A/N: Wow, sorry this took much longer than anticipated. Hopefully I’ll move faster in the future. I plan to keep this going for at least fourteen chapters (one for each character)… probably more next season. For now, I hope you enjoy this one, in which I now torment Boone for several pages. ;-)

Disclaimer: All characters are the product of JJ Abrams’s twisted mind, except for those that are the product of my twisted mind. All of JJ’s characters shall be made fun of mercilessly. Nothing personal.

Hannah- See what horrors I can produce when you let my imagination run free? ;-) Thanks, love.

Shannon Michelle- Actually, I’m not sure I invented the word “squick.” Not sure where I first heard it, though. And your idea is my idea exactly. ;-) Glad you’re enjoying it!

ZweitenFruhstuck- Yep, there will! Thanks!

cryogenie- Figured you’d appreciate that. ;-) And you’ll probably get a great kick out of this one, too.

The Noble Platypus- Of course it will! They shall ALL be specifically titled chapters. ;-) And yay! Muse! MARIJUANA!

goblz- Thanks much! I’m honored to be one of the few fanfic parodies you’ve read. ;-)

Cas85- Thank you, I’m glad you’re amused by my madness!

bushlaboo- It shall be fun… if I can get around to it more regularly.

And now, for something completely different:

Misunderstood Liberal Boone

Boone grunted awake and was quite startled to see an adolescent female face staring down at him from only a few inches away. Before he could utter any sort of alarmed noise, she jerked something up in front of his face.

“Watch the pencil!” she snapped.

Bewildered, he did. She moved it firmly back and forth and, very suddenly, shined a penlight in his eyes. He yelped and closed them tightly, but she had what she wanted, and she jumped up. “Very, very blue,” she announced. “Big, pretty, and blue.”

“You forgot too close together!” replied another voice.

Boone blinked and tried to regain his senses. He heard the clang of sliding metal, kind of like jail cell doors in shows like Oz and stuff. His vision recovered and he found, with some alarm, that he was, in fact, in a jail cell. Outside it were two girls he’d never seen before—a cool, willowy blond (the one armed with the penlight), and a small, boyish brunette with glasses and a critical look fixed on him. They surveyed him momentarily.

“Where am I?” he demanded.

The brunette grinned. “The Twilight Zone,” she said, “of course.”

Boone stared at them. “Huh?”

She shook her head. “Ohhh, Boone,” she muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “We’re gonna be here all day.”

“Shh,” said the blond, patting her shoulder. “Boone, honey? I am Joanna. This pouty little thing is Marie. We’re just gonna ask you a few questions, okay?”

Marie gave her a sullen look and wandered off to a very, very messy desk. There was not much else in the apparently tiny room but some dim lamps, a heavy metal door, and a few chairs outside the cell. Boone stumbled to his feet and gripped the bars without result.

Joanna gave him a mildly disdainful look, then drew up a chair. She sat down, crossed her legs and balanced a clipboard on her knee. Flicking a strand of hair out of her face, she eyed him intently and said, “Name.”

Boone blinked. “Uh…”

“Your name! What is your name!” said Marie impatiently. “For the love of Buddha…”

“Calm down, Marie,” said Joanna levelly, staring at Boone. “What is your name, Boone?”

Boone furrowed his brow.

“Full. Name,” said Marie stiffly. “Now.”

“Boone Carlisle,” said Boone meekly.

“Good boy,” said Joanna soothingly, scribbling something on the clipboard. Boone distinctly heard her murmur “Definitely… not… Rutherford…” as she wrote. She looked back up at him. “Ethnicity and occupation.”

Boone stared skeptically at Joanna for a long time before answering. “American, wedding business owner…”

“Little slow on the response,” remarked Joanna, which Boone did not think was entirely fair.

“And a lifeguard!” he added.

“A bad lifeguard,” corrected both Joanna and Marie.

“Hey!” whined Boone. “You can’t talk to me like that, I—”

“Run a business,” interrupted both Joanna and Marie again. Joanna finished: “We know.”

Boone sulked while Joanna jotted things down and Marie snickered in the background.

“What,” said Joanna suddenly, looking piercingly at him, “is your favorite color?”

Boone blinked. “Uh… red?” he said quickly to avoid further wrath from Marie.

Marie shook her head.

“Just why were you in Aussie-land?”

Boone hesitated. “I was getting my sister.”

Joanna scribbled something down. “Tell me Boone,” she said as she wrote. “What is your opinion of the Edgar Winter Group?”

Boone was having a lot of trouble keeping up with these seemingly arbitrary questions. “I’ve… heard of them…”

“Wow. Surprising,” remarked Marie.

“Why—” Boone started to ask.

“No, no,” said Joanna somewhat patronizingly. “We ask the questions first. You can ask all you want later.”

“Can’t tell you we’ll answer much, though,” said Marie breezily.

“What do you think of the works of Faust?” said Joanna a moment later.

There was a pause. “What’s Faust?”

Marie cracked up so hard that he jumped. He glared. Joanna wrote something else down.

“If you’re not gonna answer my questions, then I don’t see why I should answer yours!” snapped Boone sulkily.

Joanna paused, then slipped the pencil behind her ear and leaned forward. “Because, Boone,” she said, “these questions are really quite simple and ask you to explain almost nothing. The questions you would ask us, such as What The Hell Is Going On, or Who Are You People, or What Is Up With This Island Anyway, are a little more complicated, and I’m afraid we can’t quite answer them yet.” She grinned amiably.

Boone frowned pensively at her, unaware of who very amusing he looked when he was trying to be pensive (Marie laughed). “Hey, who are you people?” he asked as though it had just occurred to him.

“Joanna and Marie,” replied Joanna, “faithful agents of FANDOM.”

“Fandom?”

“Frequently Arbitrary Network Division Of Meddling,” she explained, explaining nothing.

Boone blinked a few times.

“See? That’s just all your going to get, I’m afraid.” Joanna grinned and glanced back down at her notes.

“But…”

“What do you think of the philosophy of John Locke?” Joanna plowed on, looking up at him with great curiosity. Marie did as well, surprisingly.

Boone hesitated for only an instant this time before replying in dulled tones, “Locke is the wisest man I know.”

Marie raised an eyebrow. Joanna took a long time writing things down.

“Is he, now,” she said.

Boone continued staring mindlessly into the distance. “He is my best friend.”

“You are such a lapdog,” said Joanna, laughing to herself. Marie nodded firmly and turned away, satisfied.

Boone did not reply or blink.

Joanna hesitated. “Boone.”

He blinked and looked at her. “Bzuh?”

“I said,” she said, “you are such a lapdog.”

There was an almost exquisitely timed pause. “Hey!” he whined.

Joanna smirked. “Well, you are,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Seriously,” said Marie. “I mean, the guy puts you on a drug-induced vision quest in which your altogether far too beloved sister dies a horrific death, he calms you down, feeds you a bit of philosophy, and then you’re ready to do his bidding. Just like that.”

Boone stared at her, a little afraid. “How the hell do you know all this stuff?”

Marie grinned endearingly. “We know a lot of stuff.”

“Don’t confuse him further, Marie,” scolded Joanna gently. “But since you curse, Boone, what is your favorite swear word?”

Boone blinked. “Um… I dunno…”

“Of course you don’t.” She jotted something down, then looked thoughtfully back up at him. “Now,” she said reverently, “for the most important question.”

Boone didn’t like where this was headed.

“Who on this whole island,” said Joanna slowly, “is your particular private fancy?”

Boone stared at her, not entirely sure what she meant. Marie watched him with baited breath.

Joanna glanced at her watch. “Boone, sweetie,” she said liltingly. “Come on, now. Pick a girl, any girl.”

“No, no, no, one in particular,” said Marie, her eyes still trained on Boone.

Boone felt like he was back in high school. “Uh… no one,” he said, shifting his weight.

Marie laughed uproariously. Joanna smiled a sympathetic smile.

“He’s so cute,” she said affectionately.

“He’s such a dumbass!” laughed Marie.

“Well, at least he’s a pretty dumbass,” said Joanna. Marie rolled eyes and turned back to her desk.

“It’s okay, Boone,” reassured Joanna. “We already know the answer.”

Boone looked suspiciously at her. “Then why are you asking me?”

“Because in order for you to overcome the general squickiness of it all, you must yourself admit to it,” bullshitted Joanna. “You know, like the type of thing Locke always talks to you about.”

Boone regarded her very suspiciously. “There’s no one,” he said with some form of conviction.

Marie and Joanna glanced at each other momentarily before Marie said, “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Boone. It’s only when there’s actual inbreeding of the same blood when you start getting big teeth running in your family.”

“Yeah. Like Prince Charles,” said Joanna wisely.

“Besides, I mean, who can blame you?” sighed Marie, hoisting herself up on the desk and subsequently knocking several things off it. “She’s pretty, she was drunk… you’d probably broken up with that blond you were with in California, or whatever, so, on the rebound, you did your sister. Makes perfect sense.” She picked up a juice box that seemed to appear from nowhere and sipped noisily on it.

“I mean, I’d never do that,” said Joanna thoughtfully. “But different strokes for different folks, as they say.”

“Oh, don’t look so bewildered,” said Marie with a little kick in the air. “It’s not like either of you made any effort to hide it. I mean, right from day two, Claire assumes you guys were makin’ it, or at least were at one point. I think we all kinda saw that coming.”

“Well, I didn’t think you were actually, you know, related,” mused Joanna. “But whatever.”

“But they’re not related!” said Marie. “That’s the beauty of step-siblings. No blood relation. So kind of gross, but not enough for any tasteless jokes about Alabama.” She grinned at him some more.

Boone stared at both of them, completely speechless and now more than a little afraid. They both waited patiently for a response, Marie slurping her juice while Joanna wrote a few notes down, idly flicking a strand of hair back and forth.

“That… I… how do you…” He scratched his head, flustered. “But… I don’t…”

“Right. So Shannon it is.” Joanna smiled and wrote a long something down. Boone shook his head as though trying to wake himself up and sat heavily down.

“Don’t worry, Boone-baby,” said Joanna pleasantly. “Just one more question.”

“Is it another invasion of privacy?” mumbled Boone without looking up.

“Kind of,” said Marie. “But in a much more subtle way.”

“Muh,” said Boone, or something like it.

“It’s a simple word association,” said Joanna. “That’s all.” She turned a page, scanning it thoughtfully. “I’m going to give you a word, and you say the first thing that comes to mind. Ready?”

Boone looked vaguely up at her. There was a long pause, during which Marie’s slurping got more and more infrequent until she just took the straw out of her mouth and stared at Boone, beginning to feel concern for the well-being of his synapses.

“Oh. Um. Yeah,” he said finally.

Marie raised an eyebrow. “I have never seen information reach a person’s cortex that slowly before,” she said. “Truly an amazing specimen, Boone Carlisle.” She went back to sipping the juice.

Boone scratched his neck. Joanna looked at him. “Lapdog,” she said.

There was another pause. She tapped her pencil against her clipboard. “First thing that comes to mind,” she reminded.

“That’ll take about twenty minutes,” muttered Marie.

“Lapdance,” said Boone flailingly.

Joanna and Marie stared at him for a long time. Marie started to snicker. Then, all at once, she fell back onto the table, laughing so hard she had to gasp between bouts.

Joanna hesitated uncertainly, then wrote several things down.

“What?” Boone whined. “They’re similar words!”

“Yeah, but…” said Joanna, scratched her neck. “Oh, never mind.”

“The images!” cried Marie, still giggling haplessly. “The images!”

“Kind of disgusting, and I’d rather not have them,” said Joanna, still writing stuff down.

Boone paused. “Hey, what are you trying to imply?”

Marie sat up. Then, doing a somewhat frighteningly good imitation of Boone’s step-sister, she said, “You guys are, like, jungle pals.” Then she cocked her head and grinned some more in that maddening way.”

Boone didn’t get it.

“Maybe when you’re older, honey,” said Joanna soothingly, and stood up. Stowing the clipboard away in a drawer (which she promptly locked), she added, “You can come out now.”

Boone furrowed his brow. Marie hit a button on the wall, and the cell door slid open stubbornly. Not quite sure what he was going to do, he stepped out.

“Okay,” said Marie, coming up to him. “Last order of business. Your brush with The Secret.”

“The… what?”

“The Secret.” Marie nodded knowingly at him.

Boone was nonplussed. “What’s the secret?”

“We’re not entirely sure yet,” she said with a cryptic smile. “But your side of the story has to do with that hatch in the woods. You know, the one where you and Locke do most of your jungle pal business.”

Boone blinked, then slowly began the thinking process by which he was to eventually determine why “lapdance” had provoked such an amusing mental image.

Marie nodded again. “You still don’t know much about it, obviously. But you’re getting there. That hatch has a lot to do with everything. Trust me, I know.” She rubbed her chin. “But no, you’re not that important yet.”

Boone was really starting to wish he was somewhere else. “How do you people know all these things? Are you spies?”

“Spies? Us?” said Marie in an exaggeratedly aghast manner. Then she smirked. “Maybe.”

“I tell you man, they’re all going to ask us the same questions,” grumbled Joanna. “Who are you. How do you know everything. What’s The Secret. Are you spies.”

“Exactly,” said Marie. She pondered this for a moment, then said, “Well, it’s time for you to go. Come with me.” Pulling him along by his shirt sleeve, she unlocked the large steel door and led him down a long, dimly lit hallway.

“Okay,” she said. “One thing before you go.”

He looked at her uneasily.

“Your assignment is to go around to everyone…” She paused. “Everyone except Jack… whose name you know.” She nodded to herself. “And tell them: no one of consequence, we just do, we don’t know, and kinda-sorta.”

Boone stared at her. She smiled vaguely. “Can you remember that?”

He paused. “Sure,” he said slowly.

“Good.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Now, also: don’t tell anyone about us. If you do, we will know, and bad things will happen. Horrible things. Trust me, you don’t even want to imagine the power that FANDOM wields upon you all.”

Boone was trying to edge away. “Okay,” he whimpered.

“Good boy.” She smirked at him and started to wander back into the well-concealed complex, or whatever it was. “Oh, and remember the redshirts. For all you know, you could be one yourself one of these days.”

Boone didn’t even want to guess at what she meant. He tried to sidle away a little more rapidly.

“See you around, Booney!” called Marie with a smile before disappearing into the tunnel.

Boone stood there in shock for a moment, then turned on his heel and flailed back through the jungle until he found the main path. About halfway back to the caves, he stopped, indignant.

“I am not Locke’s lapdog!” he said irritably. He was then briefly horrified by the associated image “lapdance” gave him, and hurried onward.