Between a Bear and a Hard Place(22)

A heavy thump sounded from the kitchen, probably a hunk of beef, followed by the unmistakable sound of cans hitting the countertop a few seconds later. They always did this – she’d take the two biggest of the cubs along to whatever giant discount warehouse grocery store was two miles down the road. They’d buy a completely improbable amount of food, and split it between the four massive deep freezes – one for each house – that kept the bears fed.

Once a month, this was the ritual. And this time, it sounded like they got more than they had previously.

“Should we help?” Rogue asked King, happy for a moment’s distraction from the morning’s intensity. King, forgetting that he was wearing nothing but an open robe, didn’t bother to answer before he headed off to the kitchen.

The whistle, followed by the laugh, and then the two cubs joined in, asking about where he bought the robe because they wanted one to wear to school when they started.

Taking just a moment to himself, Rogue sipped his coffee, then finished off the steaming cup in one long swallow. He reached for King’s abandoned cup, plucked it up off the window sill where it was sitting, and stared into the murky depths.

“Goodness,” Rogue said, slightly awed that there seemed to be either coffee grounds, or possibly an oil slick on top of the liquid, shimmering in the morning sun. “Well, I mean, it’s still coffee.”

With a heavy sigh, he tilted the cup to his lips.

The first swallow went down like a gob of castor oil. The second like a slightly smaller gob of castor oil. By the time he took the third gulp, then finished the cup, Rogue was... hooked? Something about the slightly slick, slightly greasy liquid did something strange to his mind, even as it was apparently doing something funny to his stomach.

Rogue made a sour face, then belched into his closed mouth, frowned, and decided maybe it was time to help with the groceries, after all.

*

“You’ve got a lot more pep than usual,” Jill remarked, as Rogue returned from the last of the four clan houses, sweat shimmering on his forehead, and a slightly crazed look in his eye. He looked at her for a second, his eyes slightly googly, as though he were trying to concentrate but couldn’t quite manage. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone haul two hundred pounds of beef with quite that much pizzazz before. You take speed or something?”

Rogue quirked an eyebrow in her direction. “Speed? I dunno, but I don’t feel so good.”

From the other room, King bellowed. “You... you drank it all? ALL of it?”

“What’s he talking about? Or, roaring about, I guess?” Jill asked, not paying much attention to either of the bears, as she put a sack of apples into the bottom drawer of the enormous, extra-wide fridge she’d ordered for the place.

Moving from her completely normal Santa Barbara apartment to these row houses was a little bit of a culture shock for the normally quiet, usually home-bodied Jill Appleton. Signing the lease papers put a lump in her stomach in a way she hadn’t felt since a college pregnancy scare, and then once again when she bought her Jeep. That Wrangler was the first new car she’d ever owned, and if she had anything to say about it, would be the last.

But, once she settled into the idea, and realized that financially there wouldn’t be any hardship – thanks to the secretive help from her boss, who was the only person outside of Tripp, the terrible date who turned out to be a good guy who had seen the bears be, well, bears – everything was fine.

Hell, better than fine. Way, way better. She had Rogue and King, she had her job, and she had her life back. After the terror of running from those GlasCorp mercenaries, and escaping with a dislocated shoulder and a few broken ribs, she was glad for every day she had. She’d even mostly gotten over having shot that mutant bear to death.

Beside her, Rogue started making a sound very similar to that of a cicada rubbing its wings on its sides. Only, the noise was coming from his teeth. And, when Jill turned to look at one of her two mates, she saw his eyes going slightly golden, the hair on his arms beginning to grow little by little.

“Rogue?” Jill put a hand on his trembling shoulder. “Are you okay? Seriously, did you take something? Medicine can do weird things, even to someone as big as you.”

“N...n-n-no,” he finally managed, teeth chattering. “Didn’t take... anything”

“Something’s going on,” she said. “Unless you’re getting wildly aroused by the way I’m putting coffee creamer away, I—”

He lurched forward, gripping the countertop.

Squeezing a little harder on his shoulder, Jill felt the muscles under his shirt harden, thicken, into iron bands, taut with power. “Seriously, I’m starting to worry. Talk to me, Rogue.”