Work Text:
The Dye Job
A The Missing Fanfiction
Mrs. Danes puts maybe too much vim and vigor into whisking the eggs this morning. Even when they've reached a perfect creamy yellow-white, just the right consistency, she keeps beating, splatting furiously at the glass bowl's contents over and over.
Mr. Danes enters the kitchen and sees his wife's scowl. “Tax season again?” he guesses.
Either that, or he's forgotten her birthday or their anniversary... He checks the kitten-photo calendar with a quick flit of his dark brown eyes. Nah. Mr. Danes is fairly certain they did not get married on this date. Fairly. They had a spring wedding, didn't they? Could it be something else? Has the man from next door left his dog's poop on their lawn again? No, that tends to make him mad, not his wife. It's Mr. Danes who usually curses, throwing off his best office shoes, after stepping in it.
“Have you seen your son's hair today?” she says finally, and not as a real question, slamming the bowl down on the counter so hard it's a surprise it doesn't actually shatter.
Brow lowered, Mr. Danes glances over at their son Gavin. He's sitting at the table, eating Froot Loops. Their kid's hair, at a first look, appears perfectly normal. He turns his head back to his wife in confusion.
She – breathing hard out of her nose – pats one side of her head pointedly.
Gavin is resting his head lazily in his hand, elbow propped on the table's edge. This hand is covering something. He straightens up, goes, “Oh my God, Mom! Make a bigger deal out of it,” and lets the hand drop, revealing a vivid purple streak running through his auburn hair.
Mr. Danes whistles. “Well, son, if this is the image you want to present to the world...”
“You just don't get it,” Gavin sneers.
“What we get is we let you sleep over a friend's house," grouses his mom, "and you come back looking like a thug.”
Gavin sucks his teeth. “Name one thug who has purple hair.”
“Don't take that tone of voice with me, young man,” she snaps back.
Mr. Danes tries, “Gavin, how you present yourself says a lot about who you are. That's all your mother's trying to convey here. You know your hair is your crowning glory, don't you?”
“Maybe if you're Rapunzel,” snorts Gavin.
“You see?” Mrs. Danes' hands are on her hips now. “You can't even talk to him. I don't know where I went wrong.”
Something outside honks distantly.
Mr. Danes grabs a stack of schoolbooks off a chair and slides them across the table to Gavin. “That's the bus.” He sighs. Claps his hands together. “Come on, come on! Are you even dressed?”
“It's Saturday.” Gavin runs his hand through his hair, ruffling dyed-purple strands. “That's the bus for the senior center.”
Coughing, Mr. Danes picks up the Froot Loops box. “I knew that.”
Mrs. Danes snatches the box away from her husband. “We're having eggs. I'm making eggs.”
Gavin slurps the sugary milk from the bottom of his bowl, then mutters, “Eggs à la broken glass.”
Flinging down a damp tea-towel with a snap, Mrs. Danes sends him to his room, unaware he'll just climb out the window after about five minutes.