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Heero has always been a man of few words. But somehow, his silence in this moment seems particularly loud.
“This is because of me,” Heero says eventually, from behind him.
Duo heaves a sigh. “It’s not,” he insists. “You couldn’t have known—“
“I should have,” Heero mutters. “I should never have let you go on that mission.”
“I am fine,” Duo assures. He manages a weak smile as he adds, “it’s just hair.”
Silence falls again as Heero studies him from behind, eyeing the long, heavy tassel of hair that had once been lovely, but was now burned beyond repair. It was an assignment Duo had taken in his stead, one that had ended in flames. Duo had walked away, blessedly unharmed, with one notable exception.
“Not to you,” Heero says softly, in a way that makes Duo’s stomach flip.
He isn’t wrong; Duo loves his hair. It had grown a lot since they first met, now falling nearly to his knees. The braid alone must’ve exceeded three feet in length. But now, the gleaming tresses were completely scorched. Frayed and brittle from the lick of flames, the beautiful hair was left irreparably tarnished.
Duo knows that it could have been so much worse. It feels almost stupid to mourn his hair when he thinks of what could have happened. Had the flames traveled any higher in the plait, they’d have scorched skin, and if that happened he doubts he’d have any hair left to cut. The fire could have burned the rest of him too, left him disfigured, dismembered; he could have died. Even knowing this, it still feels like too great a loss to bear.
“No, not to me,” Duo admits softly. He sits up a little straighter, jaw tightening with resolve. “But there’s nothing else we can do about it now.” He forces a smile. “It’s fine, I promise.”
Heero falls silent again, and Duo can practically hear the cogs turning. That's why he asked Heero to do this. The man is scientific in nearly everything that he does; careful and precise, he never does anything halfway. He'll do a good job.
And it’s not like Duo would trust anyone else with blades near his throat.
“Are you sure about this?” Heero asks, surprisingly gentle. His fingers ghost over Duo’s ruined braid. “There has to be something…”
Duo shakes his head. He knows there are no other options; just prolonging the inevitable. Putting this off any longer would probably just make the damage worse, and Duo can’t risk that. But the sigh he heaves is still a little shaky as he manages, “I'm sure.”
He can see Heero nod stiffly from the corner of his eye, and then he’s gone. It almost makes Duo laugh, Heero treating this so seriously, as if cutting Duo’s hair is a mission all its own. Duo would be charmed if he weren’t scared out of his mind.
Duo doesn’t remember the last time he had short hair; he isn’t sure he ever has. It's not like he has baby pictures to look at. But for as long as he can remember, his hair has been a comfortable weight on his back, and soon, he’ll have lost that too. He silently prays that Heero won’t cut it too short.
Heero returns then, and when Duo swivels on the stool he can see that Heero’s brought scissors, a comb and a towel. Duo briefly wonders what the towel is for, but then the taller man is behind him, lifting his braid to carefully drape the towel around his shoulders, clipping it in place at his front.
It's surprisingly considerate. Duo didn’t think he’d go this far.
“Thanks,” Duo says quietly, to which Heero nods in acknowledgment.
“I'll take it down first,” Heero says. “to assess the damage.”
Duo nods, bringing a hand behind his head to gingerly caress the plaited strands. He realizes then that it’s likely the last time he’ll be able to wear a braid for a long, long time.
Duo tries to steel his expression as he drops his hand in his lap, and he can feel Heero begin to carefully unwind the frayed ends of his braid. Duo’s hair was once silk soft and unraveled easily in his hands, almost on its own, like a sheet of fabric. Now, it’s stiff and straw-like, and it takes Heero a considerable amount of effort to let it down completely.
Eventually, he does, and sets the hair loose over Duo’s shoulders. It feels rough, like hay from where it tickles his neck and his bare forearms, and that’s when he starts to worry. He knows it’s bad when Heero stands behind him for a while, saying nothing.
“It's bad, isn’t it?” Duo asks. He can feel the panic rising in his throat, hot tears burning the backs of his eyes.
“It's not bad,” Heero says, almost too quickly, and now Duo knows that he’s screwed. “It'll be fine once I comb it out.”
Unsurprisingly, it’s not fine. What is surprising is how tender Heero is with him, starting at the crown and carefully dragging the comb through healthy hair until it catches on dry, knotted strands somewhere around the nape of his neck.
“So?” Duo asks, half afraid to hear the answer.
Heero levels a hand with the side of Duo’s face, around his chin. “It's good to about here,” he says carefully, ghosting a finger along Duo’s jawline, so he can feel it. “But we don’t have to…”
It’s going to be short, then. Shorter than he expected or ever would have chosen for himself, but it’s better than the alternative. He consoles himself with the knowledge that at least he won’t have to shave it all off.
Duo sucks in a quick breath, then sharply exhales. “Do your worst,” he says firmly, before he can lose his nerve.
Heero’s hands in his hair are tender, more gentle than he thought the man capable of. “You’re really sure?”
Duo nods, and offers a weak smile. He turns for a moment to face his executioner and is taken aback to find that Heero looks distraught, too. For all that he complained about Duo’s hair over the years—that it was impractical, that it was a liability, that no shower drain on earth was any match for it—Duo thought he would be pleased. Or, at least, indifferent.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Duo says, softening at him. “It's alright, really. Let’s just get this over with, yeah?”
Though he looks like he wants to argue, Heero doesn’t protest. He just turns Duo back by the shoulders and tilts his chin up, straight ahead. “Try not to move,” he says, reaching for the scissors. “I don't want to mess this up.”
Duo huffs a sad, breathy laugh, but he does as Heero says and remains still. “Heero, relax. I don't think it can get much worse than this.”
Heero doesn’t answer, so Duo assumes that he’s trying to focus. He's being so gentle, sectioning it out, that for a moment Duo thinks this might not be so bad.
Then there’s a harsh, grinding snip right by his left ear, and Duo jolts with a cry at the sound of it.
“I told you to say still,” Heero gently admonishes, but Duo is too stunned to answer. He can feel the soft, clipped ends of his hair curling at his cheek, and the weight of thick, severed locks draped over his shoulder. Heero carefully gathers up the shorn hair and lays it out on the kitchen counter, and when Duo risks a glance, his breath catches at the length of it.
Definitely longer than he’d thought, then.
“Oh my god,” Duo manages, lifting a hand to feel the cut hair at his cheek. Pulled taut, it falls just past his chin, but left alone the strands curl up slightly. He tugs lightly at the ends, trying desperately to make the cropped strands feel just a little longer. Suddenly, he starts to feel himself getting nauseous.
Heero watches him for a moment, silent, then asks, “When’s the last time you got a haircut?”
“I don't know,” Duo exhales in a watery voice, and now he’s fighting tears, too—a battle he’s certainly going to lose. “Maybe never?”
A beat of silence. “Okay,” Heero says, though it sounds more like he’s trying to reassure himself than anything. Duo would be touched at the rare display of distress if he weren’t so panicked himself. “Alright, just… close your eyes,” he says. “I'll be done soon, I promise.”
Duo sniffles. “Well, don’t rush it…”
Heero gently tilts Duo’s chin level again, and politely ignores the tremble threatening at his lower lip. “I won't. I'll be careful.”
Duo heaves a deep breath, and lets his eyes slip shut. It helps. He barely flinches at the next grating slice of the shears, and by the third, he doesn’t start at all. He measures his breathing to the snicks of the scissors that travel from left to right around his head, and tries not to cry as he feels the weight begin to come off.
With one grinding snip after another, Duo can feel as each heavy handful of hair is severed. He knows it’s going to be short; Heero can’t be cutting much lower than the nape of his neck. Duo hadn’t thought he’d be afraid of how he’d look without his hair, but he is. He's scared to see it, but more than that, he’s scared for Heero to see him this way. To realize that under all that pretty hair, there really isn’t very much to look at.
As the shears snip for the last and the final tress of hair comes off, Duo chokes on a sob. He feels the overwhelming urge to run to his bedroom, hide under the covers and never come out—at least, not until his hair grows back—but Heero steadies him before he can.
“I'm almost done,” he soothes, like calming a frightened animal. His hands grasp Duo’s trembling shoulders and hold him upright. “Just let me even it out.”
Duo swallows the lump in his throat and nods, doing his best to sit up straight. He can feel a series of soft, careful snips at the nape of his neck, methodically leveling and evening out the ends. Duo only bites his lip and tries to think about anything but his reflection.
Then, finally, it stops. Duo hears the clatter of the scissors and realizes his eyes are still closed. Apparently, Heero realizes too, because then he gently says, “You can open your eyes now.”
Duo does, blinking away unshed tears and lifting a hand to swipe at the few that escaped him. He feels embarrassed at the state of himself, but there’s no judgment as Heero unclips the towel from around his shoulders, leaving him cold and bare under the thin straps of his tank top. It feels strange, not having to flick his braid out of the way. It feels strange not having any weight on his neck at all.
Managing a shaky laugh, Duo rakes a hand through his short hair, and asks, “How do I look?”
Heero comes around to face him, saying nothing, and for a moment Duo fears the worst. But then, softly, he says, “You look pretty.”
It shocks him. Duo’s eyes open wide and Heero, apparently a little shocked at himself too, promptly looks away, clearing his throat. “Do you want to see?”
Duo stiffens. “No,” he mutters, then realizes how stupid that sounds. “I mean, I guess I'll have to sometime…”
Heero helps him up as Duo sets off for the bathroom. He tries not to have a heart attack when he sees his own severed hair laid out on the counter, at how impossibly long it is. Even damaged, it’s striking hair. He has to force himself to keep moving before he really breaks down.
The lights are off, in the bathroom. Duo walks in front of the mirror and stands there in the dark, working up the courage. Heero stands in the doorway and his hand hovers over the light.
“Should I…?”
“Yeah,” Duo exhales, looking straight ahead. “Yeah, go for it.”
Light floods the room, and as his eyes adjust to the light, Duo’s stomach drops. The person standing before him is almost unrecognizable. Thick, chestnut-colored hair falls just past his chin, glinting red and gold in the light. Cut short, there’s a wave to his hair that he hadn’t noticed before, a softness to it. He looks so small without his hair, so—young, without the weight of it resting on his shoulders. His neck looks so bare without his long mane to blanket it, slim and swanlike rising from his pale, narrow shoulders. A thought pops into his head, and he can’t help the soft, self deprecating laugh bubbling in his throat.
“What is it?” Heero asks, with such concern that Duo can feel himself smile.
“Everyone said my long hair made me look like a girl, and that I should cut it,” Duo laughs softly, tucking a thick, loose curl behind his ear. “Well, I cut it, and I still look like a girl.”
It was kind of a feminine haircut. Long hair was just long hair—it could be worn in any style, though Duo’s braid hadn’t been particularly masculine either. But with his cropped hair swaying at his chin in a blunt bob cut, Duo looks as much like a girl now as ever. He understands now why Heero had said he looked ‘pretty.’
Footsteps resound as Heero approaches, reaching out to gently caress the ends of Duo’s short, thick hair. “I can cut more, if you want.”
Immediately, Duo furtively shakes his head, hair swishing around his face. The lightness of it is disarming in and of itself. “No!” he cries. “This is way more than enough. And I wanna grow it back out, so, that would be kinda pointless…”
Duo looks back at his reflection. The person in the mirror was virtually unrecognizable, yes, but not… unattractive. His hair was short, but he still had quite a lot of it, and all things considered, he still looked alright. Duo sighed, tired but a little relieved. It wasn’t a haircut he ever would’ve chosen for himself, but… he would just have to get used to it.
He was so absorbed in his own reflection that he didn’t notice Heero’s fond look over his shoulder.
“Thanks, by the way,” Duo says, finally turning to look up at him. “There was no way I could’ve done that myself.” He didn’t have the logistical nor emotional means to manage it. Softly, he adds, “it means a lot.”
Heero nods, firm. Duo could almost hear the ‘mission accomplished’ on the tip of his tongue. But he swallows the familiar remark, and says instead, “I’m glad I could help.”