Constant Craving

CONSTANT CRAVING CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather is evil because she made me bake...okay, not evil. But certainly influential. Lol. Ted loves her anyway and he and Dodo have sent Kristen and Lucas stateside to pick up Yule presents for her...I'm not supposed to tell her that, though... InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink get duck-servants to do their bidding (I'm overrun with the buggers...need to farm 'em out somewhere...lol). Vampyre: one challenge, on it's way. Readers/Reviewers: We have a minor problem...one of the platypi wants to be Maria but one of the Killer Kitties (tm) is threatening to walk out of I let a platypus sing the part...and the ducks are insisting on using real switchblades...This won't end well, I don't think...


True to her word, Storm was in his room in five minutes. Logan was not sure, but he would have guessed it was exactly five minutes, down to the second. " 'Ro," he murmured, opening the door to let her in, his bare chest still damp from the pool but his sweatpants providing enough warmth to keep him from gooseflesh.
"Logan." His name was a statement, not a greeting. She made no secret of examining his room, looking at the bookcase and the stereo with it's stack of CDs and tapes, the pile of DVDs and videos next to the television, and the surprising array of pictures on a table near the window, next to his collection of themed whiskey bottles. "Sentimentalist?"
He colored faintly. "Can't throw 'em out, now, can I?" One corner of his mouth twitched in the beginnings of a smile. "I can't help it if the kids feel the need to give me their school pictures..." Indeed, it was an array of every school picture ever taken at Bayville High School of the residents of the Institute and two of Jamie from Bayville Middle School. Each had the same mottled blue-gray background, each had the same vaguely surprised look of all school pictures, even the few class photos littering the tabletop.
"It's sweet." Storm suppressed a smile as she deposited the most recent class photo back on the tabletop, one of the sophomore class where Kitty was on the front row, looking to the left where Storm supposed Kurt was waiting with his class, judging by the look on the girl's face.
"Great...I'm sweet now. Next think you know I'll be cute." Logan sat on the edge of his bed with a growl. "Lady, I'm anything but sweet."
Storm turned slowly, a bare grin on her face. "Now who said I was a lady?"
Logan felt his eyes widen. "Oh?"
"Mmmm..." Storm walked slowly towards the bed, her scarves fluttering behind her, giving her the appearance of drifting on a breeze. Logan leaned back slightly to get a better look at her and smiled when she stopped, her knees touching his.
"Not a lady, huh?" His hands came to rest on her outer thighs, rubbing abstractedly up and down the texture of her loose silk trousers
"Not tonight..." Storm murmured before pushing him back onto the bed. She did not crawl on top of him as so many women had done in the past but rather stood, almost regally, looking down at him. "Is that a problem?"
"Hardly..." he said with a chuckle. "Now that you've got me down, what're you gonna do about it?"
Storm smiled then, her eyes twinkling in the process. "Down? Too bad...if you were _up _ , I could do something. But down...well, I just don't think that's going to do much for my ego."
"Witch," he growled good naturedly, hooking his ankles behind her knees and pulling her down on top of him.
She stopped her fall by pressing her palms into his chest, levering herself to look down at him. "This is good?"
"It will be..." He murmured, using one hand to draw her head down for a kiss. It was chaste, for Logan at any rate. She parted her lips slightly to draw on his lower one, her hands splaying against his chest and thumbs drawing lazy circles over his hardening nipples. Storm relaxed against him as he broke the kiss, letting her upper body come to rest against his, her head tucked beneath his chin. Logan let his hands rest on her back, embracing her as if this were his first time with a woman.
Storm spoke after a moment, "You're not sure how to start this, either, are you?"
Logan bit back a laugh. "For once, I'm not... 'Ro, we're close, and to be honest here, I want you pretty bad. But I'm also worried this could fuck things up for us."
Storm lifted her chin to regard him coolly. "Logan, your charming phrase aside, things between us will only change if we let them. We sleep together, things don't work out, we're still close. The only way we will be torn asunder is if one of us," the "and I mean you" was implied, "becomes nervous about things, lets that nervousness intrude in our friendship."
"You think we can work?" he asked, carefully concealing hope in his voice.
She chuckled briefly. "Yes. We can work...it just depends on how much you want it as to how we work out in the end..."
Logan felt like a weight was lifted from his shoulders. "In that case..." With a feral growl, her rolled Storm onto her back, making her yelp in surprise. He buried his face in her neck and found the sensitive spot below her ear, drawing on it even as he laved and nipped, making her snake her limbs around him in languid desire. She sighed his name, audible only to him, and Logan felt pangs of lust mingle with rising tenderness, making him slow his assault on her body. They each held no illusions about lovemaking versus sex and neither wanted to question the other as to which this would be. Instead, Logan proceeded as her responses to his touch indicated he should, drawing aside her blouse and exposing her bare flesh to the warm air of the room. His hands against her skin gave him pause, the sight of her smooth skin under his rough hands paradoxical while arousing. He stared for a moment at her dark breast, the flesh soft and mature, not fake like some of the women he had been with, not with the false pretense of youth so many strove to maintain. Storm looked at him openly, letting him see her. Logan's eyes moved from her breast, up the slope of her neck, across her slightly parted lips, to meet her steady gaze. He felt his breath catch momentarily at her open assessmof hof him, realizing that while he had been looking at her, she had been studying him in return. The steady rise and fall of her breath under his hand was hypnotic and he did not know how long they stayed that way, just looking at each other, before she moved.
She touched his jaw with gentle fingers, stroking downwards to come to rest on his mouth. He moved just enough to capture her thumb in his teethkingking her eyes widen in amusement before she tilted her chin in a salute. "Logan," she said, voice husky, "we'll be fine."
"I know, darlin', I know..." he murmured, turning to press a kiss into the palm of her hand as he released her thumb. They moved together then, mouths meeting in a deep kiss as Storm's hands made short work of his sweatpants, pushing them down far enough for Logan to work them off on his own. In turn, he slid her loose slacks over her hips, feeling the contours of her body as he did so, the slopes and curves of her hips and thighs warm under his touch. He pulled away to look at her again, to take in the femininity of her form. Under her usual flowing clothes, Storm hid an hourglass figure, hips and breasts rising from the planes of her stomach and waist, looking every inch a goddess to Logan's eyes. She let him look all he wanted, for she was looking at him in return.
Logan felt her eyes on his body even as his were on hers. Storm let her gaze drift from the look of concentration on his face to the corded muscles in his neck, across his broad shoulders and to the defined chest, covered in a mat of dark hair that arrowed downward, narrowing as it moved towards his belly. She took in his legs, braced as they were between her own, limbs that she knew were strong and fast when they had to be. She wondered briefly about the metal running through his body, if he was aware of it every second of the day or if he barely gave it a thought anymore. His arousal rested against her lower belly, it's warmth searing her skin with her awareness of it. His gaze followed hers then, both meeting as they looked up from his state. No more words were spoken as communication became purely visceral. She titled her hips upwards as he moved so that he pressed against her entrance, his hands moving around to hold her by her buttocks even as he rose to kneel between her parted thighs. At his look of askance, she nodded once and he guided himself into her, not fast and hard like he would one of the other women he had been with but slower, still needful and demanding but compelled to pace himself. She responded in kind, pressing herself to meet him. He froze though, as he met resistance. She quirked a brow at his look of startlement and pressed harder, forcing him past the barrier that he thought had long since been breached. Storm's head tilted back as Logan held still inside her, letting her get used to the feel of him within her. After a moment, she moved against him and that was all the encouragement he needed. Setting a slow, deliberate pace, Logan moved so that he was laying fully against her, Storm's legs coming around his waist to hold him there. Nuzzling her neck, he drank in the scent of her arousal and skin, taking it like a drug. She made a soft murmuring noise and Logan felt a familiar tightening low in his belly. He worked one hand out from under her and used it to rub at the small bud of arousal at the juncture of her thighs, making her slick around him and increase the pace of her own undulations. A sharp gasp from Storm let him know she was close to the edge, something that made his own climax immanent. She arched her back then, a moan escaping her lips as he hands clutched at his back, her legs tightening as she convulsed around him. Logan felt a sudden moment of panic. They weren't using a condom and, as far as he knew, Storm was not on birth control, especially given the state of her maidenhead as little as an hour ago. With some guilt, he pulled out of her and saw his climax spread across her soft belly, stark white against her dark skin.
They lay together for a moment, breathing and coming down from endorphin induced highs before Logan said, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" she murmured.
"For, ah...that..." he gestured to her stomach and the cooling, sticky mess there.
"Don't be...it was...interesting..." she smiled then, still looking at the ceiling.
"Why didn't you tell me you'd never...?"
"You didn't ask," she ed. ed. Logan stared at her for a moment, then barked in laughter, triggering Storm's tinkling bells of a giggle as they lay in his bed, sated and feeling like teenagers on prom night.

"Have I told how wonderful you are lately, Schatz?" Kurt mumbled around a mouthful of ice cream.
"Not for, like, five minutes now...you're over due..." Kitty giggled, waving a spoonful of chocolate-sauce drenched Chunky Monkey at Kurt's face. "Open up...one more bite and I'll finish the rest..."
Kurinneinned and swallowed the proffered ice cream happily. "What brought all this on, by the bye?" He gestured to the tray she had brought to his room, long after he thought she had gone to bed. It had contained a bottle of chocolate syrup, a can of whipped cream, a pint of Ben and Jerry's and two spoons. Now, it was all but demolished.
Kitty shrugged, scraping her spoon along the bottom of the carton. "I was up...I was hungry...and I didn't remember you eating much at dinner. A woozy Fuzzy Love Slave is not a Happy Fuzzy Love Slave."
"So I'm your love slave now, Katzchen?" he drawled, trying out his best "seductive" voice. "I'll do it willingly, you know..."
Kitty snorted. "It's an expression..." she giggled, "but good to know...I'll just have to give Amara back her handcuffs."
"Vas?" Kurt said, startled.
"Oh...um...nothing...nothing at all..." Kitty murmured into the remainders of her ice cream. Guess her proclivity for S&M isn't that widespread...oops. "So..."
"Mmm...Tell me about Wednesday, then," he said hopefully. "Will I like it? Stupid question-of _course _ I'll like it..."
Kitty felt a mild twinge of misgiving. _Maybe I should tell him about the surprise...I'll hold off...I want him to be really surprised... _ "I don't think Wednesday is going to be exactly how you think it will be..."1
"Katzchen, no matter what you are going to do, I'll love it..." he murmured, picking up her hand to press a kiss against her knuckles, a chivalrous gesture she was coming to know as his prelude to more in-depth kissing.
"Kurt..." she said softly, trying to think of a way to let him down easy. She was saved by the sound of a loud explosion.
"What the Hell?" Kurt cried, leaping into the air in surprise. Kitty phased through the bed, nearly through the floor, before stopping herself. They were off at a dead run, Kitty pulling Kurt through the door in phase. They ran into a flood of mutants in the hall, everyone running down the hall and to the outside to see where the noise had come from.
"Oh..." Kitty said, shocked at the sight before her. A yellow glow had drawn them around the side of the house and made them all freeze when they saw what it was. All the murmurs of panic and curiosity stopped. The boathouse was in flames.

1 Vague Princess Bride moment... Kind of in the same vein as "I do not think it means what you think it means..."

CONSTANT CRAVING CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather and her royal menagerie and consort get a coterie of fan-dancing penguins, just for the humor value. And because Foxfeather is supergreat for beta-ing. :) Vampyre: you there? InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink all have lovely little candles on my lovely little windowsill in their honor now. :) Readers/Reviewers: Okay. I took the switchblades away from the critters. I convinced them to use sporks and water pistols instead. And the platypi locked themselves in their trailers, demanding more money until I reminded them that they weren't getting paid to start with... They're out now but refuse to wear the costumes. They want to dance naked...


"Stupid bitch!" Tabitha coughed, choking on a lungful of smoke.
"Me? You're the whore who's slumming around my boyfriend's bedroom!" Amara slung Tabby down the stairs, storming after her as the flames licked the walls of the bedroom behind them.
"Slumming? So you admit that you're beneath him?" Tabby sneered, rising to her feet despite the pains shooting down her side and legs.
Amara bared her teeth in a truly evil grin. "Only when I'm not on top of him...:" She was within arm's reach of the blonde and lunged for her then, knocking her back against the wall of the saltbox house.
With a grunt, the two girls fell to the floor and rolled into the living room, Tabby ending up on top with her hands around Amara's neck. "I will fucking kill you, slut!" she hissed, thumping the other girl's head hard against the wooden planks. The acrid smell of a burning house was flooding the lower floor, wood and wiring sending fumes to suffocate the fighting mutants.
Amara felt the breath being squeezed out of her and scrambled for Tabby's hands, pulling them away just enough to suck in a breath, feeling the smoke burn her tissues. "I'll survive this, Tabby. You won't. I _am _ fire...remember?" As if to remind her, Amara let her body turn to flame, sending Tabby yowling to her feet, flailing with burned hands and dancing on burned legs in an effort to stem the pain. Amara seized the opportunity to roll to her knees, knowing that even she could not survive smoke inhalation. Keeping her face as close to the floor as possible, she shouted, "Get down you stupid cow and you might get out of here..." _I hate her but I won't have her blood on my hands. She isn't worth it. _ The lights had long since gone off with the melting of the wires upstairs and now the smoke was so thick even the ambient moonglow could not be detected. Amara crawled in the direction she thought the door lay in and heard a muffled thud nearby. "Tabby?"
"Fuck....you..." she coughed. Tabitha could not see and she felt like her lungs were dissolving. She had no idea where in the room she was anymore only that she was on the floor.
Amara gritted her teeth and paused her slow progress. "Tabby, say something."
"I said...fuck you." She was sure she was dying and, despite what everyone said, her life was not flashing before her eyes and she did not see a white light. Instead, she just tasted copper as she bit her tongue to keep from crying. Tabby felt like screaming but did not know who to scream for.
_She's on my left somewhere...okay. I can't believe I'm doing this... _ "I should let you die." Amara crawled forward a few more feet and thought she could make out the outline of the front door, light seeping in underneath it.
"There's voices in my head..."
_Great... _ "Fantastic."
"Wants to know if I'm okay..." Tabby coughed again and Amara could not hear her move again, the roaring of the fire coupling with the sound of falling pieces of the house above them. A loud creak and sizzle brought a chunk of the ceiling down, crashing before Amara. She bit back a scream and instead tried to see Tabby in the firelight.
"Well, answer them, then." _Voices...must be Jean...Great, at least someone is out there. _Amara knew that the way out was blocked now, the chunk of ceiling was between her and the door. "Tabby?" Amara lay flat on her stomach, sucking in as much air as she could. "Tabitha? Answer me you daft cow..."
Several feet to Amara's left, Tabby lay silent.

"Ow."
"Ah...you're awake..." Professor Xavier smiled kindly at Todd. "How are you feeling?"
"These needles hurt..." Todd tried to lift one hand only to find it caught in his IV line. "When can I get 'em out?"
"Soon... in fact, you'll be going home later this morning."
"What time is it?" Todd was slowly becoming aware of his surroundings and new that, even if it was morning, it was very new morning and still dark out. "Where's Mar...Rogue?"
Professor Xavier wheeled towards the sink area and chuckled. He procured a cup of water for Todd and let the boy take it before responding. "It's around three a.m. and I made Rogue go home hours ago. She was very tired and needed some rest, but I promised her I would let you know she did not want to leave, Logan and I made her."
Todd could not fight the smile the spread across his face. "So what's wrong with me?"
"Ah...that's the odd thing. Well, not odd per se. Just...unusual." Professor Xavier positioned himself at the foot of the bed to better see Todd, looking the teenager in the eyes for the first time Todd could remember. "Several scans and tests have showed some scar tissue on your heart, but no true damage. It appears that, whatever heart problems you have, heal fairly quickly. I discussed this with Dr. McCoy-Beast, to you-and his friend Dr. Schwartz, himself a telepath and what the kids term a "friendly" in relation to we mutants, and we have come to the possible conclusion that your mutation is what saved your life."
Todd stared at the man for a moment then snorted. "Do what?"
"Todd, you are well aware of the nature of your mutation, but you are still maturing, your mutation still developing in some aspects." The Professor's brows drew down as he tried to think of the best way to continue, a way that would not make Todd feel like more of an oddity than he already did. "Sometimes, in nature, some creatures have the ability to repair themselves when they lose a limb, for example..."
"Like them lizards on the Discovery Channel..." Todd frowned. "I ain't a lizard, yo! I'm Toad!"
"Beast feels that it is something to do with the amphibious part of your mutation. You have no where near the healing powers of Logan, but you have a remarkable capacity in terms of self-preservation. Your heart, by all accounts, should have given out years ago. It seems that as you reached puberty and your mutation became active, it aided in reversing the damage that occurred to the cardiac muscle." Lance, Remy and Scott had reported to him from the road as they left Manhattan, their tale giving the doctor some idea what to look for in terms of congenital defects.
Todd sighed. "So I'm okay?"
"For now...you do have a congenital heart defect that will act up in the future. It seems that the shock of being...drained...by Rogue triggered a mild heart attack."
"Heart attack? Yo, I'm sixteen!"
"It happens, Todd...but this is the only episode you know of, correct?"
"Well, yeah..." he shrugged. He thought of his mother's ramblings when he was a child, how she accused his father of making up medical conditions to try and take custody of him, and he wondered if the tale really held truth after all.
"Given the amount of scar tissue Dr Schwartz found, you should have noticed long before now. In fact, you should have been hospitalized long before now. This episode was just the most dramatic." Professor Xavier favored him with another smile and patted the edge of the bed. "Now try and get some sleep. Logan and I will sign you out in the morning."
"Um, Professor?" Todd felt sheepish and stared at the pattern on the hospital coverlet. "Could you, um, tell Rogue that I'm okay? Tell her I...um..."
The Professor laughed out loud and shook his head. "You can tell her yourself when you get home...I'm sure she's asleep right now but I know she'll be delighted to hear it from your own lips."

"Damn." Lance saw the column of smoke rising in the weak light of dawn as the entered Bayville city limits. "Something is burning good..."
Remy popped his neck drowsily. "Mebbe it de school an' y'all don' hafta go back after de break, eh?"
Scott glared. "That's not funny."
"Oh, lighten up, Summers!" Lance sighed. "He's joking."
"Still not funny..." Scott slumped down in his seat and closed his eyes, feigning sleep as Lance wound through the curving streets of Bayville, cresting the hills on the way to the mansion.
"Merde..." Remy breathed after a protracted silence. "Dat's home..."
Lance felt his jaw drop as it became apparent that the smoke was indeed rising from the Institute. All around them, the woods pressed dark and frosted, cold in the dawn air. The smoke was coming from a direction they all knew well and making panic rise in their throats. "Maybe it's just a forest fire or something..."
Scott nodded, hoping that Lance was right while knowing in his heart that the smoke was coming from their home. "Um, can you drive faster?"
"Not a problem..."

Kitty passed a grimy hand over her face, for once not caring about her hair or appearance. The boathouse was lost, the shell left standing a skeleton of the former saltbox structure. "Jean," she whispered, unwilling to break the still morning, the column of smoke rising like a ghost, "is Tabby gonna be okay?"
"Beast thinks so...she didn't really inhale that much smoke. She just fainted from fear..." Jean sank to sit next to her in the grass. "That was awful. She looked dead when Logan got her out of there..."
"At least Amara's okay." Kitty rested her chin on her knees. "She just walked out like nothing when Storm got the fire out."
"Who says mutants aren't useful?" Jean sighed. "What're we going to tell the Professor?"
"I don't think we'll have to. He'll know..."
"Did Amara tell you what happened?" Jean asked after a moment of smoke watching. "She told me to, um, bugger off."
Kitty couldn't help the chuckle that rose in her throat. "She said she saw a light on in the boathouse and went to see if Lance made it back. When she got there, she found Tabby in his bed...after that, I think you can guess what happened."
"Who started the fire?"
"Your guess is as good as mine...on one hand, you have Amara, the human wall of flame. On the other, you have Tabby throwing charges in an old wooden house. The Professor is going to have to sort it out."
"He's so going to disown all of us..." Kitty leaned sideways and rested her head on Jean's shoulder. "I'm tired but I can't sleep."
"I know the feeling. I mean, this wasn't the mansion, but two people we know were in there. And it could've been so much worse..."
The sound of tires crunching on gravel made them both look towards the driveway. "Well, here comes worse..."

Lance pulled in just ahead of the Professor and Logan. The three teenagers spilled out of the car in a jumble of words and limbs, Scott finally being heard about them all. "What the Hell happened here?"
"My room!" Lance cried. "Shit!"
"Language, kid," Logan said, emerging from the van.
Jean sighed and rose. "Here..." placing her hands on either side of Scott's head, she opened her mind. _So much easier than telling him, just letting him see... _
After a moment, Scott stumbled back. "Is everyone okay?" he asked shakily, the smell of burning wood and grass as fresh in his mind as if he had been there during the fire.
"Tabby's in the infirmary, Amara's in her room," Kitty said, joining the group in the driveway.
"Um, now what?" Todd asked, finally breaking his silence.
"Oh!" Kitty and Jean exclaimed as one. Kitty continued, "You're okay!"
"I guess..." Todd looked askance at Lance. "We're homeless again."
"Not quite, Todd," the Professor intoned, sounding more tired than any of them could remember him ever being. "You will have to double up in the mansion. We'll work out arrangements later. For now, everyone inside."
Logan herded them all in, Storm waiting at the door to lead Todd to the study to lay down while everyone else trickled into the kitchen. Logan nodded to her, unwilling to shout "Hey! We need to talk!" in front of everyone. Instead, he trailed after the Professor towards the remains of the boathouse, gnawing on his lower lip and trying to sort out thoughts.

Kurt looked up sharply as Kitty came into the kitchen. "Well?"
"The gang's all here," she sighed, jerking her head to indicate Lance, Remy and Scott behind her. "And the Professor is out there with Logan. And Todd's in the rec room."
"He okay?" Kurt asked, moving aside so a noncommunicative Lance could get the box of cereal from the top shelf.
"I guess. He and Lance need somewhere to stay now..." Kitty favored him with a hopeful expression. "You're room's awful big..."
"Nein!" He took Kitty by the shoulders and shook her gently. "I love you, Katzchen, but I am not sharing my room with anyone. Not unless it's you," he amended.
"Kurt!" she said, looking around to see if anyone overheard. Remy was smirking but silent so she chose to ignore him, pretending it did not happen. "Well, I just think this would be a great chance to...you know...make it all right."
"Kitty," he said, somewhat exasperated, "we can't talk here...come on!" He 'ported them to his room, wincing as she swayed woozily. "Sorry..."
"I hate that...I need to get some Nauzene if you're going to keep that up!" She pressed her forehead against his shoulder. "Ugh."
"Oh, my poor Liebes," he crooned, only half-teasing, "I make you sick..."
"Well, you can make it all better if you do me one favor..." she said in a small voice.
"That would be...?" he asked with some trepidation.
"Let Lance stay in here with you for a while...until some arrangements are made."
"Katzchen." Kurt pulled away from her, holding her at arm's length and staring at her with no small amount of frustration. "I've told you...I won't. And are you forgetting the Brotherhood is now involved in burning down Institute property?"
"Kurt, that was an accident! And for all we know, it may have been Amara's fault!"
"And for all we know," he countered quickly, "Tabby did it on purpose to make Amara look bad!"
Kitty felt the beginnings of a tremendous migraine. "Fine. I'm going back to bed..." she pressed a kiss to Kurt's mouth and shook her head slowly, tears standing in her eyes. "I just want everyone to get along, babe."
"Katzchen...don't be so upset. I hate it when you're upset."
"Then stop making me that way," she said softly, phasing through the door to leave Kurt alone in dimly lit room.

Rogue felt the sharp pangs of hunger stir her from her sleep. _Damn it...it's only been an hour...I knew I should've just said fuck all and stayed up... _ With sluggish, sleep-drugged movements, she forced herself from bed and pushed her feet into battered bedroom slippers. _Maybe Kitty won't mind if I steal one of her yogurt thingies. _ Her mind still half asleep, Rogue thumped down the stairs and crossed the foyer, registering the sound of many voices in the kitchen and dimly wondering why there were so many people there. _It's too early for them all to be back, isn't it? Huh. _ The rec room was dark, the curtains drawn, as she padded past the couch. "No one knows how to shut off the damn television set?" she grumbled aloud, flipping it off manually as she walked by.
"Hey, I was watching that!"
Rogue froze. "Todd?" she squeaked, turning slowly for fear she was still asleep and instead of Todd on the couch it would really be Miss Sharp, her third grade teacher, speaking with Todd's voice and she would have fins or one of those other random dream occurrences. "Todd?"
"Yo..." he said, voice still scratchy from the dry hospital air.
Rogue crossed to the couch in two steps, dropping to her knees and pressing her face to Todd's chest. "You're not dead!"
"Maybe I am...and this is heaven..." he mumbled, twisting strands of her hair around his fingers and sighing as she kissed him through his shirt.
"Silly. If this were heaven, we'd be naked, " she said, feeling happy for the first time in what seemed like forever. She slid her arms around him and hugged him as tightly as she dared. "Did they find out what was wrong? Is it my fault?"
Todd shook his head. "Long story...too tired to tell..." He sighed and stroked her back. "What happened to the boathouse?"
Rogue shook her head then. "Long story...too tired to tell..." she repeated back to him. "But Tabby's here now."
"That bitch? Why?" he managed to snap.
"Let's just say that she's got a great deal to do with the smoldering pile of wood out there..."
"Ah...you found him..." Scott said from the kitchen doorway.
"Yeah..." Rogue turned to face her teammate and scowled. "That _okay _ with you?"
"Fine, fine..." he shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Whatever."
"Y'all cool now?" Rogue asked, looking between Scott and Todd.
Todd shrugged. "Dunno. Are we?"
"Dunno," Scott mumbled. "Are we?"
"Dunno," Todd repeated. "Are we...?"
Scott frowned. "Did Tabby set that fire?"
"How the Hell should I know?" Todd snapped. "I was in the hospital, yo..."
"You're her teammate..."
Rogue narrowed her gaze at Scott and bit out, "No, everything isn't cool...fuck this. Scott, I refuse to be on the same _team _ as someone who's so...so...gah!" She threw her hands in the air and shoved herself to her feet, glaring at the older teenager. "Until you can get that stick out of your ass, I refuse to call myself one of the X Men!"