Ryan
Second floor bathrooms. Ten at night. Kiss' *Strutter* Echoes off of the cool tile, and an errant drip of water sounds from a shower stall in the back.

A tall figure standing by the sink plugs something into the wall- she ruffled the side of her head, dark and shaggy, idly gnawing on a plastic charm hanging around her neck. Crimson outlines of tentacles crawled across her softly toned arms and chest, visible from the black tank top she wore. 

This space and its lone occupant wasn't the coziest, but the air smelled like soap and crackled with impulsive decisions. Sigrún eagerly awaited her undercut test subject under a humming fluorescent light. This will be interesting.
Veda
Nick almost couldn't believe she was doing this, and yet here she was. She opens the bathroom door slowly - this *Was* The right bathroom, right? She only had to wonder for a second - the music and the tall girl at the sinktop made the answer pretty clear.

Her boots hit the tile with a small click, and the door groans shut behind her in that weird way the bathroom doors in schools do. "Hey," She says. "You ready?"
Ryan
"Boy, *Am I*," Purred she who wielded the clippers, turning to face they who must be Nicky. She was, as expected, nearly a full foot taller than the newcomer- the top of their head was cute, though. 

Sig, on the other hand, was a little unnerving and not too bent out of shape about it- when her odd cuttlefish eyes locked with Nick's, her face curled into a wide, sharp-toothed grin, and her instrument of destruction swung on its cord from her cool hand.

"Did you have something in mind, fry? Sides like me, a little off the back of your neck..." The kraken girl leaned down, a cold finger moving to tilt her chin this way and that. "How much of a mess are you looking to make? *Heheh.*"
Veda
Nick's immediate response is a bright red blush, which she immediately tries (and failed) to illusion away. She isn't really sure what to focus on. There's a lot going on here.

The pause before she spoke was just a smidge too long, but all too necessary to compose herself. "I - uh -" She tries. A deep breath. *Wow her fingers are cold and her eyes are cool and I need to say something oh god this is weird-* "What do you think?" She finally says.
Ryan
Sig had to forgive herself a little chuckle at Nicky's spluttering. *Aawww.* Despite her smugness, a deep pink spread across her angular face, like wine spilled beneath her skin. She never did get the hang of being flattered- her dimples cut into her cheeks a little further at the look in their now-comically round eyes.

"I think..." She gnawed on the inside of her cheek. "Could go subtler, because your hair's really cute actually, but maybe we could buzz down a little at the base, and up to around your ears-ish?," She mused, tucking the front-most locks behind her ears to see how they framed her face. Her voice had a slight accent to it, and was a point or two short of smooth.

"Makes it feel nice and light."
Veda
Nick shifted her mouth back and forth, trying to tamp down the blushing. "Light is good," She said, her voice a bit more even. "I've never done anything adventurous with my hair like ever, so..."

She forced herself to rest her gaze elsewhere, suddenly aware of how long she'd been staring into Sig's eyes. The whole thing was so embarrassing, and yet it didn't come with the usual physical feeling embarrassment came with, where she wanted to run away. Nick definitely didn't want to run right now.
Ryan
"We have ourselves a plan, then, søta."

Sig turned Nicky to face the mirror, gently but excitedly starting to pin her hair she planned on keeping back and out of the way. She may be overzealous, but she was also reassuringly persnickety.

"I mess with my hair a lot, you're golden," She chattered, double-checking to make sure that the sides were even. This kid wasn't a bratty (loving) sibling, so it wouldn't be as funny to mess it up. "Shaved all of mine off when I was thirteen- freest I've ever felt. Messing with it is a necessary thing, hey?"

 The tall girl kept a steady stream of chatter going, if only to ease the nerves- was that too much eye contact? She could never quite tell.

"If there were ever a place where a bit of chaos were appropriate... Any last notes?"
Veda
"I suppose so," Nick agreed with a smile. She watched as Sig adjusted her hair curiously, observing her in the mirror. Sig was tall, to the point the height difference was almost comical, and the strange red lines across her body almost made her seem bigger than she actually was. 

And then Nick was suddenly very aware of their proximity. It was strangely comforting - when was the last time anyone had been physically close to her? Not since before her powers manifested, certainly. 

And then, realizing how distracted she was, she cut that train of thought short to look at what Sig had done with the pinning. "Is it weird that I'm excited?" She asked.
Ryan
"Naahhh. Hell, it's a sign of *Life*- whims change, you realize hair grows back, and that you're suddenly the type of guy to feel like shearing it off- it's exhilarating."

In the mirror, Sigrún's silvery eyes glittered. She spread a towel around Nicky's shoulders. "To catch all the bits. They itch, *Heh.*"

And with that, the clippers softly buzzed to life. Sigrún tilted Nicky's head in little ticks as the gentle whirring kissed her scalp, tickling the back of her neck, short, curly locks falling onto the towel. Her cool hands ran over the fresh stubble as she went, marvelling at the prickly feeling, satisfied with her handiwork. The bizarre intimacy wasn't lost on her- in fact, it made her hearts sped a little in her chest, realizing how much she had missed it. 

Traces of strange colours rippled across her skin, the shifting patterns being perhaps words in a language her subject couldn't read, extensions of her proud, green-tinted grin. She turned Nicky to face the mirror once again; the base of their neck and lower sides around her ears were now smoothly buzzed, prickly and glinting under the lights.

Sig ran her fingers over her scalp, fluffing up her soft waves, looking for pins she had missed or loose locks she had clipped by mistake. She cocked her head in the mirror. *Well?*
Veda
Nick did not speak the whole time Sig worked - it felt almost inappropriate to speak, like an unspoken rule neither of them had made up, one created years ago that was followed for no other reason other than that it had always been that way. 

Instead, she just watched Sig work. She focused on the way her touch felt, and the music in the background, and the noise the clippers made, and the oddly mesmerizing shifting of the colors across Sig's chest and arms.

Nick didn't know how long the process took, but it felt like a longer time than it was, the strange distortion of time in a place between stagnancy and the beginning of something new. 

It took her a full five seconds or so to finally break the silence after Sigrún finished, a moment to take it all in. "I love it," She said quietly. "I - thank you." 

I mean, really, what else was there to say?
Ryan
The muted scuffling noises of the taller figure happily bouncing on the balls of her socked feet bounced off the far reaches of the bathroom, but the space didn't feel that big. *Yess!!! Yes, it works!!*

"*AAAaaaaaaa* You look so cool, Nicky!! I mean it."

The glee in her voice was... A little mechanical if one squinted, but the sentiment was very real. 

"Thanks for letting me do this," She gushed, guts buzzing now with something giddy and fun. "I, *Heh*, wasn't expecting you to say yes. Um. Let me know if you want me to trim it later, or buzz any more off."

An itch had been scratched, one put out of her mind through the rush of moving and settling and not-settling and watching the funny secret-eating void; the feeling of closeness (though not devoid before now, of course, but rarer now that she was away from her shoal) ...Tickled. Yeah. It tickled just right. This was a good feeling.

Sigrún picked a stray bobby pin out of their hair and took a step back.

"Now, shake it out really hard! Trust me."
Veda
Nick was smiling like an idiot, giddy with genuine enjoyment for the first time in weeks. She looked at herself in the mirror, watching as Sigrún plucked a final bobby pin from her hair.

She let out a loud laugh as she shook her head rapidly. It wasn't a pretty laugh, but it was genuine - purer and happier than she had felt in weeks. 

Nick ran a hand through her now-tousled hair. "This looks so good!" She said, still laughing. "Thank you."
Ryan
Nicky's laugh was a precious and electric thing, one that splashed and fizzed neon in Sigrún's guts. Little pricks of light splattered up and down her body as she laughed under the sound, releasing her pinpoint-focus from moments earlier. Her breathy cackle was disjointed and strange, but it too was genuine.

"Yeaaaa*AAAAHHH!!!* Yeah, *Heheh*, yeah, of course, daredevil. It's, ah, been too long since my last involvement with an impulsive decision with clippers, so. Suits you."

She smiled a bit like one might imagine a cat would, baring no teeth this time, stretched and quirked into a cartoonish grimace. Her round eyes, though, squinted just a little, shimmering in the buzzing light.

"I've got to trim mine, still. Getting all shaggy." Sig tipped her head downwards to once again address the little ball of energy she had already grown quite fond of. "Keep me company?"
Veda
Nick let herself bathe in the pure happiness between the two of them, taking in the moment. 

"Nothing better to do," Nick replied, running a hand through her hair gleefully. She rested a hand on the countertop and made an attempt to push herself up. When that didn't work, she swung a leg onto the counter, clambering up onto it to sit. They were much closer to face-to-face level now. "There. Better, yeah?"

All in all, Nicky thought Sig was pretty damn cool.

*And also kinda pretty, but that was a conversation for another time.*
Ryan
"Sick," But the bounce in her heels suggested that it was just a little sweeter than that. Pulling her long blonde curls into a high-ish ponytail and steadying her hands for the job ahead, Sig stole another glance at the kid who had now situated themselves on the counter.

She was a similar sort of strange, the green-toned beast thought, somewhere in there. The- *Her-* Feeling was good, easy to sink into, the rustle of tall grass in cool sunlight. Sigrún wanted to see what other delightful chaos she was capable of.

"Let me know if I miss a spot, ja?"