Vampire Academy One-Shots

I Can Explain

DPOV

Something was wrong. Very, if the lack of a hello when I walked in the door was any indication. I moved carefully, listening for any sign of a struggle. But the apartment that I shared with Rose was the same as I'd had left it this morning, maybe even a little cleaner. Then I heard soft voices coming from the kitchen, and the sound of pots and pans being moved around. I was very suspicious, as the only thing Rose knew how to cook was toaster oven grilled cheese, and even that ended in disaster sometimes.

Still, they weren't sounds of a fight, so I continued into the kitchen, where I was shocked to see Christian standing at the stove as Rose sat on the counter, telling him exactly what to cook. I hadn't seen my charge all day since he'd been training with the Moroi fighters, I'd been on patrol. Clearly, neither of them noticed I'd walked in yet, but Rose seemed more pissed off than usual, and Christian was listening to her without question, which was even more suspicious than the sounds of what I'd thought was Rose in the kitchen.

"Care to explain?" I asked, and Christian jumped about a foot in the air as he faced me, and if his expression was any indication, he was terrified.

Rose, on the other hand, now looked positively gleeful now. "Hey, Comrade. Christian here offered us his services for the next several weeks, so now neither of us has to cook!"

"First off, you never cook, Rose. Second, why, exactly, is Christian cooking for us for the next few weeks."

"Oh, it's not just cooking. He's cleaning too." That shocked me even more, what had Christian done?

"Is this a bet I didn't know about?"

Christian was now hunched over the stove and seemed very focused on the food he was preparing, it was his specialty and Rose's favorite, bacon wrapped meatloaf. It was then that I knew Christian really had messed up. This was no bet.

"Rose," I warned.

"I'm debating whether or not I want Christian to have to tell you what happened or just do it myself. I could just show you, I suppose." Show me? If this had happened today, it most likely had something to do with the Moroi trainees. Had he burned her some how?

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Christian shouted, "Please, just get it over with! I'm already your food slave for the next month and a half."

Rose's smile slid off her face, "You better not burn that meatloaf, buddy."

I raised an eyebrow, I was getting slightly impatient now, "Would someone please tell me what happened?"

That was when Rose took her hair out of the tightly wrapped bun and revealed her hair - or what was left of it. A quick glance told me that there was at least a foot gone, maybe more since her once waist length hair was now barely below her shoulder. I froze and reached forward to run my fingers through her hair, and they escaped the tangles much faster than they ever have.

"What. Happened?" I asked, turning to Christian with a hard glare.

"I swear, I can explain! It was an accident and it-" He hung his head, "I'm a dumbass."

I turned to Rose for a better explanation, and she obliged, "Someone seemed to forget the cardinal rule of target practice, is that target practice isn't allowed when a flesh and bones person is standing five feet from the target that you're about to set on fire. My hair was in a ponytail at the time, and it was only thanks to Mia that my whole head didn't burn off."

I took a step towards Christian but felt Rose grab my arm, "Hey, you're not allowed to kill him. I told him if he cooked and cleaned up after himself for the next month and a half or so I'd stop you from killing him when you found out he's the reason I lost twelve inches of hair."

I turned back to her and ran my fingers through her hair again. It was still beautiful as ever, but I couldn't help but think of all the times I'd told her never to cut it. It was selfish, of course, cutting it was far more practical as a guardian, but I loved her hair. It was still longer than most female guardians', yet so much shorter than it was.

"Lucky for him Mia put it out before anything worse happened, but Lissa did take me to the salon to get it cleaned up, and they did take a little more off than I'd wanted, but they insisted it was best to cut off everything that got burned."

I sighed once more before turning to Christian, "She's right, you better not burn that."

He breathed a sigh of relief and went back to the food. I was sure once the shock passed, I'd feel bad about all this, but for now, he could have easily hurt much more than her hair. I pulled her close and kissed the top of her head, glad that she was okay.

---

Later that night, after Christian had left and we were sitting on the couch with the television on low volume, I pulled her close again, "How did he end up doing this?"

She looked up at me, confused for only a moment, "Oh, well I'd volunteered to help out today since Liss was supposed to be in council meetings all day. A couple hours in, I was resetting a couple of the targets, I'd given the call to hold fire and all that, but I guess Christian had been correcting someone on their stance and didn't hear me. He went to do a demonstration for them and, well. Fire."

"I'm just glad Mia was there."

"Yeah, Christian was too. Lissa walked in right after Mia put me out, and both of them went at him. I probably would have too if I wasn't so shocked that it had happened in the first place."

"How do you feel about it?"

She shrugged, "I was pretty pissed at first, obviously, and clearly I didn't want this much off, but I have been meaning to get an inch or two off, my split ends were getting a little ridiculous. Lissa was more upset than I was, and she was the one that suggested he cook for us for a while. I threw in cleaning too when I realized how pissed you'd probably be about it all."

"I was upset, especially at first, but I was mostly glad you weren't hurt. You weren't, right?" I asked, realizing Lissa could have healed her if she'd gotten really hurt.

"It wasn't bad, I promise. Lissa only healed me because she didn't want it to scar, but I would have been fine. Luckily my hair was tied back, otherwise, it probably would have been worse. But Mia and I both reacted quickly and it looked a lot worse than it actually was."

Knowing her, she was downplaying it, but I also knew her anger had passed at this point. Christian was a close friend of both hers and mine, and I knew he'd never have done anything like this on purpose and that he was probably beating himself up over it.

"How do you feel?" Rose pulled me from my thoughts, as she was prone to do.

I thought for a moment, "Upset is the first thing that comes to mind, and I'm sure it's the first thing I think about around him for a while, but in the end, you weren't seriously hurt and he seems truly sorry for what happened."

She grinned, "Well I'm glad you're not going to kill him on your next shift. Though I am curious as to what you think about my hair. I know it's one of your favorite things."

"You're my favorite thing. Your hair is still just as beautiful as it's always been. There's just not as much of it."

She rolled her eyes, "So in other words, you can't wait for it to grow out?"

"Of course not." I was lying through my teeth. True, she was still just as beautiful, but she was right when she called her hair my favorite feature of hers.

"Really? Then maybe I'll keep it this short. The long hair just got in the way and-"

"No."

She grinned and I knew she'd been messing with me, "I knew it. You can't pull anything on me, Comrade."

I shook my head, "Oh, Roza."

---

I was reading an AU fic and in it, Rose cut her hair and I had to wonder what would happen if it was cut in the canon timeline, and this was born.

~PH