Sleeping better probably would have prevented this. Of course, sleeping better hadn't been a viable option at the time. The past few days had seen him lurking as far from the general society as he could manage, rising long before his roommate and reluctantly slinking back in the dead of the night to try to ensure that Persi was long asleep and wouldn't notice. The end result was that he only got a handful of hours of sleep at most. Compounding the issue was the fact that those hours were invariably plagued with a horrible mixture of remembered and imagined images, arranged in an eerie order than seemed professionally designed to punish him for his mistakes even more than he punished himself during the day. Oh, and he had to keep moving while he was awake because no hidey-hole stayed solitary for long and he didn't want to be found.

Only now he was so miserable, curled into a loose ball amidst a tangle of twisted sheets mostly half off the bed at least - and all his pillows had found their way to the floor already - that he was kind of tempted to crawl back into the fitful sleep he had apparently just been booted out of. His head ached, with a pronounced throbbing spread wide across his forehead. Muscles that had absolutely no reason to be unhappy ached, with a deep-seated dull grating that did nothing to distract him from his headache but was in no way lessened by that other pain.

And it seemed to be well over a hundred degrees, despite a bleary glare at the clock that insisted it was still quite early in the morning - though far, far later than he had been rising of late. A hundred degrees now? This day was just going to be miserable. A dry cough racked his lungs for a few moments and he tried to roll to a new spot on his bed. Maybe it would be a bit cooler?

No. The movement just made his body protest, his head spin, and his lungs threaten to go on strike. In Alaska. Without him. ... being left in New York in this heat while his lungs went to Alaska to party in the cold was totally unfair. He should sue them, get some sort of court order to not let them go. Could he sell his lungs into slavery to himself? Not that slavery was good, but there were so many more options for forcibly restraining necessary things. Ugh. Why was it so hot? Squirming tiredly, one of his remaining sheets twisted around his arm. He impatiently batted at it, not getting around to opening his eyes and looking at how it was twisted, and then limply gave up and just fell back against the bed. Even without his lungs threatening to go on strike it was hard to breathe properly in this heat. He should send a note to whoever was in charge of temperature control in this place. Raising the temperature this drastically out of the blue wasn't fair. He should send them a stern note.

Persi would really prefer to have kept sleeping. Sleeping was nice; it erased time, and he didn't remember much, but distinctly never remembered any misery. He much preferred being asleep to being awake.

His sheet and blanket had somehow gotten onto the floor while he slept, though, and the air conditioning was a bit too cold for him to be comfortable in it. So awake he was, and he'd slept enough that getting back to sleep (at least, after getting out of bed, retrieving the sheet and blanket, detangling them, and getting them back on the bed) wasn't likely. He didn't bother to attempt it, though he did mutter several curses at the sheet and blanket while he fixed them, without being entirely aware what he was saying. Once he was aware enough to realize he'd gotten onto something about "and the pixies can turn you into flowers' dresses--" he cut himself off.

Once the bed was, if not made, at least in one piece again, Persi stood staring at it for a moment as his brain hissed insults at him for making it work, then checked the clock. Apparently he hadn't slept quite as long as it felt, so getting back to sleep might have been an option. Ugh. Well, it wasn't now; he grabbed clothes and headed for the showers.

Persi... had no real idea what to do once he got back, though. He eventually settled for grabbing a sketchbook, climbing back on his bed (it was comfortable, even if he couldn't sleep now) and starting to idly flip through it. He'd probably think of something to draw fairly quickly.

If he sold his lungs into slavery to himself, would it be better to accompany them to Alaska for a nice vacation or keep them here so that they could be as miserable as he? It was a difficult question to answer. A vacation would be nice. He'd never really been anywhere, much less as far away as Alaska. If he flew to Alaska, would he have to go through all the hassle that crossing the border was supposed to be, even if the plane never landed while it was going across Canada? That would be annoying. What did the people in Alaska do when they wanted to come south to the proper part of the country to thaw out? Did they all have to have passports? It would have to be a pretty big undertaking just to warm up.

Maybe, if he went to visit there to cool off, he could take some of this infernal heat with him so that they wouldn't have to go through all that trouble. He'd have to store it securely though, both to keep from overheating on the way and because he'd heard that Canadians were pretty touchy about their weather and global warming and stuff and he didn't want to make them mad by letting the heat escape. That wouldn't be nice. What would they do if all their igloos and stuff melted? That would make life very hard on them.

It was probably a good time to completely disregard everything he knew about Toronto, a notably Canadian city, and how close it was to New York. He pondered that. If he disregarded it, then all his other plans stood. If he didn't, then he had to completely redo all of that work. He didn't want to do that. It was too much in the heat. Too much effort in the heat. He kind of forgot a word. That was funny. Easier to fix than if he were talking or writing, though. It was just him in his head, after all, so no one would so much as suspect that he'd done such a silly thing.

Speaking of silly, pretending that the largest city in a country didn't exist was probably pretty silly. There were probably quite a few people there who wouldn't take it kindly. Maybe he could give them dresses for their flowers to make them feel better. Everyone liked presents, didn't they? Presents were good. They meant you got free stuff and that the person giving them cared at least a little bit about you. If the presents were coming at some socially determined time, like christmas or birthdays, they especially meant that they cared, since they were in no way obligated to give you anything, much less anything good.

Aiden attempted to throw a pillow at his roommate, thinking that the fabric caught against his hand was a pillow and not realizing that it was just the sheet that was still tangled around his arm. "Qui' bein' s'loud," he muttered in a heavily muffled blur of sounds. "G'way." He had, of course, completely missed the fact that the noise was from Persi coming back, and so had been away and being told to go away more didn't really work, but actual logic had lost its position on his brain council to the newly elected lolgic. Lolgic said Persi wasn't amusing right now.

The unproductive flailing was only seen out of the corner of Persi's eye, so he wasn't aware of precisely what Aiden had done, beyond somehow moving. The blur of sounds was almost as indistinguishable, though Persi managed to sort it out after several seconds. "I'm not being loud." Once he understood he would have made a confused face at Aiden, if he hadn't already been making one at whatever Aiden had said. And that thought brought more confusion; Aiden didn't normally slur like that. Was he drunk or something? And how had he managed to get drunk in the first place? Persi had not gotten the impression that sneaking alcohol into the Mansion would be easy, though Aiden had been disappearing enough recently. Even if he'd managed that, though, it seemed like Persi would have noticed something, since they were roommates (however unwillingly).

Although, now that Persi actually looked over from where he was sitting on his own bed (and saw no sign of alcohol, though that didn't necessarily prove that theory wrong), he could at least see why Aiden's attempt at moving had been indistinguishable. "What are you doing, trying to tie yourself to the bed?"

Persi should not be attempting to deny the truth. Of course he was being loud. Aiden would not have told him to be quiet otherwise. Additionally, his answer was too loud. It made his head pound even more. "Course you 're. Should shush. 'Ts too hot for noise." He limply rolled over to face the wall, somehow managing to free his arm miraculously in the process. After a few long moments, he cracked his eyes open enough to stare at his arm as if it had sprouted interesting wings. Oh. It was free. That was cool. He wished the room were cool. He was sweating enough with the heat that everything stuck to him, but there wasn't enough air movement or whatever to evaporate it and cool him off properly. That was stupid. He shouldn't be hot. It was annoying being hot.

Muttering something incomprehensible even to himself, Aiden waved his now-unentangled arm at Persi again, and far more successfully. "It was stuck. Be stupid to tie myself to th' bed. Who'd do that?" He rolled over again and scrubbed at his face. It neither made him feel any better nor woke him up. It just shifted his focus from the pressure in his forehead to the heat in his skin for a few moments. Yuck. "You should go make it colder," he muttered, somewhere between imperious and petulant.

Persi blinked, and glanced around the room as if it could explain Aiden's nonsense. It didn't seem to; the room looked the same as ever, which included being distinctly cool, if anything. Granted Aiden seemed to be extra sensitive to heat, and it would make sense that he was with the snow and all, but normally he didn't object to temperatures that certainly seemed warmer than this to Persi. The room gave no more explanation than Aiden did.

"Dunno. People talk about it, though." In the sort of vague, indirect ways that they talked about secrets, like liking a terrible band, but with less shame and more excited embarrassment. Persi had no clue why, or why anyone cared, and had long ago agreed with Aiden's assessment of stupidity.

And Aiden was apparently still convinced it was hot. Persi checked his arm, and found it in a state just prior to goosebumps. So he wasn't imagining the temperature, then, probably. He'd heard of things where the brain tricked the body into being sick, but this didn't seem like one of those. Anyway, if it was colder, he'd feel colder, even if he shouldn't actually be cold yet. "It's already cold, I'm not making it colder. Anyway, I can't, you're the one that makes snow, remember?"

"'S'not cold," Aiden insisted. "It's hot. It's 'least a hundred in'ere. What're you, sick'r somethin'?" That Aiden might be the infected one didn't come within earshot of crossing his mind. It was bloody hot and Persi couldn't tell. Ergo there was something wrong with Persi.

The comment about snow was passed around his external brain cells for a while. None of them were willing to be the one that made the connection to the inner brain cells and passed on the message. They were finally catching a break and really didn't want to have to go back to misery work. Such bliss could hardly last forever, though, and soon enough one brain cell slipped up and passed the comment onwards.

Aiden floundered to a sitting position, only to have his forehead pulse with pain and send him careening back down, hands plastered to his face. "Oww..... he muttered softly. Oh right, stupid snow. "Snow is stupid," he declared, "and I don't want it. Bad snow. Should trade. Hey!" Aiden tried to sit up again, but made it even less far before his sinuses banished him back to his bed. "Ooooooow... um. Hey. Trade me. I don't want stupid snow. Take it. Have it."

"...Are you hallucinating?" Persi was entirely certain that it was not a hundred. Maybe seventy, but he was beginning to doubt that too, as he thought about it. And he wasn't imagining it, the goosebumps said so. So Aiden must be. Whether Aiden would be able to tell that he was hallucinating Persi had no idea; it seemed too obvious to not realize, but then not knowing something was a hallucination always seemed to be the point of a hallucination. Maybe hallucinations all radiated some sort of aura of believability.

Persi blinked as Aiden sat up, and immediately fell back down. "...Are you sick?" Or hurt, would be Persi's more immediate guess, considering the 'ow's that were being repeated, but asking that would seem more like he cared. Asking if someone was sick could be accusing them of something being wrong with them, or just not wanting to be sick himself. Plus, Aiden had brought the subject up first. He didn't seem to notice, though, since he was still talking. "I don't... actually there probably is a mutant that can switch mutations, isn't there?" And, really, it didn't matter what mutation Persi had at all. But if Aiden had his, then maybe Aiden could go back wherever he was from and pretend not to be a mutant anymore. "Yeah, sure, if we can find him."

"Be crazy to hallucinate," Aiden muttered primly, and pointedly poked all the things he saw to be within arm's reach. His finger did indeed contact something appropriate each time. "See? All there. Might start if it stays stupid hot," he added as grumpy afterthought. Who knew what extended excessive hear would do to him? He'd managed to keep from critically overheating for a few days, and he'd made it out of the heat pretty quick that last time. Plus it was hotter now. It'd probably totally mess him up.

Aiden snorted at the suggestion that he could be sick. Except the action made his sinuses throb and he really had to reconsider. "Um." He didn't want to be sick. Being sick was annoying. He swallowed against the tickle in his throat. Naw, he couldn't be sick! He was too busy doing or being something to be sick. Except he couldn't remember what it was he was supposed to be doing or being.

"I dunno. Probably. Mutant f'r everything, isn't there? Look at you. All the big bases have to be covered." He yawned, coughed a few times, and curled up a bit. No, still too warm for that. He spread out again. "You go find 'im," Aiden ordered. "Too hot to get up."

Persi did see. Specifically, he saw that Aiden was now poking random nearby objects. It wasn't a very persuasive argument for the boy's sanity. "It's still not hot."

Persi gave Aiden an annoyed look, then deliberately focused back on his sketchbook. "I think that the big bases get several. Like you have snow and that teacher has ice. I doubt there are more of me. And you can go find him yourself, if you want to be cold that much."

What was wrong with Persi today? "Of course it's hot," Aiden retorted as reasonably as he could manage in the current environment. "Would I be sweating and feeling this gross if it were a proper temperature?"

This just wasn't working. Persi clearly wasn't invested enough in the situation to put any significant effort into correcting matters. "If you lump snow and ice together, you might as well call yourself a telepath and join the infinitely huge big brain club." Stupid comparisons. Persi had annoying timed moments for unintelligence. Wait, maybe the heat he denied was really getting to him, and just frying his brain. He could make allowances for that.

"I told you, it's too hot," Aiden said hotly, irritated despite his attempt at tolerance. It wasn't fair for him to end up with this guy. He moped all the time, and dragged him to stupid training things that pretended to be cool only to shred every scrap of what veneer of self-appreciation and worth he had ever managed to plaster on, and then try to rub that in his face. Stupid roommate. "Shut up about the snow already," he muttered, draping an arm across his closed eyes. "I already told you I don't want it."

"It is a proper temperature, so apparently yes, you would." Persi didn't know how many more times he would have to repeat this, but he was already sick of it. Maybe he should go find someone that Aiden would actually listen to.

"Snow is just little pieces of ice. Even I remember that. Did your school not have a science class?" Persi might envy that, depending on what science was replaced with. As long as it wasn't gym, really, it wouldn't be worse....

"Well if you can find someone who'll trade them, I will." If he was stuck with being a mutant, he could at least be a mutant that could do something.

"No it's not!" Aiden insisted, and struggled to force himself upright. He fought against the throbbing pain in his forehead from the change in pressure and angle, a hand splayed across the more painful right side of his face, and glared at Persi with his uncovered eye. "Why do you keep insisting it isn't hot?"

"Of course my school had science classes. Just because snow and ice are structurally similar doesn't make them the same. If you grind up ice, you don't get real snow. You can melt them both into water, but chucking that water into a freezer or whatever isn't going to give you back the snow." Heaving a sigh from the force of his rant, since his lungs really didn't want to cooperate all that much and it was kind of the most he'd said all at once in months, if not years, he shook his head disgustedly at Persi.

Stupid lazy annoying roommates. "You want me to go running around this place in this heat and who knows where else trying to find someone who may or may not exist, and then somehow miraculously convince them to deign to help a couple of random students with clichéd levels of emotional baggage?" Aiden snorted derisively and (carefully) lay back again. "Yeah, no. You can do that. Have fun."

"Because it isn't. We're inside, there's air conditioning, it's not hot." Persi was out of patience. Not so much that he was willing to get up and go looking for someone else to deal with Aiden yet, but plenty for it to be audible in his tone. If Aiden bothered to listen, anyway, which Persi was beginning to doubt he would.

"That's how ski slopes make snow." Well, bad snow for skiing, and they sprayed water into frozen air instead of tossing it into freezers, but close enough.

"Yeah." That was generally what 'you go find him' meant, as far as Persi was aware. Aiden seemed to speak English, though he seemed not to understand what the word 'hot' mean, so who knew. "You want to get rid of snow, you want to make everything cold, you can go find someone."

"I don't care if we're inside. It's hot. What, you think that just because I don't get cold I can't tell when it's hot?" He'd had enough of this. Persi thought this was annoying? Well it was way worse to someone at serious risk of overheating if they so much as got up and walked around the room! He didn't need this aggravation. His brain hadn't fried enough to keep from reminding him that he was in no shape to go anywhere else, though, so evidently the only way to solve this was to drive Persi away.

"I don't care what ski slopes do," Ai growled. He also wasn't interested in Persi's snarky answer. Couldn't he tell that Aiden was being rather sarcastic about what the request entailed, and see how inappropriate a request it truly was? "Well, I'd rather not overheat and die in some corner on the way. Just go already." If he weren't lying on his back with too little energy left to try to get up again, he would have fixed his roommate with the nastiest glare he could manage. "Really. Go." Then they could all get away from this conversation.