In My Free, In My Wild [Phan Oneshots]

Makeshift Barber

Summary: Both Dan and Phil are waiting in the barbershop for their hair to be cut, when they are both rejected because they were born girl. They decide that they will cut each other's hair.

Word Count: 3,752

Triggers: Transphobia

Dan gingerly tucked a long brown lock of hair behind his ear. It was his eighteenth birthday, the day that he could finally legally be free from his parents. If thy yelled at him for cutting his hair, then so be it. He could very well just move out. He had a few friends in mind that would take him in if need be. He could finally be who he really was. He could cut his hair short and get a binder and shove a packer down his pants and he could finally live as the man he felt he was.

Every morning, Dan woke up and looked in the bathroom mirror as he straightened his hair. His long, girl hair. He really hated it. Despite his love for pastel and girly things, he never felt like he was a girl. He hated dresses and hated when the teacher called him by his birth name when they were taking attendance.

"Yazi Howell?" they'd say, oblivious to his being transgender. His friends would sigh and pat him on the back before Dan raised his hand to reply.

"Here," he would say, "but I prefer being called Dan." This was always a risk. The teacher could be transphobic and question him, asking why he wanted to change his name.

"Why?" they'd ask, as if it wasn't obvious. Dan tried his best to look masculine, but he struggled as his pastel sense of fashion was always associated with being female, which Dan definitely was not. He would put his long hair in a bun on the bus and throw a pastel purple beanie over his hair. He asked his mum to buy him sports bras instead of the regular under wire ones and put a second one on in the school bathroom. He still has to use the ladies' room despite his multiple attempts to get a pass. He hated it. He hated being trapped in the wrong body.

But he was finally free. He only had a few months of school left, but his eighteenth birthday was today. He had been saving up for a haircut for a year now, skipping out on going out with his friends as much so he could put it toward something he really wanted.

He walked down the street with little confidence, spotting the barber shop he had found online. He smiled and turned to open the door. The bell jingled as he walked in and he sat down in one of the waiting chairs. He spotted a sad looking girl, her jet black hair just reaching her shoulders with a strand of blue. Her bangs swept to the side, the exact opposite side of Dan's. She had beautiful blue eyes. Or where they green? Dan couldn't tell. But she was beautiful.

She was looking down at her phone as she licked her snakebites and wrinkled her nose. Despite her punk looking appearance, she had thick black glasses balanced on the tip of her nose.

"Hello," Dan said, attempting to strike up a conversation. She slowly lifted up her head, her eyes meeting his over the frame of her glasses.

"Hi," she said, obviously unimpressed by Dan's attempt at socialising. Dan decided he wouldn't stop while he was ahead and continued the dead end conversation with someone that wasn't interested in socialising.

"So, what's your name?" He asked on a whim, trying so hard at being a successful human. She pushed her glasses back on the bridge of her nose and sat up, uncrossing her legs, spreading them wide open and resting her arms on her knees, still looking very unimpressed.

"My birth name is Fiona, but my friends--and anyone who doesn't want their neck snapped--call me Phil. What might be your name, sweetie?" she--he asked.

"So you're a guy?" Dan blurted out, covering his mouth with his hands as soon as it came out. Way to be rude, Dan. Totally acing being a functional human being, he thought.