Gavin Toys with a Longhair Enthusiast P4 by Whittaker

---

Author's Note: Thank you for tuning in to part 4 of the Gavin and Miles series. Fair warning, the backstory of these characters is starting to build quite a bit, so while the previous parts could be read as standalones, we have reached a point where at the very least, reading part 3 is recommended to familiarise yourself with the context. If you choose not to read part 3, the context is as follows: SPOILER: In our last installment, Gavin gradually begins exhibiting unusual neurologic symptoms which culminate in him being diagnosed with a large brain lesion necessitating surgery.




Gavin Toys with a Longhair Enthusiast: Part 4




Thankfully, it hadn’t been an omen.

They woke up the next morning and Gavin immediately slipped a woolen toque over his bald head. They made their way to the hospital where Miles proceeded to spend the most stressful 5 hours of his life, while waiting for Dr Corcoran to walk out of the operating room.

When she finally did, she came out with a thumbs up, before finally removing her mask so that Miles could see her smiling.

"Everything went smoothly," she said. "They’re moving him into recovery now."

Miles met him in his recovery room. He had dark circles under his eyes and looked exhausted, but he was awake and sitting up. A large bandage was wrapped around his head.

"Hey", Miles said.

"Hey," Gavin croaked.

Miles gingerly placed the corner of his butt on the edge of Gavin’s bed. He set their hands on top of one another.

"Thank you", he said.

"For what?" Gavin asked.

"…Just… for everything", he lifted Gavin’s hand and gave the back of it a kiss. "How do you feel?"

"Like I’ve been hit by a train. And also that I just took an exam that I didn’t study for. Everybody kept asking me questions about politics and history, as if I keep track of that. I thought it was gonna be flash cards. Like ‘what colour is this triangle’ and, ‘what does this word say’, but no. They had me trying to recite the images on both sides of all the bills! Nobody uses cash anymore, I made so many mistakes. Maggie was the surgical assistant. She was getting a good kick out of me being clueless.

The corner of Miles’ eyes crinkled. "Well, I’m glad that it sounds like everybody was entertained."

Gavin huffed and rolled his eyes, then reached to scratch absentmindedly at his head before stopping himself. "Probably shouldn’t do that, should I?" He mumbled.

"Nah, maybe not for a little while." Miles tried out a tentative smile, it felt awkward after so many days of being unable to smile about anything.

"My scalp’s itchy… and it feels like sandpaper. Does this normally happen?"

"Yeah usually. We could always keep you shaved," Miles winked.

"Oh f*ck off," Gavin replied exasperated, and feebly shoved Miles in the chest.

Miles chuckled. "What!?" he replied innocently. "You look cute!"

"Shut up, I look like an egg and you know it."

"Those things aren’t mutually exclusive!"

Gavin gasped. "Are you saying I look like an egg!?"

"You just said—"

"So cruel! So insensitive! I’m appalled!!" Gavin teased.

"Oh stop it, you know what I meant." Miles rolled his eyes.



***



The next few weeks were busy. In the start, Gavin needed help with almost everything. Because of the size of the window that needed to be made in his skull, he needed to wear a special helmet during the healing process. It was making it challenging for him to get a good night’s sleep, so he was exhausted.

Each evening Miles would help him amble to the washroom to bathe his body and he would carefully inspect and clean Gavin’s wound. Gavin could barely stand unassisted, let alone for long periods of time, so the pre-prepared meals from Miles’ family, as well as some dropped off by friends, were invaluable.

It was two weeks into his recovery that they received good news. The mass was benign. He would still have to go in to receive radiation therapy, but Dr Corcoran felt that the chance of significant regrowth necessitating a second surgery was low. Not non-existent, Gavin would need to be monitored for the rest of his life, but other cases of this type of tumour showed only about a 10% chance of another surgery being needed in the next 20 years.

By week three, Gavin was starting to get restless

"I’m going insane," he complained. "I need something to do. Maybe if I ask really nicely they’ll let me pick up a shift at the triage desk."

"Love, no. You still have a jigsaw puzzle for a skull, you should not be working."

"Spoil sport."



***



At week 6, Gavin was cleared to stop wearing the helmet and started going to his radiation appointments.

He was so focused on healing, and all the other little things that needed doing or keeping track of, that he had been able to put his appearance out of his mind for some time. Now that the helmet was off, Gavin would often catch the light dusting of hair that had grown back in a mirror and startle himself. It was winter, so he leaned heavily into wearing thick warm hats.

As he went through several rounds of radiation, he noticed with some alarm that the hair in the area on his skull being targeted by the beam was turning white.

"Do you think I’m gonna have a bald spot?" Gavin asked as he inspected the area around his surgical scar.

Miles came over to peer at it. "It doesn't look like it's falling out," he reassured. "It just seems to be coming back in paler."

Gavin humphed and put his toque back on.

"Do you have any thoughts for where you wanna go for our anniversary dinner this year?" Miles asked.

Gavin shrugged noncommittally.

"Okay, do you want me to pick?"

Gavin shrugged again. "Do we have to do anything? It’s not like it’s a major milestone this year."

"Maybe not. But I like celebrating, and this year has been a lot, and we made it to the other side of it, and I love you so goddamn much."

Gavin smiled and rolled his eyes.



***



As the date of their anniversary dinner approached Gavin was getting nervous. As his hair had grown out the area around the scar had come in completely desaturated. A pure white standing out against his golden blond. But he hadn’t done anything with it this whole time and it was looking chaotic with a capital C. At work he was concealing the situation with scrub caps and nobody was batting an eye, but a fancy dinner at an upscale place? He couldn’t wear a hat and have it come off as appropriate, but he really didn’t want to cut his already short hair in order to look acceptably put together for their meal. He should’ve told Miles his apprehension but he was embarrassed.



*** Anniversary day ***



Miles came home at the end of his workday with thick paper bags in both hands. Gavin was curled up on the couch with tea, having had a lazy day after his night shift the night before.

"Happy anniversary!!" he sing-songed as he kicked off his shoes and went to kiss Gavin on the top of the head. "How are you feeling?"

Gavin shrugged, "I’m awake, slept okay. How was your day?"

"Good! Good! I have presents!"

Gavin chuckled. "I see that, that looks like a lot of presents, was this supposed to be a 12 days of anniversary theme?"

"Don’t worry, half of these are for me!"

"You’re buying your own anniversary presents now?"

"Hold your horses, it’ll make sense in like 5 seconds." Miles finished shedding his jacket, hat, scarf, and mitts. "Okay I’m ready now." He brought the bags to the foot of the couch where Gavin was sitting.

"Alright, before we start let me go grab my present for you, K? Warning though, I only got you one present."

"I only got you one as well, I promise. The bags are a little misleading."

Gavin smirked. "Alright," he said skeptically, and went to grab Miles’ gift from the back of their closet. When he returned Miles was unpacking the boxes that had been inside the bags and arranging them into some sort of order. Gavin shook his head in good humour.

Miles pointed to the last box on the right. "This one is your actual present. The rest don’t count."

"Suuure" Gavin drawled while smiling. "Do we start with the non-present presents then?"

"Of course!" Miles said and began opening the boxes as he explained. "So, I got us co-ordinating outfits for dinner. Or you know, other potential dressy occasions in the future as well." He started handing articles of clothing for Gavin’s inspection. Gavin hummed appreciatively at the fabrics. He checked for garment tags but didn’t recognize any of the labels.

"Try them on!"

"Okay, okay, I’m going." Gavin harped. Getting up out of his blanket nest and stripping down in the middle of their living room. He shrugged into the clothes and had to admit that they cut a pretty nice figure, and the quality felt incredible.

"Thoughts?" Miles inquired as he started pulling on his own outfit pieces.

"They’re really nice, where on earth did you get these? Are these off the rack?"

"You’re never gonna believe this, but they’re actually thrifted. I found the neatest little vintage consignment store, and then I got them tailored for us. That’s where your trousers that you thought you misplaced went, I gave them to the tailor in lieu of measurements." Miles pulled the missing trousers out of another box.

Gavin huffed a relieved whine out at the sight of the trousers. "F*cking hell Miles thank god. I thought the tumour was growing back!"

"Oh my god babe no, I’m so so sorry! F*ck I wasn’t even thinking, oh my god." Miles clapped his hand over his face.

Gavin poked him in the side of the ribs. "I’m just messing with you."

Miles grabbed him by both shoulders and peered skeptically into Gavin’s pale blue eyes, looking for any indication that this was a double fake out. Seeming satisfied, he let him go and finished putting his own outfit together. He directed them to their full-length foyer mirror. "Not bad, eh?" He smiled.

"Good finds." Gavin agreed without emotion. He was staring at his hair. Short, messy, and without any style, it made him feel self conscious. He cracked and a sob escaped, and he turned away from the mirror to burrow his face in Miles’ shoulder.

"Hey, shh, it’s okay" Miles held only Gavin and ran his hand up and down his back. "What’s got you?"

"Ugh." Gavin grumbled, already having mostly dispelled his burst of emotion. "I’m just feeling self conscious. We’re going to such a fancy place and my hair makes me look frumpy but I just don’t think I have it in me to cut it right now."

"Then don’t. Who cares about anybody else, f*ck ‘em."

Gavin chuckled weakly. "I wish it felt that easy."

"Yeah, I know…" Miles frowned. "Are you ready for your actual present now?"

"Um, actually, I think it’s your turn, Mister."

"Well twist my arm why don’tcha" Miles grinned.

Gavin handed him his box, about the size of a pizza box, and heavy and solid. Miles wondered if it was a coffee table book or something. He genuinely had no idea. He peeled away the paper and lifted the lid of the box. Nestled inside lined cut-outs were two fabric bound hardcover books, embossed with gold leaf designs, no titles on the front. Miles shot a look at Gavin in confusion. Gavin just smirked.

"Open them." He urged.

Miles flipped to the first page and his jaw dropped. "Are these first editions?" he asked, staring at the title of the first installment of his favourite duology of all time.

"Even better, I hope. Keep going."

Miles flipped a few more pages until he made it to a handwritten inscription. ‘Dear Miles,’ it read, ‘There are many instances in life in which we must make compromises, some of those compromises I have come to regret, this is one of them. I was a young man assured that there was no space in mainstream publishing for gay romantic relationships, so I was pressured to hide them in the subtext. As a much older man I realise now the disservice that I did to my community. This is the version of my books that I wish I had published, and hopefully will still get to publish one day, to make up for the erasure I wrought in the original works. I hope that you can enjoy this early release. I wish for many more happy years to come for you and Gavin, M.E. Whittaker.’

Miles' hands were trembling by the time he finished reading. "Holy sh*t." He whispered. "How did you even—"

"Sheer dumb luck." Interrupted Gavin. "At first I was just trying to get you a signed copy but then I told him a bit of our backstory, and you know, maybe pulled the brain tumour card a little bit and then next thing you know he’s like ‘Hey do you want the unreleased way more explicitly gay version of my books?’ and I was like ‘Um, yeah’, and here we are!"

"Gav, this is amazing, I can’t even—" Miles threw his arms around Gavin and squeezed all the air out of him.

"I’m glad you like them," Gavin wheezed.

"They’re perfect."

"My present now please!" Gavin quipped.

"Okay." Miles prefaced. "Now, before you open it you need to know that you absolutely do not need this, and you are amazing and I love you no matter what. I just wanted to give you the option…"

"Okay…?

Miles shoved the box at Gavin. "Here."

Gavin opened it tentatively. It was smaller than every other box that had been opened so far. He peeled back the tissue paper to reveal a delicate mesh pouch. He gasped when he got the first inkling of what was inside.

"Did you actually—?" He reached into the pouch and pulled out a gorgeous blond human hair wig. "This is my hair." He said dumbly.

"Yeah, it literally is." Miles responded.

"Wait what?"

"It is actually literally your hair. When we cut off your braids… I sent them to a wig maker… In case you, you know… wanted to wear one…"

"It’s perfect", he admired the lace finish. "Will you help me put it on?"

"Of course! Here it came with some set up and care instructions." Miles pulled out the little instruction booklet and flipped through it.

They smoothed down Gavin’s hair, applied the wig cap and then the wig. They trimmed away the excess lace and set it all into place.

When it was done, it was like they had slid into the past. The wig fell in gentle layered waves to armpit length. The different tones of blond throughout the wig almost perfectly matched Gavin’s natural distribution. Even his hairline and parting were knotted in a scarily accurate way.

Gavin ran his fingers through the waves in front of the mirror. "It looks like when we just got back from our honeymoon." He mused.

"It kinda does, doesn’t it." Miles agreed.

"It’s perfect", he pressed his face into Miles’ shoulder again.

"I’m glad you like it. Please remember that you absolutely do not have to wear it. I love you so much and you’re beautiful and I just want you to be happy."

Gavin sniffled. "Ugh Jesus Christ, why am I crying?! I swear I held it together better during actual surgery!"

"Hey, shhh, you’ve been through a lot." Miles stroked firmly up and down his back. "You’re holding it together just fine."

Gavin dabbed his eyes. "I suppose at least I didn’t vomit in front of like six geniuses."

"Ha sure, there's also that." Miles admitted. "How are you feeling about dinner now?"

"A lot better." Gavin admitted, then sighed happily, "I’m gonna get to use my curling iron again! Life is good."

"I’m so glad."

They went out on their anniversary dinner that weekend. Miles couldn’t help but stare dreamily at Gavin as he rambled animatedly, swishing his hair back and forth, twirling it around a finger, obviously feeling way more comfortable in his own skin than he had in a while.



*** The awkward stage ***



A situation was arising.

Gavin was about 8 months post-op when the situation was really becoming obvious. Gavin had worn his hair long pretty much his entire life that he could remember. He kind of forgot that hair grew from everywhere on the head at roughly the same speed, and that heads were round, and that this was something that people with short hairstyles had to think about if they didn’t want to end up looking a little bit insane.

He'd started noticing it first with the wig. When Miles first gifted him his wig, he didn’t really need to think about his hair underneath that much. Sure he would wear the wig cap but he could also get away without it. Now if he didn’t fuss with it for 10 minutes he’d end up with an awkward duck tail of hair hanging out the back.

Then came challenges with his hairstyling at work. Funnily enough, Gavin ended up mostly wearing his wig around the house or out on errands. At work, he perhaps counterintuitively felt a bit self conscious about wearing it and often went without. At home and around town, the wig helped him to feel more like himself. At work, everybody of course knew that he’d been through brain surgery and had had his head shaved. He felt a bit embarrassed knowing that they would know that it was a wig and the obvious implication he was insecure without it. Especially when he often had to work with patients going through other, often prolonged causes of medical hair loss. He would still wear it some days, but most of the time he stuck with wearing a scrub cap or just leaving whatever natural hair he currently had, out for the world to see.

Herein lay his current predicament.

The front of his hair was dangling into his eyes and creeping close to his mouth as well. He would push it back but it wasn’t long enough yet to sit tucked behind his ears, so it never stayed out of the way for long. Trying to tie it back was a bit of a disaster. If he wanted to secure the top, he had to tie it basically vertically so that he ended up with a little palm tree of hair on the top of his head.

And then there was the back.

It was certainly doing something.

He hesitated to call it a mullet. Unfortunately, his hesitation meant nothing in the grand scheme of hair nomenclature. There was a mullet happening. Trying to tie up the back only emphasized the problem.

"I have a mullet" Gavin confessed to Miles quietly one night.

"More or less, yeah."

"Ugh, you wound me."

"I take it you’re not a fan?"

Gavin glared unimpressed.

"Do youuu, want me to cut it for you? Miles guessed hesitantly.

"Ugh, yes but no."

"It’ll be tricky to do both."

"No, I know. And I know that I’ll have to cut it eventually so that it grows out evenly. I just— I just want my hair back."

Miles kissed his temple. "I know babe."



***



The next morning Gavin approached Miles with scissors held in one hand, blades anxiously being slapped rhythmically into the palm of the other.

"Alright, I’m ready to just get this over with."

Miles looked over his shoulder from where he was frying up a scramble. "Okay" he nodded. "Breakfast first."

Later, Miles stood behind a seated Gavin with a towel draped over his shoulders. "What are we doing?" he asked.

"I don’t know." Gavin muttered. "Just— don’t cut very much. But also try and make it look like I don’t have a mullet."

Miles nodded, "I can work with that."

He spritzed Gavin’s hair down and began trimming around his collar to get rid of the most egregious strands.

"You know," Gavin interrupted, "You’re taking this way more calmly than usual."

Miles shrugged. "What can I say, I’ve matured."

"Ha!" Gavin scoffed.

Miles laughed in return. "Nah, honestly Gav, things have just changed… The vibe is just different. It used to be fun to play up my anxiety around cutting your hair. Now just doesn’t feel like the time. The last time was kinda traumatic for both of us. Besides, your hair’s shorter, and I’m barely cutting anything, so it doesn’t feel like much is changing. I’ve gotten used to it. Also, you’re not ribbing me nearly as much right now."

Gavin laughed. Miles continued combing and snipping. Small tufts of rapidly drying hair floating to the ground. He ran his fingers through it a few times to shake it out. "I think it’s done." He announced.

Gavin leaned forward to inspect himself, "I look like… some dude." He declared.

"I mean, I guess? A little bit? …sorry?"

"His name is probably like, Peter or something."

"Hey, you’ve met my uncle Peter. I did not make you look like him, do you need a visual refresher?"

"Okay fine then, David."

"Sure, this haircut can be your new alter ego, David."

Gavin nodded firmly.

Miles kissed him on the cheek "You’re weird."



***



The trim, despite Gavin’s mixed feeling about it, had been a good idea. Now instead of trying to tame both the front and back of his hair, which were both awkward in different ways, he only had to worry about the front. In only a couple of months he was able to do a bunch of little half-updos. Twists, braids, space buns, etc. He still couldn’t manage a quick and easy half-up ponytail or bun at the back of his head, but at least he was getting some enjoyment out of needing to be creative.

As the back grew out this time, it looked a lot less awkward, as a good chunk of his hair could now comfortably be held behind his ears.

Finally being able to put his hair in a half-pony should’ve been a momentous occasion, but honestly Gavin kind of forgot to notice. He started tying the top of his hair up way too vertically to be stylish simply for the convenience of it, and the height of the tails gradually lowered and lowered until finally they were sitting comfortably at the back of his head.

Gavin felt a lot more confident when he approached Miles one night, roughly 18 months post-op.

"Could you trim my hair again?" he was freshly out of the shower, his uneven hair dripping water down the back of his neck.

"Sure, same criteria as last time?"

"Yeah more or less. I don’t want to lose any of the length needed to tie a half-up, but I just want it sort of evened up again to help it grow out less awkwardly."

Miles smiled and ran his fingers through the damp strands, finding the area of disconnect that Gavin was describing. Every lock of hair brushed around or past his jaw now, but there was definitely a weird area growing from the back of his head, from the ears down, that was awkwardly longer and disconnected from the rest.

"I can definitely do that." He assured him. He set Gavin up the same as last time, combed through his hair, and began evening up and trying to connect the back to everything else that was trying to catch up. The end result couldn’t quite graze his shoulders, but fell softly roughly an inch below his jawline at the shortest. Miles had tried to trim his split ends from his fringe as well without taking any length, just by dusting them as lightly as possible.

"Ooh, I like this one, it’s cute!" Gavin exclaimed. He brushed his hands through the mostly dry locks, holding it up in a couple different test styles.

"Thanks, do you recognize it?"

Gavin tilted his head, "What do you mean?"

"It was one of the style choices that you gave me before our wedding, just shorter obviously. I learned them all."

"Oh yeah!" Gavin exclaimed. "Well, I like it, clearly I have good taste." He grinned cheekily.

Miles pretended like he was going to scuff Gav up the back of the head but instead smoothed down the hair laying over his nape and squeezed the back of his neck.



***



Gavin was feeling much more confident since the latest haircut, wearing his natural hair out for pretty much all occasions. He only brought his wig out now specifically if he was in the mood for a longer style that he couldn’t achieve without it. He had also been using the wig to experiment with temporarily dip dyeing the ends, which he discovered was a lot of fun. He’d now occasionally coordinate his hair with his scrubs or for the holidays.


Eventually, his natural hair surpassed the length of the wig, and Gavin packed it away in its special storage pouch to preserve it.



***



Time passed, as it always does, and soon the only indicator that Gavin had ever gone through a traumatic health scare was the patch of white hair above his ear that never regained its colour after radiation.

He came home one Saturday morning after a night shift, in his dusty purple scrubs, with his hair in a long single Dutch braid that crossed diagonally over the back of his head to drape over his shoulder and down to his hips. Miles was at the counter making coffee.

"Did you see the posters they’ve put up around the hospital lately?" Gavin asked.

"Which ones?" Miles passed Gav a cup.

"I guess wigs for kids is doing some big charity hair drive and our hospital signed up."

You could have heard a pin drop.

"Oh yeah," Miles cleared his throat, "I saw that."

"I checked the sign-up sheet, there are a lot of people who have agreed to participate so far."

"Uh huh?" Miles brought his coffee to his lips and then looked down with betrayal at his mug when he realized that he hadn’t poured anything into it yet.

Gavin smirked knowingly. "Do you think we should sign up?" He asked with faux innocence.

"Uh…" Miles stumbled over an attempt at words.

"I recognized quite a few names on the donor list already," Gavin plowed onwards. "Some ER residents, a couple of my student nurses, and I saw your biomed-eng summer student put her name up there. Ooh I also saw Doc Greene on there; pretty sure he hasn’t cut his hair since 2005."

"Uh, pretty sure I’m not the demographic they’re looking to have sign up for this," Miles tried to rationalize, rubbing his hand up the back of his tidy crop.

"They have a separate sign up for the haircutters and other event day volunteers. Who knows, it might be fun! Donate some hair, shave a few heads, it’ll be for a good cause!"

Miles kept blushing a deeper and deeper red as Gavin was talking, Gavin’s mischievous grin getting wider and wider. Miles finally cracked and pressed the balls of his hands to his eyes and squealed as loud as he could possibly manage with his mouth closed.

Gavin broke into unrestrained peals of laughter. "Aaand he's back ladies and gentlemen!" He began dramatically applauding and leaned in to press a firm kiss on one of Miles’ cheeks.

"Gav I sh*t you not if you make me shave your head on a stage in front of a crowd of people I will cry or pop a boner or quite possibly both. All of these scenarios are awful."

Gavin roared with even more laughter while tears were streaming down his face. He calmed himself and wiped his eyes and then pulled the tie from the bottom of his braid, shaking out the twists until his upper body was enveloped in a gorgeous, thick, wavy blond curtain.

"Touch it." He demanded.

Miles did NOT need to be told twice. He plunged his hands deep into the tresses and curled his fingers into it, grumbling deep and possessively in the back of his throat. "Mine", he asserted, loosening his grip so that he could run his hands through it from scalp to tips.

"Yeah, that’s right, I’m yours," Gavin confirmed. "You wouldn’t dare let anyone else cut my hair, would you? That would be like cheating!"

Miles grumbled low again and began nuzzling into the hairline at Gavin’s temple. "Please don’t make me do this," he whined, peppering kisses around his ear, ‘it’s only just grown back!"

"Only just grown back!? Mi, it’s been four years!"

Miles’s brow furrowed, "No…"

"Yeah babe, the 4-year anniversary was one month ago."

"Holy f*ck." Miles gasped.

"Been taking me for granted, have we?" Gavin teased.

Miles started, mouth agape. "It can’t have been that long," he shook his head.

"We’re getting old, Love."

Miles pulled back to really look at Gavin as he said that. To clock the delicate crow’s feet, the smile lines, the white patch of hair over his ear that no longer sat alone but was now accompanied by a light smattering of greys peppered through the rest of his hair.

"I guess we are," he admitted. "I still don’t want to cut your hair though. Can’t we donate some money instead or something? I just wanna treasure and pamper it, and then maybe when I die I can be mummified in it, if it's long enough by then." Miles continued to sweep his hands through the hair in question.

"Well then, I’ve got good news for you, which is that those posters were fake. I put them up."

"You’re such a little sh*t," Miles ribbed.

"I have a reputation to uphold," Gavin teased.

Miles shook his head. "Can I tell you a secret?" he asked.

"Always."

"The night before your surgery, I briefly had the completely unhinged thought that maybe you had faked your whole tumour just to tease me with your hair."

"Oh my god," Gavin laughed.

"Yeah. The thought didn’t last long but it did show up. You definitely keep me on my toes."

"Yeah, you telling me this probably wouldn’t have gone over nearly as well 4 years ago."

"I figured as much."

"Can I tell you a secret as well?" Gavin asked.

"Yeah"

"I know that I kinda turned my hair and your kink into this game that we play… But when sh*t actually got real and I was feeling scared and vulnerable, you really stepped up to the plate."

"Even when I vomited in front of 6 geniuses?"

"Even then"

"I love you"

"I love you too."

"Now what’s the real secret?" Miles prodded.

Gavin smirked, "The fake posters are actually real posters."

"Goddamnit Gavin!"

Gavin squealed with delight and ran away from Miles’ attempt to playfully swat at him.




End-Note: Part 5 should be posted shortly along with a shorter alt-perspective version from a new character. The writing of part 6 is heavily underway. Thank you to all who tolerate my glacial writing pace.

---