![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Sally Face | something or other about bodily autonomy
Rating: T
Fandom: Sally Face
Characters: Travis Phelps, Kenneth Phelps (mentioned), Sal Fisher
Relationships: Sal Fisher/Travis Phelps
Words: 1,366
Content Warnings: Implied child abuse
Tropes: Haircuts, Denial of Feelings, Character Study, Themes of Religion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: There's something so inherently queer about hair as a symbol of freedom, autonomy and self-discovery.
There's going to be some loose references to "getting the rod"; this is in reference to the way Christian parents are essentially taught by the Bible to use a rod to beat their children. In Christian circles, the phrase "getting the rod" from a child essentially means "being beaten by a rod as punishment".
As I implied with the inclusion of that, there are no cults here! Just some radical Christianity and controlling parental tendencies.
Also I know that Sally Face takes place in the world of unnatural hair colors growing naturally, just roll with it.
At this point, Travis didn't even want to fall asleep for the obvious reasons (including, but not limited school, his school day tomorrow morning). No, at that moment, he just wanted to be asleep to not have to think anymore.
He sometimes fell victim to this pattern; thinking too hard about something to the point that he couldn't even sleep. But, normally, he at least had the decency to keep himself up with thoughts about things that he could admit to others the next morning. How was he supposed to explain this?
Ever since he had met Sal, everything had... Shifted. He was thinking about things he never thought about anyone else... He was feeling things he didn't quite have a way to label yet; feeling things he had never had before.
(He would have a label for them later. But what he came to discover, he would decide, was worse than not understanding the feelings at all.)
He mostly just wanted to sleep at that moment.
At some point in the night, he gave up, swinging his legs over the side of his bed, getting up and trudging downstairs, thinking maybe he would get something done if he was going to be awake. (What was the something? He wasn't sure. He thought he might figure it out on the way there.)
At some point, on his way to get a capital-s Something to do, he passed by the refrigerator, and did a double-take at the reflection in the metal.
Sometimes, he really hated how much he looked like his dad.
He loved and respected his dad, of course. He held no bitterness towards him that he could consciously speak of. But it was a little… Uncanny. His mother was long out of the picture, but he knew that he partially got his dark skin from her. But everything else was just like his dad. His brown hair and darker brown eyes, everything about his face shape… At certain times, even his voice sounded like his father’s. The fact that his dad still chose what haircut he got didn’t help, either; he made Travis get basically a carbon-copy version of his own hairstyle, that sort of almost-a-mullet-but-not-quite thing that Travis had begun to loathe.
Even still, Travis didn’t dare try and ask for something different. His father had made it very clear that, while he lived under his house, he had no right to any sort of choices about his appearances. At some point, a few years ago, Travis had muttered a comment about being practically his dad’s dress-up doll, which he had quickly gotten the rod for. He had promptly shut up about the topic since.
It wasn’t as if he was some sort of sissy who spent hours a day worrying about his outfits, anyway. But still, while looking in the distorted metal of the refrigerator, where he had momentarily mistaken his own reflection for his father’s, it was hard to push down the overwhelming bitterness. He was 16, about to be 17, and Sal-
He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, like shaking the thought away, before heading to the bathroom.
He wasn’t going to make his hair some sort of weird, unnatural color. Like Sal’s. Stop thinking about Sal. So, that made most of the dye that his mother left in their bathroom (or that he assumed was his mom’s) useless to him. It basically just left the blonde hair dye, which he decided was fine.
Before he had started the biggest impulse decision he had decidedly ever made (and this did include the multiple fights he had started at school), he failed to consider, among other things, that he didn’t actually know how to properly dye his hair. So he just went with guesswork, based off of the pictures on the box and intuition.
There was a little bowl thing, and multiple gels and stuff, which he assumed he had to mix all together in said bowl thing.
The pictures seemed to tell him to put his hair into sections, but hell if he knew how to do that, so he skipped it. If he missed a few patches of hair, it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t actually about wanting to be a blonde, so it didn’t really matter to him.
He also didn’t know if there was anything fancy to do when applying the actual stuff, so he just scrubbed it in like shampoo and hoped for the best. Then he had a lot of time to sit around while it set in.
And think about not-Sal.
Ever since he had met Sal, everything had... Shifted.
How did his hair look?
Well. It looked like he was going to be in big trouble with his father.
Aside from that, it was too bright, and patchy, and very obviously done from home. He had also dyed his hands. And clothes. And the tile floor where he had been sitting.
Travis had basically made a mess of himself.
… He liked it.
He tilted his head in the mirror, and pressed his hand to the back of his neck, where he felt bits of hair just ending.
… But he didn’t feel like it was done yet.
He took the scissors that his father had bought him for his school supply list and lined them up. In just a moment, chunks of hair fell to his feet.
He was so dead when he got back from school. So beyond dead.
Another snip, a little bolder than before, and he felt his lips twitch upward into a smirk as he saw his reflection look less and less like his father’s.
He might-as-well just write his will now.
“It’s-… Different.”
Travis turned to look behind him, trying to narrow his eyes at Sal as if the boy hadn’t been on his mind for the past however-long. “What?”
Sal, who had previously pointing loosely to Travis’ hair, lowered his hand. “Oh, sorry, I forgot that you’re allergic to talking to people.” He walked ahead of Travis, waving nonchalantly. “My bad.”
“Only to you,” he spat back, glaring at Sal’s back as he walked off.
The second he turned the corner, Travis’ face relaxed.
Sal had noticed.
Somehow, he wanted to stomp his feet in place, or pump his hands up and down, or let out some sort of noise.
Instead, he simply brought his fingers to the ends of his hair, softly combing through it as he continued to walk. His face felt hot.
Travis and his father’s trashcan had already been outside for the garbage man to take. But it seemed like his dad had added a late addition to the trash, making the lid peek up to reveal its new contents.
The hair dye. Both the empty box of the one Travis had used, and all the other boxes of colors he had decided against, too.
Travis, standing outside of his home after school, suddenly turned heel, deciding that maybe he should see if there is anything at his father’s church he could help with, instead.
He still found himself reaching up to finger-comb his hair every now and then.
I wrote this in two hours in the middle of the night while thinking about how Travis' hair should be naturally brown because he is not-white, and I don't even know if it's any good at all, but maybe somebody will like it, so I'm posting it. Also I've recently discovered that I'm literally writing thousands of words for free in my free time for other people to consume at their leisure, I'm allowed to have not every single fic upload be a banger.
Please look up instructions when dying your hair at home, kids.
Edit: Please also considering checking out my boyfriend's accompanying fic! https://archiveofourown.org/works/36067237
Fandom: Sally Face
Characters: Travis Phelps, Kenneth Phelps (mentioned), Sal Fisher
Relationships: Sal Fisher/Travis Phelps
Words: 1,366
Content Warnings: Implied child abuse
Tropes: Haircuts, Denial of Feelings, Character Study, Themes of Religion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: There's something so inherently queer about hair as a symbol of freedom, autonomy and self-discovery.
There's going to be some loose references to "getting the rod"; this is in reference to the way Christian parents are essentially taught by the Bible to use a rod to beat their children. In Christian circles, the phrase "getting the rod" from a child essentially means "being beaten by a rod as punishment".
As I implied with the inclusion of that, there are no cults here! Just some radical Christianity and controlling parental tendencies.
Also I know that Sally Face takes place in the world of unnatural hair colors growing naturally, just roll with it.
At this point, Travis didn't even want to fall asleep for the obvious reasons (including, but not limited school, his school day tomorrow morning). No, at that moment, he just wanted to be asleep to not have to think anymore.
He sometimes fell victim to this pattern; thinking too hard about something to the point that he couldn't even sleep. But, normally, he at least had the decency to keep himself up with thoughts about things that he could admit to others the next morning. How was he supposed to explain this?
Ever since he had met Sal, everything had... Shifted. He was thinking about things he never thought about anyone else... He was feeling things he didn't quite have a way to label yet; feeling things he had never had before.
(He would have a label for them later. But what he came to discover, he would decide, was worse than not understanding the feelings at all.)
He mostly just wanted to sleep at that moment.
At some point in the night, he gave up, swinging his legs over the side of his bed, getting up and trudging downstairs, thinking maybe he would get something done if he was going to be awake. (What was the something? He wasn't sure. He thought he might figure it out on the way there.)
At some point, on his way to get a capital-s Something to do, he passed by the refrigerator, and did a double-take at the reflection in the metal.
Sometimes, he really hated how much he looked like his dad.
He loved and respected his dad, of course. He held no bitterness towards him that he could consciously speak of. But it was a little… Uncanny. His mother was long out of the picture, but he knew that he partially got his dark skin from her. But everything else was just like his dad. His brown hair and darker brown eyes, everything about his face shape… At certain times, even his voice sounded like his father’s. The fact that his dad still chose what haircut he got didn’t help, either; he made Travis get basically a carbon-copy version of his own hairstyle, that sort of almost-a-mullet-but-not-quite thing that Travis had begun to loathe.
Even still, Travis didn’t dare try and ask for something different. His father had made it very clear that, while he lived under his house, he had no right to any sort of choices about his appearances. At some point, a few years ago, Travis had muttered a comment about being practically his dad’s dress-up doll, which he had quickly gotten the rod for. He had promptly shut up about the topic since.
It wasn’t as if he was some sort of sissy who spent hours a day worrying about his outfits, anyway. But still, while looking in the distorted metal of the refrigerator, where he had momentarily mistaken his own reflection for his father’s, it was hard to push down the overwhelming bitterness. He was 16, about to be 17, and Sal-
Stop thinking about Sal.
He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, like shaking the thought away, before heading to the bathroom.
He wasn’t going to make his hair some sort of weird, unnatural color. Like Sal’s. Stop thinking about Sal. So, that made most of the dye that his mother left in their bathroom (or that he assumed was his mom’s) useless to him. It basically just left the blonde hair dye, which he decided was fine.
Before he had started the biggest impulse decision he had decidedly ever made (and this did include the multiple fights he had started at school), he failed to consider, among other things, that he didn’t actually know how to properly dye his hair. So he just went with guesswork, based off of the pictures on the box and intuition.
There was a little bowl thing, and multiple gels and stuff, which he assumed he had to mix all together in said bowl thing.
Maybe now people will actually think of me as my own fucking person instead of just my dad. He doesn’t own me. I’m my own person! I can do this! I should be allowed to do this! Sal’s around my age and- stop thinking about Sal.
The pictures seemed to tell him to put his hair into sections, but hell if he knew how to do that, so he skipped it. If he missed a few patches of hair, it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t actually about wanting to be a blonde, so it didn’t really matter to him.
What reasons do people actually have for dying their hair, anyway? Sal already looks so weird that- stop thinking about Sal.
He also didn’t know if there was anything fancy to do when applying the actual stuff, so he just scrubbed it in like shampoo and hoped for the best. Then he had a lot of time to sit around while it set in.
And think about not-Sal.
What was wrong with him? Why was he doing this? Could he just wash the dye out now and maybe try and pass it off like nothing had happened? Why did he suddenly not want to look like his father? He didn’t hate him. His dad wanted the best for him. He knew he was going to get the rod for it, but he was doing it anyways. Why was he doing this? Why didn’t he want to stop? Did that stupid boy who wouldn’t leave his thoughts have anything to do with it?
Sal dyed his hair, too, after all.
Ever since he had met Sal, everything had... Shifted.
How did his hair look?
Well. It looked like he was going to be in big trouble with his father.
Aside from that, it was too bright, and patchy, and very obviously done from home. He had also dyed his hands. And clothes. And the tile floor where he had been sitting.
Travis had basically made a mess of himself.
… He liked it.
He tilted his head in the mirror, and pressed his hand to the back of his neck, where he felt bits of hair just ending.
… But he didn’t feel like it was done yet.
He took the scissors that his father had bought him for his school supply list and lined them up. In just a moment, chunks of hair fell to his feet.
He was so dead when he got back from school. So beyond dead.
Another snip, a little bolder than before, and he felt his lips twitch upward into a smirk as he saw his reflection look less and less like his father’s.
He might-as-well just write his will now.
“It’s-… Different.”
Travis turned to look behind him, trying to narrow his eyes at Sal as if the boy hadn’t been on his mind for the past however-long. “What?”
Sal, who had previously pointing loosely to Travis’ hair, lowered his hand. “Oh, sorry, I forgot that you’re allergic to talking to people.” He walked ahead of Travis, waving nonchalantly. “My bad.”
“Only to you,” he spat back, glaring at Sal’s back as he walked off.
The second he turned the corner, Travis’ face relaxed.
Sal had noticed.
Somehow, he wanted to stomp his feet in place, or pump his hands up and down, or let out some sort of noise.
Instead, he simply brought his fingers to the ends of his hair, softly combing through it as he continued to walk. His face felt hot.
Travis and his father’s trashcan had already been outside for the garbage man to take. But it seemed like his dad had added a late addition to the trash, making the lid peek up to reveal its new contents.
The hair dye. Both the empty box of the one Travis had used, and all the other boxes of colors he had decided against, too.
Travis, standing outside of his home after school, suddenly turned heel, deciding that maybe he should see if there is anything at his father’s church he could help with, instead.
He still found himself reaching up to finger-comb his hair every now and then.
I wrote this in two hours in the middle of the night while thinking about how Travis' hair should be naturally brown because he is not-white, and I don't even know if it's any good at all, but maybe somebody will like it, so I'm posting it. Also I've recently discovered that I'm literally writing thousands of words for free in my free time for other people to consume at their leisure, I'm allowed to have not every single fic upload be a banger.
Please look up instructions when dying your hair at home, kids.
Edit: Please also considering checking out my boyfriend's accompanying fic! https://archiveofourown.org/works/36067237