Disclaimer: Do not own Gundam Wing, Heero Yuy *sigh* or a hairdressing salon.

Heero was bored. He had only been in the salon a couple of minutes and was already regretting not bringing his arsenic. He sat in the hairdresser's chair moodily contemplating his reflection. He didn't see what was wrong with his hair. No one else had ever say anything. Then again, he reflected he probably wasn't the most approachable guy who'd ever lived. It had taken his housemates several weeks to tell him to do his laundry. And they were Gundam Pilots, highly skilled in death and destruction. He tried to consider their responses to the hair issue. He felt sure that they would agree with him - well at least Trowa would. Quatre would probably try an attempt at diplomacy. Duo would probably make some flippant remark as to how his hair is, was, and always will be inferior to his own. Wufei would probably smirk, then declare 'Hair-care is for weaklings', and disappear into the bathroom for at least an hour. What he actually he did in there was a mystery so they applied a don't ask-don't tell policy as they weren't really sure they wanted to know.

As many people would expect Heero did not take kindly to being told what to do, how to dress etc, his hair was no exception. Most people seemed to recognise this and stayed well out of his way when he went shopping (which wasn't very often). This suited him just fine, minimal carnage involved. This was because most people knew what was good for their health. Most people. Unfortunately this category did not include Relena and he had had serious doubts, as to whether the girl actually knew what was good for her. Relena, however, seemed oblivious to all this and was having a whale of a time chatting to Jean-Paul while leafing through a glossy magazine.

"How about this?" Relena said holding up a page of glossy magazine. Heero managed to catch a glimpse of a good-looking young man with long spiky hair. Heero recognised him to be Will Young, winner of Pop Idol. He blanched. This was not good, not good at all. He was an assassin. He was supposed to be inconspicuous and here was Relena trying to turn into some kind of grade A fashion disaster. He may have gained straight As in almost anything he attempted but he was adamant that training in fashion, its faux- pas', and hair-care was not something that would be featured in his list of qualifications and skills, however lengthy. Although he only had to listen to a few minutes of their conversation to realise 2 things: 1) Relena had been planning this for a long time - Jean-Paul seemed to know more about his habits than he did. 2) He was way out of his depth - none of his training had prepared him for this. Even the language Relena was using was beginning to exceed the boundaries of his vocabulary which contrary to popular belief did actually include more than 'I'll destroy you'.

One thing he did know was that he didn't think he could take much more of Relena's flirting, wasn't she supposed to be in love with him? Yet here she was flirting away with Jean-Paul in the most outrageous fashion.

Heero hadn't felt so nauseated since Duo had taken him for a spin in the heap of junk he liked to call a car to show him the 'modifications'. Then again maybe it wasn't the car, so much as Duo's driving. One thing was for sure; they didn't call him the God of Death for nothing. They had almost crashed before they even got out of the drive and Duo had managed to hit almost every object, stationary or not, in his path. Heero had tried explaining to Duo that this was not a computer game. You did not get points for crashing into traffic cones, dustbins and other random objects, all you got was a large bill for bodywork and a higher insurance premium and stopped by the police if you were *really* unlucky. However Duo did not seem to take any notice of this and continued singing along in an off-key sort of way to the radio. In fact, Heero rather suspected that Duo purposely dented his car so he could spend more time with it. Well, it was either that or the fact that he had qualified from the Driving School for the Dangerously Insane.

This was turning out to be worst than he'd expected. He'd imagined they would go to a small barbershop in town, he'd go in, ten minutes later he would come out, after having had a trim with minimal conversation, and that would be that. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to factor Relena into the equation and the biggest, most expensive beauty salon in town.

At least he hadn't been caught up in some horrible musical sequence that at least was something to be thankful for. He'd heard somewhere that some poor guy over at the Venus Institute had come in having a seriously bad hair day, instead of helping him they had given him a blue rinse and spikes* and then he had broken into an updated version of "Spirit in the Sky." He paused, listening to the developments in Relena's plan or as he was beginning to realise Evil Scheme, and to his horror he realised he was humming. He really had to get out of here immediately it was not just a question of sanity, it was a matter of life and death. The question was how? He quickly ran through all the battle strategies he had been taught as a Gundam Pilot. Unsurprisingly, there was little that could help him. At least not without a large amount of explosives and a back-up squad waiting outside. Escaping from a hair salon was not a situation that Dr. J had considered worthy of attention. Fool. Suddenly an idea struck him, it was risky, but it might just work. He stood up and cleared his throat. "Uh, excuse me, but may I go to the bathroom?"

*- Gareth Gates, Pop Idol runner-up, in the music video for the 2003 Comic Relief song "Spirit in the Sky"