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It was a dark and stormy night.
That’s a lie, actually. It’s a perfectly normal night, but that doesn’t feel anything even close to dramatic enough. It’s a calm and quiet night (if Wemmbu ignores Egg’s soft snoring beside him), and if it weren't for the charged atmosphere that permeated absolutely everything and everyone, it would be a night exactly like any other.
Wemmbu knows, logically, that he’s supposed to be getting rest right now. Physically and mentally preparing for the massive battle they all know they’re walking into tomorrow. The problem is he just can’t.
The coming fight against Law is taking up every corner of his mind, and his muscles itch with the need to move. It’s not nerves, exactly, more like…preemptive adrenaline. He feels like a live wire, a lit explosive, a fishing rod ready to snap.
He turns from his side to his back, hoping to relieve at least some of the restlessness.
Maybe hours have passed since he laid down. Maybe it’s only been thirty minutes. Staring up into the pitch blackness of a borrowed bedroom, Wemmbu sighs to himself, as if maybe through sheer exasperation he can force the world to spin a little faster.
It doesn’t work. He turns back onto his side.
A muffled “Bro, can you stay still?” comes from the pile of blankets and feathers beside him. Whoops.
“My bad, bro,” he mutters into the darkness. Screwing with his own sleep schedule is acceptable, but not Egg’s. Okay, time to switch strategies.
Sliding out of the horribly thin bed, Wemmbu blindly creeps his way through the room and towards the thin line of light that presumably marks the door, and slips out into the hallway.
The rest of District 13 is as quiet as he’d expected. The only sounds come from the soft padding of his socked feet against the floor and the hum of fluorescent lights overhead.
He shivers slightly. The place had been designed with survival in mind, not comfort, meaning the central heating left much to be desired. Especially in his sleep clothes, which consisted of only a pair of sweatpants and a tank top.
Wemmbu always sleeps with his hair down, and it spills down his back and over his shoulders as he walks. Long purple strands brush against the bare skin of his shoulders and arms, causing him to shiver once again and wrap his arms around himself. It makes him feel strangely vulnerable, and for no particular reason. Should he need them, his armor, totems, and orbitals are safely tucked away in his inventory and quickly accessible.
Whatever. Late nights and way-too-bright lights do weird things to everyone’s heads.
He reaches one of the common areas scattered throughout the compound. It’s not much, just a sitting area and a small kitchen, but it will do.
It seems Spoke and Jumper are already occupying the seating area. Spoke had passed out against the coffee table, head and arms still propping him up where he appeared to have been working on…some kind of schematic. Jumper, at least, had the decency to fall asleep on the couch, and is currently curled up against the armrest in a jumbled mess of pink and white.
Careful not to wake them up, Wemmbu silently creeps into the kitchen. Boredom more than anything else that compels him to open the fridge. Inside is a container of pre-sliced deli meat, two mesh bags of potatoes, several bottles of milk, and a handful of protein shakes that definitely belong to Flame.
Nice, guys, he thinks to himself. This whole rebellion thing is going great.
He grabs one of the protein shakes, mostly because he knows it’ll piss off Flame, and leans against the counter to drink it. It tastes horrible and leaves a chalky texture in his mouth, but whatever. Some things were worth a little suffering, he decides.
He’s not sure how long he stands there. The world is hazy around the edges, the way it only gets in the middle of the night, so his sense of time is practically nonexistent.
There’s a soft rustle of fabric and the sound of footsteps somewhere to his left.
Immediately, he’s snapped out of whatever haze he was just in and stands up straighter, alert even though they’re theoretically safe here. Underestimating Law is a fatal mistake, he’s learned, and not one he’ll be quick to make again.
It’s only once a familiar, obnoxious shade of yellow appears from around the corner that he relaxes.
“Oh, it’s you,” he whispers, leaning back against the counter and taking another sip of liquid chalk.
For the briefest moment, a startled look flashes across Zam’s face before dissolving into relief. “Yeah, it’s me,” she replies. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Wemmbu shakes his head.
“Me neither.”
Zam opens the fridge, stares at it for a moment, then closes it without taking anything. “Wow, this really is the most scuffed operation ever.”
Wemmbu scoffs. “Right?”
Undeterred by their lackluster resources, Zam faces him and leans against the fridge. There’s a new glint in her eyes that definitely wasn’t there a moment ago. He doesn’t recognize it, but he can tell he doesn’t like it, either.
This is going somewhere. That’s probably bad.
“Y’know, it’s been forever since I’ve seen you with your hair down,” she says.
Her words catch him off guard. It has been a while. About two years, in fact. “I mean, I sleep with it down, so,” he replies, shrugging, because what else was he supposed to say?
She grins. “You should let me do it for you.”
“What?!” he whisper-yells. There is no way he heard that right. In no conceivable reality did Zam of all people just offer to do his hair for him.
It’s not like he doubts her abilities. He knows she’s good, she’d done his hair a couple of times back when…well, back when they worked together. But that was a long time ago, before their entire partnership went to shit. Since then, the only person besides Wemmbu who was allowed to touch his hair and keep all their fingers was Egg.
It’s not that the two of them are on bad terms, either. They’re fine. Totally and completely normal and fine. Amazing what a couple prisons and a few life-or-death scenarios can do to bring people together.
Wemmbu just isn’t quite sure they’ve reached the “braiding each other’s hair” stage of friendship again.
Zam is looking at him with pleading eyes. “Please? It’s so long, I really wanna curl it,” she practically begs.
To be honest, he can’t remember when he last curled his hair, and the prospect is very tempting. There’s just so much of it that he could never justify dedicating that much time and effort to a hairstyle. High, straight ponytails were his go-to. Maybe he’d have Egg put it in a braid or a bun if he really wanted it out of the way. But curls? Almost never.
“I-” he starts, then cuts himself off because he really has no clue what to say.
With mounting horror, Wemmbu watches in real time as a lightbulb goes off inside Zam’s head. “You know, you’d look really cool and intimidating if you showed up to fight Law with your hair done,” she says, drawing out the end of her sentence mischievously.
And damn it, she’s right, he would look really badass. Fuck, she was good.
He groans and downs the last of his shake. “Fine.”
“Ow! What the hell was that for?!”
“Well, if you would stay still for two minutes–”
“I’m not gonna stay still while you’re ripping my hair out!”
“Bro, keep your voice down, you’re gonna wake everyone up!” Zam honest-to-god giggles. “Holy shit, you are so loud.”
Wemmbu, on the other hand, does not find anything about this situation even remotely funny, much less giggle-worthy. If anything, it’s starting to look more and more bash-Zam’s-head-in-with-a-mace-worthy by the second.
He’s already regretting agreeing to this. They had a war to fight today; he should be getting rest, not having his hair yanked out by the roots for the sake of style.
He glares at her through the mirror in front of them, but he lowers his voice. “Do you have to rip it out every time you brush it?” he demands.
She returns the glare, still holding a section of his hair and the brush she got from…Wemmbu actually isn’t sure where the brush came from. It looks fancy and yellow, so it is hers, presumably, but it’s not like anyone had time to pack a bag before coming to District 13. Besides, didn’t she just spend months in prison?
“I wouldn’t be ripping your hair out if you weren’t moving around so much!”
And yeah, that’s kind of fair. Wemmbu won’t admit it out loud, obviously, but he has been moving a little. It’s just that Zam keeps tilting his head in different directions to make it easier to reach parts of his hair, and that makes his neck start to cramp, so she can deal with it if he doesn’t want to hold that position anymore.
“Whatever,” he mutters, still tracking her movements through the bathroom mirror.
The bathroom is mostly stone and entirely gray, so the supplies scattered around the sink stick out like a sore thumb. There’s a curling iron, hairspray, hair ties, heat protectant, gel, three different types of brushes–seriously, where did any of this come from?
“Okay, okay, let’s retry this,” Zam says placatingly. “I’ll try to be more gentle, and you try a little harder to hold still.”
“Whatever, sure,” Wemmbu mumbles, not taking his eyes off her reflection.
She switches to a different brush, one with softer bristles, and starts again. Gently, she works the brush through the purple strands, starting at the bottom.
With everything that has happened lately, Wemmbu’s been taking care of his hair entirely on his own. It’s been a while since even Egg has helped him.
The feeling of another person’s hands in his hair is strange at first, but it quickly morphs into something relaxing. Zam is actually being careful now, and the sensation makes his ever-tense body start to relax in his seat.
“Where’d you get all the hair stuff?” he asks as she works.
She doesn’t look up. “Oh I’ve just had it all in my e-chest.”
Wemmbu balks. “What? You’ve just had, what, a shulker full of personal care products taking up a slot in your ender chest?”
Zam nods.
“Oh my god, no wonder you got arrested.”
“Dude, it’s one slot!” she says defensively. “Besides, I know for a fact you have one too.”
“Not in my ender chest! That stuff goes in, like, regular storage!”
“Whatever, bro.”
Zam moves on to the next step. The curling iron has been heating up for the past few minutes, so it’s ready by the time she reaches for it.
Then begins the long, tedious process of actually curling Wemmbu’s hair. Zam sections off a smaller piece, clips it into the curling iron, and rolls the rest of the strand around it. After a few moments she releases the curling iron and cups the curl in her hand to let it cool for a moment. Finally, she reaches for the hair spray.
“You’ll probably want to close your eyes.”
Wemmbu does, and a second later he hears and smells the hair spray.
Now to repeat the process for the rest of his head.
Zam falls into a pattern as she works, and Wemmbu finds himself relaxing even more. Her fingers scratch lightly against his scalp whenever she sections off a new piece of hair, and it’s making his brain go blank and fuzzy. It’s nice. Again, his hair is a personal thing. To have someone handle it so gently, especially after the past few months, is making it impossible for him not to relax.
Even if that someone is Zam.
The next time she scratches his head is clearly deliberate, but he can’t help leaning into it. Just a little. He hums, suddenly very calm and sedated.
“Bro, you're actually a cat.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
His only consolation is full confidence in the fact that Zam knows what will happen if she ever breathes a word of this to anyone.
It takes about an hour for her to finally curl his entire head. “Okay, yeah, I see why you never do this,” she admits as she sprays the final curl in place. “What do you think?” Her eagerness is audible.
Wemmbu forces himself to open his eyes, having been very content to let his mind go blank as he had his hair played with. And yeah, he looks good. It’s leagues better than anything he would ever be able to do by himself. “Wow,” he admits.
“Yeah, I know.” Zam is already messing with the array of products in front of them. “How do you want it up?”
He blinks. “Uh, high pony, but not slicked back.”
“Got it.” She turns back around and deposits a pack of bobby pins and a handful of hair ties into his lap. “Can you hand me these when I ask for them?”
“Sure.”
Careful not to mess up her hard work, Zam begins to gather up his hair into a shape resembling a high ponytail. It’s only then that Wemmbu looks at the supplies in his lap.
“Wait, these are purple.”
“Yeah? You’re purple,” Zam says without looking up, as if that explains everything.
“You’re not,” he says stupidly. Then it clicks. “Wait, did you- have you been holding on to hair ties for me?”
Zam looks up at that, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “I mean, yeah? You always used to lose them, so I kept some extra on me. Hair tie?” He hands her a hair tie. “I guess I just…never got rid of them.”
She delicately wraps the elastic around his hair as if she didn’t just share world-shaking information. She didn’t, Wemmbu supposes, it’s just hair ties. Except that’s not true, it’s not just hair ties. It’s the thought behind them. It’s the fact that at some point in time, Zam had seen him and cared for him and done something because it would help him.
“Can I get another?” He passes another over his shoulder.
He’s still thinking about it when she asks for bobby pins. Continues thinking about it as she requests more and more, barely even registering the motion of removing them from the cardboard and handing them over.
It’s just…they’d been a good team before it all fell apart. Looking back on it makes it feel so long ago, even though it really wasn’t.
That Wemmbu was younger and naive and not quite the same person who was sitting here today, but he ran with that same itch beneath his skin. Things were so simple back then. Chunkbans and exploited items, not invisible armies or politically corrupt cats.
For a short, blissful time, the gunpowder running through his veins was not a liability, but a strength.
And then Zam got paranoid. She hadn’t needed a teammate, she’d needed a weapon, and she panicked the second it crossed her mind that that weapon could possibly be turned on her.
Zam got paranoid and betrayed him.
Zam betrayed him, but had his back in prison on more than one occasion.
Zam betrayed him, but kept purple hair ties in her ender chest.
It’s weird.
Finally, after several minutes and way too many bobby pins, she’s done.
“Alright, what do you think?” Zam asks as she finally slides the last pin into place.
Wemmbu leans forward, turning his head from side to side. His hair is tied back and secure just as he prefers, with the bangs and shorter pieces in front falling to the sides of his face. The curls add an impressive amount of volume to the already impressively long strands, and they’re held in place with so much hairspray they won’t be falling out for days.
“Holy shit.” What else can he say?
“Holy shit is right, bro.” There’s pure, unadulterated joy in Zam’s voice and on her face.
He turns to look her in the eyes. “Thanks.”
She's practically beaming. “Don’t mention it.”
By now the morning is properly starting, and from outside her room come the telltale sounds of a space full of people waking up. Footsteps, voices, doors closing. It’s still too early for any reasonable people, but there’s a war to be fought. They’ll be leaving soon, and had better start getting ready.
Wemmbu gets up and moves to leave, but Zam’s voice stops him. “Wemmbu?” He turns to look at her and finds a hint of uncharacteristic nervousness on her features. “Are…are we, like, cool?”
He sighs, but smiles just a little. “Yeah bro, we’re cool.”
Back in their room, Egg sleepily looks up from his pillow as Wemmbu rifles through shulkers and gathers everything he’ll need for the upcoming battle.
“Bro, did you seriously get your hair done for war?”