"Come on, Gray, stop being so stubborn. You were the one asking me to do this for you. Take it off right now!" Ann yelled in frustration. "It's not my favorite thing to do, you know. If you didn't pay me, I wouldn't bother."

Cliff could hear his roommate groan through the door. "… Fine… just get it over with. Goddess knows we need Claire walking in on us…"

"Oh, my… this might be the longest I've ever seen it," Ann giggled. "Are you going for a record or what?"

"Quit complaining and just get to work on it already," he grumbled.

"Ah, so now you're raring to go, huh? Fine, just let me get it wet first."

Cliff's eyes widened as he stood in front of the door; he had half a mind to turn around and try to pretend he hadn't heard anything. He had just arrived back from the church, but his face reddened as impure thoughts quickly swept through his mind. He shook his head, as if to get the images out, and he whipped himself in the mouth with his own ponytail. The brunette paused as he shifted his bag on his shoulder and knocked nervously. Surely I'm hearing this the wrong way…

"Come on in!" Ann's voice sang. She looked up at the tenant. "What are you doing, knocking on your own door?" The young woman laughed, sharpening her scissors.

Gray was sitting at a chair with his hat in his lap and an old towel around his shoulders. "I hate haircuts," he sighed, running a comb through his damp hair.

"Hey, I do it for practically nothing!" Ann shot back, straightening his shoulders and passing him a hand mirror. "And all you ever do is complain the whole time! Now sit up straight!" She hardly waited for him to shift in his seat before she began clipping. Rust colored bits of hair fell to the floor. Ann began to hum while she snipped.

Her easygoing manner only served to make her client more nervous. "Hey, watch where you're cutting! Make sure you get the hair!"

Ann rolled her eyes at him; she was used to this treatment. "Hey, Cliff, you want a trim? I could cut you shorter for summer," She winked at him, twirling the scissors in her fingers. When he shook his head, she frowned. "I could at least trim out the sun bleach," she offered with a nod.

His hair had a tendency to lighten at the tips year round, but it was admittedly exaggerated in the summer. "Ah… no, thank you," he replied politely, protectively holding his ponytail as he took his things to the far side of the room.

She wasn't deterred. "Well, your hair is getting pretty long," the young woman replied. "It's grown quite a bit since you moved here." Her eyes traveled across the brown locks and noticed that his ponytail now ended far past his shoulders.

"I've always worn it this way," he sorted though his bundles on the table. "And I think I like it a bit longer, too…" His voice trailed off as he could feel his face getting warm; he turned away to avoid being teased. Cliff's ponytail had fallen loose a few days ago when he was foraging with Claire. Normally, he would have tied it back again right away, but he caught the young woman staring at his long tresses with interested eyes more than once. She had even leaned in close to him to untangle a stray leaf out of his locks. She had complimented him, saying his hair felt very healthy and it was a nice, rich color. His cheeks burned at the memory. Surely he was thinking into it far too much, but it almost felt as if her hands were lingering on his hair for a moment...

Ann snapped him back into reality. "Well, I don't know how you can see. Your bangs are getting pretty shaggy."

"Huh." Cliff moved his eyes upward and was suddenly aware how long they had gotten. They were now impossible to ignore.

"Hey, keep your eyes on me, Ann!" Gray whined, fidgeting in his seat. "He said he doesn't want his hair cut. Stop treating him like a child! I don't want you to mess up my hair because you can't bother to focus on me!" he scolded, folding his arms across his chest and letting out a sigh.

Cliff silently sat on his bed and sharpened his knife with his whetstone, listening to the friends argue.

"What do you care anyway?" Ann retorted with a raised eyebrow. "You always wear that hat. I could totally butcher it and no one would notice!"

It was one thing for the apprentice to say it himself, but when the person with the blade was making comments like that… "Alright, put down the scissors!" he roared, screwing up his face into a scowl.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Yeesh," Ann snipped at Gray's locks. "And stop moving so much! You're just asking to get cut!"

The blacksmith trainee sighed. Perhaps a distraction would be the best remedy to keep himself still. Ann cutting his hair always put him on edge, but it was a task he didn't trust himself to do. "So, you do anything exciting today, Cliff?"

The young man shook his brown head. It had been too hot to hunt much. He had flown Cain in the early morning hours and the falcon seemed grateful to go back to the coolness of his cave. "Just got back from church… Quiet day. Found some blueberries and a bunch of herbs. Two squirrels. How about you?"

"Ingots. Lots and lots of ingots," Gray sighed. "Slow day at the library, too…" Mary hadn't produced another chapter for a while. The young woman paced around upstairs in an attempt to relieve her writers' block while Gray stared at the same paragraph for an hour or so before finally giving up and coming back to the inn.

"Ann?" The young man let down his hair and brushed it out as it fell across his back.

The young woman's eyes widened a bit at the sight, and she felt a wave of guilt for suggesting cutting off any of the length. She mentally slapped herself in the face to regain her senses. It had been months now, she needed to stop being so foolish… He had referred to her a sister, she reminded herself. "Harris made his afternoon stop today and told me that he thought someone was sneaking around Yodel Farm the other night, but it was just a raccoon."

"Sounds like a riveting day all around," Gray rolled his eyes. He let out another sigh; he had been hoping for some better entertainment than his friends had been able to provide him. His stomach began to twist again as he remembered that Ann was wielding a pair of blades inches from his scalp.

Cliff stood up from his bed and it let out a loud squeak. Everyone in the room was used to the sound by now, and Gray was grateful for this, otherwise he might be missing a chunk of hair right then. The brunette walked up to his roommate and gave him an imploring look. "Hey… Can I borrow that mirror for a second?"

"Uh, sure…" Gray cocked an eyebrow and handed it over. While Cliff wasn't a slob, he hardly seemed the type to care about what his reflection looked like.

"Thanks," he propped up the mirror on the table with one of his bundles as an anchor and took a seat in front of it, brushing his bangs forward.

"Seriously, Gray, don't let it get this long again," Ann sighed, working on the back of his head. "Were you trying to grow it out as long as Cliff's or what?"

Gray snorted. "I don't think I could pull off that look." He half expected a pointed glare from his roommate, but the brunette seemed distracted with his own hair at the moment.

"Well, then. Don't wait so long until you ask me to cut it again." She ran her fingers through his hair to check the length.

Gray rolled his eyes. "Say it one more time so I don't forget." He didn't want to admit that this was his favorite part. Her touch was gentle and the tension headache he had was swiftly fading.

"I think you want this to be the last time I cut your hair for you, huh?" Ann threatened. She looked up in time to see Cliff gathering his bangs with his fingers and pulling them tight with a twist. "Oh, Goddess… he isn't…" Ann breathed as their friend reached for his newly sharpened knife.

The young man deftly ran his blade across the hair in one stroke. He ruffled the freshly trimmed bangs with his fingers, relieved that he could see again. Cliff checked his reflection and gave a satisfied nod. He tossed the hair in the wastebasket as he walked back to his friend with the mirror.

"Thanks again."

"No prob." Gray grinned. His roommate was a strange guy, but he could be pretty entertaining sometimes with his methods of doing things.

Ann was staring at him in shock, nearly fumbling with her scissors. "Wh-why…? Why didn't you let me…? I could have…"

Cliff shrugged and sat back down on his bed. It let out a loud groan in protest. "I've got a method that works for me. I don't like other people to cut my hair."

"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen…" Ann was still wide-eyed. She was half in shock that he had used a hunting knife to trim his hair, and the other half was amazed that he had done a good job of it and it required no touch-ups.

"You scare easily then," Gray chuckled. "It's just hair; it can grow back."

"Ugh… You're brave, Cliff…" The whole scene left Ann's heart racing and she felt slightly nauseous from all of the excitement.

The young man frowned. "I've cut my own hair and my sister's since we were kids." He gave his female friend a wounded look.

Surprise hardly described Ann's emotions. "Your parents let you cut your own hair? … Like that?!" The idea of letting a child handle a blade seemed a little irresponsible to the young woman, but she had completely forgotten herself as a young child chopping vegetables with her father while standing on a stool in front of the kitchen counter. Selective memory was peculiar like that.

He sighed. "They were the ones that taught me. We were taught how to use a knife before we even learned how to read."

"What?!" Ann stared at him in disbelief. Surely he had to be kidding… The redhead recalled seeing the young man work with a knife on the kills he brought back from the mountains and foraged goods; he had such a natural way of handling a blade that could only be acquired through an upbringing around them. Cliff still had all of his fingers – Ann supposed his parents must have done something right…

"It's kind of like how you started bussing tables as soon as you could walk," Gray laughed.

Ann forgot for a moment that she was giving Gray a haircut. She finished the last few snips and ruffled his hair. "Hey, how do you know about that? You weren't ever here to see that!"

"Doug told me," he shrugged. Surely this much was obvious.

"And what have you done since you were a child? Whine and complain when you got your hair cut?" Ann teased, brushing off his shoulders and sweeping up the floor in a fluid motion. They had done this procedure for years now and she could have him finished in less than ten minutes.

Gray didn't even bother to look in the mirror to see if she had done a good job or not. He threw his hat back on his head. "Damn straight." He dropped a few coins in the young woman's outstretched hand. "Hey, Ann…"

"Huh?" She stopped and turned around to meet her friend.

He stood up and pushed the chair back near the table. "You know… your hair's getting pretty long, too. Why don't you ask Cliff for a haircut? He could have you done in a minute."

Cliff was sharpening his knife again and looked up at her innocently, but the blade gleamed in the fading sunlight pouring through the window.

Ann's bright blue eyes grew wide as she gripped her braid in both hands. "G-good night!" She sheathed her scissors and hurried out the door.

"Don't run with scissors, Ann!" Gray yelled after her with a chuckle.

0o0o0o0

Author's Note: I know this chapter doesn't serve much in the way of plot progression, but I think that it helps flesh out the relationship between Ann, Cliff, and Gray. I hope you enjoyed my feeble attempts at humor. Yes, even someone like Cliff is capable of dirty thoughts, haha. Seriously, Gray always ends up with the best lines…

In other news, I have reached over 100 reviews for this story! Please know that I appreciate each and every one of them. Thank you all for reading! :)