Work Text:
“Craig.”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think my hair’s getting too long?”
The two were sitting in Craig’s room, diligently doing their homework — or at least, Craig was. Ever since they first got to work, Tweek had been shifting around nonstop. His blonde hair kept falling over his eyes as he looked down at his worksheet, and he routinely grunted at its fickle persistence.
“It seems more like you think it is,” he responded flatly.
“It’s just – AGH – it goes everywhere!”
Craig put his pencil down and swiveled his chair to look at where Tweek sat on the floor. It didn’t look like he was gonna get any work done anyways.
“Have you thought about tying it up?” he suggested. “I know that’s what Tricia does when-”
“I’m not your sister, man!!”
“I know, but you can still pin it back or something.” Craig rolled his eyes. Where did Tweek even get that idea from?
“Grr, I don’t know.”
“Okay, well then maybe you should cut it.” For some reason, Tweek paused at that. His eyes grew wide, even wider than normal, and his eyebrows arched in confusion.
“A… haircut?”
“Yeah?” Craig looked his boyfriend over as if he was seeing him for the first time. “Are you an alien or something? Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten your hair cut before. I wouldn’t believe you.”
“No – I have!”
“So then what’s the problem? Just ask your mom to schedule an appointment or something.”
“GAH! No, I can’t!” Craig tried not to wince at his scratchy voice. It always sounded so pained; he should try to get him to drink water more often.
“Why not?”
“I move around too much, man! It’s way too much pressure!! The barber is gonna kill me!” The boy let out a quick screech before he took a breath, continuing, “The last time I went, he almost cut my head off with his sharp-ass scissors! Plus, he’s always asking about my personal life – why does he need to know?!” Tweek’s hands jumped to his hair and he began to yank at the overgrown strands. “I don’t trust anyone who asks that many nosy questions– AGH!”
Craig listened attentively as Tweek spoke. No matter how silly his rants might seem, Craig had learned not long ago to never trivialize Tweek’s emotions. Besides, he kind of agreed. There was way more socialization in a trip to Supercuts than there should be.
“Can’t your mom cut your hair for you then?” He tried to shift the conversation away from Tweek’s anxious spiral and towards the problem at hand. “Or your dad?”
Tweek shook his head. “I’d be way too anxious for that. Not that it matters, anyways. She’s always so busy with the shop. Gah – Dad too.”
Craig narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like Tweek’s parents much, if he was being honest. They seemed to always be too busy with their shop to bother with their son, and when they did finally bother with him, it was to give him another cup of coffee or to loudly congratulate him on being gay for the hundredth time, which evidently was not very helpful.
“They can’t even make enough time to trim your hair?” Craig failed to keep the malice out of his voice.
“Ngh, probably not.” Tweek began to fiddle with the uneven ends of his button-up shirt as if debating whether or not to continue. “It’s fine, dude. That’s how it’s always been.”
Craig raised an eyebrow. “Okay, if you say so,” he paused before saying “I still hate them, though.”
Tweek smiled in return, his eye pulled shut by a tic. “I know.”
Leaving his swivel chair behind, Craig joined Tweek on the floor. Seeing him smile gave the boy the strange urge to hold his hand in his own.
Craig traced his hand with his fingers, making note of every picked-at scab and healing burn mark on his pale skin. He watched as Tweek’s slight shakiness calmed into complete stillness. The boy was so motionless, it was impressive. Suddenly, an idea came to mind. “Hey,” Craig’s nasally voice broke the silence. “Why don’t I just cut your hair for you? You don’t shake as much when you’re around me.”
He watched as Tweek’s whole body jerked at the suggestion. “Do you even know how?”
Craig shrugged. “It can’t be that hard.”
Tweek slipped his hand out of Craig’s with a short laugh, completely devoid of humor. “No way! AGH! I am not letting you near me with a pair of scissors!”
“Come on, babe, I can totally give you a haircut. I’ve watched my mom cut Tricia’s hair countless times.” It technically wasn’t a lie. He’d been lying on the couch watching Red Racer and scrolling on his phone a few times when his mom had decided to turn the living room into a makeshift salon. No, he hadn’t exactly been paying attention to her technique (or much of anything she was doing at all), but Tweek didn’t need to know that. “And my dad’s hair, too.”
“Please, Craig, that’s not impressive. Your dad has, like, two strands of hair!”
“Whatever, my point still stands. It won’t be hard for me to figure it out.”
Tweek still didn’t look convinced. “How do I know you won’t – GAH – slice my head open?” he asked with a grimace.
“I won’t hurt you, I promise,” Craig curled his lips into a smile, a desperate move to reassure his boyfriend with just how wonderful and caring he was. “Trust me.”
Craig knew that if he didn’t help him fix his hair issue, he’d continue complaining about it until he drove them both insane, so he continued to pester Tweek until he finally relented. Then, like he’d seen his mother do many times before, he went about setting up an organized workstation downstairs.
He had covered both the plush chair and ottoman cushion that sat in front of it with an old towel and had collected a variety of scissors, combs, and even one electric razor. He wasn’t really sure how to use that last one, but he’d placed it among the other tools anyway, deciding it made his set-up look more professional. Tweek sat on the loveseat, watching with the occasional tic as Craig put everything in its right place.
“What do we do first?”
“First…” Craig trailed off. Shit. What came first? “First… first we wash your hair.”
He took Tweek’s hand at that, walking him back upstairs and into the bathroom. He sat Tweek down on the edge of the shower tub, wrapping a towel around him to keep him dry. Craig had to go on his tippy-toes to reach the wand from the shower head, and when he brought it down he heard Tweek make a noise in retaliation.
“It’ll be okay,” he said as he turned the valve to the red sun. “This is the relaxing part.”
Water began to spray out of the wand as he sat down next to Tweek, facing the back of his head. Once he felt the water get warmer, he raised it to the blonde hair in front of him. Tweek jerked at the sudden feeling, and Craig watched as his hair mesmerizingly dissolved from its usual light color to a new, unfamiliar, brown.
Craig used one hand to grab the shampoo bottle and squeeze a drop of it on Tweek’s head. He massaged the soap into his hair wordlessly. Neither one of them had spoken in a while; the pattering water and Tweek’s occasional grunts were the only sounds in the whole house. It was nice.
Once Craig had finished with the conditioner and turned the water off, he wrapped the towel around Tweek’s head carefully. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the boy’s head covered in one of his own blue towels.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Yeah, you were right,” Tweek turned to smile back at him. “It was relaxing.”
“Craig, I don’t like this,” Tweek said with a frown. The two were downstairs again, Tweek sitting on the ottoman and Craig on the chair behind him. “Shouldn’t we wait for your mom to get back?”
“I already washed your hair, Tweek. If we wait for her to come back, it’ll be dry by then.” Laura had left about an hour ago to take Tricia to her weekly gymnastics lesson, which was a decent drive out of South Park. She probably wouldn’t be back for a while. “Besides, you already agreed. You’ve come this far, honey, let’s just get it all over with.”
“Ugh, fine,” Tweek shut his eyes dramatically. “Do what you have to do.”
Craig smiled to himself as he studied Tweek’s hair, trying to assess how he would go about this. ‘Trying’ being the key word here. He kept getting distracted by the flattened brown mop of hair in front of him. Tweek was right: it had gotten really long. Craig hadn’t even realized that his hair had surpassed his shoulders, but seeing it straight like this made it obvious. Without his usual wild hair, it almost felt like he wasn’t even Tweek anymore. It made Craig’s heart clench to think that perhaps his boyfriend had completely transformed right before his eyes, becoming some strange alien that he no longer knew like the back of his hand; but then a small spasm shook Tweek’s body, and the other boy was able to relax again.
“Okay, are you ready?” Craig wrapped his small hands in the big adult scissors.
Tweek straightened his back. “Yes, I’m ready.”
“Here I go then.” Craig gulped. If he was being honest, he was starting to get second thoughts about this whole thing. It was his idea in the first place, though; he couldn’t back down now.
Snip. Snip.
In just one second, two strands of hair fell to the hardwood floor. That was all it took for Craig to gain the confidence he needed to continue. He began to cut the hair with more certainty as he went along. This was so easy! Just as he’d thought, Craig was quick to pick up on the proper technique. He couldn’t believe people went to school to be “hair technicians,” and he was this good at it already.
Tweek sat still the entire time. Well, as still as he could. Of course, there was the occasional rasp or shake of a leg, but his head remained stable throughout the haircutting process. Craig continued with ease, snipping as he hummed a song he’d heard Tweek practicing on the piano earlier in the week.
“Maybe I should become a barber,” he broke in the silence.
Tweek scoffed. “What? And give up your dreams of space travel?”
“Look, honey,” Craig took a pause with the scissors and sat back in the chair. “I’m ten now. It’s about time I grow up and get a little more realistic about my future. I mean, just think about all the customers I’d get with these skills,” he opened and closed the scissors for effect.
Tweek laughed his usual scratchy laugh at that. “I don’t know. I think I’d kind of prefer it if I was your only customer.”
“Oh,” was all that Craig could say to that, quickly going back to work with the scissors, damn grateful that their seating arrangement allowed him to hide his red face. He continued working for a time after that, occasionally circling around Tweek to get to his bangs, cutting the blonde hair until he found that he had nothing more to cut.
After he had finished, he took a step back from the ottoman to get a good look at his masterful work.
“How… how do I look?” Tweek looked nervous, which made no sense to the other boy. His hair was nice and out of his way now, and overall was a major improvement.
“You look soooo good,” Craig said with a big thumbs up. This seemed to be enough for Tweek, whose grimace quickly twitched into a smile.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“Let me see it in a mirror!!” Tweek’s voice hitched up in excitement as he got up from the ottoman to rush to the bathroom upstairs. Before he even reached the banister, though, the front door unlocked and was thrown open by Tricia, still dressed in her glittery gymnastics uniform.
All it took was one look at Tweek for the six-year-old girl to double over in a fit of laughter. The boy instantly paled, overtaken by spasms that had all but disappeared in the last hour.
“HNGH – What?!” he asked.
“You–” she barked through her laughter. “Mom!” she cried, redirecting her yelling to the open doorway as Laura Tucker walked through. “Look at him!”
Laura swatted the girl’s pointing hand away with a scowl. “Tricia, what have I told you about the pointing? It’s extremely rude to…” she trailed off as her eyes met with Tweek’s head. She brought a hand to her mouth. “Oh my.”
Tweek yelped and turned to run upstairs. Probably in search of the mirror.
“What? Why are you guys acting like that!?” Craig was beginning to get uncharacteristically upset. This was not the reaction he’d been hoping for.
“Craig,” his mom’s voice softened, “Did you cut his hair?”
“Yes, I did,” it was becoming a real effort for Craig to keep his voice calm and steady. “I think it looks good-”
An abrupt screech belted from the bathroom upstairs.
“I think he saw it,” Tricia said with a smug look on her face.
Craig gave her the middle finger in response.