Archive of Our Own

The house was awfully quiet.

Too quiet.

Jon thought he heard giggling, which only made him smile, because he was so glad his daughters found such amusement with each other. He was glad they actually liked each other, seeing as he found growing up with some of his siblings to be rather tedious. He got along well with Robb, Arya was practically like the twin he never had, but then there was Sansa who he barely tolerated as a kid let alone as an adult, and Bran was always a bit odd and he still wasn’t sure how to deal with him.

The girls on the other hand, from the moment they were all nestled together in their little incubator right after birth, had always been best friends. He listened a little closer, still smiling at the giggling, which grew a bit louder. Whew, he sighed, relieved. Giggling was alright to hear, the silence, not so much.

Silence could only mean bad things, unless they were sleeping. Then it was a positive blessing.

He leaned back over their bathtub, scrubbing the sides, his biceps bunching and shoulders flexing as he cleaned off the remnants of watermelon-scented shampoo and glitter bubble bath. Sweat gathered at the base of his neck, his hair sticking to his temples. He lifted his arm, wiping his forearm over his forehead, wincing. Maybe shouldn’t have done such an intense arm workout this morning. He got to his feet, stripping off the yellow gloves and setting them in the bucket that contained most of the cleaning supplies.

“Girls?” he called, hearing the giggling dying away. Jon glanced at his reflection in the mirror, making a face at his hair, which was all over the place these days. Maybe I need a trim. Dany tended to be the one to tell him when he needed a haircut. He made the mistake once of getting it done without her permission and she had been livid at him for chopping off “your glorious curls!”

He tugged the elastic band—pink with a unicorn on it that he’d stolen from Alysanne that morning—free of his messy topknot, readjusting it and leaving the bathroom once he’d stowed away all the chemicals, tugging the door to ensure that the safety latch held.

Ghost appeared in the hallway, head ducked down, red eyes cast towards the floor. His tail even seemed to be hanging lower than normal, and if Jon was not mistaken, he seemed like he did not want to linger. “What’s up with you?” he wondered. Ghost didn’t answer, but if he did, Jon would suspect that he needed more adult interaction. Or perhaps a visit to the doctor.

Since the girls were still giggling, he left them be in their room, and went into his room, changing his sweaty t-shirt for a cleaner one. He was just pulling it over his head, when he heard the first sounds of what was likely to be a really, really, really bad tantrum.

“Nooooooooo! I wanted to do it!”

“Hey!” he shouted, storming from his room, immediately on edge. He could tolerate a few tears now and then, but when one of the girls threw such a bloody fit because they couldn’t do something the other did, he usually went straight to 100 percent disciplinarian. He pushed open their bedroom door, which was already cracked, stomping inside to see what the screaming—and now full on hiccuping tears—was about.

And he stopped hard, staring at the mess.

Alysanne sat to one side, while Rhaella was on the other. Lyanna was sitting in one of their pink desk chairs, feet swinging back and forth. Aly had tears staining her face, her cheeks pink and splotchy. Rhaella was chewing her bottom lip just like Dany did when she was nervous. She was holding a pair of pink zig-zag scissors in her hand.

Lyanna was staring up at him, with half of her pretty silver-gold hair missing from the top of her head. She was a bit quizzical, like she couldn’t understand why Aly was sobbing, why he was angry, and what to do with the clump of hair she now held in her hand, a purple ribbon still attached to it.

She blinked up at him. “Hi Daddy,” she said.

Jon stared at them for a moment. He looked at the hair in his daughter’s hand. Focused a bit longer on her. She was smiling; so it wasn’t unwanted. He turned to glance at Rhaella, noticing now that she was missing her bangs. There was a chunk from the back of her hair gone as well.

Alysanne, on the other hand, still had all her hair, in the braid he’d put it in earlier that morning before they went to preschool. She wiped at her eyes, still hiccuping, clearly upset. “They won’t let me!” she sobbed. She turned to Rhaella, who immediately dropped the scissors. She shrieked, livid. “I wanted to cut her hair! You already did it!”

Oh bloody hell.

Jon stepped towards them, snatching the scissors from Rhaella. They were the “dum-dum” kind that the school required for their pencil boxes, he didn’t think they had a blade sharp enough to cut paper, let alone hair. He set them on the desk and knelt down to inspect the damage, his heart racing. He was trying to ascertain what to do first. In the four years of being their father, Jon had dealt with many tantrums, tears, and troublemaking.

This was a new one.

He swallowed the lump in his throat . “Um, okay, Aly, stop crying.”

“But I wanted…”

“No!” he exclaimed, firm with her, his brow furrowing. She snapped her mouth shut, knowing not to go too far now. He took the hair from Lyanna, sighing. Well I can’t glue it back on or anything. He fussed with her hair for a moment. “Okay, so, I am going to ask you all and you are going to tell me the truth.”

They exchanged a three-way look, no doubt concocting their story via their triplet connection. Aly’s face was still red, but her tears were gone. She nodded quickly, her violet eyes still wavering slightly behind her pink frames. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes,” the other two replied.

“No one will be in trouble.” Yet.

They nodded in unison.

He took another deep breath, closing his eyes, and exhaled, shoulders falling with the movement. “Why did you feel the need to cut your hair?” The question was posed for all three of them, whoever wanted to answer first.

Rhaella spoke, a tiny quiver. “I got something in mine.”

“What did you get in your hair?”

Lyanna was the first to break, all three of them still quiet. Except her eyes darted towards the backpack sitting nearby. Jon stood and went over to it, picking it up and removed a handful of empty bubblegum wrappers. He sighed. They weren’t allowed to have gum; Dany was scared they would swallow it and choke. Plus there was their teeth to consider, she told them. He turned to them all, holding the wrappers aloft, silently questioning.

It was Rhae who broke this time, shaking from head to toe, unable to stop herself. “We-got-it-at-school-from-Sara-she-got-it-from-her-sister-it-was-good.” It all came out in one breath, her cheeks pink from the exertion. She sank down a bit, thankful to get it off her chest.

Well that was easy enough to figure out. Rhae got gum in her hair—gods only knew how—they thought to cut it out instead of coming to him because they thought they’d get in trouble for having it. Still does not explain Lya, he figured. He voiced this to Lya, who slumped, sheepish. “Wanna’ be same,” she said.

“And I wanted to do it!” Aly piped up. She sniffed again. “They didn’t let me!”

Jon took both Lya and Rhae’s hands—both of which were sticky—he led them into the bathroom and plopped one on the toilet and the other he swung onto the bathroom vanity, the bright light allowing him to see better and the mirror helping figure where exactly they had chopped at their hair.

“You gonna’ fix it?” Rhae asked.

“Daddy is not a hair person,” he said. He pursed his lips, pulling some of Rhae’s hair back, thinking maybe they could get away with it, but there was now ay Lya would be able to walk around the way she was. Her hair stuck up all over the damn place, since they had just cut off her ponytail. There was essentially a hole in the back of her head.

Aly fussed around his feet. “I wanna’ be like them!”

Lya pulled at his hair, which was coming out of his topknot. “Daddy you got long hair.”

“I do.”

“How come?”

“Because your Mommy likes it.”

“Oh.”

Jon pulled his phone from his pocket, unable to help himself, and took a few pictures of them all, just for history keeping purposes. One day he might need them for blackmail, he supposed, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. He set Lya down on the floor and took Rhae, looking at her too. He decided there was only one way to fix it.

“Girls,” he announced, eyebrows arching up. They peered at him, wide-eyed. He smirked. “We’re going to have a real-life spa day.”

They beamed.

“I like mine the most.”

“No, mine!”

“Momma gonna’ like mine too!”

Jon ferried them into the house from the car, glad he could get them into a child hair stylist up at the mall before Dany came home. If he was lucky, she would be working a little late and he could figure out how best to explain to her that her darling little girls all now had cute little coifs, just short enough they couldn’t be pulled into a braid or ponytail, but long enough to still tousle about the tops of their heads. The hair stylist had laughed when he brought them in, claiming that ”It happens more often than you think it does!” when he explained the situation.

She had buzzed about, all the girls excited to take their pick of chair—Lya chose the dragon, Rhae the unicorn, and Aly picked the knight’s horse. Aly didn’t need her hair cut, but because she was desperate to be like her sisters, she got hers done just like them. The only thing was Rhae’s was just a tad longer on one side to account for how she’d hacked at her hair and a pink barrette pulled some over the side of her forehead to clip at her temple.

Jon opened the door, letting them into the house. “Yes, your mother will be very surprised.” He was still wondering how best to explain it to her, so she didn’t have a coronary when she walked in the door that night.

“Daddy your hair too long,” Lya said, her words mumbling around the sucker that she had been treating like the Holy Grail. They were allowed to pick one piece of candy each after their haircuts and both Rhae and Aly had already eaten theirs. She held her arms up and he picked her up, knowing she still felt bad about what had happened earlier.

Jon ruffled her new little ‘do. “Yeah, it is a bit long, Daddy needs to cut it.”

Lya wrapped her arms around his neck, and he felt something pull at the back of his hair. He didn’t think much of it until he went to set her down and she scowled, reaching her hand up. “Gimme it back.”

“Give what back?”

Aly laughed. “Oopsie!”

Rhae pointed. “Her sucker Daddy!”

Oh shit. Jon reached back, yowling when he tried to take out the sucker that Lya had clearly either dropped into his hair or had placed their on purpose—why he had no idea. It pulled at the back of his hair and he tried to untangle it, but it was caught pretty well around his curls. He grit his teeth, growling. What is this made of? Cement?! “Lya why did you do that?” he mumbled, stepping into the half-bath off the front hallway so he could get a better look.

Lya poked her head in, shrugging. “I dunno.” She held her hand out. “Give it back.”

“You’re not getting this back, kid.”

“Daddy that’s not nice, you can’t steal it from her,” Rhae called. She showed up next. Her eyes were wide and if he was not mistaken, it looked like she was going to cry. The most sensitive of them, he had actually been waiting for her to burst into tears because of what had happened to their hair. She didn’t even like it when they had to throw out bad vegetables or dead houseplants, insisting that they all say goodbye to them. Let alone her own hair. She sniffed. “Daddy I don’t like it now.”

Oh damn. Here it comes.

Aly narrowed her eyes on her sister. “What?”

Rhae’s chin was quivering. “My hair. I want it back. Like Daddy’s.”

Jon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Get it over with, like a bandaid. He yanked, the sucker coming out of his hair and taking a chunk of it out too. “Fuck!” he shouted.

“Bad word!” all three yelled at once, very familiar with the bad words because their Uncle Tormund had recently visited.

“I know, I know! Don’t tell your mother.” He turned his head, cringing; it hadn’t taken out much, but dang that hurt. He glanced down at Rhae, who was on the edge of a full-on tantrum. She was starting to hyperventilate, her breath in wheezes. He knelt, reaching to stroke at her new little haircut, which was quite cute. “Hey, shh….it’s alright love, it’s just hair. It grows back, remember when we got Ghost that haircut, so he wasn’t so hot?”

They had all been very nervous when Ghost needed to go in and get shaved down before the summer, returning looking like he had lost about fifty pounds. They were only reassured when they kept telling them it would grow back, longer and fluffier than ever before, and it had, proving them right. For once, Jon thought idly, hoping that this time the explanation would still suffice.

It didn’t. Rhae was still very upset. She shook her head from side to side, crying. “I don’t like it, I want it back! Gimme my hair back!”

Her sisters patted her back, Lya wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay Rhae Rhae,” she said.

“Yeah,” Aly said in agreement.

Rhae sobbed. “Daddy I don’t look like you!”

You never did sweetheart. Rhae was the most alike to Dany. If any of the silver-gold haired little girls looked like him, it was Lyanna, and that was only because her eyes were gray and her face just slightly narrower than her heart-face sisters. He rubbed the back of his head, where the sucker had been stuck, an idea forming. He had to get her to calm down.

He looked at them all and then glanced at his reflection in the mirror. He chewed his bottom lip. It will grow back, he thought morosely. He looked down at all of them again. “Hey girls,” he said, eyebrows lifting. He grinned, almost maniacal. I am going to need a drink before we do this. “Do you want me to look like you?”

All three beamed, even crying Rhae. They nodded. “Yes!”

“Okay,” he squeaked, turning them towards the stairs. “Let’s go then.”

The girls were settled with a movie, watching Moana sail off to find Maui, nestled among the couch cushions with their blankets, slipping Ghost pieces of popcorn when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Jon tapped his fingers nervously on his knee, wishing he still smoked. He’d given it up when the girls came along, not even a Juul or e-cigarette to tide him over. “Maybe I still have a nicotine patch somewhere,” he mumbled into his hands, glancing at the tumbler of whiskey he’d drained, in preparation for the confrontation.

He looked at his phone, the last text taunting him. It was from twenty minutes ago. On way home. Rough day, pour me a glass of wine. Going to kill Tyrion.

The glass of wine was already waiting, as was the entire bottle. Jon had even set out all her various bath products, filled the tub halfway with the most scalding water the tap could go to, and even laid her favorite silk negligee down on the bed, which she didn’t often wear because she was too tired to even put it on, preferring to take one of his t-shirts, whichever one she could wrap her fingers around first.

Ghost popped up over the top of the couch, ears pricking. Jon whipped his head from where he was sitting at the kitchen table to the side door. He heard the gears of the garage going up, his heart jackhammering in his chest. He held his breath, the doorknob rattling and opening. “I’m home!”

“Mommy!” all three yelled, springing over the couch and around, feet pounding on the hardwood.

Dany emerged from the mudroom, a smile wide on her face. She froze, staring at the girls, who were around her legs, jumping up and down. “Oh my…oh girls! What…what happened to your hair?” she exclaimed, kneeling immediately and tugging gently at one of the curls that spiraled out from Lya’s temple.

“Do you like it?” Rhae asked, bouncing up and down nervously. “We got haircuts!”

“I…I see that…”

“Daddy took us to a nice hair lady, I got a sucker!”

“And I got a hair clip!”

“And Daddy got his hair cut too!”

Oh more than a cut. Jon remained seated at the kitchen table, in the shadows, hiding like a coward. Ghost glared at him, clearly disgusted that he couldn’t man up and just go to his wife. He swallowed hard and stood, holding the wine glass tightly by the stem, using it as a buffer.

If I am holding glass and red wine, she won’t throw it at me, right?

“Hey babe.”

Dany looked up at him, briefly, and smiled, turning back to the girls. She fussed for a second with Lya’s hair and then paused. She rotated her head, very slowly, almost around completely. Her eyes widened and her smile pulled wide. She got to her feet; she hadn’t taken off her high heels, but even with the four-inch stilettos, she was still tiny.

It didn’t matter. Jon cowered, waiting for her wrath.

The girls ran off, shouting for Ghost, and bounced back onto the couch, taking up their popcorn and attention returning to their movie, their mother’s approval of their new hairstyles extinguishing any nerves they might have had and had now moved on to the next important thing in their lives.

He thrust the wine glass at her. “How was your day? You said it was a rough day and you were going to kill Tyrion, what did he do now? Did he steal one of your cases? Drive off another client? I made you your favorite noodles I put them in the oven all you have to do is heat them up, actually you know what? I’ll heat them up, let me go heat them up for you, you take off your shoes and drink your wine and oh yeah I made a bath for you upstairs and got your favorite nightgown and…”

Rambling like an idiot, he finally stopped when she placed her fingers to his lips. He snapped his jaw shut. Dany kept smiling, her hand wrapping around his wrist, and she tugged him out of the kitchen and into his study adjacent the TV room. She closed the door and whirled on him, eyes wide and horror-struck, her hands slapping to her face, almost distraught.

”WHAT IN THE SEVEN HELLS DID YOU DO TO YOUR GLORIOUS CURLS!?”

Jon ran his hand over his new buzz cut, sighing. “Well it all started when the girls got some gum…”