Work Text:
Laszlo paced the tiny living room of his apartment, watching the minutes tick past on the grandfather clock he'd bought from a strange man in parachute pants next to a dumpster in 2015. He couldn't think of the last time he'd been this nervous, off the top of his head, but suffice to say it probably involved someone else's angry husband. He stopped halfway through his circuit and fished his phone from his pocket. Nothing.
Nataniel was supposed to come straight here after work for…whatever it was he thought they needed to specifically schedule for, and he said he would be done no later than seven. It was ten forty-six. He had never been so late in his life, not even when he didn't want to do something. He hadn't even texted him.
He-
The door opened, shaking him from his thoughts. Nat stood in the doorway and stared at him for a hair longer than he usually did, and Laszlo felt his heart do a little jump - like when you aren't paying attention and you step on a sewer grate. Nat looked…distressed. Laszlo opened his arms to him, and Nat came forward into them with his own arms tucked against his chest. Laszlo brushed the loose hair from Nat's bun behind his ear and held him softly against his chest.
"Sweet darling, what is the matter?" he said, tugging lightly at Nat's sleeves to coax him to the couch. Nat looked up at him with wet eyes.
"I have something to tell you," he croaked, "and I'm afraid you will be angry with me."
"Lovebear, what is it, please?" Laszlo responded urgently. He had seen Nat this fucked up once before, and it wasn't something he liked to think about. Nat sucked in a sharp breath and took Laszlo's hands in his own.
"I…" he began, but his voice seemed to catch in his throat. Laszlo squeezed his fingers in reassurance. "I am trans. Transgender- that is."
Laszlo drew his brows together. "Nat-"
"I would like to be called Nadja. I am a woman," Na- Nadja said. He gave his head a bare shake, once, pulling back slightly and closing his eyes.
"Nadj-"
"I knew it!" she said, picking his hands up and throwing them back into his lap. "I knew you would be angry! You are always so resistant to new things, and I really think if you just open your mind-"
"Nadja!" Laszlo sat forward, breaking her bubble of concentration. She blinked. "Nadja, you know and have known that I am also trans."
"Oh-" she sat up, her tears gone entirely. He stared on, speechless. "Oh, right! Yes! Right! So- so you are not angry with me?"
"No, I'm not fucking angry wi- actually I am, for insinuating such things about me right in my very own eclectic parlour!" Laszlo exclaimed, splaying his arms before her. She raised a brow at the last bit, but decided not to comment. He appreciated that, he knew "eclectic parlour" was a stretch for his crowded living room.
"I am sorry, I genuinely forgot," she said, and he believed her. He watched Nadja's head fall forward, and the hair he had tucked back earlier fall right back into her face. He squeezed her hands again in his lap. She looked up.
"What do you want to do about it?" he asked, watching her face closely. She looked down and away for a moment, and he watched something dawn on her face.
"I want to dye my hair," she decided. He grinned.
It was almost 2 in the morning when they actually got started. Most of that time had been spent brainstorming and then looking for a place to get supplies so late, truth be told. Laszlo stood behind Nadja in the bathroom, both of them facing the mirror.
He had laid a trash bag around her shoulders like a cape, and was preparing a batch of bleach in a tupperware. She watched his face in the mirror. She didn't talk, though, so he didn't either. Laszlo began applying the bleach - they were doing a black-to-red chunky ombre of sorts, so he would do a balayage about 3/4 of the way up and then put the red over that and darken the roots.
He started mentally working ahead of himself, all but losing himself in the repetition, and had to be startled out of his trance by Nadja breaking the silence.
"Laszlo," she said, and he shook his head and looked at her face in their reflection. "I would like to talk about it, I think."
"Alright, sure," he nodded. "What, uh. What specifically would you like to talk about?"
"I don't know. Just start…asking questions, I suppose?"
"Okay…does your- does anyone else know?"
"Um," she sighed. He glanced up at her in the mirror. "My mamá." "And she…took it well?" Nadja laughed bitterly at that.
"No, I would not say so." He moved to the next section of hair.
"Do you want to talk about that?"
"Not much to talk about, especially. She said she had no daughters, and told me to go." Nadja did not meet his eye in the middle. Laszlo shook his head and looked away, back to his work.
"Degenerate," he mumbled, and Nadja turned and smacked his arm. "Ow!" "Do not speak this way of my mother!" Nadja half-shouted. The look on her face told him she did not entirely disagree, but he decided to leave it alone so that they could be done with her hair before the coming of Christ.
"I am sorry she could not make room for this. For you," Laszlo said after a long stretch of silence. Nadja's shoulders tense up a bit.
"So am I," she whispered, and Laszlo's chest ached for her. He did not know much about family, outside of the few close connections he managed to maintain these days, but he knew that Nadja was far too young to lose her mother. He spun her around in his desk chair and cupped her head between his hands. She looked up into his face, looking on the verge of tears again.
"Oh, Nadja," he breathed, and pulled her head against his chest again.
"Laszlo! Your shirt," Nadja exclaimed, but Laszlo did not pull away.
"I am proud of you," he said, and Nadja seemed to freeze. Like a broken egg, she melted into him and shook with grief. He kissed the top of her head and held her tightly.
It took her nearly the entire processing time of the bleach to recover, but from there it was smooth sailing. They discussed a wardrobe overhaul in, some would say, excruciating detail while he applied the red and black pigments. They drank wine, and Laszlo performed a sparkling rendition of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" into a hairbrush microphone while Nadja laughed seemingly endlessly.
And then Nadja rinsed her hair, and Laszlo got the honor of styling it.
They did not talk much while he worked, this time. He didn't often get the chance to style hair at all anymore, let alone reveal someone to themselves like this, so he relished in every stroke. He enjoyed far more than the simple act of creating a frame for the work of art Nadja was, though - she kept gazing up into his eyes with some mix of disbelief and affection on her face, and he got to watch her process the events of the night right in front of him.
When he let her turn to see herself in the mirror - hair falling in soft, wavy curtains on either side of her beautiful sculpted cheeks and dusting across her brow like she had been dipped in cherry soda - she gasped and covered her mouth. Laszlo smiled nervously behind her, thinking in his typical way that she hated it. But she turned around and kissed him so fiercely that when they parted, both of them were out of breath.
She stared into his eyes, inches from his own face like they had been a thousand times before, but something was different now. She had always been stunning, but looking at her in the flourescent light of his bathroom, her eyes shining and her mouth open ever…so…slightly, he took pause. She did not move.
"Thank you, Laszlo. My Laszlo," she whispered, and he had a brief urge to recontextualize her body for her. They both had work in less than 5 hours, however, so he decided instead to kiss her softly.
"My Nadja," he said. She smiled so broadly he thought her face may split, her eyes disappearing behind the apple of her cheeks. Laszlo's heart jumped again. Like stepping on a sewer grate. He could look at her like that for the rest of his life, he thought. He kissed the edges of her smile until she was giggling and turning pink.
They ended up calling out of work.