Addictions

or

It Sounded Like a Good Idea at the Time

Angelo and Jubilee sat, huffing and puffing, at the end of the obstacle course they had just run. The rest of their classmates had casually walked away a minute or two after the race and had left their winded friends scowling at their retreating backs. After awhile Angelo gave Jubilee one of his trademarked, loose-jaw grins. "Ya' know how pathetic you look don't ya Jubetica? I mean, I'm a smoker, what's YOUR excuse?"

Jubilee stopped scowling at the treeline where the rest of Gen-X had disappeared and gave Angelo her best "look". Skin swallowed convulsively and shrank away from the glaring assult. After a moment he regained some of his composure and resumed his taunts. "Maybe it has something to do with all that junkfood you eat? Too many Pizza Rolls, eh? Too many candy bars. sugar bombs, and Surges? You know what they say, don't ya? Two minutes on the lips and a lifetime on the hips!" He reached over and playfully pinched her side where there was a fold of skin. "See?" He grinned devilishly.

Jubilee growled in her best imitation of Wolverine and slapped his hand away. "Oh yeah like you're so much better, Angie! A cig for breakfast, one after lunch, a couple between classes and finish off the pack of desert. You're a regular health nut!"

Angelo scowled down at a harmless ant that was creeping across his tennis shoe. He hadn't realized he was up to a pack a day.

After a few more minutes of sitting around and scowling the pair got up and began to walk back to the academy. The school's grounds sprawled over a few acres of western Massachusetts. Bordering the three main buildings of the academy were the woods where the obstacle course had been run. Angelo and Jubilee emerged from the treeline and began the walk back to the main building where the classroom, gym, offices and kitchen were. "I hate this!" Jubilee complained, "Why do we have to report back to the gym? Why can't we just go to the dorms; take a shower and a nap, watch some tv and THEN report back to the gym?"

"Because that would actually make life fair for us, Jubetica." Angel answered, laughing a little. He spent the next few minutes chewing over what had been running through his mind since he realized how many cigarettes he smoked in a day. "Uh....Jubilee?" Angelo began a little tentatively. He wasn't entirely sure she'd agree to this and if she didn't, then he'd never go through with it, after all misery loves company.

He realized he'd been staring at her and looked away before starting again. "I was thinking, ya know about that stuff." Jubilee gave him a quizzical look. "How much I've been smoking?" She nodded her comprehension and he continued, rushing on. "Well, I'm gonna quit. Cold turkey. After classes I'm going through all my stuff and throwing out ever cigarette I can find."

"Angie! That's awesome!" Jubilee smiled brilliantly and threw a quick hug around his shoulders.

"Yeah, I know! That's why we're quitting together!" Another quizzical look. "Jubes, I can't do this on my own! I need your help."

"Hey, Ange, I'll help you but what did you mean, TOGETHER? I don't have an addictions."

Angelo gave her a smirk and reached into his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. Then he plucked the candy bar from Jubilee's hand.

"Hey! I NEED that! Give it back! I....oh, I get your point." Her brow creased in thought. "Okay Angie, I'll quit the sugar, you quit the nicotine."

"Deal."

"Deal." They shook hands and resumed their walk back to the main building. They were both feeling very good about their decision and confident on their success. After all, after the battles they'd fought as Generation X, how hard could it be?

"Need sugar, need sugar, need sugar, need sugar, need sugar, need sugar...."Jubilee was rocking back and forth on her heels. Most of the small student population had decided to spend the evening in the rec-room, which was located in the boys dorm.

"Would somebody please SHUT HER UP!" Angelo yelled irritably from where he was sitting in the corner, slugging down coffee at nine o' clock at night.

"YOU shut up," Jubilee sneered. "This is your fault! It was YOUR stupid idea!" She made an attempt for Skin's throat but was pulled away by Jono and Ev. The latter was Angelo's best friend and the former hers. "Please Jubes, stop!" Synch beg.

~Yeah luv, can't ya see the bloke's sufferin' just as much?~ This came from Jono, who was staring fixedly at Angelo's twitching eye and fidgeting fingers. ~If not more...~ He continued, more to himself and his black leather jacket that anyone else.

Jubilee stopped struggling and was released from the two older boys grasp. She looked at Angelo, nodded once and then lunged for the packets of sugar resting near Angelo's coffee cup.

"Somebody get the duct tape!" Ev shouted as he tackled Jubilee, pinning her neatly to the ground in mid-lunge. Paige carefully placed a gumwrapper-now-bookmark in between the pages of her history book and then ran from the room to get the tape.

Jubilee sat squirming on the couch trying desperately to work her hands out of their duct taped bonds behind her back, tiny 'paffs' of frustration marking her lack of success. Everyone else was enjoying the movie Monet had put into the DVD player. Everyone else but Angelo. He had already seen "Dead Poets Society" and his eyes were flicking neurotically from one schoolmates face to the other.

"I-I-I'm g-gonna go to the...the bathroom! Yes! The bathroom! I've got to go!" By the time he'd finished his mini-speech, he was shouting in a triumphant voice. "I am my own worst enemy." He muttered as he walked out of the boys dorm, in the entirely wrong direction of ANY bathroom.

"So who's turn is it to stop him?" Monet inquired in her usual apathetic tone of voice.

"Mine, ah guess.." Paige drawled reluctantly.

"NO! I'll go!" Jubilee had somehow managed to extract herself from the duct-tape and was out the door in a flurry of 'paf's before anyone could even register that something had happened.

"Jubilee is....she....she escaped." Paige said, staring wonderingly at the seventeen layers of duct tape that lay broken and crumbled on the couch. A few moments of silence passed as the students tried to decide what to do. (They aren't exactly the brightest lights on the Christmas tree, you realize.) Eventually they settled back down to finish the movie.

"Hey.."Ev began suspiciously. "Who took my bottle of Surge?!?"

Jubilee rapturously gulped down the precious suger-laden beverage she'd swiped directly out of Synch's hand. "Ahhh..." Satisfaction filled every ounce of her very audible sigh.

"And here I was thinking I was the one that was gonna crack."

"You did," Jubilee retorted, her voice husky from all the caffeine she had just downed. "And I only followed your bad example." She smiled a little blearily at him, caught up in her sugar and caffeine buzz.

Angelo puffed on his three cigarettes thoughtfully. Taking them all between his middle and index finger, he exhaled a ring of smoke.

"Isn't that a little over-kill?" Jubes asked. Angelo simply stared pointedly at the empty two liter bottle of Surge she was cradling protectively in her arms. "ooookay. So we can't quit. We're failures."

"Don't talk like that Jubetica. We can quit." Angelo looked at her reassuringly. "Just can't go about it cold turkey. Tell ya what though. You let me wear that patch and I'll let you drink a two liter bottle of the soda of your choice per day."

Jubilee brightened at the suggestion and threw a quick hug around Angelo in her excitement. "Agreed!"

After that (and after Angelo had finished his cigarettes) they headed back to the rec-room, smiling and once again confident in their decisions.

The students of the academy walked stretching and yawning, each in different states of wakefulness, into the kitchen. They all stopped dead in their tracks as they caught sight of the two occupants that were sitting at the kitchen table. Jubilee happily sucked on a super-long-silly-straw that led into a two liter bottle of Surge. Judging from all the empty cans of Surge that buried the table it was anyone's guess how many times it had been refilled. Angelo, the second occupant, hadn't seemed to notice. He sat by two empty nicotine-patch boxes and was carefully applying each and every one to his barred arms and legs. The other students slowly backed out of the kitchen. Things had suddenly turned very scary and sinister at the academy.