The night was moist.

Like an old sponge left in the sink for too long, the air was dank and mildewed, and heavy with the scent of urine.

Rogue took shallow breaths through her mouth in between long drags on her cigarette.

She wondered once again about the strange urge that brought him out to places like this, and her own need to follow.

He hated it when she followed him -- she'd been on the receiving end of more lectures than she could count over the years for doing what she was doing tonight, but he'd finally gotten used to it, and grudgingly tolerated her secret presence.

She couldn't help it. She was drawn after him whenever he took one of these trips down the rabbit hole, a small shadow only he could spot in the larger shadows of the night. Yet another connection between them, another secret shared.

The streetlight flickered and only the dim glow of the cigarette and two pale streaks of hair were visible as she stood in the alleyway across from the crackhouse.

While the other kids at Xavier's had experimented with various drugs, she'd avoided all but alcohol and nicotine. They thought it was because she was afraid of what might happen with her skin. They didn't know that she'd inherited too many memories (and had witnessed the results firsthand after Logan returned from Canada) of nights like this.

Nights bent over a glass pipe, searching for a high that would rock even his almost-impervious system; nights slumped over a syringe, seeking the somnolent heroin rush as an escape from the nightmares.

No one knew. If they had, it was a sure bet his welcome at the school would have been revoked immediately.

Because he wasn't an addict. Not with crack or smack or any of the dozen other drugs in which he'd occasionally indulge.

It was about his body, his gift.

His curse.

Amazingly enough, even a man with the ability to heal almost instantaneously from almost any injury can feel as if his body has betrayed him.

His rebellion was less obvious than hers, much as his mutation was. But the anger at whatever random chance had damned them with near-immortality (in his case) and lethal skin (in hers) ran high in both of them.

She sporadically took wild chances, roaming the mall without gloves, teasing strange men in clubs, dancing with the ever-present danger of touch.

He pushed his healing factor to its limits. Usually, fighting was enough, but on rare occasions, after a botched mission or a week of particularly bad nightmares, he would seek oblivion in the needle or the pipe.

She followed because she had to. She was irrationally convinced that the one time he went chasing the blast without her, would be the one time his body would betray him again.

He understood. He followed her on her wild flights in much the same manner, waiting, always waiting for the inevitable crash and burn.

If the others had known, they might have said (as they threw him out on his ass) that the pair had matching death wishes, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

It was all about control, about choosing to push their traitorous bodies to the limit.

She couldn't control her skin, nor he, his healing, but there was something heady in proving that their mutations couldn't control them, and that one day, they might end up losing their lives, but winning the slow, unending war against their bodies.

When Logan emerged, stumbling into the gray predawn light, the street was littered with cigarette butts and the moist air held the slight tang of Marie's scent.

She watched him from the alley, then slipped away, a silent witness in their hidden war.

End