A Quick Fix (Oneshot Collection)

The Great Braid Challenge (Metallica)

Notes: Another request from the lovely Marjain of Rockfic who asked me to write something cute for current era. I hope this pleases you, because it was very amusing to write 😄

Rob gets his hair braided by the guys.

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"Why did I agree to this?" Rob sighed as the other men crowded him.

"Because you love and trust us," Lars stated with a pleased smirk.

"Oh, right..."

Kirk, James, and Lars were currently standing all around him in the dressing room. Rob was sat in a chair in front of a mirror, looking like he was on death row as his bandmates grabbed handfuls of his hair. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to see who could braid Rob's hair the best and Rob, foolishly, agreed to it. Lars seemed the most excited about it while the other two were mostly just taking it in stride.

"Is it weird that I've been wanting to do this for ages?" Lars inquired.

"Yeah, dude. It totally is," answered Kirk, laughing out loud when Lars swatted his arm.

"Hey! Pay attention!" Rob barked as Kirk and Lars exchanged playful shoves. "If any one of you tangles my hair, I'm shaving off all of yours while you sleep!"

"I think it's a little too late for Lars," James poked, cackling like a madman.

"Fock off," Lars swore under his breath.

They all handled their handfuls of Rob's hair with care and started to comb their fingers through it gently. Rob was still a little iffy on whether this was a good idea or not, but was willing to give his friends the benefit of the doubt. He was watching them through the reflection of the mirror as they teased and sifted through his long hair. It reminded him of how his son and daughter used to play with it when they were really young and made him smile more than anything else.

"Oh, you know what he could do is cut off all our hair and glue it to Lars' head," Kirk supplied as he parted a chunk of Rob's hair into three separate strands.

"I don't think there's enough hair between the two of us to cover the entire surface area of Lars' head," James snarked in a deep chuckle.

"Alright, ha ha, very funny asswipes," Lars retorted.

"If it's any consolation Lars, I think you pull off having a big head very well," Rob complimented in sympathy, eyes flicking up to Lars' reflection.

"Why, thank you Rob. It's nice to see someone appreciates the true beauty of it," replied Lars in a showy display of mock arrogance.

"That's one word to describe it," James teased, but it was all in good fun.

Rob watched all three of them struggle in their own way to tame Rob's plentiful head of hair, and it proved to be pretty amusing all things considered. Lars didn't look like he knew what he was doing while Kirk had a vague idea. James seemed to be doing just fine; he didn't appear to be overwhelmed at least, so that was a plus. But compared to the years of upkeep Rob had grown accustomed to, it was nowhere near being close to how Rob does it. Still, a valiant effort nonetheless.

Once they were all done, Rob sat back and was ready to see the damage. Kirk held up the braid he'd been working on on the back of Rob's head and held it up. It wasn't too bad, maybe a bit more loose than he's used to, but overall pretty basic in the execution. Lars' braid was a trainwreck, big surprise there. It was essentially his hair parted into two different strands and twisted around together. It might have looked good in Lars' mind, but the end result made it look like a twizzler.

"What the hell is that?" Kirk questioned when he got a load of Lars' handiwork.

"What? I don't know how braid hair," Lars defended, looking down at the aftermath in his hands.

"Even Tye can braid better than that," James mentioned, referring to Rob's son.

"Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, show us how good you did then!" Lars goaded, nodding towards the other man.

James rised to the challenge and presented his section of Rob's hair. They all stared at it in awe as it was by far the best out of any of theirs. Rob was quite impressed how well James did. It wasn't loose like Kirk's and it wasn't even close to being the tragedy that was Lars', in fact it was almost as good as Rob doing it himself. Almost... It was sectioned off and tightened in all the right places, serving as a nearly perfect reproduction of how Rob normally does it.

"Since when do you know how to braid hair?" Lars accused, giving his longtime friend a sideways glance.

"Since I have two daughters," James stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

"No fair! That's cheating!" Lars complained.

"Cheating?" James reiterated with a boisterous guffaw. "I wasn't aware this was a competition."

"It is! I wanna rematch!"

And, much to Lars' dismay, all Rob and Kirk can do is laugh as the little Danish man threw a fit.