Scott's skin was burning. Like every normal, occasionally outdoorsy child-of-the-nineties, he got a sunburn every now and then. Once, heck, he'd even leaned his elbow against a lightbulb and raised a blister the size of his thumb. This wasn't like that. This was like being dropped into a Boy Scout firepit, with walls higher than Scott was tall, and left to slowly incinerate until his ashes would make a soft, grey bed for the next victim.

He felt himself thrashing with pain, but the thrashing was remote and he hurt too much to open his eyes. This seemed to go on interminably until some part of his brain became too used to the agony for it to be such a ferocious novelty any more and, oddly enough, a vague itching in his nose became more and more defined until it was maddening and demanded his attention.

Then, Scott opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was that his glasses were missing. The second thing he should have noticed was a marked lack of roof and a whole lot of plaster raining down on his body. Instead, the second thing he noticed was that, instead of the usual spectrum of reds he usually saw, the spectrum was now entirely in grey.

He scratched his nose. According to his new vision, his fingers came away black and glistening.

He wanted to sneeze.

Instead, he swept his eyes sidelong and found someone. Kurt was crouched behind a chair, eyeing him as if he were a bomb about to expode and get all around very messy.

"It's all right," Scott gasped. "My powers don't seem to be working."

"I am sorry about your glasses," Kurt said, as if he hadn't heard. "I deed not remove zhem, but vhen you voke up, you broke zhem very vell. I vas quite impressed. Perhaps you remember," he finished at a feeble squeak.

Now that Kurt mentioned it, Scott did remember very briefly standing up, and then tossing himself down on his face, linking his arms over his head and kinda running along the ground with his forehead pressed to the floorboards until he ran into the wall. He didn't think ruby quartz was all that fragile, but perhaps he'd crushed the rims with his shenanigans. Smashing his face into the floor didn't seem terribly productive in retrospect, but the overall pain in his body had justified it at the time.

"Yeah, I remember. I think I'm still in a little, um, distress." And he sneezed. His nose only itched worse.

"I tink you haf part of ze floor embedded in your face."

"I haven't noticed yet. Too many other things in the way."

"You know, I am gettink zhees vague feelink zat zhees may be all my fault, somehow."

"Oh, hey, just probably coincidence. I'm betting on this all being a really nasty nightmare at the moment, if you don't mind."

"Not at all. I prefer ze nightmares, I tink."

Scott sneezed again. Grief for Rogue was gnawing at the back of his brain, but, selfish as it probably made him, his own torment was more pressing now. "Do you know if anyone got out?"

"I vatched ze vindow for a vhile. I must admit, I deed not see anyone, but zat means probably nothink. Zhere are many exits in zhees mansion, right?"

"Sure." He could have gone for a little confirmation, though. "Has anyone come in here?"

"No. No one."

"Huh."

"I deed tink I might teleport you out, but I vas frightened I vould kill you. I haf never done it before."

"It's all right. This is as good a place as any." Another sneeze. "Crap. I'm getting blood all over my shirt, I know it."

"I vill get another tissue. I vas tryink to stop the blood before you voke up."

"Don't bother. I suppose you've stayed here the whole time?"

"It vould not be very gentlemanly of me to leaf you here, vould eet?"

"I want to know what happened to Rogue. Can you go look for me? I'll be fine."

A nice lengthly hesistation. "I vill be right back."

Kurt loped off on all fours toward the door. It was somewhat unsettling to watch him and even more unsettling when he left and it was just Scott, lying on the floor, with his nose itching worse than before. He sneezed -- or almost did. This time, there was something blocking his nostrils and something like a small explosion echoed inside his sinuses. He moaned and turned onto his side, pushing a knuckle against his nose. The pressure only seemed to intensify.

"Oh maaaan," he wailed, muffled. The pressue kept rising and his head felt on the verge of bloody rupture and he was certain he was dying.

He sneezed a final time. Something splattered thickly just aft of his mouth, draining his head in a wet pop that left him dizzy and disoriented.

His skull, although free of the sinus infection from the dark land of sadistic exaggeration, felt very heavy. As if his neck wouldn't be strong enough to support it should he have the strength to move. Instead, the body-wide pain, although no less than before, was beginning to wrap around him like a spiked comforter, lulling him . . .

The door swung open.

Kurt was sobbing almost as bad as Kitty had been, although his blubbering was more tinged by terror than loss. "Scott, it's . . . "

He stopped and Scott heard a muffled thud. He blacked out himself a second later . . . for the second time. How annoying.