A/N: Gleefully Wicked pointed out a plot hole in our headcanon. Since it was my fault, I retconned it. This is the result. I don't own Wednesday, but Nell, Erik, and Melanie are joint property of GW and I (and we take them very seriously).
Erik Gomez Charles Addams-Beineke had stolen a bottle.
It was a fairly nondescript bottle; tall and plastic, with a conical black top through which the red goop inside could be squeezed out. The fate of nations did not hang on this bottle. Neither could it save anyone's life, avert war, or cure some crippling disease. And yet, the little thief was hiding in a cabinet under the kitchen sink from the fate that awaited him when the bottle's owner caught up with him.
"Erik! You little rat; I am going to pulverize you!"
Which, judging by the sound of boots stomping down the stairs, wouldn't be long. If the 7-year-old had been religious, he'd have started making peace with his chosen deity. Instead, he just clutched his prize closer, smiled, and unknowingly knocked over a bottle of drain cleaner when he shifted his left leg.
A few minutes later, the cabinet door was flung open. Nell knelt down to face him, looking absolutely livid; the more his smile grew, the more her eyes narrowed.
"Give. It. Back," she said.
Erik tauntingly raised the bottle. "What, this?"
"Yes, that." She made a grab for it, only to have it snatched just out of reach.
"Nope," he crowed. "You'll just have to live without it. Too bad-" the little boy reached out to touch his sister's dark red curls - "I think your roots are showing."
Nell slapped his hand away. "Shut up." Another grab for the bottle, but in the tight confines of the cabinet, her much smaller brother had the advantage.
"Why do you use this stuff, anyway?" Erik asked, examining the hair dye. The 13-year-old rolled her eyes.
"Because my natural color is boring."
"Father has brown hair," the boy pointed out. He scooted deeper into the cabinet to avoid yet another attempt on her part to recapture the bottle.
"Yes, and so does half the population of the world or more. Ergo, it's boring," she replied.
"I don't even remember you with brown hair," he said with mock innocence. "Maybe you'd like it if you tried it again."
Nell finally grabbed his wrist. "Not going to happen. I like red and it suits me better. And considering I've been doing this since I was eight, that's not about to change." Without further conversation, she dragged Erik out of the cabinet. The bottle was snatched from his grasp, and he prepared to run- only to be stopped by an iron grip on his shoulder. He turned to see his sister eyeing the bottle thoughtfully.
"You know," she mused, "I wonder if this stuff would show up on black hair."
Erik glared at her. "You wouldn't."
"Oh, yes, I would. It's just a matter of tying you down securely- and maybe going to the drugstore to get some bleach." A devious smirk crept across her face. With Herculean effort that only another Addams could have managed, he broke her grip and raced up the stairs.
"I know where you sleep, maggot!" Nell shouted, just before the door to Erik's room slammed. She gave a satisfied chuckle and headed for the stairs- only to stop at the sound of footsteps on the creaking wood, this time coming down. It soon became apparent that the source of the noise was a middle-aged woman, with a little girl in tow.
"Mom?" Nell took in Wednesday's long-suffering expression. "What's wrong?"
"What have I told you about leaving your hair dye lying around?" the latter asked, her voice tense. Her daughter raised an eyebrow, and the plastic bottle.
"I got it back. Erik took it, but he didn't do anything with it; the level still looks about the same."
"Not that. Your 'emergency spare bottle'."
The four-year-old chose that moment to look up and smile at her sister, and Nell realized what her mother was talking about. Red dye streaked her otherwise pale face.
With a groan, the teenager bent down to her level. "Melanie, what did you do?"
"Finger-paint!" Melanie replied, proudly holding out her hands. The red palms made her look as if she'd just committed a gruesome murder. It became apparent to Nell upon closer examination that red dye was also splotched across the child's pink skirt, white t-shirt, and the ends of her blonde hair. It also became apparent that Wednesday was giving her a look that, had Nell not been her daughter, would have promised painful retribution.
"Um...I'm sorry?" she tried, getting to her feet.
Wednesday's frown didn't change. "I was going to punish you by banning hair dye from the house for a year-"
"Mom!"
"-but your father and I have always given you three complete freedom of expression, and he talked me out of it."
Nell made a mental note to thank Lucas profusely the next time she saw him.
"So I've thought of something better," her mother continued.
"What?"
She pressed Melanie's tiny, red-stained hand into Nell's. "You get to clean her up."
As she walked away, leaving Nell to contemplate the ordeal ahead, quiet laughter echoed through the upstairs hall. The oldest Addams-Beineke child glanced up the stairs to see her brother sitting on the top step, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
"You know," he called down to her, "it would probably be easier for everyone if you just left your hair natural."
Nell sighed, got a better grip on Melanie's hand, and started up the stairs with her. "Shut up."
A/N: Before anyone asks, no, there will not be any story wherein Nell is a brunette. As all of you who've written OCs know, they have minds of their own, and Nell will stop dyeing her hair when pigs fly.