#fun fact… I had to look up how to shave for this so JDJBDBDBD me and Steven got to learn together wahoo💖

[tiptapricot]

Scene req from @guss-other-fin for a trans!MK system scenario in which Marc prefers to be clean shaven because he hates the feeling of facial hair, so Steven doesn’t realize he can grow it until after they’re on more even terms with each other. Marc then teaches Steven how to shave, and it’s just an overall sweet bonding moment with lots of banter, and Steven nicking himself because he couldn’t stop smiling. Also now on ao3!

———

Steven stares at himself in the mirror, brows furrowed intensely, as his fingers poke and prod at his chin and cheeks. The skin is darker than usual and it’s… rough…

A tickle of amusement brushes against his consciousness.

“Marc?” he asks tentatively at the new presence, turning his head to get a better look at the sides of his jaw.

‘What’s up bud?’ Marc’s voice light, like he’s trying not to laugh.

“What’s…” Steven’s mouth twists, his hand moving to gesture oddly at their reflection. “What’s all this here?”

Marc huffs, and Steven swears he can almost feel the puff of air against his ear. ‘That’s facial hair Steven, I forgot to shave.’

Steven’s brows shoot up. “Really?” His fingers once again run over the light stubble dusting his chin, the texture making his skin tingle. But it could almost be a nice feeling now that he thinks about it. Facial hair! “I didn’t think we could grow this stuff,” he says, a bit in awe, “like there was some freak backwards effect of hormones that gave us like… male patterned baldness on our face or something.”

Marc laughs, loud, and Steven glares at his reflection in annoyance. Marc isn’t exactly there, but he knows he’ll see it anyway.

“Well what was I supposed to think when even my bloody peach fuzz disappeared?” he asks incredulously.

Marc’s laughter peters out at that, and Steven feels him twist and shrink a bit, and—oh. He’s embarrassed. He’s bloody embarrassed.

‘I don’t… I don’t like the feel of it,’ he admits. ‘When it started growin’ in I tried to have something with it cause y’know… it was nice to see, kinda, but it just…’ Steven gets a flash of sensation—scratchy hair running over their wrists and poking at their lips—and shivers. ‘Yeah I just… it wasn’t my thing. I usually just stay clean shaven when I can.’

Steven makes a noncommittal hum in response, taking one more second to poke at his stubble, before pushing back from the mirror to look matter of factly at their sink. When he sees nothing but their toothbrush, he crouches down to check one of the little storage cabinets.

‘What are you lookin’ for now Steven?’ Marc asks, his voice light and fond, giving the impression that he’s leaning back with his arms crossed to watch.

“Well I do assume you have a razor,” Steven says, rifling through the mess that’s accumulated, “unless Khonshu was such a stuck up twit that you had to use that little moon staff of his instead or something. That thing did look quite sharp didn’t it?” He pulls out a small box of ibuprofen well past its expiration date and grimaces at it, making a mental note to sort through his storage at some point.

Marc laughs again, the twinge of awkwardness from before gone, and Steven feels a force twitch his hand down to the bottom shelf. ‘Yeah, yeah, I have a razor.’

Taking the hint, Steven pushes aside a few stray items before pulling out a simple, black hand razor from the back. It’s small. Utilitarian. Definitely Marc’s.

‘There should be gel and aftershave in there too.’

Steven hums again, grabbing the bottles he assumes Marc means before straightening up.

“Ok,” he says, staring at the mirror with determination, “how’s this whole thing work then?”

He gets the impression of Marc smiling, before he starts walking him through it, not even questioning Steven’s desire to do it himself.

His directions are easy, and Steven does just as he says, washing their face, before lathering up with the gel and enjoying the smooth feel of it under his fingers. When he’s done, he lets it sit as he washes off his hands, making sure to run the razor under the water as well after a very… noncommittal answer from Marc about its cleaning history.

‘Now, go slow, and don’t push too hard. You go in the direction of the hair, and don’t reverse or anything, just glide it over.’

Steven makes a little noise of acknowledgment in his throat but stays completely still otherwise, barely twitching the razor over his cheek.

‘Here, like this.’ He feels Marc take control of his hand, moving it at an easy pace over the skin. The sudden visual image of him guiding Steven to shave like he’d guide someone to tie a tie nearly makes him burst out laughing, but he catches himself.

‘There, keep going like that,’ Marc says, returning control to Steven.

It’s easier after that, and Steven makes it most of the way down one side of his face before Marc says something else.

‘Ah yeah, and around your mouth and stuff you can puff out your cheeks for an easier shave.’

It makes sense, it really does, but when Steven does it in the mirror he suddenly imagines Marc making the same face, and it’s just too bloody much.

He does laugh this time, lips sputtering and twitching into a smile, and their hand flinches away from their face.

‘Woah woah hey there, that’s how you hurt yourself.’

Steven rolls his eyes and goes back in to keep shaving, jerking control of the hand back from Marc. “I’m not the one who has to think about you doing this all the time you know,” he says very carefully. “Do you know how bonkers we look when we do that?”

‘You look fine Steven. You’re doing great.’ And Marc’s voice is just… fond when he says it. Deeply fond, and it makes Steven’s chest do something all fluttery.

He can’t help but think about Marc learning this himself, then, or maybe having someone he trusted teach him like he’s doing for Steven now. It’s so familiar to him but so alien to Steven, and yet they still get to share this.

This. This body.

It’s a real bang up thing overall. He knows they have a lot of scars, some recent, some older, and he knows a lot are from Marc, from things less than wonderful and less than kind, but he also knows they share the joy here too. The joy in the two scars on their chest, in the deep tambre of their voice, in… shaving. In having to shave because they have facial hair. Gods he still can’t wholly believe that. And it’s not all been aces, yeah, but they have this, and he has this with Marc, and so maybe it really isn’t all bad after all.

Now Steven does smile at that, absentmindedly, just a bit too wide and a bit too weighty, and the blade nicks his skin. He hisses, cringing, and pulls the razor back to clutch at the little welt just below his nose.

“Ah, bollocks.”

‘Told you to be careful.’

“Oh shut up you,” Steven says breathlessly, grabbing a wad of tissue to blot at it for a moment. “I was thinking mushy thoughts, you can’t blame me.”

‘Oh yeah? What about?’ Marc asks, and the affection is still there, a comfortable weight in Steven’s chest.

“Oh you know,” he says, returning to the space around his mouth just a touch more carefully, “just about us, the body, all this.” He leans back to look at his work so far, before starting on the other cheek. “I still can’t believe you hid this from me.”

Marc chuckles. ‘Well clearly you wouldn’t have done it right if I had.’

“Oh shut up.” Steven flicks a little water at the mirror but there’s no venom in it, and Marc laughs louder this time. It’s a warm, easy sound that he rarely makes, and it catches Steven so off guard he has to pause for a moment to reign in his own wild grin, bracing against the sink and smiling at the floor like an idiot.

It’s nearly an hour before they even touch the aftershave, but Steven doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind at all.