It was hot. Not the sort of hot that makes you a little flustered, maybe a little clammy, but the hot which makes you wish you could just curl up in a bowl of ice-cubes. There was something different about this heat, perhaps it was about to rain, perhaps somewhere there was a tornado playing games with the weather. Whatever the reason, Verdy found herself unable to concentrate. Laying on the bed wasn’t cool enough. Laying on the floor beneath the bed was hardly better, plus she got spider webs in her hair and came face to face with a dust-bunny the size of her fist.

Wandering into the bathroom she splashed water from the cold-tap on her face. It was lukewarm. With a shudder and a lazy attempt to scrape the cobwebs from her limp hair she gave up. This was ridiculous. Debating whether or not a trip to the kitchen was worth donning suitable clothes she stubbed her toe on the edge of her bed, with a curse she whirled through her pile and found a singlet top and shorts to drag over her underwear. Growing up in Hawaii she should have been used to the heat, perhaps the years in America had weakened her immunity. Kicking on a pair of ‘flip-flops’ (not thongs, she reminded herself silently) she grabbed her side-bag and double checked that she had her key. Locking herself out on a day like this would suck.

Silently resolving to visit the pool at some stage if it wasn’t too crowded with mansion students, desperate to escape the heat as she was, she wandered down the hall and into the kitchen. Beeline for the freezer. The waves of cool air which billowed out as she opened the door were pure bliss. Her happiness was short-lived however, when a number of white plastic trays beamed up at her. Empty. Someone had used all the ice, and hadn’t filled the trays. With a hiss of outrage she tossed the first row of trays onto the bench. All empty. The second too. The pile of trays were balancing now, wobbling fearfully as she checked and tossed yet more empty ones. Finally reaching the back of the freezer (no mean feat considering its industrial size) she growled at the last empty tray.

She slammed the door shut and stomped to the sink, filling the trays one by one and moving them to one side she muttered in outrage to herself.

“How hard is it to put some god-damned water in the god-damned trays?! It wouldn’t kill you! Five minutes, that’s all it would have took, but ooooh-nooo, you had to leave it for someone else, and now there wont be ice for hours!”

It was a miracle any water stayed in the trays at all, considering how she roughly moved them from sink to bench top as they filled.

The pool was crowded and seeing as most of the other older kids were busy with there own things to do or things he had assigned them Sam was stuck with lifeguard duty, which was alright with him seeing as his self defense class turned into a swim day, it was only far he had been working them pretty hard lately and seeing as the heat wave hit today he figured why not. It was of course filled with cheers and a few kids jumping for joy so he decided a pop quiz was necessary, should keep them in check. So silently he made sure no one was drowning.

An hour passed and he noticed a few of the older students some he had actually knew were certified life guards, ”Kevin, Kellie!” the looked to him and he let them know they were running the show while he was off to grab a sandwich or something of the like, it had been a while since he had a bite to eat after all. Kevin grinned and Kellie sighed and Sam went on his way to the kitchen a place that should for the most part be very quite seeing as most of the kids that wouldn’t have class or were in his class were outside.

Before he entered the kitchen his ears picked up a curse and the reason of a curse. He smirked and walked in with a smile on his face, ”If you ask nicely I’d be more than happy to make some for you, it is kind of what I do, Miss….” he got a better look to the one who cursed and he was surprised to see the girl was a bit older, ”Don’t believe we met? Sam.” he said as he offered up his hand, ”Ice?” as he asked about the ice his hand turned blue as bits of ice formed eventually turning into clumps.

The newcomer startled her a little and she dropped the tray into the sink with a clatter. Sheepishly suspecting that her damnation of all the ice-users was overheard. Wiping the drops onto her shorts she held her hand out to the man smiling at her. Kind of what he did… His hand was very cold, and her overheated body gave a tremor from the surprising temperature.

“Verdigris.”

Ice was indeed what he did, and she found herself almost jealous of the mutation on a day like this. Although, ice was ice and like all ice would melt away in its iciness. She eyed the frozen water, while very cool (no pun intended) the fact that it had come from his was a little disconcerting. Bodily fluids were bodily fluids in the same way ice was ice, and she felt a little squeamish at the thought, no matter how hot the day.

“Is it ice good for human consumption?”

Because heaven knows those humans are a picky lot.

Sam smiled to Verdigris and nodded his head, ”its just normal ice, like any other,” he said as he waited till Verdigris took the ice that was offered. ”I effect the water moisture in the air, making ice is what I do, nothing special about this ice.” he said as he looked to the fridge. ”Hot day out right?” he asked continuing with the small talk as he breathed out slowly affecting the temperature in the room cooling it down a bit more than it already was, he could tell she was suffering from the heat.

Something that most people did when they were overheating was sweating, something Sam didn’t normally did, he still sweat but it was more from overexertion opposed to trying to cool off, he wasn’t affected by the heat the same way as everyone else, one of the many perks to being the resident cool guy. Walking over to the counter he placed the ice he offered to Verdigris and set it on the counter figuring she’d be more eager to take it if he wasn’t holding it.

HE walked over to the freezer and looked at the ice cube trays and smirked and lifted his hand up and shot a blue jet from his finger tips and removed the trays and the bucket where the ice should be placed, ”Inconvenient the ice cube maker went on the fritz as soon as it got this hot huh?” he asked as he broke the ice cubes free from the tray and placed them in the bucket then filled the trays and repeated using his mutation.

Looking up for a second over to the woman who was sweating, he smiled, ”You going to the pool today?” he asked curiously as he turned his good eye back to the bucket and the trays that were quickly being filled with ice.

She huffed at the mention of the day, it was not merely hot it was insanity manifested in the weather! Heat waves in Hawaii were nothing compared to this and she was disappointed in her wardrobe’s absence of hot-weather clothes. There was something in the day that screamed at her to wear as little as possible, and donning clothing to come to the kitchen, only to find that there was no ice, was Not Cool.

“Crazy hot.”

Dunking her hands in the sink had apparently cooled her down some, water running over the veins in her wrists lowering her core temperature. She wiped her face with her arm, sweating all over the place when meeting someone new was quite rude. Especially if the pirate-patched ‘someone new’ wasn’t sweating at all. Hunting for a clean cup she was relieved to find a cupboard full. Apparently whoever used the ice wasn’t making drinks. Placing a cup for herself on the bench she paused before retrieving a second.

“I suspect it went down because it was so hot. Everyone wants to use it when its this hot, so it overworks itself, overheats and stops working.”

She frowned at the offending machine and cracked the tray of ice cubes deftly, splitting the cubes evenly between the two cups.

“Possibly, I’m never sure it’s a good idea when its so busy in there, especially with so many small ones splashing around.”

Not that she had anything in particular against children, just that the bare squirming bodies who splashed and dive-bombed made it difficult to have a peaceful swim, no matter the size of the pool, and the mansion’s was ample. On a day like this the pool was bound to be full of them, although her swimmers were the good type, not able to be undone by pranking fingers, still it was asking for trouble. She gestured to the second cup.

“Drink?”

Sam nodded his head and laughed, ”Sure I’ll have a glass,” Sam said reaching for the second glass as he added, ”It’s a big pool and seeing as I took some time and created a few ice slides, it might be worth checking out.” Sam said with a smirk as he filled his own glass with a few ice cubes. The slides were the reason he was brought out there and the reason he stayed out there was to lifeguard. Even if he had some work to do it was well worth stalling to make sure the kids had a good and safe time.

”I was even thinking about turning the backyard into a winter wonderland a bit later too. Been a while since I had a decent snowball fight.” Sam said mumbling to himself more than to Verdigris.

The air in the kitchen started to cool a bit more as Sam took control over the temperature in the air. If she was really this miserable it would have been better to head outside where the pool and he was, if the pool couldn’t help her cool down at least he could. ”I actually could use some help setting up for the winter wonderland if your interested, isn’t as fun to make a snow man by yourself…” Sam said as he turned his head and looked out the window taking a sip of his drink.

Tap-water was just fine by her, for now at least, and she filled her glass, satisfied by the cubes clinking against the sides. She nodded as he took the glass, there was water in the taps and an assortment of drinks in the fridge (all non-alcoholic, of course, this was a school after all) so he could help himself to whatever he liked. He had an air of authority about him, though, which suggested he probably knew that.

Ice slides. In the pool. It was certainly a decidedly tempting offer, and swimmers were slightly less constricting than the shorts and top she was wearing. Scratch that, he was making snow. She decided that for today, in the middle of this heatwave, he was her new best friend. Already just being around him made her feel better, and the air didn’t feel so stifling.

“That sounds like fun, anything is better than laying around sweating.”

Especially if that ‘anything’ involved snowmen of the real, cold variety. On the streets she hadn’t been a big fan of snow, today however, even the thought of it made her feel a couple degrees less overheated. After a glance at her attire she decided she didn’t really need to change, if she started getting cold (unlikely) she could always head back to her room for gloves, or a real shirt.

“So, Sam, other than wandering around being a portable air-conditioner slash ice-slide and snowman maker and saving ice-less damsels like myself, how do you spend your time?”

It was good to suss a person out before figuring out where you stood with them, he just had something about him, perhaps it was the eye patch, but she felt like he was important, and that she really ought to know why.

Sam smirked when she asked him what he did in his spare time; he was never sure how to answer a question like this when someone asked it of him. He could always respond with the typical round about answers like, working out or going to a bar on occasion but other than the occasional bar trip most of the stuff he did wasn’t really what he would put under spare time. Working with the police he counted as work, paperwork and greeting he put under work, and while he had a blast teaching his students in his self-defense classes he knew others would consider it work.

”… Travel?” Sam asked not really sure if that counted, he did like to travel but as of late all the traveling he did was X-Men related, the last trip he went on that was non-work related was around four months ago, he ended up on a road trip with his brother to Colorado to find out a little more about the parents that he had never known but the trip turned complicated when they ran into an undead mutant. Long story short it didn’t turn out to be much of a vacation.

”Though I haven’t had much time for non work related things lately, but then again I’d rather be busy with work than be bored out of my mind with nothing to do.” Sam said as he shrugged taking another sip of his chilled beverage. ”In fact saving ice-less damsels is part of my job.” Sam said turning his face towards her and trying to make it obvious he just winked at her, but with one eye he wasn’t sure she’d get what he was doing.

Taking another sip Sam headed towards the exit of the kitchen and looked back at Verdigris, ”So meet me out in the courtyard near the pool and we can start setting up?” Sam asked curiously.