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"I don't think I've ever met a man who wants to be bald more than you do," you huff, setting the scissors aside for the third time.
Dick has the gall to smother a laugh against his shoulder, ruining the part you've redone twice as many times. The bathroom at his apartment is small and cramped, and it feels even more so like this, Dick half-sprawling over the sink and you backed against the closed door. He'd dragged one of the kitchen table chairs, old and knobby, made of sturdy wood but not necessarily compact, into the bathroom, positioned it right against the vanity, plopped a towel around his shoulders and said something to the effect of go on, then.
You'd made fun of him earlier, walking back to his apartment. Summer was here, and it made its presence known. Sensibly, you'd worn a hat, but Dick was rawdogging the midday sun. Sweat collected at his temple, ran its trail down his neck, and you had to think about something else, something other than the flat of your tongue pressing over his skin to follow. So you'd snorted, watching him try and fail at huffing his bangs out of his eyes, the plastic bag with your assortment of snacks and melting popsicles swinging off his wrist, and said, "ever met a pair of scissors, my man?"
So now you're here, doorknob digging into your kidney every time you try and put some distance between you. He'd set the chair right across the mirror, which rested above the puzzlingly large vanity, and the space between mirror-vanity-chair-Dick-door was barely enough to fit you in. You'd tried keeping the door open, of course you had—it opens to the hallway, you're not stupid—but it swings inwards and every time you moved, it kept hitting the wall, and this is a rental… and so on and so forth. So closed is really the only option you have if you want to keep some range of movement, short of pushing the chair against the door and climbing on Dick's lap, which is no option at all.
(He'd say yes if you offered. You would never.)
"Stop snickering," you grumble, sneaking a hand around the wing of the chair to poke him in the side. Dick, sitting cross-legged, knocks his knee against the edge of the vanity and groans. Good. "You think I'm joking? I've watched that stupid Brad Mondo video like ten times already. If you keep moving, I'm giving you a bald patch on purpose."
"Uh-huh," he says. Giggles. Idiot. "Should I get a bowl from the cupboards? I've never had a bowl cut before, but the idol guys Steph likes to watch on her phone seem to rock 'em. You think I'd look good like that?"
"I think you should get professional help."
"Oh, that's way past me."
"From a hairdresser," you stress, picking up the swords again. Scissors. The scissors again. They might as well be swords in your hands, though.
"I trust you," he says simply.
You sigh. It's because he does things like this that you'd be better off hating him, really. The man peers into the wound, digs his thumb in and asks if it hurts. If you like it. And you do, is the thing, you love the little moments. The crumbs of affection, freely given and unimportant. It hurts to have him inside you, but you live for the stretch, for the itch of the tears drying down your cheeks. You're a masochist, simply put, and he's your unknowing sadist.
"You should trust a licensed professional with the $26 a decent cut is worth," you say instead of all that. Because why would you say that, even.
See, that's the other thing in the up and down of this friendship. A lot of it feels pretty pointless. Not the happy stuff—not the talking, not the getting along. Not the walks on the sidewalk, the sun blaring down on you. Not the movie nights and the shoving each other for popcorn. Not even the grievances, big and small, and rare as they've become. But this, the… the expectation. The pause before the step. The constant second-guessing, the self-vigilance. The waiting around to see if you've been found out, even though Dick knows, even though he bears it so kindly, so patiently. Every moment you set your hands upon him, asking yourself is this innocent enough? and knowing it isn't, and knowing he knows and lets you anyway. Out of pity. Out of love.
Not, crucially, out of interest.
You think he'd do whatever you asked him for at this point. Your friendship's something of a rubber band. It changes shape, it constricts around time and opportunity to squeeze out passing and enduring enjoyment. You take care not to stretch it too far so it doesn't snap on you, sting you all the way to hell, but by this point it's pretty sturdy. You text most days, and you've got his brother's number, and whenever he disappears, he always comes back around.
So he'd do it, really, if you asked. If you came to him, and pleaded with him sweetly on your knees, and said would you teach me? Would you show me? He'd set his hands on you, and he would. He would teach you. He would show you. And he would do it with care and attention, mouth pressed against the divot between your ear and your jaw, and he'd mutter loving nothings that'd ring out true in the cloying dark because he does love you. He does. You love him back. That's no trouble to admit.
But he doesn't want to, is the thing. His gaze will slice across a crowd and pick you out of every person in the room and say I want to spend my afternoons with you, but he won't mean it like that. His eyes will flit over your body, and he'll say you're cute, but he's not thinking about it the way you want him to. You linger in his thoughts the way the comfortable simplicity of a morning cup of coffee does, something you want and seek and look forward to, but not something you crave.
Which is fine. Well within his right. It's just the way the chips fall.
His neck is warm when you hold it, rotate his head just a little to the left to inspect the place you'd been working on before. It's hot inside the bathroom, and it's not just you, it's the half-hour you've already spent cooped up in here, and the bad ventilation courtesy of the sad, little window over the shower head. His skin is almost damp, too hot to feel clammy, and you gotta get the two of you out of here soon or you'll end up getting heatstroke.
You set Dick up just right, and he blows his bangs out of his eyes, ruining the parting. Again.
"I will recede your hairline well before your time," you threaten, pressing the side of the scissors under the line of his jaw.
Dick works his throat, the muscle moving under the cold metal of the blade, and you hold the scissors a little tighter so they don't slip. He throws you up a flirtatious smile, drawls a seductive, "promise?"
"Ugh," you groan, more for the show of it than anything else. You have to play act it, over correct and be more brusque than you'd like. The hand resting on his shoulder slides up to grab a fistful of hair, so soft between your fingers, so much of it to cut, and shove his head down.
Dick makes a sound half between surprise and—well. You do not question that. Eager to move well past it, you inspect the back of his hair with critical eyes, and are pleased to find it laying mostly okay. It's a little shaggy, really, but it suits him. Few things don't.
"Don't be so rough," he says, and your guilty grip slackens. Then, unnecessarily, he adds, his voice gravelly, "I'll start getting excited."
"Shut up, Dick," you tell him, for lack of a better response. Sometimes he makes it worse on purpose.
You make the next cuts in silence. He's pliant underneath you, moving where you tell him, twisting this way and that. Doesn't mind you shoving his toothbrush and soap over the toilet—
"Get a shelf, man."
"It's a rental," he whines.
—or having to press against the knobby bars of the chair when you have to get your ass over the corner of the sink to get his bangs straight. When he sees you concentrating, he shuts up, but when you're deliberating or faffing about, he makes conversation. He'd make any barber's day, honestly.
"I think," you say, curling over his shoulder and running your fingers through the floppy bits of hair over his ears, "we're officially done."
Dick inspects himself in the mirror, turning his face left and right. You slide your hands down to grip the back of the chair, expectant. He doesn't seem unhappy, but he has the tendency to keep a straight face when he's evaluating. You kinda like the way his eyes go sharp and assessing, but then again, that's not a thought to entertain for too long. He grins at you through the mirror, and then drops his head over the back of chair, knocking against your knuckles.
"I like it," he says. "Do I look handsome?"
You snort. "I said it was done, not that it was good."
Dick pouts. "So I don't?"
A modest shrug. "I think it could be worse."
"You're so mean to me sometimes." He sighs. He does look handsome, choppy bangs and all, and you'll tell him later, but it's good practice for him to work for it. You won't reap those benefits, but some poor devil will.
"A barber would've sung your praises."
"Mm," Dick hums, uninterested. God, you hope he's not considering coming to you for all his haircuts.
You slide your hands out from underneath his head, rest them on the swoops at the very ends of the back of the chair, but he doesn't move. He's watching you now, bright eyes inscrutable. You look back on, holding his electric gaze. I am watching you watch me, you think. All our lives, we'll watch each other. And that's enough.
A tendril of your hair slips down your temple, hangs between you both. Dick lifts his arm to catch it, twisting the end around his finger.
"Should I cut yours, too?" He asks, far more quiet than before. You know what he's asking. His fingers through your hair. His hands on you.
You want to kiss him. You want to swipe back the hair off his forehead and press a kiss there. You want to feel his throat move under your fingers as you kiss his eyelids and his cheeks. Want to watch his mouth part when you hover right above it. The desire's so immediate, even now, even after all this work, as though it's never faded even a little, always at the ready right beneath your skin. He's watching you watch him, and he can see it brewing in your eyes.
Instead, you slap a hand over his mouth, widen your eyes at him, and go, "hell, no!"
He laughs you out of the bathroom, cowardice slipping out right behind you.