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It started with idle conversation. Zolf and Oscar had managed, finally, to settle into a kind of routine, and most of the stiff awkwardness had eased out of their interactions - familiarity helped, and frankly it was just too damned exhausting to try to maintain that sort of arms'-length distance. It wasn't precisely domestic, but it was at least comfortable.
Oscar was, for once, not buried in work, but perched on a worktop while Zolf sliced vegetables. He was examining the ends of his hair, finally long enough to be able to see them; Zolf was privately glad to see a hint of the man's old vanity peeking through the newer, colder Oscar.
It was nice. It was a comfortable silence.
Zolf was startled when it was Oscar who broke it.
"Your hair got long."
Zolf looked up to find Oscar idly watching him. He stared at Oscar in momentary incomprehension. He hadn't thought about his hair in... he couldn't remember, in fact, the last time he'd thought about his hair.
"I. What?" Zolf replied, the picture of eloquence. Oscar leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
"Your hair got long." Oscar's voice was a little stiff, but Zolf had learned by now to recognise the signs of Oscar trying . "Which is, upon reflection, a damn stupid thing to say, because hair grows, but I just realised. The last time we ...worked together, your hair was short. Navy cut, in fact, if I remember correctly."
“Yeah, well.” Zolf turned back to resume slicing vegetables, his knife moving in the balanced see-saw of long practise. “Last time we worked together, I was in a position to get a regular haircut.” He waved the knife (carefully, no sense accidentally cutting Oscar) (although deliberately cutting Oscar had in fact occurred to him more than once in the last few months) in a semi-circle around them. “Been a lack of decent barbers of late, if you hadn’t noticed.”
For a moment or two the little kitchen was filled only with the whisper of a sharp blade through radishes and the soft ‘thunk’ of it against the wooden board beneath.
Oscar stirred.
“I could cut it for you.” It was casual, tossed out glibly, and it almost sounded like the old Oscar. Zolf understood now, though, what that had meant. How much it was designed to deflect and obfuscate something vulnerable underneath.
The offer surprised him for much the same reason. Zolf didn’t immediately answer, wondering at it, thinking it over. There was a difference between paying a professional versus allowing a fr- someone you knew to handle part of your grooming. It was a kind of closeness that was ironically easier to countenance from a stranger.
It was a kind of closeness that Zolf had watched Oscar deliberately distance himself from at all costs.
Zolf moved on to the cabbage, and thought about that.
He thought about the gradual thawing of tension that had been creeping slowly but steadily into their interactions.
He thought about the moments - rare and unpredictable - when Oscar let his guard down, let Zolf see a glimmer of something open and genuine.
He thought about the sort of person who would require both Oscar’s original facade, and this new, detached one.
He thought about Oscar’s posture now: hunched over himself just a bit, a touch of tension tugging his shoulders tight, his expression just a little too casual.
“All right,” Zolf said. At the periphery of his vision, he watched Oscar startle, and he carefully didn’t look up, didn’t change what he was doing, just ran the knife through the vegetables, reducing it to smaller parts while Oscar, with impressive swiftness, recovered his composure.
Oscar slithered off the worktop, landing with a soft thump of his bare feet on the wooden floor. “Very well,” he replied breezily, and brushed past Zolf to the kitchen door. “After dinner then, I suppose? Good a time as any.”
Zolf didn’t have a chance to respond before Oscar was gone.
Dinner that evening was a perfectly unremarkable affair. Zolf took a covered plate to Oscar, ensconced in his office as usual, and went back downstairs to eat with the innkeeper and argue with him in mutually-limited linguistic (in)comprehension about whether the food had been correctly prepared.
These days, it generally ended with a glass of cheap sake and a game. The innkeeper had been teaching Zolf how to play some complicated thing involving dice, and Zolf was teaching him whist - or at least, a bastardised version of it. It passed the time.
It was no different tonight. They ate, they bickered good-naturedly, they nursed a glass of sake each over a game board and dice, and then Zolf gathered up the dishes and retired to the kitchen to do the washing-up and leave the kitchen ready for the next day.
He was part way through toweling off the clean dishes when a quiet cough from the direction of the door made him jump. Zolf whirled, grabbing the nearby kitchen knife out of instinct, and Oscar took a startled step back.
Zolf felt a twinge of chagrin, although he couldn’t have helped his reaction - sudden noises, especially in recent days, were firmly in the category of ‘take no chances’. But there had been a flash of real fear in Oscar’s eyes.
He carefully laid the knife aside, and Oscar stepped back through the door. His uneven smile was forced, but Zolf was pleased to see it; Oscar was, once again, trying .
“If you’ve changed your mind,” Oscar said drily, “there are other ways to tell me besides threatening my life.”
“If you were tryin’ to kill me,” Zolf groused in reply, “there’s a dozen ways I’d rather go than a heart attack. Gods’ sakes, Wilde, you move like a damned cat.”
The answering smirk seemed a touch more natural. Six months ago, it would have driven Zolf to fond fantasies of Oscar face-down in a few inches of water; now it was a private warmth.
“It’s good to know I haven’t lost my touch,” Oscar replied airily, and laid down what he was carrying on the island worktop. A towel, Zolf realised, and a comb, a pair of scissors, and a razor.
“Huh,” Zolf said. “Didn’t know you had all that with you. I figured you just-” He wiggled his fingers in a deliberately-fey gesture in front of his face, holding Oscar’s gaze deadpan.
It took Zolf a moment to realise that Oscar’s slightly offended expression was just as much a teasing ploy as his had just been.
“ Please , Zolf,” Oscar replied haughtily. “You cannot just-” He repeated Zolf’s gesture, making it seem distractingly elegant. “-a face like this.”
And that, Zolf thought, was another good sign. Oscar had avoided any mention of his appearance since- since the scar had appeared - and quickly and coldly shut down any discussion of it by others.
“Right then,” Zolf said, pushing through the moment lest Oscar dwell and grow self-conscious. “Since you’ve got so much practice, let’s find out how you’ll mangle my head for me.”
Oscar snorted.
“Easiest, I think, if you sit on the floor,” he said, once again a little too casually. Zolf pretended not to notice, grumbled as he lowered himself to his knees and then folded up to sit with his legs crossed. The prosthetics were better about flexibility than his actual legs had been, a fact Zolf had occasionally been privately grateful for. He wasn’t getting any younger.
Oscar draped the towel over Zolf’s shoulders and wrapped it loosely around his neck to cover his chest as well. Lightly, he said, “So just shaving the whole thing, yes? Beard and all? I’ll just take it right down to the skin-”
Zolf shot him a filthy look and secretly delighted in the swift, bright, sincere look of mischievous delight that darted across Oscar’s face before he moved back out of sight. He could hear the rustle of cloth; winced at the creak of a joint as Oscar knelt on the floor behind him.
“I won’t touch your beard.” Oscar’s tone quietened, any hint of flippancy evaporated like breath off the razor in his hand. “I know it’s important. Just your hair.”
Oscar’s fingertips alit with a bit of hesitancy at the crown of Zolf’s head. With a feather-light touch, he combed them through Zolf’s hair, and Zolf wasn’t certain if that was for his benefit or Oscar’s.
“I ain’t tender-headed,” he said, and then after a moment’s thought appended, “and I don’t mind you touchin’ me.”
It might have been his imagination that he heard a soft sigh of relief.
“Fair enough,” was what Oscar said, and the next comb of his fingers through Zolf’s hair was decidedly less uncertain.
Oscar worked through the tangles with his fingers first, separating strands of hair with a care and delicacy that surprised Zolf - although perhaps it shouldn’t have done. There was a certain delicacy to everything Oscar did, even when he was being brutally efficient.
When the most egregious tangles were unraveled, Oscar retrieved the comb to begin working out the rest. Zolf found himself relaxing into the feeling of Oscar’s fine-boned fingers deftly gliding through his hair in the wake of the comb, of blunt nails occasionally dragging against his scalp. He closed his eyes and let out a contented sigh that was half a rumbling hum, and behind him, Oscar gave a quiet, startled laugh.
“Enjoying yourself?” Oscar said quietly, faint amusement colouring his tone, and Zolf shrugged one-shouldered.
“Feels good,” he admitted. He could feel Oscar’s knees against his lower back, the brief, warm pressure of his thighs as Oscar leaned forward to comb Zolf’s hair back from his brow, measuring the length of it and how it lay on his head, and there was unexpected comfort in the casual contact.
“Mmm.” It was a short, musical hum; acknowledgement? Agreement? Zolf couldn’t tell, but he wasn’t particularly fussed about it, not in the face of the uncomplicated pleasure of just being touched .
“How short?”
“Mm?” It was Zolf’s turn to give a wordless answer, and he realised he had been drifting a bit. A pair of scissors appeared in front of his face, held by a slender hand, and snipped open and shut once.
“The whole point of this is to make your hair shorter,” Oscar said with amusement. “How short shall I cut it?”
“Oh. Ah...” Zolf blanked. He hadn’t really thought about it. A preference was never a consideration, really. A regulation haircut for years, followed by a complete shave until he ‘retired’ from piracy, and then just...whatever a barber thought might suit, and that he could afford to pay for.
“I thought the navy cut looked well on you,” Oscar said quietly, his tone carefully neutral. Zolf wondered at that, and wondered at the mild urge he felt to tell him yes, that, just so that Oscar might smile when he saw it.
It was important to him, Zolf realised, that Oscar start to smile again.
“All right,” Zolf said, and reached up to scratch the tip of his ear. “Let’s do that, then. Mind the ears, I don’t want ‘em too short and endin’ up lookin’ like yours.”
This earned not only a smile, but another little laugh, and Zolf closed his eyes again, pleased with himself.
There was a calming rhythm to it as Oscar wordlessly bent to his work, and Zolf let his attention narrow to focus just on the movements of Oscar's hands, which he felt acutely: the careful slide of hair between Oscar's fingers to tug it out straight, and the odd sensation of the scissors severing it strand by strand. The gentle drag of fingertips over his scalp, ruffling his hair to examine it for length, for evenness, for how it would look when allowed to do what it will. The warmth of Oscar's palm on his neck and the gentle pressure of his fingertips at the back of Zolf's skull, encouraging him to bow his head forward, letting Oscar cautiously glide the razor up through the fine hairs at the back of his neck.
Zolf heard the metallic click of the razor as Oscar gently set it down on the floor, apparently finished, but Oscar didn't immediately stand. After a moment, his hands - both of them - came to rest on Zolf’s head, combing his fingers back through his hair, this time not to measure or snip or shear but just, apparently, to touch .
It occurred to Zolf to wonder: if he’d been suffering the lack of contact, how much worse had it been for Oscar, forever more needful of attention, of companionship, of touch? He could deny it if he liked - and in the last span of months he had done so with increasingly grim obduracy - but Oscar had always been a creature of tactile need.
Gods, how that must ache .
Zolf felt the hesitancy in Oscar’s touch again and held himself immobile, held his breath, held his thoughts still lest he break whatever reverie had allowed Oscar to even for a few moments abandon the protective carapace he assiduously maintained at all times.
Oscar was gentle and slow, almost dreamily running his fingers over Zolf’s head. There was nothing suggestive in it, not a hint of ulterior motive, and Oscar was, Zolf realised with a shock, humming .
It was soft, almost tuneless, just a quiet and lilting not-quite-melody that Zolf was almost certain Oscar didn’t realise he was making, and it was the first time Zolf had heard Oscar sing since-
Well. Since Paris.
He must have made some sound of surprise, because Oscar’s hands jerked back as though burned, and the sound of his voice cut off abruptly. Zolf mentally kicked himself as Oscar, without saying a word, got to his feet and unwound the towel from around Zolf's neck.
“It’s done,” Oscar said abruptly, tight-voiced, then turned his back and gave the towel a shake to dislodge most of the shorn hair. He didn't turn around when Zolf clambered to his feet. Zolf watched him for a moment, desperately trying to sort out what exactly it was he wanted to say, while Oscar cleaned the scissors and the razor, folded the towel- pointlessly, as it would have to be washed.
Something good had been happening, Zolf knew, and then it had been cut short, and he felt a hollow pang of regret for it.
"Wilde," Zolf said, and Oscar made some wordless sound of acknowledgement as he gathered up the cleaned tools and began for the door.
"Oscar."
That stopped him. Oscar half-turned, looking wary beneath the customary neutral expression he was still pulling into place.
Zolf sucked in a breath and let it out.
Did it again. One more time. He felt in this moment like a man wading through waves that might at any moment sweep him away in the undertow.
Zolf said, cautiously, “...you didn’t have t’stop.”
Oscar just stared. Zolf took, equally cautiously, a couple of steps forward, stopped.
“Look,” he said. “I know you’ve been keepin’ yourself to yourself, and I don’t blame you. Trust ain’t easy to come by anymore, and it’s safer, right, if you just don’t .” Zolf paused, weighing Oscar’s reaction. There was little to read in Oscar’s carefully neutral expression and Zolf plunged ahead. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Thing is, Wi- Oscar ,” he said, “I knew you, before all this.” Zolf gestured expansively around them. “And I know a whole lot of that was bullshit too, but not all of it. I figured out - after I got over wantin’ t’drown you in a bucket - which bits were real, some of it. Took me a while, sure, but. I figured it out.”
Oscar’s expression slipped, just for a second. Zolf pretended not to see.
“What I’m tryin’ t’say is.” Zolf hesitated. The hell was he trying to say?
He was trying to say: being cared for felt good .
He was trying to say: it was nice to be touched .
He was trying to say: it’s okay that you need it .
He was trying to say: you didn’t have to stop.
Zolf came to an abrupt decision. He held out his hand.
“What I’m tryin’ to say is,” Zolf said, “gimme those scissors an’ get over here. I ain’t the only one who needs a trim.”
What he was trying to say wouldn’t come out right, Zolf knew, and wouldn’t be received well anyway. Better to show. The world was ending and gods only knew how much longer they’d survive in it, but right here, right now, they didn’t have to suffer in solitary silence. Zolf waited for Oscar to settle on the floor, then began combing his fingers through the fine, dark hair.
The rain outside pattered incessantly against the walls and windows, and was the only sound aside from the resumed snick of the scissors. Zolf took his time.
After a while, he smiled: on the floor in front of him, softening under the simple contact of Zolf’s hands in his hair, Oscar Wilde began to aimlessly, unconsciously hum.