A/N - this is from a request on Tumblr, and was originally posted in a slightly different order, I have decided to post this part first even though it was requested second, as it makes chronological sense. The original prompt was: "I wish you would write a fic where something gets stuck in Kanan's hair while on a mission or something and the only way to get it out is to cut his hair and then the rest of the crew have mini mental breakdowns because Kanan's! Hair! Is! Different! Meanwhile Kanan is being his usual Kanan self about the whole thing." That pretty much covers the whole story, so I won't post the individual prompts in each chapter.
Ezra took a deep, gulping breath as he emerged from the Phantom. Sabine watched, not bothering to disguise her irritation, as he covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, jogged quickly over to her, thrust the pair of scissors in her direction, and then backed away quickly.
"It's not that bad," she muttered half under her breath.
"Yeah, it is," Kanan told her.
He was right. Honestly, she was surprised Ezra hadn't floated them over using the Force to avoid coming too close. It was what she would have done, if she were him.
"Don't defend him," Sabine said. "If we have to smell it, why should they all get away with it?"
"Common sense?" Zeb suggested. He had taken a seat on the drop-down door to the Phantom, and looked like he was enjoying the show. Ezra sat down next to him, while Hera stood a little to the side, looking spectacularly unimpressed with the whole situation.
Sabine looked down at the scissors. They had been taken from the medical kit they kept aboard the Phantom, and their primary function was supposed to be cutting bandages, maybe cutting clothing if necessary. They were sharp enough, but not exactly the precision tools that were needed for this job.
Still, at least it wasn't a lightsaber. That had been Kanan's first suggestion, though he hadn't looked comfortable at the idea. Of course, if they had been forced to do that, at least she wouldn't have been the one stuck with the job.
She eyed the gunk with distaste. It was a translucent shade of pale green, with… things… suspended inside it. It had struck Kanan on the back of the head as they walked by, sticking instantly to his hair. To make matters worse, it had even stuck to the band he used to tie it back, and a little above it too. It had defied any and all attempts to remove it; luckily nobody had wanted to touch it with their fingers, but when Hera had tried to wipe it away, the leaf she had used had stuck there too, and still remained in place like some kind of all-natural hair accessory. Water had ran off the substance with no effect whatsoever. It was simply not going to move.
There was a chance it might have washed out with shampoo, but nobody had anticipated the need for an emergency hair-wash when they had packed for the mission. Anyway, given its resistance to everything, she didn't think it was likely. Anyway, there was no way Kanan was going to be allowed back aboard the Phantom, let alone the Ghost, without the stuff removed from his hair.
Unfortunately, the only way they were going to be able to do that, was cut it out, and that meant cutting the hair too.
Sabine raised the scissors slowly and her hand trembled slightly as she approached the hair, as though protesting at the action she was forcing it to perform. She couldn't take a deep breath as she normally would, to help steel herself; The smell was so bad that even without breathing through her nose at all, she was still fighting the urge to retch, the odor permeated the air all around them, and she could taste it on her tongue with every shallow inhalation.
She turned away, into the breeze. It made it only slightly more tolerable. This was going to go badly wrong. "Why do I have to be the one to do this?" She asked. It wasn't like there had been a discussion, or a vote, it had simply been assumed.
"You do have experience," Kanan reminded her. He spoke softly as he, too, tried not to breathe too deeply. Sabine felt for him, at least she and the others could move away to escape it, Kanan had no such option. He had been forced to walk back to the ship alone while the rest of the crew gave him a wide berth.
"Not really," Sabine told him. "I dye my own hair, but I don't usually cut it myself. I find someone who can do it for me." Even in the middle of a rebellion, you encountered people with unexpected skills. "You don't tell a hairdresser to set an explosive charge," she added, "so why would you ask me to cut hair?"
"Ezra asked you," Zeb reminded her, from his safe distance.
"Yeah, well that's Ezra. No offense Ezra. Anyway, his was easy."
"This'll be easy too," Kanan assured her. "All you're doing is cutting the stuff out, it doesn't have to look good, it just has to be clean, or Hera isn't going to allow me back into the Phantom."
"Yeah, it'll be easy," Zeb said, in a way that was either supposed to be encouraging or mocking, she couldn't work out which. Ezra nodded emphatically in agreement. He was holding his nose with one hand while fanning the other theatrically in front of his face.
Sabine glared. "If it's so easy, maybe you should do it."
Zeb shook his head, holding up both hands, palms outward. "Those tiny scissors weren't designed for my hands."
"Hera?" Sabine tried. It was a long-shot, but the last thing she wanted was for her to claim later that of course she would have done it, if someone had only asked her.
Hera was gone.
"She went into the ship," Ezra explained.
"Making preparations for take-off," added Zeb.
There weren't really any preparations to make. Hera was hiding, either from the smell, or from the possibility of being asked to help. Or, more likely, from having to watch Kanan be parted from his hair.
"Hera doesn't have hair," Ezra pointed out. "She's probably the last person you should ask. Well, except for Chopper maybe."
That just left Ezra. And that wasn't going to happen, for so many reasons.
Kanan turned to face her. He placed a hand on her arm. "It's fine, Sabine. I trust you."
"You might not, if you'd seen it," she muttered.
Kanan shrugged. "Well I haven't, and I'm not going to. But I can smell it, so seriously, do your worst." He paused, and grimaced. "But not actually your worst, if you can help it."
Sabine frowned. She wasn't going to be able to get out of it. "Okay, you asked for it," she said. She glanced over at Ezra and Zeb, who had been joined now by Chopper. "You all need to go inside," she told them. "I'm not doing this with an audience."
For a moment, she thought she was going to have an argument on her hands, but to her surprise, the three of them filed inside silently. They were probably as reluctant to see this happen as she was. She swallowed, and raised the scissors again. She placed one blade at either side of a small section of hair, and resisted the urge to close her eyes as she made the first cut.