Hair Wars

Rating: PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): Cid/Vincent, Cloud/Reno, Tifa/Barret, Zack/Sephiroth, Tseng/Aeris,
Warnings: Drunken idiots armed with hair care products.
Summary: Was it the lemons? Or was it something else?
Notes: Ficlet for animama, annakas, tgrcats_tail, and onyx_shinigami. I don’t normally combine fic requests, but two people asked for hair, one person asked for hair and Turks, and somebody who shall remain pink and sparkly asked for Cid and Vincent, which fits right in with the whole hair and Turks thing. SO! Hair and Turks it is.

Illustratiosn by Animama and Tenshio5

“Well this is new,” said Tifa as she sat at the large table in Cid and Vincent’s kitchen. “What’s going on?”

“No idea,” said Barret, grinning. “Usually it’s Vincent crying in the bathroom after a lemon war, not Reno.”

Tifa and Barret sat together, eating toast and eggs, watching as Cloud tried to get his distraught boyfriend out of the bathroom.

“Baby you’re still beautiful to me, don’t cry!” Cloud said plaintively to the securely locked wooden door. “It’s all right!”

“IT’S NOT!” Reno’s voice had reached a pitch not unlike a tom cat getting his tail mashed by a rock. “IT’S NOT ALL RIGHT! I LOOK LIKE A FREAK AND I HAVE TO GO TO WORK IN A FEW HOURS!!”

Cloud stared helplessly at the bathroom door as Reno sobbed his heart out. Cid walked by and gave Cloud a smack on the butt.

“Yours still crying too?”

“Yeah,” said Cloud. “I don’t know what to do, he’s absolutely beside himself.”

“He’ll get over it,” said Cid. He walked over to the kitchen table and picked up an empty mug and the coffee pot, pouring himself a cup of fragrant black fluid. “He’ll be fine. It’s only hair. Besides, if you’re gonna feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for Baby. And Zack. More Zack than Baby.”

“Okay,” said Barret, “what did Tifa and I miss after we passed out last night?”

Cloud slowly shook his head. “Well we were all pretty wasted, and… and Tseng said something about the permanent knots in Vincent’s hair, which led to talk about hair in general, then hair care, then hair colour….”

“Then Vincent said he knew a great home recipe for an egg and beer based conditioner,” said Cid. “Except we didn’t have eggs and beer. We had tequila and lemons.”

“Whoops,” said Barret.

“Yeah one is not quite a substitute for the other,” said Cid, grinning. “They probably would have been fine if they hadn’t decided to get into the henna and add some colour and highlights.”

“Oh gawd,” said Tifa, hiding her face in her hands.

“Henna, tequila, and lemons,” said Barret. “Oh man. That sounds like the hair stylist from hell.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Tifa. “Sephiroth put henna on his hair?”

“Yup,” said Cid, grinning.

“Sephiroth. The silver tiger, so named for his silver hair.”

“That’s the one!” said Cid, adding cream to his coffee.

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Barret.

Tifa turned her large brown eyes to him. “Well natural henna is ground plant matter. It works great for adding tint and colour to hair, unless the hair is a pale colour like blonde or grey or white. Then it just sorta…. stains it a really amazing shade of green. I can’t imagine what an added helping of tequila and lemon would… do…”

Sephiroth walked into the kitchen, dressed in his usual black and silver garb, his long hair hanging down his back in the normal manner. However there was absolutely nothing normal at all about the colour, which was a veritable waterfall of every shade of green known to man. There was everything from palest mint to darkest moss, and a few streaks of something else that may have been a desperate attempt at golden. Barret opened his mouth, and was suddenly staring down the tip of a black gloved finger.

“If the next words out of your mouth have anything at all to do with my hair, I’ll do to you what I did to Shinra Tower.”

Barret blinked at the finger, then reached out and picked up a small white bowl. “Sugar?”

Sephiroth glared but said nothing, accepting the sugar bowl. As he was spooning white granules into his coffee, Tseng emerged, his normally glossy black hair looking more like melted nylon with glue in it.

“Charming,” commented Sephiroth.

“I’m not speaking to you,” Tseng said primly, pouring himself some coffee.

“It was a perfectly honest mistake,” said Sephiroth. “Anyone could mistake a bottle of industrial fibreglass glue for hair conditioner.”

“Especially after all the booze you put away,” said Cid, grinning.

“Precisely.” Sephiroth sipped his coffee.

Cloud banged on the bathroom door. “Reno, baby, come on, you can’t hide in there forever! Kin is asking for you. She wants to see mommy before he goes off to work.”

There was a long pause, then the door slowly opened. Tifa managed not to gasp as she saw Reno, but she did close her hands over her mouth, her brown eyes large in horror. Barret suddenly became very interested in the sports section of the news paper, and Sephiroth and Tseng began discussing the latest movie to come out with Cid. Reno meanwhile just stood – his beautiful green eyes large and shimmering, the remains of his glorious mane of red hair perched on top of his head like a dead animal. The long red ponytail was gone, the barest remains of it appearing as a singed and tangled poof at the back of his head. The red spines were now matted and frazzled into what looked like alien dandelion fluff, and the colour was no longer a vibrant red, but a freakish dark green. Cloud swallowed hard.

“It looks… fine! You can hardly tell… at all…”

Zack chose that moment to emerge from his drunken stupor and make his way into the kitchen in search of coffee. He paused briefly to stare at Reno.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Reno darted back into the bathroom. Cid sighed loudly. “Great. Thanks a lot, Zack, now I’ll never get in there again.”

“Well what the hell did happen to him?!”

“Who knows,” said Sephiroth morosely. “We were all drunk as lords and being stupid.”

“Yeah but his hair was melted!” said Zack. “The only thing I know that melts hair like that is mixing incompatible hair dyes. Does Reno dye his hair?”

“No it’s naturally that shade of fire-truck,” said Tseng. “I think his mother was a carrot. Or a tomato.”

Cloud tapped at the door. “Baby come on, Cid wants his bathroom back.”

“Cid can piss out a window!”

“He does,” said Barret. “That’s what all those complaints from his staff are about.”

“So what melted Reno’s hair?” asked Zack.

There was a long silence as the group gathered in the kitchen tried to recall what they had been doing the night before. Eventually a half-watt bulb went on over Sephiroth’s head.

“He soaked his head in lemon and tequila, then dozed off near the baseboard heater waiting for it to dry.”

“That’ll do it,” said Tifa.

“So that’s what that stink was all night,” said Cid. “Lemon-baked hair.”

“Yummy,” said Zack, making a face.

Cid suddenly broke into a grin as a tiny form appeared in the kitchen, moving in the morning-zombie-shuffle of all hungover people, clad in one of Cid’s t-shirts and nothing else. Cid put an arm around Vincent and drew him close.

“There’s my little mouse angel!”

Vincent squeaked and buried his face against Cid’s chest.

“Little sick, babe?”

Vincent nodded.

Tseng stared at Vincent as he snuggled against his large husband. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

“What?” said Cid as the others gathered turned to look.

“Hey!” said Barret. “Where did all of Vincent’s knots go? I thought those damn mats were permanent!”

“Hey yeah!” said Tifa. “They’re all gone!”

Cid ran his fingers through the long black tresses. “Well they ain’t there now. Vin, where did your tangles go?”

“I dunno,” said Vincent, sniffing. “They should be there.”

“Well they’re not,” said Cid, stroking Vincent’s black hair. “It’s like baby-silk. I thought you were drunk and playing with lemons too.”

“I was.”

“So let me get this straight,” said Tseng. “Reno bakes his hair with lemon and tequila, and comes out looking like a nylon hedgehog. Vincent bakes his hair with lemon and tequila… and comes out silky and perfect?”

“He was always perfect!” said Cid indignantly.

“Tell him I hate him!” Reno called from the bathroom. “Tseng I’m not coming to work today!”

“Yes you are!” said Tseng.

Reno had an actual tantrum. “WHY DO I HAVE TO?!”

“Because Elena beat you to asking for time off and I can’t spare you both.”

“I’M NOT COMING OUT!”

“You got ten minutes then I’m coming to get you!” said Cid. He turned his attention back to Vincent. “Hungry?”

Vincent winced and shook his head. “No, there is no way I could eat.”

Cid kissed his forehead. “How about just a bit of fruit? You’ll feel better.”

“Okay. But in bed.”

“Okay.” Cid kissed him once more. “You settle back in bed and I’ll bring you some fruit.”

“How come Vincent gets fruit in bed and all I get is locked in the bathroom?” demanded Reno.

“I could book you a hair appointment,” said Cloud. He flinched as there came a loud, heavy blow against the door.

Cid gently picked Vincent up and carried him upstairs to their bedroom, walking into the peaceful stone chamber with its huge fireplace and gorgeous antique four poster bed. He placed Vincent down on the bed, kissing him before covering him over with the heavy quilt with its blue floral pattern

“You were a very bad boy last night, Mr. Valentine.”

“It was fun,” said Vincent quietly.

“Good. You deserve some fun. But the next time you get drunk with a pack of Turks and decide to mix their hair-care products with my epoxy and then use my small torch to melt Reno’s hair into an alien hedgehog, can you please put the cap back on the glue?”

Vincent just smiled. “Okay.”

Cid left to get Vincent’s breakfast, while Vincent snuggled deep into the soft mattress.

“That’ll teach them to say that I look like a scarecrow with a brass fetish,” he muttered.

*~*~*