#i designed my own header lol‚ bow before my skills

[ihni]

“Ow, ow, ow, what the fuck?” Steve hissed and tried to escape. Billy’s hands were still tangled in his hair, though, so he couldn’t get away. “Whatever you’re doing, stop doing it!”

“I can’t stop now, I’m only halfway through!” Billy hissed back through clenched teeth. “And if I do, we have to start over again.”

“Or,” Steve said, trying to twist his head into an angle that would lessen the pain, “you practice your braiding technique on someone else. That sounds like a good idea to me!”

Billy disentangled his fingers from Steve’s hair and threw himself backwards in the couch dramatically. “Okay fine! This isn’t working out anyway. Fuck it.”

Wincing, Steve felt at his hair and grimaced at what felt like several knots. “This doesn’t feel like a French braid, babe.”

Flicking his eyes up at the mess atop Steve’s head, Billy pouted, “It doesn’t look much like one, either.” He sighed deeply. “That’s it. I give up.”

Steve sat down next to him in the couch, trying to comb out his hair with his fingers. After a couple of seconds, Billy reached his hand up to help loosen the knots. Steve relaxed into it and let him take over after a while when it became clear that Steve was really only making it worse.

“How important is it that it’s French braids anyway?”

Billy sighed. “Max said it absolutely had to be French braids. Apparently all the girls in their year are doing French braids for their school photos, and she and El don’t want to be the only ones left out.”

“And Susan …?”

“Is out of town.”

“Right.”

Billy lowered his arm and put it around Steve’s shoulders instead. When Steve reached up to feel the top of his head, he was relieved to find that his hair was once again free of knots, even if was sticking up in all directions. “And why can’t Hopper do it? I mean, if El wants to do it, too?”

That drew a laugh out of Billy. “I actually asked him that exact question. He said that he has, and I quote, ‘sausage fingers’, and also that apparently I have enough unpaid speeding tickets for him to put me behind bars for at least a weekend.”

“Wait, did he threaten you?” Steve said, outraged, and turned to face Billy.

Billy laughed. “Yeah, but he also said that if I do this, he can make all those speeding tickets go away.”

“So, bribery.”

“Basically.” Billy shrugged. “At least it beats the threats.”

“Sure,” Steve agreed, “but neither of those are ideal coming from the Chief of Police.”

Billy didn’t reply. Instead he just snuggled closer to Steve on the couch and leaned his head against Steve’s shoulder. There was a library book in front of them on the coffee table, open on the section that showed in eight detailed, black and white images how to make a French braid. They’d been at it for over an hour now, without success. Steve’s scalp was burning, and Billy’s sighs got deeper and deeper for each failed attempt.

“Let me try,” Steve said, taking a deep breath before standing up. “You have longer hair anyway.” It was a testament to Billy’s despair that he didn’t object, and that he didn’t protest even when Steve got behind the couch and started carding his fingers through Billy’s hair. “Where’s that brush?”

Wordlessly, Billy handed him the brush over his shoulder, and then leaned forward to bring the book closer so Steve could see the instructions better.

“It doesn’t look too difficult,” Steve said and started pulling the brush through Billy’s locks.

“It doesn’t, does it,” Billy muttered, but said nothing else as Steve started separating Billy’s hair into sections.

Twenty minutes later, Billy’s hair was in something at least half-resembling a French braid, and Billy was feeling along the braid with a wondrous expression on his face. “Really? You did it? How does it look?”

Steve made a face. “I mean. Not like in the book, but. With practice, I think we can do this.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Steve laughed. “I love you too.” And then he added, while Billy went into the bathroom to check out the final result, “Also, we’re gonna have to bribe the girls with something to make them say that you did their braids. So you’ll get rid of all those tickets.”

“I love you.”

~~~

For @harringrove-flip-reverse-it

(On AO3)