Chapter 10
They're out in town when it happens.
Nothing that would draw the attention of a normal human being, but, well, they're not normal human beings. Quite obviously.
It's a little girl, wearing a huge sweater and probably shorts underneath, but you can't see them as they are covered by the sweatshirt, along with bright yellow stockings. The first thing Sean notices is her flame-red hair. The second thing is the fact that she's not wearing any shoes. And the third, is that he is actually chasing after her. The scary thing is that he only notices after he's started running that he's trying to help her, as she is also being chased by three huge, burly men. Dressed in black and wearing black sunglasses. Like, seriously, how overt can you be?
The fifth thing he notices is that she's crying.
The sixth is that he is actually really stupid because he has no idea where the heck they're going.
And then the girl stops at the dead end of an alley, and when she turns around Sean can see the dark marks on her face – bruises and scars and dried up blood. His resolve to protect this girl strengthens, and he shouts a shrill, "Stop!" the moment the three men try to close in on her.
They turn around, grimacing, and Sean can conclude that they are definitely pissed off by the sight of a lanky teenager trying to stop them from finishing their job. Whatever that may be.
"You touch her, I'll bleed you out," he snarls.
One of them snorts, and another replies, "Walk away and we will spare you, kid. This has nothing to do with you."
Sean glares at the man. "I'm not going to repeat myself."
"Just leave the kid, G. We only need her."
"Right. You two grab her and I'll keep my eyes on this one."
The little girl whimpers when they advance, and Sean realizes that he doesn't have another choice. "Cover your ears, kid," he calls over, and she listens without thought. Then he lets loose a shriek. It's a loud, piercingly shrill sound, and the men are too slow to follow the girl's example. He has to make sure he's not being too loud, seeing as he doesn't want the girl to go deaf, too.
"What the hell, B! Make him stop!"
"You do it!"
"I ain't uncovering my ears!"
Sean nearly jumps right out of his skin when he hears Charles' voice in his mind requesting that he stop. He does, and he feels a hand on his shoulder pulling him backwards. "We'll take it from here, boy-o," Erik says, and he watches the man crack his knuckles with a gleeful smirk on his face.
Within seconds, Erik has the men pushed against the alley walls and Raven is making her way over to the little girl hunched down in a corner, covering her face with her arm. Sean can see her lips moving, but he can't make out her words, but it doesn't seem to matter anyway because the girl isn't responding to the blonde. Distantly he's aware of the fact that Erik and Alex are 'interrogating' the men, 'persuading' them with violent kicks and punches.
He feels the professor's arm push him back even more, as though he's trying to warn him not to even think of helping out, and though it frustrates him, he says nothing and instead allows the movement and watches as Charles walks over to join his sister in the back of the alley.
Noah looks up at him questioningly, and Sean shrugs. He can't think of any words to say.
When Charles walks back with the little girl in his arms, he doesn't say a word, and the group of Mutants wordlessly follows him back to the van. They wait in silence for an added ten minutes until Erik joins them, covered in blood and with a satisfied expression on his face, sliding into the driver's seat with the manner of a man who's coming home from a long, yet somewhat satisfying day of work.
The girl lifts her head slightly to look at Sean, and he recognizes the gratitude in her warm, hazel eyes. He recognizes the undertones of hysteria, of intense fear, and he knows that he had looked upon his mother the very same way many times. Too many, for his liking.
When they arrive at the mansion, Charles carries the little girl up to his office, no doubt to question her about why she was running away from those people.
Sean suddenly realizes that they don't even know her name, or where her parents are, or if she was running away from her parents or from a gang and ohdearlord what if they actually just kidnapped someone? What if her parents were just around the corner, and-
/I had a telepathic conversation with the little one. She's a mutant. They were doing experiments on her./
He bites his lip. He really ought to get his mind walls or whatever under control if he wants to keep Charles from hearing his every over-dramatic thought.
/Don't think for even a moment that I'm through with you. You have quite a bit of explaining to do yourself, young man./
What? Again? Seriously? What did he do?
But before he can worry any more about it, he feels someone punch his shoulder lightly and turns around to face Alex, who's holding up a soccer ball with a feral grin on his face. Sean realizes that he must have blown off a ton of steam letting out his frustrations on those grunts, and in a way he's happy that he pounded them, 'cause if Alex can smile like this then there must be something right with the world after all.
He nods and follows him outside. Noah doesn't join them. In a guilty way he's kind of happy he doesn't – it won't take too long before Alex realizes that it's probably way more fun hanging out with a kid who doesn't have any emotional exhaust in his head. And if he can get some of Alex' time without the kid, then he's going to grab on to it with both hands, thank you kindly.
"Dude! Heads up!"
The two of them are covered in grass-stains and are stretched out on the lawn when Sean hears the professor's voice in his head, dulcet tones wrapped around a blunt order and even with the image of the jovial young professor in his head he can't quite swallow away the nervous ball of anxiety that clots in his throat. Kind of like mascarpone.
"'Sup?" Alex grunts from beside him when he makes a move to get up.
"Prof wants to speak with me."
"Probably about running off all of a sudden."
"Huh?" He furrows his brows, completely astounded.
"Sean. C'mon."
"What?"
"You scared the hell out of us. No one knew why you suddenly ran off like that. First we saw you running, and then we saw the kid, and what with the red hair and all we all kinda' thought she was your little sister or something like that. So at first it was cool, but then we saw those big idiots chasing after you guys and it was like the prof just went apeshit."
Looking back on it now, he realizes that it must have been shocking to see him run off like that for no apparent reason. But still. Come on. It wasn't that important, was it?
It all feels kind of muddled up in his head, anyway. Like everything's moving too fast, like he didn't really try to save the little girl. Like all of that happened a couple years ago instead of a couple hours.
/Now, Sean./
Well, if there ever were an incentive to rush, it would be the professor's commanding voice in your head. There's something about voices in your head that lure you into listening to them. Even if in Sean's case, perhaps it would be better if he stopped.
And so he makes his way up the dreaded stairs and into the dreaded office and closes the dreaded door and makes his way over to the dreaded desk and takes a seat in the dreaded chair. And the professor gives him the dreaded icing on the cake and throws him the dreaded look of disappointment.
"How, Sean?"
Before he can answer with a nice, eloquent, 'Huh?', the professor continues, "How could you get a stupid idea like that?"
Well, that's insulting. And Sean isn't really sure that he wants to explain that Alex wasn't that far off the mark. At all. Kind of hit the bull's-eye, actually.
"Do you realize how worried we were?"
"Uhm, not really, no."
The professor shoots him an icy glare and he stiffens. Dang it. Should've just nodded guiltily.
"You just up and left! Without an explanation! You didn't even point or shout or request some help! You just ran off!"
"I'm sorry, prof. I didn't really think about what I was doing."
"Well, that much was clear."
"Look, isn't it pretty ethical of me that I just had this instinct to protect?"
"Actually, that depends on your point of view, since many would argue that if it's an instinct, it's not ethical at all. But that's a lecture for another day." Damn, he was sure he'd been stringing something together, there.
"Come on, professor, I just saw Cady and I didn't think."
"Cady?" the older Mutant repeats, and he bites his tongue. Fuck.
"Language," Charles reprimands without thought. He steeples his fingers together and furrows his eyebrows, obviously deep in thought. "Cady... Your little sister?"
Sean clears his throat. "I saw the red hair. She was running. Cady never runs off like that unless something's really bothering her. And then I saw the tears, and, I dunno', I just kept running. But it wasn't Cady. So, please, prof, spare me."
"Spare you?"
"Don't, you know, sp-" Ugh. He hates the word. It just feels so degrading rolling off his tongue.
"Do you honestly think I shouldn't?"
Well, duh. But how can he explain why? "Well, punishment is usually to stop someone from doing something in future. But since I acted out of instinct, I can honestly say that nothing will stop me from doing something like that again."
"If that's the way your mind is set, I'm sure I can find a way to persuade you."
The younger Mutant groans. "Charles, come on, you're not seriously going to punish me for helping someone."
"Don't presume to know what I mean or don't mean to do." Well déjà fucking vu. How is he going to save his hide?
"But- but that's just complete bullshit."
"If you don't watch your mouth I will teach you to."
Sean sighs and leans back in the chair, defeated. "I don't know what you want me to say, professor. I saw a little kid running away from a group of big guys. She couldn't defend herself; she's only a child."
"So she could have just been playing around."
"But she wasn't!"
"You didn't have proof of this. You just ran off. Plus, you used your pow-"
"I could see it!" he cuts in, voice strengthened by the annoyance that's building up inside of him.
He can feel a curious prodding in his head, like a cloud that tickles. Before he can stop it, he's thinking about the times when his father would tell him to take off his shirt and go stand up against the wall and how, against his better judgement, he would run as fast as his little legs could carry him – how he would catch a glimpse of the terrified face of his reflection in the windows and the mirrors and his baby sister's big, round eyes. Just an infant. A little baby. So innocent. So small.
It hurts too much to picture his father hurting Cady the way he hurt him, and he cries out, shouting, "Stop it!"
"My apologies, Sean. It was supposed to be a shallow search." The expression on the professor's face tells him that it's his fault that it always goes a step too far, that he's too emotional, too caught up in his memories, to allow a superficial scan.
"Please stop doing that, professor. I really don't like it when you go through my memories."
The man gives him a sad smile. "Duly noted. I apologize."
Sean takes a deep breath and stares out of one of the windows. "So who is she, anyway?" he asks, if only to get the topic off of him. If Charles realized, he doesn't show.
"Her name is Jill Hendricks. She's five years old."
"What's her mutation?"
"Well, as of yet, we're not quite sure. She has a certain connection with nature, and she has the ability to speed the blooming process of a flower. The problem is that she wasn't able to learn much about her mutation before her great uncle picked up on it. He is in some way linked to a scientific organization which studies genetic mutation in a more... well, illegal way, than Hank and myself."
"And she's alright now?"
"She's fine. No damage to the ear canals whatsoever. She is perfectly capable of realizing when her head is turned sideways. You did a fine job of protecting her."
The amount of pride that fills him should be a warning sign that he's becoming too attached to the professor, too dependant on his good opinion of him, but the young Mutant doesn't really care at the moment.
"Though that doesn't take away from the fact that you put yourself in great danger."
"It was me or her, professor, and she's just a kid."
"So are you!"
He's surprised by the sudden strength behind the prof's voice and plasters himself against the back of the chair.
"I'm sixteen," he responds, though, knowing he's just digging himself a deeper hole, but completely unwilling to shrink back and nod meekly, admitting like some stupid weakling that he's a child. He's not. He's a man. A young man, admittedly, but still a man. He isn't supposed to have to put up with this kind of bullshit.
"And so you are still a child."
The young Mutant can't help but feel that Charles doesn't really have the right to tell him he's 'just a kid' when he's not really quite old enough to even have a sixteen-year-old kid, himself. Unless he had the kid when he was eleven. Still, he supposes it doesn't really matter what he thinks, since the Mutant of the house is just going to do whatever the hell he feels is right, anyway.
"You are my responsibilty, Sean Cassidy, and I'm not about to overlook this behavior."
"You can't be serious, professor!"
"I am quite serious, thank you. And if you keep up this behavior, I won't be going as mildly on you as I am planning to at the moment."
"This is-"
"-Think before you speak, Sean. Do you really want to dig a deeper hole for yourself?"
He supposes he doesn't, but who the hell does this guy think he is, telling him shit like that?! Well, besides the only person he'll ever want to impress, probably.
He folds his arms across his chest and looks down. "Alright, give me the verdict."
"You act like you're about to walk the green mile, my boy."
Please just get it over with. I hate dragging shit out, he thinks, but grins sheepishly and rubs the back of his head. "Well, my butt's on the line, prof."
Charles eyes him curiously. "Very true. Well, either way, it's not your posterior that will be feeling the brunt of this punishment. Tomorrow morning by eight a.m. sharp I want all the windows in the mansion cleaned. And no, you can't use your powers, because you would just shatter I would suggest an early rise. Oh, and look at the time. It's already nine thirty. Which brings me to the second part of your punishment. Up to bed with you, young man."
He feels his mouth dropping open. Before he can say anything, though, Charles holds up a hand and states, "Don't say something you'll regret later on, Sean."
Without another word, the copperhead turns and exits the office.
Once up in his room, he plops down in bed and exhales deeply. When he summarizes the day in his head, he comes to the realization that it couldn't have gone much worse.
Expelling another sigh, he rolls over and kicks off his shoes, enjoying the satisfactory thunking noise they make when they hit the floor. He stares at a spot on the wall until his eyes start to burn and relishes the feeling when he shuts them. Slowly, he can feel himself drifting off.
Tug.
With a start, he sits up, turning around at the same time. Big hazel eyes gaze up at him from underneath a mop of frizzy, wet red hair. He can smell the unique scent of Raven's shampoo and he recognizes the big T-shirt she's wearing as sleeping garment as Erik's.
"Were you sent to bed, too?" he asks.
She nods.
"Can't sleep?"
She confirms with a shake of her head.
"D'you want to sleep in here?"
She bites her lip and looks down, nodding.
He pulls back the blanket and moves further back. She glances over to the door for a second, like she's considering running off, but then she climbs into bed with him and hugs her knees to her chest, pointedly avoiding his gaze.
"I'm Sean," he says when he realizes she's still too tense to try and fall asleep. Her big eyes settle on his face again. "You're Jill, right?" Another brief nod. "I hear you can make flowers bloom faster." She smiles lightly. "Sounds really cool. Much cooler than my mutation. You saw it before, remember? Well, heard it." She looks away. "You know those men aren't going to hurt you ever again, right? You're safe here, at the mansion. I can promise you that."
She inches a little closer to him, and he pats her on the head. She yawns widely and he smiles down at her before catching the fatigue and letting loose a yawn of his own. "Man, am I ever tired," he groans, rolling over onto his back. Jill scoots a little closer yet, until she can rest her head against his side. He curls a protective arm around her, and wonders for a second if this is what it would have felt like to have Cady in his arms.
"Goodnight, Jill."
"Goodnight Sean," she whispers back, and a warm glow spreads through his chest.
A/N: D'awww :3
BTW, I've got a question for you guys. Do you want to stick with the current favorites or would you rather have me switch things up a little? Like give Hank a little bonding time with Erik or something like that? Btw, sorry for Hank's lack of activity, lately. I guess he's holed up in his lab. Hur hur.