#nonetheless hope you enjoyed! wish I could’ve contributed more but I was dying

[ww2yaoi]

Unfortunately, I don’t have anything official to post for @webgottweek because I’ve been sick (and unprepared), but here’s a scene from my still yet untitled webgott wip for the day 6 prompt: haircut. Enjoy!

Joe makes good on his offer to cut David’s hair a few days later. They take their leave after dinner while most of the guys are downstairs playing cards. Joe drags David’s desk chair from their room into the bathroom and sets it up in front of the sink. He lays out his comb and scissors as David watches from the doorway with his arms crossed, not entirely thrilled to be parting with his mop. He only agreed because Joe seemed so adamant about doing something nice for him, and the last thing David wants is to deny him the chance to feel useful, especially now that the war is over and most of the company is stuck in limbo.

“Not too short, okay?” David says as Joe pushes him down into the chair.

“Jesus Christ, Web,” Joe says, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “All the officers trust me with their hair, why can’t you?”

“Yeah, right, like you’d give Captain Speirs a bad haircut,” David says as Joe wraps a towel around his neck. “You know I won’t be able to do anything about it.”

“Would you shut up? I’m not going to give you a bad haircut. I wouldn’t risk my reputation like that.” Joe takes a drag of his cigarette then ashes it in a tray on the back of the toilet. “Now lean back.”

David huffs, but does as he’s told, tipping his head back into the sink. Joe runs the lukewarm water, drenches David’s head, then lathers his hair with soap. Admittedly, it feels good. The last time David washed his hair was over a week ago, seeing as their billet has limited showers and insufficient hot water to facilitate so many men bathing daily. Usually, David just jumps in the lake and lets it wash away the sweat and grime from drills and training exercises. He’ll probably never be as dirty as he was in Normandy or Holland ever again, and he thanks God for that.

Joe massages his fingers into David’s scalp and David nearly groans. Joe must see the contentment on David’s face because he smirks.

“Feels good, right?”

“Yes,” David says flatly.

Joe runs his fingers through David’s hair from root to tip, then rinses out the soap. The act is oddly intimate, Joe hovering over him, touching his head and maneuvering it from side to side, using his hands so deftly. David is completely at his mercy. He wonders if Joe washes the hair of every man that asks him for a trim, if the officers get to see Joe like this, get to feel his fingers on their scalps. David suddenly feels jealous, possessive, but he knows the feeling makes no sense, that Joe is just doing a job for extra pocket money.

Joe uses a spare towel to ring most of the water out of David’s hair, then beckons him to stand up. He moves the chair away from the sink so he has enough room to walk around it, then gets David to sit back down again. He proceeds to comb David’s hair, gently working out the knots and parting it where the strands naturally fall.

“Not too short,” David reminds Joe as he grabs his scissors.

“Don’t be a baby,” Joe says. “I’m only taking an inch off.”

David listens to the snip, snip, snip of the scissors as Joe begins cutting his hair, starting at the back, and the sound is unexpectedly relaxing, almost enough to raise goosebumps on his arms. He watches as the trimmings fall to the floor like dark feathers, interrupting the white tiles below. Joe alternates between combing his hair, measuring the sections with his fingers, and trimming them down. He works quickly and quietly, gently ushering David’s head back and forth and to the side wherever he needs it to go.

“Where did you learn how to do this?” David asks.

“My dad was a barber,” Joe explains as he moves around the chair to face David and work on the front ends of his hair. “I used to help him at the shop on weekends, sweeping up clippings, answering the phone, cleaning windows, that sort of thing. I would watch him and learned that way until eventually he let me practice on him, with mixed results.”

Joe smiles, seemingly at the memory. David likes listening to Joe talk about his family. His voice has a softer quality to it when he does it. David probably sounds the opposite when discussing his parents or his siblings. Usually when he speaks of them, he’s pissed off about something they said or did.

“Then when I dropped out of school as a teenager I would do odd jobs, including cutting hair,” Joe continues. “I got pretty good at it.”

“Wait, you dropped out of school?” David asks.

He tries not to sound too dismayed, but his face must betray him. Joe gives him a skeptical look.

“Does that offend your very being, Harvard?”

“No,” David insists. “I’m just shocked, is all. You’re so—”

The word ‘smart’ dries up in David’s mouth. Joe is looking right at him as he measures the front pieces of his hair to ensure the length is even. His eyebrows are raised.

“I just didn’t expect it,” David says.

“Yeah, well, there were a lot of mouths to feed in my house growing up,” Joe says. “I would’ve rathered my sisters stay in school than me.” Joe makes a few more cuts around David’s head. “What does your dad do?”

“Uh, he’s a businessman,” David says.

“Yeah? That’s vague. What kind of businessman?”

“I don’t know.” David tries to stifle the resentment in his voice. “He’s the vice president of a trade company. It’s one of those jobs where half of his time is spent going out to lunch.”

“Sounds like a sweet deal,” Joe says, setting down his scissors.

“It’s a nothing kind of job,” David admits. “At least cutting hair you’re doing something. Dealing with a bunch of sales projections and ass-kissers all day doesn’t do anyone any good, unless you’re some self-satisfied prick in a suit.”

Joe snickers. “Jesus, Web. What are you, a Stalinist?”

“No, I just think there are better things to do with your life.”

Joe grabs a towel and runs it over David’s hair to finish drying it. “So what do you want to do with your life? If we ever get out of here?”

“I don’t know,” David says. “Write.”

“Yeah? Sounds nice.”

Joe tosses the towel aside and grabs a bottle of something off the back of the toilet.

“What is that?” David asks.

“Hair oil,” Joe says.

“You’ve been carting hair oil around war-torn Europe?”

Joe smirks. “Only the best for my customers.”

He unscrews the cap, dabs some into the center of his palm, sets the bottle aside, then warms the oil up in his hands. It smells strong and musky, and David is reminded of the other night, of the oil that coated his cock and Joe’s fingers and his thighs. They have yet to fuck like that again. Their days have been so filled with training and drills that they’re both too exhausted by night’s end to do anything but fall asleep in the same bed.

At the same time, David thinks there must be some other reason. It must be because when they fucked on David’s birthday, it was his first time with a man. Admitting that must have put Joe off, made him believe he’ll turn out to be some lovelorn kid who will just grow attached. Or maybe, Joe is waiting for him to make the next move. Maybe Joe thinks he’s too chickenshit to do it.

Joe stoops down to eye level and passes his hands through David’s new haircut, adjusting a strand here and a strand there. David just stares at Joe as he focuses intently on his styling, combing David’s curls back with his fingers, following the waves as they naturally form. He brushes a stray hair behind David’s ear then smiles.

“Can I see it?” David asks.

“Not yet.” Joe reaches out and runs his thumb along David’s jaw. “Do you want me to shave you? You’re looking pretty stubbly.”

“I shaved this morning,” David says.

“Come on, Web. You’re the kind of guy that gets five o’clock shadow at noon,” Joe says. “Your haircut won’t look as good if I don’t shave you.”

“I can handle you with scissors around my head but I don’t know how I feel about you wielding a razor near my throat,” David deadpans.

“Oh, please. I’m a professional.” Joe straightens. “Let me get my shaving kit.”

He opens the bathroom door and slips out into the hallway. David is tempted to look at himself in the mirror while Joe is gone but unfortunately agrees that the end product will look better if he shaves. Joe returns a minute later anyway. He unrolls his kit on the toilet lid, takes the shaving brush, soaps it up and lathers the lower half of David’s face. Joe is even closer now than he was when he was cutting David’s hair, and he’s looking at him, really looking at him.

“You’re getting tan,” Joe says as he reaches for his razor.

“I like the sun,” David replies.

“Why the hell do you live on the upper East Coast then?”

David shrugs. “Victim of circumstance.”

Joe chuckles. He wipes down the blade of the straight razor with a towel.

“I’ve always wanted to move somewhere warm,” David confesses. “Like Florida or California.”

Joe’s eyes flicker at that. The change in his expression is nearly imperceptible, but something like curiosity, or maybe even recognition, passes over his face. It fades in an instant, then Joe is hovering the razor above David’s cheekbone.

“Okay, don’t move, unless you want me to cut you.”

David sits as still as possible as Joe glides the razor over his cheeks and down the immediate curve of his neck, pulling his skin taut with his thumb, then wiping the soap and stubble off the blade with the towel. If David was at Joe’s mercy before, he’s completely vulnerable now. Their conversation gets put on hold as Joe works the razor over David’s skin. His hands are very steady, which is at least reassuring. As far as David can tell, Joe has always had steady hands, along with an obedient trigger finger. At least, obedient to himself. He’s a much better shot than David ever was, and David can understand why. He’s precise.

Joe finishes shaving David with one last swipe over the ball of his jaw, and David feels like he can breathe full and deep again. Joe goes to the sink to wet the towel, then returns to wipe the remaining soap from David’s cheeks.

“Wait,” Joe says. He removes the other towel from David’s shoulders and fixes his hair one more time. “Okay, you can look now.”

David gets up from the chair and turns to face the mirror. His reflection greets him like a stranger he once saw on the street but swears he’s met before in a dream. He recognizes himself, obviously, but he looks more youthful, yet without being young somehow. He’s molted his old skin, the skin that became mottled and toughened by the war, and settled into a new one. He has colour in his cheeks for once, which look impossibly smooth, and his hair is maybe the most well-groomed he’s ever seen it, at least since the war started. Shorter, yes, but shiny and expertly coiffed into a wave off his forehead. David stares at himself. He feels clean, fresh, but most of all, he feels meticulously cared for.

“Well, do you like it?” Joe asks.

“Yeah, Joe, I do,” David says, turning to him and smiling. “I really like it. Thank you.”

Joe returns his grin and winks. “I knew you would, you nonbeliever,” he says. “You look like Carey fucking Grant.”

David laughs. “Do I?”

“Well, not really, but your hair does.” Joe looks down at all the clippings on the floor. “I need to find a broom.”

“I think there’s a broom closet in the hallway,” David says. “I’ll go check.”

He slips out of the bathroom and walks down to the end of the hall, opening a thin door beside the stairs. Thankfully, there’s a broom and dustpan inside, propped up against the wall. David grabs them both just as footsteps echo up the stairwell. Luz appears at the top, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“Ayy, Web. Looking spiffy,” he says. “What is this, the fucking Ritz?”

“Joe cut my hair,” David explains, fighting back a smile.

“Yeah, I can see that. Lookin’ good, kid.” Luz claps him on the shoulder. “I’ll have to get him to do me next.”

Luz disappears into his room a few doors over and David returns to the bathroom. Joe is sitting on the toilet lid and smoking the cigarette he ashed earlier. They clean up, collecting the clippings from the floor and throwing them in the dustbin. Joe gathers his tools and his shaving kit and they head back to their room, David carrying the chair.

David returns it to his desk then flops down on the bed, suddenly feeling very tired. He’s afraid to ruin his hair, but his head is too heavy to keep off the pillow. He closes his eyes and a few minutes later, he feels the mattress sink as Joe lies down beside him.

David cracks open an eye and sees that Joe is facing his direction, his head resting on the adjacent pillow, just looking at him in the lamplight.

“Inspecting your handiwork?” David asks.

Joe nods. “A little bit.”

“I feel like we should be going out somewhere,” David muses. “To a jazz club or something.”

“You like jazz clubs?”

“Not particularly. I just feel like it’s a waste. If I fall asleep I’m going to mess up my hair, and I’ll have to shave again in the morning.”

“Don’t be vain, Web,” Joe says.

“It’s not vanity. I want people to see your work.”

Joe laughs through his nose. “Well, I see it.”

“You and Luz.”

“Luz?”

“He saw me in the hallway. He said I looked spiffy.”

“And that ain’t enough for you?”

“Shut up.”

A beat passes, then Joe reaches out and strokes David’s cheek, his thumb tracing the smooth, clean-shaven line of his jaw back and forth, back and forth.

“My sisters would be obsessed with you.”

David smirks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, they would want to have your babies,” Joe says. “Except that you’re a goy.”

“Ugh.” David makes a face. “I don’t want to think about your sisters that way.”

Joe laughs and the sound cuts through the quiet. David ignores him, too disturbed by the concept. He nuzzles further into Joe’s warm palm, feeling himself being pulled towards sleep. He wants to kiss Joe, but he doubts he has the energy to start anything right now. Instead, he shuts his eyes, his body growing heavier and heavier. Joe’s hand migrates to his hair, fixing it even as he verges on unconsciousness. He brushes a loose strand from David’s forehead, smoothes his sideburns down with his fingertips. David is nearly asleep when he hears it.

“Gut aussehend,” Joe mutters. “If only they knew, Web. If only they knew.”