So….I haven't touched this fic in almost five years and here I am again. Woot. I up-dated this because Xany Kaos was right—Toad after Ascension was really gross. I needed to write something to avoid that image. So here I am.


-:-
…That the Autumn leaves were turning to the colors of her hair.
-Windmills of Your Mind.


It was weird to think he would ever find himself in a warm place, a fire blazing before him and heat soaking him through to keep him from dying, but there he was and there he had been for three days without moving too much. He couldn't move or he felt, maybe that he would crumple to shards of skin and bone that didn't look like a normal human's, but twisted and too light.

Walking around after dark when nobody knew he was doing so and when it was well below zero in degrees with snow drifting down on his head had not been a good idea. He acknowledged that the second he woke up in front of the fire and found Nightcrawler piling sheets and socks and a couple lady clothes fresh out of the dryer all over Todd. It was half humiliating and half flattering, but he hadn't been able to say anything at the time.

At the time of his being stuffed under the sheets and his feet being pulled into a pair of black socks that he knew now for a fact belonged to Cyclops, however, he hadn't been able to say anything to regain his dignity. His lungs and vocal chords had still been frozen and Kurt had waved a finger in front of his face to stop him so he could go and get Jean (scary and very unhappy to see Toad in the Xavier mansion study room at half past midnight, hair in tangles she would never allow another person to see in daylight) to communicate in the best non-verbal way possible. Todd had simply said—voice in his head rather fuzzy as he was still barely awake after Kurt had bamfed him in from back behind the school bleachers after the pep rally Todd had fallen unconscious during in the process of trying to pick some pockets and get a decent meal that night—thanks for porting him to somewhere with a fire and that he would be gone when he could feel his legs again.

Xavier had come in at that point, very much awake because of the buzzing in Kurt's head that spoke volumes of the situation.

Todd smirked a little into the fire, recalling how Baldy had called the Brotherhood house (falling apart, the only reason for the telephone still being on was so that the power company could call for payments; Mystique having left them three months earlier and drowning in trying to keep everything together on their own) and invited everyone to stay in the mansion until Todd was feeling better. Lance had been the one that sounded the alarms when Todd hadn't been home that evening, so of course, when Xavier handed Todd the phone, Lance had yelled at the top of his lungs for five minutes before telling Toad to give the phone back to Xavier; the brain powered mutant had to be the one to break it to Pietro and Wanda if they were going to stay a while.

The only one in the mansion that seemed annoyed by the Brotherhood staying until they got back on their feet was Scott—but he was ignored easily when he went to see if Todd was faking hypothermia, frostbite and semi-hibernation and fond that he was wearing his socks and didn't move or make noise when Scott took them back.

Wanda had been down to see him when she got in with the others and seemed a little irked when Kurt brought in more heated blankets (electric blankets, with the power cords and everything) and dumped them on Todd's head; three fingered halls waving the Scarlet Witch off so she wouldn't hex Todd into talking with her. Very odd for fuzzy to do but, then, Toad hadn't been conscious when Kurt had found the green hoodling and screamed his head off when he thought he was dead (he'd tried to move him from his prone position behind the bleachers and almost threw up when he brain alerted him that when a body was stiff like that, then the person was probably dead).

Todd opened his eyes very slowly and wiggled his fingers around the blanket he'd been given an hour ago. The smell of Rahne running around after being outside made his nose itch and the rest of his instincts kick in (dogs were enemies to amphibians after all; it was difficult to overcome instinct) and say he needed to wake up.

The smell of brimstone around the corner made him actually want to stay awake.