Reversion

[mickey]

For Mickey, there was no sudden change. No backwards version of the Cure, no shuddering and wanting to be sick but finding your throat closed, none of the drugs in his spine floating back up to the surface of what was left of his consciousness.

One morning he just woke up.

He fought with his brain for at least forty minutes, tossing back and forth, drifting in and out of waking dreams about robots and aliens, then finally threw back his covers and stretched luxuriously, rolled out of bed, readjusted his pajama pants, glanced blearily across at the mirror on the closet door and froze.

I have to be still dreaming. It's the old nightmare again. Just a nightmare.

In none of the nightmares had the carpeting been so scratchy and solid beneath his bare feet; in none of the nightmares had he had puffy sleep-face and pillow lines and felt his mouth quite so stuck to itself. In none of the nightmares had he been able to see the two little needle scars in the crook of his left elbow; he was always smooth and perfect, even his piercings gone. In none of his nightmares had he felt the breath of air from the window play across his bare skin, his bare gray skin, or seen such details as the pupils inside his ash-colored eyes contract in such sudden panic.

No. No no no no no no no -

He gripped his curly hair in both hands, about to scream his head off, when he was seized by a sudden urge.

He needed a smoke.

He really needed a smoke.

Shaky hands flipped his lighter and barely brought the cigarette to his mouth without dropping it, almost lighting the filter. He took such a long drag that the ash left on the end was almost a centimeter long.

This isn't happening. I'm not awake enough for this to be happening.

Thirteen months, four days. Just about... twenty-two hours. Yes. No. Twenty-one and seven minutes.

All Mickey knew was that was a far, far cry from forever.

[Admin]

They had been expecting it since the cure's permanance had been refuted by a doctor in Scotland and the oxygen-controller had moved in. Lars had told Lee, Lee had told Marie, and Marie had kept the news to herself, hoping that the scottish geneticist would be wrong and it was only Lars' condition that had reversed the cure on him. Still, she'd been watching for signs in the other Place inhabitants, and had seen nothing.

Aloof and introverted to begin with, Marie had practically been hiding in her room, gloves pulled up to her elbows, trying to push back old fears. So far she had been safe - she'd tested herself on an unknowing Lee while the blonde slept. There had been no sudden energy flow, no greying skin, no popping veins. So far Marie was still human, and as far as she knew so was everyone else besides Lars.

So when she smelled cigarette smoke as she walked down the hall and opened the door to Mickey's room, she was not at all expecting to see a grey man smoking in the middle of the room. Had Mickey ever told her his mutation? She couldn't remember off the top of her head. Tugging on the edges of her gloves protectively, Marie finally spoke.

"Mickey? Are you ok?" It sounded better than 'what happened?' because she already knew what happened. She'd already decided not to yell at him for smoking - if she smoked she thought she'd need a cigarette too just about now.

[mickey]

He was shaking so hard it was becoming difficult to get the cigarette into his mouth. He needed to learn to just keep it in there without getting it wet and gross from spit. He'd tried it before, but the lip strength it required was incredible, and more than he was ever really up to. Plus, he never thought he wouldn't be able to insert the cancer-sticks into his face manually.

Overprepare for every eventuality. He was forgetting his debate rules already.

The door swung open suddenly and one of Mickey's gray arms slapped across his bare gray stomach as if to cover it - he hadn't worn a shirt to bed, the Southern air too hot for his delicate Oregonian sensibilities. But gray skin covering more skin didn't really hide anything. Not that he could hide his face, or his hair, or his eyes, or any part of himself that had turned back to its hated natural color.

Marie stood in the doorway. She was wearing gloves.

Maybe she just had really bad circulation?

"Mickey? Are you ok?"

"Do I," he began, then began coughing roughly, a wet, unhealthy sound from deep in his chest. Sometimes he wondered if he really did have black lung, but right now all he was wondering was why the hell the Cure had faded when everyone had always said it would last forever. "Do I fucking look okay?" he asked weakly, his voice burring somewhere in the middle of his throat after he finished hacking up his lungs. He sat down on his unmade bed heavily, head bowed as if by a great weight and his chest heaving.

He sucked on his cigarette and tasted filter as he brought it past the point where cigarettes were meant to go. Too uncertain of his surroundings to find a proper place to put it, he let it smolder between his fingers, wrist resting on his knee. "I don't know what happened," he said. "I don't - this wasn't supposed to happen."

[Admin]

Oh man, what did they do now? The Cure was really wearing off, of everyone. Unless... "you aren't a hemophiliac are you?" But she shook her head to herself, knowing automatically it was a stupid question. "Nevermind."

But honestly, what were they supposed to do now that the Cure was wearing off? She didn't know the powers of half of the kids who had come to live with her - she could have time bombs just about to go off in every room of the house.

"What is your power? If you don't mind refreshing my memory?" She'd have to make sure she asked everyone, and she'd need to call Ororo right away. They might have to ship some kids up to the mansion if they couldn't handle it all themselves.

[mickey]

Mickey looked up at her in confusion before she negated her question. What would being a hemophiliac have to do with it? Could you bleed out the Cure?

He wondered if his strings of STDs both contracted the usual way and picked up before the Cure would make a difference, then decided that was knowledge Marie probably didn't need. Besides, he'd somehow managed to avoid anything that stuck permanently.

"What is your power? If you don't mind refreshing my memory?"

"Oh... um." He still hated talking about it. He should probably get more used to it now that it was back.

"It's nothing special. I kind of... suck up little bits of other people. Nothing that hurts anyone, understand, just... I don't really have any melanin, I think, or something, so I kind of borrow it from whoever's within about three feet. And anything that's wrong with them, like, cuts and bruises and stuff... and diseases. Hair dye, makeup, tattoos for a while, but I can usually keep those out anymore. Anything that isn't strictly human, I think. This one time I got close to a mutant while I was on vacation with my folks and I started levitating, so maybe powers little bit, and I can do memories and stuff, but it knocks me out pretty hard... I don't know. I never really got a handle on it."

The cigarette was burning down to the point where it was going to get to his fingers if he didn't do something. He resisted the urge to stub it out on his wrist and instead stood up, looking around the room as if he'd never been there before and finally locating the ash tray in the windowsill, crushing what was left of the butt in the cut crystal.

"It's not dangerous, exactly," he said. "It just sucks a lot for me."

[Admin]

I kind of... suck up little bits of other people. Nothing that hurts anyone, understand, just...

Marie's head snapped to attention as he said it, but she relaxed again as he explained. For a minute there she thought he might be a copy of her, although she certainly didn't turn grey.

"Well," she started carefully, "you sound alot like me, except I do hurt people." She tugged again on her gloves to make sure they were on, and then ran a gloved hand through her hair. It was a relief that he was harmless, more or less, but it meant the Cure was wearing off of more than just Lars. Marie could handle everyone else's powers returning, but she wasn't sure how she would take getting her own back. It wasn't fair! She had just gotten used to being able to touch people without killing them. Besides, she was still a virgin and her window of opportunity was about to slam shut.

She took one long look over Mickey before deciding that it would probably be a bad idea to try remedying that problem just now.

"I guess for now don't get too close to anyone, until we find out whose cure it wearing off and whose isn't, and what everyone can do. We don't need you sucking up a power you can't control."

[mickey]

Mickey eyed her gloves, then glanced up at her face. She looked stressed. She probably should be. If he'd come unCured, who else in the house would be coming up powered again? Who else had a dangerous mutation? He'd never talked about it to anyone, simply because he hated talking about it - but what kind of danger were they in? How inconvenient did a mutation have to be before you Cured yourself? What if Simon or Dani could hurt someone?

He knew they could hurt him. Everyone could now.

"I guess for now don't get too close to anyone, until we find out whose cure it wearing off and whose isn't, and what everyone can do. We don't need you sucking up a power you can't control."

"No - I." Mickey's breathing tightened, and he felt more coughing coming on. He hadn't felt this bad since... since before the Cure. God, what else did he have in his system that he'd forgotten about? "I can't stay here. I can't - I can't."

Too many people. Brushing past someone on your way out the bathroom, leaning on a wall with someone leaning on its other side, trying to eat in a communal dining room. He couldn't do it. The feeling of coloring flooding his system made him sick to his stomach, and who knew what these kids had?

"I have to leave. It's too - I can't hurt anyone. But I can't get too close to anyone. You don't... well. You probably do understand. But I can't just cover it up. I have to - I have to go home."

He stood shakily, bracing himself on the window frame and searching aimlessly for a shirt, any shirt, whether his or Simon's. He found one - thankfully his - and pulled it on, not regarding how he looked awkwardly pulling the too-tight shirt over his head and the way it ruffled his hair. He found his glasses with the instinctive grab at the nighstand, pushing them onto his face.

"I - I have to get out of here," Mickey said. "You've been great. This place is amazing, I just... I never needed it, really, in the first place. And now I really need to not be here. You get it, right?"

[Admin]

She got it. She really got it. Most of the time Marie prefered to be alone. It's why she'd come back to Caldecott in the first place - to be alone and away from all those kids at the mansion. But then Lee had shown up, and brought the kid from the bus with her, and then others, and before she knew it she was cramming kids into every available space in the house.

And now she was about to become a dangerous liability again. Yeah, she certainly got it.

"I wish you luck then, Mickey. I'd shake your hand, but I have a feeling you'd rather not." She gave a weak smile, "if you ever need a place to stay again you can always come back."

Quite possibly saying goodbye to the kids who had stayed with her was far worse than trying to find a place to cram them when they arrived. Marie hated to think she had somehow failed them.