It had been nearly a week since Charles had taken the collar off and Raven was starting to worry about her friend. After the first day, Charles hadn't ventured out of the flat overly much and even when he did it was only out of necessity. He'd been careful to make it seem like nothing was wrong and seeing as the telepath wasn't usually one for randomly going out Raven might have been able to overlook it. Except that she'd seen Charles in the café tutoring Sean that morning, the first time she'd seen him in 3 days, and he'd looked terrible. There were dark bags under his eyes and he'd particularly fallen asleep when not talking with Sean.
Unsurprisingly she hadn't been the only one to notice, Sean having mentioned it to the others. Darwin had also said he'd taken Charles to the café, via his taxi service, and he'd noticed something wasn't right with the usually chatty professor.
"What do you think's wrong with him?" Raven asked Hank.
"Maybe he just needs some space to get his bearings a bit." Hank said, referring to the fact Charles had only recently gotten his telepathy back. Raven admitted that maybe that was part of it but she didn't believe that was why Charles was avoiding them. Anyway, he'd looked run-down and just terrible when she'd seen him.
"Do you think he's ill?" Hank frowned.
"He could be. How about we go and check on him?" Raven beamed at her boyfriend, who was currently sporting a more human look from the serum he'd been taking.
The two made their way down to the bottom floor when Logan's door banged open. "Was wondering when someone was going to check on the Professor."
"You know something's wrong with him." Hank asked, stepping forwards a little to meet Logan's gaze.
"I haven't seen him in a while but its' not my place to ask. Though if one of you hadn't noticed soon I would have mentioned it." Logan liked to pretend he didn't care about them but Raven secretly knew the slightly scary mutant had a soft spot for the mutants in the building.
Logan watched them knock on Charles' door, something which in Raven's honest opinion was rather comforting. They didn't actually know what they might find in the apartment. After 5 minutes of knocking, Raven was glad again that Logan hadn't gone inside as he appeared at her side holding a key. "You gonna be alright?" Logan asked and Raven nodded, leaning in closer to Hank as Logan's door shut.
Charles' apartment was usually in disarray, with papers scattered on mostly every surface and books opened at seemingly random pages so when the entered the apartment to a mess it wasn't overly surprising. What was surprising, however, was the fact that when Raven called Charles' name they got a pained groan in answer.
Raven and Hank shared a look as they walked into the bathroom were the noise had come from. Charles' wheelchair was sat alone in the corner of the bathroom, while Charles himself was leaning against the bath tub. "Charles?" Raven knelt down so she was sat in front of Charles while Hank went to bring the wheelchair over.
Raven. The voice in her head was a comfort but she could feel Charles slightly flinch away as if he'd done something wrong. "Sorry." He mumbled.
"What happened?" Hank asked, nervously hovering by Raven's elbow. Charles lifted his eyes up to meet Raven and she felt sick to her stomach. The usual bright, intelligent blue had been replaced by a cloudy vacant gaze. Black shadows were ringed around Charles' eyes as if he hadn't had any sleep in a while.
"Are you sick?" Raven asked, checking Charles' temperature. It was a little clammy but otherwise, she guessed, at normal temperature. "What hurts?"
"My head." Charles all but whimpered, closing his eyes as if that would dull the pain. "IS it an effect of the collar?" Raven turned to Hank who shrugged helplessly.
"We need to get him into bed." Hank said. "I'll look properly then." Raven nodded, allowing Hank to lift Charles up, taking him into the bedroom. Feeling a little helpless, Raven wheeled the wheelchair back through so it was in easy reach of Charles should he need it.
"Why didn't you say something was wrong?" Raven asked, sitting next to Charles on the bed. The telepath struggled into a sitting position.
"Sorry. I'll be okay you should leave." Raven and Hank both shook their head stubbornly.
"We're staying." Hank told him, doing (what Raven called) doctory stuff to Charles. When he was done Hank was frowning, his glasses falling down his nose. Almost absentmindedly, Raven pushed them back up for him. "I think you might have the flu." Charles groaned then.
"You should have said you were ill." Raven chastised.
"Didn't want you to worry."
"So getting yourself stuck in the bathroom stopped us from worrying." Raven argued, regretting it when Charles winced away from the loudness in her voice. "You should have, I don't know, used your telepathy to tell us you needed help."
"Didn't want to go into your heads." Charles mumbled, his eyes drifting close before Raven could say anything.
Hank and Raven disappeared from the room when they were sure Charles was sleeping and Raven turned to Hank with worry clear on her face. "What's wrong with him? He sounded delusional or something. Is that normal for the flu?"
"I don't think it's the flu." Hank replied, quietly so as not to wake Charles. "Something's wrong with him but I don't think it's that or he'd be burning up."
"Then what is it."
"Sleep deprivation and he's lost weight like he hasn't been eating." Raven frowned.
"I'm going to make him chicken soup." Raven resolved, feeling utterly helpless. She didn't do looking after people, that was usually Hank's job but she wanted to help Charles because he was her friend and she couldn't understand what was wrong for him to just stop functioning like this.
This chapter went completely off course of what I was going for but hope its' alright anyway. Also, I have no medical knowledge what so ever so if anything is wrong sorry
Hope you enjoyed and please review :)
