did you get lost?" He asked.

"Um, I don’t know. I was walking home from the grocery store, and I must’ve zoned out and then my phone was dead so I just kept walking for a bit but nothing was looking familiar, so I gave up."

"Hold up, honey, you got lost walking home from the store? Babe you are so far out of town right now. I’m really worried. It is not normal to zone out that badly."

"I know. I know. I don’t know what happened." Gavin sounded genuinely afraid.

"Okay. It’s okay. I’m coming. Just stay on the line until I get there."


***


They chalked it up to stress and overwork.

Gavin took a couple weeks of stress leave and seemed to be doing well.


***


Three weeks later, he was back at work, and he was the triage nurse the day that everything changed.

He was sitting at his station, with his next patient in front of him. He was asking the questions he was supposed to ask. He was recording the responses he was supposed to record. He stood up to grab a blood pressure cuff.

"I’m going to take your blood pressure now, okay?" is what Gavin thought he said. What he actually said was "Geek ramone pine as pink sixty-sirrrxsss." And then he fell to the floor and had a seizure.


** Paging Miles Churchill-Firth to Emergency. Paging Miles Churchill-Firth to Emergency **


The loudspeaker page was so unexpected, that it actually prompted Miles to look around at the ceiling for the source of the voice.

Miles briefly wondered if Gavin was inappropriately using hospital resources to make a booty call. He was a prankster for sure, but he wasn’t typically unprofessional at work.

Then Miles wondered, what on earth somebody wanted a prosthetist for on emergency.

Then Miles wondered, if maybe there were two people named Miles Churchill-Firth in this building.

And then he walked calmly to the emergency department.

He was immediately singled out by Sandy. One of the several little old veteran nurses who doted on Gavin like he was their favourite golden child. She looked grave.

"Hey Sandy, somebody paged me?"

Sandy nodded. Her expression didn’t change.

Miles’ did. "What’s going on?"

"Gavin’s had a seizure." She said, "It’s stopped now. He’s sedated. He’s being wheeled into radiology. He’s getting an MRI."

Miles heard ‘Gavin’, ‘Seizure’, and then a high-pitched buzzing sound, like a tuning fork. He said nothing.

"Come, let me take you there."

Still, Miles said and did nothing.

Sandy took his hand, and that seemed to wake him up slightly. He followed her numbly to the MRI observation suite.

Gavin was there visible through the window. He was wearing his sunflower yellow scrubs today. His hair was down and fanned out around him in a beautiful halo. He looked like an angel. ‘He was on triage today,’ Miles thought to himself. ‘Triage desk day is hair down day’. ‘He’s so beautiful.’

Sandy squeezed his upper arm. "I’ve called up to orthopedics, I’ve let them know that you won’t be available."

Miles looked at where her hand met his arm, and then slowly traced his gaze up her arm to her face, as though uncertain how it was possible for her hand and the rest of her personhood to be attached to one another.

He looked back at Gavin. His hair was down. It was triage desk day. The table he was on moved in slow motion. Miles couldn’t see his top half anymore. It was in the MRI machine. He was wearing his yellow scrubs. He looked like an angel.

Sandy lowered Miles into a chair, and then she stayed. She stayed until her break was over, and then, like clockwork, another little old nurse who loved Gavin like a son took her place. The cycle happened four more times throughout his procedure. Senior nurses sitting with Miles. Everybody loved Gavin, and therefore by extension, everyone knew Miles.

When the imaging was completed, Sandy was back. She helped the radiology technicians transfer Gavin back into his transport bed. She guided Miles to the side of his bed. She placed his hand on Gavin’s ankle, and then walked them both to his hospital room.

Gavin was starting to shift a little bit, his eyelids fluttering as though he was going to wake up.

His hair was down. He looked like an angel.

"I am going to step away now, okay? Be with him. Dr Weese will be up as soon as he’s finished reading Gavin’s images. There is a bell on the side of his bed if you need me."

Miles nodded.

He stared blankly for who knows how long, and then he did the only thing that he could think to do. He called his mom.

She answered. "Hi Mi! I’m so glad you called! I was meaning to call you, your dad and I ----"

"Mum?" he tried to say. But it was next to impossible to get anything past the lump in his throat. So it came out sounding more like ‘Mhhghhgg’.

His mum paused mid sentence.

"Sweetheart?"

And then Miles had a panic attack.


***


Gavin woke up later that afternoon with Miles at his side, feeling confused but otherwise normal.

"What happened?" He slurred. He sat himself up in the bed.

Miles leaned forward and held him. "You had a seizure." He barely managed to say the words.

"Oh! Well, that’s less than ideal!" Gavin chuckled.

Miles started â€" he wasn’t sure what response he was expecting but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t that one.

Sandy chose that moment to walk in and check on them.

"Hi gorgeous," she said. "It’s nice to see you awake."

"Sandy darling, did I have a seizure?"

"You betcha. Lasted a whole 20 seconds!"

"Wow! The big 2-0! Was I a spicy seizer?"

"Nah, only a 2 out of 10 on the spice scale. An angel as always." She smiled and it reached all the way to her eyes.

Miles felt like he maybe didn’t actually know what a seizure was?

"Did I get my picture taken?"

"You did, but don’t worry, I made sure they got your good side. Dr Weese is gonna be up soon to talk to you and--- ah speak of the devil."

Dr Weese chose that moment to walk in with a woman that Miles didn’t know coming in after him.

"Hey Gavin." Dr Weese greeted.

"Hey Steve, how do my pictures look?"

Dr Weese got quiet. "Let me pull them up for you," he said, and then fiddled with his digital device. "You have a large abnormality in the right parietal lobe." He adjusted the screen to emphasize a large uniformly bright area of one of the images. There were coloured dashed lines measuring it. "It’s about the size of a peach."

Gavin and Sandy’s joking demeanours changed. "Oh f*ck." He said, immediately followed by "Sorry."

"That’s okay." Said Dr Weese. "Honestly that was my initial reaction too. My impression has been that it doesn’t really sound like you’ve been having much in terms of symptoms up until now?"

Gavin scratched behind his ear. "I mean, no not really, but in hindsight I guess---, but nothing enough that I was thinking about brain tumours!"

Miles’ stomach acid was churning.

"Well, it is operable. That’s why I’ve brought my colleague here. This is Dr Andrea Corcoran from neurosurgery." He gestured to the previously unnamed woman.

"Dr Corcoran, hello, pleasure to meet you, thank you for being here." Gavin reached out to shake her hand. How he was keeping it together right now Miles had no idea. Miles felt like his eyeballs were about to fall out of his skull.

"Likewise. Now I don’t normally go talking about luck when it comes to brain tumours, but as far as potential locations for a mass of this size, it could not be in a more ideal location for removal."

Their voices blurred out again as Miles desperately tried to keep his eyeballs in his skull and his acid in his stomach. He vaguely registered Gavin and Dr Corcoran gesturing to a screen. Dr Corcoran drew him some pictures to help describe the procedure. Gavin nodded along, he asked questions, Dr Corcoran answered them.

"We can operate on Thursday." Dr Corcoran said.

Gavin nodded.

Miles lost his stomach acid into the closest garbage.


***


They took a cab home from the hospital. The entire drive was spent in silence. When they finally crossed the threshold of their home it was like the flood gates finally opened. Gavin fell into Miles’ arms. Miles’ knees couldn’t hold either of them up so they collapsed to the floor, and they cried.

"I’m f*cking terrified." Gavin whispered.

Miles didn’t trust himself to make words, so he just nodded.


***


Miles’s parents, bless them, started driving down as soon as Miles had finished talking with his mum on what has since become know as ‘seizure day’. They arrived the next day. His Dad immediately got to work cooking freezable meals and keeping the house tidy and organized. His mum went out and got a bountiful assortment of things that she had read were useful for individuals recovering from major surgery. She retrieved their car from where they had abandoned it in the parking lot of St Vincent’s. They held the fort together and gave Miles and Gavin the permission they needed to allow themselves to fall apart.


***


It was Wednesday.

Miles had packed their hospital bag. Gavin had made a list of all the things that he needed to remember about the procedure and recovery. Gavin had seen a lawyer and crafted a will.

They were spooning in bed, in big comfy clothes. Gavin’s lithe body tucked into the embrace of Miles’ bigger and more muscular one. Miles was nosing gently into the back of Gavin’s head. Wondering if he was rubbing the spot where the tumour was growing underneath the bone. He wondered if the next time he did this, if there would be a scar there.

"What time is it?" Gavin asked.

Miles rotated his wrist. "6pm".

They needed to be at the hospital tomorrow at 6am.

"No more food." Gavin mumbled.

"No more food." Miles agreed.

Then Gavin took a huge, slow, deep breath, and let it out. "It’s time." He said, and he got up out of bed and left the room. Miles watched him go.

He came back with a towel and a shopping bag, which he set down on the bed.
"I’ll need your help." He said.

"Always. Anything." Miles replied.

Gavin took out a package of small hair ties, and he began separating a random chunk of hair and braiding it, and that was when Miles realized what this was. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure there was anything to say. He just reached out his hand and stroked it lovingly through the gorgeous golden tresses.

"Did they tell you, where the scar was going to be? How much you would need to shave?" He asked.

"Yeah," Gavin sighed. "It’s too big, it’s too much. It’s not worth trying to save anything."

Miles sighed and closed his eyes. He tipped his head forward into Gavin’s hair and breathed in the clean scent. A tear dripped into it. Not the first, or the last.

He collected himself and gently repositioned Gavin in their bed so that he could help section and braid. Gavin seemed to want a bunch of small to medium sized braids, to make each braid as long as possible when cutting. Miles didn’t ask why. It didn’t seem to matter.

When every piece of Gavin’s hair was part of a braid, they took a pause. Gavin looked foolish… and defeated.

He finally took another big deep breath before reaching into his bag and pulling out a set of clippers. He turned them over in his hand a couple of times, he flicked them on and off.

"Can you do it?" He asked Miles.

Miles nodded and took the clippers. He stared at them sitting in his hand, and briefly had the completely unhinged thought that maybe this whole thing had been an elaborate ruse that Gavin had put together in order to play another haircutting prank on him. And then he thought to himself ‘Oh my god I’m the sh*ttiest husband ever’. And then he wondered if maybe he was the one with the brain tumour.

He fired up the clippers. He brought them up to the side of Gavin’s head, right above the ear. The same spot he had put them last year, when he had been teasing Gavin about shaving his head, on the day that he had cut Gavin’s tailbone length hair to his collar bones. Gavin had asked him if he’d ever fantasized about shaving his head, and he’d admitted that he had, but he’d never actually do it. Look at him now, making a liar out of himself.

He let the clippers creep through the base of the first lock. He could tell Gavin was crying by the way that he was holding his shoulders. The first braid came free and he placed it on their bed spread. Well, this was it wasn’t it? He carried on shaving. Braid after braid piled up. Tear after tear was shed.

When the pile was complete, Gavin finally turned to look at it. He gathered up each piece and arranged them into a thick bundle.

"Will you keep it?" he asked. "To remember me by?"

Miles f***ing sobbed. "Jesus F*CK Gavin!" and he smashed their mouths together, and he ran his hands over Gavin’s shorn head, and this time he f*cking prayed, he f*cking BEGGED that this be a prank meant to mess with his stupid little hair kink.

But no relief came. And then he and Gavin were stepping into their shower together, and he was helping wash all of the little hairs off of him. And then Gavin was on his knees, and he was helping Miles’ cock into his mouth. And Miles was crying and Gavin was crying and it wasn’t sexy at all but by god was it perfect anyways. And then Gavin said, "We aren’t done yet." And he handed Miles shaving foam and a razor, and Miles lathered up Gavin’s head and scraped every last piece of hair from his scalp. And when he was done his only thought was ‘He looks like an angel.’ And he hoped that wasn’t an omen.

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