Work Text:
“Hey, I’m home! I had to cut my run short because it started raining, but that just means I get to spend more time with my lovely famil- oh my god. SASHA JAMES!”
“Huh? Wha-?” Sasha bolted upright on the couch, a small pile of baby blankets and plushies falling to the ground in her commotion. Ugh, what time was it? The last thing she remembered was cuddling up on the couch for a nap with her two regressed babies… who weren’t there anymore… and now Tim was yelling at her about something… uh oh.
With maternal caregiver instincts kicking in, Sasha leapt off the couch and followed the sounds of her distressed boyfriend until she found herself in the doorway of the upstairs bathroom. “Tim? What’s *pant* what’s wrong?” She asked, out of breath with adrenaline still buzzing through her body.
“Sasha,” Tim slowly turned around to face her, clearly trying his best to not freak out. Over what exactly Sasha still couldn’t tell. Martin stood to the left of him, shoulders hunched and a look of regret painting his adorable face, and Jon was right behind Tim just out of Sasha’s sight. “I leave for twenty minutes to go for a jog. Twenty minutes. And I come back to two unsupervised babies.”
“Sorry, sorry! They wanted to take a nap and I guess I was more tired than I thought. But come on, it was only twenty minutes, what did they do that was so bad that you’re all bristled up like… this…” Sasha’s words failed as her eyes fell to the ground and noticed clumps of black and silver hair. And the fact that Tim was strategically stood right in front of Jon who was being uncharacteristically quiet hit her like a ton of bricks. Instantly her eyes shot back up to Tim who gave a knowing nod. “Oh no.”
“Oh yeah.” Stepping aside, Tim revealed the tear stained face of one Jonathan Sims, who was now sporting a… brand new hairdo.
Twenty minutes earlier:
“Martin?... Maaaaartiiin!”
“Mmmmmm… ah?”
“Martin?” Jon whispered loudly, “Are you still sleepin’?”
Jon watched as Martin shifted around until they were looking at each other before shaking his head.
“Me neither, that was a short nap. Hehe, but I think Mama’s still sleepy.” The two boys looked up from their positions resting on each of Sasha’s shoulders to confirm that their caretaker was still very much asleep.
“Play?” Martin asked, sleepily rubbing his eyes and sitting up.
“Oh yeah! Let’s play!” Carefully, Martin and Jon got up and rearranged their blankies and stuffies so that their Mama was all nice and comfy. Once that was done, they headed up the stairs intent on finding something to do.
“What should we play? I know you really wanted to play blocks the other day and Papa got me some new dragon stuffies! One’s purple an’ green and the other’s yellow an’ red. I think it’s supposed to be gold but it looks yellow. Oh! I think you’d like that one ‘cause it’s the same color as Winnie.” Jon rambled as he and Martin walked hand in hand down the hall to his room. “Maybe we can play castles an’ dragons? We can make the castles together! Oh! Oh! Or maybe one big castle for the dragons to share! And we gotta name them too ‘cause I forgot to when I got them from Papa. What do you wanna name them, Martin?… Martin?”
It looked like Martin wasn’t paying attention, which wasn’t all that surprising to Jon since Martin got distracted easily. But it looked like he was focusing on something, something on… Jon’s face? Jon instinctively rubbed his cheeks and chin, he drooled in his sleep sometimes so he would usually wake up with it dried to his face. “Did I get it?”
Martin scrunched his eyebrows together and stopped walking, which also stopped Jon too since they were still holding hands. With his other hand Martin carefully tucked Winnie into his trouser pocket then began to reach toward Jon, running his fingers through his messy post-nap hair. Now normally Jon would enjoy this, it was always a nice feeling to have someone petting his hair afterall, but as Martin carefully tugged at Jon’s hair his fingers got caught on a particularly bad knot.
“Ouch!”
“Ah!” Martin instantly stopped, opting to move his hand on top of Jon’s head instead. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Martin. You didn’t mean to.” But that really did hurt. Jon let go of Martin’s hand and reached into his own hair, feeling for the knot Martin snagged on and finding not only that but a ton of more tangles too. He should probably brush his hair out. But Jon never did it right and always ended up tugging on the tangles so it hurt more. Maybe he should wake up Mama, she was always super duper gentle and can put pretty braids in his hair. But she looked so comfy taking her nap and Jon didn’t want to bother her.
“Jon ‘kay?” Martin tilted his head and nervously brought his thumb up to suck on.
“I’m alright, Martin. I just need to fix my hair, it’s got a lot of knots in it and it’s uncomfy.”
“Un-comf-fy.” Martin repeated, scrunching his eyebrows for a second before wordlessly leading Jon over to the bathroom. Once inside, he quickly located Tim’s wide tooth comb and held it up for Jon to see.
Jon smiled kindly and took the comb but placed it back on the counter, “Thank you, Martin, but I’m not very good at combing my own hair. And that comb is Papa’s, it works better for his hair ‘cause it’s straight and smooth but mine is kinda wavy.” Jon will never forget the nearly traumatizing ordeal of getting the comb stuck in his hair and crying for an hour while Mama and Papa carefully removed it. If it wasn't for Mama using hair oil to get the comb out, they would've had to cut Jon's hair. Huh, wait!
“Oh! What if I cut my hair! Papa said I’d look cute with a fringe.” It was more of a sarcastic quip from Tim than a lighthearted suggestion that he made at work one day but Jon’s brain was running on babymode. "And Mama said I needed a trim so maybe I can just do it myself!"
If Jon was correct, he had a pair of safety scissors in his room he could use. The whole thing was made of hard plastic so there was no way either he or Martin could hurt themselves while still being ‘sharp’ enough to cut through construction paper. So it was probably good enough to use for hair! Quickly running out of the bathroom, Jon located the scissors in his bag of arts and crafts supplies and slowly walked back. The scissors may only be plastic but it was still important not to run with them.
“Got them!” Jon exclaimed triumphantly. “Just gotta cut all the tangly hairs off then I can cut my hair however I want.”
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and assessed his reflection; there were immediately some visible knots in the front and reaching around to feel his head he was able to locate a ton more. With a shrug, Jon took a lock of his hair, raised the scissors up until they were positioned above the hair clump, and
*snip*
Sasha took a deep breath and walked over to Jon, gently taking his chin in her hand and tilting his head up in order to assess just how much damage control they would have to do.
It looked like the back wasn’t too bad, still falling a bit past his shoulders and untouched because Jon probably wasn’t able to reach it. The sides were… shorter than before, cut with uneven lines but still reached past his ears. And the front, geez Jon really did a number on it. Was he trying to give himself bangs?
“M-Mama, ‘m sorry,” Jon’s tear filled eyes were fixated firmly on the tiled floor.
“It’s alright. I’m not mad, sweetheart,” Sasha reassured, “But why did you cut your hair? I thought you liked it long.”
“Tangled,” Martin whispered from where he now stood behind Jon. “Un-comf-fy.”
“Jon, you should’ve waited until your Mama or I could’ve helped you with that.” Tim gently scolded as he began to sweep up the mess of hair on the floor. It looked like there was only one solution to this… God, Jon was going to be livid when he wasn’t regressed. “But since your hair is already cut, we might as well, um, try and fix it. Right, Sash?”
Sasha, still assessing just how they were meant to fix it, nodded distractedly, “Jon, do you think you’d be okay with shorter hair? I know it took you a really really long time to grow it out, but I think that’s the only way to fix this-“
“No!!!!!” Jon yelled, pulling away from his Mama and reaching for his hair. “No! No! No! No! No!”
“Jon, please.” Sasha said soothingly, “I’m sorry but that seems like the only solution. We can’t keep it long because it looks, well… so we have to cut it, kitten. I’m sorry but it’s either long hair or short and right now it’s looking like we’ll have to go short. You've had your hair short before and it looked nice!”
But Jon didn’t want his hair short! He really really liked it long because Mama made it look pretty and Papa liked stroking his finger through it and that felt nice and he liked the using the nice smelling shampoo and conditioner and- and-
“Wait, wait, wait, let’s not be too hasty now.” Tim interjected. He slowly walked over to Jon and bent down to look him over. With a final hum he stood up and crossed his arms, “I think I have a solution.”
“Jon? *knock knock knock* Do you have a moment?”
Without waiting for a proper answer, Elias opened the door to Jon’s office and stepped inside, his attention trained on a file in his hands as he spoke, “I was cleaning out my office and found an old file in the back of my filing cabinet that I believe should belong in the archives. It seems as if it’s nothing important, it was taken the day after Halloween and contains the statement of a young man who claimed to have seen the ghost of Elvis Presley but a statement is a statement and I expect you to- oh. Did you… get a new haircut, Jon?”
The dead silence of the archives amplified the sound of Jon grinding his teeth at the question. “... Yes.”
“It looks… “ Elias’ eyes flickered over Jon, from his usual attire, to the absolute look of irritation on his face, and up to Jon’s freshly cut and styled hair, “I didn’t know that mullets came back into style.”
Jon clenched his hand around the tape recorder he was about to use and sighed, bringing his other hand up to self consciously touch his hair. But his fingers fell short as he instinctually reached to where his hair would normally fall. “Yes, according to Tim apparently they are.”
Even though it was hard to read Elias’ face most of the time, it was obvious even to Jon that he was trying his hardest to maintain his composure. “Well, it’s nice to change things up once in a while.”
“What did you need help with Elias?” Jon grumbled.
“Oh, nothing, nothing.” He held up the file and began to back out, “I’ll just hand this off to one of your assistants to sort out. Have a nice day, Jon.”
Once Elias had left and the sounds of his footsteps fully receded, Jon placed his head in his hands and groaned. “I am going to kill Tim… after I get a proper haircut.”