Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Disclaimer: The X-Men ain't mine… I don't own TRL either. Dang, what a shame…

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Lance again.

Author's Note: It's more than semi-AU now. I've gone way off any possible future for X-Men Evolution. Oh well. Enjoy anyway… *grin* Also, I've decided to go ahead and have the story as if it took place after "Day of Reckoning" and not "Hex Factor." I think it works that way, too.

Feedback and Archiving: Please. Send all feedback and archiving request to addie_logan@yahoo.com or sign on AIM or AOL and IM ChereRogueMarie.

Shameless Website Plug: Be nice and go to my site: https://www.angelfire.com/scifi/addielogan

 

An Introspection on the Implications of Fame

By: Addie Logan

 

I met this guy in the Waffle House one night. He was looking for a lead guitarist in a band he was putting together. I told him I play a little. He told me to come to an audition.

That was two years ago, and now here I am, waiting to go on Total Request Live of all the things in the world. I never even liked this show. Carson Daly bugged the hell outta me from the first moment I saw the man. But something's different about the whole thing when suddenly you're a rock star.

I never saw myself as being an overnight success in anything. Hell, I never saw myself as being a success, period. But here I am, lead guitarist and singer in the hottest rock band on the scene right now. Mike, the guy I met in Waffle House, said he saw something in me. Said we could be like Lennon and McCartney. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it sure has been a hell of a ride up to now.

Fame is everything it's cracked up to be. Sure, I know someday I'll spiral down, probably end up in some type of rehab center, but I don't care. There's parties, money, groupies. For some reason, I always go for the women with brown hair and blue eyes.

For the first time in my life, I don't have to worry where my next meal is coming from. People respect me. They see me on the streets, and they know who I am. Next month, I'm going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. Sometimes, I stop and take a look at it all, and I can't believe it's actually my life.

I don't have to think about anything anymore. Everything just comes to me. I'm on top of the world.

And now I'm about to do my first live television interview on freakin' TRL. Every teenager in America will be watching me.

Suddenly, Kitty flashes into my mind. This show's just the sort of thing she would've watched. Wouldn't surprise me if she even had the hots for that loser Carson.

Someone came out and told us it was five minutes until we were supposed to be out there. Mike was nervous as hell. I wasn't. I knew it wouldn't be any different from the radio interviews, magazine blurbs, and taped television spots we'd done before. We'd chat a bit about the band, where we came from and where we were going. Daly'd probably make the same joke every other interviewer had—about how we called ourselves "Five Average Guys," but we were obviously anything but, and then we'd perform our first hit single.

That was the part I was looking forward to the most. I'd written that song myself, and our producer had picked it to release first. Even if Mike was a little hurt at first that it was one of my songs and not his that we made our first single, as soon as we hit it big, he got over it. Funny what'll suddenly seem perfectly fine when it's making you that much money.

I wrote the song for Kitty. I didn't want to. I wanted to forget her. I kept trying to make myself be mad at her for what she'd done to me, how she'd just brushed me off when I'd asked her to give me a reason to come home to Bayville, hoping she'd give herself as that reason.

But I couldn't be angry. I was the enamored one. I was the one who was dumb enough to fall for someone out of my league. She'd probably forgotten about me a week after I left. Probably even sooner than that. She probably went off and found some guy that deserved her.

I think about her almost everyday. I think about her every time I sing that song. I've had people tell me before how much emotion I put into it, like I'm really feeling it. I don't tell them I am. It sounds too corny. But Kitty's memory is wrapped around every word.

I feel like an idiot every time I think about her. I was seventeen, she was fourteen. Too young all around. We were never anything more than a few stolen moments, a kiss here and there. I was too jaded to go for young, innocent love, but I wanted it with Kitty. I thought of her like an angel, someone who could save me from all the pain and darkness in my life.

She hit me hard. I'd seen her before, known who she was since elementary school. But as soon as I saw her phase through those lockers, saw she was a mutant like me, I felt a sort of bond with her. She was on a higher level than me, sure, but suddenly we were alike somehow. We had a common thread. If someone as high in the social food chain as Kitty Pryde could be a mutant, maybe I wasn't the scum I thought I was.

Being her enemy in name didn't change anything. When I saw her, it was like the world got a little brighter. Even when my head told me that I was heading for trouble, I didn't care. Kitty was everything I ever wanted, and I couldn't help but love her.

Until reality came in cold. Mystique came back. She reminded us that the X-Men and the Brotherhood were enemies. I didn't want to fight Kitty. I didn't want her to be there. I told her. She didn't listen.

Everything got so bad after that. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran.

But I didn't run far before I started missing her. I don't think Kitty ever realized how much I adored her. I tried to hide it, tried to convince myself and her that she wasn't my whole world. Then I was faced with the thought of leaving her for good, and I couldn't take it. I called her, hoping she'd tell me what I longed to hear.

She didn't. She wrote me off like it was the easiest thing in the world. Looking back now, I can't blame her. I never gave her much to hold on to. I should've told her everything I was thinking in that phone call—that I loved her more than anything in the world, and I'd die if it meant I got to hold her even for a moment. I should've told her that I'd even be willing to give the X-Men another try just to work things out with her.

But I didn't. I said as little as possible and made it her call. Then I took off, never trying to convince her that we were meant to be. I was a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. She was like a princess to me.

Now I'm back in New York. I'm famous. I'm about to be on television. I'm all I never thought I'd be.

I wonder if Kitty is watching…