[CLOSED] It's quick. It's clean. It's pure.

[chronomancer]

Characters: The waffailsprits, Jade!Eridan Ampora and Yellow!Equius Zahhak.
Setting: Floor 8, the forest.
Format: Action.
Summary: In which marksmanship and shooting lessons are interrupted because Equius hair is a crime against humanity and Eridan has run out of spare sunglasses at long last.
Warnings: Awkward, awkward teens in love. Also brushes and hairbands and long-winded bitching about the cold.

[Eridan is a few minutes late to his appointment with Equius - it's not a date, none of them are dates, can his brain please stop making this weird - for the first time since they began. He walks down the staircase and into the snowed floor of the forest, rifle already in hand.]

Sorry.

[He's trying really hard not to make this weird and hoping Equius won't say anything about it, but it's kind of hard not to considering he feels so goddamn naked as it is.]

Ready for this?

Comments

[geometry]

I'm not sulking.

[Equius Zahhak does not sulk. ...He deals with it.]

Do... do you want to go to a different floor for this or are we just going to do it in the middle of an area where bugs can crawl into my hair?

ICONS, CAN I STOP CHOOSING THE WRONG ONE?

[chronomancer]

We're going back to my room. Because as hard as it is to believe it, I don't actually carry a brush with me all the time.

No. Never.

[geometry]

Could've fooled me.

[Still looking at that hair.]

[chronomancer]

Ha. Ha.

[Have a side look.]

The hell's wrong with my hair?

[He brushes and styles it perfectly ever morning. Every. Morning.]

[geometry]

[!!]

N-nothing's wrong with your hair! That wasn't what I--

[That was... loud.]

...never mind.

[chronomancer]

[Eridan sighs.]

Relax, Eq.

[Yep, still holding onto that arm. It's the only way he'll keep you from bolting.]

But you're right, there's nothing wrong with my hair.

[geometry]

[Sigh.]

What I meant was... your hair is always in perfect order all the time, so I figured you would carry a brush around to keep it like that all day.

[chronomancer]

Oh.

[He shrugs.]

Nah. I fix it in the morning and I usually stay far away from shit that I don't get messed up. Well, nothing a hand through it won't fix anyway.

[geometry]

Oh.

[...Yeah, he wouldn't know anything about that, since his hair has basically been messed up by every substance known to trollkind.]

[Quietly, he heads for the staircase.]

[chronomancer]

Yeah. It's long enough that if I comb it back it doesn't fall all over my face anymore. Which is awesome as my default hairlength in this hellhole, because fuck having shorter hair and having to find hairgel around here.

[geometry]

Is there any hairgel around here?

[Legit question. He didn't know.]

[chronomancer]

Not that I know of, but looking at some people's hairstyles you can't help but wonder a little.

[He shrugs.]

[geometry]

I guess they could have gotten it in their trunk?

[He got grubs and jars of poison, but you know, details.]

[chronomancer]

[There's a skirt in his, right now. Let's not talk about trunks. Please.]

Huh, that's a probability. Or maybe asked the admins for some, I guess. Though it's a wonder they haven't run out, I guess.

[geometry]

Some things the world will just never know.

[He's going to stumble upon that skirt at some point during this thread. It's going to happen. Don't think it won't, Eridan.]

...This room is yours, right...?

[chronomancer]

[Well, this was bound to get awkward soon.]

Yep. 1-10.

[Opening the door and nudging him in gently.]

's been quiet since Lalonde's gone. So on the upside, no matter where you try to sit, the bed will not try to eat you.

[geometry]

...Comforting thought.

[Higher-pitched voice.]

[He sits down on one of the beds, looking quite on edge. This is weird. He shouldn't be in anyone else's dorm room, sitting on their bed, probably going to get his hair all over the damn thing so he has to wash it later...]

[chronomancer]

I know, right? What's almost sad is that I might actually miss the asshole.

[Eridan's just going to go and dig out through his trunk, because he's got a comb but there should be a brush in there somewhere.]

[geometry]

[Equius can't help but notice that there are some very peculiar folds to the clothing in there... maybe it's just a robe or something. But why wouldn't he be wearing it, then, in the cold?]

Do you not have a brush? I'm sure we can go... find one... maybe... [but then he'd be sharing brushes. EW.]

[chronomancer]

I do in fact have a brush.

[Which he shows triumphantly.]

And a comb.

[Like so.]

I don't have a hairband, though, but we can probably nick something out of the workshop later. Let's do this.

[geometry]

[Response comes primarily as a reluctant noise from the back of Equius' throat.]

Right... let's do this.

[He doesn't sound terribly excited. Actually, it's a bit more sad than anything else.]

[chronomancer]

[Eridan goes sit behind Equius on the bed, absently patting his back as he studied the tangled mass carefully.]

Trust me on this, hon.

[Have an absent-minded but very much affectionate scratch of those claws on your back. All nice and soothing. then those claws start fiddling with the tips of Equius' hair, slowly working on the most obvious, larger tangles at a slow, leisure pace.]

I know what I'm doing, for once.

[geometry]

I know you do.

[Casually going to pull his coat even closer around him, staring at the blanket on the bed in front of him (at least its original owner, or the drones, had the decency to make the bed before leaving). Maybe the cold was finally getting to him, growing up in much warmer weather like he did... but at least he's not squirming and complaining about Eridan pulling too hard or something.]

[...Jesus Christ. He really hasn't brushed his hair in a long time. This hurts.]

[chronomancer]

[Eridan is working as slow as he can, holding the hair above the tangles with one hand, while the other tries to work on it, so as to avoid tugging or pulling on Equius' scalp, but seriously. He keeps wincing every now and then, trying to coax that poor hair to lie flat where it should. Every so often he pauses, particularly after a really big or mean tangle, and just scratches on Equius back with his claws, slowly and lightly enough not to hurt. Like a quiet apology if he hurt him.]

[geometry]

[Every so often there's a sharp intake from breath from the creature that lives under the bushes, either from a particularly bad yank or whenever Eridan gives one of those little mini-massages. Still, the gasps mean different things depending on the situation; he doesn't appreciate head pain at all, but he does appreciate the scratching. He appreciates it a lot. Yes he does. If he weren't feeling quite so horrible right now, he might be smiling to himself.]

...You know...

...Nepeta used to do this quite a lot...