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Ellie tries not to lose track of time anymore, easy as it is for her to do so. She likes to know when things are happening, and you have to know when now is to know when later is (shocker). Unfortunately, Dina's new favorite hobby, running her fingers through Ellie's short hair, makes her forget everything but the gentle pull of her friend's fingers, how she combs through what little hair Ellie has left, somehow making it messier and making it look right at the same time, making her chest feel light and her stomach knot up and her smile uncontrollable--
She lost track of what she was thinking.
Oh, right. Dina's a menace who makes Ellie fail to realize that a) literal hours have passed, b) it's dinnertime soon/now, and c) she did not, in fact, tell Joel she was going to get a haircut.
"You okay?" Dina asks, stopping her--whatever she's doing. If Ellie thinks about what she'd call it she gets a little too bashful to talk about it or also just in general. "Kinda froze up a bit there."
Ellie was gonna tease her for noticing, or maybe be more honest and say "when I got here it seemed like no one got what I was about except you and you can still read me so well and I can't tell you what that means to me, thanks for being my friend even if I'd love if you were more than that". Instead, she just says, "Yeah, I'm good. Uh, Joel might be surprised by this, though." She points to her hair.
Dina's mouth opens in a half-"whoops" look and half-grimace. "Do you, uh, think he'll be upset?"
Ellie loves Dina, but she's not the greatest at emotional talk sometimes. This awkward question is her way of reaching out and asking if she wants to talk about it and apologizing for not thinking of doing so earlier. Sometimes Ellie will drag out the beginning of these conversations a little too far until Dina gets too annoyed to be subtle and asks what's wrong in the bluntest terms Ellie's heard since first actually getting along with Joel. It's refreshing. Right now, though, she still feels a little too soft to start up their usual back-and-forth.
"Nah," Ellie says. "He'll probably wanna talk about it, make sure this isn't the hair dye thing again."
Dina groans. "How was I supposed to know it expired?"
"It said so on the box, dumbass," Ellie says, smiling up at her from the floor. Dina gently hits her with one of her legs, but miscalculates her level of force and actually just whacks her. It doesn't really hurt so much as shock her, but she decides to lie dramatically on the floor and stare accusingly at her anyway.
"Sorry! Sorry. Also, you didn't read the box either, and it was going on your hair so if anyone's a dumbass, it's you, I think," Dina says. Ellie sticks her tongue out. "Wow. I'm hurt."
"I know," Ellie says. "You're welcome to stay but I'm guessing you don't wanna be here for me and Joel and a maybe-lecture."
"Absolutely not, bye, love you," Dina says, helping Ellie up and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek before practically running down the stairs. Ellie's too caught up in pressing one of her hands to her cheek to fully register that Joel's home now and Dina's attempted rushed-exit has definitely tipped him off to the fact that there is a situation. His heavy footsteps on the stairs manage to shock her out of her daze, but not quickly enough for her to hide the hair on the floor or the lack of it on her head.
"Ellie, is--" Joel stops and just. Looks at her. It's awkward. She doesn't like it.
"Uh. Dina cut my hair," Ellie says. She feels like a kid again. She normally hates that. She wants to ask if he likes it, wants to hear him say she looks awesome or some other awkward word that doesn't fit, wants to call him Dad. God. She's being stupid. "What, uh. What were you up to today?"
"Nothing much," Joel says, and goes quiet again. Ellie doesn't know how she's supposed to respond to that. "Your hair, uh."
"If you tell me it looks bad, I'm stealing all your flannels again, so," Ellie says, half-cutting him off when he starts to say, "How do you like it," and she registers that he's asking a question and also tearing up a bit.
The former is way easier to handle than the latter, so she starts with, "I kind of love it, actually. I, uh. Wanna keep it this way." There's another few beats of silence, and Ellie's not sure if it's the kind of comfortable silence they sometimes have or the awkward silence they usually have or even the tense silence they have when they're fighting and neither of them can think of anything to say that won't push into all the painful places they have between the two of them and unwilling to cause that much damage.
Joel's still tearing up. After working up the courage, she says, "Are you okay?"
"What? Yeah, I'm fine," Joel says, quickly, not obviously-defensive but still defensive all the same.
"Then why, uh." Her courage fails her and she just gestures to her eye area, hoping he gets it.
"You looked real happy when I came upstairs," Joel says. Ellie's brow furrows as she tries to follow the logic. Joel will sometimes answer questions in the most baffling goddamn way. It's infuriating. It's a relief that he's doing it now, means he's not mad.
"So you're crying because I'm happy?" Ellie asks, trying not to be offended.
"Haven't seen you smile like that in awhile," Joel says, and for once, Ellie's relieved he doesn't finish his sentence or even his thought because fuck, she thought she was gonna get a "I'm not mad just disappointed" because she was too impulsive, or something. She didn't expect an emotionally honest conversation. They don't just have those.
"Oh."
The silence now is definitely awkward, but Ellie still finds herself smiling.
"It looks good," Joel says decisively, shattering the silence with a sledgehammer. "Short hair takes a lot of upkeep."
"Dina has haircutting scissors now, so," Ellie says. "That should be fine."
Joel nods. "Good. Don't want to wake up one day to you having a half-mullet."
Ellie's mouth opens in abject shock. "That's the meanest thing you've ever said to me."