The scent of something warm and spicy filtered in through the bedroom door. It was tempting. Memo stared long and hard at himself in the mirror, wondering if maybe he should just… put it all back up and deal with it later. But he knew that if he didn’t do it now, while he had time, then later might not ever come around.

Alex appearing in the doorway drew his eyes away from the mirror.

“Oh, no, nothing’s wrong,” he assured, mouth curling into a small smile. “Just… dealing with this.” He pointed with the shears to his head, took one of the twisted ‘locs in hand, and snipped the last inch or so off, where it fell to the garbage bag he’d stretched out on the floor beneath his chair.

Alexei Ivanov

“Well…” he said, drawing the last consonants out, as he measuredly, but quickly, snipped a few more ends, “maybe that’s… for the better.”

As for it being a bitch to keep his hair like this…

“It is and it isn’t,” he said, turning to see the back of his head in the mirror. “My hair-- and a lot of hair like mine-- really… only does two things. It poofs, or it locks. Hence, locs. And it’s really just as much about maintenance as any other head of hair. If you don’t shampoo and condition and moisturize and stuff, anybody’s hair could be a mess.”

Snip, snip, snip.

“That's the plan. I started mine in twists so. With a comb and lots of conditioner and detangler and a little patience-- maybe a lot of patience… it’ll come apart.”

Alexei Ivanov

“Ummm… shortly after I came to Hoenn, I think,” Memo said, dumping detangler into his palm once all his ends had been trimmed. “I chopped it all down pretty short and then put it back up.”

He started at his scalp, one twist at a time. The detangler was nice. It smelled like coconuts.

“Hah, yeah, it sure is a part of me, all right,” he said, with a little snort. “An annoying part of me.”

Once everything was well saturated he’d start pulling them apart. His hair wasn’t super tightly packed-- when free, it would bounce everywhere in coiled ringlets. “Como un nido de serpientes, my mom used to say. Like a nest of snakes.”

Alexei Ivanov

He spun the comb in his hand with the deft fingers of a well-practiced artisan: this was not his first goat rodeo. Growing up, his mothers and aunts had not been the most gentle of souls-- in a surprising twist, it wasn’t out of an innate cruelty, just, quite simply, they all had lots of children who needed their hair attended to.

“It just… no hace lo que se le dice. It doesn’t do what it’s told.”

There was something to be said about the connection between his hair, his childhood, and his culture, the way he lapsed back into the language of his childhood in moments like this. Like no matter how hard he cut or bit or pulled, he would never completely break free of it.

And, sometimes, that was all right.

“Kinda like me, right?”

He started to work through his hair, one thick twist at a time. It was slow going, and he frequently had to stop to pull on small tangles. One by one, the strands began to separate.

And, as promised, they would spring up and fall down, errant, uncontrolled.

Alexei Ivanov

He watched Alex devolve into a fit of giggles with a wry, but knowing, smile, and a generous roll of his eyes. “Very funny,” he said, fake-insulted as he turned his chin away with a hmph. “I’ll make sure to tell my mom and all my tias that they have an ally in their war against me.”

His sarcasm broke off with a wince as he caught on another small snarl; a few picks later and he was through it. More of his hair was beginning to curl and spring free in an aimless pattern, wild from being locked up for so long.

“Yeah, I know, it’s part of the reason why I never do this.” He huffed at an errant strand that sprung down into his face.

At Alex’s offer to help, he stilled.

“Y-you really want to?” he said, more shocked that his boyfriend was interested in something as mundane as his hair than anything else. “It’s… you know, time consuming and kind of greasy.”

Alexei Ivanov

Alex seemed hell-bent on assisting. It was touching, though it was really hard to not feel like a burden.

“O-okay,” he said, giving his head a shake to help loosen things up. “Just-- grab a strand and start to work it apart. If you hit a snag, use the thin end of the comb to sort of… pick at it. It hurts less if you squeeze above where you’re pulling.”

It would be a slow, laborious process-- one that, more likely than not, he’d just undo after a couple of days. But his hair could use the reset, and already his curls were starting to pop and bounce, like springs from a t-shirt cannon.

“Oli’s hair is even worse,” he explained, working on another tangle. “She keeps it reaaaaally long and it’s so thick… she used to sit in the chair while my mom brushed it out for hours.”

Alexei Ivanov