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The sniffles had long subsided, leaving only the snip snip snip of the scissors in his hands to fill the air. He could still see her trembling fists, though, where they were pressed against her thighs. Pumpkin peeked at the scene from behind Félix’s legs, purring and bumping their head onto his ankle as if they knew they were in trouble and were trying to placate him.
“It’s not me who you should be trying to appease,” Félix said, nudging the cat in Marinette’s direction with his feet.
They understood the request, sauntering around the chair to face Marinette, but then chickened out and trotted back to the back of Félix’s bare feet.
“Coward,” Félix murmured half-heartedly as the little asshole resumed snuggling against his ankles.
A snort shook Marinette’s shoulders; Félix hoped it was out of humor, but he honestly had no idea. It was hard to make the part of his brain responsible for recognizing emotions work when there had been tears involved, so he just kept focusing on cutting out the locks of hair petrified in glue blocks in measured snips and hoped that was helping, somewhat.
He still didn’t know the exact details of the incident, but a broken tube of hot glue, Marinette desperately trying to salvage what she could of her hair, and Pumpkin zooming across the room without regard for anything in their way gave him a good picture.
“Done,” Félix said, a touch of pride in his voice at the task completed with success, then hastily added, “I think,” when Marinette shifted around to reach for the hand mirror on the counter.
Her eyes were impassive as she gazed at the reflection in the mirror, turning it this way and that as her fingers grazed through her scalp. Félix followed her movements and each and every twitch on her face, heart drumming in his ears as he waited for her verdict.
“I can’t braid it anymore,” she said after a few moments, head leaning on the chair’s backrest with a small sigh.
“Can’t you?” Félix stepped closer, a hand moving to her now short hair. The dark strands were soft and light between his fingers, the tips pleasantly grazing his palm with their freshly-cut edge; her bangs were the main survivors from the glue shower, and Félix took great care to keep to that same style she had since they were kids. “It’d just be really small, and only in some specific parts.”
“I guess.”
“And you can still use your hairpins.”
“Yeah.”
She was smiling now. Something glinted in her eyes as they flicked over her reflection. He sighed, relieved, planting a kiss on top of her head before resting his cheek on it to observe the Mar on the mirror surface.
“Meow.” It seemed that Pumpkin had finally found safe to walk out from the back of Félix’s feet and was now brushing themself against Marinette’s legs.
“Yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes, reaching down to pet the cat. “You’re forgiven, asshole.”
