Work Text:
I.
Crown braid: wrap two French braids around your head
Lexi hasn’t always been good at doing hair. Her dad used to do hers, really. Cassie would snicker in the corner, but Lexi was never able to manage a pony tail on her own. That was one of the few things her and her dad shared.
Up and over, okay, Lexi? Her dad used to say. Up and over.
Eventually, when things got rough, when her parents split up, Lexi kept practicing. She wasn’t as pretty as Cassie or as nice as her sister, but she could do this. Three sections, two sections, over, under, left, right-
She’d practice until her wrists and fingers ached for hours the next day. Until she could do double French braids perfectly in the dark. Lexi isn’t outgoing or spectacular or hot, but she does have this.
When she gets dressed for the New Year’s Eve party, Lexi isn’t thinking much about meeting anyone. She has her hair down for a while, and then she decides to twist her hair around her head. She feels elegant, pretty, almost, even if no one ever says it.
But then she meets Fezco, and Lexi feels seen, if only for the first time in her life.
“How do you know all this shit?” he asks her, grinning slightly. His eyes are a vivid blue green, the colour of the sea, and Lexi feels her heartbeat skip a little in her chest.
A laugh bubbles in her throat.
“I don’t know,” she replies, her face feeling too warm. “I just do.”
His grin softens into a smile, his eyes skimming her face.
“Uh, you look like a fairy,” he says, leaning so close she can feel his breath fanning her face, can smell the scent of his cologne, amber and heavy but somehow comforting too.
“Like a fairy?” she repeats, her hands lifting to her hair off their own accord.
“Yeah, like Tinkerbell or some shit.”
She flushes.
“Is that a good thing?”
Fez’s lips twitch slightly, his expression slightly hazy. He might talk slowly, but Lexi knows he isn’t dumb. He’s just muted, quiet like her.
“You’re different than any other girl here,” he tells her. “You look different than any other girl here.”
He reaches out and gently - so as if not to ruin them — touches the braids wrapped around her head. Lexi’s never been touched like she’s precious before. Like she’s something someone would want to take care of and preserve.
“A fairy,” she repeats, trying to regain some semblance of control. “No one’s ever told me that before.”
Fez laughs. It’s not unkind. It’s husky, really, a deep sound. Lexi gets the impression he doesn’t laugh very often. She stores the sound in the back of her mind to mull over later.
She wants to hear it again.
Later, when Fez gets off Nate with blood dripping from his knuckles and sweat on his brow, Lexi feels the furthest thing from magical. She hesitates, though, before she takes down her braids that night to go to sleep.
She can still feel him caressing her hair.
ii.
Waterfall braid: a half French braid in which part of the hair is braided and the rest is left to cascade by a waterfall
Lexi is nervous as she surveys herself in the mirror. All the top of her hair is braided, the rest left to fall down her neck in short waves. She added another dutch for good measure, unable to stop herself. Her makeup is simple and outfit nothing too outrageous. A short black skirt and red sweater to match.
Her mother makes some comment about how she should show some more skin for her first date, but Lexi doesn’t pay attention. She goes outside to wait on the porch instead, phone clutched to her chest. There are a series of daisies growing on her front lawn. Her mother stopped taking care of it after their dad left.
And yet the daisies are still there. Still growing.
Lexi bends down, almost impulsively, and plucks two of them from the earth, carefully placing them in her braids. She feels silly doing it, flustered, but she doesn’t have a chance to yank them out because Fez is pulling into her driveway. He steps out of the car, a bouquet of sunflowers in hand.
Cassie and Maddy like roses. Pink and red and white. Pretty but prickly.
Sunflowers had always been Lexi’s favourite.
Fez is dressed in dark jeans and a grey sweater also, the sunflowers popping out against his freckled skin.
“Hey,” he greets, in his usual hesitant way. He extends the flowers out to her, barely able to meet her eyes. “These reminded me of you.”
Heart in her throat, Lexi accepts them.
“How so?” She asks, trying to be teasing but really just sounding faint.
Fez shrugs. “They’re like the sun, you know.”
Lexi doesn’t know, but she nods anyway, the movement making one of the daisies fall in front of her eyes. Fez catches it before she does.
“You look beautiful,” he tells her quietly, stumbling on the words.
She watches as he tucks the daisy behind his ear, and somehow that makes her less nervous than before.
iii.
Regular Ponytail: all the hair tied up at the back of the head to hang like a pony tail.
Lexi likes to study.
Better yet - she doesn’t enjoy it, per say, but Lexi knows that however much she’s lesser than Cassie, she’s always had school going for her. She isn’t particularly athletic, but Lexi is involved. She has straight A’s. If she wants to have any chance of getting out of here, she knows she needs to keep it up.
So she studies. Cassie and Maddy go out and party and fuck boys, but Lexi curls up in her room and studies. Even when her eye burns and her hands cramp, she studies, flash cards propped on her lap. Sometimes she braids the bottoms of her hair if she just got out of the shower, but Lexi likes the feeling of her hair in a ponytail. It makes her feel focused. Her forehead feels pinched, but the steady ache keeps Lexi’s attention on the subject at hand.
It’s becoming harder and harder nowadays to study though.
Fez hides a lot of the drugs whenever she comes over. She doesn’t know where he puts them even though she knows they’re somewhere. He always keeps the kitchen counter clear for her so she can take out all her books. Ashtray may grumble, Lexi doesn’t know, but without fail there’s always a place for her to do school work.
On this particular evening, the soft rays pouring in from the window as the sun sets, Lexi is trying to do just that. She has to write an English essay on Emma. Lexi has read all of Austen’s books, she likes them a lot, but all she wants to do right now is go to sleep. She’s been working non stop all day.
She reaches back to tighten her ponytail, the motion making her brow crease, a dull ache pulsing beneath.
If I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more, Mr. Knightley tells Emma.
Lexi bites down on the end of her pencil, a habit she never quite managed to curb. There’s the opening of the door as Fez and Ashtray return from wherever they went off to for a few hours. Ashtray grunts and wonders off to his room, but Fez places the grocery bag down on the ground and patters off to her.
He bends down as she scribbles on her paper to place a kiss to the back of her exposed neck. Lexi lets out a startled murmur, dropping her pencil, warmth shooting up her spine.
“I like your hair like this,” he murmurs, dropping onto the bar stool next to her. He reaches out to tug at the ends of it, making her smile.
“It’s just a ponytail,” she says. “Nothing fancy or anything.”
Fez twirls a curl of her hair around his finger.
“You don’t need to be fancy with me,” he replies simply.
Lexi stares at him.
“I know,” she says, surprising herself with how much she believes it. “I know.”
iv.
Chignon: a knot coiled at the back of someone’s head
Lexi doesn’t put her hair into buns often. Mostly because pinning it all together with bobby pins makes her head hurt too much too soon. They mostly just give her headaches. Make her feel sloppy.
As Lexi slips out of bed that morning, careful to be quiet, she absentmindedly pulls her hair back into a low bun to keep it out of the way. She shrugs on the discarded shirt on the floor. It falls mid-thigh, almost like a dress, dwarfs her.
She puts on some music as she heads to the kitchen, humming and bobbing her head. Her mom is out of town and Cassie is off with McKay or Maddy. Lexi makes pancakes. They don’t have any mix so she starts from scratch, frowning as she searches for a recipe on the internet.
“Here comes the sun, do, do, do,” she hums, stirring the flour, milk and eggs together.
There are soft footfalls coming from her room. Lexi looks up to find Fez rubbing at his eyes, expression mildly groggy. He’s shirtless, dressed only in a pair of sweatpants.
“You stole my shirt,” he states, leaning his forearms on the counter.
“Sorry.”
He smiles at her, his eyes still dust with sleep.
“Don’t be, Howard,” he says. ‘It looks better on you.”
Lexi smiles right back. She still needs to wash her face and brush her teeth and hair. She already feels it falling apart behind her, half of it trailing down her neck. But she doesn’t feel self conscious about it. Not really. Fez moves so he’s standing with her behind the counter and presses a kiss to the back of her neck. It’s become a habit with him.
“Anything I can do to help?” he asks, arm slung around her middle.
“I think I’m okay,” Lexi says, grinning to herself.
v.
Lexi doesn’t spend the night over at Fez’s often, for obvious reasons. She has school, he has his work. But sometimes her mom relents and Lexi gets to stay. His shower is small and cramped, but Lexi smiles when she spots newly bought bottles of her favourite shampoo and conditioner.
She washes her hair, towel drying it slightly, and returns to Fez’s room, hairbrush in hand. She likes to braid it behind her back when it’s wet like this to keep it out of the way. Fez is on the bed, dressed to sleep already though the lamp is on. He’s reading one of the books she lent him. He likes to read, Fez, though he likes math more. Sometimes Lexi finds him flipping through her textbooks, skimming the pages curiously. He can do all the problems faster than even her teacher can.
He likes Austen. He likes Charlotte Bronte and Virginia Woolf. He likes watching Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings with her.
Lexi is about to brush her hair when—
“Can I?” Fez asks quietly. She looks over in the mirror to find him already watching her, his expression soft but unreadable.
For a moment she’s confused.
“You want to brush my hair?” she asks.
He doesn’t say anything, a flush crawling up his neck.
No one has done that since—
Well, since her dad. And that was long before he left.
“Okay,” Lexi says softly, feeling oddly vulnerable. She offers him the brush and turns her back to him. She closes her eyes when she hears him get up. He sits at the foot of the bed so they’re at the same height. She can feel his fingers skim the nape of her neck, her shoulders.
Warmth shoots up her spine, a tingling sensation spreading through her entire chest. She’s seen Fez beat Nate within an inch of his life. Knows he’s done other things, horrible things. But his touch is nothing but gentle as he carefully detangles her hair and runs the brush through it. Her breath hitches in her throat, but Fez doesn’t seem to notice.
Lexi hasn’t let anyone touch her hair in forever. Only her hands. Her vision. Her steady fingers. Not even Cassie. Lexi could take care of herself.
But now—
Fez’s touch is almost reverent as he continues with his task. Painstakingly gentle.
Lexi thinks she’ll go the rest of her life without feeling as close to someone as she does right now.
When she opens her eyes to look in the mirror, she isn’t surprised to find them wet. She doesn’t know how much time has passed. Could be ten minutes. Could have been an hour. She doesn’t know.
When he’s done, Fez puts the brush down and bends down to press a kiss to the crown of her head. Lexi holds onto his wrists, holding him there.
“I like your hair like this,” he murmurs softly.
“You say that all the time.”
He kisses her again, though this time it’s on the tip of her nose.
“That’s because it’s true, Howard.”
Lexi smiles.
“Maybe you should grow your hair long so I can braid it,” she says.
Fez scoffs.
“No,” he states simply, returning to bed.
Lexi crawls next to him, kisses him gently on the cheek.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I like your hair too.”