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laughhardrunfastbekindsblog · 5 months ago

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Style and Error

Summer of Bad Batch 2024 | Week 7 | Prompt: Getting a Haircut

Summary: Omega finally gets her first hairstyle change after leaving Kamino - and her brothers get a crash course in human adolescent female hairdos. POV: Hunter, Omega (Word Count: 2700)

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Notes: This prompt finally convinced me to turn this headcanon into a proper fic! Also, my fic last week ended up being a LOT sadder than I had originally intended (sorry about that, all, the story just kept going that direction and I couldn't stop it), so just a heads up that this story is a lot more relaxed and fun!

“We need to do something about your hair,” Hunter said.

At this, Omega glanced up from the datapad from which she was dutifully studying the history of Coruscant.

“Really, it’s fine, Hunter,” she said, absently removing her left hand from her hair to steady the datapad on her knee. Her bangs fell into her eyes, obstructing her view, and she automatically brought her hand back up to scoop the unruly hair off her forehead and hold it in place.

Hunter shook his head even as his lips twitched into a smile. “Doesn’t your arm get tired holding your hair back all the time?”

“Well…” Omega hesitated.

“Hunter’s right, Omega. If nothing else, you need both hands and unobscured vision to handle your energy bow properly,” Echo said firmly as he entered the Marauder, having apparently heard the conversation from outside where he had been double checking the ship’s landing gear. “Besides, we don’t need a repeat of what’s happened on the past two missions.”

Omega wasn’t nearly as successful as Hunter was in hiding a grimace at the reminder. Just a few days after escaping a destroyed Kamino, Hunter – his thoughts still full of Crosshair and wondering what he could have said differently to convince his estranged brother to rejoin the squad – had suddenly noticed that Omega was needing to brush her hair out of her face a lot more often than usual. After a few weeks of this, Hunter had finally suggested that she try wearing a headband.

“Really?” Omega had said excitedly. “I get my own headband?”

“It’s just to keep your hair out of your eyes,” Hunter had replied. If it worked for him, it would work for her.

It had not, in fact, worked for her.

If Hunter knew anything at all about different hairstyles, he might have conjectured that Omega’s unevenly grown out layers were one factor hindering the efficacy of using a headband at this time; but he did not know anything at all about different hairstyles. What he did know was that when Omega wore the headband farther back on her head in a way that actually kept the band secured, it didn’t help hold her bangs off her forehead; and when she wore it on her forehead as Hunter did… Well, even Tech was sensitive enough to not tell Omega that the layer of bangs sticking up in wild disarray behind the bandana made her bear a striking resemblance to a frilled zarco lizard, but Hunter had a feeling Cid would not be so kind if she ever saw it. And anyway, this style had ended up causing near-catastrophe when the headband had slipped down over Omega’s eyes at the precise moment she had been taking a shot at an errant masador chasing them down on one of their most recent missions.

So the headband had been quickly abandoned; but given that Omega’s hair was growing ever longer and more uneven, the problem still remained, and had led to the second accident Echo had just referred to, when Omega’s bangs flying in her face meant she hadn’t seen the tree root as she was sprinting along with her brothers back to the Marauder. Here they were a week later, and her scraped hands and a bruised forehead had only barely healed.

“I don’t know what to do about my hair, though,” Omega sighed now. “Nala Se made sure I got my hair cut every four standard weeks on Kamino, but I didn’t really pay attention to how they did it.” Suddenly she brightened. “Hunter, you cut your own hair. Maybe you can do mine the way the droids on Kamino did it?”

Hunter had no idea how to tell Omega that he cut his own hair only because he didn’t really care if his ends were even, but he did care if Omega’s were and he was not going to be responsible for whatever insult Cid would come up with to describe Hunter’s barbering skills in relation to Omega’s hair. Besides, he had no idea how to work with bangs, and he didn’t want to just chop hers off.

Deciding to keep his explanation simple, he said, “I don’t know how to do whatever the Kaminoans did for your haircut, Omega.”

Wrecker, his interest in the discussion having apparently reached a peak, suddenly set Gonky down and moved forward to the seat next to Omega. “You could always try Tech’s hair gel,” he said with a shrug.

Tech, perched in his usual spot in the pilot’s seat, was engrossed in his datapad and didn’t appear to hear Wrecker’s statement, nor notice the look of dismay that briefly passed over Omega’s face.

“No need,” Hunter said quickly before Omega had to reply. “We’ll figure something else out.”

Thing was, he and his brothers hadn’t even thought about visiting a barber ever since first being sent off Kamino – there had never been any time given how frequently they were sent out on missions during the war, so they had always just maintained their own hairstyles themselves. They had occasionally helped each other out with haircuts… but the best any of them knew how to do was shave to one length and cut a relatively straight line with standard clippers.

“Do you know how to cut hair?” Hunter asked Echo now, looking hopefully at him.

“If we had the tools, most I could do is a regulation haircut,” Echo said doubtfully, frowning in thought. “Wrecker has his standard shaver but I think we’d need more than that…”

“I would assert that Omega may not actually want a regulation haircut, or any of our styles of haircuts, for that matter,” Tech interjected at this juncture, finally looking up from his datapad. Before anyone could say anything, he had made his way back to the others and connected his datapad to the console, displaying his research on the larger screen so the others could see. Hunter smiled a little at the sight; of course Tech had been paying attention to the entire conversation. “These are examples of current trends for human adolescent female hairstyles,” Tech continued. “Perhaps we can trial one of these.”

“Oooh, I like that one,” Omega said, pointing to one of the images; the look of sheer relief on her face told Hunter that Tech had been right in his assertion. “That would keep my hair out of my face.”

“An ‘overhand braid,’” Wrecker read out the description, glancing between the picture and Omega. “Uh… how do we do it?”

“I’ll look up instructions,” Tech said promptly.

Omega, face brightening even further, set aside her datapad and moved forward to look more closely over Tech’s shoulder, while Hunter and Echo exchanged glances.

“Worth a shot,” Echo shrugged, and Hunter nodded.

Between the five of them and Tech’s unlimited information, how hard could this be?

******

Four hours later, Hunter was slumped defeatedly in his chair, watching Tech and Wrecker as they doggedly pressed forward in trying to figure out variations of a ponytail. After the thirty minutes spent devising a reasonable substitute for standard hair ties, Hunter could understand why Tech was so determined to find a way to use them.

He glanced over at Echo, who was currently standing a few feet away observing the proceedings, arms crossed and, Hunter was fairly certain, still muttering “Never again” under his breath. It had been almost two hours since they had finally given up on trying to figure out braids, and Hunter wasn’t sure if Echo was actually traumatized by the experience or just taking the failure personally.

It was really saying something that Echo – with his one hand, scomp arm, and teeth – had come the closest to actually recreating a hairdo approximating an overhand braid, where Hunter and Wrecker and then Hunter and Tech with their combined four hands hadn’t even been able to make it past step two. But Echo had been rather put out when he somehow got his scomp entangled in the braid and almost took out a chunk of Omega’s hair when trying to extricate it. Omega, for all her patience during the proceedings, hadn’t been able to hold in a high-pitched yelp when Echo had finally managed to free himself, and Tech hadn’t needed any prompting to suggest turning their attention to other possible hairstyles that didn’t include braids.

Wrecker had been very pleased with himself when he was able to put Omega’s hair into a low ponytail, but her bangs were not yet long enough to make this style very effective, and managing to get all of Omega’s hair into a high ponytail was beyond the current skills of Wrecker, Hunter, and Tech (Echo had declined making any attempt). Tech and Wrecker were currently discussing the feasibility of splitting Omega’s hair into high and low ponytails; and Omega, who had somehow been enthusiastic and happy throughout the entire ordeal, was starting to look exhausted.

“This isn’t working,” Hunter spoke up.

“I would guess that the current length of Omega’s hair is simply not conducive to these various styles,” Tech said thoughtfully. “Perhaps when her hair grows longer…”

“We can’t wait that long.”

“There is a barbershop just down the street from here. Perhaps we can seek their expertise.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned the barbershop four hours ago?” Echo said with no small amount of exasperation.

Tech opened his mouth to respond, but Omega piped up. “I’m glad we tried the other styles. That was fun!”

Her cheerful sincerity made Tech’s expression soften with a smile, and Echo gave a small sigh but said no more.

“Have you ever cut your hair short, Hunter?” Omega asked curiously as the squad, understanding the new plan, prepped to head out for the barbershop.

“As cadets, we always had to have the regulation haircut,” Echo put in. “We didn’t get to choose a different style until after graduation.”

“True,” Tech added, “but for us 99s, getting a regulation haircut was… tricky. We didn’t look like the regs anyway, and our hair was different in more ways than just color. For example, my hair grows slower than is typical for clones, so oftentimes I wasn’t scheduled for a cut for months at a time.”

Hunter nodded as he looked at Omega to answer her original question. “My hair always grew faster than the regs’ did, so the droids would cut my hair shorter than standard. A lot shorter. I… didn’t like that, so several times I just didn’t go to the appointments.”

“They let you do that?” Omega asked in awe.

Hunter chuckled a little. “Let me? No. I got away with it a few times – Tech would go in my place, since the droids only kept track of the number of cadets scheduled for a cut. But the trainers soon caught on and insisted I keep my hair short. But once we graduated and I could choose my own hairstyle – well, by the time we shipped out for our first mission, my hair was already this long and I was never going to get a regulation cut ever again.”

“Crosshair was the best at cutting Hunter’s hair until Hunter figured out how to do it himself,” Wrecker put in.

Hunter nodded again, smiling a little as he thought about all the times Crosshair had threatened to shave a bald strip down the middle of Hunter’s head if he wouldn’t stop fidgeting while Crosshair was trying to cut his hair straight… then he grew somber as he always did when he thought of his brother.

He hoped Crosshair had at least been recovered from Kamino by now.

“Well,” Omega was saying with quiet enthusiasm, breaking through Hunter’s thoughts, “it’ll be nice to have something different, for a change.”

Hunter reached down and brushed Omega’s bangs back, again – though it didn’t do any good, and Omega giggled as her hair flopped back into her eyes.

“Yeah, kid, you definitely need something different,” he quipped as they followed Tech toward the barbershop.

******

Omega took the seat next to Wrecker, holding back a sigh. She had just completed her seventh circuit of the barbershop; by now she had pretty much memorized the layout as she looked at the various products, equipment, strange décor, and caught a glimpse of other clients receiving services from the other barber.

It had been almost an hour, and her brothers still hadn’t settled on a hairstyle for the barber to try on her. The first style the barber had recommended had been deemed by Hunter to be too complicated for him to help with upkeep, even when the barber had patiently explained she would be more than willing to show Hunter how to maintain the cut; an inquiry into current fashion trends for more active individuals had snowballed into a lengthy discussion with Tech about hair textures, growth rates and patterns, hair health, and the impact of these factors on transitional haircuts when one wanted to switch from one style to another; and even now that Tech was currently engrossed in examining more pictures of example haircuts, Hunter and Echo were still debating feasible styles with the barber, with Hunter seeming most concerned about the fact that their lifestyle didn’t lend to committing to a consistent schedule for professional haircuts.

Omega had never really cared what her hair looked like – she had spent over ten years with the same routine hairstyle and had never even thought about changing it, it was just part of her life. Kaminoans didn’t have hair, and even as she had seen more of the galaxy the past months, she had never really paid much attention to others’ hairdos. But when Tech had shown her the varieties of hairstyles that other human girls were wearing, it had suddenly struck Omega that she could have a different hairstyle too.

She sighed openly now. The excitement of trying a new hairstyle had ebbed away after hours of failure. She understood the point Hunter had first made to the barber that once Omega’s hair was cut, she’d be stuck with that style for several months, minimum; but at this point, it didn’t really matter. She just needed something to keep her bangs out of her eyes so she would stop being more of a liability for her brothers.

Wrecker apparently had noticed her mood, for he now leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “You could just be bald, like me. If we leave now, I bet I could have your head shaved before Echo notices we’re gone.”

Omega giggled - she could only imagine the look on Hunter’s face if she took Wrecker up on his offer. It almost sounded like a good idea, even though she knew Wrecker was joking.

The barber continued talking through all the other options, at Hunter’s and Echo’s behest. “As I said before, keeping length allows for more versatility with specific hairstyles, including braids…”

“Never again,” Echo interjected adamantly, earning a startled look from the stylist.

Omega almost groaned – this had gone on long enough.

Getting up and crossing the shop with Wrecker following suit, Omega tugged gently on Hunter’s hand. “Hunter, I don’t need all this. I just need a way to hold my hair back.”

Up close, Omega could tell the barber was reaching the end of her rope. “Have you tried hair clips?” the stylist said in near desperation.

Echo furrowed his brows. “What are…”

“This one will do nicely,” Tech said suddenly, gesturing for Omega to come over to give her final opinion as the other brothers looked over curiously at the sample image Tech had pulled up.

Omega took one look at the style and grinned. It was perfect.

“That one,” she said; and when she looked back at the others, she knew a unanimous decision had finally been made.

She couldn’t stop grinning until long after the barber had completed her work and the team had returned to the Marauder. Her bangs were now out of her eyes, her hair felt more manageable, and – well, once or twice before she had heard other people say that they felt “pretty,” and now she knew what that meant. She felt pretty.

Who knew it could be so exciting to get a haircut?

@summer-of-bad-batch

#the bad batch #star wars the bad batch #tbb fanfiction #tbb headcanons #tbb omega #tbb hunter #tbb echo #tbb tech #tbb wrecker #brothers trying to help their sister with her hair #challenge accepted #what could possibly go wrong?#dad bros #summer of bad batch #week 7 #getting a haircut

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