"She loves me!" Mason cried happily. Clenched in his tiny, blue, dragon-fist was the remains of a flower, torn to shreds.
"Huh?" I grunted. "Would you please help me write this?"
"Posh Spice loves me!" he shouted, flopping on his back. His tail lashed out, landing smack in the middle of the keyboard. With a heavy sigh, I sat back. Mason was not going to be in a muse mood anytime soon.
"Posh Spice does not love you," I told him. "She doesn't even know you're alive."
"You're just jealous..."
In a whoosh of smoke, a dog-sized dragon appeared beside the desk. "Asbestos!" Mason cried happily.
"Aren't you supposed to be helping Julia?" I asked.
"Eh," Asbestos snorted, sending a plume of smoke out of one nostril. Mason waved his serpentine tail in the air, clearing the smoke away.
"She's gonna complain about this later," I told him. "Mason, help me!"
"Okay... Uhm... Just invent a woman," Mason told me.
"Oh yeah, that's new," I snorted.
"All right, all right. Let me give you an idea so you'll get off my back, sheesh..."
"Can we listen to the Spice Girls?" Asbestos asked.
"As soon as somebody gives me an idea I can work with," I tried, hoping.
"Set the building on fire," Mason suggested.
"Ooh, I can use that," I realized. "Thank you Mason. But I need more."
"Play ‘Stop,’ Asby," Mason told him.
"I don't know how you guys get anything done with the Spice Girls this close," Asbestos remarked.
"We *don't,*" I all-but snarled. "Help me, Mason! I've been writing on this fic for eons!"
"Uhm... Put Posh Spice in it and I'll tell you this idea I've had percolating for a while," Mason taunted.
"Mason, there's no room for Posh Spice in this fic," I sighed.
"Put her in there!" Mason shouted.
"All right!" I shouted back. "Stubborn little dragon." As Asbestos and Mason both stuck their tongues out at me, my fingers flew across the keyboard. "There, a cameo by Posh Spice. Now what's your big idea?"
Mason, still rocking out to “Stop,” crawled over to the monitor and read what I had just written. "Okay, now... I'll whisper it in your ear." He leaned over to my ear and gave me what was actually a good idea. A bit cruel, but good, nonetheless.
"Thanks Mason!" I cried enthusiastically. "I can use that!"
"Is this the fic from that series, uh...," Asbestos started, "Candle in the Wind, where everybody thought he was going to put Tommy and Kimberly back tog- (WHAP!)" I looked up to see Asbestos holding one cheek. "What did you hit me for?!"
"Don't mention those two together again!" Mason yelled. "I've got a reputation to pro-"
"Easy, Mason," I entreated. "We respect other people's opinions around here." I was barely able to hold back a snort at that comment.
"Yeah, it's not like I dislike Tommy and Kat. Jules and me did write _Love You More,_ you know," Asbestos said. He snorted a ring of smoke at Mason and settled back down, resting his head on the edge of my computer.
"You also wrote _Butterfly,_" Mason growled. I saw him move to kick Asbestos in the ribs, so I quickly but "accidentally" pushed Mason off the desk.
"We liked that fic because Asbestos and Julia actually dealt with Katherine, remember?" I continued typing as I said, "It's when people write a Tommy/Kim fic and don't even address Katherine that perturbs us."
"Yeah, when they say that Katherine dumped Tommy like six months before the fic started," Mason agreed. "I hate that."
"Like you did in that Christmas fic?" Asbestos teased. He had no more than stuck out his tongue when Mason leapt onto the desk and tackled Asbestos. The two dragon/muses rolled to the ground, snarling, biting, flaming, and yelling like a pair of siblings.
"Stop it!" I cried, jumping back as a well-placed shower of sparks landed before me. "Don't make me get the hose!"
"Ooh, can we play with the water hose?" Mason asked hopefully.
Asbestos rolled to a halt into the wall. "Uhn uh, it's too hard to get my pilot light relit," he said. "How about some kittens?"
"There aren't any gypsies around here to sell them to," Mason sighed. I shook my head. Those two were always trying to sell cats to the gypsies for some reason. "But... you gotta see this," Mason continued. "This numbskull numbered his cats!"
"He numbered them?!" Asbestos laughed.
"I didn't number them!" I shouted back. "I named the kittens One, Two, Three, and Four. It's creative!"
"It's numbering them, doofus," Mason said.
"And you can't go see them anyhow," I sighed.
"How come?" Mason asked.
"Because I SAID so," I returned, smiling defiantly.
Pouting, the two dragons trudged back into my room and resumed perching on my desk. "I bet Ellen's and Willow's muses doesn't give them this much trouble," I grumbled.
"Hey, how come we've never seen Ellen's muse?" Mason asked.
"If you had a muse that let her write like that, would you ever let it leave the house?" Asbestos challenged.
"Hmm... good point," Mason agreed.
"Is Willow's muse still in Tahiti?" Asbestos asked.
"I think so," Mason said, nodding his tiny, dragon head.
"Mason, put in a horror movie," I sighed. "I think I'm starting to get stressed."
"Uhm, if you do, I have to leave," Asbestos said. "I have a tendency to hum theme songs in my sleep, and Jules said that if I ever hum the theme song to _Halloween_ again, she's going to return me and get a new muse."
"Then let's watch _Spice World,_" Mason cried happily. Flying over to the VCR, he had the movie playing in a matter of moments. A few seconds after that, the two were headbanging to the song "Leader of the Gang."
"You know what else irritates him?" Mason asked, nodding toward me. "Magic spandex."
"It doesn't irritate me," I said. "It just... Okay, it irritates me."
"It's usually hormonal women who like spandex," Asbestos realized.
"What about Julia?" Mason tried.
"She's married. She's not allowed to be hormonal anymore," Asbestos informed him.
"Did you all just hear somebody laughing?" I asked.
Asbestos cocked his head to listen as Mason continued, "And Jeremy Ray doesn't have to get his kicks from spandex, because he buys Playboy magazines and claim they're part of the required book li-"
"I buy them for the articles!" I cried defensively. "Do you wanna see the paper I had to write about it?!"
Mason rolled his eyes as he slumped back to the ground. The room was silent for a few moments until Mason added, "My girlfriend looks like Posh Spice, only with long hair and a country accent."
"She's not your girlfriend, Mason," I said.
"Then she's your-"
"Don't jump to conclusions, pup," I told him quickly.
"Can we watch _Titanic?_" Mason asked.
"You just like it when Rose gets naked," I said.
Mason paused for a few moments before asking again, "Can we?"
"Yeah, put it in. Just fast forward about an hour and forty minutes."
Mason and Asbestos both raised their reptilian eyebrows at me but did as I suggested. "Don't judge me," I threatened, pointing my finger.
"Hey, do you think Emily will go back to Ross on _Friends?_" Mason asked hopefully.
"What is it with you people and always cheering for the underdog couple?" Asbestos asked.
"Ross was a better person around Emily," I said, tossing my own two cents in. Asbestos only shrugged to Mason's question. However, Mason was still being very talkative.
"You know what," Mason started, "I still think Tommy has girly hair and chicken legs."
"You're just jealous because Posh Spice hacked all her hair off!" Asbestos shouted.
Mason gave a scream of shock and horror before tackling the larger dragon again. I did nothing but shake my head and mutter, "Dragons."