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xp_logsAfter the stresses of the preceding week and a few months of tension in the suite, the boys decide to blow off steam in a time-honored tradition of male bonding and rampant teenage immaturity.
A panty raid.
Forge concentrated on the lock before him. Not that it was any different
than the others he'd been working on, they were all just this side of
pitifully easy to undo. But doing it subtly, ah, there was the talent.
The artistry, the style that professional cat burglars would envy.
Professional cat burglars, however, weren't blessed with innate
mechanical comprehension and a genius-level intellect. Nor did they have
three roommates looking over their shoulder at the same time.
Given that one of said roommates was wearing a pair of girl's underwear
(pink, with small white horses on the waistband, to be precise), it was
safe to say that no professional cat burglar had ever been in this
scenario.
"How did you talk me into this again?" he asked rhetorically.
"Because I'm dead persuasive as well as naturally irresistible?"
Marius replied. "Less talkin', more breaking an' enterin'."
Kyle grinned, though behind the brown paper sack he'd ripped eyeholes in
and thrown over his head, it was impossible to tell. "Dude, this is
like, in the rulebook. Go to boarding school, have access to rooms.
There's a RULE. It's on -tv-. " He paused, trying to sound thoughtful
and intelligent, and failed. "And, you're a pushover."
"Pushover, right." Forge grumbled, but couldn't keep the smile off his
face. A swipe of the pick, and the second lock of the day opened under
his touch. "Okay," he said, pointing to Kyle. "Rahne and Catseye's room.
They're both in class. Let's see if we can do this in sixty seconds.
Go."
"Ah'm sendin' Paige after the three of you," Jay announced, heading over
to Catseye's drawers, "Iffn we get caught. Ah'm the good innocent boy
here. Ah'm only doin' this 'cuz of peer pressure."
"Sheay, as if." Kyle snorted, hanging back. "If we get caught, big if
there, with Forge's sneaking and me with the listening, then you're as
guilty as the rest of us." He cocked his head. "Which reminds me,
all's still clear. Mr. Al-Rashid's down a floor, but he's not heading
this way."
"And Jay?" Kyle asked, snickering. "Dude, pink ponies SO match your
wings."
"Suits his complexion," Marius nodded, glancing up from an open toybox.
"Though this is a bit scary. Don't think I've ever seen such an
extensive collection of shiny objects. Ever get the sense Cats's a bit
fixated?"
Forge nodded, opening a drawer and pausing. "Okay, here I am, one of the
most powerful mutant brains on the planet, and I'm about to purloin
Rahne Sinclair's undergarments in an ill-advised panty raid.
Does anyone else find this slightly disconcerting?" Without waiting for
an answer, Forge swept the contents of the drawer up and into the
waiting sack Jay held. "You all realize we're going straight to hell for
this."
Jay snorted. "Ah made peace with that when Ah was thirteen." Opening one
of Catseye's drawers, he raised an eyebrow and reached in. "Um, there's
nothin' in here." He patted around some. Maybe there was a pair hiding
there somewhere.
"Then where's she--" Marius began, then shuddered as several unbidden
and exceptionally disturbing memories crawled from the depths of his
recollection. "... Never. Mind."
Forge cocked his head. "You know, I wondered about that when I made her
the collar outfit, I just figured..." he paused. "That means she
doesn't... oh god, never mind. Next room!"
***
As the four roommates finished the last room on the second floor, the
first laundry bag was near full to bursting. While the prime result of
this caper had been amusement, questions had been raised that would
eventually demand answers. Such as 'Where in the world does Illyana
shop?', 'Did we really need to see if Terry's bra could be used as a
slingshot?', and 'Was Shiro a goddamn Buddha in a past life to earn THAT
kind of lingerie karma?'
Forge extended the small mirror around the edge of the stairwell,
checking both ends of the hall. "West wing's clear," he whispered,
scampering up around the corner. "Phase three of Operation Panty
Apocalypse is underway..."
Kyle snickered under his breath, sounding remarkably like Muttly, from
the old cartoons that were replayed on cable at three in the morning.
"We should get medals for this. Or make trophies. Or -something-, dudes.
T-shirts. Like "We are leet underwear ninjas and you aren't."
or something. He crept up the stairs on all fours, to keep the weight
off his foot, and quiet the muffled thumps he couldn't help but make
with the bulky bandages on his toes.
Marius shook his head virtuously. "In situations like this, the job is
its own reward." Which was good, because if Jennie ever found out he'd
used her bra as a kamikaze fighter-style headband he was a dead man.
It was one of the older ones, though; clearly laundry-day underwear.
He wasn't a complete monster.
Forge chuckled, following Kyle in a low crouch to the first door. Oh,
this one was going to be fun.
"Jay," he said quietly, "don't take this the wrong way, but we have GOT
to hit your sister's room. You know it's got to be done. It's for the
good of the team."
For not the first (or even twentieth) time, Jay sighed and asked himself
what the hell he was doing. "Ah'll rip your head off if you so much as
peek," he replied, arms crossed in what he hoped was a menacing gesture.
Kyle rolled his eyes and lightly hit Jay on the back of the head. "Be a
guy for once, huh?" He broke into a wide fanged grin. "I can do it.
I've already seen enough Guthrie underwear that I won't turn into a
pumpkin if I see any more of them." Besides, he thought. Jay wouldn't
actually kill him.
Forge frowned, deftly bypassing the lock mechanism on the door and
swinging it open. "Come on, Jay," he pleaded, "I work with your sister,
I regularly check her out with an electron scanning microscope, I could
write a paper on her body chemistry, and you're freaking out about me
seeing her underwear?" He stood up, wiggling his eyebrows. "I tell you,
if I wasn't so darn noble about giving her boyfriend his body back, I'd
be seeing a lot more than underwear. So mellow out and have some fun.
Besides," he added, "Mr. Worthington and Mr. Rasputin's room is right
across the hall. We can hit there next, just for you."
"Ah ain't worried about you seein' her unmentionables," Jay clarified,
"Ah'm worried that you're goin' ta steal a pair and clone yourself a
sexbot or somethin'."
A quick look of realization swept over Forge's face. "Dude, that would
be awesome..." Catching Jay's steely glare, he recanted. "And by awesome
I mean totally unethical and wrong and beyond my abilities anyway.
Right. Um, maybe Marius should case the room?"
"Because I'm expendable? Right." Marius grinned at Jay. "No worries,
mate. Unlike MakerBoy here, my intentions are pure." Purer,
anyway. "Shocking as it may be, Forge is right. We can't skip your
sister. Too suspicious. If it helps," he added, "I'll let you know if I
hear Forge's looking for a blonde wig and runnin' shorts later."
That was a mental image Kyle did not need. He clapped both hands over
his mouth in order to quiet the uncontrollable "EW EW EW OH GOD EW EW
EW" that threatened to erupt out and held his breath until his ears
turned bright red. "And -ew-. Cross dressing is the no."
Marius raised an eyebrow. "Not really why I was thinkin' the boy genius
would have a use for 'em, but nice contribution."
"Well he -said- he can't make a cloned sexbot!" Kyle protested. "I
should've left the bag on my head." He muttered. "Then I could turn it
around and not have to look at you people."
"The both of you can die in obscurity," Forge muttered, watching the
hall for any movement. "Besides, cloning's a bunch of stupid science
fiction. My motives are nowhere near that sinister."
Marius smirked. "Mind-control ray still on the drawin' board, then?"
"Ah hate y'all so much," Jay muttered as he reluctantly followed his
roommates.
***
It had been entirely by chance that Wanda had been sent to find Paige.
Moira had her hands full with Rachel and had needed some paperwork sent
up to her assistant and she'd just happened to have been walking by in
time to catch an arm full of boring looking documentation. A product,
she grimaced, of Amelia's declaration that she pop down to the MedLab at
various points for more testing.
Exhausted and bruised, she was generally trying not to think about
things until she had too. What she wouldn't give for a distraction.
Turning the corner, she watched as Forge vanished into the room she was
heading towards and tilted her head. She knew sneaky, she'd grown up
being sneaky.
That was the look of someone being sneaky.
And it just screamed of a distraction.
Taking care to not make any noise, she snuck down the hall and braved a
look inside. And immediately wished she hadn't because, really, she did
not need the image of Jay and Marius with undergarments strapped to
their head burned into her brain. She really didn't.
Smirking, she knocked loudly. "If you boys have even cast your thoughts
towards raiding my rooms," Wanda called out, dryly, "you will be in even
more trouble than you are now." She would not laugh, she would not, she
would not. Staff did not laugh as their students raided
underwear.
"Crap on toast!" Forge yelled, the distinctive voice of an adult coming
from the other end of the door. "We're cornered! Sitting ducks!"
He glanced wildly around the room, and then threw the bag of
undergarments at Jay. "The window!" he yelled. "Bail out!"
In spite of the imminent danger, Marius gave his roommate a sardonic
look. "Some of us aren't fliers this week," he pointed out, calmly
crossing his arms over his chest. "An' one of us just identified himself
by yellin' at the top of his lungs. Way to be subtle, mate."
In the midst of the yelling and laundry-flinging, Kyle had beat a fast
path over to the window, and thrown it open. "Every mutant for
himself!" He said. They were only a few stories up. He could jump it.
Really, if they wanted to throw themselves out of a window, they were
more than welcome to it. "Boys?" Wanda called out. "I know where you
live. In fact, I know where you sleep. Flinging yourself out of a
window might be a temporary thrill but not one that will get you out of
trouble." She stuck her head in the room and cocked an eyebrow at them.
"Lovely shade of underwear, Jay, they go fabulously with your wings.
But, Marius, honey, that bra completely clashes with your coloring."
"Jennie needs better taste, what should I say?" Marius shrugged,
grinning. "Oh, and good mornin'."
It was at that improbable moment, of course, that the bag of underwear
spontaneously turned inside-out, burying all four young men in their
purloined prizes. Arguments could be made later as to who tripped over
whom and who pushed whom in their hasty attempt at escape, but for the
moment, the four of them wound up in a heap on the floor, entangled with
the elastic straps of someone's frilly unmentionables.
Kyle sighed, and shook a pair of green lace bikini-style panties from
where they hung over his left ear. "We? Are -so- dead..." he bemoaned.
"Deader than dead. Deader than undead things made dead again."
Forge nodded from under one of Dani's maternity bras that almost fit him
like a hat. "Busted like the Hindenburg, dude."
"I can think of worse ways to go." Marius kicked his hands up behind his
head in a pose that conveyed a complete lack of anything resembling
guilt whatsoever. "So, how many weeks of punishment are we lookin' at?
Need to know how far I'll be clearin' my calendar."
Crouching down, Wanda stared at them all for an uncomfortable couple of
seconds. "You lot," she said slowly, locking eyes with each one of the
four, "have roughly fifteen minutes to put everything back the way you
found it. Exactly the way you found it. And then, just because you're
feeling so very helpful-and obviously have a great amount of extra time
on your hands-volunteer to do their laundry." She eyed the underwear on
the boys' heads. "Those you may want to put in the laundry basket, just
a suggestion. You do that and I do not say a word about it. I hear
complaints from the girls and, well, I'm an inventive soul. Agreed?"
Marius grinned. "Fair enough." Privately, he mused that this was much
lighter than the sort of disciplinary action this sort of stunt normally
incurred. Who was he to argue with a teacher? He calmly untangled
Jennie's bra from his head. "Remember, mates, hang-dry only."
"Laundry. Right." Kyle looked at the mountain of miscellaneous
unmentionables and frowned. "What if they complain just because they're
girls and girls are weird and fussy about laundry?"
Marius arched an eyebrow. "Most times the label tells you all you need.
What, you've never done a girl's laundry before?" He cocked his head
speculatively. "Ah, wait."
"I doubt the only complaints will be if they discover that you're
currently wearing their underwear on your heads." Wanda grinned
suddenly. "I seem to recall some of them having rather interesting
senses of humor and ideas of pay back so if there are large complaints,
they may not voice them to a teacher but simply extract revenge." She
glanced down at her watch and then back up.
Forge pondered that for a moment, then extricated himself from the pile
and began scooping clothing back into the sack. "What are we waiting
for, guys? Go, go, go!"
A panty raid.
Forge concentrated on the lock before him. Not that it was any different
than the others he'd been working on, they were all just this side of
pitifully easy to undo. But doing it subtly, ah, there was the talent.
The artistry, the style that professional cat burglars would envy.
Professional cat burglars, however, weren't blessed with innate
mechanical comprehension and a genius-level intellect. Nor did they have
three roommates looking over their shoulder at the same time.
Given that one of said roommates was wearing a pair of girl's underwear
(pink, with small white horses on the waistband, to be precise), it was
safe to say that no professional cat burglar had ever been in this
scenario.
"How did you talk me into this again?" he asked rhetorically.
"Because I'm dead persuasive as well as naturally irresistible?"
Marius replied. "Less talkin', more breaking an' enterin'."
Kyle grinned, though behind the brown paper sack he'd ripped eyeholes in
and thrown over his head, it was impossible to tell. "Dude, this is
like, in the rulebook. Go to boarding school, have access to rooms.
There's a RULE. It's on -tv-. " He paused, trying to sound thoughtful
and intelligent, and failed. "And, you're a pushover."
"Pushover, right." Forge grumbled, but couldn't keep the smile off his
face. A swipe of the pick, and the second lock of the day opened under
his touch. "Okay," he said, pointing to Kyle. "Rahne and Catseye's room.
They're both in class. Let's see if we can do this in sixty seconds.
Go."
"Ah'm sendin' Paige after the three of you," Jay announced, heading over
to Catseye's drawers, "Iffn we get caught. Ah'm the good innocent boy
here. Ah'm only doin' this 'cuz of peer pressure."
"Sheay, as if." Kyle snorted, hanging back. "If we get caught, big if
there, with Forge's sneaking and me with the listening, then you're as
guilty as the rest of us." He cocked his head. "Which reminds me,
all's still clear. Mr. Al-Rashid's down a floor, but he's not heading
this way."
"And Jay?" Kyle asked, snickering. "Dude, pink ponies SO match your
wings."
"Suits his complexion," Marius nodded, glancing up from an open toybox.
"Though this is a bit scary. Don't think I've ever seen such an
extensive collection of shiny objects. Ever get the sense Cats's a bit
fixated?"
Forge nodded, opening a drawer and pausing. "Okay, here I am, one of the
most powerful mutant brains on the planet, and I'm about to purloin
Rahne Sinclair's undergarments in an ill-advised panty raid.
Does anyone else find this slightly disconcerting?" Without waiting for
an answer, Forge swept the contents of the drawer up and into the
waiting sack Jay held. "You all realize we're going straight to hell for
this."
Jay snorted. "Ah made peace with that when Ah was thirteen." Opening one
of Catseye's drawers, he raised an eyebrow and reached in. "Um, there's
nothin' in here." He patted around some. Maybe there was a pair hiding
there somewhere.
"Then where's she--" Marius began, then shuddered as several unbidden
and exceptionally disturbing memories crawled from the depths of his
recollection. "... Never. Mind."
Forge cocked his head. "You know, I wondered about that when I made her
the collar outfit, I just figured..." he paused. "That means she
doesn't... oh god, never mind. Next room!"
***
As the four roommates finished the last room on the second floor, the
first laundry bag was near full to bursting. While the prime result of
this caper had been amusement, questions had been raised that would
eventually demand answers. Such as 'Where in the world does Illyana
shop?', 'Did we really need to see if Terry's bra could be used as a
slingshot?', and 'Was Shiro a goddamn Buddha in a past life to earn THAT
kind of lingerie karma?'
Forge extended the small mirror around the edge of the stairwell,
checking both ends of the hall. "West wing's clear," he whispered,
scampering up around the corner. "Phase three of Operation Panty
Apocalypse is underway..."
Kyle snickered under his breath, sounding remarkably like Muttly, from
the old cartoons that were replayed on cable at three in the morning.
"We should get medals for this. Or make trophies. Or -something-, dudes.
T-shirts. Like "We are leet underwear ninjas and you aren't."
or something. He crept up the stairs on all fours, to keep the weight
off his foot, and quiet the muffled thumps he couldn't help but make
with the bulky bandages on his toes.
Marius shook his head virtuously. "In situations like this, the job is
its own reward." Which was good, because if Jennie ever found out he'd
used her bra as a kamikaze fighter-style headband he was a dead man.
It was one of the older ones, though; clearly laundry-day underwear.
He wasn't a complete monster.
Forge chuckled, following Kyle in a low crouch to the first door. Oh,
this one was going to be fun.
"Jay," he said quietly, "don't take this the wrong way, but we have GOT
to hit your sister's room. You know it's got to be done. It's for the
good of the team."
For not the first (or even twentieth) time, Jay sighed and asked himself
what the hell he was doing. "Ah'll rip your head off if you so much as
peek," he replied, arms crossed in what he hoped was a menacing gesture.
Kyle rolled his eyes and lightly hit Jay on the back of the head. "Be a
guy for once, huh?" He broke into a wide fanged grin. "I can do it.
I've already seen enough Guthrie underwear that I won't turn into a
pumpkin if I see any more of them." Besides, he thought. Jay wouldn't
actually kill him.
Forge frowned, deftly bypassing the lock mechanism on the door and
swinging it open. "Come on, Jay," he pleaded, "I work with your sister,
I regularly check her out with an electron scanning microscope, I could
write a paper on her body chemistry, and you're freaking out about me
seeing her underwear?" He stood up, wiggling his eyebrows. "I tell you,
if I wasn't so darn noble about giving her boyfriend his body back, I'd
be seeing a lot more than underwear. So mellow out and have some fun.
Besides," he added, "Mr. Worthington and Mr. Rasputin's room is right
across the hall. We can hit there next, just for you."
"Ah ain't worried about you seein' her unmentionables," Jay clarified,
"Ah'm worried that you're goin' ta steal a pair and clone yourself a
sexbot or somethin'."
A quick look of realization swept over Forge's face. "Dude, that would
be awesome..." Catching Jay's steely glare, he recanted. "And by awesome
I mean totally unethical and wrong and beyond my abilities anyway.
Right. Um, maybe Marius should case the room?"
"Because I'm expendable? Right." Marius grinned at Jay. "No worries,
mate. Unlike MakerBoy here, my intentions are pure." Purer,
anyway. "Shocking as it may be, Forge is right. We can't skip your
sister. Too suspicious. If it helps," he added, "I'll let you know if I
hear Forge's looking for a blonde wig and runnin' shorts later."
That was a mental image Kyle did not need. He clapped both hands over
his mouth in order to quiet the uncontrollable "EW EW EW OH GOD EW EW
EW" that threatened to erupt out and held his breath until his ears
turned bright red. "And -ew-. Cross dressing is the no."
Marius raised an eyebrow. "Not really why I was thinkin' the boy genius
would have a use for 'em, but nice contribution."
"Well he -said- he can't make a cloned sexbot!" Kyle protested. "I
should've left the bag on my head." He muttered. "Then I could turn it
around and not have to look at you people."
"The both of you can die in obscurity," Forge muttered, watching the
hall for any movement. "Besides, cloning's a bunch of stupid science
fiction. My motives are nowhere near that sinister."
Marius smirked. "Mind-control ray still on the drawin' board, then?"
"Ah hate y'all so much," Jay muttered as he reluctantly followed his
roommates.
***
It had been entirely by chance that Wanda had been sent to find Paige.
Moira had her hands full with Rachel and had needed some paperwork sent
up to her assistant and she'd just happened to have been walking by in
time to catch an arm full of boring looking documentation. A product,
she grimaced, of Amelia's declaration that she pop down to the MedLab at
various points for more testing.
Exhausted and bruised, she was generally trying not to think about
things until she had too. What she wouldn't give for a distraction.
Turning the corner, she watched as Forge vanished into the room she was
heading towards and tilted her head. She knew sneaky, she'd grown up
being sneaky.
That was the look of someone being sneaky.
And it just screamed of a distraction.
Taking care to not make any noise, she snuck down the hall and braved a
look inside. And immediately wished she hadn't because, really, she did
not need the image of Jay and Marius with undergarments strapped to
their head burned into her brain. She really didn't.
Smirking, she knocked loudly. "If you boys have even cast your thoughts
towards raiding my rooms," Wanda called out, dryly, "you will be in even
more trouble than you are now." She would not laugh, she would not, she
would not. Staff did not laugh as their students raided
underwear.
"Crap on toast!" Forge yelled, the distinctive voice of an adult coming
from the other end of the door. "We're cornered! Sitting ducks!"
He glanced wildly around the room, and then threw the bag of
undergarments at Jay. "The window!" he yelled. "Bail out!"
In spite of the imminent danger, Marius gave his roommate a sardonic
look. "Some of us aren't fliers this week," he pointed out, calmly
crossing his arms over his chest. "An' one of us just identified himself
by yellin' at the top of his lungs. Way to be subtle, mate."
In the midst of the yelling and laundry-flinging, Kyle had beat a fast
path over to the window, and thrown it open. "Every mutant for
himself!" He said. They were only a few stories up. He could jump it.
Really, if they wanted to throw themselves out of a window, they were
more than welcome to it. "Boys?" Wanda called out. "I know where you
live. In fact, I know where you sleep. Flinging yourself out of a
window might be a temporary thrill but not one that will get you out of
trouble." She stuck her head in the room and cocked an eyebrow at them.
"Lovely shade of underwear, Jay, they go fabulously with your wings.
But, Marius, honey, that bra completely clashes with your coloring."
"Jennie needs better taste, what should I say?" Marius shrugged,
grinning. "Oh, and good mornin'."
It was at that improbable moment, of course, that the bag of underwear
spontaneously turned inside-out, burying all four young men in their
purloined prizes. Arguments could be made later as to who tripped over
whom and who pushed whom in their hasty attempt at escape, but for the
moment, the four of them wound up in a heap on the floor, entangled with
the elastic straps of someone's frilly unmentionables.
Kyle sighed, and shook a pair of green lace bikini-style panties from
where they hung over his left ear. "We? Are -so- dead..." he bemoaned.
"Deader than dead. Deader than undead things made dead again."
Forge nodded from under one of Dani's maternity bras that almost fit him
like a hat. "Busted like the Hindenburg, dude."
"I can think of worse ways to go." Marius kicked his hands up behind his
head in a pose that conveyed a complete lack of anything resembling
guilt whatsoever. "So, how many weeks of punishment are we lookin' at?
Need to know how far I'll be clearin' my calendar."
Crouching down, Wanda stared at them all for an uncomfortable couple of
seconds. "You lot," she said slowly, locking eyes with each one of the
four, "have roughly fifteen minutes to put everything back the way you
found it. Exactly the way you found it. And then, just because you're
feeling so very helpful-and obviously have a great amount of extra time
on your hands-volunteer to do their laundry." She eyed the underwear on
the boys' heads. "Those you may want to put in the laundry basket, just
a suggestion. You do that and I do not say a word about it. I hear
complaints from the girls and, well, I'm an inventive soul. Agreed?"
Marius grinned. "Fair enough." Privately, he mused that this was much
lighter than the sort of disciplinary action this sort of stunt normally
incurred. Who was he to argue with a teacher? He calmly untangled
Jennie's bra from his head. "Remember, mates, hang-dry only."
"Laundry. Right." Kyle looked at the mountain of miscellaneous
unmentionables and frowned. "What if they complain just because they're
girls and girls are weird and fussy about laundry?"
Marius arched an eyebrow. "Most times the label tells you all you need.
What, you've never done a girl's laundry before?" He cocked his head
speculatively. "Ah, wait."
"I doubt the only complaints will be if they discover that you're
currently wearing their underwear on your heads." Wanda grinned
suddenly. "I seem to recall some of them having rather interesting
senses of humor and ideas of pay back so if there are large complaints,
they may not voice them to a teacher but simply extract revenge." She
glanced down at her watch and then back up.
Forge pondered that for a moment, then extricated himself from the pile
and began scooping clothing back into the sack. "What are we waiting
for, guys? Go, go, go!"
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