[Charles smiles despite himself. Everything is so messed up, but Patsy's easy-going acceptance is making everything easier. Against his wishes, Charles is beginning to remember why he had fallen in love with her in the first place.]
I'm sorry - aren't you future!Patsy? You know, displaced in time like the rest of them?
Charles startled at the old man's sudden appearance, as a result he lost momentary control of his wheelchair, sending it crashing into a wall. The impact wasn't hard, but he was certain that if his legs still had feeling, they would be smarting. There were some benefits to this situation after all, it seemed.
"I'm sorry, I - Azazel?" Eyes wide, Charles looked the man up and down. The more time he spent observing, the more certain he became: there was no mistaking that mind. "You scared me half to death."
Charles pushed himself up into a half-reclined position, peering at this stranger through curious blue eyes. “Yeah, that would be me,” he said, raising a hand like a child in classes. “My apologies for the abruptness, friend.”
Thick brown hair curled about Charles’ ears in waves, longer than he had remembered it being even the night before. Every passing second of this morning added to the feeling of wrongness that seemed to hang about the campus like a shroud. In quick words Charles explained to the stranger his situation: going to sleep fully functioning, only to awake with legs the like of meat sacks. He did not allow himself to dwell on the possibility of his disability being permanent. There was clearly something very wrong here, and he hoped to fix it. Anything else was unacceptable, making his pulse race and sweat break out across his forehead.
Matt could discern with his powers that the stranger in front of him was lying on what Matt presumed was this man’s own bed. The soft spoken stranger did not seem like he was in any sort of danger, but rather had just woken up from sleep.
“What’s the problem?” Matt ask through suspicious eyes.
"My legs. When I fell asleep they were fully functioning ... now ... " Charles trailed off, smiling a slightly manic smile. This stranger was blind. Charles surmised as much based on the subtle delicacy of his movement, coupled of course with the constant awareness of that fact skirting the edges of his mind. That awareness was fascinating, spreading out to brush against each of the room's surfaces, finding new and creative ways to work around his disability, stretching his remaining senses to new heights. If it were a different day, Charles would have inquired further.
"My name is Charles. Charles Xavier, by the way." Panic was threatening to reach up Charles' throat and choke him once again, but he kept his words calm and controlled. "Do you know anything about this? About what's going on? Is this - normal, for you?"
Jubilee kept her face as stoic as possible, but even she had to blink as he spoke. This was more than just people being shifted out of time. Charles Xavier had no idea who she was, even though she had worked with him previously. He was one of the few telepaths she could actually expect to pick up her surface thoughts. It appeared as though he had been simply aged, not transferred in time…or he didn’t remember the missing years - one of the two. Worse though - he had no idea of the spinal injury that had taken his ability to walk.
Drawing in a deep breath, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Charles, I’m Jubilee. The first time I met you, I helped you make a s’more at Tony Stark’s bonfire.” Her eyes scanned his. “Do you remember me?”
"Of course I remember Jubilee." Charles nodded his head, meeting this woman who claimed the name of his friend's eyes. A quick swipe by the peripheral of her mind proved that what she had spoken was true, but - "but you're not the Jubilee that I know." Pieces were falling slowly into place, but creating a picture that looked garbled to Charles' perception. Her mind maintained the same structural integrity of Jubilee's, but lacked the fine details; there was more texture and depth to it now, a sort of development only brought about with age.
"Do you know anything about," he gestured to his unresponsive lower half, "this?" The look that had crossed her face when first he mentioned it filled Charles with a heavy dread. That look had spoken of pity and knowing, of horrifying inevitability.
Matt heard the distressed voice, and was out the door as quick as he could. It wasn’t coming from anywhere external but rather from inside his mind. The first time that Matt had ever experienced telepathy was in this exact room; he wondered if perhaps the voice was of his old roommate, Stephen. Although, Matt couldn’t quite figure out why Stephen was would be in room 102.
Arriving on the first floor of the old boy’s dorm house, Matt felt the numbers on the doors, until he arrived at his destination. Room 102, he thought as he opened the door, conveniently it wasn’t locked.
Charles pushed himself up into a half-reclined position, peering at this stranger through curious blue eyes. "Yeah, that would be me," he said, raising a hand like a child in classes. "My apologies for the abruptness, friend."
Thick brown hair curled about Charles' ears in waves, longer than he had remembered it being even the night before. Every passing second of this morning added to the feeling of wrongness that seemed to hang about the campus like a shroud. In quick words Charles explained to the stranger his situation: going to sleep fully functioning, only to awake with legs the like of meat sacks. He did not allow himself to dwell on the possibility of his disability being permanent. There was clearly something very wrong here, and he hoped to fix it. Anything else was unacceptable, making his pulse race and sweat break out across his forehead.
Jubilee’s eyes scanned the courtyard as she stood on the steps. It looked like old home week was in full swing. Who had pulled this off? Heroes, villains, even folks who’d dropped off the map…everyone was back at SHIELD High…and none of them had planned on it. Even as she moved to go down the steps, she was hit with a loud telepathic broadcast…almost like the telepath, who she swore felt like Xavier, was unsure of his own strength - which didn’t make sense. She winced and then her training kicked in.
As she moved towards the boys’ dorm, she put a thought uppermost in her mind for the telepath to read. ['I'm on my way. What's the emergency?'] Her steps brought her quickly to room 102, but the door was locked. Rolling her eyes, she pulled out her favorite lock pick and opened the door without too much trouble. She blinked at the guy waiting.
Charles…looking either too young or too old depending on how one looked at it.
"You're telling me." Charles blinked up at her, taken in by an odd sense of foreign familiarity. Like he knew this woman, trusted her, but could think of no reason why he would do so. From the look in her eyes, Charles could surmise that she was thinking something similar.
"My emergency," Charles parroted. Brought forcibly back into his current predicament, he looked down at his prone form, legs splayed awkwardly. Propping himself up on an elbow, so at the very least he wouldn't appear completely helpless in front of this imposing woman, Charles explained how he had fallen asleep last night swathed in normalcy, and woken up bereft of the use of his legs.
As he spoke the nagging sensation of knowing grew. Her stance, her mind, and even to some degree her face ... "Do I ... know you?" He blurted out, finally.
Charles awoke, as always, in increments. His mind was the first thing to surface, telepathy stretching out like a blanket to cover the campus. There was something amiss, he could tell right away, the air was permeated with tension and distress. One of the school's power couples had just split ways, probably.
Next came the more baser senses: sight, smell, sound, and the rest. Charles opened his eyes, staring up at the now unfamiliar ceiling of his dorm room at SHIELD High. He had arrived late last night, tired and jet-lagged and wanting nothing more than to fall into his bed and think of nothing until the morning. Which was exactly what he had done.
Finally his motor skills kicked up, and Charles stretched his arms up over his head, expecting his legs to follow suit. When they didn't, remaining obstinately motionless, Charles' brow creased in agitation.
'What the ... ?'
He tried once more before the worry began to set in, his legs remaining as still and foreign to him as if they weren't even his own. Charles tried kicking at the bed, nothing. He tried rolling himself over to stand, his torso strained with the effort, but his lower half made no attempt to join in. Panic was a spark in the back of Charles' mind. He couldn't feel the soft flannel of his pajama bottoms, nor the slight pressure of the bed beneath him. What had happened whilst he'd slept? This was something that went beyond sleep paralysis.
['Hello?'] He called out to the first consciousness in close range. Only then did he notice the way his telepathic range seemed to have expanded dizzyingly overnight. ['Would you perhaps lend a hand? I'm up in room 102. Do hurry.']
The door opened and shut with a heavy thud, high heeled shoes clicked across the wood panel floor, approaching a large, oaken desk that dominated the room’s majority. Charles did not look up until his name was called.
"It’s Charles, Mrs Marko." He didn’t bother pointing out that she - that everyone - had lost the right to use that name years ago.
"Please Charles, call me grandma." She tried a smile on, it twisted her red-painted lips in a strange, uncomfortable way. The line of her lipstick was wavery and uneven along the cupid’s bow, signs of a hand grown unsteady by age. A large bay window positioned at his back threw Charles’ usually soft, cherubic features into sharp relief, adding severity to the lines of his face. Charles adopted his father’s posture, his stepfather’s blank, unreadable expression. Sitting at Brian Xavier’s old desk and dressed in an expensive suit, Charles looked far older than he had any right to be.
"We both know that will not be happening."
Mrs Estelle Marko, mother of Kurt Marko and step-grandmother of Charles Xavier, sitting ramrod straight and dressed in her smartest charcoal pencil skirt and blazer, shifted. It was as good as a neon sign. Echoes of [not the same] bounced disbelievingly off of the study’s bare walls. What she said was:
"Charles, please - " but he silenced her with a single raised hand.
"Let us dispense with formalities." Charles laid his hand back down on the desk, fingers curled slightly inward in a closed-off position. He was a man now, no longer a child, and she could not frighten him any more. "Those sorts of things seem kind of hollow when one party is essentially trying to steal from the other."
Those seemed to be the magic words, Estelle Marko’s expression shut down faster than Alcatraz. That awful skull’s grin fell from her face and a cold, quiet fury took its place. Her thoughts were like a cyclone of hate, unsubtle jabs of ['freak'] and ['mutant'] peppering his psyche like a shower of needles, but Charles crossed the storm largely unaffected. He had heard worse. They all had. Once upon a time Charles had been accused of being naive, in that moment he could have laughed.
"Charles, the money is legally ours. Your mother, in her own hand, signed -"
”- my mother,” Charles cut her off ruthlessly, unforgiving, “was threatened into resigning those documents. Do you truly think that she would leave the family fortune, the house, the property, everything, to her foul, abusive husband over her biological son, of her own volition?” His tone was not aggressive, but rather incredulous, as though it would take a person of unimaginable stupidity to agree with that claim.
"Even if that were true, it doesn’t change anything. You’ve no proof. They wont take your word [‘monster’] over mine.”
Charles grit his teeth but could not refute her claim. He had no evidence, but that didn’t temper his certainty in the least. There had been a time when his mother had loved him more than anything, and even by the end, as much as that love had dulled, it was still more than she had for her second husband. Never would she have willingly wrote Charles out like that. Proof was the problem.
"Besides, we both know that the money wouldn’t go to you, would it Charles?" Her tone was knowing in a way that made Charles feel sick.
And wasn’t that the crux of it. Charles gave no outward indication of just how hard Mrs. Marko had hit that particular nail on its head, but his insides were writhing. Raven. Of course Charles had thought of it. With his incredible IQ he could doubtless receive a full ride scholarship to any post-secondary institute of his choosing. But Raven was different, or rather she looked different, and was loathe to hide herself away. Many schools would be unwilling to accept her based on that alone, but currency was the great equalizer, and the Xavier fortune was no small amount. So yes, Charles had planned to give it to Raven in its entirety - Cain too, before - with the hope that she would use it to get into a good college or university or trade school. Whatever would make her happy.
[‘Look at him. Pale. Got it. That blue creature. Not even human - sentient. Just a thing.’]
"Perhaps your mother wanted the money put to better use." ['Not funding monstrosities and chimeras.']
It was as though something had snapped inside Charles’ head. The sensation was vaguely familiar, but Charles didn’t put any thought into why that was. Any attempt at courtesy was tossed to the wind as his mind threatened to cloud with rage. He managed to reel it in, but only barely.
"I think you should leave," Charles ground out from between clenched teeth. He hardly noticed that he had risen from his seat, his mind sending a not-too-gentle push Mrs. Marko’s way. From the sickly palour of her skin, Estelle knew exactly what she had just felt and that infinite as Charles’ patience sometimes seemed to be, it was not something to be tested. With a curt nod she stood and beat a hasty retreat, closing the heavy wooden door on her heels.
As soon as she was gone Charles collapsed back into his chair, fingers kneading away the headache pulsing behind his eyes.
Is it a crush that I have? Even I’m not sure anymore. If a person can improve your day with a look, and your entire week with a smile; if they can make your heart swell with words so meaningful that they reduce your voice to speechlessness, is that just a crush? It frightens me to think of the answer, as I’ve got a suspicion that it may be ‘no’.
But what scares me more? That you make me feel like I deserve it.
I don’t mean to offend because I’ve truly come to cherish and respect you, but so recently as months ago I would not have been able to imagine our relationship developing like it has. I could probably count on a single hand our similarities, but maybe that’s just a part of what makes you so dear to me. You are a breath of fresh, if sometimes unwelcome, air, overlooking what I would like to hear and telling me precisely what I need to hear.
You make me feel passion and rage. Convince me that it’s okay to express these negative emotions and come out on the other side unharmed and unchanged. That it’s okay to feel something other than happy.
I think it is safe to say that you are hugely responsible for the growth and maturing I have gone through in the past several months.
