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The first thought Cardan had as he stared into Vivienne’s bathroom mirror at his newly lime green hair was the look on Jude’s face when she would see it. There was no doubt in his mind that she would combust with laughter. Immediately.
They had come over to the mortal world for a weekend, not meaning to do anything ruinous or spontaneous. Jude had had to go back to Elfhame the night they had arrived, some emergency erupting within the ever-growing Court of Shadows had her grumbling as he saw her off, promising that he wouldn’t do anything stupid.
And technically, Cardan had not. The only stupid thing he’d done was get drunk with Vivienne and Heather last night and falling asleep before they did. He had awoken on the couch with Vivienne curled up around Heather in the big armchair, the pair looking like cats did when they piled on top of each other. He’d looked fondly at them for a few minutes, waiting for his body to wake up, when he noticed a green tinge to Vivienne’s hands. Her father did himself have green skin, but she had not inherited it. Strange.
He reached up to fix a knot pulling on his hair, drawing it away to find strands of it between his fingers. Except, no. That couldn’t be his hair. His own hair was black as night, not neon green. Wait-
Vivienne’s hands. The strange strands.
Shit.
Apparently, in their drunken haze where nothing seemed risky and everything looked fun, he had allowed Vivienne to dye his beautiful, precious hair green. And of course it wasn’t an appealing shade either.
Turning from the bathroom mirror, he spied a box that looked slightly familiar discarded just beneath the toilet bowl. He picked it up, only to find that it was the dye box. The model on the front had a shock of lime green hair, the packaging saying it was to be used for wigs. Wigs, and definitely not real hair.
Suddenly, the door opened, startling Cardan inside, in the doorway stood a sleepy Heather with her eyes wide open. He looked down and realized what an incriminating position he was in. He was holding a box of hair dye, with bright green locks, and still wearing the button-up shirt Vivienne had thrown over his bare shoulders so as not to stain his skin green too.
He looked up slowly to find Heather trying to hold in her laughter, not doing the best job. Heather’s silent laughter had a contagious feel to it. He couldn’t help but break out into an incredulous smile, which seemed all the confirmation she needed to send her laughter echoing across the bathroom tiles.
“Vivi!” She shouted between breaths. “Come see what Cardan’s done to himself!”
Vivienne came into view, rubbing her head, undoubtedly experiencing the worst hangover ever known, and wrapped her arm around Heather’s shaking body.
“What’s he done?” She asked in a hoarse voice.
“Would you just have a look, honey,” Heather said, still ogling the veritable grass growing on Cardan’s head.
Vivienne finally braved the bright lights, her eyes widening comically. She snapped them to her hands, and back to Cardan, the memories of the night before seemingly coming back to her in one fell swoop.
“Oops,” she whispered, and promptly burst out laughing.
“Vivienne, seriously, you cannot get any meaner about this,” Cardan retorted, with no real heat in his voice. After the initial shock, he did find the humor of the situation. He looked like a piece of boiled broccoli.
“No, I am not. To be very honest, the only thing that would make this better would be-“
A key. Turning in the lock. They all fell silent and listened to footsteps walking through the house as a voice called out, “Surprise!”
Jude sounded excited, probably at the prospect of catching them all by surprise. After she’d left, they hadn’t expected her to come back. They had expected her business to take a long time.
“Turns out The Roach was only overreacting; led us down a million leads to dead ends and-“
She stopped short as she found them all crowded into the small bathroom and her eyes found her Husband.
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t laugh, please,” Cardan pleaded. “Those two have already done enough of that.” He pointed an accusatory finger at the couple now trying to repress their laughter again.
Jude smiled fondly at him. “I’ll try not to, but I can’t make any promises.”
“Do you think we can fix this?” Cardan asked, looking back to the mirror above the sink, turning his head to see all the angles.
Jude walked up to him and pressed a small kiss to his jaw. “First, we’ll take a lovely picture of you to remember this forever.” She met his eyes in the mirror and grinned. “Then, we’ll try to fix it.”
And so commenced the research. Apparently, dye for wigs causes more harm to the hair than normal hair dye does, but not to the extent that it would be ruined forever. however, everything they tried wouldn’t work. Scrubbing did nothing. Baking soda did nothing. Vinegar did nothing.
After a while, Jude sat back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “Love, I don’t think we have much choice but to shave it off.”
Cardan stared at her in disbelief. “Shave it off? All of my hair?”
“Yes, all of it. You don’t want half green hair do you?”
“No I don’t”
“Then let’s get a razor.”
Jude shaved it off herself, with Heather’s help. Heather’s mother was a hairdresser, so she had picked up a few things just from being in the salon. She mainly helped Jude not shave the skin off of his head.
Cardan found that he looked a bit peculiar bald. Running his hand over his scalp, the smoothness of his skin felt strange compared to the texture of his hair.
Jude walked through to the kitchen and poured them both glasses of water, pushing one across the table to where Cardan had flung himself into a chair.
“How are you feeling?” She asked, her voice humorous.
“I’m not cutting my hair again for another three years,” he declared and, toasting to his claim, downed his entire glass. It didn’t occur to him until he met Jude’s laughing eyes that he had to have meant that. He had just cursed himself to three years without a haircut. He knew he could have errors of judgement sometimes but this really won out.
“Fine, you do that,” Jude said, patting him on the back as she left the room.
*****
A year later, and Cardan’s hair finally began looking familiar to him again. He had gone from complete baldness, to fuzz, to a shock of short strands that would not be tamed whatever he tried. Finally, he had gotten to a point with it that it was long enough to style. He was very pleased about that. He could finally control his hair, look moderately good again. Jude would also be pleased. She had missed having something to tug on, in jest or otherwise.
*****
Two years later, and Cardan’s hair is longer than it ever was. It fell into his eyes and curled just above his shoulders. He had recently taken to tying it up so he could actually see what he was doing most of the time. Baths also became a longer process, not that he necessarily hated it at first. There was something nice about putting effort into himself, more than he used to.
He did, however, encounter one problem. And that was that his new luscious curls were finally getting annoying to take care of. The constant losing of hair ties, the constant knots, the constant stray hairs that found themselves in his mouth all meant that Cardan was at his wit’s end.
One night, he and Jude were lying in bed. Quietly, as was their habit in the mornings. The peace of waking up together and the mutual understanding that conversation wasn’t an option until they gained energy put them both at ease. Sometimes, it was the only time they saw each other throughout the day until they inevitably fell back into bed, immediately to sleep. On this particular morning, Cardan’s thoughts had turned back to his hair. He thought of Jude’s elaborate styles, the way she was able to keep her long hair under control.
He turned to meet his wife’s eyes. She had the most beautiful eyes. “Can I ask you a question?”
She smiled sleepily up at him. She had the most beautiful smile, especially when she had her defenses down. “Sure, love.”
“Could you teach me how to keep my hair under control? It’s really starting to annoy me.”
She raised a brow at him. “Is it only just starting to annoy you?”
He scoffed. “Absolutely not. I just hadn’t thought of asking you before now.”
She reached up and threaded her fingers through the offending hair, as though assessing it. Cardan felt his eyes close involuntarily. She always put him at ease, more than anyone ever has before.
“Well, it certainly could hold up to styles. How about tonight? We don’t have anything scheduled for once,” she said, prompting an immediate grin from Cardan. She matched it just as quickly.
With their evening plans made, they each went their separate ways. Considering how little quality time they had managed to snag recently, Cardan couldn’t get her smile out of his mind, her excitement at the prospect of a night together. He greeted subjects with a far-away look in his eyes, and paid barely any attention to the Roach as he tried to inform him of some intel he had gathered from their spies in the human world.
A small voice in the back of his head, barely audible, said, “wow, you are a hopeless case.”
Well, Cardan thought, that voice could give itself a standing ovation because, for Jude Duarte, he would always be a hopeless case.