Work Text:
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Calum watches Michael struggle with his hair from the corner of his eye. The blond boy's face is scrunched, but he seems to have it under control. Whatever he's doing with his hair, that is.
So Calum decides not to intervene and let Michael be. They're in their hotel room, a couple hours after a show, and tomorrow they've got a day off. What could go wrong trying to style one's hair?
A lot, apparently. Especially if you're Michael, Calum discovers when seconds later the room starts to fill with a strange burning smell. Calum puts his book down when he hears Michael whisper a soft "Shit. Fuck.", and he walks over.
"Holy shit, Mike, what the hell are you doing?" Calum now sees that the thing Michael had been struggling with is a hair straightener. He can guess what went wrong.
"Uh," Michael says. "I think it's stuck?" He smiles apologetically, though Calum doesn't know why, since it's not his hair that's burning.
On cue, the iron makes a strange clicking noise, and starts sizzling. Calum, alarmed, is quick to unplug the thing and starts to untangle it from Michael's blond-going-black hair.
It proves to be quite difficult, Michael seems to have wrapped his hair around it in a way that Calum can't seem to figure out. What was he doing with a hair straightener, in his straight hair, anyway?
Michael waits patiently whilst Calum is busy freeing the slightly less hot iron from the mess of tangles with rope-like texture that is now Michael's hair.
"I don't know how you guys do it." He says when Calum finally removes the straightener.
Calum raises his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Michael rolls his eyes. "Straighten your hair! Style it! You do it every single day and make it look so easy!"
Calum laughs at that. "Why would you want to straighten your hair though? You've got the straightest hair I've ever seen!"
"Exactly!" Michael exclaims. "I thought, maybe, I could try to curl my hair instead. See id it'd fit me."
"Mike. You need a curling iron for that, not a straightener." Calum waves the device around. "Pretty straight forward, right?" He snickers.
"They're, not the same thing?" Michael asks carefully.
"No."
"Oh."
"Hey, it'll be okay, you didn't know. At least your hair didn't fall off, right?"
The corners of Michael's mouth turn up slightly. "Yeah. Thanks for saving me, by the way. I'm sorry if I ruined your straight-iron, or whatever you call it."
Calum laughs again. "It's fine. Hey! Tell you what. Tomorrow's our day off. We can go on a hunt for a curling iron together, yeah?"
Michael nods vigorously, a big smile now present on his face.
"Any particular reason for wanting to curl your hair?"
"Like I said, I want to know what I would look like with it. You, Ash, and Luke all rock curly hair, and I feel left out."
Calum laughs at that. Michael never fails to make him smile.
"Besides, my hair is so straight, it's almost misleading." He mumbles.
"Whoa. Wait. You're not straight?" Calum looks at Michael with big eyes.
The blond boy shakes his head, his cheeks slowly turning red.
"So you're gay? Bi?" Calum feels a strange kind of excitement running through him at his best friend sharing this with him.
"Neither. I'm pan." He says softly.
It rings a bell in Calum's mind, though he can't quite put his finger on it. Michael has taught Calum everything he knows about sexualities and genders, but there's just so much to remember, he gets things mixed up quite a lot.
"Wait! That means you don't care what gender your partner is, right?"
"Yes!" Michael's face lights up. "I'm surprised you even knew that, Cal!" Michael slings his arms around Calum to pull him in for a hug.
Calum happily hugs Michael back, squeezing tightly when he lets go.
"Seriously. I'm glad you trust me enough to tell me."
Michael punches Calum's shoulder. "Sap."
"Hey!" He rubs over the spot Michael hit him in, dramatically pretending to be hurt.
Michael barks out a laugh, effectively making Calum laugh, too.
"So. Curling iron tomorrow?"
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