Prompt Post: ROUND FOUR
ROUND FOUR IS CLOSED
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<< ROUND THREE | ALL ROUNDS | ROUND FIVE >>
Rules post.
Posting Guidelines.
Flat view.
Updates Post (WIPs only)
Fills Post (completed Fills only)
damalur's firstclasskink on Delicious.
Volunteers always welcome.
There is a delay on comments appearing when there is a URL in the message body. This is due to an LJ anti-spam ( Read more... )
When she next tries to wake Scott up and fill him in a bit, it's easy. Scott in turn wakes up Storm and Logan, and she can feel their concern.
"You don't have to do that," Charles says when Scott confirms they're in the hallway through her own mind.
Jean frowns. "Do what, Professor?"
"Be concerned. I'm fine, and even if your alternate version of me is missing, we're the same person," Charles replies, and finally removes his fingers from his temple. It's only then that Jean notices the cup of coffee is completely empty. "They'll come back to me. It seems I'll have to fetch Erik, though." He grins. "I have no idea how he got himself into that mess, but I'm looking forward to finding out."
"Erik Lehnsherr?" she asks, uncomfortably aware that there's no need to even ask about it.
Charles makes a humming sort of agreeing noise, and walks out, leaving the mug sitting on the kitchen island.
He looks like he's younger than us, Scott thinks.
Jean sighs, and puts the mug in the sink. That's because he is, she replies, and follows Charles out the door.
---
Charles will readily admit he's not at his best in the mornings. He wakes up groggy, occasionally cranky, and is well aware he habitually falls asleep again after walking away from his bed and finds himself moving onto the nearest available cushioned surface. Coffee, he has learned through extensive schoolwork, helps, and it's become a habit to head straight for the caffeine when he wakes up (...or, of course, the nearest available cushioned surface).
Still, missing forty years of his life and an additional hundred and twenty people in his house, let alone the absence of the others who had lived there, is just embarassing. Erik not being there when he woke was normal - he's a hellish morning person, up and running about trailing terrible metallic screeching noises behind him whenever he passes under the window, the sadist - but tripping over a wheelchair? There's no excuse for that kind of absentminded ignorance.
The three people standing outside the kitchen stare, of course. He pointedly doesn't read any further than their surface thoughts, which are fairly predictable anyway, since for the most part they're a combination of what the fuck and i have no idea what's happening. Charles feels much the same.
He clears his throat, and Charles assumes that in forty years he will be a terribly respectable person, because they immediately focus on him. "I am going to take a shower, and put on real clothing, and then we can talk about this. Understood?" They nod. "Good," Charles says, and goes to do just that.
There's no way he could avoid noticing that in forty years he'll be in a wheelchair, particularly in the bathroom. The shower has a plastic stool in it, the sink is hollowed out beneath to accomodate the chair, and everything is at a level that a seated man could reach it easily. It makes Charles queasy to think about, but he remembers this is his life in forty years. Of course he'd be different. He'd be old, and at some point he assumes that wheelchairs are an inevitability. At least his seems to have a motor in it.
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