Luck was on Josh's side tonight. He'd managed to find Emery, to talk him into coming home with him, and despite how long it had taken them to get back, his car was undisturbed, in the exact spot where he'd... Parked it was too generous a term. Still giddy with relief, he loosened his hoodie and pulled it down, running a hand through his hair to give it some semblance of form again.

Emery stopped abruptly. "This was a mistake, Josh. Accompanying you serves no purpose."

"Wha– no. We agreed." He made to unlock the car only to have it confirmed that he'd left it unlocked to begin with. "Please get in, it's cold out here."

"I'm not getting in your car." Emery took a step back, then another. One of his hands was balled into a fist, visibly shaking, while the other one nervously scratched his head; he was looking everywhere but at Josh.

What could possibly have changed his mind in such a short time, Josh didn't know, but he wasn't above any sort of tactics to get Emery safely off the streets. "I always thought I could trust your word. Are you going to start lying now?"

Emery swallowed hard. "You still wear your hair long."

It was such a baffling non-sequitur it took Josh a moment to acknowledge the obvious. What did his shoulder-length hair have to do with anything? Emery was wracked with another bout of coughing, reminding Josh of the pressing need to get him out of the cold. "I... Yes? Can we discuss this inside the car?"

"I can't. Go home."

"You said you'd come home with me tonight."

It was impossible to mistake the humiliation in Emery's eyes for anything else.

"I have head lice, Josh. The beard too, it's... It's crawling with them." The hand that wasn't scratching his head rubbed furiously at the beard. "I can't get in your car and I certainly can't go to your house."

Josh's chest felt trapped inside a vice in the face of Emery's utter mortification. Such a common pest, and Emery felt his dignity diminished by it. The streets had robbed the proud man of everything; Josh would be damned if he'd allow them to take anything else.

He kept his voice as even as he could, careful not to spook the other man with the forcefulness of tone he'd have preferred to use. "Millions of people get head lice. I caught them often enough as a child. Lice don't survive on the furniture and they don't jump. It's not as if I'm carrying you — please come home with me like you said you would. You can shave the beard if you'd like and we'll get you treatment for the hair." Emery's eyes widened at the mention of shaving and Josh couldn't tell if it was in anticipation or dread. "Or we can treat the beard too if you want to keep it. It's not a reason for you not to come."

"You're going out of your way to extend me kindness I haven't earned from you. I don't want to repay that by..." He gestured vaguely towards Josh's hair.

"If I happen to catch lice I'll get treated, but I won't. Don't worry about that."

"Would it be possible for me to simply shave it all? The hair too?"

"Sure, if that's what you want. But if you want to keep the hair–"

"No. I want them all gone. The hair will grow back."

"Okay." Josh's tone was still pleasantly neutral, devoid of judgment. "Do we need to get you treatment for any other sort of lice? Body lice can be dangerous for you, and then there are–"

"I don't have body lice," Emery replied firmly. "Or the other kind. Just the hair and the beard."

"Okay. We can go straight home then, if you're absolutely sure you want your hair shaved."

Mollified, Emery finally got in the car, sitting with his head curved rather than allow it to touch the headrest, despite just having been told lice didn't survive on furniture. Josh had little hope that not everything would be such a hard-fought battle between them.

The drive back would have been deathly silent if not for the frequent and rather worrisome bouts of coughing coming from Emery. Josh was torn between wanting to talk — wanting to know what had happened to Emery since his very public trial, or even before that, since the last time they'd seen each other — and wanting to give the other man some space. He opted for the latter. The conversation could come in the morning, with Emery fed and rested, and preferably on their way to the hospital to get that cough appraised.