Kitty and Jubilation gathered around the radio, set to an eighties metal station and blasting Bon Jovi's Lay Your Hands On Me at ninety decibels. Fortunately for the two X-girls, Scott was out, obsessing about Jean dating Lance and dragging poor Rogue with him, and thus they got no huffy orders to turn down the radio and stop disturbing others from doing their homework. Kitty nodded along the song, following the words closely on the lyrics page she'd brought up on Jubilation's lap top.
"You know, I can't figure out why my parents always make such a big deal about eighties hair metal bands," the chestnut-haired freshman muttered. "I mean, it's not as if they're that loud or anything--although Guns N' Roses' Welcome To The Jungle came pretty darn close to breaking the supersonic range."
Jubilation shrugged at the GN'R remark, then apparently found something more interesting to focus on, as she remarked, "Hey, speak of the devil...They're playing that exact video on VH1. Some kind of eighties countdown show."
"Oh, really?" Kitty leaned over, turning down the radio volume a couple of notches, as she asked, "What number did they rank?"
"Nine," came the prompt response from the pretty Chinese girl, and her chestnut-haired housemate remarked, "Hey, that's pretty cool."
"You know what else is cool?" Jubilation spoke up. Kitty shrugged.
"What?" she wanted to know, not bothering to guess.
"Axl Rose's hair in the video," Jubilation replied. At this, Kitty inched closer, studiously observing Axl's hairstyle, before nodding, "Eh...it's okay, I guess. Personally, I never went for the wild eighties hair thing."
"Yeah, me neither, but look at how cute he is in that '88 interview," Jubilation remarked.
"Ooh, let me see!" Kitty moved in to get a closer look, and was soon agreeing vigorously, "Wow, he is cute...Who knew a guy could have longer hair than both you and I, and still look absolutely gorgeous?"
Jubilation shrugged.
"Beats me," she mumbled. "Hey, speaking of gorgeous guys with long hair..."
Much to the two girls annoyance,
before they could continue their discussion of gorgeous guys with long
hair, a manic-looking Evan dashed down the stairs, interrupting their conversation
and making a beeline straight to the radio, switching the station from
eighties rock to modern-day pop, as he ranted, "The dedications are about
to come on, and this time, I know I'm going to get my request right!"
Just then, the song ended, and the DJ's voice came back on, to announce
grandly, "And now, we have a request dialed in a few minutes ago, from
a young man named Evan Daniels."
Evan triumphantly pumped his fist into the air at hearing that.
"Yes! I knew my bribe
would work," he crowed, starting to do a little victory dance but abruptly
stopping when he realized that both Kitty and Jubilation were now staring
at him with wide eyes.
"Now, you must realize that
this is one of the more obscure songs, originally released several decades
ago, and it was quite a pain in the you-know-where to find. But, I'm proud
to say that the good people here at the station have finally dug up a copy
of the song," the DJ continued, as Evan began to look suspicious.
"Hey," he began to protest,
to no one in particular, "I didn't phone in such an obscure song..."
Before he could continue, however, the DJ dropped the bomb by announcing
the title of the song.
"Here is Evan's dedication--to
himself, apparently--Peggy Lee's I'm A Woman!"
Evan's eyes bugged wide open, as Kitty and Jubilation struggled yet
failed pathetically to keep in their fits of giggling.
"PIETROOOOOOO!!!"
Over at the radio station,
the DJ waited expectantly as Pietro forked over the cash he'd stolen from
Xavier's safe.
"Here you go, Buh Buh,"
Pietro chirped happily. The DJ started to get angry, as he gritted out,
"For the last time, that's...Oh, forget it!" He snapped grumpily, as he
realized that it was a hopeless cause to argue some sense into the silver-haired
youth gloating in front of him.
"That's the spirit, Jujube,
that's the spirit," Pietro preened. Glancing over his shoulder, the slender
Brotherhood boy added, sounding somewhat confused, "By the way, a bunch
of skateboards were sent to you earlier today. They're in your locker right
now, squashing a bunch of important-looking documents."
Scott leaned as far as he could toward the door to Lance's bedroom without being too indiscreet, wondering what could possibly be taking Rogue so long. All she had to do was somehow seduce an apparently quite faithful Lance into going out with her and allow Scott an opportunity to smoothly slide in and play hero to a shattered Jean! What the hell was so hard about that? He muttered some rather unflattering comments under his breath, before leaning further toward the door and trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. Seated across from him, a flour-covered Tabitha raised a plate of badly-burnt pastries, and chirped brightly, "More cookies, Shades?"
"So, um...Nirvana! That's
a, um, that's a great grunge band," Scott, absently reaching over and taking
a rock-hard cookie from a preening Tabitha, could hear Rogue stammer out
awkwardly.
"Yup. Nothing defines Seattle
grunge better than Nirvana," Lance remarked, as Scott made faces at the
sound of his rival's voice.
"Yeah. And, um, that Jeremy
video was really touching," Rogue went on, sounding as stupid as she probably
felt.
"Uh...that was Pearl Jam,"
Lance corrected her, and Scott could almost imagine her blush. Well, if
the blush could be seen underneath all the layers of pale makeup. Now that
he thought back to it, had he ever seen Rogue's natural skin color?
He didn't really think so...
"Come on! I know they don't
look Mrs. Field's material, but trust me, they're delish!" Tabitha's voice,
advertising her homemade cookies, brought his mind back to the situation
at hand.
"Right, right, Pearl Jam."
Inside the room, Rogue instantly corrected herself, rather flustered. "I,
uh, heard that their frontman, um, what was his name again? Oh, yeah, Eddie
Van Halen, um, I heard that he recently died of a drug overdose."
"That was Alice In Chains,
their frontman was called Layne Stanley, Pearl Jam's lead singer is Eddie
Vedder, and Eddie Van Halen is Van Halen's guitarist," Lance corrected
her, sounding more amused than anything else.
"Um, right!" God, that
was so incredibly stupid! Rogue internally cringed, as she wondered
how she could possibly make an even bigger fool of herself in front
of Lance than she already had. But, she thought bitterly, knowing her luck,
she would more likely than not find a way.
"Right," she muttered, choosing
a relatively safe word. "So, um..."
Just then, Lance suddenly caught sight of something.
"Hey," he remarked appreciatively,
"nice clunkers!"
Outside the room, Scott,
who had just taken a tentative sip of tea when he heard the particular
comment, promptly and oh-so-suavely spat out his drink, nearly spraying
Tabitha's carefully madeup face. The blonde Brotherhood bombshell, meanwhile,
blinked dazedly under her near brush with Scott's saliva, before huffily
pouting, "Oh, come on! It can't be that bad!" Scott, however, was
far too caught up in what was going on inside Lance's bedroom, to really
care about what Tabitha was saying, as he leaned closer, tilting dangerously
in his chair, to hear more of the conversation.
"Thanks," came Rogue's shocking
response, and Scott promptly spat out a second round of tea, at which Tabitha
huffed and grumbled, "Okay, I think I'm going to go sit over there!"
"No, really," Lance was
saying. "I mean, they're so well-shaped and big, without being too clunky
and everything."
"Oh, well thank you," Rogue
preened. "Can you believe I got them for only sixty dollars?"
SPPFFFT!
"Shades! Will you quit spraying
my walls?" Tabitha whined.
"No way." Lance whistled
in amazement, and, as Scott was moaning to himself about how Rogue had
soiled her body and the feminine race by getting well-shaped, big without
being too clunky, sixty-dollar breast implants, the dark-haired Brotherhood
bad boy added, "You know, I'm not sure whether Jean's into this sort of
stuff, but she might like it."
"Oh, trust me, she'll love
them," Rogue assured him. "I mean, they just feel so comfortable...Plus,
they're really smooth, too."
"They sure look smooth,"
Lance commented.
"They are," Rogue said firmly.
And then, suddenly, she added, "Here, you want to feel them?"
SPPFFFT!
"God, you would think that
living in a rich bald man's mansion would have taught you some manners,"
Tabitha griped. But Scott had other things to worry about. From inside
the room, he could distinctively hear Lance marveling, "Wow, they really
are
smooth..."
That was it. He could take
it no longer. With disturbing mental images of Lance groping all over Rogue
dancing in his head, Scott leapt up promptly (without spitting out any
more
of Tabitha's special tea, one might add) after tilting over too far in
his chair and falling rather unceremoniously on his face, and burst into
the room.
"All right, this is enough!"
Scott complained. "I asked Rogue to come over here to discuss some mutual
interests with you, not to prostitute her body and allow you to grope her
and...and...and..."
A surprised-looking Lance, and a surprised and somewhat pissed-looking
Rogue, stared up at him, both with mouths open. Lance was holding one of
Rogue's shiny, clunky black boots in his hands, as Scott suddenly realized
what had truly been going on, and began to wish for a crack large enough
for him to sink through.
"Oh, um...oops?"
"Nice going, Summers," Rogue
hissed, as the two of them prepared to exit the Brotherhood's humble abode.
"You kept on telling me to get closer to Lance, and just when we were starting
to feel comfortable talking with each other, you had to burst in and accuse
him of groping me!"
"Hey, it wasn't my fault!"
Scott defended himself. "I mean, it really did sound much more suggestive,
and I was just trying to defend your honor!"
"My hero," Rogue drawled
sarcastically.
Just then, Lance, wearing
an old, tight-fitting black T-shirt over his ripped blue jeans, came jogging
down the stairs. Heading toward his Jeep, the tall, dark, and handsome
senior called out to Tabitha, "Bye, Tabby. I'm going to the gym to work
out!"
Rogue suddenly froze, as she remembered Tabitha's story of how Lance
always ripped off his shirt before going to the showers after he worked
out. Meanwhile, Lance was already disappearing out the door, and getting
into the Jeep to start up the engine.
Five Minutes Later...
"Rogue! Come back here, you over-madeup car thief!" Scott hollered, chasing after his prized convertible...which Rogue had hijacked to apparently chase after Lance in his Jeep heading to the gym, for some reason which Scott would never figure out.