No. 26

Prompt: Any, Any, gonna wash that man right out of my hair
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/700959.html?thread=92560927#t92560927

Rodney was the best damn hairdresser in Hollywood, and everyone knew it. But he also did sometimes have personality conflicts, and he was pretty sure that his last big blow-up with Sam Carter at Stargate Studios was what had landed him at this job, on the set of Atlantis, some kind of ridiculous shipwrecked beach drama with the likes of Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex running around shirtless and pretending to call for help but generally getting caught up in pointless drama. It wasn't the show Rodney objected to – he'd worked on far, far worse, Todd the Wraith, anyone? – but the principal actor. John Sheppard. Because his hair was notoriously impossible to work with. The man's head was a hundred cowlicks, and all his hair did was stick up all over the place.

Rodney had a plan.

"Zelenka, don't touch that," he snapped. "And Kusanagi, are you deaf? I said the volumizer, not the hair dryer."

John, sitting in the makeup chair, looked amused at Rodney's array of hairdressing implements. "You know none of that's going to work. Just give me a comb and –"

"Are you the hairdresser? No. I am. Now shut up while I make you beautiful."

"I'm already beautiful."

"Fine! More beautiful! Just be quiet while I exhibit my genius." Rodney had done much research, talked to past hairdressers who'd worked with the man, and he had a plan.

But the gel didn't work. Egg whites didn't work. Glue-and-water didn't work. An industrial-strength polymer from the gaff crew didn't work.

Rodney shoved John into the shower for the hundredth time without even letting the man take off his clothes and scrubbed at his hair, outraged, because nothing was working and the producers wanted the man's hair to stay down and John had the temerity to laugh at him –

And then they were kissing and they were both completely wet, and Rodney was laughing too, and the next day, when John sat down in the make-up chair, Rodney gave him a comb, and when the producers freaked out, Rodney flipped them off and set to work on Ronon's dreadlocks.