Disclaimer: Not my characters.

A/N: Honestly, this popped out because I have longass hair (not yet ass long hair, I'm still working on that) and for the last month and a half, I've been having lots of issues with the fencing helmets. This ficlet was anger management on my part. Hair difficulties are very true and come from personal experience. Drop me a review and tell me what you think.

Warnings: ficlet, shonen ai of the 1+2 kind, pointless but cute, slight OOC

Velcro

"Dammit! Be careful, that hurts!" Duo controlled his flinch as much as possible, the last ten minutes having proven that jerking his head made it worse. "If I ever figure out who the hell decided to put velcro on a motorcycle helmet, I'm going to kill him in very nasty ways!"

"I'm fairly sure you can only kill someone once, Duo, so you would have to choose just one way," Heero said absently from where he was trying to unhook a hank of Duo's hair from the teeth of the velcro attached to the strap on the back of a black motorcycle helmet. The motorcycle itself was neatly parked over on the right side of the cave-like area the two were taking refuge in.

"I'm Shinigami, I can kill him more than once if I want to!" Duo ranted, gesturing wildly with his hands, since he was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor and couldn't pace. "There are all sorts of plastic-based bonding agents these days that only stick to themselves! Who the fuck still uses velcro?!"

Heero paused long enough to glance at the helmet he had sandwiched between his right leg and right elbow. "Sonic Motorcycle Equipment, apparently. Can you turn a bit to the right?"

Duo shifted his seated position a bit and used his new location to glare over his shoulder at Heero and then the helmet. "This is the last time I bother with the safety equipment when we steal a motorcycle! Damn velcro is more dangerous than riding without a helmet!"

"Not when we're being shot at," Heero pointed out, still tugging and twisting the stuck hair, trying to loosen it.

"There is no way in hell a helmet that uses velcro as the principle method of keeping it on the rider's head would stop a bullet."

"I meant if we crashed, actually."

Duo gave him the evil eye. "You weren't wearing a helmet at all! Why the hell can you give lectures on safety?!"

"I trusted you not to crash."

"You didn't actually answer my question!"

"Hn." Heero continued to fiddle with the hair.

Being incapable of moving to bang his head on either the ground or a wall, Duo opted for smacking himself in the forehead with his palm. "Fuck my life. I don't just have no luck, I have negative luck. There was one bike and one helmet. There were two of us. You have short hair. Why was I the one to put the damn helmet on?!"

"Murphy's Law."

Duo blinked at him. "Did you just use one of my references?"

"Yes."

"I think Hell just froze over."

"I doubt it. Duo, I can't get this to unhook."

Duo, startled out of his glare by concrete evidence that Heero actually listened when he ranted, quickly resumed it. "If you get anywhere near my hair with anything resembling a knife or scissors, I will fucking kill you. And no bullshit about my hair being a liability, we already finished the mission and blew up the nice OZ base. This is all the after party."

"Fine. Hold this for a minute."

"Wait, what?" Duo was left very confused as Heero handed him the helmet, stood up, and walked over to their emergency pack. "Hey, that one's mine!" he said indignantly as Heero rummaged through one of them.

"Exactly." Heero found what he wanted, closed the pack, and came back over carrying a hairbrush. "If the hair won't come unhooked, it may be possible to simply slide it through the velcro."

Duo stared at him for a minute. "That's…actually a pretty good idea. Damn. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Have you ever had your hair caught in velcro before?"

"No, because no one these days uses the damn stuff anymore since it's so goddamned outdated! Whoever invented velcro was definitely a guy with short hair," Duo muttered as Heero sat down again behind him.

"Why a man?"

"Because even if she had short hair, a girl would have bothered to think about the ramifications for long hair."

"That seems rather sexist," Heero noted as he slid the hair tie off the end of Duo's braid and started separating strands.

"Doesn't make it wrong."

"True. Most stereotypes exist for reasons."

"Even if some of them are dead wrong a lot of the time," Duo muttered.

Heero frowned as he started brushing out the mane of hair below the velcroed bit. "If you are against stereotypes, why use them yourself?"

Duo scrunched his face a bit as he tried to figure out how to reply. "I'm not…against stereotypes, as such. Like the girls being more fashion-conscious one, that's usually right. I'm more against people who think the stereotype is always accurate and doesn't change with time."

Duo gestured randomly with his hands a bit, searching for words. "Like the stereotype for gay guys, that's the one that gets to me the most," he explained. "I mean, come on, you know how long my hair is, you're currently messing with it. If you think I don't take shit for that, you haven't been listening when we've been undercover in schools. They may be right about my preferences, but it annoys the hell out of me that I have the ability to stomp people flat and they still think I'm a pansy because my hair reaches past my ass. And I can't go ahead and stomp them flat so they'll shut up because it would blow my cover. Wish I could, and maybe get a few people to wise up about the stereotype." Duo's rant trailed off as he gazed absentmindedly and contemplated blowing up a few of the more annoying offenders.

"Someone will eventually teach them that they are wrong in their stereotyping, even if it isn't you or me." Heero was sliding hair by this point. Slowly, but it was working.

"Wait, you're not referring to the Asian nerd stereotype for yourself, are you? Because with you, that one's dead accurate."

Heero snorted. "No. I also meant the 'gay guy' stereotype. Although I take more insults for my height, since as you pointed out earlier my hair is short."

"…Oh. Um. New information for the day."

"Don't let it overload your RAM."

"Hey! You just made an Asian nerd joke! Hell has definitely frozen over."

"I still doubt it. Here." And Heero handed Duo the now-no-longer-attached-to-his-hair helmet.

Duo looked down at it and blinked. "Thank God! I'm free! I am never getting near velcro again!" He stood up and shook his head, sending his hair flipping all over the place.

Heero stood as well. "I hope not. But if you do, I'll help you untangle your hair again."

Duo turned to face him. "Really?"

"Yes."

Duo broke into a grin. "Cool. Thanks. And for now…" He reached in and grabbed his hairband back from Heero, staying close for a few seconds longer than necessary before backing up, winking, and pulling his hair back into a loose ponytail. "I have a date with some C-4 and this helmet. Care to join me?"

"Does the verb stay constant?"

It took Duo a second to figure that one out. "Yeah. It does."

"Then yes. Although we should try to keep it somewhat low key in case any OZ pilots who survived the base are still searching for us and near enough to hear. Getting shot at would not be an acceptable first date."

"Agreed." Duo grinned. "Let's go light this puppy up," he said as he lightly tossed and caught the helmet, being very careful to get it nowhere near his hair.