Citizens of Mondegreen

By Mice

Part One: June

-Jubilee-

"Breed on the cat with a big straw hat." Beat on the Brat, The Ramones

-1-

One of the first things Jubilee hated about the apartment is that her bedroom only had one window. She tried to convince Annie that she was more than deserving of the master bedroom, but Annie had just continued to move her stuff in without further consideration on the matter.

With the bedroom that had the one window came a limited amount of flow of air, to which Jubilee was sure was a cruel and inhumane torture intended for her. She couldn't sleep in past ten a.m. because of it. When she got up to complain, Annie just muttered about Jubilee's lack of clothes and that she was working on something.

When Jubilee did emerge freshly dressed, she made her breakfast and turned on the television. Problem was that Annie was working on something in the living room and couldn't see that Jubilee had a big day of catching up on soap operas to do. Annie just stayed put, never really watching the television. Even when Annie's favorite soap, Passions, came on, she didn't bat an eye, but made plenty of noise while working.

When it was time for dinner, Jubilee unglued herself from the couch long enough to throw something in the microwave. Annie cooked her own food, but never offered any to Jubilee. Annie's food smelled…not good, but most definitely edible. Jubilee's food usually looked and smelled like 80's fashion.

Jubilee did not take this lightly. She rebelled by leaving her dishes in the sink until they were a game of Jenga. She did this for the trash as well. In the bathroom they shared, Jubilee purposefully neglected to replace missing toilet paper. Her hair products were strewn over the counter in a most dominating way.

Annie didn't say a word, just kept tinkering with her projects or leaving at night for the work Xavier was having her blah blah blah. It didn't interest Jubilee. It just pissed her off.

Then, finally, there was a solution in Jubilee's mind that she was sure that Annie couldn't ignore. Something that would tell Annie that she wasn't the greatest roommate ever, either.

She wasn't expecting Annie to help her pack, to give her a ride, and she wasn't prepared for her tires to squeal on the way out of the driveway as she left, but she knew it'd begin to eat Annie up soon. Jubilee wasn't an easy person to get over.

"Would you like Jacqueline's old room, Billie?" Nan Bass asked her from the doorway.

And so, only after a month after moving back to Los Angeles, Jubilee wound up at Nan Bass's home, where she was taken out to dinner and ate meat and potatoes, rolls that came with pats of butter and a waiter who had even nicer pats of butter. She watched television into the wee hours with her new housemate and helped herself to some ice cream before going to bed.

Jubilee finally relished living on her own for the first time.

-2-

The next morning, there was a prompt knock on the door. Jubilee knew it was morning by the fact that her body refused to want to get up. She did her best to ignore it, but it kept knocking. Jubilee eventually stumbled to the door in a small tank top and a fairly skimpy pair of panties and answered it. "Yeah?"

"Time to get moving, Billie."

Jubilee was sure that Nan was talking to her, but couldn't quite make out individual words. "Mmm-hmm."

"You should probably get dressed."

"Hmm."

Nan took a deep breath. "I'm not leaving until you get dressed – I need to go down to the gym."

The words were beginning to sound more and more like English. "What?"

"It's seven a.m., Billie. It's time for me to go to my gym. And I need you to drive me."

Jubilee groaned. "Who goes to the gym this early?"

"Well, not I – I usually go at about six – I need to stay the ever gray fox in my group of friends and that doesn't happen without effort. I tried waking you up at six, but you didn't answer the door and I thought I'd let you off easy the first night. Tomorrow, nothing is going to stop me from my early morning squats." With that, Nan closed the door on her and she heard her exit the house and enter her car. Jubilee thought she should amuse the woman as she dressed herself in a way that Geranimals would approve of and drug herself outside. She'd talk to Nan tonight about how she refused to rise before double-digit hours. It was just something she'd have to understand.

As Jubilee entered the car blurry eyed, she turned to her passenger and mumbled, "You know I don't have a license, right?"

"Well, I guess you know what you're doing tomorrow. Overland and Venice, Billie." Nan patted her shoulder. "You're going to see my other pride and joy."

-3-

Directly across the street from the impressive (and ridiculous) Bally's Total Fitness gym sat a fairly fantastic rival. There weren't a lot of hard bodies on display in the big picture windows, but nobody felt the need to throw their Starbucks coffee at the window, either.

"Do you like it, Billie?"

Still freshly woken up, Jubilee squinted. There was something comfortingly obnoxious about it. "Where the hell are we?"

"Foxy's. I bought a franchise. Granted, this is the first, but Chlora and Marie each bought one – Marie couldn't bring herself to drive all the way down from the Valley – tried telling her that she's just lazy and that the gym would help, but she said it was easier if she could just buy her own franchise." Nan clucked her tongue. "You know, that's exactly how she lost out to Debbie Reynolds for her part in "Singing in the Rain", the commute?"

"I didn't get to be in "Singin' in the Rain" because that slut Debbie Reynolds did things to the good Alfred Freed that I don't dare discuss here."

Nan turned and threw a look at her oldest (remaining) friend. "Did you get lost and wind up on the freeway, Marie?"

Marie threw her gym bag on the floor and scowled at her oldest friend (who refused to die). "My granddaughter is visiting me this summer before going to college and we happened to be in the area." Marie then took off her bulky sweat pants to reveal a fairly fantastic pair of gams for a woman in her seventies. "Besides, I thought that I could maybe inspire you."

Nan raised a magnificent eyebrow. "Good thinking, Marie, drawing attention to your legs, since that's how far your tits are pointing due south these days."

Jubilee took thoughtful steps away from the senior smack down and explored the gym. It wasn't "fantastic" compared to the previous facilities she had used, but there was something a bit more to it. It had the basic equipment that most gyms have and this gym seemed to have a clientele exclusively dedicated to women over fifty-five. One thing that did catch Jubilee's eye was the big, "No Shirt, No Pants, No Problem" sign at the front door with the visage of what seemed to be Paul Lekakis. There was another sign, this one with a particularly horrible picture of Liza Minelli with some particularly unclean language that Jubilee suspected Nan picked up while doing a USO show for the Navy.

Then it hit Jubilee. Most gyms did not feature young, buff, attractive gay men walking around in tight pants offering help to its patrons (well, Jubilee thought, none this far off from West Hollywood). At least the slogan also plastered on the front made more sense to her now: "Foxy's – We won't be out-foxed!"

"Is there anything I can help you with?"

Jubilee jumped – startled so early in the morning – by a very large man with a very large package. In fact, it was about eye level to her. Turning away quickly, she shouted, "Nan, I'm going to Starbucks!"

-4-

Jubilee licked the syrup from her coffee cup greedily. She didn't look forward to going back to the gym and wanted to stay at the Starbucks for a very, very long time. Jubilee was seated at a table that had a window facing directly across from Nan's gym. While she did not want to go back right away, she couldn't help but stare at it, making a small spectacle of herself in the process.

From her perch, Jubilee could see Nan and Marie were doing slo-mo kung fu fighting (at least she hoped it was slo-mo – there seemed to be a lot of excited older woman cheering the women on). Jubilee kept her eyes focused away from the gym.

"Nasty shit going down in there," a dark haired, dark eyed girl at a table nearby tossed to her. Jubilee was pretty sure it was for her since no one else was seated at this hour on a Sunday morning. The girl's eyes were on the gym, as well. "My bets are on the brunette."

Jubilee rolled her eyes. "Brunette's gonna get burned. The blonde is going take her ass and make it into a hat."

"That happens to be my grandmother!"

"And that happens to be my roommate!"

The girls glowered towards the gym. "Did she make you drive her here this early?" Jubilee grumbled.

"There ain't no way this ass would get out of its bed any other way. Did you know she made me drive down here from the Valley? She lives just a block away from this gym, but she said she had to finish something that was started fifty years ago." The girl got up to sit down at Jubilee's table. "I'm Missy."

Jubilee smiled small. "Billie."

Missy opened her cup to swallow the last remains of her coffee. "So Nan Bass is your roommate…is she renting to students this year?"

Jubilee shrugged. "My previous roommate left a lot to be desired."

Missy nodded. "But you're a student, right?"

"I'm taking a year off – I feel like I've been in the same grade for fourteen years. Just graduated and am looking forward to doing absolutely nothing."

Missy raised her eyebrows as she wiped the foam from out of her coffee cup with her finger. "Fair enough. I'm starting at UCLA this year."

"Where are you from?" Jubilee asked, instantly defensive of her home turf.

"I'm from here. I did some time down south in the San Diego area, though – experiences better left unsaid. I'm glad to be back up here."

Jubilee nodded. "Me too. I just got back from Massachusetts. I grew up here, though. It's good to be home. Nothing is quite like Los Angeles."

Nan and Marie stumbled into the Starbucks – spandex torn on each other's body and tiny, scarlet scratches and pink half moon marks covered their exposed flesh. Each ordered a tea and sat at tables far, far away from one another.

"For one, you don't get old woman wrestling – not with out pay-per view, at least." Missy got up to go to her grandmother. "I'm playing chauffer for her for the summer, so I guess I'll see you around."

Jubilee nodded as she went to Nan. "Yeah, sure. See you around."

Nan shook her head as Jubilee sat down. "What? Is it wrong to fraternize with the enemy's grand progeny?"

Nan sipped her tea. "No, just glad you have a friend your own age. Frankly, Billie, I worry. Not that I don't approve of Bobby, myself, and Diana –"

"Diana?"

"Your previous roommate."

"Hey! Annie is NOT my friend!"

"—but a girl needs friends her own age. Missy will be a good influence on you, and hopefully for her hag of a grandmother!"

"Nan!"

"I guess she won't be bragging about having all her real teeth, now!"

"She wears dentures?"

Nan pulled out a tooth from her pocket. "She'll have to wear something now."

-5-

-Annie-

"Oh Charles, please shut up now, this is scary." Voices Carry, Til Tuesday.

Annie gawked at herself in the mirror of her car. She knew she was going to do this since she was released from the hospital after finding out she had had an unscheduled hysterectomy. But between her then boyfriend's mother's funeral, tracking down the woman who performed the surgery on her, rebuffing the advances of someone she certainly did not want to rebuff, finding out her then boyfriend was a rapist who had grown bored of her, kicking the ass of the woman who did this to her, and then moving across the country to get away from it all…it didn't leave her enough time to get her hair cut.

Not only did Annie get an unfathomably cheery bob hair cut, she had it dyed it a more natural red (as natural as red could get). It was another part of a new costume she was building for herself in California. It was hard to believe that just a few years ago, she was the same Annie Peckenpaugh who waited tables and waited for her boyfriend/fiancé to grow up. It was a time Annie was finding hard to believe ever existed. In fact, that was happening to a lot of her memories and she was glad for the detachment.

She stepped out of the car and walked to the MINOA meeting – Mutants In Need Of Answers. It was part of an exchange she and Xavier had worked out for her rent and living expenses to survey these meetings. One part of many. While she felt like she was doing something, she wished it were something more useful.

At least these meetings came with free Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

"Fancy meeting you here again."

"There's no fancy about it, Chris," Annie bit between bites of her doughnut. "We discussed this last week. You asked if I was going to be back, and I said yes. There's no shock. There's no new sudden development, there's no—" Annie pointed to his doughnut. "Is that a cream filled?"

Chris Knight smiled. "I'll give it to you if you let me take you to dinner."

"You are not bribing me with a doughnut."

"I just did."

"I want that doughnut."

"I want to buy you a steak."

"No."

"Oh, are you a vegan? Fine, I'll buy you a carrot steak."

"I am NOT vegan?"

"Raw food girl? Funny, you don't look like a Holocaust survivor..."

"Christ, Chris..."

"Hey, if you're a raw foods girl, how come you're not telling me all about how a piece of lettuce is nature's taco?"

Annie grabbed the cream filled doughnut out of his hand. "I am NOT a raw foods girl. I'm from the west, we deep fat fry anything and we like it that way."

Chris grinned. This seemed to further annoy Annie. "What?"

"Deep fried Twinkie."

Annie continued to eat her doughnut.

"Does that make you hot?"

"...no..."

"I know where you can get one."

"Where!"

"Let me rephrase, I know where you can let me buy you one."

Annie began to glare at him. "Dr. Knight--"

"I told you, call me Chris."

"Whatever. Look, I don't understand why you are so keen on wanting to take me out. I am not a respected mind of science, so clearly you don't want to talk to me for my devastating intellect and so outside of wanting to get into my pants, I don't know why you would want to take me out to dinner. Because my pants are a in a "hands off" place right now."

"I'm hurt, Ms. Peckenpaugh." Chris took another doughnut from the box and took a bite. With a mouthful, he responded, "Hank is one of my favorite colleagues. Finding a scientist with an equally genius sense of humor is like finding a rich accordion player. Did he ever tell you about the time we were at a fundraiser together and to pass the time, we found a way to animate the Cornish game hens for a few seconds, leaving everyone to believe that we were being fed Zombie Game Hens?"

Annie sighed heavily.

"I won't even tell you what we did to the asparagus. Why do people even make that? Does anyone even like asparagus? Have you ever heard of one person say, "I have got to go and get me some asparagus!"?"

Annie stared at him. "What does Hank have to do with me?"

"He broke up with you and I want to kiss it and make it better."

Annie chose to glare at him this time. He was a golden glowing piece of smarm before her. Luckily, since she was trained to deal with this very thing from none other than the crowned prince of golden smarm, Warren Worthington, she was immune. "You are a thick one, Chris."

"The fact that you can tell that with all my clothes on is an accomplishment, Annie."

Annie grabbed a napkin and began to head over to her chair in the circle for the meeting. "I never dated Hank, Chris."

Chris followed after her. "So you didn't just break up?"

Annie sat herself between two women, shutting Chris out. "Didn't say that."

Chris gave his doughnut in exchange for one of the seats next to her. "Then are you saying you'll have dinner with me?"

Annie thought for a moment - she thought of W.W.W.W.D. - What Would Warren Worthington Do? She realized that Warren would pursue someone as long as they seemed dead set against seeing him. When his prey relented, so did his affections. "You said you know a place with fried Twinkies?"

The program director of MINOA, Clarice Snow, a product of MINOA who seemed to always know when a Gene Hackman film was playing without the use of a TV Guide, then clapped her hands in the middle of the chair circle. "Welcome, Minoans! Let us all clasp our hands with the person next to us in a formation of unity!"

"Uh, Clarice?" the woman on the other side of Annie spoke up.

"Yes, Jane?"

"I can't touch another person..."

"Does it have to do with your mutant power?"

"I have Krispy Kreme glaze on my fingers and there aren't any napkins..."

A man from across the circle. "Uhm, I have both - when I touch people, they seem to get classic tv sitcom themes stuck in their head for the next three hours and I have glaze on my fingers."

"Thank you, Howard. Anyone else?" Clarice shouted out.

Everybody raised their hands and soon, paper towels - and a pair of latex gloves for Howard - were passed around.

-6-

-Bobby-

"I remember Summer stalking me." -- The Metro, Berlin

Bobby struggled to remain upright in the chair in his counselor's office. He hadn't been sleeping again, though he wasn't entirely sure of the veracity of that statement. He was sure that he had to be sleeping sometimes, but he just couldn't remember it. There were times when he wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming. As a tactic, he took to sucking on peppermint candies - if he tasted peppermint, he was awake. If he didn't, he was dreaming about being on tour and being hailed as the sixth member of Duran Duran.

"Fuck!" Bobby swore out loud.

"What's the problem, there, trooper?" his counselor replied from his side of the desk.

Bobby held his head in his hands. "Duran Duran!"

"What about them?"

"I had tickets! They're playing next week - I was supposed to go with my girlfriend and...no chance I can get let out to go?"

"I'm afraid not, but I'm sure that there's something we can do to help."

"All five original members - all of them! One stage, one tour...and I'm not going to be here..." For the first time during his stay, Bobby felt the ground go out beneath him. He'd had smaller events similar to this, but it was more along the lines of smaller things, such as missing certain television programs or visitors that came round to his old residence. For the most part, Bobby was coping with being in rehab with a since of relief that the lack of responsibility it gave him. His nerves had calmed down a lot in the past few weeks he was here - in this environment, there wasn't much that could be done to him. But the concert triggered a heaving sob from him as he began to remember what else he wasn't going to be doing for a while.

"Robert...hey, buddy, wipe those tears away with an umbrella made by Kleenex." The counselor passed him a box of tissues which Bobby grabbed gingerly. "I know what you're going through. A lot of us have been where you are. Rock bottom, dire straights, but that doesn't mean that sunlight ceases to beam down on us. I've been going to this rehab for seven and a half years. I'm no dummy. I know rehab patients."

"Wait, what?" Bobby caught himself in mid-sob. "Aren't you my counselor?"

He grinned as he got up and put a hand on Bobby's shoulder. "I'm two great flavors in one! Look, do you want to spend time with some degree holding curmudgeonly imbecile telling you that you'll be fine when his strongest addiction is a little too much coffee here and there, or do you want me, been there and still doing that guy?"

"Still doing that?"

"I licked the cocaine addiction, I just got other addictions in the process - and that's the key to all success!"

Bobby looked up his nose. "I can see powder in your nose."

"Pixie Stick, Robert. Pixie Stick." He withdrew a package from his pocket. "Want some?"

Bobby shook his head no. Charles DeMarr shrugged and snorted its remains. "Your loss - this stuff is one hundred percent pure pixie!"

-7-

"Excuse me while I kiss this guy." --Purple Haze, Jimmy Hendrix

Harpo Lubbock shivered in the sweater that Jubilee had bought for him for his birthday. She had been working on his self held belief that he was a size extra large. The sweater he was wearing was a medium. It made him look larger than his extra large shirts. Since Jubilee left, he took great pains not to wear this sweater - he could still smell the smugness on it.

As it was, he had no choice but to wear the sweater as Sexton Manor in upstate New York had been renamed McCoy's Pond and rule one of McCoy's Pond was that the thermostat be kept low until after the leaves turned to get Hank McCoy further attuned to the feeling of a traditional New England fall, which was the frame of mind he thought he needed to be to write his story.

It was only the end of June.

"Another hot butter rum, Dr. McCoy?"

Hank turned from his writing area, complete with warm woolen green sweater and brown corduroy newsboy cap and grinned at his newly acquired assistant as he placed the previous glass on his waiting tray. "Excellent timing, Harper. Another shot of hot buttered inspiration is just what this doctor ordered!"

Harpo stopped for a moment to confirm that Dr. McCoy was just drunk and trying to be punny instead of putting in an honest punning effort. This was thankfully one of (extremely rare) times when it was the drink being the cause for the bad humor.

"Be right back, Dr. McCoy."

Hank kept grinning after Harpo left. The past four weeks were an ongoing bad dream for the usually jovial soul who found himself without friend or comfort. The absence of Annie's warm presence up and left with little warning and when he inquired to Professor Xavier as to where she might be, he received no answer. She didn't want him to find her.

It was quite obvious where Bobby was going as soon as Jean put his suitcase in her car. Hank was just a moment away from entering the back seat when Bobby had looked at him and Hank didn't need any telepathic talent to let him know that he wasn't wanted on this trip. Bobby still blamed him for saving his life.

And for the next few weeks, Hank brooded. He set work into his lab, hoping to escape into his theories, but found no such luck.

Then the rumors began. An innocent pot shot at his old girlfriend, Trish Tilby, turned into a media sensation and he was the object of media scrutiny.

This time? For being gay.

He was asked to be on several news programs to talk about being a gay mutant (something which Jean-Paul was getting more and more upset about, though Hank suspected he was a bit relieved that he was no longer the poster boy for gay mutants out there), but Hank had refused. He had also refused to correct the media. As far as the world knew, Hank McCoy was here, he was queer, and the number one Right Wing fear.

(He had received a lovely letter from Al Franken during the midst of all this, though.)

Xavier had suggested that maybe Hank follow through on his own previous thoughts of escaping upstate for his own retreat. His growing weariness over science and the media with the departure of his best friend and pupil made it seem the best recourse.

The hiring of the beautiful young boy to be his personal assistant was the icing on the tabloids paychecks. Harper didn't seem to mind. He often did yard work with his shirt off and took what he referred to as "Diet Coke breaks". A photo op was taken and they left for the day.

Hank sighed into his chair. He wasn't only living fiction, but he was writing it, too. The title of the novel he came to Sexton Manor to write (pending, of course, until a better title came along)? "The Real McCoy: My Life as a Gay Mutant".