By Maikafuiniel
Chapter 1
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
Mystique stepped through the doorway of her so called 'home' with a slight sneer. Everything smelled, though she knew that it was too be expected considering that fact that the boy whom never showered anyway was sick beyond exclamation. It wasn't a pretty thought, and it meant she would be spending more time then usual out of the house (though this wasn't something that was necessarily bad).
Behind her stood Freddy Dukes, who she had brought on the grocery trip. He carried twelve bags at once, each filled with far more food then they could afford, but really when it all came down to it, it wasn't as though they had paid as much as they should have. They were terrorists after all, and it seemed that being so came with certain perks.
At least, they did if you could make yourself look like the store manager and walk out of the building with nobody even giving you a second glance.
Walking into the house she could see into the living room. She saw Toad laying sprawled out on the couch, shivering. He was obviously cold, but since he already had three separate quilts on top of him there wasn't much else she could do but hope he got better soon. It hurt to look at him, the poor boy, lost in a fever that was taking more then its toll on him. It hit him harder then anybody else in fact, though she knew he would never admit it. But then, these flues and colds always did.
The plain and simple fact was that he wasn't normal, not even for a mutant. He had an incredible resistance to illness, but when something managed to get passed all of his immunities it would get him harder then anybody else. It didn't help that he took after a summer animal and winter was coming either. Sometimes it seemed to her like he was going out of his way to be difficult, but when she saw him like this- sick, smelly (more so then usual), and weak, she just wanted to mother him.
It made her sick.
"No," she said quietly to herself, "Can't do that. Do have a reputation to remain after all…"
She stood there for too long however, when it became obvious that Freddy was getting restles of waiting for her to move so that he could pass her with all of the groceries and get into the kitchen. "Hey Mystique," the Blob said loudly, "Move it before my arms fall off, will ya?"
"Shut up you lout." she said shortly, while giving him a stony look, "Toad is fast asleep and if wakes up we're never going to hear the end of it. So keep your trap shut and let him get some sleep. The sooner he wakes up the sooner we can go against the X-Men with a full team again."
Freddy shrugged and pushed past her, ignoring the extra mean look he was passed by her. "Get those put away quickly," she said as a parting shot as he lumbered away, "If I come in there in thirty minutes and you've eaten your way through those bags, you're going to be sorry. And, as a matter of fact, dirt poor."
Freddy rolled his eyes towards the sky as he continued onwards, knowing that she was right to warn him. He knew he was smarter then he acted, but when it came to food he really couldn't help himself; it was hard to keep up his mutation, and if he didn't eat before Pietro came home the speed demon would go through everything in his search for sugar.
Opening the fridge and trying to ignore the slightly mouldy smell that came from it, he was about to put away the eggs when he noticed a glass of something sitting on the second shelf. "Hey Mystique," he yelled, "What's this in the fridge? Yours?"
Mystique sauntered in and said, "There's something still in the fridge?" she asked with a faint edge of sarcastic surprise, "and here I thought you idiots had eaten us completely out of house and home."
"Not joking," he said rudely as he pulled the glass from the fridge, "Looks like water but stinks worse then Toad. What do you think it is?"
Mystique grabbed the glass and wafted it under her nose carefully for just a moment before jerking it away. "God only knows," she replied, "Maybe one of the boys found some sort of medicine for him. We can only hope he has enough energy when this is all done to take a shower."
She placed the glass on the table and began to help put away the food. "When Toad wakes up, we'll give it to him. If it had been Lance's or Pietro's it would have been gone by now."
"Too true," said the younger but far larger boy, "Or maybe it's bug juice or somethin'. They might have gotten it for him as a present. I haven't seen him go after a fly in maybe three days."
"And what a three days it has been," Mystique said with a joking side in her voice, "No slime, no sticks, no sudden whips across the face when you accidentally walk in his path."
"But have you seen the cockroaches?" Freddy asked, "Ever since Toad stopped eating them, they've been everywhere."
"So the little turd is good for something after all." Mystique said shortly, "Maybe I should call up his mother and she'll take him back. We would never have to deal with him again!"
Neither noticed the shadow moving by the doorway, until finally Toad took a weak step in. He had a sour look on his face and was all too pale. "What the hell are you doing up?" Mystique asked shortly when she noticed him, "Get back to the couch before you collapse on what's left of my table!"
Toad shrugged weakly after looking at the long splitting crack in the table that threatened to make it collapse at any moment before muttering, "You can blame Tro and Lance for that. Got into a fight while you were gone. Heard you talking though… woke me up. I thought maybe you bought some soup?"
Mystique thought to yell at him again, but knew that now wasn't the time. The boy was sick enough as it was, and added stress wasn't something he needed. Not only that but he had likely heard what the two were talking about, even if he hadn't mentioned it. Toad was surprisingly tight-lipped about his family life, and so it wasn't normally mentioned around him.
Forcing her mouth into a semi smile, she pointed to a bag off to the side. "Over there, that chicken soup crap you like. If you're hungry you might be getting better, and I don't want you to get sick again, so straight back to bed when you're done! Understand?"
Toad looked at her for a moment, and she realized how she sounded. She sounded like, god forbid, she cared about the little swamp rat. Quickly she added on, "If you don't, I'll chop off your legs and sell them to the French."
Toad looked at her still for another moment without comment before walking to the bag and pulling out a box of soup. On one level he was hungry as hell, and almost desperate to get something into his stomach. On another level he knew that anything that he managed to get down there was going to come climbing out at any moment, and having a repeat of how to worship the porcelain deity wasn't something that he really looked forward too.
Putting the box back where it came from he instead started searching for something to drink. Seeing a glass of water on the counter he picked it up and said, "Yo, this belong to either of you?"
Both ignored him almost completely, in their quest to get everything put away as soon as possible, and so he decided to drink it. They could always get more water if they wanted, but he was already exhausted just from his excursion to the kitchen. Not only that but it felt as though his nose was completely plugged up, and he needed to go and get some tissues.
He couldn't smell anything and it was starting to get on his nerves.
Wanting to get out of there quickly in case the drink really was one of theirs, he downed it all at once, almost chocking it back up again when the taste hit him. "Fuck!" he nearly yelled, making Mystique and Freddy turn around quickly to see what was wrong, "What the hell is that stuff?!"
Mystique picked up the glass that he had dropped, and realized it was the one with the drink that they had had no idea what it was. "We thought it was yours," she explained, "We don't know what it is. We found it in the fridge."
He tried to spit it back up again, still chocking on the horrible taste, but it was too late. For a moment he thought he would throw it back up, but then… it was actually calming his stomach… in fact, the drink had made him feel loads better; faster then any medicine he had been able to get off the shelf.
Taking the glass back from Mystique he looked at it carefully. There was nothing different about it, there was nothing strange about it, but whatever had been in it defiantly helped his illness. "Maybe Pietro or Lance left it for me," he said quietly, not knowing quite what to do or say. The plain and simple fact was that whatever it was helped, and he wasn't about to diss it. But if one of the others had actually taken the time to help him, even if they hadn't mentioned it, they must have thought he was really dying or something.
He nearly jumped in shock when he felt something touching his forehead, but quickly realized it was Mystique's hand. "Well," she said with a slightly worried tone, "You defiantly feel cooler. Oh I am just going to kill those little bastard when they get some, leaving this kind of shit around without a note to explain it. Could have been poison."
Freddy merely shrugged. "Go back to bed. By tomorrow morning I bet you're going to be just fine. We'll find out what it was then."
Mystique nodded, but it was cut off by a long yawn. Looking over to the clock she muttered, "One in the morning? Go to bed Freddy, if you miss school tomorrow I'm gonna' have you're head on a platter, I promise you. And Toad," she said to the young boy who was now yawning deeply as well, "Get back to bed. Maybe you really will be better by tomorrow, and you can go to school as well."
"Nuts," was the soft reply, "A blessing and and curse, yo. This sucks."
"To bed." she commanded before turning around, not bothering to watch if the two followed what she said.
She was right not to worry about it, as Freddy and Toad both turned away. Normally they might have fought over it, but Freddy was really tired, and Toad still felt a bit on the ill side, even if he felt far better then he had before. He felt… strange though. Not quite the same way as he had been only a few moments ago, but strange none the less. Good, but strange.
And the last thing he thought to himself that night as he went to bed was that tomorrow… tomorrow he was going to feel like a whole new man.
Lance sat in his car incomfortably, trying to ignore the shooting pains through his head that he had gotten from over using his powers. He had known to be careful, but it never seemed to help in the long run. His anger would always overtake him, and he would be right back where he started with a headache from hell.
He winced when he accidentally looked up and into a blaring street light, and wondered for a moment just what time it was. The moon was as high as it could get in one night, and there were a million stars in the sky. There was also somebody walking towards him… For a moment he thought to rob him, his old survival instincts coming back in a rush, but no… no, he didn't need the money that badly anymore. He didn't need it bad enough to take it off others…
As a matter of fact, that brought the thought of having a talk with Toad about his being a klepto into the front of his mind, but he pushed it away knowing that Toad would have never started if it hadn't been necessary.
Lance watched the figure anyway though, just in case the other boy didn't seem to have the same reservations about robbing him. Watching him for a moment, he realized that he recognized that face from somewhere, but it took him a moment to remember that it was from the school dance. This looked like he was the guy who had created the machine that Toad had accidentally used to open up dimension holes- for lack of a better explanation.
Forge walked right by him, not noticing the jeep that was hidden in the shadows, or the bright eyes following his every move. Like that one move where he looked back… his eyes tracking the street to the Brotherhood Boarding house, as if he was watching for anybody who might try to follow him.
Lance waited until the boy turned a corner, and waited another minute and a half after that before revving the engine loudly. He had the sudden deperate longing to get home and make sure that everything was alright. To make sure that Forge hadn't done anything to what little he had.
Forge had done something, and he knew it as though it were a blinding sign in front of his face. Now it was just finding out exactly what he had done.