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Worf stood in front of the basin in his quarters, the end of a low growl escaping between his teeth. He was due to his shift in 10 minutes, and made great time - pressed uniform on, shoes shiny and laced, communicator and pips perfectly aligned. Looking in the mirror, only one detail fractured the image of the decorous security officer - his hair. The damned thing was caught in a snarl to one side, a few comb teeth poking from various angles. Any strands that escaped the snarl seemed to stick out in whichever direction looked the most ridiculous. Worf stared at his reflection and the growl bubbled up in him again. He threw the remains of the comb in his hand to the floor. It made him feel a bit better.
Eight minutes and copious amounts of sonic waves and swearing later, Worf was on his way to the bridge. He managed to comb out the snarl, although it was about as pleasant as a painstik ritual, but he failed to smooth any of the hair that stuck out. He sighed and tapped his badge.
“Worf to Mr. Mot.”
“Mot here. What can I do for you?”
“Do you have an appointment after the end of Beta shift? The situation has become… unmanageable.”
“Why of course, Mr. Worf, The usual? I can fit you in at 1900”
“That would be acceptable”
“Alright, bring a PADD. You know it takes a while. See you at 1900,” added Mot in a song-songy voice.
______________________________
The salon chair was wide and plush, which did nothing to negate Worf’s discomfort. Mr Mot succumbed to his particularities, and he sat in the corner, strategically positioned to be outside the line of sight of oncoming clients. He did this every 3 months for the entirety of his commission on the Enterprise, and on Earth, every 3 months ever since he was 16. This did not negate his discomfort either.
The security officer shifted in his chair. His uniform was covered with a white hairdresser’s gown, and his hair was completely enveloped in a big, fluffy bonnet that rustled when he inevitably ground his jaw. He stared at the chronometer. 27 minutes until the end of the treatment. Even though the establishment was busy, no one he personally knew walked through the door.
“Why hello, Mr. mot!” chimed a musical voice. Worf froze.
“Hello, my lovely Deanna. How’s the new cream formula I recommended?”
“Perfect, thank you. Much more moisturizing," smiled Deanna with a toss of her hair. She smiled at Mot again and sat down at the available chair - right next to Worf.
Deanna Troi. Ship’s counselor, fellow bridge officer… and Worf’s tentative new girlfriend.
Ghuy'cha!
“Worf, a pleasure to see you,” said Deanna. Her smile remained, but something changed in her eyes - she was already judging him, wasn’t she?
“You go to Mr. Mot’s,” managed Worf, intelligently.
“I do. For a trim, usually. Not trying a new style today.” She shot him a look that Worf could best interpret as Are you trying a new style?
Since she could empathically sense his discomfort, Worf thought it was unfair of her to raise the subject. The silence stretched. Must he really reply?
“It’s a straightening treatment” Worf said with a moue.
“Oh, is it?” replied Deanna conversationally, like the silence never happened. “Is it any good?”
“It is the only one that works,” he returned, determined to leave it at that. Unfortunately, Deanna kept looking at him. Wasn’t the conversation over? He thought of the broken comb on his floor and was suddenly furious.
“Because my hair is impossible! It tangles! It snarls! It shatters combs like they are enemy bones! It needs to be straightened into submission just to look respectable!”
If Deanna judged him worse for the outburst, so be it. The gown crinkled as he forced his hands back down. His hair was impossible. Which is why he was here.
Fortunately, at that moment Mr. Mot chose to come back. Worf turned his chair away, relieved, while Mot and Deanna chattered away about creams, formulas and curl patterns. He heard the metallic snip-snip of Mot’s scissors punctuate an exclaim, and Deanna laughing mellifluously in response. Worf had never felt more like a wild, lumbering oaf.
“Ah, that looks perfect, Mr. Mot. Split ends all gone.” Deanna grinned at her reflection. As she tossed her head this way and that, Worf could swear she was trying to sneak a glance at him. “Any time, Counselor,” said Mot, and took the gown off her with a flourish. “And now, I believe your treatment is done processing, Commander Worf.” Worf grunted in the affirmative. Before Mot could get in front of him and begin shampooing the treatment off, Deanna got in his way. “Worf, why don’t we meet tomorrow after Alpha shift? We’re still en-route to the Colony on Vallius V, it should be a quiet night.”
That woman. Deanna was so fluid, unpredictable to him - that was one of the things that made her so enticing. It also meant she caught him off-guard often. He shot one of his canned responses. “I would be honored, Counselor.” Damned if he called her ‘Deanna’ in front of the hairdresser. “Oh, if it’s a matter of honor, then,” - Deanna gave a wink - “I’ll reserve some holodeck time. See you tomorrow." And so she made her exit. The last thing Worf saw before the post-treatment shampoo assaulted his nose was her dark, shiny mass of curls.
______________ Deanna’s POV ______________
“Computer, Arch.”
The doors slid open in a smooth motion, and Deanna walked out into the hallway, blinking. Worf followed soon after. The lights on the ship were harsh compared with the moonlit scenes they experienced together on the holodeck. Deanna chose one of her favorite romantic programs, a full moon night in Meteora, Greece, on Earth. She appreciated the semblance of fresh air and space, and although he was taciturn as always, she could discern Worf’s awe of the towering rock formations. In there, the chill air of the night contrasted with the warmth of his hand in hers. She knew he was uncomfortable with public displays of affection, but she was still craving his touch, his company. She sighed.
“How did you find the program?” she asked, buying time. Worf took a moment to consider an answer. “The view was stimulating. It is admirable that humans took solace in those monasteries. I would appreciate the solitude as well.” He hummed his little approving hum (Deanna found it endearing), and turned a bit as if to go. Oh no, thought Deanna, not yet!
If he were any other lover, she would have made a much more physical advance by now. If he were Will - Deanna swallowed the smile that tugged at her lips - they would have been in bed already. But Worf… Worf was something different. She was peeling each layer carefully away, learning more and more about him any time she played her cards right and he felt safe enough. Every time she did, she found that under his gruffness he was curious, eager to please, even sweet. She tried to think about what she could offer to stretch their evening just a bit longer. She wanted touch, intimacy, but not something that Worf would consider dishonorable or would scare him away. Not a massage… they weren’t cuddling yet…
“Can I do your hair?”
“What?!” he stared at her.
“Your hair.” Deanna bit her lip and looked up at the Klingon. “I was thinking about our encounter at Mot’s yesterday. I think I have some hair oils you’d like.”
She didn’t need her empathic power to sense the tension coming off him. But he was also… curious, and a faint note of appetency was beating at the back of his mind. Ugh, he was adorable like this. His hand absentmindedly rose to touch his hair, his eyes wandering along her face as if searching for meaning.
“I… I thought, after you saw my behavior at Mot’s… You would think less of me. You’d be ashamed.”
Deanna fought the urge to roll her eyes. Worf was decorous to the point of ridiculousness sometimes.
“No, of course not. Actually, I could sympathize.” She took Worf’s arm - after checking that no one was around - and walked them to the turbolift. “I’ve had my fair share of hair trouble, too. Deck 8.”
Worf frowned. “Excuse me for saying that, but I’ve seen your mother. Did she not possess the ability to take care of your hair? She carries around that… confection of a hairstyle.” Deanna chuckled. “Worf! My mother wears wigs. Her own hair was never enough of a confection, as you put it, for her to be satisfied with it.”
They arrived at her quarters. The computer automatically lit the room to a dim, pleasant warmth - Deanna was no debutant. Worf, on the other hand, stood at the entrance as if he’d never seen another person’s quarters before. "Come on and seat over here,” she beckoned towards the stuffed armchair against her vanity. "I'll bring you a prune juice.”
------------- Worf’s POV -------------
Deanna’s quarters were surprising, and yet not so. He had not visited many of his friends’ quarters on the Enterprise - Data’s certainly were no example - but he’d never seen starship quarters look so… homey. The entire space was swathed in soft things, drapes, carpets and pillows. The regulation plexiglass table was covered in a floral tablecloth that reminded him of his parents’ home in Minsk. A vase with flowers stood on it, giving the space a cheerful touch of planetside life. Ghuy'cha, he thought. I should have brought her flowers. He’d have to remember next time. He was about to ask her what kind of flowers these were, in case he could glean what she liked, when she called. "Come on and sit over here," she said, beckoning towards a fluffy seat next to a table full of little bottles. "I'll bring you a prune juice.” He sat. Deanna brought over an almost equally fluffy chair and posed it perpendicular to him. The cups - hot cocoa for her, of course - were deposited among the myriad of bottles.
“Thank you for staying. I was not ready for our night to be over just yet,” said Deanna. This relieved him somewhat. He was wanted here, in this nest of softness. “I enjoy our time together, Deanna. I know… it might not always be clear I do.” She chuckled, and looked at him, and this time he was quite sure, with affection. She leaned towards him, almost touching, and with a leaping heart he closed the distance. A satisfied sound escaped his lips. She sighed in response. And so they spent a few minutes in silence, neither pushing to speak. Eventually, one of her curls fell to touch his cheek, and he remembered why they were there.
“You wanted to do my hair, didn’t you?”
“Do you still want me to?”
He could say no. He could leave. He didn’t have to have his hair touched. He could-
“I do.”
“I’ll be very gentle, I promise.” Worf cast a glance on the little table, full of supposed hair accoutrements he wasn’t familiar with and some mighty-looking combs.
“Neither of these will work. I know. My mother broke countless of them in my hair before I was old enough to stop her.”
“I wasn’t going to use any of them,” she replied soothingly. “Just my fingers and some oil. Please, tell me if it hurts - it’s supposed to feel nice.” She stretched in her chair and picked a bottle off the table. “Smell this,” she handed it to him, “and tell me if it’s ok.” He opened the bottle and immediately wrinkled his nose. Vanilla and some flowery scent bombarded him, and he set the bottle with a thunk that made its brethren rattle. “No. Not this.” Deanna didn’t seem perturbed. She simply moved the offending cosmetic to the back and started searching among the others. Humming to herself, she checked several, all different shapes and colors, reading the backs and at one point even sniffing it herself. She offered him an amber-colored container. This one was much better, smelling only faintly of cinnamon. He handed it back and nodded approvingly: “This will do.”
“Lean back then.”
She moved her chair behind him, and he had to breath out his unease. He could see in the mirror attached to the table how she covered her palms in the oil. “I’m going to run my hand through your hair, alright? I’ll do it from tip to root, so it won’t snag.” Her hands hovered above his head and he realized that she was waiting for approval. “Procced,” was how it came out, and he hoped his cringe at how professional it sounded wasn’t visible. And then - then - her fingers sunk into his hair, and he tensed, and he… relaxed. It didn’t hurt. He felt gentle pressure on his scalp as Deanna worked the oil into the tips of his hair, but that’s it. As she climbed up his hair, he slumped further and further in the fluffy chair, giving himself over to her deft fingers.
------------ Deanna’s POV ------------
As she continued massaging the oil into his hair, she noticed how much it needed it. How many years have Worf straightened his hair? Since 16?
“Did you ever oil your hair after a straightening?"
“I didn’t want to do anything more to it. It seems that every time I touched it, I just made it worse. So I let the hairdressers do what they do and tried not to mess up their work,” he replied, bitterness coloring his voice. Deanna kept at her rubbing. “I understand. As I’ve said, I’ve had my fair share of hair troubles too.”
“I still find that hard to believe,” he intoned.
“I swear! You’ve seen my mother’s wigs, and my father always kept his hair close-cropped. No one in the family had hair like mine, except my paternal grandmother, who passed away when I was young. We don’t get storms in my region of Betazed often, but I used to feel like I had my own personal storm cloud. Dark, moody, crackling with static.” She laughed at her own teenage melodrama.
“What changed?” murmured Worf, his figure lax in her armchair.
“My first girlfriend,” she blushed. Worf was turning and rising in the chair as if to look for the long-broken-up-with girlfriend. “Down, boy, she’s not here. Don’t get all jealous.” Worf’s emotions shifted towards embarrassment. She continued.
“She went to beauty school, and she was always fascinated with my curls. Her own hair was stick-straight. I was the subject of many experiments, but eventually she made some great formulas for me. The static was gone, at least.” Worf growled softly as she worked at a little knot close to the scalp, loosening it with the oil. This was really doing it for her. She wished he would allow her to see him like this more often. “I’ve learned a lot since then. Hairdressers are all well and good, but you know your body best.” Worf nodded decidedly, not moving away from her hands as he did. “When I first started practicing Mok’bara, my instructor was much taller than me. I found that to achieve the forms xe did, I needed to adjust for my own range of movement.”
“And today you teach.”
“I do.”
And so they spent some more time in silence, Deanna enjoying the intimacy of handling Worf’s hair. And if her empathic skills were as sharp as always, he was savoring it just as much as she was.
___________ DS9 - Worf’s POV ___________
“Commander Worf, it is 0630. Time to wake.” The computer’s voice blew away the last of his somnolence. With a grunt he peeled the blanket away and padded to the terminal, to look at the day’s schedule. General Martok is returning today. Best be prepared. Behind him, swaddled in her own blanket, Jadzia swatted at the air and murmured something about later…five more minutes…
Worf knew by this time (after they quarreled about it for three days) not to disturb her, no matter how urgent the morning’s business seemed to him. When needed, his par'Mach'kai could rise quickly. Besides, he liked his mornings quiet.
Still in his night clothes, he went to the washbasin and started on his hair. Tugging off the black silk bonnet - a parting gift from Deanna - revealed a completely different picture than what he looked like serving on the Enterprise.
The position on DS9 was challenging, intriguing, worthy of his skills. He felt right being here on the front lines, strengthening the Federation against the dominion. And it brought him to Jadzia. But what he failed to consider when taking the commission was that even though the promenade was full of barbers and stylists, none of them knew how to administer his straightening treatment.
And so, for the first time since his teenage years, the washbasin mirror reflected Worf’s face with a halo of crimped, weltering hair.
He had to admit; it wasn’t as bad as when he was young. Even after their liaison ended, Worf kept up the hair routine Deanna helped him craft. The bonnet and weekly oil treatments, along with gentle fingercombing, allowed his hair to grow longer. Now, when Jadzia spent the night over more often than not, he let her braid it before tucking it in the bonnet, which helped with the morning snags even more. When on duty, he took to wearing it bound in a leather cord, a style he saw on a Klingon captain in a holonovel. Those few minutes in the morning spent untangling and wrapping his hair felt like battle preparation, no longer like the battle itself.
Uniform on, shoes shiny and hair done, he strode out decidedly to face the day.
____________
“Why don’t you work on your reports over here? When you’re done, I’ve got something for you,” called Jadzia from the settee. She patted the space next to her. Worf recalculated. After duty, on odd stardates, he spent about an hour listening to opera and writing his reports. He usually did so at his desk, in solitude, but Jadzia seemed to have wormed her way into his routine. He could refuse, send her away, but he was feeling like letting her. He was used to fighting over every centimeter of his privacy and preferences, And he did so with Jadzia occasionally too, but… there was something about her that made capitulation just as sweet as victory.
“I will sit with you. Will you occupy yourself?” She nodded, so Worf grabbed the reports’ PADD, sat down next to her and kissed her offered cheek. Jadzia hummed in approbation and leaned against him. From the corner of his eye, he could see her loading a novel on her own PADD. He turned on Aktuh and Maylota, and spent the next hour writing his report and enjoying the second act, just as it should be. With his par'Mach'kai at his side, he admitted to himself, the jilting scene struck deeper. He signed the last report. Clasping his hands together, he turned to Jadzia.
“Computer, stop playing. You said you have something to show me?”
She lifted an open palm, eyes glued to the novel. A minute later, her eyes flitted to the end of the page, and she turned the PADD off with a deep sigh.
“I had to finish this scene, they were about to kiss,” said Jadzia, her familiar playfulness apparent in her features. Worf nodded solemnly. “Now, let me show you what I’ve got. You know that General Martok got back from Qo'noS today.”
“Of course. We met to discuss deployment for the border patrols. I do not understand why the high council continues to refute-”
“So,” she stopped him, laying a hand on his forearm, “The high council’s questionable opinions are not the only thing he brought back with him. With his advice, I had this commissioned from an artisan on Qo'noS. She’s the same one he buys from.” She pulled out a small, elongated box, made from dark, shiny wood. It smelled faintly of spices. “C’mon, open it.” He took it carefully and flicked the clasp open. He could not believe what was inside.
“It’s a--you’ve bought me a--a--”
“A targ-tooth comb” beamed Jadzia. “Seeing how much care you put into your hair, I was surprised you didn’t have one already. Like Kor always says, no other comb will do the job on ‘true Klingon tresses’.” At a loss for words, all Worf could do was put one hand onto hers and peer into the box again to confirm what he saw. There, on a bed of black velvet, rested an elegant, ivory-colored comb. It had a looped handle at the top, similar to a bat’leth, and a row of long, tapering teeth. His name was etched into the handle in Klingon lettering, next to the escutcheon of the house of Martok. A sharp emotion pierced through him.
“It is not often that a gift is such a potent reminder.”
“Reminder of what?”
“I have told you little about how difficult it was for me to grow up among humans. Wherever I went, I was not enough - Klingon, Human, everything I did was wrong in the eyes of someone.” Jadzia curled herself closer to him, like a piece of armor, he thought. He gathered his courage and continued. “I cannot help that the way I look causes discomfort in others. My face, my body, and this uniform. But they are both my birthright and my choice, both of which I find worthy.”
“I can only imagine how difficult it was, Worf. And I admire you for sticking with your values. I’ve been there, over the course of my life. It’s one of the things I love about you-”
Worf felt a chill of excitement flow through him at the word ‘Love’.
“-But what does this have to do with hair?” asked Jadzia.
“Unfortunately, everything. My hair is what it is, and I will not suffer hiding it,” voice rising and edging to a growl - “but it took me a long time to learn that lesson. And a lot of help.” Softly, he looked away and thought of Deanna. It took him a while to meet Jadzia’s eyes again. He will not lose himself over old lovers. Jadzia let him have a moment, shrewd woman. They shared a kiss. “If that’s the reminder I’ve given you, I’m glad of it,” chuckled Jadzia, although her eyes might have been wet. “You never have to hide anything from me, Worf. Never hide yourself for anyone.” She touched the comb, still resting in its box. “May I?”
Worf turned his back to her and pulled out the cord. His hair - with all its frizz, waves and crimps - tumbled down. He held his breath.
The targ teeth glided down his head like the sword of Kahless itself. Snags and tangles bowed before it like it was a fearsome enemy. As she combed, Jadzia called “Computer, Aktuh and Maylota, third act.” Worf leaned back and blinked away the tears prickling his eyes. The tones of the reunited lovers scene washed over him. He had never felt more like Worf of house Martok, Starfleet officer and par'Mach'kai of Jadzia Dax. He had never felt more like himself.