Chapter Text
“So, it’s here?” Zero asked when they arrived in front of a small house in the suburbs, even though he already knew it was. Pete was never wrong about these things.
“I suppose so yes”, Laura replied, even though he knew it wasn’t necessary. Zero was probably just asking to fill the silence. It was the first time they did this without Pete and, even if he refused to admit it, he was quite nervous.
“It’s gonna be fine Gid, you know that right?” Laura asked him.
“Yeah, sure”, Zero shrugged, trying to play it off. It failed, but Laura didn’t say anything, letting him try to keep his ‘tough guy’ reputation intact.
“Okay, let’s get in, shall we?” He then asked, trying to divert Laura’s attention from his nervousness.
He then walked to the door and knocked: unsurprisingly, no one answered. He turned the door handle, hoping it wasn’t locked. Fortunately, it wasn’t. He came in with Laura right behind him, noticing immediately that something was off… he was feeling something weird washing over his body. Only when he saw his sister crossing her arms over her body and shivering violently did he understand that what he was feeling was cold… which was surprising considering he wasn’t supposed to be affected by it.
“Hello… Is someone in?” He asked tentatively, walking further into the house, while Laura was occupied shivering, her teeth chattering. If Zero could feel the cold, he couldn’t imagine how she was feeling right now. The thing with being a mutant able to produce fire and control it - well, more or less anyway - was that he wasn’t vulnerable to the cold (or the heat for that matter). Laura, on the other hand, wasn’t that lucky.
“Want some heat, sis?” Zero asked.
”That would be nice yes”, she answered with a grateful smile.
Zero increased his body heat and took his sister into his arms. She sighed contentedly, feeling the heat engulfing her. They stayed like that for a moment until she cleared her throat and announced calmly:
“Gid, your hair’s on fire again”.
“Shit…” Zero cursed, concentrating in order to extinguish the fire.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, you made great progress. Remember when we arrived at the institute, you kept putting things on fire by accident”, Laura reminded him when she saw her brother frowning angrily.
“Yeah… not my finest moments I have to say”, Zero cringed. “Now let’s go, we have someone to help”.
They both searched the house to find what - or more like who - they had come for, and finally found the guy (Jude, if Zero remembered well) in his bedroom, curled up on his bed in his boxer-briefs. Zero couldn’t help but notice he was gorgeous, but now was not the time for that: the poor guy was trembling badly and looked globally distressed.
Laura approached him and put a hand on his arm: it felt like touching a giant icicle.
“Zero, could you try to find him some clothes please?”
He nodded and started searching the cupboards, quickly finding out they were all empty. He found Jude’s clothes in the washing machine… Each and every one of them were frozen.
Meanwhile, Laura was talking to the man, who seemed to be barely awake.
“We’re here to help you alright, if you come with us we can help”
Laura saw him nodding weakly. Zero came back into the room and told his sister that the clothes were not “wearable”.
“I guess we’ll have to wrap him in his bed sheets, it’s probably the only thing that isn’t frozen”.
“Can you get up?” Laura asked Jude, who nodded weakly once again and started getting up very slowly. Once he was up, it was clear that he didn’t have much energy left, as he was not stable on his legs, which kept trembling.
Zero then took the sheets from the bed and, without a word, wrapped them around Jude. Only when he was done did he ask:
“Won’t you ask us where we are going to take you?”
“I… I d-don’t care… a-anymore… about a-anything”, he stammered, exhausted.
Zero did the same thing as he did for Laura and took the man into his arms. First, he tensed, not expecting it, but he relaxed as soon as he felt the heat, his legs giving out from under him. As long as he remembered, he had never felt warmth in his entire life, and if that was how it felt, he wanted to feel it again and again.
Jude couldn’t process everything in his state, but he did understand that the man who was holding him, Zero was it? Was probably like him… and suddenly he didn’t feel like a freak anymore, after years of being an outcast, he had finally met someone like him (well, somewhat like him, at least).
Surprisingly, Zero was also experiencing something new. The man felt cold to the touch, and he could feel it, as he had when he had entered the house… He didn’t know how it was possible but what he did know was that it felt good. Really good.
The feeling of warming yourself over a radiator after a day spent in the cold winter wind or cooling off in the sea during a hot afternoon at the beach were both great feelings that Jude and Zero had never experienced. Now they were experiencing something similar and nothing had ever felt that brilliant.
The cold or the heat could become unbearable if they lost control of their powers. Zero had gone through that a few months ago when his mutation had become too powerful, and it now seemed that Jude was going through the same process.
“It’s going to be alright now”, Zero assured him, rubbing his back to provide more heat to his slowly warming body, thinking of how he would have loved to have that man near him when he was going through his own loss of control and had ended up literally burning up.
Laura felt awkward, as if he was intruding on some kind of personal moment. She was also shocked to see Gideon like that, when he was usually pretty closed off with people he didn’t know, he imagined he felt a connection with Jude because of their somewhat similar, yet opposed, powers.
She cleared her throat and asked:
“Shall we go?”
Zero turned towards her, seemingly just remembering she was there. He looked a bit embarrassed and just nodded before walking to the door, helping Jude who still had trouble staying awake and standing on his two feet.
“Do you want me to levitate him?” Laura proposed.
“Wouldn’t the neighbours find that weird?” Zero asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, you’re right, that was a shitty idea”
When they finally arrived to the car, he helped Jude to the backseat and then sat down in the passenger seat, beside Laura.
“We should have taken Terrene with us”, Zero told her. His mutant strength would have been a great help, for sure.
“Yeah ‘cause me levitating a man isn’t acceptable but Terrence carrying a more than six-foot tall man as if he weighed nothing is”.
Zero rolled his eyes and replied:
“Damn, you’re touchy, sis”
“Am not”, she pouted, starting the car. She said nothing until they arrived at the institute. She so was touchy.
Their arrival at the institute didn’t go unnoticed, as all the water in the building turned into ice. Plus, a guy coming in with just bed sheets covering him wasn’t something you saw every day.
“I’m going to find you some clothes, you stay here with Laura, okay?” Jude asked softly. He then waited for Jude to acknowledge what he had just said before going upstairs to get some clothes.
He came back a few minutes later with a long-sleeved T-shirt and some sweatpants of his. He had to ask Terrence, which had not been nice, since they didn’t really get along (and it was an understatement). He would have given Jude his own clothes, but he looked even more built then Zero, so he was afraid they wouldn’t fit.
Jude would have to let go of the sheets that were covering him to take the clothes from Zero, which he wasn’t in the best situation for, since they were standing in the middle of the institute’s living room, with several of the mutants giving them curious looks.
“Come on, follow me”, Zero said, taking Jude to a more private place.
Once they were in one of the bathrooms, Zero put the clothes he was carrying on the edge of the sink and informed:
“I’ll be right in front of the door if you need anything.”
Jude nodded and, just as Zero was going to exit the bathroom, he called him back to thank him, his voice hoarse from disuse. Jude still didn’t really know where he was or what these guys wanted from him exactly, but whoever they were, he felt as if he couldn’t thank them enough.