Work Text:
After knocking on the door, Pidge picked at the skin right next to her nails, trying not to overthink. It was a miserable failure to not overthink, but she could say she tried, and by picking at her hands she wasn’t pulling on the too-long strands of hair she had to deal with.
There were no hairdressers in space. So when Pidge’s hair got long enough to be unruly - more so than usual - that wearing a helmet was difficult, she thought of hacking off the ends by herself.
Unfortunately, given her hair wasn’t the same length it had been the last time she chopped her hair off, it had proved to be a more difficult task on her own, so she went to someone she could trust with such a task.
“Pidge? Is everything okay?” The soft voice of Allura caused Pidge to snap her head up, balling her hands into fists to stop the picking.
“Hi, Allura,” she greeted, awkwardly. “Uhm, I was just… I was wondering…”
Allura, bless her, only tilted her head slightly as she waited for Pidge to find her words. It was embarrassing to ask, she found, the question of ‘will you cut my hair so I can wear my helmet properly again’ stumbling over her tongue until it felt all jumbled up.
She couldn’t ask for a hairtie from the other woman. Alteans had never invented them, simply using their own hair to tie back their hair - Pidge would be hard pressed to say she wasn’t jealous how effortless Allura’s hair constantly looked, up or down - with at most some sort of magnetic force like the earrings she wore.
“Do you want to come in?” Allura asked after an unfortunately long awkward silence grew between them, and Pidge nodded quickly, hoping that sitting down would help her tongue to ask the stupid question.
She stiffly walked past Allura and sat down on what looked like a little ottoman near her desk with the mirror, and the moment she brought her legs up to cross them on the ottoman, her hands idly tugged at her hair.
“We haven’t really hung out, huh?” Allura stated, sitting on the end of her bed with an ease Pidge could only dream of emulating one day. “If not for our bonds with the Lions, I would have worried you didn’t like me or something.”
The chuckle bubbled out of Pidge before she could stop it, and she shook her head. “I don’t… I mean, I do like you, you’re a good friend,” she said, giving her hair one final tug before she took a short breath. “It’s actually why I came here. I was wondering if you’d, uh, cut my hair?”
Allura’s eyes widened ever so slightly, wandering from Pidge’s face like she was just noticing how long the other girl’s hair had really gotten since they had first met.
“It’s not that I don’t trust any of the guys, I just, it’s weird, y’know? Asking them to cut my hair?” Pidge continued, and once the dam had cracked, the words were easier to leave her mouth. “I just don’t know if I trust them to cut my hair the way I want it done. I mean, the only one with any blade knowledge is Keith, and look at his hair.”
The two giggled, one more awkward than the other.
“I think I could try for you, Pidge. I’ve really only trimmed my own hair since waking up from the cryopod,” Allura brushed a hand through her hair, and Pidge only then noticed the slight uneven ends. From a distance, nothing looked uneven, which was impressive.
“That’s what I want, really. I’m just… Annoyed with my hair.” Pidge confessed, her hands dropping to her lap to pick at the skin on her thumb. “I need it short again.”
“I’d love to help, then.” Allura said with a faint smile, almost holding the true smile back for a reason Pidge couldn’t really figure out. She had always been bad at reading people’s facial features, better at reading code or something that had a definite answer rather than interpretation. “Do you want to now?”
“Yes, please,” Pidge let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.
Allura stood up. “Okay, stay there. My scissors should be somewhere on my desk…” She walked over to the desk with the mirror, pulling a drawer out to search within.
In minutes, she found the scissors she was searching for, and Pidge was lightly turned to face away from the alien princess, and she felt fingers brush through her hair in a way that immediately brought tears to her eyes.
The fingers retreated immediately. “Are you okay? I didn’t think I pulled on any tangles!” Allura sounded alarmed.
Pidge shook her head quickly, wiping her eyes, looking at Allura through the mirror before them. “No, no, it’s not… My mom used to brush my hair like that…” Her voice wavered and her vision became a little blurry again. “I haven’t had anyone brush through my hair since before I ran away to the Garrison. I don’t know why that made me…” She brushed the tears from her eyes again.
“Oh.” Allura’s entire demeanour softened, and the fingers returned to Pidge’s scalp, gently brushing through her hair once more. “I get that. Mother used to do the same with me when I was younger. When my hair wasn’t this long, anyway.” She let out a quiet laugh, before the two went quiet.
There was something soft about the situation, holding something incredibly fragile between the two of them, that made Pidge drop her hands and let the tears silently fall without interference.
“I miss my mom,” Pidge whispered, unable to get her voice louder than that without fearing it would crack.
The hands left her scalp again, but this time arms wrapped around her shoulders from behind, and Pidge found herself being pulled backwards, pulled into an embrace she hadn’t realized she desperately needed until that very moment.
“I miss my own mother too. But we’ll get you back home. I promise.” Allura whispered, her words just above Pidge’s head.
Pidge couldn’t find the words, so she reached up to hold the arms around her, reciprocating the embrace as best she could.
The two stayed that way for a while, soft and fragile, with watery, wavering breaths, the loudest thing in the room, until Allura pulled back.
“Let’s get this haircut started,” she said with a purposefully deep breath, smiling towards the mirror’s reflection of Pidge, causing her to huff out a laugh.
“Yeah, let’s get this over with.” Pidge answered, feeling lighter before the haircut had even started.