I am the most offending soul alive.

[selfgovernance]

who; Charles Xavier, open to any residents or guests of Mutanthaus. (If your character has been invited to chill out there in the past, feel free to assume they're here if you'd like? Alternately if anyone wants to just stop in to say hello, that's also cool.)
what; Charles is chilling out in his study, writin' all the things.
when; Today sometime

Comments

Smack me if this isn't okay?

[lets_roooock]

Vasquez figures that nothing in life is free. Hell, the Marines gave her clothes and food and a job and its putative freedom, but held her life in pawn. So she assigns herself the job of security. And the first task of that is knowing the terrain.

She has the pistol out--less risk of rounds penetrating walls with the smaller caliber slugs the 9 mil used. It's weird to see a building intact: most of her experiences with buildings involve them pocked with small-arms fire. Or at least scraped and battered from a hundred bar brawls. This place, though...nice. Almost too nice. She feels out of place, and it's got nothing to do with mutants.

It's her first pass through the interior of the building, and she's doing a basic security round, just checking each door as she walks by to see if it's locked.

nooo it's awesome. /DRAPES ON

[selfgovernance]

Charles glances up from his desk when the doorknob rattles and leans back in his chair, fingers going automatically to his temple, trying to suss out the identity of the-- ah. It's nothing more than a brief surface scan, enough to discern her identity and that she's not a threat, and then he relaxes.

Erik would no doubt say that the paranoia is catching.

"You can come in if you'd like," he says genially, knowing that she can hear him through the door.

[lets_roooock]

Well, she's not a threat to you. Quite possibly someone sneaking around the place might have another opinion.

When she hears Xavier's voice, she presumes--naturally--that he has some sort of camera surveillance. She looks up, puzzled. She hasn't seen any cameras, but, well, the places she goes to tend not to be very upscale.

Nice. An invitation and everything. She turns the door's knob, after holstering the gun, pausing for a moment to look around the room--the books, the furniture, the desk. Probably perfectly normal stuff, if you're a civilian.

"So this is how the other half lives." She means 'civilian' but realizes too late it might sound like something else entirely.

[selfgovernance]

"Yes, us pampered Oxford graduates do so like our finery." Of course, he could interpret her words differently, but that is the more pleasant of the two possibilities she might mean. "Were you, ah... making the rounds, as it were?"

Charles stands when she enters, a show of manners more than anything, though he does gesture at one of the room's free chairs should she wish to sit down.

"I imagine you have questions for me?"

[lightvsbark]

For the most part, Sam has been keeping to himself. Aside from Sookie, he isn't really truly sure what to expect from this place. Considering all that's happened, he's been reluctant to socialize. He recognizes how it contradicts him as a shifter, but regardless, trust has been a complicated matter.

So he's been running a lot. It's a good stress break.

Unexpectedly, as he makes way back inside, he finds Charles here. The problem is that Sam returns in the form of a collie.

Oh. Well. Hm.

The canine pauses mid-step, peering at Charles hesitantly.

[selfgovernance]

Charles freezes in much the same manner as the animal itself, and then half-waves at it. It's-- well it's unusual, certainly, to see a dog on the premises, but Charles has a soft spot for collies. Lassie Come-Home is one of the books he remembers fondly from his childhood.

He crouches down and holds out a hand. "Hello there, friend. Just visiting?"

[lightvsbark]

There's always going to be that part of himself that likes a bit of the attention of others; being a dog means the instincts of one at times. The collie roams up to Charles, nudging against his hand.

There's no harm, he figures. Eventually, he can slip out, shift back, and Charles would be none of the wiser.

[selfgovernance]

Well okay then. Charles scritches the collie behind the ears and then, discarding a great deal of that British propriety, he merely sits on the floor beside the dog. He'd always wanted one as a boy, but the idea of a dog scratching up the hardwood floors had been sufficient to throw his mother into a state of panic. Of course, he could have forced the issue but--

And then Raven happened, and dogs seemed rather more dull by comparison. She probably wouldn't like to hear that.

"I'm sure your master is going to be looking for you. Unless you've been unlucky enough to drop through the rift, yes? A pity I can't read your mind, pup."

Animals don't quite think on the right frequency. He can't fool their senses or pick anything more than the vaguest of emotions off of them. It reminds him of trying to puzzle out a picture drawn in chalk on pavement after a rain. There is undoubtedly a mind there, it just isn't one he can comprehend. But it's of no matter. He can post to the network later, asking if anyone happens to be missing their pet

AND SOMETIME THAT EVENING...

[metalwield]

[ Typical of Charles to have found himself a chess set, typical--and painful--for it to be made of metal. Perhaps that had been deliberate. Perhaps that's simply all the future had to offer in the way of chess set materials.

Either way, however Charles might have last left the board, when he happens upon it again, the pieces have been lined up for a new game, and black has made a move. ]

DUN DUN DUN *DUN*

[selfgovernance]

[It's a span of several hours, in fact. But when Charles returns to his office - bearing a tea service and with a paper coffee cup held gingerly between his teeth as he manoeuvres his way through the door, the chess board is actually the last thing on his mind. The tea service has all manner of sandwiches and suchnot, the coffee had been an afterthought.

He sets everything down, settles back at his desk for another long night of research and--

That chess set, so small and incongruous, finally catches his eye. He'd set it up for he and Darwin to play, but they'd never gotten much more than halfway through a game and Charles had left it as it was when the man left. To see it so changed-- no one here would do that.

He picks up the piece - it's too soon to guess the gambit, there is much that can follow the simple advancement of a pawn. Then he sets it down carefully where it had been, puts a hand to his temple and reaches.No. It wouldn't be that easy. He can't feel anyone that he isn't supposed to, but Erik's powers must be

[metalwield]

[ SORRY CHARLES HE CAN'T HEAR YOU. All he can do is read the movement of the metal and visualize the placement of the pieces.

It's actually slightly worrisome, how close he has to be to do this. There's so much metal here that it's dizzying, sometimes, and his range seems to have decreased, much to his displeasure. Fine control had never been his forte in the first place and now it was even more difficult, especially out of his line of sight.

But once he feels Charles' move and the pieces settle (and he certainly hopes he's playing against Charles, and not some random other denizen of the house), he simply continues. He's not really here for a chess game, but it'll do as a start. ]

[selfgovernance]

[He has no idea how close Erik must be for this, how difficult it may or may not be for him. It wouldn't surprise him to learn that Erik had grown more powerful, had refined his control even in this place.

He moves his knight to f3, and when Erik mirrors the action in Nc6, he knows the man has the shape of his motivations.

The game continues in silence. Forty seconds later Charles has him in check, and twelve after that Erik has kindly returned the favour. Charles has no idea how the man can even tell the pieces apart, but-- at the same time, no one would ever accuse him of finding two minds interchangeable, would they.

Charles loses. Not badly, but he does. He doesn't think it wise to dwell on the implications, so he merely clears the board and sets the pieces up again. Another?]