Winning His War

48

Smut warning *light impact play, degrading*

Andrew's POV

My frown deepened as I watched Jem subconsciously pull on his hair.

He had been doing it all but constantly ever since he dyed it a few days ago and I'm not completely sure he even knows he's doing it at this point. Even now he pulls it as he stares down at his work computer blankly.

His lip is pulled between his teeth while a confused look crossed his face as he attempted to figure out how Dev had handled things in his absence.

All of us had been hesitant to say the least when he demanded his laptop but when Dev saw there was no changing his mind this time, he gladly all but shoved the computer in his direction in order to let him deal with the paper work side. That was over an hour ago and Jem still looks just as confused as he did when he first started looking over the screen.

Every now and then a string of curses would leave his lips in a grumbled form or a harsh sigh would echo through the room followed by an 'I taught both of them to do this for this exact scenario and now it's all fucked up'.

The cursing and aggravation was honestly expected and with his short temper, I would be more worried if he didn't express his frustration but the hair pulling still worried me.

So far the hair color has been the only thing he's allowed to change, which is fine but the pulling is the problem. It's only been a few days but I've noticed the small clumps of hair he's tried to discreetly throw away. At this rate he'll be bald by the end of the month.

"Jem, hair," I repeat for what feels like the thousandth time today but my reminder is only answered by a hum as he lowers his hand and tries to distract himself by playing with his hands instead.

I find myself logging the amount of time that goes by before his hand is buried in hair again. Only 3 minutes before I have to remind him again.

"Jem you're pulling again," I said as gently as I could but it only earned me an aggravated sound as he slammed the top of his computer down before rubbing his face tiredly.

"If you say something about my hair one more time I'm going to scream," he threatened but he was too tired to make it sound very convincing.

"Well you can't just keep pulling your hair out. You'll go bald and you wouldn't look good without hair," I said gently. Jem only rolled his eyes in response. His hand eased up to his hair but thankfully he stopped himself before he even touched it.

"Stop looking at me like that," he scoffed as he opened the computer again. "I'm not some pitiful dog you found on the side of the road. It's just a change, I need to get used to it."

"But at what cost? I can't let you keep trying if you're going to hurt yourself. Do you want to dye it back?"

"No," he said a bit too harshly, his eyes never leaving the screen.

"It's okay if you do. Maybe this was too much too fast. We can find something else after you go back to black."

"I'm fine with the blue. I'll stop pulling at my hair. Just drop it."

A scowl falls on my face before I have a chance to stop it.

"Why are you lying to me?"

A confused look crosses his face but he still doesn't look in my direction.

"You have a tell when you lie. You rub your forefinger and thumb together and you know it's your tell because you try to hide it every time." When a frown of his own appears on his face I feel a smirk cover mine. "So why are you lying to me."