More sillyfic -- bet everyone's surprised about that one, eh?  :)
Disclaimer:  Marvel owns it, I don't.


Teaser Trouble
by Northlight


        Charles Xavier rose early as he always did in order to beat his X-Men
to the internet.  He signed on and immediately went to the mail.


        '15 messages', he thought excitedly as they loaded with agonizing
slowness.  Charles had been unable to sleep well last night, being too
worked up and eager to see his messages.


        No one knew Charles' secret -- he was a closet fanfic writer.


        And last night, he had sent out some of the fics that he'd been working
on.  He was so eager to find out how his newest ones had been received
by the list.  Would they like it?  Would they hate it?  Would he get
lots of feedback?


        Forget human/mutant peaceful coexistence -- feedback was Charles'
greatest goal.  He _adored_  it.  He _lived_ for it.  He _needed_ it.


        Finally, the mail was loaded.  Charles clicked through the messages,
scanning over the subject lines.  So far, no messages about his last
story.  Hadn't they _liked_ it?!


        And then... yes, it was!  Feedback!


        Charles suppressed a giddy bubble of laughter and eagerly drank in the
words.  Not only did this person like his story, they wanted to archive
it!


        Charles felt his heart flutter madly in excitement.


        He re-read the message, slower this time in order to burn the glowing
words of praise into his mind.  And then, he came to a sudden stop. 
This archivist wanted him to provide a _teaser_ for his story?!


        It wasn't enough that he'd written the story, now he was supposed to
make a teaser for it!


        Charles took a deep breath.  He'd reply to the feedback first, then get
to the teaser.


        He clicked on reply, and thoughtfully considered what to write.  He was
always uncertain on what to write when people gave him feedback.  He
wrote 'Thanks!', but that sounded too giddy.  Then he tried 'Thank you,'
but that didn't sound excited enough.  Finally, Charles settled with a
'Thank you,' with a smiley.


        And now for the teaser.  


        Charles typed out a one line summary and studied it critically.  It
looked stupid, he thought.  If he was a fanfic reader and he'd seen that
particular teaser, he would most certainly bypass the story it was
talking about.


        He deleted teaser #1.


        What the heck could he say about his story anyway?  Couldn't people
just _read_ it and find out for themselves?


        He tried to put some humour in his teaser, to let everyone know that he
was a fun kind of guy.  But humour didn't always look all that good
written down, even with smiles and grin tags.  With teaser #2, people
would think that he was an idiot.


        So much for teaser #2.


        Charles Xavier, a master with words, found himself helpless to describe
his own story.


        Charles sighed and re-typed teaser #1.  It still looked bad.  But what
the heck -- he doubted that he'd see a good teaser anytime soon, anyhow.


        Before he could change his mind, he pressed send.


        He wanted more feedback now.


        Charles pressed 'get new mail'.  There was none.  He waited a moment
before pressing it again.  Still no new mail.


        He spent the rest of his morning before the computer waiting for more
feedback, and eventually even got some.

~End~