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Daria had to give it up for her dad’s ineptitude when it came to home repairs; due to his attempts to increase the temperature on the hot water heater somehow breaking it completely, in spite of the fact that all he’d needed to do was turn one knob, she had the house all to herself until the plumber could get there the next day. Her mom and Quinn had insisted on getting a hotel room so they could get proper showers before being seen by clients and classmates the next day, but Daria would gladly scrub down with cold water if meant getting a little peace and quiet, and not being crammed into a single two-bed room with her entire family.
It was a bleak and rainy day, the perfect day to curl up with something with a body count, and she ended up settling on Frankenstein after deciding she wasn’t in the mood for anything new. She’d just settled down with a cup of coffee and was ready to crack the book open when her peace was interrupted by a shrill shrieking outdoors.
Daria paused, staring blankly into space as she recognized the voice doing the shrieking. There was only one person she knew who actually screamed like they were dragging out the letter E. “You know that you don’t need to go see if you can help,” she told herself as the noise got closer. It didn’t sound frightened, or even all that genuinely upset rather than just somewhat outraged, to make her feel like help was necessary. She could still have her quiet day.
But as she heard the shrieks start to move past she sighed and pushed herself back up to head outside and call out, “What’s wrong, Brittany?”
The “Eeee”ing finally came to an end, a very waterlogged and muddy-looking Brittany turned with a surprised look on her face. “Oh, hi Daria! Me and Kevvie had a fight and he was supposed to be my ride home and then it started raining and then I’d just bent down for a second to tie my shoe and some mean jerk just splashed me with his car and now I’m all muddy and—”
“Okay, okay, just get in here already,” Daria cut her off before she could run out of oxygen. “You can call your dad to pick you up or something. Or see if Kevin’s cooled down enough for you to make up.”
“Kevvie doesn’t deserve to get to make up with me,” Brittany said with a sniff as she walked in, a declaration that Daria could fully believe was true but didn’t particularly expect would last.
As Brittany walked by her Daria realized just how well the ‘mean jerk’ had gotten her with his car, there was mud dripping all down her back and drizzling from her pigtails like she’d tried another experiment with hair dye. She frowned as she watched the drips leave new splotches on what little of her cheerleading uniform was still clean. “I can get you something of Quinn’s to wear, but there’ll be a double homicide if she finds out anything of hers was covered in mud so we’ll need to do something about your hair first. Unfortunately, there’s no hot water for a shower. Might I suggest a razor instead?”
Brittany let out a little eep of distress and grabbed her hair protectively. “The head cheerleader can’t be bald, Daria!” she hissed out in a whisper, like even saying the words too loud might summon the demon of unfortunate haircuts to her side.
Brittany’s drowned rat look made Daria feel enough pity that she didn’t push the joke, instead just conceding, “Of course not, how silly of me. Look go wait in the kitchen, I’ll go grab the clothes and a bottle shampoo and we can wash it off in the sink. If you could stand the rain I’m sure a little more cold water won’t hurt.”
“Thanks Daria, that’s really nice of you!” Brittany chirped, starting to follow her gesture in the direction of the kitchen.
“Yeah, well, don’t let it get around.”
It wasn’t quite sweater weather, but Daria didn’t feel like grabbing some of her own clothing then having to deal with any complaints about being too frumpy and all of Quinn’s lighter shirts were too closely fitted to work well with the difference in their chest areas. She poked into the winter side of Quinn’s closet until she found a loose hanging sweater of soft alpaca, figuring that after being drenched in rain Brittany would probably like to be warm and cozy anyway.
She snagged the shampoo and a towel on her way back down and headed to the kitchen herself, then stopped dead, feeling a slow blush creep up her face, when she walked into the room to see Brittany stripped down to her underwear. The effect was only slightly spoiled by the way she was bunching her hair up with paper towel.
It was as lacy as she would have imagined Brittany would like, if she ever imagined what Brittany might like in the way of underwear, but the cotton candy pink color was a bit of surprise. Daria would have guessed she was in blue and gold all the way down.
“I’m ready to wash my hair!” Brittany said cheerfully, apparently completely unconcerned to being almost naked in the middle of Daria’s house.
“You didn’t worry for a minute that maybe my dad might walk in here while you were striping down?” Daria slowly pulled herself together, walking forward to set the bundle in her arms down on the counter. If Brittany could act like this was normal then she damned well wasn’t going to be the one who was weird about it.
“But my uniform would just make my hair muddy again, and nobody else is here, are they? I can tell, I have a fifth sense for places a party could be!” Brittany replied, then her mouth dropped into a little O of surprise, “Wait, is your Dad a ghost, Daria? Is that why I can’t tell?”
“Believe me, if my dad were dead he’d be too busy ranting at his father to come haunt us. Also, your senses are on the fritz if you think that my being home alone would lead to a party. I’m more likely to set booby traps for robbers.”
“We could have a party for just the two of us! With cake! And, um, what do you like Daria? …Words!”
“Ah yes, a cake and words party, my one delight. Here, bend over the sink, I’ll get your hair so you don’t need to try to aim the sprayer at the back of your head.”
“You know, Daria, you’re really lots nicer than you try to make people think sometimes,” Brittany told her as she followed her instructions.
“We’ll see if you say that when I cut out your tongue to stop you from spreading it around,” Daria said as she aimed the faucet over the opposite basin to test the temperature of the water when she turned it on. It was still slightly lukewarm after a moment, what had been in the tank of the water heater before it died not completely gone yet. “Oh wait, you won’t be able to.”
“Oh Daria,” Brittany said, like threats of bodily harm were just a charming quirk.
“Oh Brittany,” Daria mimicked back. “Brace yourself, I don’t know how fast this will turn cold.” She grabbed up the spray nozzle to switch to it and aimed at Brittany’s scalp, her free hand digging into Brittany’s hair to help rinse the water through it.
She wondered faintly just how nuts it would drive Quinn if she ever found out how much softer Brittany’s hair was than her own, the fine locks of it sliding easily through Daria’s fingers in spite of the mud and grime clinging to it. There was no way that Brittany could keep the sort of intensive haircare treatment Quinn put herself through in her mind, but her’s was silkier to Daria’s touch than Daria had actually thought hair could be outside of metaphors. She couldn’t resist the urge to dig her hand in a little deeper, her fingers lightly scritching across Brittany’s scalp even though none of the mud had actually made it that high.
“Oh, wow, you’re really good at this, Daria,” Brittany said, her voice a little breathy, “Do that again.”
Daria massaged the back of her head a little more firmly then slowly dragged her hand down through the locks, not a knot stopping her all the way to the end as she watched for signs of still clinging mud, then dug back in to repeat the process on the next patch of her hair. Brittany kept making breathy little squeaks that Daria tried not to examine too closely, either in how Brittany was pushing back into her fingers instead of asking her to stop or how there was something new squirming in her own gut at the sounds.
She turned off the water when she reached for the shampoo, needing both hands to lather it in properly. Technically Brittany could have done that part by herself, it wasn’t as if she could accidentally spray water all over the room just rubbing shampoo into her hair, but Daria kept it up anyway and Brittany didn’t ask her not to. “Tell me if any starts getting near your eyes,” she told Brittney as she dug both hands into the soft locks, working the shampoo thoroughly through.
“We are totally totally good, Daria,” Brittany assured her, her voice gone a little throaty.
Daria could half-remember from an old haircare tirade of Quinn’s that it was better not to actually shampoo the whole length, or something like that, but she figured Brittany’s hair felt healthy enough that it wouldn’t be hurt if she didn’t miss a single strand. But soon enough she couldn’t put off turning on the water again, watching the bubbles rinse away and down the drain and stealing her excuse to keep this up any longer. She was surprised at her own regret at having to turn it off, then just to keep the strange moment they’d been caught in going a little bit longer she carefully scrunched to excess water out of Brittany’s hair before wrapping the towel gently around it.
Brittany finally was able to straighten up again, only to immediately stumble as an obvious woozy headrush hit her after being bent in half so long, leaving Daria feeling slightly guilty about dragging the washing out so long. She quickly reached out to steady her, what was meant to be just supporting her by her elbow turning into Daria’s arm sliding around her back when Brittany sagged against her. Daria’s earlier blush came back tenfold as she was suddenly once more fully aware of just how close to naked Brittany was, and even more from how she suddenly realized that she could feel the hard pebbling of one of Brittany’s nipples with the way she was leaning against her.
And if there’d been any way she could have still regained control of her face against that it was completely blown away when Brittany whispered into her ear, “Hey Daria, you should come with me when I have my daddy pick me up. We can try that again in a real shower together. And I can do it to you too!”