Bathroom SymphonyThe song in this story is "April Showers" from the Bambi 
  soundtrack. Beast is copyrighted to Marvel and is being used without their 
  permission (and if you've never felt like this, then you obviously get enough 
  sleep. :).
   
Bathroom Symphony
Lori McDonald 
March 1997
 
After thirty six hours of work on the Legacy Virus in his lab, with only two 
breaks - one to run screaming "Gangway!" to the bathroom, nearly flattening 
Bishop against the wall in the process, the other to eat a day old danish and 
half a box of tic-tacs - Doctor Henry McCoy had entered that state of enhanced 
awareness which Bobby affectionately called completely out of his mind.
Once he reached that special place, where one is too tired to stay awake, yet 
too hyped to go to sleep, and where if one had half a functioning brain left, 
one would be on the floor playing with it, he decided it was time to take a 
break. Point in fact, he yelled "I shall take a break!" and then stood there for 
five minutes while his brain tried to catch up, then decide what to do. Giving 
up on that hopeless task, it sent him down the hall to the elevator in the hope 
that something would turn up and it wouldn't have to.
So off he went, striding down the hall while leaning slightly forward as if into 
a strong wind, almost falling with each step, with a huge, brain dead grin on 
his face. It was a disconcerting look when seen on a normal human during finals 
week. Viewed on a gentleman who could be politely referred to as a touch on the 
hairy side, impolitely as a big blue furry carpet - complete with a set of fangs 
that would make any mother despair at the orthodontic bills - it was 
frightening. Luckily, all of the other residents of the mansion were used to 
him. More importantly, they were all still asleep, it being somewhat before dawn 
still - or noon for some of the inhabitants - midnight for others. The only one 
he saw was Logan, and he wouldn't bat an eye if the devil himself appeared 
before him. He'd just ask him for a cigar, or try to gut him, depending upon his 
relative mood at the time.
Obviously just home, Wolverine went past him towards the kitchen, humming a 
Loreena McKennit song to himself as he did so. The oddness of that didn't 
penetrate Beast's skull as there was another thought in there already and there 
just wasn't room for two, unless they were very friendly and liked to cuddle.
Everyone was asleep, which meant the bathrooms were free.
Still grinning like a Charlie Chaplin clone in a Rogainne commercial, the Beast 
went up the stairs and down to the men's hall bathroom.
Each bedroom in the mansion had its own bathroom, of course, but they were tiny 
things that only had a toilet and a sink. Beast didn't like using his much, 
since it meant sitting with his knees over his head and he just wasn't designed 
to bend that way. Most people weren't, except for the odd circus performer and 
some very popular teenage girls.
There originally hadn't been any bathrooms in the rooms at all, but the second 
to last time the mansion had been destroyed, there had been one functional 
bathroom for fourteen people. It'd been ugly. Very ugly. Hank still had bare 
patches on his butt from then.
In an attempt to restore peace, the professor had the large, walk-in closets 
that came with each room shortened and half given over to the new bathrooms. 
This sparked a whole new riot and the women had already drawn up the plans for 
the new expanded wings of the mansion, complete with onsuites for each room. All 
to be implemented the next time the house blew up. There was even a pool going 
for when. Beast was down for five p.m. next Tuesday by Apocalypse. His odds were 
considered good.
What all this meant, of course, was that there was one bathroom per wing with a 
shower. One for the men, one for the women. As a result, certain of the men had 
generously volunteered to save both water and time by showering with the women. 
This was usually met by the man being flung out of the bathroom bodily. How well 
the man handled this depended upon how disappointed he was, how many times it'd 
happened to him before, and whether or not the woman bothered to give him back 
his towel first. The sprint from the women's bathroom to the men's wing had been 
clocked at 6.28 seconds.
Flinging open the door grandly, Henry regarded the bathroom. It was a mess. 
Towels were dumped in the corners and there were rips in the shower curtain from 
the last time Bobby iced the tub on someone and they decided it would be a good 
idea to leave in a hurry. On the counter, there was shaving cream, six kinds of 
soap, a dozen toothbrushes in various stages of decay, and cups, one for each 
man, many still with water in them.
Beast went in and peered at himself in the mirror. He looked like a hairball. He 
reached for his hairbrush and pulled it to him, knocking it against two of the 
glasses as he did.
Tink. Tonk. The big mutant stared at the glasses, his grin widening, then tapped 
them again.
Tink. Tonk.
Gleefully, he tapped out a tune on the various, partially filled glasses.
Tink tink tonk tink-tink tink tonk tink tonk... tonk tonk tink tonk tonk tink 
tonk tink tonk tink.
"Ah, what glory be to music," he crooned and played it again. It didn't quite 
have the oomph he wanted, so he turned on the tub, and the sink.
Tink tink
Slammed his hand against the side of the sink. Boom
Kicked the tub. Crash
Hit the counter, the floor, the pipes under the sink, the door - each producing 
a different sound.
Wham Bang Crash Smash-Smash Whoosh Bash Crash Smash... Smash Bang-Bang Crash 
Bash-Bash Wham Crash Smash Bash.
He heard feet running down the hall just as his latest kick at the bathtub 
shattered the side. Water flowed ankle deep over his feet as the sink overflowed 
and the abused door fell out of its frame.
Bishop, Bobby, Warren, Logan and Remy looked in at the devastation left of their 
only shower. Then they looked at him, standing in the middle of the mess, his 
fur wet.
Beast blinked at them. "Um- oops?"
The final affront to the room came from him going out the window before they 
caught him.
 
The End