Author's Gibberish: Guess who's back? Sorry about the wait, I've been really, really busy with my senior year. I've had four four-page essays all due within the same week! So, obviously, life has been a little hectic.

I would like to make another apology for the readers of RR. I'll be updating soon, it's just that I've hit a point where I feel the story is either going way to fast, or way too slow... so there are some technical things I need to work out. I'm kind of struggling with the plot too, because I'm losing my hype over the whole 'Big Bang' that was supposed to pop up in the next chapter. Rest assured, IT WILL BE FINISHED... eventually. Really, it's taking the back seat to my finishing the 30kisses challenge.

Anyway, please read and review. You all give me a really big push, and I'm kind of going through an inspirational slump at the moment. I really want to know if the characters are OC. For some reason I'm struggling with it now, so if you have anything to point out, please do so.

So, about the story... I've based it off of "That 70's Show," and how they use a split screen to show two locations at once. I wanted to see if I could recreate the effect in a fic. So, viola, another AU story was born. I hope you all enjoy it.

Tawnyb


Disclaimer: I own nothing. Get that? Nothing. I'm legally incapable of owning anything. In truth, my parents own me.


"Soooo…

"Soooo…."

"So what?" The words were clipped, the teen shifting annoyed green irises away from her friend to one of the basement's many-autographed, expensively framed and professionally hung-posters.

Millerna Aston snorted, the noise sounding absurdly feminine and sophisticated. She loved the way it grated on her companion's nerves. "So what did he do this time?"

She settled back, delicately examining a well manicured nail and prepared herself for an onslaught of 'he said, she said.' It was old news by now.


"Van, if you want to talk about something, may I recommend that you actually speak? Pouting in the corner of my basement and glaring at me gets neither of us anywhere and puts a very large question-mark over your estrogen levels." Allen Schezar gazed over his fencing magazine, a finely plucked eyebrow raised.

There was a very stubborn grunt, and red eyes glared away, suddenly transfixed on the sparsely decorated walls.

Allen sighed-one of the overly dramatic 'oh whoa is me' sort of sounds coveted by those raised in the upper class-and closed the glossed pages, setting the magazine on the glass-topped coffee table. "So what did you do this time?"

Honestly, this was getting to be a habit. Allen stared down the teen, fighting to actually listen and not tune it out. It was all old news to him.


"My Dad caught us." Green eyes never left the signed Blink-182 poster.

"Oh well that…wait, what?" Millerna stopped, no longer grimacing at a minutely nicked French-tip, but instead lifting very wide eyes to her stubborn and blushing friend. "Like caught-caught? Or caught-caught?"

By the time Hitomi's eyes-wide, terrified and completely mortified-finally found the older girl's, she really didn't need the answer.

"Oh. My. God! I… I… Oh God!" Millerna pulled a hand to rest on her lips, the words and her delicate demeanor no longer matching, but instead clashing in an oddly cohesive manor.

Hitomi had shifted, her head in her hands. One green eye peeked out from under honey-blonde bangs, framed by a cherry red face. "Yeah."

"But, when did you two? I mean… you never mentioned sleeping with him…" Millerna's cheeks stained pink, but her whisper strained toward indignation.

"We weren't…" And here, Hitomi buried her hand-covered face into her knees, forming an uncomfortable looking ball shape, "We weren't all the way there yet… I… I mean…"

The older girl blinked, eyes comically wide. "Oh God… were you… were you naked?" There was the girl shook her head and held up two fingers very close together, almost. "Oh God! What did he do? I mean Van. I know what your Dad did. I'm kind of surprised Van's still living… with teeth in his mouth and no broken bones."

Another nod; this time Millerna could see the red creeping down the poor girl's neck and to the tips of her ruby-red ears. "The moron tried to argue with him in his boxers!"

There was a pause. "Did he realize how bad that was?"

The girl's voice was loud, indignant. "No! He left!"

Another pause where Millerna was delicately slack-jawed and utterly terrified. Then: "He's an idiot."

It hung in the air that really-when it came down to Van and relationships-it was old news.


"Her Dad caught us." Ruby eyes glared at the blue and black painted cinderblock wall.

There was a polite little choking noise from the back of the blonde man's throat. "Pardon?"

The lancing glare was answer enough.

"Well…" The Casanova of Valley Point High School blanched. Then, slowly, turned an interesting shade of pale pink as he rubbed the back of his neck. He had never been caught in the act before. "Uh… How bad of a… state…were you in?"

It was odd seeing someone so tan turn so red. "I'm not dead, so obviously we weren't that… far along."

"Huh." Allen murmured, having tossed his chivalrous high class act out the window for a second, replaced it with his less doting, less eloquent self. "How did you… handle that situation?"

Van snorted. "Left, obviously." The normally quiet teen sat for a moment, as if thinking over divulging more was necessary. "I might have said a thing or two to her Dad for yelling at her."

Allen blinked, once, twice. "Pardon?"

"I was trying to find my pants and… he just kept yelling. She was scared as it was! She didn't need his help."

"And then you left." It was flat, the older man's face blank and disbelieving.

Van watched as Allen leaned forward and scrubbed his eyes with his palms. "Yes, why?"

Blue eyes flashed back at him, hands still at Allen's face. "You are an idiot."

It went without saying that, really, it was old news to the both of them.


"Well." Millerna was at a loss, blinking at her friend as the younger girl curled back into that uncomfortable looking ball position. "The next time won't be so bad. I mean, you'll definitely lock the-"

"There is no way in hell are we ever even trying to do that again!" Blue eyes widened in shock, watching as Hitomi turned an unclassified level of red and straightened up in her seat. "It was awkward and uncomfortable, and really, really not worth it!"

She collapsed in a huff, hiding behind one hand. Millerna slid closer to her, patting her friend's knee soothingly. "Oh come now, it couldn't have been that terrible."

There was a frustrated mumble that Millerna couldn't quite catch. "Dear, what did you say? I can't hear you with your hands over your face."

Hitomi snorted, pulling the offending appendages to settle on her knees. "I said: 'He broke the clasp of my favorite bra!'"

"That really pretty black we got at Victoria Secret?" Millerna blinked, wide eyed once again.

"Yeah."

Well, that was news. Millerna hadn't known it was possible to ruin a bra via clip destruction.

.:.

"Well, you blew it." The blonde man grinned, finding that not poking fun at the poor boy was far too irresistible.

Van dropped his head onto the back of the couch. "Hn."

But it wasn't any fun if he rolled over and played dead, Allen decided. The boy looked miserable and, though Allen found him lacking in maturity at times, he was picking at the older man's heartstrings like a kicked puppy. It was frustrating to a disturbing degree.

"Oh, come on. It isn't like you won't get another chance. She always manages to forgive you, somehow." There was message hidden underneath the reassurance, because, really, the girl deserved an award. 'She's a saint, in my opinion.'

"No, there won't. I fucked it up too badly." When Allen tried to interrupt, Van shook his head to silence him, "It wasn't just the getting caught part. The whole thing sucked."

Wondering just what could possibly be worse than being caught by the girl's father, Allen stared at his friend for a good moment. "What did you do?"

There was a groan, and Van mumbled something, hands raking back shaggy black bangs. "I snapped the clasp on her favorite bra."

Allen went very, very pale. "Really?"

Well, that was news to him. He hadn't thought Van had had it in him.


"Dear God. Didn't you stop after that? I mean, I would have." Millerna grimaced when the girl shook her head, still a very odd shade between whiplash-white and mortified-maroon. Perhaps a spank-me-pink would-in both color and situation-be the proper name…

"I screwed it up. I mean, sure I was mad at him, but we had kind of already gone past that stage where…uh…well, stopping wasn't an option anymore. If I hadn't of screamed Dad wouldn't have come running over from the neighbor's house, and well, you know."

Millerna gave a very polite nod, patting the girls back and somehow exuding the aura of a slightly perverted mother giving advice to their poor, naïve and misguided child. And, in the spirit of her offbeat presence, asked a question that made Hitomi go from spank-me-pink to, again, mortified-maroon. "So, what did he show you that made you scream?"

Maybe maroon wasn't the color… grotesque-green seemed more in the ballpark.

"He didn't show me anything! I sat on the bed and kind of crawled backwards, and… and…"

When the girl, apparently having a flashback similar to that of 'Nam veteran, refused to continue, Millerna decided to give a bit of a push. "And?"

"I sat on a freaking pencil! I had just sharpened it, and it left a nice big bleeding hole in my thigh, so I jumped and fell off the freaking bed! Of course I was going to scream! All of a sudden I was inspecting the carpet with my nose!"

"Oh."

Millerna wondered if there had ever been a more dysfunctional couple to ever attempt the feat of sex on the planet.

If there was, it would be news to her.


"So how on God's green Earth did you get passed that one?" Allen leaned forward, actually intent on hearing the answer. Van was either an undercover sex god, or Hitomi was part saint. Allen was betting on the later.

"We'd kind of already passed that point." Tan cheeks turned an odd red color that matched his wine eyes. Both darkened dangerously as the blond gave an undignified snort of amusement.

Trying to defend himself, Van continued. "If she hadn't of screamed, I wouldn't be here right now."

Allen blinked. "I'm sorry to ask, but exactly what made her scream?" The implications were a little more than obvious.

"I didn't show her anything! She sat on a pencil and fell off the bed!"

It didn't help Van's cause when Allen finally cracked up. Really, the two were probably the most challenged couple in the universe.

And if they weren't, that'd be news.


Millerna pinched the bridge of her nose, listening as the door closed and began counting down from twenty.

When nothing happened, she quickly reached into one of her pockets to pull out her-very new, very expensive-cell phone, only to have it ring in her hands.

When the opening notes of Placebo's "Protégé Moi" started up, she quickly pressed it to her ear. "Oh, Allen, do I have something to tell you!"

She wasn't really surprised to find out that the story was already old news.