Title: "Of Gay Wizards and Bad Haircuts"
Summary: What the hell has Brittany done to herself? Kurt to the rescue!
Characters: Kurt, Brittany, friendship/gen
Pairing: Mention of canon Brittany/Santana
Spoilers: None, but set after 2.15 "Sexy"
Wordcount: 700

Response to the here asking for "Kurt and Brittany holding hands."

"Of Gay Wizards and Bad Haircuts"

I need my gay wizard! came the text on Kurt's phone when he was in the dentist's office. As he was pinned down with the wrong sort of handsome doctor in his mouth, he couldn't respond to Brittany promptly, so she buzzed his hip three more times. Fleeing Dr. Carl's office - with a warning about flossing and a complimentary purple toothbrush - Kurt drove straight to Brittany's, expecting a breakup with Artie or Santana, or maybe she'd been kicked off the Cheerios.

Brittany answered the door somehow handless, covering her face, her whole body shapeless in an enormous sweater. She wore feety pajamas and her hair hung in clumps. Had someone canceled the Soap network?

"Hi, Kurt," she said with eerie calm. "Please come in. Welcome to my home." Her words were muffled behind her sleeves.

Kurt stepped into the foyer carefully, wondering if this was a prank. "Uh, Brittany?"

"Don't look at me."

She turned her back to him, and Kurt gasped.

"I said don't look," she said, a sharp edge coming into her usual monotone.

"Brittany, I can see your hair even if you cover your face."

Brittany's shoulders slumped. Kurt dropped his bag and crossed the travertine foyer in three swift strides. The sunlight from the French window winked off Brittany's blonde . . . oh, God, it was tragic, just . . .

"Brittany, what did you do?" Kurt was so upset, he almost touched her.

Brittany turned around and, without warning, buried her face in his neck. Her strong arms squeezed him like he was her stuffed hunny bear. "I cut my hair. I just wanted to cut a little, but the scissors liked eating all those little pieces. So I cut more. And then . . . I think I went to sleep. When I woke up, the scissors made all my hair fall off. Can you make it grow back?"

Kurt blinked at a china shepherdess tending her flock on the wash-stand. Brittany's mom was into the junk shops. "How would I do that?"

"You know. . . . You're gay . . . and you read a lot. . . . Like in Buffy? The gay people who read are witches."

One day, Kurt was going to tell his college friends about his friend Brittany who lived in a glitter rainbow velvet painting, and they weren't going to believe him. "It only works that way for lesbians," he said.

"Oh," Brittany said wetly.

Kurt held her at arm's length. She looked miserable, which made her haircut look worse. It was best described as a cross between the Dorothy Hammel and a shag, but . . . Okay, it could be worked with. Not by him, he'd run a salon into the ground faster than Tabitha's victims on Bravo. But someone who knew what they were doing could probably sculpt the unfortunate mullet into something . . . cute. And maybe mold that lopsided curl.

Brittany seemed to be reading his expression. Her face crumbled and she fell into his arms, sobbing, "My hair!" He'd never seen her so . . . emotive.

In the end, she calmed down when he made her a strawberry milkshake and found Teen Witch on his Netflix account. He mother liked this movie when she was in high school, they still had the VHS in the junk cabinet that Kurt had been meaning to clean out but didn't really want to. It was about a geek who could make her deepest teenage wishes come true.

Brittany tucked into his side, offering him a sip of her shake. He stole one of the cherries, sucking the whip cream before he bit it in half, as he wrapped his arm across her shoulders. Their feet twisted up on the coffee table and she folded her cold hand in his.

"Why did you want to change your hair, anyway?" Kurt said.

Brittany shrugged into his armpit. "Don't you ever just hate everything?"

Kurt kissed her really awful, too high bangs. "Just talk to her, Brittany."

The cold, pale fingers flexed against his hand. "She won't listen."

"People do. Just keep talking."