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
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…