NOTE: I had to take a crack at this SRC thing sooner or later. You knew that,
right?	Be gentle....? Disclaimers, true to the format, are at the end. 
Pardon my presumption if you find something of yours in here -- consider it
homage, please! That's how it's intended.

SPOILER WARNING:  You want to read at least as far as part 15 of Crimes of
the Heart before you read this :)

Remy LeBeau[%] sat at a table with the youthful Magneto-faced Joseph[%],
sharing a pizza. Remy's side was blackened chicken with sausage and
mushrooms.  Joseph's side was liver and spinach.  Given the dual nature of
the pizza in question, the rest of the fictives gave them something of a wide
berth.

One table over sat Hank McCoy,[%] smiling serenely as he shared an enormous
medical journal with Dr. Cecelia Reyes.[%]  At the far end of the room where
he wouldn't disturb anyone, was a Bobby Drake[%] who was calmly working on an
ice sculpture.	Beside him stood another Bobby, who had a beautiful, pale,
dark-haired woman by the hand.[1]  "When you're done with that one, do you
think you could do a commission?"

The sculpting Bobby looked up at the obviously lovestruck Bobby, then
grinned. "Sure, I think I could do that. You've got good taste -- me."

The Bobby with the lady on his arm had the grace to blush and shake his head.
"I'm merely lucky Diedre chose me."  He gazed adoringly at the young woman
and she shyly smiled back.

Standing -- or, more accurately, hovering approvingly over the assemblage was
an extraordinarily beautiful dark-haired, dark-skinned woman with classical
Grecian features.

Through the door came a series of fictives, all loaded for bear, with anger
in their eyes.	The Cafe was relatively uncrowded at the moment, these
fictives being newcomers and a bit uncertain of disturbing the crowd of
regulars.

"Where *is* she?" demanded a dark-haired, dark-eyed man. He was shirtless,
revealing a pair of vestigal wings unfurled to their full 1' wingspan.	"I
want a word with her!"	Beside him stood a blue woman who looked like she was
a representation of Smurfette conceived by Larry Flynt [2]

"It not writer's night," Remy replied, shrugging.  "She not here. She prolly
writin'."

"No," the blue woman complained, "She's *not*. At least, she's not writing
*us*."

"What you complainin' about, chere?" Remy asked mildly.  "You got a decen'
supportin' role, Mickey."

"I want a *boyfriend,* Mickey complained, looking directly at Remy.

"Don' look at *me,*, petite. Me bein' 'le beau LeBeau' is what got me in de
mess she was kin' 'nough to write me out of in de firs' place."  Remy smiled
and raised his glass.

"I don't know what you're complaining about, Mickey," the man with the tiny
wings complained.  "My treatment's worse than yours. Smaller roles, and me
being an irresponsible doctor!" He held up a bandaided finger.	"This is a
mistake doctors make in the *movies*!"

"Real life too," the serene, Grecian woman added, smiling down.  "You should
calm down, Greg. I'm sure she'll find something else to do with you, if not
in this story."

"Who the hell are *you*?" demanded Greg, leaning on the shoulder of Mickey
Trellayne.

"The Muse," replied the woman with a smile and a flip of her black hair.

"Well, what about me?" demanded a disembodied voice with a French accent. 
"All I got was *mentioned* without even so much as a real appearance!"

Joseph, the sculpting Bobby, and Remy all turned to regard the blonde.	But
it was Mickey who sighed, "Don't tell me. Let me guess.  Brigitte."

Joseph smiled. "Guido will probably be reappearing in later issues. She's
pretty fond of Lila, and Guido's pretty fond of Lila. It's all in the
holistics."

A Magneto at the bar, bucket-helmet beside him, turned to stare at his
youthful avatar.  "It's all in the *holistics*?" He sighed, and gestured,
summoning the bartender[6].  "Another double," he growled, thrusting his
glass at him.

The bartender, rather than obeying instantly, frowned and growled in return.
"You are not even supposed to be in here.  You're a *mainstream!*"  He shook
his head.  "You gotta go. Kielle will have a fit if another mainstream starts
another brawl in here. You should've seen what happened when Havok came in
here drunk after he tried to make up with Lorna.  He threw up on Gladiator,
and there ya go.  If Manchild and Perkolator[3] hadn't been here to break it
up -- augh! I shudder to think what woulda happened to my insurance premiums.
 Out ya go, Big M. Sorry."

Magneto* made an attempt to give the bartender his best Puppy Dog Eyes, which
worked not at all.  The bouncer arrived at the bartender's gesture and
cracked his knuckles.  "You want to move or *be* moved?"

Magneto gave a put-upon sigh, then got up and walked out under his own power.
One Rogue[^] with a feather in her hair sighed wistfully and shook her head.

"You guys should go too, if you're gonna make trouble," the bartender
continued, pointing to Mickey, Greg, Grope, Sluggo and the disembodied voice
that answered to Brigitte. "Uncreated night isn't until the last Thursday of
the month, and dead night isn't until the last Monday of the month."  He
sighed.  "Darn fics think they can run all over me, do they? Sheesh."

"When's writer's night?" Greg demanded, balling his fists.

"Hey, look, homme. She ain' as bad as all dat," Remy protested, lifting a
hand.

"What do you mean she ain't as bad as all that?! She *killed* me!" Greg
shrieked, going pale.

Remy leafed through a few pages.  "Tough break," he conceded.  Joseph crowded
in.  "Which of us gets Rogue?" he asked eagerly.

Remy merely smirked.  "Hey. Dere worse t'ings dan dyin' in a story, Greg. She
coulda let you live an' suffer like she did wit' de othas."

Mickey conceded that point. "Yeah, Scott didn't look so good last time I saw
him."

"That was the mainstream Scott," called a Scott from the Summers Table.  "His
condition has carried over to leave us in bad shape in a few 'fics."  He
lifted his black T-shirt to reveal a thick bandage over his midsection.

"SUMMERS! Get your butt back in bed!" yelled a horde of Cecelias.  The one
with Hank looked around, nonplussed.  The place had started filling up.
Several Summers cringed and slunk off, paying their tabs before dropping back
into their appropriate points of origin.

"Could be worse,"  Hank observed, sipping his tea.

"Yeah, she ain' make him bisexual an' chasin' after me."  Remy grinned and
blew a kiss toward the ceiling.  "Merci, chere."  A couple of the other
Scotts from the Summers table grinned wryly.

Greg growled.  "Sluggo, can you find her?"

Sluggo, a mutant who resembled a snail in far too many ways to describe
politely merely blinked his eyes on the ends of their stalks.  "I could find
out if she's lying, but track her? Afraid not."

"Wolvie-Wolvie?"  Mickey batted her eyes, sitting on the lap of a Wolverine. 
A little blue-furred girl regarded Mickey with ill-concealed four-year-old
annoyance that someone had beaten her to her uncle's lap.  Wolverine, for his
part, seemed content to have a blue female on his lap, especially one that
was buying him Molsons.

The Hank who sat with Cecelia smiled winningly and held out his hands. 
Sikudhani[7] peered at him dubiously for a moment, then grinned.  "Another
daddy!" she chirped, and scampered over to meet him.  Cecelia regarded Hank
dubiously;  he merely blushed, smiled, and gestured.  There were various
other Sikudhanis scattered through the cafe, with or without corresponding
Hank McCoys. Cecelia relaxed.

"If you see her first, LeBeau, no warning her we're after her!"  Greg
suggested, augmenting his point with a fresh pizza.

"Maybe she's at the High School of the Humanities," the disembodied voice
suggested.  "The readers have been poking her about that geopath who popped
there a couple stories ago. "

Torches wielded, the irate fics stalked out of the Cafe, leaving the
bartender to sigh with relief.

Remy watched them leave, and watched the door for a few minutes after that. 
He sipped the bourbon he had, leaving alone the one Greg had given him.  "Dat
was close," he declared.

"You know where she is?"

Before Remy could answer, a Rogue flew past, screaming and trailing sheets of
paper in a maelstrom behind her.  "Ah get 'er first, dagnabbit! Ah just saw
what happens to me in the next part of the story!"

Remy grinned, but said nothing.

A pair of violet eyes peeped over the table at the Siku who had temporarily
taken residence on Hank's lap. "Kitty!"  Siku pronounced, beaming.  The eyes
were followed by a perfect little triangular nose, and a silky coat of fur
that changed from purple to white, brown to blue, black to red, to green from
moment to moment.  The patterning on the fur also changed from spots to
stripes to no markings at all. Before long, the entire cat had climbed of
Remy's lap and padded across the table.  Daintily stepping between the
glasses and the pizza plates, she butted her head under Siku's chin and began
to purr.  As the purr got louder, the cat began to glow. She shifted some as
she settled in Siku's lap, and the collar around her neck glinted with
diamonds.

"Nice kitty,"  declared the Muse, who had serenely floated motionless all
this time, ignoring the ire of the miffed fictives. She winked, although at
whom was uncertain.

"Nice Kitty," Remy said, and ordered another round for the table.  Then,
leaning in, he whispered into the cat's ear.

"Watch it wit' de endin's, though, or de readers gon' have a fit."

========================================================================
*All original X-characters are copyright Marvel.

[1]  Bobby and Diedre from "Thick as Thieves", (c) Lori McDonald, Valerie
Jones [2] the honcho behind Hustler Magazine, Larry Flynt, belongs to
himself. [3] Manchild belongs to himself, and Perkolator belongs to David J.
Warner. [4] Kielle belongs to herself and is the creator of the Subreality
Cafe. [5] The Scott Summers of dual orientation belongs to another esteemed 
author (and I can't find the original reference anymore to credit it
properly!) [6] The bartender and the bouncer belong to Falstaff. [7] 
Sikudhani McCoy (appearance obligatory) belongs to Darqstar. [^] Rogue with a
feather is Chris Claremont's. [%] The Remy, Joseph, Hank and Cecelia depicted
are mine, from "Crimes of the Heart" and its upcoming sequel, "A Pound of
Flesh."  Mickey Trellayne, Greg Newman, Grope, and Sluggo, are also mine.  I
know it's canonically Cecilia, but that spelling makes my skull itch on the
inside.

And the cat? Well...

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