Title: The Purging of the Red, Part 4

Fandom: X-Men: Evolution
Characters: X23, Jean, mansion females

Prompt: # , Red
Word Count:
Rating: G
Summary: The girls get tired of Jean lording her naturally luscious red hair over them.

Jean and Laura had decided spontaneously to camp out in the woods on the mansion grounds, and Rogue and Tabby were extremely irritated about this when they woke up the next morning, having never been informed that Jean had gone to sleep. They had fallen asleep waiting in Rogue's room, while Kitty had given up on trying to sleep in there in disgust and taken a pillow and blanket down to the couch in the rec room. Amara, Rahne, and Jubilee had given up a little after midnight and gone to bed.

When everyone had yelled and fought their way through their morning routines and went down to the kitchen for breakfast, they noticed that Jean and Laura still hadn't shown up again from their mysterious camping trip. Their bad moods had transferred to the guys, and by the time the adults had realized that something similar to a civil war was about to occur, Jean and Laura had snuck back inside and quickly finished setting up their plan.

First Laura meandered casually into the kitchen, acting as though nothing was amiss. She searched around for the orange juice, finding it in the cereal cabinet, and appeared to ignore the glares and looks of shock that she was receiving. Only after taking a long drink straight from the carton did she acknowledge the surprised mutants at the table.

"What?" she said.

"You little traitor!" Tabby yelled, slamming her spoon down in her cereal.

"What do you mean?" Laura asked, somehow keeping a straight face as she leaned against the counter.

"You told her, didn't you! That's why neither of you were around last night!"

Laura tried to look wounded and failed, instead looking like the predator she was. She tucked part of her new bangs behind her ear, and took another swig of orange juice.

"I found out on my own, thank you," Jean said, stepping around the door into the kitchen. "Telepath, remember? Laura just needed a haircut, so she got dragged into this just by being in the same room when the idea popped up." With that, she smiled sweetly and turned in a slow but smug circle so that everyone could see her hew flipped-out-at-the-ends, jaw-length bob and how nice it looked with her new sundress.

Rogue started turning red with either embarrassment or fury. Jean took the orange juice from Laura.

"They're called cups. Stop drinking out of the carton." She turned to Rogue and Tabby. "If it bothered you so much, why didn't you come talk to me? Dying my hair would have gotten you in a ton of trouble, but talking wouldn't cost a thing. It's okay though. I took a few liberties and the dye is now hidden somewhere safe. As for this-"she gestured vaguely at her bob, "-spring is so warm and my hair was so long that I decided to cut it and donate it. You know how I had to keep flipping it out of my face."

The girls were speechless, but Rahne and Amara looked like they were about to burst out laughing. Laura allowed a quick smile to herself and winked at Logan, who'd been watching the whole scene suspiciously from near Professor Xavier, who looked extremely amused and knew the whole truth.

"By the way," Jean said, turning suddenly. "Jubilee, these are yours. I'm sorry I took them, it was rude. Yellow isn't really a good color for me, but since you pull it off so well I had to at least try. I'll stick to my own accessories from now on."

"That's...fine," Jubilee said, taking her yellow sunglasses from Jean, trying to remember that Jean had actually pulled the look off extremely well and failing.

"Tabby? I'm sorry I keep using your brush. While Laura and I were out I bought my own and put your back. I even cleaned all the little hairs out. I hope that's okay."

"Um, sure. Whatever." Tabby tried not to look angry that Jean had twisted the situation.

"And Rogue?" Rogue stared resolutely at her food, trying to figure out whether or not Laura told Jean or if she really had known all along to come up with such an ending. "I'm sorry that I keep invading while you're in the bathroom. I bought a larger mirror and hung it in my room, so I don't need to barge in on you any more just to fix my hair."

Courtesy required Rogue to accept the apology even though she was pretty sure she didn't want to, and the situation appeared resolved. Laura managed to not get in trouble over this, Rogue and Tabby were thwarted but still, in a sense, got what they wanted. Laura finally got a haircut that didn't look so severe. And Jean didn't flip her hair anymore, deliberately at someone or not.

However the dye did end up getting put to good use, in the end. It was a temptation too great to pass by, so when a few weeks later after a fight between Tabby and Jean broke out, it didn't really surprise any of the girls when Tabby stomped into the kitchen with the ugliest imaginable hair color. Jean ended up cleaning the X-Jet for a month, but she maintained that it was worth it just to see Tabby get a comeuppance. Laura sat in a lawn chair underneath the X-Jet and kept her company.