"I SPEEEND SO MUCH TIIIIME, BELIEVING ALL THE LI-IIIIIIES, TO KEEP THE DREAM ALI-IIIIVE!"¹

"Robert—"

"NOOOOW IIIIIIT MAKES ME SAAAAAD! IT MAKES MEE—"

"Robert!"

"Yes Hank ol’ buddy, ol’ pal O mine?"

"Would you please desist from howling in my laboratory—"

"I’m singing you a beautiful song to ease your troubled mi—"

"This is very delicate work I am doing here, Robert, and I cannot be distracted by your—"

"You’re analyzing Twinkie filling."

"Robert, this is very serious work. If I can ascertain the exact chemical ingredients in this most delectable of snack food snacks, I just may be able to reproduce its wonderful creamy filling in mass quantities; thus allowing me to satisfy my cravings for highly processed sugar, without the trouble of ever having to leave my beloved lab."

"I really don’t think it’s healthy for you to sit cooped up in this lab all the time, eating Twinkie filling…"

"This coming from the man who thinks that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is a nutritious meal."

"Hey, whoa man, don’t go ragging on the KD now! It has essential fake cheese and artificial preservatives that every growing mutant needs."

"Robert…OUT!"

Letting out a long suffering sigh, Robert Drake, a.k.a. The Iceman, and better known to all simply as Bobby, slinked out of his best friend’s lab. Another boring day had set itself out before him, and he had held high hopes of spending some quality time with Hank: or, at the very least, being able to bother him for another good half-hour. Hank and his Twinkie fetish, he sighed to himself mournfully.

"Why is it that everyone always seems to have something to do but me?" Bobby shouted to the empty hallway. "I’m beginning to think it’s a giant conspiracy against me…one of many."

With nothing better than hours of pointless wandering ahead of him (and deciding it best to keep out of sight, just in case Scott found him and dragged him into a training session…or even worse, cleaning something), Bobby decided to fulfil some of his more geeky, and go online.

"Let us checka my email," he sang as he plopped down with his laptop on his bed. "Ooooh, 10 new messages…"

***

4 hours later…

Bobby’s head drooped and he rubbed his eyes. He’d been online for hours now. It turned out that 6 out of the 10 messages he had received were pointless, one word insults, sent to him from Jubilee. The other messages were simply junk mail. After sending 6 appropriate responses to Jubilee, and sending Miss Cleo’s Psychic Hotline Scott’s mailing information, Bobby had surfed the web looking for amusing things to occupy his time until dinner. After 4 hours, he’d managed to find one humorous website concerning pirate speech,² watch half a dozen movie trailers, and find about a thousand other pieces of useless crap.

I wonder what I’d find if I did a search on myself…Bobby mused.

Search: ICEMAN|

TOP 50 WEB RESULTS out of about 474,000

"Damn that frozen mummy!³ It always comes up before me!" he cursed as he scanned the results. "Wait, what’s this?" Bobby’s attention was caught by two simple little words far down the search results page: fan fiction.

"Iceman fan fiction, eh?" he mused, "Do I dare look…yes, yes I do" Decision made, Bobby opened the website dedicated to a small, but growing archive of Iceman fan fiction, and looked at the first story:

A Day with Iceman by iluvicy. Rating: G - Genre: General - Chapters: 3

"Hmmm, a day with me…sounds fun!" Bobby clicked on the story link and entered the brave new world of Iceman centered fan-fiction.

***

Several minutes later Bobby finished the story with a grin. "Heh, not bad…I don’t think this person quite captured my winning personality, but a worthy effort. Iluvicy, I salute you!" he stated grandly, mock saluting the computer screen.

"What’s next? Ah, ‘The Iceman’ by ah-way-dur…er…ay-way-dor-fix2002? Um…let’s skip ahead to the story, shall we?" As Bobby skimmed down the page, his eyes narrowed in increasing frustration. "Oh come on 2002-guy, I can’t spell worth beans and even I can write better than this! Have you never heard of a spell checker? Really, some people…‘the icmen walked towartds the door and oppend it with consternatin’ Why would I open a door with ‘consternation’? WHY? I think maybe ‘apprehension’ may have been a better word 2002-guy…or ‘trepidation’… hmph…I haven’t spent all these years with a human thesaurus as a best friend for nothing. NEXT!"

In apparent frustration, Bobby clicked on the next story without bothering to read anything about it. As his eyes skimmed down the page they opened wide in horror, and he let out a piercing scream…

***

Hank was sitting blissfully in his lab, his goal of understanding and replicating the delicious Twinkie filling close at hand. As he delicately stirred the contents in his beaker 3 times counter clockwise, his concentration was disrupted by the sound of loud, continuous screams of terror; the surprise of hearing such caused him to start involuntarily and knock over his beaker, smashing it to pieces.

Why do people insist on attacking the mansion while I am in the middle of delicate experiments! Hank cursed to himself as he ran towards the sound of the disturbance. I swear it is a giant conspiracy against me…one of many.

As he reached the source of the terrified screams, Hank was momentarily stunned to find that it was Bobby, crouched in a fetal position in the corner, rocking back and forth. Gently placing his hands on Bobby’s shoulders, Hank tried to soothe his friend. "Bobby," he called softly, "Bobby, what is it? What happened?"

Pale and shaking, Bobby simply raised a trembling hand to the computer screen, then burst into loud sobs.

Stepping over to the computer with great trepidation, Hank warily glanced towards the screen of Bobby’s computer, and read what had so horrified his friend:

Rating: NC-17
Genre: Slash
Chapters: many
Feedback: send to snickt@mailme.com

A Day of Fun by Snickt
Chapter One: "A Hot Summer’s Day"

The sexy young mutant known as "The Iceman" sat out by the pool, his shirtless, well muscled body gli—

Hank hastily slammed the laptop shut. "Oh my…" he gasped softly. "Well, hem, it is not so, uh…it is only a story, Robert, I would not—"

"They paired me up with Logan and Gambit, Hank! Logan and Gambit!" Bobby exclaimed, bursting into sobs anew.

"Oh my stars and garters!" Hank cried, rushing over to his friend. "It will be okay Bobby, it will be okay…Do not worry. I have knowledge of certain computer viruses that can be quite helpful at times like these. No one shall ever read those, those" here his great vocabulary failed him in his horror, "things again. Never again."

Gently raising Bobby up, Hank escorted his shaken friend out of the room. "Come, we will get some snacks. I have a great abundance of treats stashed in my laboratory. We shall get them and make our way to the common room. And we shall watch a movie. I hear that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is to be televised tonight. What do you say to that Robert? We shall have delicious snacks and watch Star Wars; what better way to spend the evening?"

Bobby sniffed loudly and nodded his head in agreement. The two friends walked slowly towards the lab, and as Hank opened the door, Chapter 11 of the great horror of Robert Drake’s life was uploaded to the fan fiction archive.

The End

________________________

¹ The song that Bobby is mangling is "Eyes Without A Face" by Billy Idol.
² This is a reference to The Original ‘Talk Like Pirate Day’ Website.
³ The over 5000-year-old "Otzi the Iceman" mummy found in the Alpine Mountains. Do a search; he’s guaranteed to come up before any site related to Bobby.