Chapter 2 - Disclaimers in Part 1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"They're back."

Rogue's statement made me open my eyes. I don't know if she was talking to me or just couldn't handle the silence anymore. How did she know I was even awake?

"The redhead's crying." Her voice cracked slightly.

"Yeah." I could hear them, the Xavier kids, scuffling around in their cells. I'd been listening to them for quite a while, actually. Ragged whispers and sobs floated across the hall; angry desperate voices from the cell next to Rogue.

"Vic says she killed someone today. With her thoughts."

"Yeah." I rolled over and looked at her. "Told'ja."

"It's nothing I couldn't have done. I'da just had to touch a little." Her arms were tightly folded across her chest, eyes staring emptily across the hall. I followed her gaze and smirked.

"You should really stop spying on people hugging, Rogue. It's about as creepy as the time I caught you kissing yourself in a mirror."

"Shut up."

"I'm just saying…" I grumbled, sitting up. "Shit, can't even make a joke without you jumping all over my ass."

"It wasn't funny."

I just shrugged and started in on my foot ritual, unwrapping the blanket and then peeling off my socks. After the first three layers I glanced over at her. She hadn't moved. Fingers still gripping her elbows, pushing those boobs together and up beneath her bodysuit. Face still hard, spine still rigid. Eyes still empty. And wet.

Oh fuck.

Working off the rest of the socks I checked out the action across the hall. Kurt was curled up on his cot, as usual. The redhead, 'Jeannie' I remembered, and the deluded asshole with the funky glasses were still hugging. His fingers were stroking her back lightly, soothingly. With a pang, I had a fleeting memory of someone, maybe my Mother, caressing me like that. I remembered how warm, comfortable and safe it made me feel. My eyes stung and I blinked hard for a moment, staring at my feet. Then I looked back at Rogue.

"Wanna help me?" My voice sounded out of place, odd, as if the sound were trapped in the air between us and never actually reached her ears. For a second there, I thought it hadn't, then she seemed to shake herself.

"What?"

"I wouldn't mind some help here." I mumbled, "With my feet, I mean."

She blinked, vacant.

"Forget it. It was just a suggestion."

"No. Wait." Slow movements untangled long thin limbs; she actually looked curious. "What could I do?"

"Dunno. Thought you might have some ideas."

"Um. Not really, no."

"Oh."

Ignoring the hovering awkward silence, eyes avoiding the emotionally unraveling spectacle across the hall, I resumed my ritual, chafing each toe in turn in a feeble attempt to get the blood flowing again. I swear, it was almost funny the way the tips of my toes wrinkled up, all white and pasty. They were bloodless, like little vampire toes in their efforts to conserve warmth. I was trying out a new technique today in my eternal war against icy feet. I'd roll one toe, small and sausage-like between my fingers until I could feel the tingle of resumed blood flow and the digit was red, shockingly proud beside its four frigid brothers. The wonderfully warmed and rosy toe was then loosely insulated with toilet paper while I worked on the others. I methodically warmed an entire foot this way, toe by toe, feeling Rogue's eyes on me the entire time. Finally, I had just finished wrapping the entire foot mummy-like in tissue and was pulling on a sock when she stopped me.

"That's not going to work, y'know."

"It might."

"It won't."

I sighed. "Look, Roguey, at this point I'm willing to have the devil himself come and piss on my feet if that's what it takes to keep them warm. Anything's worth a shot."

One long leg stretched across the cell, spanning the space between our bunks, and the rest of her body followed it. Y'gotta understand, when Rogue moves sometimes it's almost as if you can see her skeleton, the bones beneath her skin, actually lifting the body, forcing the unwilling flesh to submit to the unyielding strength of bone. Yeah, I know that it's the other way around, muscle and sinew puppeting bone, but I can't help what I see. Just watching her bones push at her flesh beneath the fabric of her bodysuit mesmerizes me.

Oh fuck, she'd been talking.

"… so that they stay next to each other, sharing body heat." She was sitting on the end of my bunk, leaning in and looking at me with those eyes of hers. "D'ya see what I'm saying?"

"… Er…"

"It isn't a difficult concept, Cain." Oooh.. she was starting to sound huffy or excited or both. She's gonna get mouthy any second. "Just think of it like… um… gloves!"

Now I was thoroughly confused. And she was getting too close; I could feel her fuckin' breath for cryin' out loud! "g-g-Gloves?"

"mmm-hmm." She was bobbing her head, white curls bouncing and tangling with brown against her forehead. "Mittens are warmer, but bulkier; with gloves each finger is separate so we can manipulate stuff better." She wiggled her slim, encased fingers in my face for emphasis. "You don't need to worry about that with feet though."

I was completely lost, distracted like I was by the fingers and the hair and the breath and stuff. And my tongue wasn't working. "Um. Oh… Kay?"

"Cain…"

Whatever else this suddenly crazy woman was about to say was mercifully interrupted by a pair of guards dragging a very raw and crispy Wolverine down the hallway. We gaped, gawked, plugged our noses against the smell of charred flesh, listened to Sabretooth gloat, and then left the J-Crew Kids to their worried wails. It wasn't like they were going to include us in their newly-compounded shared misery, thank God, and we really didn't have any words of comfort for them anyway.

Besides, the strange fact that Rogue was still beside me on the bunk mattered more to me at the moment then a dozen deep-fried co-mutants.

"He didn't look too good." Her voice was soft. Why was she holding my socks?

"Nope."

"The Ice-kid is crying." There they were, just lying in her lap, empty and lost.

I shifted nervously. "He's young."

"Not that young." She didn't meet my eye; she was looking at her hands, her lap, my socks. "We're not much older."

"We've been here longer." I curled one naked foot behind the opposite knee, a long-standing warming tactic, though all I usually ended up with was a chilly hamstring.

"Yeah." She still didn't look up, and the fingers resting on my socks were trembling. "Do you suppose…" she murmured, "do you think his tears freeze?"

I couldn't help it. I reached one of my big old hands across and closed it over hers, the socks, everything together. "Could be." I withdrew my hand, slowly pulling the socks along with it.

She just sat there, staring down at her hands, her lap, her gloves. When she spoke, her voice was light and full of near-reverent surprise. "That would really suck."

"Yup. You aren't the only person whose mutation has nasty side-effects, y'know." I started pulling a sock over a now much-rumpled tissue covered foot when she reached over and snatched it out of my hand. For a second I thought she was going to beat me around the head with it.

"I said that wasn't going to work, Cain!" She waved the sock in my face. "Don't you listen to anything?"

To my dumbfounded shock, she scooted to the end of the bunk, situated herself in the corner, and promptly pulled my feet into her lap. I was very uncomfortable, but getting too scared of her to do much of anything about it. This wasn't normal Rogue behavior. I didn't say anything for a moment until she started determinedly tearing off tissue paper.

"What the hell are you doing?"

She looked up, puzzled, each small hand wrapped firmly around a big toe. "You asked for my help, I'm helping."

I blinked. "How?"

Her lips twitched slightly. "I don't know yet. We'll see."

I bunched up my cheap, flattened pillows and tried to make myself as comfortable as possible. Rogue meant business, all thin lips and impersonal fingers, and, since she tends to be single-minded about things, I figured I was in for the long haul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~