Summary: It had been about 15 years since Max's haircut. Given it now threatened to brush her ankles, she wanted to change that.
She went into this mission with intentions to chop off a foot or two, but wound up with a shaggy, uneven mess that desperately needed saving. Luckily, Piers was more than willing to help.
(Or, how Max's hair got to how it looks now ^^)
Author’s note: This is part of a series of one-shots! Please see my SWSH Masterlist for the recommended reading order.
Give it some love on ao3!
“It can’t be that bad.”
Max sniffed and wiped her tear-stained face on her forearm. She was surrounded by chopped up chunks of hair, all from her own head, which looked… well…
“It’s like if a toddler took a pair of squiggly crafting scissors to my hair and went crazy.”
“Now how’d you manage that?”
“I dunno, I’ve never cut hair before! I didn’t think it could be that hard.”
“Well,” Piers sighed, holding back a laugh, “I’ll see what I can do when I get home, yeah?”
“Or I could shave my head.”
“You’ll be the shiniest egg in all of Galar.” Piers was happy to hear some wet laughter on the other end — a welcome change from the quiet sobs he’d been hearing prior. “Seriously, though. I’ll fix you up, alright little ghost?”
A deep sigh racked through Max as she rested her head against the cool tile wall behind her. “’Kay, fine.“
She had the apartment to herself for a majority of the week, seeing that Piers was touring a Galar for all of it, while Marnie had been visiting and camping with some friends for the latter four days.
And Max loved to be alone.
She could sing — something she enjoyed but was too shy to ever do within hearing range of others:
One time, Piers had heard her singing softly to herself in her room while she doodled in an old, beaten up notebook she rarely used, and she was horrified when he joined in from the opposite side of the wall. Couldn’t even bring herself to talk to him for most of that day.
He thought her voice was lovely. It wasn’t the idea of her singing badly that mattered, though. It just felt weird to be heard and she didn’t like it and never wanted that to happen ever again ever. She couldn’t explain why, even to herself.
Alone, Max could also get a bunch of chores done without interruptions or distractions:
She was able to clean the kitchen without someone else coming in and needing to use it. Mop the floor without worrying that someone would emerge from their room and slip and hurt themself. She had the freedom to choose meals for herself, and only herself. She enjoyed cooking for the others, and having them cook for her, too — a lot, actually. But sometimes she just wanted to whip up a sandwich, or a mediocre rice cooker curry, or anything small and quick, and call it a day.
Most importantly, though, Max could happily laze about when she was by herself. Being disabled mentally meant needing a lot of time alone and in a safe space to recoup from her interactions, at work and otherwise; being disabled physically, on the other hand, meant she’d never pass up the opportunity to be really, truly cozy and pain-free.
Piers and Marnie knew that, and they never made her feel bad or judged her for it. In fact, the two did their best to support her. Always. Piers was her rock, and now that Marnie had grown into a tween, she was becoming one too. A pebble, if you will.
Unfortunately, Max still couldn’t help but feel a sense of shame for her needs. Being ridiculed as a little kid for her ineptitude in things her older and more abled siblings could easily do had taken a permanent toll on her; and because of that, she found it hard to spend most of her time laying down when other people were around to see it.
With all of that being said, though, without her roommates around to keep the monotonous of daily life a little more exciting, Max had grown dreadfully bored… which led her to her current situation.
The trainer just wanted to end her staycation with a bang. She hadn’t had her hair cut since she was eight or nine, and being in her early-mid 20s now, it was a change she thought it was time to make.
How hard could it be? she had wondered to herself less than an hour prior, tying her meter-or-more of hair in front of her torso and chopping away after watching a single PokeTube tutorial.
I can fix this, she’d thought to herself on several occasions in the process, each time feeling less confident and more panicked.
She knew her brown tresses leached into pink when they were cut, but she had no idea of the rate in which it would happen, and failed to consider it going into this project. Her body hair never grew beyond a short stubble, and said stubble was always pink because of how well she kept up with her shaving routine.
She had no idea what to expect from her longer strands, and was immediately overwhelmed upon discovering that the color shift was nearly instant.
So, Max kept snipping, and snipping, and crying, and snipping some more, staring at her reflection in horror while she tried over and over again to save herself. After one particularly uneven cut, Max tossed her scissors aside and plopped down onto the bathroom floor. It was around then that Piers had called her.
Upon hanging up, she sat with her chin on her knees and her knees tucked close to her chest, her misdreavus snuggled up to her side. Typically when Max did anything with her hair, the mischievous little pokemon would try to interfere — to chew on it, to play with it, to tug it just to annoy its human for fun. This time, it resisted the immense urge to have a field day with all the scrapped hair on the ground and did its best to be another rock in Max’s cozy little garden instead, offering some comforting sentiments in the form of chirps and nuzzles.
Since it was about two in the morning, Max didn’t need to worry about leaving the apartment in her current state. She at least had that to ease her mind a bit. Piers was due home by the afternoon, which meant she’d hopefully look more normal before needing to run any errands again.
What she didn’t know was that Piers had been on his way back long before calling her. His final show finished up right on time, and he was able to dodge his fans well enough to make it to the tour bus and start the trek to Spikemuth right away. He only stopped about an hour into the drive to freshen up with a quick shower in the tiny onboard bathroom.
Piers missed his city, he missed his bed, and most importantly, he missed Max; and, knowing she was bored and lonely for the past day or two, Piers figured his early arrival would be a pleasant surprise for her. His assumption was only solidified by their most recent conversation.
The girl in question had only just begun sweeping up the remnants of her massacre when Piers made it back, having spent a long time sulking before she stood back up. She was lost in the sound of her music playing and the light scraping of bristles against the ground when a baritone “Boo” snapped her out of it.
Clamping her eyes shut and squeaking out a short scream, Max swung her broom at the door, convinced that a stranger had broken in. When the visitor caught the weapon and pulled it towards them, she felt her stomach leap to her throat.
This is it, she thought. Of course I have to die with a fuckass haircut.
Upon hearing Piers’ laugh, smelling his signature scent of musky cologne with a whisper of cigarettes, and feeling his long arms wrap around her, though, Max gasped and latched onto her “intruder,” nuzzling her face into his chest.
“Dickhead,” she mumbled against him.
“I’m hurt.”
“Like hell you are.”
Piers chuckled again, and Max sighed, pressing her cheek to the reverberation of his chest. She missed him so much.
She needed this.
She needed him.
After a short silence, the man took a strand of Max’s hair between his fingers and observed, “You weren’t kidding, huh?”
“I did my best…”
Amused, Piers huffed one last time before detaching. “One sec.”
After changing into something cozier — a blue, cropped muscle tank and pink pajama pants — Piers retrieved a stool from their makeshift dining table, plopped it in the center of the small room, and patted it. As Max sat down and fiddled with the hem of her own blue tee, Piers gently combed through what remained of her tresses.
To fix this, he’d have to cut her hair short. The furthest her damage went was close to her shoulders, if not a little higher than them. Seeing his friend’s hair like this was already strange, considering he’d only ever known her to have hair that was — at its shortest — reaching her butt. He could hardly imagine what she’d look like in the coming moments.
“What length were you aiming for?”
Max shrugged, ignoring her nerves as Piers began cutting. “Mid-back, maybe.” She peeked up at him in the mirror and winced in response to his grimace. “I know it’s a lost cause.”
“At least it’ll grow back,” he reassured her. “Who knows, maybe you’ll like it short.”
“Shaving is still an option if I don't.”
“Alright, dramatic.”
The two fell quiet, Max basking in the feeling of Piers’ fingers in her hair; in the way he’d occasionally and softly ask her to tilt her head a certain way, or hum along to whatever song was playing from her phone. She nearly dozed off as comfort washed over her until Piers got close to her ear, whispered, “Almost there, love,” and gave her shoulder a light squeeze.
That woke her right up.
By the time he was finished, the man had successfully cut Max’s hair to just above her shoulders, forming it into a shallow u-shape rather than a blunt bob. And as much as he’d adored her absurdly long hair, he loved how this looked.
It was more fitting. As if she looked more like herself, somehow. Without the weight of the long locks that came close to rivaling her height, Max looked fluffier. Scruffier, but in a good way. The pink of her hair stood out more and complemented her skin’s rosy undertones, making her look just a little less washed out, too.
But it still felt like something was missing…
Max had yet to see what her new length looked like, a little too nervous to look in the mirror just yet while Piers scrutinized his work. When he wrapped back around to her front and played with some of the strands near her sideburns, she grew worried that he didn’t like it. He cut his own hair, as well as Marnie’s, so Max knew she could trust him to cut hers; but there was a pit of doubt in her stomach as she prepared for whatever criticism he was about to bring.
That is, until he asked, “Can I try something?”
The fact that he still wanted to experiment gave her some hope. “Depends,” she answered, shyly meeting his gaze.
Piers inspected Max’s face a little more, trying his best not to swoon too much at the way she looked up at him, eyes curious and lips slightly pouty.
Focus.
After a beat, he murmured, “You’d look fuckin’ adorable with a fringe.” It was just as much of an observation as it was a suggestion.
Max wasn’t new to his compliments, but it didn’t mean they didn’t still fluster her every time. Her eyes widened and cheeks reddened as she froze for a moment, both absorbing his praise into her heart and taking his words into consideration.
I mean, if he thinks it would look good on me…
Max gave Piers a curt nod — his sign to go for it.
She was reminded that, despite having hugged, kissed, and cuddled plenty, close proximity with him still frazzled her just as much as it comforted. Her cheeks felt like they had been breathed on by a charizard as Piers crouched down for a better view, holding her face in his palms for a moment before creating the part where her new bangs would go.
She swiftly averted her line of vision, avoiding his eyes and missing the way he reactively smiled at the color on her cheeks.
Another few moments went by, and Piers had completely transformed her. As he put the scissors down and gave Max one last combing, he said, “Go on. Have a look,” with a gentle upward curl on his lips.
Fidgeting with her nails, Max muttered, “I’m scared.” And she was. Change was hard for her. Even though she felt this could be a positive change, it was still something new nonetheless.
“Hey,” he tilted Max’s chin up with the comb in his hand, forcing her to meet his eyes and her tummy to flutter. “You look really fucking good like this.”
His sincerity could have killed her.
With a deep breath through her nose and her teeth digging into her bottom lip, she nodded, before swiveling herself towards the mirror.
She was taken aback for a moment. Max barely recognized herself, and yet — similarly to Piers — she thought it suited her way better than her old style.
She reached up and ran her fingers through her loose waves, which felt softer than they had in ages. It all looked thicker too, for better or worse. She shook her head to test how it felt, and couldn’t help but grin at its newfound weightlessness.
“How did you even do that?” Max muttered, looking at Piers through the mirror while she krabby-handed with both thumbs and pointers.
While she spoke, he placed himself behind her and leaned forward, his palms resting on the sink on either side of her and his chin planted atop her scalp. Between the excitement of her new look and this proximity, the stim was necessary.
“Witchcraft.”
“Misdreavus never evolved,” Max pointed out, “who would you have learned that from?”
“I have contacts.”
Max tilted her head back against Piers’ chest, looking up at him and sending a jolt to his heart this time. “What you really have is something on your face.”
“What?”
Max reached up and squished his nostrils together, his button nose becoming a thin line in her grasp. She snort-laughed as her hand was swatted away, then began cackling and kicking when Piers lifted her off the ground, carrying her out of the room and placing her in the center of their tiny kitchen.
“What are you—“
“Make us some tea, yeah?” Max’s transport asked while he walked backwards towards the hall.
She barked out a laugh. “Make it yourself!”
“I’ll be too busy cleaning your hair.”
“Why don’t you make the tea and I clean the hair, then?”
“Gotta piss,” he shouted through the closing bathroom door, “two corviknights, one tinkaton, or whatever.”
“You suck.” Despite her words, Max happily got to work on their drinks.
When their tea was made and the bathroom had been cleaned, the pair curled up on the couch and caught up with each other. They’d been in touch for most of the week, so there wasn’t much to be said; but they valued moments like this, and neither of the two wanted the night to end yet. Their time apart was the perfect excuse for that.
Eventually, Piers rested his head in Max’s lap. And eventually, Max found her digits weaving through his hair, braiding tiny sections, twirling it around her fingers…
While she mourned her own hair to a certain degree, at least she had his to play with.
