DISCLAIMER: This is a muse fic that I wrote in response to a challenge from Spartacus (Ha-HA, Sparty! Now you must write a story for me! BWAHAHA!) It mentions a couple of X-characters, but doesn't have too much to do with them overall. Bumper belongs to me, and anyone who tries to swipe him will be very sorry (he's not quite housebroken yet. :)) His fuzzy little cousins belong to Swibco. Feedback is appreciated, but flames, as always, will be ignored.

I sat in my seat in the front row of the classroom, trying not to fall asleep as the professor droned on about . . . the constitutionality of international treaties, I think. I don't know for sure because I couldn't muster enough energy to focus on what he was saying. It's bad enough to have classes during the summer semester, but to make first period start at 8:30 a.m. is truly evil.

As I glanced up at the prof and gave him my best "I'm really paying attention" face (a skill I learned to perfect in undergrad), I noticed a movement in my bookbag, which was sitting in the seat next to me. Something thrust itself against the inside of the bag, presumably trying to get out.

The movement stopped for a moment, and the bag sat undisturbed. Then the zipper opened and a six-inch high purple bunny hopped out.

"Bumper!" I thought, cringing at the sight of the fuzzy stuffed animal. "What are you doing here?" He looked around the room curiously, trying to make sense of his new surroundings. "Of all times for my muse to make an appearance," I lamented.

I grabbed Bumper and held him in my lap, hoping to keep him quiet so that no one would notice my sudden distraction. Unfortunately, little purple bunnies have a tendancy to be *extremely* hyper early in the morning, and mine was no exception.

"Psssst!" he whispered from below the table. I waited until the prof started sifting through his notes before looking down.

"Wolverine and Jubilee fanfic!" the bunny said, his nose twitching as he hopped. "Use the date application from your friend!"

I pondered this for a few seconds. Bumper had an irritating habit of popping up at the worst times, but when he was right, he was right. The "Permission to Date My Daughter" application (a joke forwarded through e-mail by one of my friends) had definite fanfic potential. I jotted a reminder in my class notes and prayed that no one asked to borrow them that day.

Bumper started twitching again and I gave him a look that said "settle down." Or so I thought. I gave a brief nod toward the teacher, trying to tell the bunny that now was not the time, but he misinterpreted the gesture.

"Oooooo," the bunny sighed as he climbed up and balanced his chin over the edge of the table. He was looking at the professor's tie. "Birdies!" I looked up. The professor was, in fact, wearing a navy tie with dozens of little cranes on it. Bumper was fascinated by the prof's taste in fashion.

I pulled Bumper back into my lap and held him there, keeping a tight grip on him with my left hand as I struggled to take notes with my right. I should have known that I couldn't hang on to him for long. Again he managed to wriggle away, this time hopping across the empty seats down the left side of the row.

"Bumpity bumpity bumpity bumpity," he chanted gleefully as he made his way to the other end of the room and turned around. "Bumpity bumpity bumpity bumpity ..."

I looked around the room as inconspicuously as I could, but mercifully, everyone else in the class was just trying to stay awake and was unaware of my crisis in the front row. I silently took back every nasty thing I ever said about early-morning classes.

I grabbed the little purple blur as he hopped on my lap on his way to the other side of the room. Knowing that he would only sit still if I let him spill his ideas, I gave him my undivided attention (and feigned to do the same for the professor, who had glanced toward my seat). I pretended to take notes for class as I listened to what my muse had to tell me.

Bumper turned around in my lap and looked up at me. "Persecution," he whispered.

I cringed. I had been working on that fic for months. It had seemed like a great idea when I started -- a comparison between mutant-targeted hatred and the Salem witch trials -- but that was before I came down with an incurable case of writer's block.

I gave Bumper a look as if to say, "what about it?"

"Make it a vignette," the wide-eyed bunny stated matter-of-factly. "Easier to tell it in first-person."

I thought about it and shrugged. "Why not?" I thought. It might be easier to work the other characters in that way, and the old script had gotten way too complicated. Again, I decided to defer to the wisdom of the little purple bunny.

Just then Bumper tugged at my arm. I looked at my watch and realized that class was just about over. He jumped back in my bag (moving aside so as not to be squished by my books) as I listened to the prof's instructions for the next assignment.

I slung my bookbag over my shoulder and avoided eye contact with the professor as I exited with the rest of the class. Making sure my muse was safely on top of my books, I headed off for home.

Bumper's muffled chatter emanated from my bag as I walked home, earning me a few strange looks from passing bicyclists. I just smiled at them as if it were normal to hear voices coming from one's knapsack. I wasn't the first grad student to go insane, and I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be the last.

I listened to the bunny's ideas all the way back to my apartment. He chattered incessantly, giving me a detailed description of a new character that I should create. I couldn't help thinking that, as crazy as he was, I'd be totally lost without my muse.

I walked in the door to my apartment, gently dropped my bookbag to the floor and reached up to turn on the air conditioner. Meanwhile, Bumper had unzipped the bag and was hopping toward my bedroom.

I looked at him quizically. "How did you do that?"

"Opposable ears," he twitched before he turned and hopped away.

I saw a purple blur hop on my bed as I went to start up my computer. "OK, so what do you think I should do with this intro, Bumper?" I asked the little bunny. No answer. "Bumper?"

I looked over at my bed. Bumper had flumped onto one of my throw pillows and was sound asleep, resting right next to Pistachio, the squirrel beanie.

I sighed and shook my head as I shut down WordPad. "You've got some really good ideas," I said to the sleeping bunny, "but you've really got to work on your timing."