Telepath at large.

[excessivehubris]

Characters: Charles Xavier [AU] and OPEN for multiple threads
When: Post this wonderful wake up call
Where: A dark, dead city
What: Someone's wandered off and noticed the light of the Clock Tower
Open or Closed? OPEN!
Rating/Warnings PG-13 for language.
Notes: Charles' AU can be found Here and his Permission's Post is HereOh and action or prose is

Comments

[doomhoops]

Having made it out of the morgue and away from the hospital with Il Lupo and Alistair in decent enough condition, mounting frost-bite aside, Alex was currently picking through a rack of high-end clothing in one of the high-end fashion retail stores in the empty city square that he may or may not have half-attempted-lockpicked, half-smashed-the-door-window-with-a-rock (you don't go a couple years over prison without picking up some tricks, okay?).

Alex felt sort of bad for breaking, entering and stealing, but dammit, he was freezing his ass off and the city was looking completely abandoned. Eerily abandoned. Which was a lot more off-putting than he wanted to say, but first things first. Clothes. Then finding out what the hell was going on.

He was just pulling on a leather jacket that probably cost more than he'd ever made in his lifetime, when he was hit by it - the mental call for Raven. He knew that voice, but the panic wasn't something he was familiar with. It was Charles and he must have been in a serious kind of trouble to sound so much like he was losing it. Alex made a break for the door, grabbing a pair of sneakers on the way out.

Professor? Charles? It's Alex. What to say other than that? What's wrong? Are you hurt? What the shit is going on, because you're supposed to be the one who knows these things? ...Where are you?

[excessivehubris]

Charles was briefly paused at a store front, his brows drawn together in a puzzled frown as he saw all the goods within, looking almost perfectly preserved or as if they were waiting for something. The clarion clear voice sounded like an echoing shout in a head that felt like it was stuffed with cotton and he hissed.

Prof... what? Who?

Wheeling around in a circle, Charles immediately studied the landscape around him, looking for the speaker of the voice, certain someone must have been talking to him directly. He'd never heard a clear thought aimed at him, calling his name like that from anyone but Raven and the young, masculine voice was certainly not Raven.

Who the bloody hell are you?!

[doomhoops]

That... took him aback a little. A lot. Enough to make him stop in his tracks as he left the store. He plopped down on a curb, taking a second to pull the shoes he grabbed on and just... figure this out.

Alex? Alex Summers? Havok? Maybe 'Professor' hadn't been the right thing to call him. Maybe it made him feel old. Well he shouldn't wear Grandpa sweaters and talk like Sherlock Holmes if he didn't want to feel old. Or maybe it was just one of his weird humor things Alex never really got. Now's really not the time to try to be funny, Charles.

Whatever, back to business. Having tied up his shoes, he tried for something more useful.

I picked up some clothes. You need any?

[excessivehubris]

Who?! the demand came a little more stringently and there was a hint of gathering power behind it an edge of Charles wanting to just dive in and get the answer himself but trying to hold back.

I don't know who you are, Alex Summers?

As for clothes, he looked down at the scrubs they'd found at the hospital. Now that he was out in the night air he was considerably colder and the thought of one of his sweaters was one he felt with longing but no ... wait, he was getting distracted.

Mentally he reached out and tried to grab at the voice talking to him.

WHO ARE YOU?!

[doomhoops]

There was... definitely something wrong happening here. Something really really really wrong, and the fact that it was wrong with Charles gave Alex some serious uneasiness. With Erik gone, Charles was the only fearless leader. Alex was used to handling things on his own, but if the other mutants were around somewhere they'd need Charles to help them figure this out.

What? Are you kidding? He didn't even know where to start on all the ways that the Professor most definitely knew him. Cuba? Picking me up from prison? Letting me live in your house for a few weeks?

And then there was yelling a mental hand grabbing at him. Alex was no telepathy and trying to wrap his brain just around mental conversation was enough for him, let alone mental assualt. He buckled over a bit, grabbing his head while putting a hand on the store window to try to steady himself.

I told you! I'm trying to help - what the hell are you yelling at me for?

[excessivehubris]

Well Alex, since you're offering up those memories he's going to rifle right on through them, shock echoing along his mental signature as he saw memories of himself in this young man's mind. But they were wrong, they were memories of things Charles knows he's never done, except at the same time, that was Westchester and wait that was Raven and this made no sense.

How do you know, Raven? This is all ... it's all wrong.

His disquiet was a twisting, livid thing yet ... yet Charles eased back from Alex's mind, soothing across it in an unspoken apology, even as he was reeling from what he'd seen. The idea of others but there were no others, just himself and Raven.

I ... I apologize but I don't know you. I have never met you in my life, Alex Summers.

[doomhoops]

Alex's telepathic perception is pretty much nil, but from what Charles was deducting he could tell enough that he was playing picture book for him. The thought... really wasn't comforting. Charles usually asked about these things first, not just dove in and started rifling around. But he supposed the time called for it.

Met her through you, like all the rest of us. But it was rapidly becoming apparent that 'all of the rest of us' wouldn't make sense to him. Was it amnesia? It had to be. The Professor not knowing him... it was just impossible otherwise. And this was Charles. It had to be.

Whatever it was, he couldn't figure it out here, not with so much uncertain. And mental conversation really weren't something he could keep up with well, so he started moving, not really sure where he should be headed. That... doesn't make any sense. Whatever. Just tell me where you are.

[excessivehubris]

Almost immediately Charles was on guard, his instincts were to retreat, deflect and push away not bring in closer. However, he couldn't refute the memories he'd seen from this young man and actually, it made him feel a bit curious that somewhere, out there, there was a Charles Xavier who could inspire such loyalty.

He was still silent long enough that Alex might have wondered if he hadn't cut him off entirely, before Charles finally sent and impression of where he was and where he was headed.

There's a light, maybe four blocks away now. I'm along the main street walking towards it.

Possibly not far from where Alex was currently helping himself to clothes.

[doomhoops]

On my way. And with that, he grabbed a jacket, because fuck, it's cold, and even if Charles didn't want it, not like he couldn't just... toss it somewhere. No one was there to yell at him for littering.

He made it to Charles fairly quickly, possibly having jogged a little, just wanting to figure all this crap out, find the others, and get the hell out. Approaching him, Alex kept his distance, seeing how thoroughly freaked out the man looked to go along with the panic he'd heard earlier.

"...Professor? Uh. Charles?" He stood a little awkwardly, trying to stuff hands in his pockets before he realized he was holding the jacket in one. He tossed it to him. "Here."

[excessivehubris]

Charles had kept moving, despite being somewhat aware that he should probably stay put and let this young man catch up to him but he couldn't not keep moving. When he heard Alex's shout, he stopped and whirled around, a small figure, perhaps a bit thinner and a bit younger than Alex remembered of his own Professor but otherwise, looking exactly the same.

Standing his ground, he watched the younger man with wary eyes and an arched eyebrow. It wasn't until he noticed the jacket being held out towards him that it dawned on Charles that he was running around in only a set of scrubs and that he was, well, cold.

"Thank you," he said, automatically and because it was the polite thing to do as he caught the jacket and slid it onto his small frame.

One nice thing about the jacket, he could put his hands in the pockets. He turned back towards the light up ahead.

"I have no idea if that is a way out," he began. "But the hospital seemed a singular dead end."

No morbid humor intended. Glancing at Alex once more, Charles started walking again, intent in his steps now that he'd focused on the idea of getting to whatever that light source was up ahead.

[doomhoops]

Charles hadn't exactly made it easy for him to be found, which was another thing that was off-putting. The jitters were pretty obvious, setting Alex on edge now that he was seeing the man, wary eyes, constant movement and something that seemed a little neurotic to him. Charles had been upset or frustrated before. But never like this. To be blunt about it, he was a mess. Their leader, supposing to be the one holding them together, was a mess.

"Sure." A curt nod for the jacket as Alex started trailing behind him. Even if Charles wasn't well, all the more reason for Alex to stick with him. Getting lost in a place like this, with the way he was... Alex wasn't sure how much help he'd be sans chestplate, but he couldn't just leave him to wander. Not in the state he was.

He glanced up at the clocktower, considering what he'd said. Charles was always thinking, so at least that still matched up. He follows, keeping a short distance behind, a little unsure. "Can't hurt to check. Gotta be better than the morgue, at least."

[excessivehubris]

Alex's thoughts hit him like ice cold drops right down the back of his neck and Charles hunched his shoulders and tried to push the words away. He was not a mess, at least not by the standards he could be a mess and he was not neurotic and he was not ...

Stopping and lifting his hands to his hair, he wheeled around and glared at Alex.

"Listen. I am not your leader. I don't even know who the bloody hell you are and I'm certainly not looking to hold anyone or anything together and quite honestly if you're looking to me for such a thing, than that hospital scrambled your common sense, my good chap!"

He pointed back the way they'd come towards the hospital in question.

"If you want to come along and see if there are some answers at this clocktower and is that what it is, oh well splendid be nice to know the time, then you're welcome to come but kindly stop getting your nose bent out of shape because I don't have your pretty little answers."

Taking a breath, he gave another glare, turned, walked a few steps and then glanced back.

"And what the hell is a chestplate? Are you some sort of demented knight in shining armor or something?"

[doomhoops]

The backlash from Charles rant hit Alex completely out of the blue. And right where it hurt. The professor had been the one person to actually believe in him - push him to be more than even he wanted to be. When the rest of the world had shut him off in a cell and Alex was content to go along with it, encourage it, hide himself away and shut the world out, Charles had been the one to drag him back up and push him to be better.

So for Charles, regardless of whatever Charles it was or whatever memories he had, to be speaking to him like that now... it stung. Naturally, Alex's emotional walls shot right up and he went straight from little, stabbing pangs to pissed off, angry teenager. His voice was wrapped up in hostility.

"How about you stay out of my head? The Charles I know at least asked permission first." As far as Alex knew, at least. He stopped dead in his tracks, no longer following. His lips formed a tense line as he looked off to the side, giving a derisive snort. The last comment was exactly what he needed to shove him right over the edge. He glared back, completely back-tracking to square one of his attitude problems.

"It's some hunk of crap energy diaper Bigfoot made to make sure I don't go incinerating everyone around me. Too bad for you." He pauses for a beat. "Not that you'd know him either."

And after that he turns, just about done trying here. Charles can handle himself fine enough. Alex had other, more productive things he could be doing than having his brain picked.

"Whatever. Enjoy your clocktower. Try not to get killed 'cause I'd rather not have to explain it to Raven." Then he was emo-floucing walking away, back the direction he came.

[excessivehubris]

"Believe me if I could, I'd stay out as well, unfortunately you are a very loud thinker," Charles fired back, though he felt the old familiar twinge of regret, a twinge he ruthlessly shoved aside as a useless emotion for the time being.

Standing there watching the younger man flounce walk away, Charles tried to decide why he felt slightly guilty about this but in the end he could only shake his head. This Alex Summers was looking for the impossible from him and Charles had more important things to do than sooth teen feelings.

Turning back towards the clock tower, he reoriented himself to his direction and picked up his original route.