*** Disclaimer in Part One****
I do however own Steffon and Angie.
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"You're dead" Rogue whispered.
"Not everything is what it seems, Marie." the man said carefully.
"No, I saw your chart. You had enough crack in your system to kill three men!" Rogue began. "How-how do you know my name? How do you know about Logan?"
"I'm Steffon, by the way."
"Are you a telepath?" Marie asked, thinking perhaps this Steffon had dual powers, perhaps he was a telepath, and healed like Logan.
"An interesting question, considering your condition" Steffon's cultured voice rang softly.
Marie kept her face carefully guarded. He wasn't giving answers, so she wasn't going to be revealing anything. But she had to know if he knew what she was. "Alright, I'll play along. What exactly do you know Steffon?"
"I know that your real name is Marie, but you go by Rogue. You live in a small house on the edge of town because it reminds you of where you used to live in Mississippi. David was the first boy you ever kissed, Logan is the first and only man you've ever loved but you're royally pissed at him You're also a mutant, and you hate your own skin."Steffon finished smugly.
"If you knew who Logan is, why did you ask?" Rogue asked, slightly panicked that he knew what she was but unwilling to show it.
"Why to start a conversation of course."
"What are you? You're not a mutant, you-you weren't breathing." Rogue realized.
"I don't need to."
"Stop with the cryptic crap alright, who the hell are you?" She asked, anger replacing apprehension.
"You mean you don't know?" Steffon asked in mock surprise.
"Angie, Rogue here hasn't figured it out yet." Steffon said to the woman who had suddenly appeared in the room.
"Well dear, it's not that difficult to figure out really. Steffon here isn't breathing, he's pale, even for a white guy and he didn't say that he wasn't dead. You do the math." The woman said as she crossed the room to Steffon.
"Miss me?" He asked her lovingly.
"Baby, I didn't think about you once all day." Angie giggled.
"I'd certainly hope not," Steffon teased back.
Rogue just stared at the two and coughed nervously to break the rather long lip lock.
"Honey, did he tell you what's what yet?" Angie asked Rogue.
"I know this sounds stupid, but he's been implying that he's a vam-vampire." Rogue said.
"Bingo."
"Flesh and blood, but no beating heart." Angie summarized.
"You're a vampire too then I take it?" Rogue asked, careful not to let her desire to call the funny farm scream across her face.
"That's right." Angie nodded in ascent.
"Well, that's not something you here every day." Rogue muttered.
'You don't have to speak out loud, we can hear your thoughts.' Angie and Steffon said simultaneously in Rogue's mind.
Years of dealing with telepaths had conditioned Rogue to the sensation of hearing voices in her head. So sure, they were telepath, and the man apparently had a healing mutation, the woman could probably teleport. They had to be mutants, vampires didn't exist.
"Yes we do dear, and we need you with us." Angie said.
"We can offer you things you can't even imagine." Steffon began.
"Like what?" Rogue asked in spite of herself.
"Immortality, power, the ability to touch. We can give that back to you Rogue." Steffon said.
"You're cruel." Rogue shot out.
"Am I?" Steffon asked.
Before he'd finished with the question Steffon was beside Rogue. He reached out his hand and stroked her cheek. Rogue shivered at the sensation. It had been the first time in far too long that she'd been touched by another human being. Steffon's hand sparked her skin to life. A tingling sensation spread from head to toe. The doormat sensation was being fully awakened.
To touch was grand, to be touch divine. The last time she'd willingly been touched she'd been too unconscious too remember and cherish it. And now she was being offered the chance of a lifetime. But was it something she would only later regret?
The song she'd been listening to her came back through her head. "We sing the death song kids cause we've got no future." Rogue had a future once. She'd been 16 and eager to explore the world. She had dreamed of going to Canada between high school and college. The memories were so bitter now. Everything in her life had been tainted by something completely out of her control-literally.
She had lost her family because of her skin, her own flesh and blood, the people who had made her and given her the very skin she existed in. Marie had adopted the name Rogue and hit the road to make her own way in the world that had been turned upside down. Xavier's had been a slight reprieve from the world of roughness and fear. The X-Men had served as a cause she could truly fit into and use her curse to her advantage for once. But it had backfired, and a woman lay dead because of it. Soon Rogue was back where she'd started from, surrounded by the people who were supposed to care for her and all she could see was the fear they felt. Logan had been another unstable equation thrown in by hormones, good conversation and a life-bond.
Rogue had accepted the fact that Logan wouldn't return her feelings. If Logan, the man she knew felt something for her wouldn't venture a relationship with her, then it wasn't likely that any man ever would. She'd abandoned the small hope of a family that she'd ever had. All her dreams had been cut down to simply existing. And at that moment, she decided that wasn't good enough. She wanted something more, she wanted something exciting, and most of all she wanted to feel.
"I'm in."