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Raoul ran his hand through his hair.
He had nice hair. He was aware of this. Christine loved his hair. It was golden and the ends curled just so, and it poofed up on top in a manner that was most becoming. Raoul was not being conceited when he said had good hair.
But today it felt... different.
It was uneven. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know why. All he knew was that it felt different than yesterday.
Erik crawled out of the next room and came to stare at Raoul. Raoul stared right back at him as he continued to run his fingers through his locks, mentally measuring them. Erik’s big yellow eyes followed the movement of Raoul’s fingers like a cat watching a bird.
“What?”
A blank stare.
“What is it?” he grumbled.
He had promised Christine he wouldn’t grumble at her “Angel”, but something about the fellow just brought out his grumbling side.
“You’re just jealous,” Raoul breathed, looking away.
Why wouldn’t Erik be jealous? His little head was bald except for a few sparse sprouts of hair.
“Because you’re bald,” Raoul added nervously, trying to needle a response from him.
A big grin formed on Erik’s face.
“You’ll be bald too if you keep tugging on it like that,” Erik mocked before turning and running away.
Raoul shuddered. It was always unnerving to hear that deep, more-attractive-than-it-should-be voice coming out of such a small creature. He was thankful that Erik so rarely chose to talk to him, though it annoyed him as well.
His lopsided hair bothered him all day. He hoped he was imagining it, and that tomorrow everything would be fine again.
The next morning, it was worse. He fretted over it all day, certain he was losing his mind over it. He was imagining it! He had to be.
But that night after Christine had come home from work and they had finished eating and at last they were preparing to sleep, Christine noticed it too.
She was running her hands through his hair, as she often did, when she frowned a little in the darkness.
“Did you get a haircut, dear?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he huffed.
From the foot of the bed, someone snickered cruelly.
Later that night, after Raoul had fallen asleep clutched to Christine’s bosom, he was awoken by the feeling of something moving around his pillow. He blinked, trying to see in the dark, the only illumination coming from the jar of lighting bugs in the corner of the room.
Erik was standing over his head. Something silver glinted in the bug-light.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” Raoul shouted.
There was a slight clatter and Erik huddled down by Christine’s pillow.
“Raoul, what are you yelling about now,” Christine yawned, half asleep, and patted him on the head.
“Erik has something in his hands,” he accused. “Erik was going to do something to me!”
Realization dawned on him.
“Erik is stealing my hair!”
“You are so silly,” she said fondly. “My silly sailor. Erik does not steal hair. I’m sure he was merely admiring it. He is a great admirer of hair, you know. He plays with mine all the time when I’m asleep, I’m sure he was just doing the same to you!”
She kissed her husband on the forehead as if that settled the matter, and she fell back asleep.
Raoul glanced up, noticing two squinting, glinting eyes glaring at him from behind her pillow.
His mysterious hair loss continued for two more days, much to his horror. He tried to stay awake all night, certain Erik was behind this, but regrettably ended up falling asleep each time. Now, his hair was even at last, but was nearly three inches shorter.
Christine eyed his new hair with thinly veiled disappointment. She could still run her fingers through it, but it just wasn’t the same.
Raoul remained baffled by what had happened for the next few days. He didn’t understand why Erin had done this, other than to mock him and make him less pleasing to his wife. But that was so unlike Erik—he might not get along with Raoul all of the time, but he would certainly never do anything that would harm or upset Christine.
It wasn’t until the weekend, when Christine was off from work, that Erik’s horrible end game came to fruition.
Christine and Raoul were sitting on the sofas reading books, when Erik sauntered into the room. Raoul largely ignored him, as he usually did. Christine looked up to greet her maestro, then squealed.
“Oh!”
Raoul looked up.
Erik was grinning, the smuggest look Raoul had ever seen. He stood tall and proud as he casually walked closer to the couch, and as he drew nearer Raoul’s fury grew more and more.
Erik had not only stolen his hair, he’d made a wig out of it.
Erik ran a hand through his new, luscious golden locks, a perfect imitation of how Raoul ran his own hand through his own hair.
“Oh, Angel! How perfectly lovely!”
“Lovely!” Raoul fumed. “That’s my hair!”
“Yes, and look how it suits him!”
Christine was enchanted by it, and Erik knew it. He climbed up to the couch in between them, shaking his head a little, the curls bouncing and catching the light.
Christine reached up to run her fingers through them, and Erik leaned into her touch like a cat. Raoul glared and scowled, crossing his arms. Erik rolled his eyes in delight. He was practically purring.
“Isn’t this wonderful!” Christine cooed, still running her fingers through the wig. “Oh Raoul—he looks just like you!”
Raoul nearly passed out. He dreaded the day he looked anything like Erik.
“You know, my dear,” Erik said to Christine, turning to her. “I can make a tiny mannequin of you and place it in my wig, just like your wig with me in it!”
Christine clapped her hands at the idea.
“Yes, yes! That’s perfect!”
And that was how Raoul found himself taking a walk on Sunday with his wife, her wig, the gremlin who lived in her wig, the gremlin’s wig made out of Raoul’s own hair, and a tiny doll of his wife that was stuck in that wig. It was really for the best, then, that Raoul was not aware that in the wig on the tiny Christine (made out of the real Christine’s own hair, lovingly sacrificed), Erik has also crafted an even smaller Erik that lived in that wig. A man can only take so much, after all.