Who: Charles Xavier x & Baby Firefly bbfirefly What: Saying hello to a new tenant. When: Wednesday, April 15, evening Where: Copperstone Apartments Rating: Mature Audiences Only Warnings: ALL THE WARNINGS EVER! No. Seriously. It's Baby Firefly and a telepath of unparalleled abilities. WARNINGS ALL OVER THE PLACE! Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
Copperstone Apartments was far nicer than the apartment complex labeled 'Briar Apartments' though it was only slightly more modern in exterior appearance to Hope Springs. There was always a buzz of minds around Hope Springs as if it were the central hive for their little colony; no one was in residence at Briar while Charles was utterly alone in the Superintendent apartment for Copperstone.
Until recently that was to say. He'd apparently gotten some tenants! Both were young, female, and very different. One worked in a legal firm as a secretary and had some thoughts sneaking around her consciousness which Charles was careful to avoid; the other seemed to be, quite frankly, psychotic with a touch of sociopathic to go alongside. Charles wasn't entirely sure what to make of her. He did know he wasn't going to be rolling over to knock at her door for a hello or a how-do-you-do.
Mentally, Charles cast out the greeting, 'Hello, new tenant! I'm glad I'm not alone here any longer. I was beginning to worry.'
He weighed what he should and should not offer her in terms of information regarding himself. Given what he knew about "Baby" Firefly? Charles doubted he should disclose much of anything at all. She seemed inclined to start on a wild rampage if confronted with things which perturbed her or things she did not understand. Her mind was a tangle of violence, viciousness, and vice which all lived beside a desire to be loved as well as to love in return.
Charles would have been comforted by that had it not been for her memories of her family and their idea of love.
Murderers weren't exactly the best of role models. It wasn't like the average person wanted a human heart gifted to them as a token of affection. The woman had seen more horrors in her short life than Charles thought anyone should have been exposed to yet she seemed to be---in good spirits? Largely, her mind was a mercurial place filled with both joy and hatred. She was new however and had arrived here the same as himself and any other hostage. Who was he to treat her differently because his powers allowed him a peek beneath her lovely exterior?
'My name is Charles Xavier. I'm the Superintendent for Copperstone Apartments. If you find you need any repairs or there's anything your apartment is lacking, I'm the person you send a message to in order to have your concerns addressed. We haven't a maintenance person as of yet though the one who works at Hope Springs has graciously volunteered his time. Do you have any questions for me?'
All of that sounded reasonable to him. Charles decided to leave it there to see what Baby Firefly would say. The last thing he wanted to do was overload that particular tenant with more information than she was comfortable handling at one point in time. Who knew what she'd be capable of if provoked?
Honestly, he'd thought running a school for mutants had been a challenge…
~*~
Test City was a fucking drag.
Her family still hadn’t showed up, and Baby was fucking worried about them although she’d never admit that outloud. Otis and her daddy would make it out fine, they would be fine, she had to keep that at the forefront of her mind because if she didn’t? Shit would go down and she wasn’t up to fucking with the local pigs just yet.
And goddamn, there were plenty of them. She’d taken a walk earlier in the day, just looking around to see what sort of trouble she could get into when she’d passed the police station. Bunch of fucking dicks. Figured there’d be a local bacon factory. No one here knew her, or seemed to give a shit about her past crimes. It was weird to have a clean slate, but whatever.
She’d hurried back to her apartment, which was fucking nice even if it wasn’t home, and took a bath. After she’d dried off, she slipped on a pair of underwear and a tank top, fully intent on sitting down on her couch and watching television until she fell asleep.
The best thing, or at least one of the best things other than the fucking weirdo she’d met when she first arrived, was the television. The fucking thing had so many channels, but she’d found one that played the films she loved best so she left it there. The goddamn remote had too many buttons, and it was confusing as fuck to try and figure out too much about it.
She was just about to power on the TV when the voice broke through her thoughts. Voices inside her head weren’t normal, she wasn’t that fucking crazy. Slowly she sat up from her reclined position, eyes darting around the apartment for a camera or speaker system of some sort. That could be the only reasonable explanation she could come up with at the moment.
She’d had a camera on her before, during interrogation each time she’d been arrested. The cops always seemed amused by her, or they wanted to fuck her. Baby had admittedly fucked her way out of jail time, shit, she didn’t like feeling like a caged animal.
Standing, Baby moved to where a potted plant set in the corner of the living room and picked it up, inspecting it for a possible camera before dropping it with a crash. The pot shattered, though she didn’t fucking care and she repeated the process on each plant in her living room before she went to the kitchen. The fucking place was smart, and had removed all big knives from her drawers but it had left a couple of steak knives.
Baby could get creative if she had to. “Yeah, I’ve got one. Where the fuck are you?”
~*~
Lying never sat well with Charles Xavier. He wasn't inclined to it on a basic level. There were too many times when the lies outweighed the truth and then what was he to do? It wasn't as if he wanted those odds stacked against him. Good memory or not, he had too many "tells" to be a decent liar. His mother's voice always tended to echo about in his head when he tried to give out even half-truths to spare the feelings of another. Charles wished -on occasion- he could be a man with fewer principles.
Then he remembered he'd only wind up being Erik if he were that sort of man and that was not a fate he desired.
'I'm in the Superintendent's apartment in this building. Currently I'm communicating with you via telepathy. It is a gift of mine which I cannot turn off though I do try to keep its intrusion into the lives of others as minimal as possible.'
He knew he was taking a chance telling her his whereabouts. Vera-Ellen "Baby" Firefly was not a stable creature. Quite frankly, she was insane enough to make Erik look like an excellent role model. She was homicidal, labile, extremely antisocial, and potentially psychotic. Charles hadn't dared delve deep enough into her mind to get to know what a proper diagnosis for her would be. All he knew was he wasn't prepared to listen to her violent thoughts on a deeply personal level inside his mind.
Charles was still acclimating to getting his abilities back. The last thing he wanted was to reorient himself through the mind of a sociopath.
'If it makes you very uncomfortable, I can ring you on the telephone. I simply thought this would be more personal of a greeting. I meant no disrespect.'
Respect was something he thought she would understand. The surface thoughts she had seemed to fixate on the treatment of her family by "the pigs" and how she'd love to kill all "pigs" which had taken Charles an era to ascertain were, in fact, police officers or law officials in general. Most likely, given the nature of her family's crimes, she'd been pursued by the sodding CIA or FBI or something with too many bloody letters to recollect it off-hand.
How did he keep getting into these situations? Honestly. It was ludicrous.
'I can also simply wait on you to contact me if you've no immediate needs. Perhaps a cleaning crew might be in order to deal with your broken crockery however? I know the attendants at The Greenthumb are very helpful when it comes to plants. If I might be so bold, you could always get a Venus Fly Trap to replace the useless ferns which you've broken now? It would be some minor amusement to feed it. It's quite fascinating to watch the plant devour its prey, I'm told.'
It wasn't something Charles had seen himself. It was a suggestion of sorts. Some minor peace offering.
~*~
Baby’s eyes stayed narrowed as she continued to look around. None of this made any fucking sense to her. This guy was claiming he could read her fucking mind? What sort of fucked up shit was that? She was so confused. Nothing about this goddamn place made one bit of sense to her and she had no fucking idea how she was going to handle it.
Reaching up, she tangled her fingers in her still damp hair, pulling tight against the strands until it started to sting. It was more a reaction to get herself collected, to think about her next move although if this motherfucker could read her thoughts? She was fucked anyway.
Dropping her hand, she shook it, several blonde strands falling from her fingers. “I don’t need a fucking cleaning crew, and I don’t need to go get any plants.” She huffed, if Otis were here shit would be taken care of, but as it was she was on her own and didn’t know what to make of a lot of the shit that was in this place.
Placing her palms down on the counter, she leaned forward, shifting her weight back and forth. “Reading my goddamn mind. Bunch of fucking bullshit.” She slammed her fist down hard enough for it to sting, “Whatever you know about me? You’d do good to forget it. I don’t got time for that shit.” She straightened herself, and took in several deep breaths. “Thanks for the welcome, but if you don’t fucking mind I’m going to go back to what I was doing.” Baby started making her way back to the couch.
“And if you’re worried that I’ll hurt someone? Don’t. Unless they start shit with me, I won’t do anything. Fucking too many do-gooders around here. I like fucking living.” She made a sound of disgust before plopping herself back down on the couch, picking the remote back up although she didn’t turn the television on just yet. She didn’t like being interrupted while watching movies.
~*~
'Too many do-gooders' was hardly what Charles had been thinking in correlation to Baby Firefly. He'd been wondering if they had a cavalry which could be called in if the chit got her knickers in a twist. What would it take to bring her down? Charles had an idea it'd take at least a high-powered taser or a serious tranquilizer dart. She was too irrational to be talked off the proverbial ledge. All her thoughts were chaotic, strange, almost slippery as he skimmed along only the surface of her mind.
The one thing he got from her which he did understand was she felt lost and alone without her family around.
Charles had been adrift after losing the majority of his school to Vietnam. The loneliness had impinged on his mind to the point where he'd become nearly as chaotic as his tenant. He'd tamed himself through alcohol and drugs, but what if Logan had never come from the future to rattle some sense into him? Would he have continued sliding down the rabbit hole until he became as mad as her? Would he have become a violent, hateful man who bore no resemblance to the one who'd graduated top marks from Oxford on fire with a desire to share what he knew about the evolution of humanity?
'I'm sorry you're alone here. For what it is worth, I miss my family, too. I'll leave you to yourself. You let me know should you need anything here at the apartments.'
He could have offered her more than a kind word. Charles could have delved into her mind to offer her exactly the words which would comfort her the most. It was easy for him even with a mind as unstable as hers. The reason he didn't was the same reason he didn't choose to control others: it wasn't right. Just because a man could do something didn't mean he should. Erik had argued with him many a time over the same exact point.
One day in the future, they would set aside their differences to come together again as friends. There would come a day when Charles Xavier was Erik Magnus Lehnsherr's friend once more and Erik was his friend in turn. It was unknown to him how long a time he'd have to wait for that day, but knowing it was coming? It was enough to let him leave his new tenant in peace, satisfied he'd done all he could for her.
~*~
Baby’s face screwed up into a snarl, and she made a sound of disgust. Still, something inside of her felt too broken to fix, and it was the fact that she was missing her family. Life without any of them was too hard, and she hadn’t even properly mourned her mother.
The thought hit her hard, and she pulled her knees up close to her chest, arms wrapping around her legs as she held them tightly to her.
Mother Firefly had been killed in her cell by Wydell. He’d shown them all the pictures while he’d been torturing them. Her eyes went to the now faint burn marks on her wrists where he’d tied her up. It was so fucking unfair that he’d done what he’d done to them. It never crossed her mind to think that it was fair due to how many people they’d tortured, and killed. It was different because it was her family.
A tear slipped down her cheek as she pushed the power button to the television on, the movie channel she’d found already keyed in and she rested her cheek against her knees as she stared blankly at the screen. Now wasn’t the time to fight, now was a time for her to mourn her family, to heal and then? Then she could goddamn fight if she had to. She didn’t even bother saying another word to Charles, there wasn’t any point, he wouldn’t understand. Nobody did.