The door to Cian’s Cuts opened and Julia walked through the door first, Rue behind her. Julia waved and smiled.
“Hi, I’m here for an app-I mean I don’t have an appointment but I’m here for a haircut and color.” Being the first person Julia had talked to outside both the prison and the sanctuary for over half a year, her social skills and patter with strangers were clearly rusty.
Rue looked at the receptionist and asked,
“Is Cian in today?” “Aye,” the brunette at the front desk replied.
“She’s free now, actually, just cleaning up her station from her last client. If you go in she’ll see you right away.”Rue nodded and led Julia into the salon part of the building, noting how clean and modern it looked now compared to the last time she’d been there, with at least four stations along the back wall and three along the front windows. The far right one was unoccupied, a rather tall woman with reddish brown hair in waves to her shoulders sweeping up blonde hair off the floor around the barber chair and vanity desk with the row of lights around the mirror attached to it.
“Oi,” the woman paused in her sweeping and looked up with stormy sea green eyes, her gaze immediately landing on Rue and Julia, and a large grin stretched across her face, showing off a set of sharp upper canine teeth.
“By my fangs, Rueyn Grimm is that ye? Where the hell have ye been for the last two decades?” The Irish accent that came out as she spoke was thick but still understandable as she waved them over with the broom still in one hand while the other held the long-handled dustpan.
Rue guided Julia over and began the process of introducing them with,
“Well, it’s a long sad story but prison, for one. Finally got out. Cian, this is Julia, Julia, this is Cian. Cian is a longtime friend of mine and great with a pair of hair scissors.”“Pleasure to meet ye,” Cian replied, smiling at Julia.
“I’d shake yer hand but mine are busy at the moment. Let me finish sweeping up and then I’ll see what it is ye need.”“That’s alright,” Julia responded in what the Irish vampire would recognize as a light, diluted Scottish accent.
“I can’t really…shake hands anyway.” She stared down at her gloved hands, slightly melancholy. She really hoped that Kanata could teach her a way to regulate and control her powers. She looked back up at Cian.
“I was thinking maybe something short to medium, and I’d like to be blonde. I’m starting a whole new chapter of my life and I want to look like a completely different person, you know?”“Och, aye,” Cian nodded at Julia as she emptied the dustpan into the trash and set it and the broom aside.
“I feel ye, I can definitely do that. Oi, do ye happen to be from the highlands? I recognize the accent but it’s faint, and ‘ere, come sit, please.” She patted the back of the barber chair with pointed red nails, smiling as she got her scissors and a fine-toothed comb in her hand.
“I’ll style yer hair and then I’ll dye it blonde, waste less product and it’s easier ta see the way it sits that way.” Rue decided to take that as the cue to sit on the windowsill, arms crossed as she played with one ragged split end of her hair as she watched them interact.
Julia sat down, already starting to smile.
“Glasgow. Not that you can really tell anymore after so long of talking to Americans. Naw like am a pure wee ned ahnymeir.” She giggled to herself after putting on a cartoonish Glaswegian accent for that sentence.
Cian laughed as she settled the barber cape comfortably around Julia’s neck, carefully placing her hair above it and gently combing it out with the fine-toothed comb and her fingernails with practiced hands.
“I like ye, I’m from Dublin meself,” she grinned as she gently placed her fingers under Julia’s chin and met the other woman’s eyes in the vanity mirror with a fanged smile as she imagined which cut would best fit her face.
“Glasgow, though, I’ve been there and I have ta say I liked it though the people there could be pretty drab at times. Lively when the food is good and the ale keeps coming though,” she added with a chuckle.
“I think a bob that's short in the back but long in the front would be pretty damn hot, wouldn’t ye?” Cian gathered up the back parts of Julia’s hair to give a quick faux-effect to demonstrate what she meant before saying,
“What say ye, Julia, lass?” With Cian’s comments about Glasgow being drab but having good ale, Julia tried to place when the last time Cian visited was. The 70’s? Possibly earlier? She glanced at the mirror to try and catch Cian’s reflection but of course, it was just Julia reflected back. Right. Vampire. Still, to look so young but be so long-lived, Julia felt slightly jealous.
Looking at the proposed length and cut, Julia nodded.
“A bob would be cute! I think if you made the edges really soft it’d look chic and retro. Make them too sharp, it could verge on Karen-y with my face. I’m not a natural smiler.”“Aye, I was thinking I’d make the cut a gradual one so as to not contrast starkly with yer face and make ye look bad,” Cian agreed.
“Now, keep ye head still as possible for me please while I spray yer hair down a bit so it’s easier ta cut.” Cian began the process of styling Julia’s hair by getting it damp so it would lay straight. She then began cutting away small bits at first as she trimmed the dead ends, then she started to actually style it.
“So,” Cian began as she was cutting away.
“What brought ye to America, Julia?”“Well,” Julia started, giving Rue a nervous glance, unsure how much she should divulge, before the television in the corner did her job for her.
“Today’s top stories; There was an attempted breakout at Thornwood Asylum earlier today,” droned the reporter, showing helicopter footage of the asylum along with several faces scrolling across the screen. One of them was clearly Julia’s. Another one was Rueyn. Julia blushed and coughed awkwardly.
“If you could make me look nothing like that picture,” she sheepishly joked. The reason for this visit was now becoming apparent.
“Aye, I got no problem with that,” Cian replied with a wry smile. Rue matched her wry expression with a grimace of her own, serrated teeth showing beneath the currently humanoid face she wore so as to not draw as much attention as her regular skeletal face did, especially now that it was plastered on the news stations around the country.
The bell’s chime announced Ameliya’s entrance into the store, and not even bothering to talk to the receptionist she strode straight over towards the small group. Turning to see what everyone else was looking at, she was in time to see the newscaster declare the second top story of the day.
"Death and destruction swept through the city today as a bank was left massacred with an unknown body count thanks to the massive amount of blood and limbs strung around the bank. Nobody was left alive, unfortunately, and the cops have no leads as whoever committed such an atrocity seemingly knocked out all the cameras before anything began," shifting the scene to two people standing in another location, the news anchor talked to them.
"and on the other front of destruction, a city block decimated from a spontaneous fire. Here's Jeff with more on that.""Yes, thank you, I'm here with a man who said he witnessed the fire begin and his story on trying to escape,” passing the microphone to a young African American male,
"Aw, yeah, so I was going to the rooftop to smoke cause my lady don't like us smoking inside with our kids and I came to the top and found the door locked. Which isn't normal as I go up there almost every day to smoke so I tried pushing on the door and then I started to hear noises.""What kind of noises did you hear?" The anchor asked before the man continued.
"I heard people fucken! I don't know who was going at it but whoever was giving it was givin it good. That woman was loud! Like dude I heard so much slamming against things first I heard em on the left side, then the right side like they fucked across the building rooftop. I swear I heard 'em above the door at some point. They must have been on that kinky shit cause I heard her screaming ‘choke me harder’ and I was like holy shit I gotta get out there and record. Man, but I wasn't able to, cause I smelt fire and realized whoever was fucking was going so hard they must have done to much of that kinetic energy from his dick and started a fire. So I boosted. Left everyone behind. You know? Save myself first and foremost, oh, and my kids. Lost the wife in the fire which is a plus. Single dad here, if any bitches wanna fuck my number is-" Being cut off the television cut to technical difficulties as everyone watched.
Staring with wide eyes, a bright blush grew on her cheeks before she quickly tried to move the attention from the vivid images on screen,
“You think we got time for me to get my sidecut fixed?” Cian looked at the two redheads, the brunette who was in her barber chair and about to go blond, and said with a hint of laughter in her voice,
“Ye all are fucking wild and crazy. Yeah, we got time, I’ll speed it up so ye can get the fuck outta here.”When she finished cutting Julia’s hair, Cian fluffed it out, combed and brushed any and all of the loose hairs out of it, made sure Julia liked it, and then began the process of separating the woman’s hair into chunks and dyeing it a soft, platinum blonde that would go well with her skin tone. She left the foil in Julia’s hair and said,
“Ye let that sit and do its job while I fix these two up, and then I’ll rinse ye out, aye?”She pointed a finger at each redhead and told them,
“I do nae care which of ye goes next, but be quick about it.”Julia sat at the designated chair, and now that she was doing nothing but waiting, she took this time to notice Ameliya was there. Julia raised her eyebrow.
“I hope the opening I gave you didn’t go to waste. You’re here pretty quickly. What’s up?” she asked her.
Looking towards the loud Irish woman and then back to Rue who had made no movement to get up, Ameliya smiled at the hairdresser,
“Looks like it’s my turn.”Sitting down in the seat next to Julia, she took a moment to look at the mess of her hair in the mirror before sighing and talking to Cian,
“I need a fix-up real bad. I am thinking of a 2.5 clipper for the side cut and just a clean-up on the split ends.” Looking over to Rue for a moment she then attempted to be more polite about it and looked towards Cian to say,
“but, Rue says you’re the best so I will trust you know what you’re doing.”Turning back to the mirror, that was when Ameliya heard Julia speak up and as an instant response, her cheeks started to tint a light shade of red.
“We talked,” was all that Ameliya replied, both unsure if she wanted to talk about her conversation with Kanta and unsure about what had actually just happened.
"Damn right I'm the best," Cian twirled her comb in her fingers with a smile full of pride and joy at the compliment. She began to run her hands through Ameliya’s hair, fluffing it up, before commenting,
“But, Aye, I think ye be right, that's exactly what ye need. I can see that ye used to have a decent side cut," she said, switching to the spray bottle to spritz her hair before running a comb through. Looking at her from both sides she said,
"Though yer line needs redefining and yer ends need a trim unless ye want it shorter than it is?" “Keep it at the same length,” Ameliya said nonchalantly, but she smiled hearing that the hairdresser add some notes about how she was going to do her hair. It seemed Rue was correct about her being good.
Rue's ears twitched as the sound of a bell rang and she turned her head to see a familiar face. A small mischievous smile crept onto her face as she started to talk loudly.
"So, Ameliya,"Rue drawled, leaning back into her chair and staring at her.
"You know we haven't really seen you two actually talk since you've gotten here. And knowing the two of you," her spine shivered with awkwardness as she tried not to imagine it, trying to get the words out.
"You definitely didn't fuck. Cmon, spill it to us, no secrets between sisters in arms? I wanna know what made my father say you're a couple now." She grinned, showing off her wicked, serrated teeth.
Looking at Rue with a side eye as her hair started to be worked on, Ameliya seemed to be growing a brighter and brighter shade of red with each word her fellow demon friend said. Though as soon as she heard Rue mention that she somehow knew they were supposedly a couple now, her hair under the tender care of Cian instantly lit up flames and she whipped around to stare at Rue. Staring wide-eyed at the large smile that greeted her, she instantly refuted her,
“I never agreed to that.”Cian swore softly as her fingertips turned bright red with heat from the redhead’s fiery hair, and Rue gave her friend a raised eyebrow in response to her reaction. Cian took a second to grab the spray bottle and spritzed her fingertips with it, the color returning to their normal pale color after a few sprays, and she returned to working on Ameliya’s hair with only,
“Got a temper on ye, don’t ye lass.” After a moment, she started to realize exactly how she had reacted and if even possible, blushed even brighter than before. Taking in a deep breath, her hair started to return to its normal state before she gave Cian a sheepish smile. Glaring back at Rue from the corner of her eyes, she started,
“He seems to think we are.” Then after a beat of silence, she finally added,
“I don’t know what we are.”“Sounds to me that talk of yours raised more questions than answers, then,” Rue replied, eyeballing her friend without bothering to hide her amusement, though she did her best to tone it down so that poor Cian’s fingertips didn’t get burned again.
“I personally find it awkward to have my friend and my father be fucking each other around me, but anyone with fucking eyeballs can see you have feelings for one another, so maybe… act on it? I don’t know, do something other than you know, burn my building down?”Rue then shifted and leaned forward, elbows on her knees and hands clasped together in a serious manner as she said to Ameliya,
“The last time I was with my father he rarely smiled and that was a long time ago. Even when he did, it felt distant, like he was there but his mind was elsewhere. He has been more happy with you than I've ever seen him and that is honestly saying something.”Keenly listening, Ameliya’s blushing face started to slowly transform into a sullen expression. She wasn’t so sure about what to do but, the more she listened to Rue the more she came to the conclusion that this was going to end terribly when he realized who she really was. Sure she might be but beautiful and deadly, but what he had seemingly yet to see so far is that she was unloveable. She was a weapon and that was all she was created to be.
“He’s made a mistake,” she muttered out loud to herself more than anyone else.
With a heavy sigh the woman sitting at the waiting bench got up and said out loud,
"Sorry, I have other business to take care of." Leaving in a quick exit.
“What makes you say that?” Julia leaned forward in her seat.
“You like him, he likes you. I’ve seen that you make each other happy. Don’t need to formalize it, and it doesn’t need to be more complicated than that for now.”Leaning forward, her mind no longer on her haircut, Ameliya put her head in her hands before dragging her hands down her face with a small groan. Looking toward Julia, she thought for a moment about how they both had similar issues with hurting people before sighing and admitting,
“I wasn’t made for this.” Leaning back into the seat, she gave a small bitter smile and stated,
“You don’t love a dagger.”Rue scoffed at Ameliya’s words and narrowed her eyes as she said to her,
“Don’t love a dagger my fucking ass. A dagger may be sharp, aye. A dagger may end up stabbing you if you mishandle it or aren’t careful, or if someone decides to wield it against you, aye, but a dagger is a beautiful, deadly weapon that can save your life if you take proper care of it. I don’t fucking know about you, but I have loved every single one of my daggers, even after they cut me because guess fucking what? A dagger is sharp for a reason, Ameliya, don’t let its sharpness deter you from doing what you know in your heart to be right, even if your mind is scared of it.”There was a moment of silence that hung in the air after Rue had stopped talking, as Ameliya stared into the mirror before a chuckle escaped from her lips. Even if her mind wanted to reject what she was being told, she couldn’t deny there was some truth to her words. In the end, she wasn’t sure if she was made to love or to be loved but, that didn’t stop her from wanting it. A small smile played on her lips before she asked,
“I …really make him happy?”“Aye,” Rue nodded, a smile upon her lips that made the scar that ran from above her left eyebrow and down to her cheekbone crinkle.
“You make him the happiest I have ever seen him, and I was with him for two decades as a child, that’s a very long time for my kind. I want to continue to see that happiness in him, Ameliya. So far, you’re the only one who gives him that.” She was honestly a little envious of the fact that this other woman with fiery powers made her father so happy when even the fact that his own daughter was alive barely elicited a smile from him but considering what she knew of his own past, she couldn’t hold it against her.
“I doona mean ta interrupt this tender moment, lassies,” Cian’s Irish brogue lilted out.
“But I would like ta finish up ye hair, Ameliya, lass. If ye doona mind.”The vampire grinned good-naturedly as she held up her scissors and an electric set of clippers that she had gotten from somewhere whilst they had been talking.
Sparks rose off of Ameliya as she quickly sat back on the chair and attempted to nonchalantly cross her legs. In all the fuss, she had forgotten all about the fact that she was supposed to be getting her haircut. Looking from Cian in the mirror and then at the other two girls, Ameliya let out a small good-natured chuckle. She really needed this, she couldn’t remember when was the last time she felt this comfortable around other people.
Cian smiled goodnaturedly and resumed her wok on Ameliya’s hair, separating her longer locks from the parts that were going to be clipped short with a hair clip before plugging the clippers in and gently grasping Ameliya’s face with long, red-tipped fingernails as she began to clip away the undesired length. It didn’t take her long to do that part, and she combed it out before quickly giving the rest of her hair a trim, snipping away the dead and split ends. Another comb through of her hair and then she tilted Ameliya’s face towards the mirror.
“There ye be,” she said.
“I hope it’s to yer expectations. Now, Rue, get yer ass in this chair and tell me what ye want.”Turning her head to the left and right as Ameliya looked at her reflection before a wide smile grew on her lips. It looked as if Rue was right about her being one of the best.
“I’ll be sure to be back,” she commented to Cian with a warm smile. Smoothly slinking out of the chair, Ameliya left the chair for Rue but kept checking out her new haircut in the reflection. It was good to start to feel like herself again.
Rue grinned and stood up to walk over, settling herself into the chair which Cian had to lower a bit due to the other woman’s height. Rue thought for a moment when asked what she wanted and then said,
“You know how we did our warrior braids back in the day, aye? I want that, but shave the right side and leave the middle by itself so I can have a braided mohawk, so to speak.”“You got it,” Cian replied, getting her comb ready again.
“You’ll be done in no time, though I do say it's a shame to cut so much lovely red hair off.” Rue shrugged and Cian chuckled a little before getting to work on parting her hair on the left side to match the fact that her right side naturally didn’t grow any hair, tying the bits that were supposed to stay up out of the way before turning the clippers on and getting to work.
She was done in no time, and quickly brushed the remaining hair out once she’d taken Rue’s hair down as well, trimming the dead ends and quickly braiding it in a fashion that was reminiscent of the Viking style of braids. She then motioned to Julia to come with her as she walked over to a chair that was positioned near a sink, indicating that it was time to rinse her hair.
After Julia sat down in the designated chair, she turned back to the others.
“So, are we heading back to the bar after this, or picking up the things from your house first?” she asked Ameliya as she leaned back.
Watching Julia’s transformation with some curiosity as she leaned against the wall nearby, Ameliya couldn’t help but playfully smile at her as she replied,
“Think we got to go pick up something from Sanctuary first.” She wasn’t going to admit it to anyone but after that talk, she actually was looking forward to seeing a certain someone again.
