Canned heat.

[Manslaughter]

The windows are shut, warding away hot slaps of a breeze to compromise for the near exhaustion of an air conditioner. Heat had scoured the country for any entry into a cool place, sucking the life and breath out of anything it encompassed like a mythic creature that could not stand the heat itself. And yet, there were other ways to avoid the heat wave instead of flocking to a community pool.

Licking the end of a half-melted orange popsicle while unceremoniously sprawled across the kitchen floor, Roger turns another page in the newspaper, gazing intensely at the bright colors of the Sunday comics. The t-shirt he had been wearing has taken residence beside him, wadded up and wrinkled like any boy would do, his pale back and the ridges of his spine a monument to the tiles that he has his bare chest pressed against, seeking their normal chill. It's still sticky there, though whether or no it's due to humidity or the popsicle is uncertain.

Reaching for another section of the paper, Roger shifts the popsicle to his other hand, which is starting to drip and run into the creases of his palm. Slowly noticing at the alarming rate at which it was literally deteriorating, Roger inches and crawls on top of the comics to the next section of the paper he has spread out on the floor, shifting the popsicle to his original hand and wiping the other on the thigh of his jeans. "Melty..," he concludes, taking a bite out of it and shifting his focus to a political cartoon.

He's a mutant! MUTANT! a political figure exclaims in the frame, despite a third arm sprouting from his chest and waving a reprimanding finger at his opponent.

An orange spot colors his face as Roger stamps the figure with the chewed end of the dripping popsicle, firmly setting the line of his jaw. "Now you're one too," he chides, stabbing the cartoon several more times to make his point.

[Sherridan Kaine]

This is the type of day that is absolutely horrible towards Sherridan. No matter how much he strips, the damned fur still makes him feel like he has just entered a hot, steamy pizza oven, much like the one they have at his favorite Italian restaurant. Fear of puddles and puddle-like surfaces makes him unable to just go and take a cold bath, and simply taking a shower does not do anything once the fur is fully soaked.

He is irritable, and very dangerous at this time, and he is simply craving for a new member of the brotherhood to come across him and start giving him shit. Oh God, this is unbearable. is the thought dominating his mind on days like this, and he does as much as possible to stay cool. This, in so far, consists out of changing his fur color to a completely snow-white, almost albino-like one, tying his hair back in a pony tail, and stripping down to just a pair of white shorts, ones he had used for basketball in his college. Since those are expected to be the quintessence of bagginess, they were quite a few numbers too big then, but now he fills them out rather nicely. True, he could have stripped all the way down and still be fully decent, but the concept of being naked would have still been there.

Naturally, his way of cooling down is a bit more sophisticated than just a frozen fruity ice-cream, and so he has consumed several liters of ice-cold water in so far. Yes...very sophisticated.

He enters the kitchen, and his slitted eyes immediately fall down to Roger, sprawled across the floor and creating new mutants on the newspaper. Sherridan walks over on the other side of the newspaper, and crouches down to look at the boy. "Interesting way of cooling down, Roger." he says in a friendly tone which could not in any way, shape, or form, be associated with the one he had just a few hours ago, when he talked to some of the other members of the brotherhood.

[Manslaughter]

Sherridan's presence is a feather on his mind, shifting--moving like the hesitant hand of a clock, but stuck. He hardly even needs to listen for long to know it's him. Roger's skills at identifying his teammates had since improved after the incident involving the two trespassers, perhaps out of some sort of self-preservation. Interesting way of cooling down, Roger. Roger tilts his head in a manner that suggests one of the members of the Republican party had spoken to him from the political cartoon that he had only moments before proceeded to smear with sticky residue from his popsicle. Flexing his feet on the bare tiles, his toes rubbing the weathered grout between them, Roger nods slowly.

"Good air goes down; bad air goes up," he reasons, in his own way explaining his presence on the floor.

At first, it is Sherridan's completely white toes that catch Roger's eye, both eyes together traveling up along with his head to suddenly realize there is scarcely color to Sherridan apart from his face, and if there had been white across his expression he would not recognize him. Instinctively, he retracts any stray limbs, his mouth tightening firmly as he curls both arms around his orange spotted section of the paper. Spots. Spot. It is Spot, he ascertains, certainly no stranger to Sherridan's voice or presence.

Wary all the same, he turns his head up and blinks, as though expecting Sherridan to read what he is asking through his unchanged expression. His mind attempts to wrap around the idea, casually--almost involuntarily--inciting the feeling a sudden cold wind would give across the back of his neck and make the hair there stand on end, wanting to peer at the skin beneath to make sure that this is the real Spot, and not an imposter. Unsure, he doesn't keep this posture for long, hunching back down into his own private session of reading the paper.

[Sherridan Kaine]

>"Good air goes down; bad air goes up,"

He smiles, closing his eyes lightly. He might not word it right, but he definitely knows what he is talking about he thinks happily as he falls down into a lotus position, his legs gracefully folding themselves from the crouch, a move he has performed countless times.

Still, Roger's reaction is not entirely...well, reassuring. What the...why is he acting like that? Oh! Spots...he is used to seeing me with spots on, right? he ponders, and just as he decides to make some changes in his color, the hairs at the back of his neck raise, and with them most of the others on his body as he remembers just what kind of mutation Roger wields.

His fur shimmers lightly, and the tip of his tail, which is now brought up front and curled idly around the man's thigh, along with the tips of his fingers and toes, turns black, a complete contrast to the otherwise white.

"Better?" he asks, watching the boy in front of him carefully, glancing a few times at the political cartoon. I wonder if, within the confines of that mind, he really understands everything around him? Maybe it just does not manage to come to the surface all of the time, but deep inside there is a brilliant mind? What has really happened to you, Roger? he catches himself thinking, and looks out the kitchen window, into the almost dried-up trees that wither in the heat. Why am I so fond of him?

[Manslaughter]

Color dots the tip of Sherridan's tail, fingers, and toes--respectively, offering a distinct difference from the white he is otherwise coated in. Better? Briefly lifting his gaze, a noticeable tension releases from Roger's body, and he turns his head up in a partly curious, but mostly pleased way. Tilting his head to one side and the other, he hums along to a tune inside his head that only he can hear, his previous wariness disappearing altogether. His gaze shifting and then traveling along the newspaper, he begins to finish up his popsicle, which, at this point, is merely a sticky mass on a stick.

With the traces of dripping orange, he draws circles and squares on the newspaper, his eyes drifting here and there on bolded letters. Hearing all but silence when Roger finishes the song he is humming, he looks up at Sherridan again, scrutinizing the far-away look in his eyes that suggests that he is in deep thought.

Since he cannot literally read the language of the mind, Roger looks away for a few moments, tenderly wrapping up the popsicle stick in a stray corner of the headlines like he is preparing it for a burial. When he looks back again, Sherridan still appears to be thinking. Curiosity overcoming him, he props his chin up in the heel of his palms, pointed elbows perched on dry newsprint. Studying the color of his feline companion's irises, he then suddenly asks,"What things does your brain say?", as if he had been attempting to decipher the complex messages of synapse to synapse on a neural level.

[Sherridan Kaine]

As Roger visibly relaxes, Sherridan does invisibly- for an odd reason, not only does he feel slightly uncomfortable having Roger tense around him due to the boy's labile disposition towards the question of friend and foe (and this, in fact, plays the most minor role there is), but he feels uncomfortable himself, almost saddened, even though he keeps telling himself it is just his imagination.

>"What things does your brain say?"

His smile is slowly returning, the pensive smile many people gain when musing one of to them held dear topics, and then it fades for a moment as he is pulled back into reality, confusion reigning for a few seconds.

Then, another smile replaces the old one, this one showing fondness. "Oh, just idle wandering." he responds, not quite certain that Roger himself would be able to provide him with a response to his questions.

His slitted eyes fall onto the mummified stick, the last remnant and reminder of what once might have been a nice refreshment. "Hey, do you want some more ice cream?" he asks, still smiling that same fond smile, reaching out and ruffling the boy's hair, and for a moment finds himself rather disappointed in having the fur interfere with his sense of touch, preventing the feel of the boy's hair on his actual skin.

He wants to talk to the boy about some more serious things, such as where this whole relationship of theirs is going what had happened to him while he was in that Asylum, and why is he as distant as he is, but somehow cannot bring himself to voicing them, and even if he did, he doubts the boy will respond in any coherent manner.

[Manslaughter]

Oh, just idle wandering. Roger nods, his eyes following Sherridan's to the window, wondering what he sees beyond the glass. His eyes roving across the landscape just outside, he peers at every angle, attempting to see what Sherridan sees, only managing to discern drooping branches and a sluggish bird. Hey, do you want some more ice cream? The boy offers a slow form of his usual slant of a smile as Sherridan ruffles his hair, his red strands a gleam against Sherridan's fingers.

"Yes...," he answers, his interest spurred by the promise of something sweet. Roger sits up, the crown of his head pressing into Sherridan's palm, unconsciously seeking the reassurance of his hand. Do you want to help Mommy set the table, sweetheart? She ruffles his hair to get his attention, and he merely gazes past her at all of his things piled up at the front door.

He meets Sherridan's eyes for a moment, and then he tilts his chin down, playing with the corners of the comics he is kneeling on while he appears to become lost in his own private world for several long moments. Quietly, he hums a children's song, louder than his mother's voice asking him if he wants to fold the napkins.

[Sherridan Kaine]

As the boy presses his head against his palm, Sherridan remains in the same position for a few more seconds, before standing up, as gracefully as easily as always, and walking quietly over to the freezer, taking out a number of packages that might have once been a very undesirable food, but now had turned simply into frozen mysteries, and reaching into the depths of the box, reveling in the coolness of it on his fur for a few moments before producing a box that signifies the contents as being beans. He opens the box and produces a chocolate ice cream cone, wrapped and packaged, and then wrapped again neatly in a bag that claims that the contents are still beans.

The cat man then proceeds to put everything back in place, before closing the freezer, opening the ice cream package, and then giving it to Roger as he sat back down on the cool floor. "It's my private stash, away from these all-devouring people who are in the brotherhood... Keep it secret, alright?" he says, offering a small smile and then moving his legs into a lotus position, the white shorts moving upwards to reveal even more white fur. Such a pain in the summer... he thinks, a frown creeping onto his face as he gets lost in thought once again, contemplating how to go about talking about serious matters with Roger. Would he even understand what I'm saying, if I did?

His eyes land on his young companion, and he cannot help but wonder how is it that of all the different characters in the brotherhood, it is Roger whom he feels the most comfortable around, as well as whom he actually regards with fondness, and not with professionalism, distaste, or plain lack of interest.

[Manslaughter]

Roger rocks slightly from his knees to his toes, humming a little louder while Sherridan rummages through the freezer. He continues to do this for several moments, rubbing his thumbs against the outside of his index fingers, and watching some distant area in the general direction of the east. The cold air rolls over the edge of the top of the refridgerator from the depths of the freezer, whispering across the floor and making the tiles colder. His humming remains uninterrupted until Sherridan hands him an ice cream cone, frosted and packaged with brightly colored paper. It stops then, and Roger blinks, as if suddenly shaken for a dream, taking the ice cream without a sound. It's my private stash, away from these all-devouring people who are in the brotherhood... Keep it secret, alright? He nods several times, turning the treat over in his hands, hestitantly pulling at a tab on the outside of the ice cream to peel the paper away.

It takes him some time to completely unwrap the ice cream, and it appears as though Roger won't eat it until every piece of the paper is torn off from his sweet, even the hard to reach pieces stuck to the sides of the cone. He bites the top of the ice cream, shivering with a tremble in his shoulders that travels down his back. "..good," he assures Sherridan between careful swallows.

At some point or another, he starts to sweep his eyes back and forth from Sherridan to the ice cream in his hand, accompanied with the gentle turn of his chin. "Mm?" he suddenly questions, then outstretching his arm and offering the end of the ice cream cone.

[Sherridan Kaine]

Sherridan's smile widens marginally as his young friend assures him that it is a good taste, and for a while he simply watches the boy consume the cone, before taking the discarded wrappers, throwing them away, and then returning to his priorly assumed lotus position.

For a moment, it looks like Roger is trying to fight a battle on some decision involving Sherridan and the cone, and then the boy offers the ice cream and the cat man chuckles. "Thank you." he says softly, leaning in and taking a bit out of the cone.

Chocolate is not his most favorite flavor, but anything cold feels good in this heat, and he enjoys it greatly. Still, he leans back out, not wanting to diminish the treat for Roger, and takes a moment to lick the corners of his lips, which bear the slight marks of chocolate, and then moves around, turning to slump onto the floor, laying on it perpendicularly to Roger's own position, his head turned to watch the boy.

He is still not certain how to go about the whole relationship thing. And it shows in his hesitancy to ask or say anything. He watches the boy in silence for a few more moments, or maybe even minutes, he is not entirely certain, and then decides to just try asking directly.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He tries again, and fails again, noticing that it is not as easy as just deciding to up and say it. He sits up straight, gathering his legs up and bending them in his knees, putting his arms around them. "Roger..." he calls the boy's name first, wanting to be certain that he, and not the ice cream, the newspaper, the piece of paper floating in the wind outside, or anything else, has his full attention. "I need to ask you something." he pauses again, and his mouth is dry.

"What...what are the two of us amounting to? Hm? I mean...what kind of a relationship is this?" he asks, hoping to Hell that, if Roger needs a rare spark of awareness in order to be fully there and understanding, he gets it right now.

[Manslaughter]

A partial lilt of a smile presses a shadow on Roger's face as he watches Sherridan take a bite, clearly enjoying it as much as he is. Once satisfied, the feline man sprawls across the floor, lying supine and curious, his eyes watching Roger. In response, the boy continues to savor the treat that Sherridan has given him, rocking from side to side and gazing intently at the newspaper. Every word runs together, forming a singular idea of terror or suspicion, and reading the entire page seems pointless when the outcome is already there displayed in the headlines in bold print. So Roger skips the column and moves on to the next, paying no mind to the minute details that won't change the end result.

Roger...

He tilts his head and looks up in a most curious fashion, meeting Sherridan's name after his name was called. I need to ask you something. Looking from beneath half-lidded eyes, Roger inclines his head, sitting up straight and then relaxing his back. What...what are the two of us amounting to? Hm? I mean...what kind of a relationship is this? The seriousness of his tone makes Roger blink slightly, his gaze shifting up over Sherridan's head and fixing on a point on the wall. Clutching the ice cream cone in his hand--half-eaten--he contemplates the poorly coordinated wallpaper and appears to think.

Although he has no ready answer, Roger continues to think, his eyes gradually slipping from the wall and to Sherridan's face, down his neck, and to his hands attached to his arms which are curled around his knees. He peers at the bones and joins and the patches of white and black, studying mentally studying the parts within. "One and one makes two," he murmurs softly, gesticulating with his empty hand as though he is holding something in it. Tilting his head, asking with his eyes if Sherridan follows, he continues anyway. Scooting forward, dragging some of the newspaper with him, he tilts his head down diagonally and studies the grout between the tiles.

Meeting Sherridan's eyes tentatively, he looks up. "One part and another part make a whole," he explains, as though he were attempting to resonably describe the birds and the bees using complex metaphors. For a moment his attention wavers and he starts to eat his ice cream cone again, nearly finished by this time. After a few moments, his train of thought picks up once more. "We are one but not..." he finishes, clarifying with a feather-light touch of his hand on Sherridan's knuckles,"One," and then touches his own chest,"one.."

[Sherridan Kaine]

And what follows sets him completely off track. Half-way, he is not even expecting a coherent answer, and then the boy says something so amazingly clear and simple that it makes him feel ashamed for even asking, much like a child would if it asked its parents about something it already knew but had not thought about. For a moment, it sends him back in time to a moment when he himself asked such a question of his father, who in turn made him feel rather stupid as he answered.

The touch on his hand is warm, but oddly enough it is a different kind of warmth, a very welcome and comforting one. One...I toil night and day about the answer to my question, and he answers it within seconds, and with only a few simple words. he thinks as he scoots a bit closer to Roger and his slitted eyes look up at the boy.

And then, he is sent back in time once more, but this memory is of something absolutely different from the guilt trip- it is a feeling of exhilaration, a kind of euphoria that is impossible to describe to those who have not felt it, a pure drug without actually taking anything in one's own body, and a feeling of butterflies in his stomach.

*Flashback*

He is fifteen, and his mutation is already at its fully grown furriness. He is sitting on a bench in front of his private school and waiting for his father's driver to come and pick him up, and Claudia Brookes is sitting next to him, her black hair flowing down her back in the usual enchanting way, perfectly matching the school uniform- black skirt and white shirt, and her equally black eyes are watching him, a smile on her face, making it shine divinely in the afternoon sun.

He is nervous, and his fur stands on end, making him even more fuzzy than he usually is. His fingers are tightly clenching his messenger bag, and he is stealing glances at Claudia, but always miserably failing at the attempts of not being noticed, possibly because she is downright staring at him.

She moves closer, and the flock of butterflies in his stomach proliferates and becomes hyperactive, and then she leans in, her hand brushing his golden blond hair from his ear. "You're so cute, Sherridan." she whispers, and her hand turns his head, which is feeling oddly light at the moment, and she kisses him square on the mouth.

The feeling of nervousness is gone, the butterflies are gone, and the general fear of what might happen is gone as well- all that is left is a feeling of divinity, euphoria, an emotion so wonderful and beautiful that it is to remain etched in his mind to yearn for it forevermore.

And then it is over, and she is running off with a smile and a wave, her father there to pick her up.

The next day, he found out she was to move within the next three days to a different state.

**End Flashback**

This is different, however. He feels the same kind of nervousness, and the same kind of butterflies in his stomach, but the fear is missing, and is replaced by a warmth much deeper than Claudia Brookes could have ever conjured with all her hair and eyes. He thinks he can feel some general movement, perhaps even on his part, but is blissfully unaware of it as his eyes fill up with a warmth and radiance he has never displayed, not since his parents died, and he watches the wall not really seeing it, his mind having traveled to cloud nine.

For a moment, he is brought back to reality, and he notices that now he is sitting right behind Roger, his legs around the boy's frame, and his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. His head is resting on the boy's shoulder, and there is not a clue within his mind as to how he has come to be in this position. Still, he enjoys it immensely, and stays in it, spotting the newspaper cast away to the side.

Dares he say it?

The words, as each rolls heavily off his lips, filled with the warmth and care, seem fatal for a moment, a sentence showing weakness and danger for him and the boy if anyone finds out, but he does not care, he means it, and it needs be said.

"I love you, Roger."

[Manslaughter]

Eyes meeting and holding, Sherridan moves closer, their bodies flush and touching. A distant look wavers across Sherridan's eyes, falling back into some far away place where Roger can't follow him to. He waits, watching, eyes open and questioning. Spasms of electrical impulses shudder and shiver across Sherridan's body, touching hands Roger cannot see, holding eyes that aren't his own, and he waits, tilting down his chin and studying the curious complexity of the older man's face.

Growing anxious, he dips his head slightly, beginning to rock back and forth slightly, every now and then glancing up at Sherridan's face. He rubs his own bare arms, digging one of his big toes into the grout and imagining a valley there, villages being crushed and trees splintering. The whisper of paper being pushed across the floor echoes distantly, and he can only hear the valley beneath his toe crumbling into an avalanche and destroying all the quaint living at its base.

When he looks up, Sherridan is gone, and warm, fuzzy hands are on his chest, a heart beating, beating in their veins together--one heartbeat and the same. Sherridan’s legs, splayed around him, forming an eternal circle with no beginning and no end. Roger is within him, and Sherridan is around him--one shape.

A breath.

Sherridan breathes in, rustling the growing strands of hair over his ear, warm on his earlobe and tickling the channel inside.

I love you, Roger.

He’s almost shaking, the cries of villagers growing in his ears and drowned out by the thunder of the rockslide, but nothing compared to the three little words roaring repeatedly in his head.

Roger turns, twisting his torso, fingers blind and his body pulsing into Sherridan’s embrace, wild with anticipation. He almost falls into him, seeking solid ground on the tile and balancing on his body knees until he rights himself to face Sherridan. His hands fly up to the feline man’s face, tracing the ridges in his face and seeming to feel the words verberate through him, still echoing their meaning.

I love you, Roger. She croons it between her teeth, grinding the words until they are nothing to him or to her as she leaves a cool kiss on his forehead, smearing a smudge of colorless lipstick that is paler on his face than it is on hers. Mother never meant it, even when she saw him last. The words on her lips were contrast to those in her eyes, screaming,’you are not my son. i do not love that which is not my son. and you are not him.’

He blinks, breathing slowly, perched on his knees and tracing the contour of Sherridan’s face. Roger tilts his mouth up gently, resting his forehead on Sherridan’s, no lie or pretense written there in his skin.

His heart is safe.

[Sherridan Kaine]

At first it seems that the younger one either lacks the understanding of just how meaningful the words are, just how vulnerable Sherridan has made himself by saying them, letting them roll off his lips for the first time in a decade, maybe more (it is hard to remember now, when was the last time he did or said anything even remotely as emotional without being rage).

Then the impression shifts, and it seems that Sherridan has triggered some sort of unwanted memory. He bites his lip lightly, almost immediately thereafter fighting the urge to laugh at the thin quality of his nerves, thinner than they ever could have been around Claudia Brookes, and tries to prevent the habit from returning, folding his lips back in the normal way.

Roger's fingers send electric impulses down his face, and as they explored his face he felt an odd sensation- another memory tugging at the back of his head, but he decides not to let it send him in the same direction as the last one, and holds it back until it is choked once more under the mountain of other thoughts.

Their foreheads touch, and Sherridan realizes that he has skipped another short period of time, trying to fight the memory off. Another urge, another impulse, an impetus too powerful to ignore materializes within his mind, and his body responds to it before his mind processes it and produces a coherent opinion on it. A question of whether it is Roger, or Sherridan, who is actually behind the impetus is there, but ignored- it doesn't matter.

His arms move yet again forward and tighten the embrace around the slender torso, and his forehead tilts upwards along with his mouth, and his lips make contact with Rogers, and the world fades.

What happens now, is purely up to Roger, and anyone who might walk in (And if they do I will slaughter them), but he puts more meaning behind the action that there first was, now unhampered by fear of consequence, pure in the form of love.

The world is not there.

The world does not exists.

But it does.

The world is Roger.

[Manslaughter]

A cold, gripping shiver rolls down Roger's back as their lips touch, his own still but warm. The flexed ends of his fingers-- nails and skin bitten by repeated nights lying awake and staring into the dark--murmur across Sherridan's face, exploring every pore and follicle by touch. He doesn't know where to start or where to end, his lower lip trembling in anticipation as he contemplates the curve of Sherridan's cheekbone. He'd seen it in movies, where people would touch their faces together, put their lips together, and how everything before that moment didn't seem to matter at all.

Trying to make sense of the Sherridan's cupid's bow, Roger's mind falls open--defenseless, latching onto the nearest support and twining itself into Sherridan's psyche. In mere moments they suddenly become one, and Roger feels everything he feels, and it's likewise he's partly sure, able to feel the ghost of his own fingers and the heat from his own face, the turn of his narrow wrists like a brush with something brief and soft.

It intensifies, and Roger can tell where he's needed, his able lips nudging against Sherridan's as his heart--or Sherridan's--races in his ears, quickened in the moment. Searching, his hands trace back down the shape of Sherridan's face, over the curve of his neck, the dip of his collarbones and then gripping his shoulders. His lungs shudder and burn for a breath, but he doesn't know how to stop.

Panting, Roger breaks away, mentally capping his mind to ward away the growing feeling in his mind that's almost too much to bear. Murmuring something unintelligble, he lowers his head, grazing Sherridan's jaw with the top of his hair, seeking solace in the crook of his neck. "Warm..," he says into Sherridan's neck, his skin still tingling.