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"Excuse me, little girl!”
Edgar whipped around before the customer could even tap his shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed. He gets a good look at the customer and tries to make a quick assumption: a mother, a christian with a cross around her neck, probably trying to pick up some Archie comics for her kids. It's a tired song and dance that Edgar responds to the same way, every time; deepening his voice and going “Huh?”
“Oh, I'm sorry sir!” She sounds honest, he's grateful she picked up on his masculinity and didn't keep pushing like some other customers did. It still stung, though, especially with what she says next. “With long hair like that, no wonder I thought you were a girl!”
Edgar got a sick twist in his chest. The woman kept talking, but it just became more noise to his ears. He gets up on his tiptoes, looking over at his brother from across the store over her shoulder. He gives him a look, a look that says ‘it happened again, help.’
Alan gives a nod and steps in, helping the woman with any questions she had as Edgar slumped behind the counter and took a break.
“Don't let it get to you, man.” He hears Alan approach, and begin to comfort him with his hand softly gripping his shoulder. “Santa Carla's full of idiots, it doesn't say anything about you.”
Edgar tries to smile, but his head falls and looks at his reflection in the counter's glass. “That was the third time this week…”
“So? Screw the tourists… I know who you are, even those biker boys know who you are- remember when the Billy Idol lookin’ one scared those assholes out?”
“Yeah…”
“Sam knows who you are-”
Speak of the devil; she walks into the store, wearing a skirt that went just below the knees and some sneakers. She waves to the brothers, “Hey guys!”
“Hey, Sammy.”
“Hi, Sam…”
She zips right on past them before she can notice Edgar’s sorrow, immediately getting distracted by the new comics that lined the shelves. Sam had been living as herself for half a year, telling the boys right after she told Michael. The Frogs accepted her and got used to the change quickly, especially the younger. Edgar felt like he could relate to her on a higher level, one that wasn't just geeking out over Batman anymore.
Alan watches Sam flip from covers to backs, scoping for some gems. He looks back at his brother, still somber, and a way to help flipped up the light switch in his brain.
“Why don't you ask Sam for help?”
“I can't do that…”
“Yeah you can!” Alan is once again shaking Edgar around, exclaiming as quietly as he can. “You always help her out, let her do the saving this time.”
“Nah…” He gets his head up and looks at Sam, admiringly, before it falls again and he kicks the floor. “I don't help her, can't do anything but call her pretty. I'm useless to her.”
“If you were so useless to her, why does she come by everyday?”
Edgar couldn't argue back with that, even though he wanted to. Alan pulls on his arm, trying to get his brother out from behind the counter. He follows, and gets a little push on his back. He walks up to Sam with shaky legs, hoping she didn't hear a bit of the conversation he just had with Alan.
“I need a haircut…” He gets it right off of his chest, lowering his voice and stuffing his hands into his pockets as if this was a drug deal.
Sam looks up from her Spider-Man comic, a small smile on her face, she always smiled when Edgar started a conversation. “Why?”
“Cause…” There really wasn't an easy way to say this. “Cause’ it makes me look like a girl.”
Sam blinks, “I don't think you look like a girl.”
“A lot of people… think I do.”
“Then a lot of people should screw off.” She tries to comfort him through humor, “I have short hair and you know I'm a girl, right?”
“Course I do.”
She squishes his face in her free hand, her fingers and thumb pressing into his cheeks. “You think I'm the prettiest girl in the world, don't ya’ Eddy?”
‘That’s an understatement, Supergirl has nothing on you.’ Is what Edgar thought, but he bit his tongue as his face turned red, pushing off Sam's hand. “Don't call me Eddy…”
“Okay, okay…” She made a note of Edgar's tone, more serious than his usual cover-up annoyance; he was actually bothered by the nickname this time. Sam decided to knock it off, for today. “Y’know a ton of Mikey's friends have long hair, I think they look pretty manly.”
“I'm not like those guys...”
“I think you're a lot more like those guys than you give yourself credit for!”
“It's not about what you think…” He crosses his arms, huffing as he turns his head away. “It's about how I feel.”
Sam studies Edgar’s angst-ridden stance, nodding along as she thinks it over. “Alright, I'll do it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah…” She looks down at the comic in her hand, before lifting it up and showing it to him. “Let me take this for free and you got yourself a deal, Edgar.”
“Deal.”
✂
“Can't promise that I'm any good at this.”
Sam pushes Edgar up straight against the back of the chair, trying to keep him still because every shake made the legs teeter on the bathroom floor’s tiles.
“I have my faith in you, for this hour.”
Sam giggled, despite Edgar being dead serious in his tone. She thought he would've made a great comedian, if the vampire hunting action hero persona didn't work out. She gets behind the chair, her hands still placed on Edgar's shoulders, getting a good look at the both of them in the mirror.
“Do you have anything in mind?”
Sam plays with Edgar's brown locks, it took him everything in his power to not swat at her hands like they're flies. “Don't care, just make it shorter.”
“Alright, alright…” She didn't know if that comment was gonna make it easier, or harder. Sam decides some combing first would be best, reaching to pick up her comb— a little wooden thing— off the sink. She begins to brush through his tough, messy hair.
“Ow- ow!”
“Stay still, will ya?” She yanks through it, continuing to brush until she gets a neat strand. “When was the last time you got a professional haircut?”
“I don't remember, I think my parents stopped taking me when they decided I was old enough to take care of myself. Alan usually does it.”
“Jesus… I believe it, you always look like you just rolled out of bed.”
“I like it like that.”
Edgar watches Sam duck her head behind his ear in the mirror, making the hairs on the back of his neck rise with her breath.
“Do you want my comb, Eddy?” Sam teases, cheesily fluttering her eyelashes. “I mean… I wouldn't mind giving it to you, I have others.”
The blush on Edgar's face gets a toothy grin out of Sam. He wants to beg her to get back to the haircut, pleading in his mind for this to just be over with. He has to keep cool, or else this'll take forever. “I thought you weren't going to call me that.”
“Sorry, sorry…” Sam fixes her posture and gets back to work, combing some of the back to the front in order to give Edgar some longer bangs. She laughed at the way it covered his eyes, reaching back to the sink to ditch her comb for the scissors. “You think you're gonna be staying for dinner?”
“Maybe… I don't know. I don't think your family likes me very much.” Sam cuts the hair in front of Edgar's face, allowing him to see again.
“Are you kidding? My mom loves you!” She begins to snip at the back of his head, Edgar liked how Sam's voice meshed together with the sound of the scissors. “Of course, Michael needs some convincing… but I don't really care what's in his best interest anyway.”
Soon fallen hair circled around the chair like it was a ritual Edgar had talked Sam into doing with him, it wouldn't have been the first time they've done something stupid like that.
“I think we better clean this up…”
“Yeah, yeah…” Edgar gets up, feeling like he could tip over after sitting down for too long. He brushes his own hair off of his jacket and shirt, shaking his head to get the ones on his neck. It felt weird, outside and in.
“Well… what do you think?”
“Well, I feel like a wet cat…” Edgar looks at the new man in the mirror, with a short brown mullet. “But I think I look… okay.”
“Okay?” Sam grins again, reaching to get the red bandana Edgar had taken off before they began out of his pocket. “Here, put this on.”
He takes it out of her hand and wraps it around his forehead, double knotting it in the back rather than the side where he usually tied it. Edgar immediately noted how much easier it was to put his bandana on, less hair getting in the way of his hands or getting tangled with the fabric. He looks back at Sam, a small smile cracking, then looks back in the mirror.
“Better…”
“Better?”
“Yeah… yeah, I think you did a good job.” Edgar looks at Sam, watching her face tint pink; granted, not to the same extreme she made him blush. “I think Miss Sammy Emerson should be proud of herself.”
“Yeah, well… I think you look handsome!”
“Handsome?”
“Yeah, totally.”
“No one's ever said that about me before.”
“Yeah well, people should! You're like Bruce Springsteen…” She pinches his cheek, “y'know, just with more acne.”
Sam laughs and runs out the room before Edgar can talk back, presumably to get a broom and dustpan from downstairs, leaving the boy alone in the bathroom. He looks down at the sink; taking the wooden comb Sam had offered him and shoving it in his pocket, like it was their version of giving someone your class ring. He then looked back up at the mirror one last time, staring— not in that bug-eyed way he usually did every time he saw himself, he stared with respect.
“Bruce Springsteen…” Edgar awed quietly to himself. “Yeah… yeah.”