A/N: My first Halex story! But it's a little sad. It takes place sometime after XM:FC. It's a short story, only a few chapters.
Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men or Marvel.
On a rainy Sunday afternoon Alex is concealed within his bedroom, the lights off.
He wears the same clothes, jeans and a t-shirt, from the night before.
It's been one of those nights where he lays atop the messed blankets of his bed,
his hands beneath his head,
and stares at the ceiling until his eyes burn.
Until they snap shut.
It's been one of those nights where he just lays there,
thinking, thinking, thinking...
But worse.
No one bothers helping him resurface.
He knocks on Charles's door mid-afternoon having come straight from his bedroom
with bags under his deep blue eyes.
His usually combed blond hair is ruffled from hours of his head being seemingly glued to a pillow.
His scleras are almost red.
Before the events of the Cuban Missle Crisis, Charles revived a majority of the young Summers's memory.
Day by day.
This is not the appropriate time, Alex. I'm sorry.
Xavier's hoarse voice replies in his head.
Alex thinks it is, in fact, the appropriate time.
He opens the door and steps inside, immediately engulfed in darkness.
Just like his own bedroom.
He can't see Charles, but he knows he's laying in bed glaring at him.
He can feel it.
"I've sent Sean to the grocery store. If you wouldn't mind assisting him when he returns-" the telepath states, focused on Alex's rushing resolute thoughts.
There aren't any words.
Just brief images.
Alex can feel him faintly in his head.
"Fine. Whatever." The young Summers knows Charles is stalling what's to come.
He just stares into the black for a moment, looking for crystal blue irises he will never find.
"I'm truly sorry-" Charles begins, and Alex cuts him off in an instant,
"Sorry doesn't bring them back. They're gone. At least...my parents are."
He doesn't breathe.
Today is the anniversary of the plane crash.
"Really, Alex, I truly wish I could help you..."
Alex inhales,
exhales.
"My brother is still out there, man."
The brunet telepath sighs,
"Cerebro is gone. There's no need for me to continue reviving your memories. The rest will eventually surface. I've told you this."
Alex is angry.
"Yeah, cerebro's gone. I know. We should just...build another one, you know?"
Another sigh.
"It's not as easy as it sounds, Alex. Building machines requires patience. Hank has already proposed the idea to me."
Inhale.
Hank.
"Is he...He's working on it, right?"
Charles shifts beneath his blankets.
"Imagine how long it took to create the last machine."
Exhale.
Damn.
He can not wait that long.
"Yes, you can," the telepath replies to his thoughts. "I'm afraid you'll have to."
Scott is out there.
Somewhere.
Finding his older brother is at the hands of a boy who most likely enjoys the distance between them.
And Alex can not bare to stand there staring into the dark.
"He doesn't enjoy it to some degree."
Alex agitatedly pulls up a mental barrier between him and Charles.
Charles isn't surprised how weak it sustains.
"Perhaps you should try mending the broken bond between you two."
Bond...?
"Whatever. He won't listen."
Charles doesn't bother exemplifying their similarities, besides their differing qualities.
It's too easy.
And the brunet telepath has grown easily irritated.
"How do you know Hank won't-"
This time Alex listens.
He leaves,
shutting the door unneccesarily hard behind him.
Hank won't listen to him because
he's never listened to Hank.
This, he knows.
Two weeks ago,
Alex rounded the corner of a hall headed to Sean Cassidy's room and silently passed a sullen McCoy
leaning against the door frame of Raven's formerly occupied room, his arms folded.
The young Summers ignored the twinge in his chest at the way Hank's deep amber eyes,
behind glasses that slid down his wrinkled nose as he turned away,
hardened.
Yes.
It hurt.
The disheartened blue mutant downstairs remained hidden in his repaired laboratory, just a shadow on the wall slipping in and out for food and assistance to a devastated Charles.
Sean eventually stopped trying to "help out" around the house and found it extremely annoying and quite useless to play housewife to three men who could care less if a dish of cornbeef and hash sat steaming on the dining room table (an old childhood favorite of his).
Sometimes Sean Cassidy substituted for his punching bag
since Hank stayed away...
and besides,
Hank wasn't Hank sometimes.
He could be Beast any moment.
The Irish boy was his buddy and all, but frankly, as individuals they each had their own battles to fight and Alex believed Sean had the least of it, the lightest weight on his shoulders. Perhaps that's why he tended to hang around the redhead because,
for a moment,
he could just feel normal...
if that were even possible.
He could pretend,
in the back of his head,
Darwin was going to challenge him to pinball later.
He could pretend Raven was jogging on the treadmill in the weight room.
He could pretend Hank had his nose in a science magazine in the library.
He could pretend Erik was whispering something into Charles's ear amid a game of Chess that made the telepathic's cheeks rosy.
He could pretend he knew where his brother was.
He could pretend,
now,
the Harvard graduate in the lab was going to help him find him.
He didn't have to pretend he was moments later at the opened door of the lab fidgetting impatiently,
shielding his desperation behind a steel gaze,
frankly surprised the metallic door was even open,
leaning his weight against the door frame.
Babbling about the past.
Because he was.
It sounded somewhat like an apology.
But
the furry blue mutant opposite of him hears,
peering at him with a deadpan expression,
absolutely
nothing.
And Alex Summers refuses to leave until he does.