primordial_poet (primordial_poet) wrote in academy_x, @ 2010-04-27 17:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | beast |
Who: Dr. Hank McCoy (A Narrative long overdue)
When: Backdated! Saturday. Just a week and a half or so after Vanessa first disappeared!
What: Missing Vanessa...Why won't she answer him? Where did she go?
Where: Outside, ambling aimlessly at a cafe plaza.
Hank McCoy was still enjoying the use of his crowning achievement back at the Institute: The Image Inducer. With it he was able to walk amongst people again, the humans he so loved and missed. No one stared, no one pointed, and there were certainly no calls for police. He was just average joe, wearing a pair of khaki slacks and a light dress shirt, holding his standard American confectionery treats of an icecream coke and a coca cola. It was a warm sunny day, there were children playing and laughing nearby, and the overhead music from the stereo system was playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Le Quattro Stagioni, music delightful to one's ears.
Or at least...it should've been. His icecream should have been dancing on his tongue rather than melting on the pavement...and he should have been enjoying his break from classes and grading papers. But instead he was staring into space, caught in spiral of gloomy thoughts. Vanessa was absent from school. Not just classes but school as well. And she hadn't said a word to him. Not a message, not a phone call, no answers to be had from her journal online...nothing. It was as if she had simply vanished! And no one could tell him anything. He'd made a few polite inquiries here and there, trying to stay as just a concerned teacher and not appearing to be something more. But Xavier was unaware of her whereabouts, and none of her friends seemed to hold any clues either.
At first he had told himself she was busy with work. Exams and the like were important, and both were cautious about their relationship, lest they tip someone with loose lips off. He cared greatly for the girl, and didn't want to see any harm come to her reputation. Let alone his own. But as time passed, and still no sign of her (or any replies to his emails or instant messages) Hank found his thoughts turned to what ifs. What if she were tired of him? What if she had found someone else? A beautiful young lady like Vanessa Carlyle could certainly do better than a scruffy old blue furred thing like him. After all, his current human mask now was just that: a mask. In exactly 6 hours 14 minutes and 32 seconds he would revert to his true self for all the world to see. Vanessa could be 'herself' indefinitely. And it wasn't an illusion.
Was she avoiding him? The thought had made his heart heavy. He always worried in the back of her head that her feelings for him would be a passing fad, and she'd find a young man closer to his age. Someone smart and handsome and perfect for her. How thrilling could dating a english professor be? And to be with one of his own students...never mind that she was 19 already...didn't that make him some cad? Some pervert? His own doubts had eaten at him, spirit worn down as low his fingernails now were. Maybe she couldn't say goodbye?
He'd gotten a bit more desperate, as days passed, going to visit her dorm room on the basis of 'teacherly concern'. But she was never there. Her roommate knew nothing. And the doubts bled into fear for health...her safety...
Hank McCoy rose from his seat at the empty table, book propped up un-read on the salt shaker. He ran a hand through his fake brown hair and felt the ruffle of fur underneath. It sent a pang of annoyance through him as he left the book behind, walking away down the sidewalk. It lay forlornly beside his perspiring and tossed the icecream into a dumpster. The coke beside it perspiring little beads of water onto checkered table cloth. The icecream met the dumpster, splatting amongst discarded pieces of styrofoam. And in his mind, amongst memories of smiling lips and William Butler Yeats and Greek tragedies, he recollected.
Hank had sought her out, asked old contacts, searched online databases and missing person boards. Nothing. Searching for a girl who could be anyone was next to impossible, like a needle in a haystack in a barn that lay in a field of wheat. The feeling of her hand in his was fading, and that gnawed at his gut worse than anything. He needed the comfort of her touch, the light of her smile. His world was so much darker without it...
The lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much. Struggling for an image on the track of the whirling Zodiac... Poems recited themselves and mocked him. Words of dead men when all he wanted was a live girl. Warm and safe. Even if it wasn't with him.
His feet carried him down pavement as his hidden ears twitched at the sounds of traffic and babies in houses and mothers singing lullabies. He put his hands in his pocket sadly, wondering how he'd become this way. So firmly attached to another living being, instead of his abstract ideas and scientific pursuits. She weakened him, but he reveled in it. Work was cumbersome while his thoughts were preoccupied. It has been nearly two weeks...the other professors agreed she might have run away. Gone back to where she came from. She was young. They did that now and then, nostalgic from altered memories as the brain reconciled itself to making new ones. She'd come back. They all agreed.
Hank wanted to agree to. Wanted to cling to that hope. And he did. Vanessa would come back, and they'd talk, and he'd be shown to have been a ninny worrying over nothing. His phone in his pocket buzzed, then gave a merry little ring of falsetto violins. A midi of Bach. He picked it up absently and flipped it open. Probably Professor Xavier. Clearing his throat and giving his head a little bit of a shake, he answered.
"Hello?" The timber of his voice smooth and polite. Nothing was wrong. He was simply out for a stroll. He was simply a concerned teacher.
There was silence on the line. Then, his ears pricking sharply, he caught the mechanical sound of rustling cloth. But no voice. "Is someone there? Who is this?" Again silence...except for the sound of breathing. A woman's breathing. Hank's heart gave a jumpstart of excitement, nearly breaking the phone as he gripped it harder with both hands.
"Vanessa?! Vanessa dear, is that you? Say something please! A-Are you alright? A-Are you hurt! Please, I just need to hear your voice!" But there was no answer. Only the sound of struggled breathing. And then--the line abruptly went dead.
"N...No..." Hank's eyes flooded with tears as the phone dropped loosely at his side. Passersby stopped to glance at him, slowing with confusion and concern as he just stood there in the middle of the walk. But they hurried on as he slumped to the side. Gripping a tree tight with one hand, , as his wide eyes fluttered shut. His chest wracked as he choked back a sob. Struggling not to break down in public. Where people could see. Where his heart my heart did seem and both adrift on the miraculous stream...
"N...nessa....Vanessa...Nessa!!" He ground his teeth together and pressed his forehead into the smooth bark. Desperately wishing with all of his might that it were someone else's arms around him instead of his own.
Where was Vanessa? Why wouldn't she come back home? Why did she leave him?
Had I never thought... His mind whirled as he whispered against tree bark all of the things he couldn't say aloud. All the things secret in his heart.
...That the crime of being born blackens all our lot?
"Vanessa...I miss you. Please come back."