Blueshift

Blueshift Chapter Twenty Eight (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… less than two weeks! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. :) Even if Dracena is bouncing her emails. ProPhile: It’ll keep… *whistles * Morgan: *GLOMP * Readers/Reviewers: I think I have the plague… minus the whole welts and rotting thing… Thanks for reading/reviewing as you can! :)

The smell of institutional coffee filled the cold room and made Rogue more than a little nauseated. A sickly silence had fallen in the hour since the Professor had ordered the deputy to make the urn of coffee. Her mind would not stay on a straight path, wandering from panic and disbelief to mundane things such as wondering if she remembered to shut her bedroom door this morning or noticing she needed new shoelaces. She could not stop the flow of thoughts and wondered if some of her reaction was a remnant from Empath or any of the other people she had absorbed, in part, over the years. _Shouldn’t I be crying more? I’m so sad, I hurt and ache and want to puke…why aren’t I crying more? Why do I keep thinking of stupid things like wanting oatmeal or needing to pee? _ A snapping sound made her gasp and look up sharply only to find the deputy sheepishly shoving a broken pencil into a drawer, avoiding the trio of gazes from across the small room. “Logan,” she said thickly, “please, can we go? Can we just take him home?”
Logan patted her back awkwardly. “Just sit still a little longer, Rogue.” He glanced at Professor Xavier and felt his brows draw together. The older man did not look good. He was very pale, sweat standing out on his brow and the back of his neck. Logan’s gaze drifted downward to where the Professor’s hand rested on the arm of his wheelchair. His fingers were obviously trembling. “Chuck,” he said quietly, “need some fresh air?” He leaned forward trying to catch his friend’s eye. He had known the death of a student, even one such as Todd, would be deeply affecting but he had not expected the Professor to go into some sort of shock, at least not like this. _Hell, I miss the bug eater too but damn… _
Professor Xavier shook his head. “I’m fine.” He slowly pushed his chair forward, stopping just before the deputy’s desk. “Is the coffee cool enough to drink?”
“Uh… yeah…” The deputy glanced from the urn to the Professor and back several times. “Wanna cup?”
“No, unplug the pot and carry it to the cell.” He wheeled towards the cell, the door standing open before him, and stopped just short of it. “Logan?”
Logan rose to his feet and crossed to the Professor. “What’re you doing?” he muttered, opening the cell door wider. He could get that the older man did not want to use his powers, even for something as simple as opening a door, in front of a norm, but he did not get the coffee. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Rogue trailed the deputy to the cell. “What’s going on? What the Hell are you doing? Get away from him!” she ordered, her voice growing more shrill with each word. She tried to evade Logan’s grasp and failed, finding herself caught fast in his hard grip, her arm aching almost immediately as she twisted and pulled against him. “Stop it!” she shrieked as she saw what the Professor was having the deputy do.
The deputy shook his head and set the urn down, backing away quickly. “That’s degrading! It’s illegal to desecrate a corpse!”
“It’s also cruel and unusual to keep a jail this cold in the dead of winter,” Professor Xavier pointed out. “I’m sure the ACLU would love to hear about it. Logan,” he nodded at the urn. “Please.”
“No!” Rogue shrieked again, horrified. She nearly knocked the deputy down as she tore away from Logan, her sleeve ripping with her efforts. Her guardian pro temp jerked back to avoid touching her skin but the deputy was not so lucky. He felt a sharp, almost electrical shock as she caromed off of him and had to sit heavily on the floor. Rogue gasped and grabbed her arm, the contact not enough to cause her much pain but enough to give her an unpleasant image of what the deputy had been thinking about her while she had been crying. “Sick fuck,” she snarled, whirling away from the fallen law officer and glaring at Logan. She spread her arms out of instinct, blocking the sheet covered form on the bench. “Stay. Away.”
Logan sighed. “Rogue, honey, you need to move… You don’t know what’s happening here…”
“Yes, I do! You’re all insane!” She took a step back and reached for the urn only to grab empty air. With a cry of dismay, she found it several feet off the floor and moving towards Todd, the Professor’s concentration the only thing keeping it from spilling all over her. “Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it!” She lunged at the older man but Logan was faster, pulling the chair back in time.
The Professor was not as strong in telekinesis as he was with telepathy but he could manage it from time to time. Blocking out Rogue’s cries, Logan’s snarling orders, the deputy’s panicked babble, he focused on the very faint, thin bead of sound rising from the bench. It was not audible, even to Logan at this point, but it was there. The flicker of life, the faintly green twist of health and presence that told him what he needed to know. He did not hesitate as he tipped the warm, almost hot, liquid over on Todd. The splash was resounding, cutting through the chaos. Rogue fell silent and just fell, fainting in sheer shock and horror at what had happened. Logan hissed more in surprise than pain as some of the coffee splashed his arm.
“That’s it!” the deputy shouted, scrambling to his feet, feeling a bit weaker than he expected. “You sick freaks! You’re under arrest!”
Logan ignored him, instead watching the coffee-stained lump on the bench. A soft groan rose, then a long, painful inhalation and a body-racking cough. The deputy joined Rogue on the floor, an inelegant heap of brown and metal next to her pale and green fall of horror. Professor Xavier exhaled covertly. “Jacket, now,” he ordered Logan. Logan moved fast, grabbing his jacket from the plastic chairs where they had been sitting and practically running back to the bench where Todd was now stirring. “Amphibians,” the Professor said before Logan even opened his mouth, “hibernate in the cold. I’m guessing, no, I know, he became so chilled his body shut down automatically. When he is checked out by Henry back at the Institute, I’ll have a talk with him about maintaining his health.”
Todd had slowly been sitting up, shivering and choking as he spit out a mouthful of slime and coffee. “Yo,” he uttered creakily, “what’re you all doin’ here?” He squinted, his vision still blurred. He felt cold in his core but otherwise fine. “Is that Rogue? Dude, what’s wrong with her?”
Professor Xavier glanced at the stirring deputy. “We’ll tell you in the van. Logan, if you please…”
Logan nodded, scooping up Rogue under one arm and Todd under the other. Todd sounded as if he were about to protest but thought better of it and just hung, dripping and limp, in Logan’s grasp. Professor Xavier moved back to let them pass, frowning as the radio on the deputy’s desk crackled to life. “Jacobs, you there?” some tinny voice called. “Get your ass in gear and round up Locke and Jensen. You gotta come see this…”


A/N Trust me, it’ll fit with the next chapter just dandy…