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One of the first things Lucretia noticed about the twins was their hair. They both kept it at a medium length, just around their shoulders, though more often than not, Lup wore hers loose and Taako tied his into a loose bun or something similar. They liked to play around with it, had it switch from blond, to blue, to red, to hot pink, to brown. It was inconsistent, without a set pattern or design, never the same for too long.
It was one of the first things Lucretia was able to put together about them. They came into training on the first day with neon green hair and by the next week, it was ocean blue. The length never changed. She asked them about their past.
“It wasn’t the most comfortable way of living,” Lup laughed, tossing a messy braid over her shoulder. “But we’re safe now, so it’s whatever.”
“I don’t have to talk about that shit with you,” Taako said, and proceeded to launch three magic missiles at the target seventy feet away from them. Magnus whooped somewhere behind them.
But, piece by piece, Lucretia figured it out anyway. The first few evenings aboard the Starblaster, on this strange new world, were quiet. Most of the crew had a somber attitude. Taako and Lup did not look at peace, but then again, she realized, when had they ever? They took the change with stride, being two of the first few to properly go on a mission. They came back with smiles on their faces.
They had an inconsistent childhood and they had inconsistent ways of living. Lucretia made sure to write that down in her personal journal, rather than the mission log.
The first time Lup died was cycle fourteen. Lucretia had been on that mission. She didn’t usually go on missions, but Davenport had insistent. With her was Magnus and Lup, camping in the woods, looking for the light, and, well.
They didn’t have a good way of making sure everything was safe before they went out. Not yet, at least. And they didn’t always have the option to try, in the first place. Lucretia is sure that if she had just tried harder, if she had made more of an effort, if she could use magic properly- maybe that Thing wouldn’t have got Lup. Maybe it would have anyway. Maybe Lucretia just didn’t care anymore, because she and Magnus had to be the ones to go back and tell the crew what had happened, and she was sure that Taako’s wrath would be much worse.
And, as almost always, she was right. They took her body back, obviously, but neither of them was really sure if it was okay to walk in the ship holding it, so Lucretia went in by herself. She was covered in dirt and grime and Taako immediately sat up when she came into the common area. She and Taako weren’t close, by any means, but there must have been something about her expression that made him sprint past her and out of the ship, towards Magnus.
Merle followed on his heels. There was silence. Lucretia didn’t dare look back.
And then there was an explosion .
Later, in her journal, she wrote about seeing the light of the tree Taako had set ablaze shine against the side of the Starblater. It reminded her of the day they left their home plane, with how shiny it made the ship look. She hesitated but wrote about the stoney cold look in Taako’s eyes, too, and the bruise against Magnus’s cheek, and made a three-page report that was too detailed to give to Davenport, so she shortened it to a half page and shut herself in her room.
Three days later, tired and guilty of having Barry bring her food, she left her room once more. Ten days later, through the grief that was trying to get Taako to leave Lup’s bunk, Taako emerged with short, almost buzzcut brown hair. Lucretia wanted to ask if that was his natural color.
She didn’t.
He didn’t let it get past his ears for the rest of the cycle. When Lup came back, the moment between them was much too private for all of them to be there, so they gave the twins some space. Their curls looked too full, back to that medium length. Something about that feeling much have stuck with Taako, too, because the next time she saw both him and Lup, they had their hair just past their ears, in what Lucretia could only describe as a fancy-looking bob.
When Taako caught her staring, he said,
“Take a picture, sweetheart, it’ll last longer.”
And Lup hit his arm at about twelve percent strength, grinning anyway. Despite herself, Lucretia blushed. She drew a sketch of Lup the next morning, with bedhead, making eggs on the stove while Taako chopped peppers nearby. None of them spoke.
On cycle thirty-four, Taako died without Lup. They had both died a few times now- the whole crew, had, actually- Lucretia herself had died twice, and neither of them were particularly gruesome, but she didn’t want it to happen again, anyway. But besides that first time, Taako and Lup had always gone together. Three times, to be exact- twice, facing the Hunger, once during a battle that Lucretia was pretty sure never needed to happen in the first place.
Lup without Taako is different than Taako without Lup. Taako tended to be short-tempered and withdrawn and cold, and Lup was like that, too, to a different degree. Lucretia felt it every time Lup glanced her way, but there was never fury behind her eyes. There was just... nothing. Taako without Lup was a shattered glass of red wine, it stained the carpet, it bled into the floor. Lup without Taako was just an empty cup. There was nothing there to fill it.
The seventh night after Taako’s death, Lucretia heard a knock on her door. When she answered it, she was met with Lup, empty-looking and dull. Lucretia stepped aside wordlessly and Lup came in, just kind of standing in the middle of her room. Lucretia didn’t really remember if Lup had ever been in here for more than a few minutes before. It doesn’t really matter, because in her hand, Lup was holding a small box that she recognized as the twins’ haircutting kit (well, it had been Davenport’s at the start, but they took it)- they had given Magnus a new do a few cycles ago, as well as Barry, who was too smitten to say no. Magnus got his cut every year now, but Barry politely excused himself each time.
“Want me to cut your hair?” Lucretia asked and Lup didn’t say anything, lips pressed tightly together, but she nodded. Lucretia pulled the chair from her desk and set it in front of a full-length mirror Merle had given her in cycle fifteen. Lup sat down without much affair.
“How d’you want it?” she asked, popping open the kit and looking at the clippers and scissors, and, fuck, Lucretia didn’t even know what that thing was. She finds a hairband and puts it around her wrist, just in case she might need it.
“Not… too short,” Lup said. Lucretia took a moment to think about the last time she heard Lup say anything more than yes or no, or “just leave me alone”. “I’m- it’s stupid, ‘cus like, I know short hair isn’t just for like- guys. But it makes me feel weird sometimes and I’m not in the place to feel more weird.”
“I get that,” Lucretia responded. She ran a hand through Lup’s hair.
“Wanna see if you can pull off a mullet?” Lucretia asked, half-joking. Lup’s lip twitched up, just slightly.
“Yeah, sure,” Lup said, “I’d kill that look.”
“You’ll start a trend if you’re not careful,” Lucretia said, pulling back her hair. “Barry’s gonna think you look too hot.”
“You want your hair short?” Lup asked instead of responding to that, and they both ignored the way her ears flushed.
“Nah,” Lucretia said. “I like it long.”
She flipped the clippers on and started cutting.
(Lucretia made sure to get at least one picture of mullet-Lup, especially since she colored it bright red at the end. The next cycle, Taako laughed and laughed and laughed when she showed it to him and they only got Lup to not burn it because Taako made Lucretia put it in her journal, instead.
“For memories!” Taako insisted and Lup punched him, at definitely more than twelve percent strength.)
This pattern happened a few more times- the twins tended to get themselves into dangerous situations and while they were usually smart enough to get themselves out, it didn’t always end well. Taako died on cycle thirty-nine, alone, and Lucretia cut Lup’s hair, again. Lup died on cycle forty-five, and Taako was at her door at one AM, just sort of thrusting the hair kit into her hands and sitting himself on her chair.
“Any preference?” she asked and Taako shrugged. She caught his expression in the mirror as she shut the door, and he’s staring daggers into her carpet.
“Just don’t fuck it up,” he said. Lucretia hummed and said,
“I’ll try my best.”
On cycle forty-seven, after their performances at the Legato Conservatory, Taako showed up at her door again. He seemed… anxious. Lucretia had had nearly fifty years to get to know Taako, at this point, and he’s practically panicked as he came in and sat at her chair again. He’s messing with his braid- the twins had grown their hair pretty long this year. During her performance with Barry, Lup had had hers done up spectacularly.
“What if-” Taako started, and then stopped himself. He scrunched up his nose like he was disgusted with something. Maybe himself. “What if Lup thinks that Barry is better than me. And like- doesn’t wanna... Hang out anymore. That’s stupid, right? That’s a stupid thought.”
“A little,” Lucretia allowed, sitting across from him on his bed.
“I’m Taako ,” he rationalized. From the tone of his voice, Lucretia could already guess he’s had this conversation with himself several times over. “I’m her brother, she’s- she’s my sister, Luce, why- why does she care about him so fucking much?”
“She’s in love,” Lucretia said and Taako snorted. He reached to pull his hat over his eyes and then realized he wasn’t wearing his hat, leaving his hand in the air for a second too long to be normal before rubbing his neck.
“It’s gross,” he said. “It’s, uhm. It’s always just been us.”
“And now it’s us,” Lucretia said, leaning back on one hand, and using the other to motion around the room as if motioning to the entire ship itself. “It’s the seven of us, against everything. It doesn’t have to be just Lup and Taako anymore. Lup and Barry… they’re in love, Taako, but so are the rest of us, in a way.”
Taako didn’t respond. He broke eye contact and looked anywhere but her. His hand clenched and unclenched on his pants, in a way that Lucretia knew meant he was uncomfortable about something he didn’t want to think about.
“Wanna rebraid my hair?” he finally asked, not looking up.
“I’d be honored,” Lucretia said, scooting further onto her bed. “Come sit over here.”
“Don’t you dare fuck it up.”
Cycle sixty-five might have been the hardest thing Lucretia had ever done in her life. From the moment the ship crashed, and she woke up to find herself alone- for the first time in over sixty years, she was alone- it was a struggle. It was hard enough to repair the ship and get it flying again. And it was hard enough to find people who she could trust, who don’t want more than just the small amount she could give in return. It was hard enough to have to teach herself how to repair things properly and to learn defensive magic and to feel like tomorrow was a day worth living-
As a writer, she knew a lot of stupid, “inspirational” quotes. They’re in her head daily. The people who made them are probably dead. She thought back to “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and wanted it desperately to be true, because if she’s still this weak by the time the year ends, then she’s going to die the next cycle, and the other after that, and the one after that, and just not give a damn.
Halfway through the year, Lucretia found the hair clippers next to the bathtub. She didn’t know where in the world the whole box ended up, but it’s probably scattered around the bathroom floor, too. The clippers have splintered down the middle, but she fixed them easily with a mending spell. She didn’t know why she did that.
She didn’t know why she cut her hair, either. It was just that the next thing she knew, there were tufts of hair around her and she had given herself a buzzcut. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, hands tight around the counter, mind not processing that it’s really her, that this is real life . Her family was dead. It was just her, just her, just her.
She set the clippers down and went to repair the engine.
There’s a part of having short hair that felt liberating to her. She felt new. She felt like a different person, unconnected from her past, unburdened by the issues she was facing because New Lucretia can do it. Old Lucretia died in that bathroom.
She kind of understood the twins, then. It wasn’t the first time she’s understood them on something weird, but it might have been the most important one yet.
She cut it again, next year, even with everyone back around her. Taako cleaned up the edges a little bit. Lup kindly reminded her that she didn’t need so much conditioner with such little hair.
She understood.
The twins started to grow their hair out again, on the last cycle. But it doesn’t last long and Lucretia knew it would end up this way. Lup cut hers first after the second town got destroyed by her Pheonix Fire Gauntlet. Taako doesn’t cut his until Lup had been gone for over four days. Lucretia overheard him stressing to Barry, again and again-
“Soon is three days, it’s been four, it’s-”
“She’ll be back,” Barry said, but Lucretia had a hundred years to figure out his tells, and she’s sure even Taako can hear the shaky doubt in his voice. “She said she’d be back.”
Her hair is shaved close to her skull as she dumped her journals into Fisher’s tank. And it’s even impossibly closer as she left Wonderland, stumbling her way through the Felicity Wilds and back towards where she had left Davenport. She cut as close to her skin as she could possibly go when she gets back to him and ended up bleeding, and she just didn’t care anymore.
“Why do you keep your hair so short?” Maureen asked, looking up from a panel she was installing into a chunk of metal they’d later apply onto the moonbase. Lucretia wiped her brow and frowned.
“Because I want to?” she lied, touching her head self consciously, anyway, and then wincing when she felt the oil from her glove get in it.
“I mean the real reason,” Maureen said. “You’re a woman of too many secrets, Lucretia. Secret memory-stealing jellyfish, secret moonbase. At least tell me you’ve got a secret therapist, too.”
“Funny,” Lucretia said dryly, turning back to her work.
“I think so,” Maureen said, shrugging. “But like- really, Creesh. I believe you if you say you like it short, I honestly do, but I also do really think it’ll be okay to just... chill sometimes. The world won’t end if you let yourself relax.”
Lucretia snorted and said, “you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
(She grew her hair long enough for it to start getting curly again. Maureen died. She cut it again.)
Seeing her family after so long shattered Lucretia in the most unexpected ways. She knew they’d be different. There was no way they wouldn’t be, after ten years. Magnus had a few laugh lines, and he had turned an early gray just around his temples. She didn’t really blame him, especially with all that had happened during his decade. Merle, too, had grayed. The streaks of his natural orange that he had aboard the Starblaster were gone, replaced completely in that silvery color. He’s a bit more serious, but he made her want to laugh within the first ten minutes of conversation, so he’s still the same old Merle.
Taako’s hair is short. Lucretia didn’t know why that feels like a physical blow to her chest. No, scratch that, she did know why. She’s known why since she cut her hair in cycle sixty-five, and she’s known why since she started the Bureau, and since Maureen asked, and since Maureen died.
The twins were on the road most of their life. There comes a point when you’re trying to survive, where you have to start doing things for convenience, even if you’d really prefer to do it another way. When you have to blend in and have to be ready to escape if things ever go awry. Hair, all in all, doesn’t make much of a difference. But when one inch means the difference between life and death, you get a lot smarter about where you use your space, those inches, and how much room you take up.
It’s easy for two little kids, going against the world, to keep their hair short. Fewer ways for their own body to be used against them- it’s harder to grab short hair, harder to use it to pull one away from the other. Lup described once, in detail, how someone had tried to ship them off to separate homes and had caught her by her ponytail, and she had screamed and screamed and screamed until Taako kicked them in the shin and they ran. Lucretia wrote it down in her journal.
She hated that she couldn’t remember if she fed it to Fisher.
There was part of Lucretia that wanted to know why Taako’s mind still thought short hair equaled safe if she had just erased that whole memory. If he didn’t remember Lup, what did he think had happened? What had Lucretia edited into his brain? Was it intentional, to keep it short like that, with buzzed sides, and hair that barely reached past his ears, or was it muscle memory? When she erased Lup, did she erase the feeling of comfort in him?
She kept her hair short but watched as Taako grew his out over the course of his stay at the Bureau. On their second mission, it was reaching his jawline. By their fourth, he had it braided and dyed again. She caught him with flowers from Merle’s favorite plant braided in, using what she was pretty sure used to be one of Magnus’s shoelaces to tie it off. He was smiling until she said,
“Having a good day, Taako?”
And he rolled his eyes with affection that made her heart ache and his smile dip a fraction, and said,
“I don’t have to talk about my shit with you.”
Nearly a year later, Lucretia shivered as Lup ran a hand- a real flesh hand, thanks to Barry’s pod- through her barely-there hair. She and Taako had invited themselves over- Taako was currently rifling through her bathroom cabinet right now. Lup was sitting up on the counter. She pulled away from petting Lucretia’s head and leaned back on her hands.
“I fucking knew it,” Taako said, lifting the hair kit up onto the counter. Lup whooped. He had cut his hair again, after Story and Song. Lucretia couldn’t help but feel guilty about that- guilty about it all. They were back at their medium-length, though, today with a dark blue color. Lucretia’s was still uncomfortably short. She wasn’t sure what to do with it now that all of humanity didn’t rest in her hands. She kept it short. It wasn’t safe to do otherwise, her brain reasoned.
“Thanks, Luce,” Lup said, hopping off the counter. “Maggie would not stop complaining about the length of his hair-”
“You’d think a thirty-something would know how to cut his own hair,” Taako scoffed, popping open the box to make sure everything was there.
“That’s still kid-aged,” Lup said. “I think. I mean, not that it matters, ‘cuz-”
“Humans are considered adults at eighteen,” Lucretia reminded and Taako scoffed again, even louder and more offended.
“Babies,” he said. “Listen, I don’t care- thanks for the kit, I guess, even though you stole it from me-”
“We stole it from Davenport, though,” Lup said.
“It’s mine,” Taako said shortly. “I’m not returning this.”
“Luce,” Lup said, redirecting their attention. “If you ever, uh- you said ages ago that you like it long, but I know preferences change over time and shit, so, whatever. But babe, listen- if you ever grow it out again and wanna get it styled? Hit us up. We owe ya, for all those times you did ours.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” Taako said dismissively. Lup hit him, six percent strength, and he didn’t even wince. “I mean it.”
“You don’t owe me,” Lucretia agreed. Taako spluttered for a second but then just scoffed a final, louder time and pushed past her into the hallway. Lup gave her a grin as they listened to him cough from scoffing too hard.
“He’s healing,” she said, “we all are. Cash in that hairstyle thing any time you want, though. I’m ninety percent sure Taako won’t kick you out if I invite you.”
“Alright,” Lucretia said, “I will.” Lup nodded, looking at her appraisingly for a second before brushing past as well. She heard a rift open and Taako complain about something and then-
Silence again. She turned to face herself in the mirror, gripping the edge of the counter. There was smoke behind her eyes, the extinguished memory of a long-burning forest fire. She ran a hand through her hair and thought of Taako grieving the first time Lup had died, hair cut so close to his skull she could still vividly see a few accidental cuts against his skin. She thought of Lup’s bob of solidarity the next cycle and looked away from herself.
Her body was much too tense. She made herself relax.
The world kept going.