Title: Rock and Roll Radu
Author: Sofiana
Summary: Why Andromedans aren't meant to be rockers. My second attempt at writing a "Space Cases" story after writing a really terrible first attempt.
Rating: Oh, I don't know... PG for a suggestive comment from Bova.
"Aw, c'mon Radu..." Harlan was whining, and it made Radu wince. Humans were very good at whining, and any Andromedan would tell you that whining was the most unwelcomed, uncalled for sound in the universe.
Radu sighed, his patience wearing thinner by the minute. When he had agreed to watch the thirty-minute documentary entitled "Earth: The 1900s" with Harlan in the Team Room, he hadn't counted on two things. First of all, he'd have never thought that Harlan, who had always said that history was the subject he hated most, would get so wrapped up in watching the film that Miss Davenport had assigned. And second, Radu hadn't counted on being begged to do something that would embarrass the Andromedan out of his mind.
"Harlan, stop..." he pleaded with the persisant Earther. "I really don't want to. I'd probably end up looking stupid."
"I'm telling you, though!" Harlan wouldn't be stifled. Radu sighed again, bracing himself for an earful of reasons why... "It would be so cool!"
"No..." Radu had wanted to sound firm, but he ended up coming across as weak and wishy-washy. "That's too embarrassing. No way."
"What's too embarrassing, Radu?" Rosie piped up from across the room, more interested in the conversation between Harlan and Radu than the game that she and Suzee were playing. Suzee had tried going easy on Rosie, but even so, Rosie was still losing their game of Minbar Chess. (Rosie didn't want to risk being negative so she had tried to convince herself that the game was still fun even if she never won.)
"I've got it!" Harlan snapped his fingers as the lightbulb went off in his head. "You could even do a demonstration when I present my report to the class. I'm thinking of focusing on the 1980s entirely. The other decades are too dull."
"Oh right." Suzee purposely made a very clumsy chess move in hopes that Rosie would counter it correctly. Then she looked up from the game to sneer at Harlan.
"I'm sure Miss Davenport would be thrilled to pieces that you chose to leave out a century's worth of political conflicts, racial conflicts, wars, and technological progess to focus on hair-bands, too much makeup, and primative video games. We all know those are the defining qualities of the century." Her sarcasm was quite eloquent, even by Bova's standards.
"Don't forget headbanging!" Harlan chirped. In response to that, Suzee blew her bangs out of her face and slammed a chess piece down on the board to counteract yet another wrong move from Rosie.
"Checkmate!" she screamed. Radu cowered slightly, his hands instinctively heading for his ears. Harlan cackled victoriously. Rosie bit her lip and looked at the chessboard. Suzee's outburst was even enough to get a reaction out of an uninterested Bova who had been busy working on his own report. He glanced up from his compad to glare at them.
"Hey, I'm trying to study Uranus, here." He paused to mentally review what he had just said. "...Don't anybody laugh at that."
"Headbanging," Harlan repeated himself. He wasn't listening to Bova at all. No one was, not even Radu, who had made a face when Harlan said the word. "You look like one of these guys, Radu. It would be hysterical."
Harlan backtracked the documentary until he came upon the segment about 80's hair bands. The screen displayed the lead singer of a band called Twisted Sister whose long, uncontrollable mane made him look like an Andromedan with Earther ears. Radu shuddered, remembering the time when his own ears were temporarily transformed in a freak mishap that had turned he and the rest of the crew, except for Davenport and the Commander, into each others' races.
"Do it, and I'll never bother you again," Harlan begged, on the verge of subjected Radu to another round of whining.
"...I'm going to hold you to that one," Radu said, after a long pause. Defeated, Radu felt his eagerness to please overcoming his own free will. Harlan, on the other hand, was grinning from ear to ear.
Radu stood up. Studied the picture carefully. Watched as Harlan played back that section of the video in slow motion. Finally, after carefully observing the video, Radu tilted his head back. Here goes nothing, he thought.
Whooosh!
He threw his head forward, his hair cascading behind him, going up and then over. His head flew back. Then forward. Then back again. Forward again, hair going everywhere. He could hear Harlan laughing his brains out in the background. Rosie was laughing, too, in her higher-pitched ever-polite little way, and even Bova had managed a devilish chuckle.
Radu, on the other hand, thought that he was surely going out of control. He started playing the so-called "air guitar" somewhere in the middle of it all, making grunting noises that had an almost recognizable melody. It sounded something like one of the songs in the video.
After what seemed like forever, he finally stopped. But when he looked up, the world kept on spinning. Radu didn't think that he had ever been so dizzy in all his life. Andromedans hardly ever got dizzy, unless their internal atmosphere was severely out of kilter. Feeling somewhere in between throwing up and passing out.
"...Oh, look, bunnies." After thoughtfully admiring the pink bunnies dancing in front of his eyes, Radu chose the second option and collapsed onto the floor in a heap.
Instantly, Rosie rushed over to him. "He's out cold!" she cried. Harlan, why did you make him do that? Oh, Radu... Radu, can you hear me? Radu, please answer me..."
Again, Bova merely looked up, vaguely interested.
"And that, my friends, is why Andromedans weren't meant to be Earth-dwelling 80's hair-band heavy metal rockers." Bova said, indifferently. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "The end."