ADVANCEMENT OF THE SPECIES
Part 2: Smack In the Middle
by perletwo
"Okay. You guys know ah spent a long time on the road by m'self before ah hooked up with Logan, right?...." Rogue began.
"Well, first thing you gotta realize, ah left home soon after mah powers kicked in. First time it happened, this thing with my skin, was m'first kiss - ah knocked the boy into a coma. An' m'parents, they all of a sudden hated me.
Ah'd already been plannin' a road trip for the summer between mah junior an' senior years, up the east coast an' Canada to Alaska. But when Cody...ah was scared if - if he died - ah'd go to jail or someplace worse, some government lab like ah guess Logan must'a been in t'get the claws put in...
So ah headed west instead. Ah was still bearin' north toward Alaska - ah figured, best ah get m'self someplace with as few people to touch as possible - but ah was gonna go up the opposite coast through the Northwest Corridor. Figured they might look in Alaska, but not that direction, an' maybe they'd'a given up by the time ah got there if ah took the long way 'round.
Ah blew a lotta my original stash on a bus ticket that got me, oh, 'bout two-thirds'a the way 'cross the Gulf Coast pretty quick. After that ah traveled by m'feet an' m'thumb, an' some days ah'd get farther than others. Some days ah'd get nowhere, or need to find a way t'make a little money that didn't involve touchin', so ah'd just stay in whatever nowhere ah was at.
That's where ah was at when ah landed in Sunnydale, California...
Lemme just say, if you've never roughed it, it's no fun bein' in a place when you don't know where you're gonna be beddin' down for the night. (Rahne nodded, thinking sadly of the nights she spent hiding in the Scottish woods from a lynch mob before Professor Xavier saved her.) So ah tried to spend as much time as possible out an' about, y'know, before ah had to go find myself a hidey-hole.
That's what ah was doin' at Sunnydale's one-an'-only nightspot, the Bronze, at nigh'on two in the mornin'. The bartender'd taken a likin' t'me an' kept slippin' me cups'a water an' snacks to nibble on all through the night. Ah had noplace particular t'go to, an' ah was so hungry an' thirsty ah was dizzy, so ah took full advantage of his kindness an' blocked it all out with as much fun as ah could.
Couple hours before last call, the barkeep promised t'slip me some real food when he got his meal break, if ah'd meet him out back so he wouldn't get caught. Ah figured he'd had plenty of chances to mess with me already an' he hadn't, so ah went.
An' that's where ah landed smack in the middle'a trouble...
Ah hadn't been waitin' out in the alley for very long when trouble arrived. A guy a couple years older'n me, in clothes that were kinda out of style. A street kid, ah figured, gets his stuff at thrift stores. He looked pretty thin, an' ah thought ah could take him if he made a move on me.
Which, of course, he did. Ah put up as good a fight as ah could, tryin' to protect my virtue an' hold on t'what little money ah had left. But ah wasn't expectin' what he was really after.
He got me pinned against the wall face first, an' ah heard a growl like an animal, an' then there was this *pain* in the side of my neck, worse'n any pain ah'd ever felt.
Ah screamed, an' it was like ah lost myself in the screamin'. An' then the pain changed. It moved from my neck to mah face, there was this *pressure* inside mah face - you know how when you get a cold, sometimes it'll feel like the bones of your face're tryin' to push their way out through your skin? An' ah was *hungry,* all of a sudden so *hungry* - ah thought ah wanted food pretty bad before, but it was nothin' compared to this, this gnawin' need that went all through mah body.
Ah heard somebody yellin' somethin' behind me, an' ah felt the weight of the guy attackin' me get pulled off'a me just before everythin' went black.
When ah came to, ah wasn't in the alley anymore. It was pretty disorientin', not knowin' where ah was or how much time had passed. What was funny was, ah wasn't lyin' down. Ah was up an' movin', walkin' under mah own power.
Lookin' around, ah realized ah was walkin' through a graveyard. An' ah wasn't alone. There was a man walkin' beside me, with a hand on the small of mah back to guide me.
Ah jumped back an' screamed bloody murder. Funny thing was, he jumped back the other way an' let out a startled yell, an' held his hands up in front of him like he expected me to hit him. That shocked me into stoppin' my panic for a second.
He was tall an' thin an' very pale, dressed in black with a beat-up leather coat on, an' his hair was peroxide blond an' kinda wavy. His eyes were very blue in the moonlight, an' they looked basically kind, but kind'a sad too. He held himself like a fighter, an' he was watchin' me warily.
"Whe-where am I?" ah stammered out, an' he looked surprised. "Where're we goin'?"
"Goin' to my place, ducks," he said, real low an' soothing. "Goin' to get some food in you."
"There's food back at the Bronze," ah said, an' took another step back. No *way* was ah goin' to a strange guy's house alone.
But this funny look crossed his face, like a mix of disgust an' - ah don't know - wistfulness? regret? An' he said, "You don't want the kind'a food they got there, ducks."
Okaay. *Now* ah was gettin' kind'a creeped out. Ah backed up a little more an' the back of my legs bumped up against a tombstone. Ah looked back, saw it was just the right height, an' sat down.
"Ahh, ah 'preciate your tryin' to help, but ah'm kind'a tired," ah said, tryin' for the ole Southern-belle charm. You never know - sometimes it works. "Why don't ah just stay here, an' you can bring somethin' back to me?"
Ah don't think he was more'n half botherin' to listen to me, though. He was kind'a starin' at me, head tilted over to the side, an' ah could just see the wheels turnin' in his head.
"Griffin?" he finally said.
"What? Who's Griffin?" Ah looked around t'see if there was somebody else there he might be talkin' to.
"Griffin's the guy that jumped you outside the Bronze a little while ago, ducks," he said, shifting his weight back onto his heels. "You remember that?" Ah nodded. Why wouldn't ah remember? "And up until about 30 seconds ago, you thought *you* were Griffin."
Ah was so startled by *that* one ah nearly fell over backwards off the tombstone.
"You-you mean - after ah blacked out - all this time - " He nodded. "How long *is* all this time, anyway?"
"Don't wear a watch, ducks, but I'd guess about 15 minutes."
"Ah - don't understand -" Ah could feel myself saggin' against the tombstone once the adrenalin drained away. Ah'd never felt so weak, almost sickly-weak. "Ah don't know what happened back there, or how ah got here, or who you are. Or why ah'm so tired an' hungry, or why mah face aches so much..."
He did the head tilt thing again an' processed all that. "To take the easy one first, I'm Spike." He said it in the same tones you'd say, Ah'm Caesar, Emperor of Rome. "I'm not exactly clear on what happened back there either. I thought Griffin was attacking you, but I guess he didn't realize you'd already been turned, stupid git of a fledgling - "
"Ah - whaaat - ah haven't - what *are* you talkin' about?"
But Spike just kept goin' like ah hadn't said anything. "- I'd yanked him off an' dusted him before I realized something was wrong. And then you stopped screamin' an' started talkin' to me like you knew me, an' I realized you'd somehow *become* Griffin. Who *are* you by the by, Ducks?"
"Ah'm Rogue. An' ah've got *no* idea what you're talkin' about. Dusted? Fledgling? Fledgling *what?*"
"Vampire, of course," he said, surprised. "Grif was a vampire, just like you. I put a stake in his heart and he turned into a big pile of dust - that's what happens, in case your Sire never told you."
"M-mah sire? Vampire? Mister, ah don' have *any* idea what you're talkin' about!"
Spike sighed. Noisily. "Let's go over what we agree on, shall we? Griffin attacked you outside the Bronze. Bit you up pretty good - "
"Bit me?" Ah felt for the puncture marks on mah neck, which were already healin'. "Bit me! Ah get it now! Well, maybe." Spike did the head-tilt thing again and raised an eyebrow, which ah saw now had a wicked scar through it. "Ah'm - ah've got - there's this, this *thing* about me, see. When people touch my skin, somethin' - happens to 'em. Somethin' bad. It knocks 'em out an' they get inside mah head. Ah don't understand what it is or why it happens, but it's happened before. An' it must'a happened again when this - Griffin - bit me!"
He grunted. "That account for your face, then?"
Mah face? M'face *hurt,* ah knew that much. Ah still had mah duffel bag with me, so ah fished in an outside pocket an' got out a little compact. But ah couldn't get mah reflection to show up in it. Bad lighting, ah thought maybe. But ah also felt around mah temples an' nose, an it felt - lumpy. Maybe ah'd broken bones or bruised up when the guy shoved me into the wall?
"That probably won't help you much, ducks," he said, pointing to the compact in mah hand. "But I expect you look pretty much like *this.*"
An' then his face - sorta *slid* - it's hard to describe. His eyebrows got all ridgy like a snake's head, his eyes turned gold an' his lower jaw elongated. "Demon face," he said, an' fangs flashed in his mouth when he spoke.
Ah felt around mah own face, a little more purposefully this time. Sure enough, ah had ridges in all the same places Spike did, an' ah pricked the fabric of mah glove on a fang.
An' that awful, grinding hunger ah'd been feelin' ever since ah came to started to make sense.
"H'mmmm." By this time Jean had abandoned the ice cream and moved on to coffee, which she sipped thoughtfully. Rahne stared, wide-eyed, at the older girl, trying to picture her with fangs.
"You don't believe me," Rogue said. "Ah *knew* it. Spike said vampires could get along in Sunnydale 'cause nobody believed they really existed, an' just ignored any signs to the contrary."
"No...I'm willing to take your word on this," Jean said. "Tentatively; I'd certainly like to meet one for myself to be certain it's not some kind of mutation that a cult-mythology has grown up around instead of an actual demon possession. Although that would be just as interesting in its way... No, what I was thinking about was the idea that you can absorb physical characteristics as well as life-energy. Had that ever happened to you before?"
"No, not before an' not ever since," she replied. "At the time ah was more hung up on the notion that Griffin's personality had took me over while ah was blacked out. That's never happened before or since either. Ah mean, ah was in contact with Magneto a lot longer than ah was with Griffin, but ah still was fightin' to get out of that machine he strapped me into. An' ah just about drained Logan dry when he gave me his healin' powers, an' ah acted like him for awhile, but ah was still basically *me.*"
"Do you think if you were to touch, say, Rahne in her wolf-form, you'd turn into a wolf?" Jean had what Rogue thought of as her 'scientist-with-a-mission' face on.
"Well, first off ah 'spect in wolf form Rahne'd be too furry for real skin-to-skin contact. If ah touched Pyotr in his armored form, though, ah guess ah'd get his powers an' go all metal-y too," Rogue said.
"Rogue?" Rahne's soft voice piped up. "What did this Spike mean when he said he'd get you something to eat?"