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“Heh, looks like Ersi finally convinced you to get your hair done,” Gramm says from where he is lounging on the couch.
“Yeah,” Fives says as he rubs the short curls on his head. It feels a little greasy with the fast-gro gel the stylist rubbed into his scalp. It may be his imagination, but he thinks he can already feel a difference in the length. He’s very curious how quickly his hair will grow. “Hope this actually works.”
“Oh, it will! Just be happy it's not in a hypo anymore,” Gramm says cryptically.
Fives tips his head in confusion, raising a brow. “A hypo?”
“When I was much younger–hey, don’t you give me that look,” he says while pointing at a stylist at Fives. Fives raises his hands, but can’t help the grin. “I had an incident with a fire compression system and lost all my hair, eyebrows too. Had to grow them back in a hurry for… reasons” he trails off. “Details aren't important,” Gramm says as he waves his hand in the air. “-but let's just say that it made all of your hair grow.”
Likely with a look of concern and possibly skepticism on his face, Fives lets his eyes trail up and down Gramm. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, Fives raises a brow.
“Thankfully it wasn’t permanent, but the worst was the nose hair!” Gramm says and wiggles his fingers under his nostrils.
Holding back snickers, Fives eventually gives in and then erupts into fits of laughter when Gramm starts to laugh too. Fives slumps down on the couch with Gramm as they wait for the rest of the family to get home. Fives is content and happy that he can still joke with people he cares about even after everything that’s happened even though at times it still feels raw and hurts more than he can explain in words.
“The arse-crack hair wasn't any fun either,” Gramm says out of the blue, grinning widely. The two of them cackle with laughter yet again, hiccuping and setting each other off until Remmi walks through the front door shaking his head, and rain water, fondly at the two of them.
Pulling themselves together, Gramm and Fives grab the produce from the bags Remmi was carrying and head to the kitchen as he diversts himself of his raincoat and umbrella. It’s really been a wet and soggy day and Fives is not going to complain that he wasn’t the one who had to go out in it. He had enough soggy shoes on Kamino.
Digging through the bags, Fives is ecstatic when he finds a frozen container of nuna nuggets. Nuna nuggets for dinner will never not be a favorite for both himself and Mili. The rest of the family is considerably less excited by the bite-sized food, but that also means more for Mili and himself, so he considers it a win and starts to get the oven ready to bake them.
–Weeks later–
“FIVES!” the voice of Ersi bellows through the house.
“Ersi, please stop yelling,” Gramm replies from the dining room, head down over paperwork for the shop.
“But he left a glob of curly black hair the size of my fist on the ‘fresher floor!” Ersi protests as she walks down the hall and into the living room.
When she enters, Fives can see that her hair is still wet and Fives wants to complain back to her about how he’s almost broken his neck on her wet hair drippings more than once, so she has no room to talk, but he holds his tongue.
“Oh, there you are,” She says when she pulls the towel away from her head. “Your hair balls are gross, throw them in the bin when you’re done!”
“Hey, I can’t help how much these luscious locks shed, now can I?” he says, running a hand through his already tangled hair. “It was your idea anyway.”
Glaring at him with her hands on her hips, Fives can see the millisecond that she makes up her mind. “Fives, it’s time for an intervention,” Ersi says as she pulls him to his feet and away from his spot on the couch. “I’m going to show you how to properly take care of this disaster on your head.”
Dragging him to the ‘fresher, Fives throws one last pleading look at Gramm who just fires off a lazy salute at him and goes back to his paperwork, the traitor.
“Okay, so, yes you know how to wash your hair, and how to use conditioner-” Ersi says as she drags Fives down the hallway.
“Use what?” FIves asks and Ersi glares at him.
Smiling and waving off his comment Fives says, “Yeah, yeah, I know that, but why is it so tangled and not curling together anymore? Tup… my friend Tup. His hair never looked like this.”
“That’s because you are probably ruffling it with a towel, right?”
“So do you. I just saw you use one,” Fives protests.
“Yes, I did use one, but not in the same way. If you use a towel, you need to pat it dry so you don’t pull out all the curls,” Ersi says as she shows him one curl of her own that she brushes with her fingers to explain her point. “Honestly, it’s best to let it air dry.”
Fives looks at her with squinted eyes.
“Is that why there’s always water everywhere when you wash your hair?”
Laughing, Ersi pats his shoulder, “Maybe, but more importantly, wanna cut some of this off?” she asks and then claps her hands excitedly. “Or you could keep it in a tail, yeah-yeah-yeah. You could do both!”
“I hate to say it,” Fives says reluctantly. “But I’m going to trust you on this.”
Ersi punches him in his good shoulder and he rubs it exaggeratedly.
“Here, let me show you,” she says and pulls his hair up into a short half tail. The other half she lets fall down to the collar of his shirt and Fives eyes is skeptically in the mirror. “Don’t give me that look. Hang on, hang on,” she says as she wraps one of the many hair bands she has on her wrist into his hair.
Smoothing down the sides and making it flat to his head, Fives can see what Ersi is going for and he thinks it’s a pretty good look on him. It won't remind him too much of…. of Tup, but it still changes his appearance enough that most people won't know he’s a clone unless they’ve had lots of contact with them.
“I like it,” he says resolutely. “Do it.”
Pushing him down on a stool they keep under the counter, Ersi grins and gets to work.
After shaving the sides and the back of his head, Ersi trims up the nape of his neck and then starts to wet his remaining curls with a bottle she keeps at the sink. Fives may have sprayed it in his own mouth once, just to see what was so special about the water. He was a little disappointed that it was just water from the tap.
Finishing up arranging his curls into less of a disaster, by her standards anyway, Ersi twirls Fives on the stool and shows him the finished product.
Tipping his head back and forth, Fives looks over her work and he’s glad his instincts still hold true because he’s more than pleased with this.
In a rush, Fives stands from the stool and grips Ersi in his arms. With a heave, he picks her up into a near crushing hug. Being a zabrak, she’s even more sturdy than clones are, so he’s not worried about hurting her even when they roughhouse like this.
“Get off me you big lug, she says and flails her pinned hands around, trying to break his grip. She’s more than strong enough to do it, but Fives suspects that she secretly enjoys his special brand of affection.
“Thanks, Ersi. It looks perfect.”
“Yeah, yeah, just wish we could hide that scar,” she says as he sits her down on her feet.
“Nah, scars mean that you lived. No need to hide or fix it unless it affects range of motion or … well I suppose it would have impacted my performance as a trooper.”
“As long as you're happy with it,” Ersi says and pats his shoulder as she walks out. “But…. last one to the ‘Melody has to clean the toilets!”
In a rush Ersi is sprinting for the front door and slipping on her shoes. Fives resigns himself to ‘fresher duty and takes a few moments to settle all of the feelings that are making his chest feel a little sore. It’s getting easier, but that might just be because his world is getting bigger and filled with more people who mean everything to him. They don’t replace the ones he’s lost, but they do help to shore him up when he’s down.