Work Text:
Practice Makes Perfect
The kitchen table had become a hairstyling battlefield, and Chase was losing patience with his general.
"No, Buddy, you've got to section it first. You can't just grab a fistful and hope for the best." Chase reached over Nox's shoulder, gently redirecting his hands before he could yank a chunk of Hazel's curls into the wrong spot entirely.
Hazel sat perfectly still on a stack of couch cushions, eyes half-lidded with the patient boredom only a six-year-old who has done this a hundred times could manage. Her hair was a near-perfect match for Nox's — thick, dark, with that same stubborn wave that never sat quite right no matter how much product you fought it with — but her expression, currently unimpressed and faintly judgmental, was all Chase.
"I am sectioning it." Nox held up two lopsided clumps of hair like he was presenting evidence in a trial. "See? Two sections."
"Those aren't sections, those are crime scenes." Chase leaned around to look at Hazel's face, who gave him a single, solemn nod of agreement. "Even she thinks so."
"Traitor," Nox muttered at his daughter, who only shrugged with the particular smugness of someone who knew she'd be getting ice cream regardless of how this turned out.
Chase laughed and pulled a chair around so he could sit beside them both, closer than necessary, his knee bumping Nox's. He picked up the comb that had been abandoned somewhere between attempt three and attempt four. "Okay. Watch my hands, not the hair. Start at the part — here — and pull it back nice and tight, like you're trying to smooth out a wrinkle in a shirt."
He demonstrated slowly, gathering a clean section from Hazel's crown and twisting it back. Hazel's eyes followed his fingers with more interest than she'd shown the entire afternoon, which Chase privately considered a small victory.
Nox watched too, brow furrowed in that intense, almost academic way he approached everything that wasn't immediately violent or dangerous — the same focus he used to give crime scenes back when his life had looked very different. It was strange, sometimes, seeing that same sharp attention turned toward something as small and soft as their daughter's hair.
"Like this?" Nox tried again, mimicking the motion. His version came out crooked, a little too loose at the crown, but it was an actual section this time, not a hostage situation.
"Better." Chase reached over and tucked a stray piece back into place, fingers brushing Nox's knuckles. "See, you're getting it."
Hazel craned her neck to check her reflection in the dark window glass, inspecting the half-formed bun with the critical eye of a tiny art director. "It's crooked."
"It is not crooked," Nox said, sounding personally wounded.
"It's a little crooked," Chase admitted, biting back a grin.
Nox huffed and set down the section he'd been holding, turning to give Chase a flat look. "You're supposed to be on my side."
"I'm on Hazel's side. She's the client." Chase reached over and smoothed a flyaway near Hazel's temple, voice softening the way it always did when he looked at her — equal parts fond and a little disbelieving, even now, that she existed at all. That some nights he still woke up and reached over just to make sure Nox was actually there, that the house was actually theirs, that none of it had been some elaborate fever dream his brain cooked up to torture him.
Nox noticed him staring and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Nothing." Chase shook himself out of it and nudged the comb back toward him. "Try the twist now. Once you've got the ponytail secured, you twist it around the base and pin it down. Like wrapping a cinnamon roll."
"I don't know what that means."
"It means twist it in a circle, genius."
Hazel giggled, the first real sound of amusement she'd made all evening, and both of them turned toward her like that single laugh was worth more than anything else in the room.
It took four more tries — one bun that collapsed the second Nox let go, one that ended up so tight Hazel complained her eyebrows were being pulled up, and one that somehow ended up lopsided in a brand new and creative way — before Nox finally managed something that resembled, if you squinted, an actual finished hairstyle.
He sat back, visibly proud of himself, hands still hovering near Hazel's head like he was afraid moving them would undo the whole thing. "There. Done."
Chase studied it with the seriousness of a judge at a competition, walking a slow circle around his daughter's chair. The bun sat slightly off-center, a few wisps had escaped near her ear, and one bobby pin was sticking out at an angle that defied logic.
"It's perfect," he said.
"It's not perfect, you're just being nice."
"It's perfect because you did it." Chase dropped a kiss on top of Nox's head before he could argue further, then crouched down to look at Hazel properly. "What do you think, bug? Does Dad's first attempt pass inspection?"
Hazel reached up and patted the bun like she was checking the structural integrity of a building, considering it with the gravity of a contractor signing off on a job. Finally, she nodded. "It's good. Can I have ice cream now?"
"That was the deal," Chase agreed, pretending he hadn't already taken it out of the freezer to soften an hour ago.
Hazel hopped down and scampered toward the kitchen, bun bobbing slightly with every step, already shouting orders about toppings over her shoulder.
Nox watched her go, something soft and a little stunned settling over his face, the same look he got most nights when the day finally slowed down enough for it to catch up with him — the look of a man still getting used to the fact that this, all of this, was his now.
Chase nudged his shoulder. "You did good, Buddy."
"I had a good teacher," Nox said, and reached over to lace their fingers together before they went to go ruin their daughter's appetite with extra sprinkles.