"Yer gettin' shaggy," Tom tells Hal, relaxed as he plays with his almost-dry hair. The two of them lay in the bed, freshly showered and dried for the sake of keeping them both comfortable. Hal can feel Tom behind him, his warmth, and he it's only the words that drag him out of what was the most relaxed he almost felt in a long time. "You'll need'an 'aircut."
"Leo cuts my hair. Just Leo." Hal almost snaps, stretching his neck to move his head out from under Tom's idle fingers, edging away on the bed. The words weigh heavily on his chest, the misused tense, and he thinks it's been a long, long time that it has actually hurt to lose anyone. But running his own fingers through his hair reveals the truth in Tom's words. It was getting long again, and while there were some times that was appropriate for, he didn't think he was prepared to deal with that. Not when he didn't have any idea what it looked like, what it would look like.
Tom's hand on his shoulder almost manages to still him, but he doesn't turn to look at him, though he does move when he feels him close the space again. "Me dad had long 'air once, a long time ago. I don't think it'd suit you." Tom's voice is casual, still, and the fact almost makes Hal laugh, but he's stopped by that weight on his chest, the reminder again when Tom's words turn soft. "Can't go t'a proper barber's but I've been cuttin' me own, and I could give your's a go, if ya'd like. I know 'm not Leo, bu'...he can' cut'yer 'air anymo', Hal."
"I don't want to loose all of my hair." Hal tells him, and the remark comes out less sharp than he expected it to, all things considered.
"Mayb' Annie could do'it then," he suggests, and Hal nearly snorts.
"I'd rather you," Hal says, almost flatly, but part of him means it. By no means does he trust either of them with the task, but he'd sworn off of ponytails a few hundred years ago. "Later," he adds, before Tom can speak, his mind made up, "But if even one person laughs, I refuse to go to work until it's grown back that Annie can look at me with a straight face."
The next evening found them gathered in the kitchen, a new trash bag with a hole cut out for Hal's head over his shoulders to keep the hair away from his clothes, and an old shaving kit and the best scissors Annie could find in the house laid out on the table. Annie herself stood less than ten feet away with Eve in her arms, watching with vague concern as Tom gave the razor in the kit a once over. "You're sure about this?" she asks Hal, and he gives her a look that, once upon a time, would have sent grown men running for their lives.
"I was," he tells her pointedly instead when it doesn't have the desired effect on her. "I wasn't aware the ordeal came with an audience." Beside him he can hear the razor buzz to life in Tom's hands, and he rests his hands on his knees, gripping them tightly as he closes his eyes, attention turned over to him. "...just get this over with."
His mind wanders during what must be far less time than it feels like, Tom and Annie's voices an anchor, something almost comfortable.
"...'s a bit shorter than when ya got'ere, bu'.." Tom starts to say, and Hal opens his eyes, finally, to see Annie looking at him thoughtfully with her head tilted, a smile growing on her fact that makes him fear until she speaks.
"...that's actually a good look for him," she comments, surprised, and he fights the bag to try to raise his hands and feel his head, Tom putting a hand over his to stop him. Hal ignores the halting, reaching up anyway to feel his hair.
It doesn't feel as bad as he thinks he's been afraid, and he wipes away the tickling loose hair where he feels it, fighting his way out of the trash bag and to his feet, without a word, Leo and his mirrors still sitting in the back of his mind. "...s'alrigh', issinit?" Tom asks, and his expression is enough to make Hal smile at him.
"You've got the job," Hal tells him, almost surprising himself, and leaning over carefully to kiss him while Annie grins somewhere behind him, and takes Eve out of the room.
They linger together, in the kitchen for a few moments longer before they part ways, Tom to relieve Annie of the baby so she could start dinner and Hal to his dominoes to reclaim control of his mind again from the reflections of a man holding up a handheld mirror. From what changed to lead into the moment that he was in now.
By the time they watch television, later, the two of them sitting close on the couch and Annie only marginally further away, he thinks he's alright again.