#hayden's notes

One of the small creatures tentatively approaches him, looking up from its diminutive height of just under a meter. Its bipedal body is made entirely of tree roots, making it easily blend in with the forest. Though the sharp branches that curl from the head, covered in foliage make it a little less creepy. Especially when the leaves partially obscure the void-like cracks in between the roots of its “face" that Carter claims to be their eyes.

Speaking of Carter, Wolfe looks away from the creature to the man. He’s sitting on a fallen tree, letting several of the creatures crawl all over him. One of them is on his knee and there’s one on his shoulder, who appears to be braiding his hair.

Carter doesn’t have his glasses on at the moment, and he has to avert his eyes lest he get caught staring again. Making up excuses for that the fist time had been embarrassing, and any time he can avoid the boy’s mocking is a job well done. It also helps him avoid any introspective questions on his own part.

Wolfe feels a slight tug at his pants and he looks down at the thing. It’s still looking up at him, the closest any of them had been to him so far. Sighing internally, he allows it to tug him along.

The mission they had been sent on did not go at all the way they had expected, but he supposes it could be worse. Though he’s going to have problems later coming to terms with the things he’s seeing now at a later date, when he’s not in the middle of all of it. Grumbling quietly, the thing tugs him to sit next to Carter on the log.

Carter frowns but restrains himself. This is impressive until he turns to the one who had pulled him over and says, “No, we don’t need to be closer. I’d rather he was farther away, actually.”

Through the familiar annoyance, he hears the creature make odd creaking and rustling noises. They’d been doing this off and on, with Carter always responding afterwards, so presumably this was their way of speaking. It was odd, but he’ll probably try to blot this experience from his mind later, so he will deal with it for now.

“No,” Carter says sharply, gaining Wolfe's attention. He looks oddly embarrassed. “No, he is not. I don’t know why you get that impression, but its false.” The creature on his shoulder tugs at his hair, making the younger man wince. “Seriously!”

Wolfe can’t take it much more and caves, “What are they saying?”

Carter huffs and looks away, crossing his arms in an oddly defensive gesture.

It’s kind of cute.

…

Wait, no. Carter is not cute. Wolfe wants to frown at the thought, and ends up having to play it off when he realizes that he is actually frowning. “What, are they criticizing you? You led us into this, after all.”

Carter practically snaps his neck turning to look at him so quickly, eyes blazing. “I’ll have you know that I wouldn’t have had to ‘lead’ us anywhere if the RSS could get their information right!”

“How were we to know that wearing certain colors can provoke things like that?” Wolfe snaps back.

The younger man throws his hands up in exasperation. “Gee! I don’t know! Maybe by asking literally anyone who knows anything about arachne?! And she wasn’t provoked, you idiot!”

“It came right for me!”

“She thought you were propositioning her!”

“WHAT?!” Wolfe can’t help the grimace and shudder.

“She wanted to scent you, not eat you!” Carter growls, mumbling a moment later, “At least not yet.”

“That is not reassuring, Carter!”

“We you didn’t have to draw your gun like that! It’s your fault we had to run!”

“Well, sorry for trying to defend myself! I can’t get back up like you can from that stuff!”

At this point, they’re both standing and several steps apart, facing each other. So, when Carter chucks his pen at him, it hits Wolfe square in the forehead and bounces off with a satisfying “thwack" before disappearing into the underbrush.

Throwing a hand to his forehead, Wolfe growls, “You-!” But he falters just a bit at the look on Carter’s face. Just enough to stay his tongue and instead of lashing out anymore, he turns and sits down harshly on the far end of the log. He cups his head with his arms braced on his knees and tries to take deep breaths.

The movement of the log is barely there, but he can tell that Carter has sat down on the other end, much farther away this time. There is a long, drawn out silence while the two calm and try to work out their thoughts. Wolfe hadn’t noticed it until then, but the area had gone quiet. Likely due to how loud their argument had gotten.

There’s a soft rustle, and some life starts to slowly pick back up, ending the eerie stillness. Wolfe rubs his face, exhausted. He’s not going to apologize. Neither of them is, but that’s no surprise. He’s not entirely sure he’s sorry, anyway. Or what he would be sorry for, exactly. In his peripheral, Wolfe sees Hayden hunched with his forearms braced on his thighs.

They are alone in their frustrated silence for a minute or more before he notices one of the tree-things pop out nearby. It approaches hesitantly, and Wolfe doesn’t know or care much about how it seems to be looking between the two of them. It ends up approaching Hayden… Carter. He turns his head just enough to see the thing reach up to him, holding something. A brief pause lets Wolfe see that it’s Carter’s pen before he’s startled by the man exhale loudly, ending in a raspy chuckle.

It’s…

Carter gently takes the pen and Wolfe looks away, back into the trees. He hears a rustle followed by a hum from Carter and wonders if he’ll start talking again.

The rustling of the tree-things picks up as several of them come back out from their hidey-holes. They all mostly approach Carter, but two stay further away but sit in a way to indicate that they are watching him closely now. The scowl twitches on his lips but he fights it.

The problem with Carter is that he’s far too good at riling people up. It’s troublesome and damn annoying. The kid is sharp as a whip and his tongue more so. He hates the way Carter can strip people down so easily – strip him down. He hates it.

Jason Wolfe does not like feeling defenseless.

And yet…

He grumbles, glancing away from the trees back over to Hay- Carter. The kid is sitting up now, no longer curled in. There is one of the tree-things in front of him that he seems to be talking to and another on his shoulders. There’s one more behind him, handing something up to the thing on his shoulders…

Flowers. They are putting flowers in his hair.

Wolfe watches with some kind of fascination, from interest or horror he isn’t sure. The one on the ground is picking the flowers from their surroundings and handing them up to the creature on Carter’s shoulders, who braids them in. Had he been paying more attention, he might have thought that this was the same tree- thing that had been braiding his hair earlier.

Carter suddenly looks over to him and Wolfe feels something catch in his throat. He tries to swallow it back while the young man blinks at him before scowling in a way that looks more like a pout. The flowers are forming a crown along his head, with some small ones slipping a bit from their position to creep down his bangs, framing his face.

He looks so young, like this.

The thought hits Wolfe uncomfortably. Having known the man for just a while now he’s been getting over some of his anger, but in moments like this…

The black sclera enhance the vibrant green irises and he is reminded by the fact that something must have happened to this kid to get him here. Sometimes, in moments like this, he wants to know. Maybe even more than just for leverage.

Wolfe’s head snaps back once again and the pen flies off into the forest once more. Carter’s growl grabs his attention, and he realizes he let himself get distracted.

“Now that I have your attention, Wolfe, why don’t you tell me when you’re ready to leave?” One of the tree-things rushes through the brush after the pen. The one of his shoulders is creaking unhappily, tugging at hair to perhaps try to wrangle it back into place.

“Leave?”

Carter snorts, “Yeah, the saplings are willing to lead us out of the forest and direct us to the closest residence. Then you can contact RSS and tell them you messed up the job and they need to get us out of here.”

“I-?!” Wolfe growls, tensing up in preparation to start another fight. His rebuttal is interrupted, however, by handful of flowers. They don’t make it very far, but they didn’t really need to, as the tree-thing that had been gathering flowers is now on the log next to him, having thrown them at him. Its leaves are shaking just a bit, and it waves its appendages at him in some sort of scolding gesture.

Completely stunned, Wolfe doesn’t look away from the only slightly menacing tree branch in front of him until he hears an odd noise. Looking up, he sees Carter.

Laughing.

With his shoulders up and arms around his stomach, turned just a bit more towards him, Carter is laughing. But it’s a tone completely unfamiliar to Wolfe and it stuns him just as much, if not more, than the creature had. Carter’s mouth is opened to breathe, lips turned up in a grin. The motions agitate his hair and Wolfe doesn’t – can’t – blink as a few of the flowers fall, tumbling across flushed cheeks.

“You-!” Carter giggles. “You look like a troublemaker being scolded by his mother! I never took you for anything less than rule-abiding, Wolfe!”

The stick creature had stopped waving at him and instead starts climbing up onto him. Wolfe jerks, but doesn’t react violently as Carter’s smile fades just a bit into concentration, watching him. He knows if he throws the thing off of him the man will make him regret it. So, while he grunts and twitches, he lets the damn thing climb up to his shoulders, where it starts pulling on his hair.

His eyes widen and Carter bursts into laughter once more.

“M-My hair! What are you doing?!” Wolfe stops his hands from going up past his shoulders but it’s a near thing.

“He just wants to braid your hair, too, Wolfe!” Carter cackles.

Wolfe sputters, “What?!”

“He thinks that braiding and adorning your hair with moonflowers will make you calmer.” Carter grins at him sharply, “These flowers are precious to them, you know.”

No, he did not know, you brat. Now he can’t shred them to pieces, either!

Carter’s laugh turns more into a condescending chuckle, likely guessing what he’d been thinking. Wolfe is distracted by a sharp tug of his hair and he has to hold back again when his first instinct is to lash out. His restraint is rewarded by the tugging gentling just a bit.

“Carter, how do I stop it?” he grits through his teeth.

‘Hm,” the man hums. I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?” Wolfe wants to punch that smug look off the brat’s face so badly, but a tug on his hair and a soft scent distract him once more. The brush of petals along his temple makes him twitch.

“Mm, yeah,” Carter comments, after a pause for his own hairdresser to readjust itself, “I think we’ll have to put a bit of a hold on leaving for now. That’s a shame.”

Wolfe grunts, angry and annoyed, but makes himself look away from the pain in his neck just a bit more than an arm’s reach away. Hopefully, Carter will be lenient enough to not mock him afterwards. But if he does, Wolfe can bite back easily enough with how lovely he looked with all those flowers in his hair.

Stupid.

He meant how stupid he looked.

…