Drabble:144

After coming out as the Dragomir princess, Jill had to attend a lot of balls and banquets over the years. Because Lissa was the queen and everyone wanted to talk to her, she was majorly unavailable during most of the parties. And unless expressly invited as guests, Eddie, Rose and Dimitri spent most of the night standing guard, ready to interfere if anyone tried to harm their Moroi. And Adrian hardly attended these parties anymore, so the only person Jill spent an inordinate amount of time interacting was Christian, who despite his elevated status in the Ozera clan after Lissa's coronation still possessed (and utilized) his trademark-acerbic glare that sent people scurrying away.

It was at one of these parties that Jill found herself having a bad-hair-moment. She'd been wearing a lilac off-shoulder Grecian-style gown that day, and so had knotted some of her tresses with a purple ribbon atop her head in a flowing hairstyle, but in her rush to get there, she hadn't secured her semi-wet hair properly and now, in the middle of the party, her elegant hairstyle (which almost every lady had complemented her on) was threatening to come undone and there wasn't a thing she could do to help it. So Jill sighed, resigning herself to her fate and that small sigh made Christian turn around from glaring at a smitten Voda-who had been trying to gain an audience with Jill all evening-and survey Jill.

"What's wrong?", he asked her in a low whisper, placing a hand below her elbow and looking at her all concerned. "And don't say nothing"

"It's really nothing. Really, Christian", Jill sighed again. "Remember the designer I told you about, in Palm Springs?"-he nodded-"Yeah, well she sent over this dress last weekend, and I wanted to showcase it properly"

"You look lovely in it", he assured her instantaneously, patting her hand.

"Thanks, but that's not the problem", she replied with a small smile. "It's just that…I was hurrying to do my make-up and I didn't have much time for my hair". When he opened his mouth, probably to reassure her again, Jill held up a hand, effectively silencing him. "The thing is, my hair isn't secured properly, and it might come off any minute. And I don't even have anything to fix it with. I knew I should have used some hairspray…". Jill trailed off when Christian's face became blank. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm babbling to you about my feminine issues, it's not the end of the world or something, right?", she laughed off.

Christian, for his part, spent the better part of a minute scrutinizing her hair, before looking around. Seeing that they were relatively unobserved for the moment by guests and guardians alike (Dimitri and Eddie didn't count, because their eyes were basically glued to them), Christian ordered Jill to turn around.

Confounded by his request, Jill did as he said, but it didn't stop her from asking him what was going on. Christian didn't answer, but Jill felt his fingers tampering with her hair. But instead of loosening her already disintegrating-hairstyle, he was…..fixing it? Securing the loose strands, and adding and looping some, for better visual effect. With bobby pins, no less.

When he'd secured her hair, Jill whirled around, just in time to catch Christian replacing a small pouch in his coat. "What the…how..I don't…", Jill trailed off uncertainly.

It was Christian's turn to become uncomfortable. "Lissa makes me carry extra bobby-pins and safety-pins, just in case, and after helping her undo her hair at night for the past few years, I've developed a sort of understanding of the dynamics of hairstyles. So…yeah", he trailed off nervously.

Jill couldn't help it, she burst into laughter, and hugged Christian full-heartedly before thanking him. She went back to surveying the party and Christian went back to glaring like a Tibetan pit-viper at anyone who dared to approach him.

And during future festivities, Jill always ran to Christian whenever she had a hair or wardrobe issue, and sure enough, he could always fix it.

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Kudos to anyone who caught the Arrow reference here!
And a special shout-out to hiseask17, who is more than usually the first person to leave me a review. Thank you!