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"You know, I didn't realize you were a redhead until after I'd known you for like a month," Dina says conversationally.
Ellie sits up from her position lounging on the couch. "How did you not know my hair color?"
She snorts. "How long had it been since you'd washed it?" Ellie opens her mouth to respond but Dina cuts her off with a, "To be clear, not judging. I get your life was an endless stream of nightmares out there. It just looked brown."
"Doesn't it still?"
Dina laughs and leans closer to get a better look. "Mostly, yeah. But when it catches the light it's this really pretty red color."
"Pretty?" Ellie says with a snort.
"Hm. Maybe not the right word," Dina says thoughtfully. She tries to hide her disappointment before Dina says, "More handsome."
Ellie doesn't get flustered super easily, but damn.
"Uh," Ellie says eloquently. Dina smiles at her, not the shit-eating grin she usually favors, but something small and sweet. It catches her off guard as much as the compliment had. "I mean."
"Yeah," Dina says decisively. "Handsome."
Ellie looks down at her feet for a second, trying to hide her smile. But Dina, annoying and lovely as ever, leans right into her personal space and says, "Aw, you're blushing!" because she's a dick.
"You're a dick," Ellie says, laughing.
"And you are handsome," Dina says with none of her usual snark. "Seriously."
Ellie's smile grows a little wider. "Thanks, Dina."
After that, the two of them sit really close together when talking, just because, and Dina starts absent-mindedly playing with Ellie's hair. Ellie just keeps thinking "handsome" and smiling at nothing again, and Dina keeps teasing her for it, but in a sweeter way than she normally would.
"Can I braid your hair?" Dina asks out of nowhere.
"Is it long enough for that?" Ellie asks.
"Not really," Dina admits. "But I kind of wanna see what I can do with it."
Ellie laughs and moves so she's sitting on the floor. "Go ahead."
"You know, I can braid hair even when you're sitting next to me," Dina says grumpily. "I'm good at what I do." But she moves so that her legs are on either side of Ellie and starts braiding.
It's a weird feeling, and not one Ellie's used to--Dina gently untangling knots and tugging her hair where she wants it--but it's kind of nice, too. She leans her head on Dina's knee and nearly dozes off. (It's not her fault she had a night shift earlier this week and hasn't caught back up on sleep yet.)
"And...done!" Dina says.
Ellie grumbles as she lifts her head back up. "Just as I was getting comfortable."
"Whatever, asshole," Dina says. "Come on, get up, I wanna see what you think."
Ellie does get up and go to look in the dirty mirror. She can't actually see the braid, but her hair is all out of her face. She...loves it.
"I'm glad you can only see this side," Dina says from somewhere to her right. "The braid is...not my best."
"What did you do to my hair?" Ellie says, meaning to sound accusing, but failing miserably.
"Braided it," Dina says, uncharacteristically shy. "Do you like it?"
"I like how short it looks," Ellie says, still staring at herself in the mirror. She sees Dina come up to her and rest her chin on her shoulder. (It kind of hurts a bit, but whatever.)
"I'm pretty good at cutting hair, too," Dina says, and Ellie turns to look at her friend. Their noses brush. Too scared to say anything and break the moment, Ellie nods.
-
Dina doesn't want to cut her hair short until she gets a sharper pair of scissors, so they end up having to wait awhile for anyone to scavenge "new" ones. In the meantime, Dina plays with Ellie's hair a lot more. She has it tied into a bun these days, because of all the hairstyles Dina tried to show her, that was the only one Ellie could manage to do on her own. She doesn't like how long it is, now that she's seen what it looks like short, but she doesn't seem to mind it too much when Dina's absent-mindedly braiding it into intricate styles that she wants to practice.
Ellie knows it's the day when Dina shows up at her front door hiding something behind her back and grinning.
"Guess what I have," Dina says in a sing-song.
"Hm," Ellie says. "I'm guessing a pair of scissors."
Dina triumphantly holds up a pair of silver scissors and says, "Yes! They're actually for cutting hair too, I think!"
Ellie steps to the side so Dina can walk in, and she does, grabbing Ellie's hand as she heads towards the back of the house looking for a place to cut Ellie's hair. Ellie worries that her palms are sweaty or clammy or--something, but Dina doesn't seem to notice, excited about her new scissors and Ellie's new haircut.
"Do you have an idea of what you want it to look like?" Dina asks, sitting on the couch and gesturing for Ellie to sit on the floor in front of her again.
Ignoring the obvious joke to be made there, Ellie sits. "Not really. Just...shorter."
Dina hums in acknowledgment. "Alright! I can do that."
It's like Dina braiding her hair again--a weird feeling, but kind of soothing too. She's surprised by how much lighter her head starts to feel as Dina cuts, how she can feel air on the back of her neck.
The time goes by quickly, and it feels like only a few minutes until Dina's brushing all the excess hair off her shoulders and shoving her towards the mirror. Ellie lets herself be shoved and then just...stares.
"Do you like it?" Dina asks, but the grin on her face shows that she knows how good of a job she did. Ellie's grinning too.
"I love it," Ellie says with a grin. "Look at it!"
It's not a buzzcut, but it's short--and she'd never realized how much she loved that. She keeps running her fingers through it, marveling at how nice it looks.
"You're the handsomest girl I've ever met," Dina says, hugging her from the side, and Ellie hugs her back.
"You're a sap," Ellie says.
"Yeah, but you love me," Dina says, looking up at her with a grin. "Now come here, I cut your hair, I want to see how it feels too."
Dina drags her back to the couch and touches her hair (after checking to see if Ellie is okay with it, which she is), and Ellie knows she's not going to miss the hair-braiding, because as soothing as that was, this is nicer.
"I kind of love it," Dina says. "It looks so good on you, Ellie."
"I should hope so," Ellie says, ignoring how her face feels redder than her hair. "You did it."
"Damn right I did," Dina says proudly.
Ellie can only kind of see the mirror from here, but she loves her hair from this angle too. "Handsome," she says to herself, and Dina hugs her again.