[The bus home has Charles feeling more and more drawn up inside himself the longer it runs along. If he were himself, if things were as they used to be, he'd float away and let himself scatter through minds as they pass. As it is, he feels cramped and claustrophobic, unable to escape from his own aggravated thoughts.
The short walk from his stop doesn't help much more, and by the time he reaches his apartment and unlocks the door, it's developed into a deep, sulky tiredness. He collapses onto the couch, limbs splayed, head tilted back. He doesn't want to move. Christ, he probably won't even have cause to for another month.
The worst part...well, no, the worst part is not having a job for...however long it takes the Board to decide. But one of the worst parts is for that time, however long, he'll have to keep taking the drugs, to be ready whenever they deign to get back to him. Charles groans, and grabs a throw pillow (the throw pillow, it's not worth having more than one), balancing it carefully on top of his tilted back face. And there he stays until whenever Athos gets home.]
hey man my prompts are typically thematic but that never means i want u to stick to it
[ Athos himself is stuck at work until at least late afternoon, and he isn't entirely pleased about it. For one because he's not actually doing anything that feels useful, even if he knows intellectually that this kind of cross-checking data work is precisely what helps other cops get the information they need in what is typically a time-sensitive manner. Paperwork having been filed incorrectly, late, or simply having not been transcribed yet from paper to pixels has been a burr in his side more times than he can recall. This is useful, this is what gets bad guys.
It's just hard to feel that while he's two-cheeks-deep in his desk chair all day long. But he can't complain too much - the only reason he has the time for this is because they don't currently have any open cases to be working on, and his cold cases are still just that: cold. He doesn't have anything else to do, and so it's time to do the things that are literally the lowest of the low on his list of priorities.
It helps that the Captain has actually told all three of them that if they don't get their paperwork at least up-to-date-as-of-a-month-ago then they can watch any new interesting cases go to Marsac's squad, and none of them particularly want to see that happen.
But he does finish up (mostly - part of it is just Treville coming out of his office and telling them all to go home because he's tired of seeing Aramis mope around the office) eventually, and he packs his things back up and makes the journey home.
He's not precisely expecting to find Charles with his face squarely buried in a pillow when he arrives. He carefully sets his things down, watching the other man, before he decides to venture a guess. ]
[If Charles' mind would stop flickering through impossible plans, foolish ideas, he might have slept. But as it is, he just can't stop thinking, can't stop trying to work out options, anything, what could he do? Jackson will probably take over his courses, and his method is so strict, Charles' poor students. All he can do is go through with this appeal, and wish that...
He'd been more into mutant rights when he'd been younger and gradually, the idea of teaching just became more important. Possibly that was biting him in the arse now: if he'd only fought harder, he might still be teaching. Stupid of him, really. Stupid of him to think he could blend in and be alright.
Athos catches him off guard when he speaks, which Charles can't help but resent a bit. He should be able to tell he's arrived far out in the hall, outside of the building, even, but thanks to X, people can sneak up on him without alerting him at all. He talks without moving, the pillow still on his face.]
[ If it helps at all, Athos does tend to move fairly quietly without actually intending to. He just moves normally, and it comes out without too much sound involved. He's not sure why that seems to be something he's adopted over the years - except that, no, actually, he's actually quite sure why that's the case - but it's there.
This is though, unfortunately, a situation he is not entirely sure how to approach. He sets some of his things by the door as he watches Charles continue to be fairly despondent, albeit angrily so, apparently, and crosses the room to him at least to slightly rearrange the pillow to minimize the risk of accidental suffocation. He doesn't remove it, but he does shift the angle just a bit. And he also wants to look at Charles' face for a moment, just. Because he does.
Just for a moment though, and then he replaces it slightly differently and goes to remove his bag and jacket and such. He doesn't actually seem that shocked, but he's internally somewhat floored at what Charles said. ]
How is that possible? [ The anti-mutant prejudice wasn't anything neither of them weren't familiar with - Charles for experiencing it and Athos mostly just for hearing about the experiences - but it hadn't actually gotten so far as all that just yet. Not that he was aware of, anyway. ] What happened?
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is this pretentious enough for you
well this gave me a weird sideways inspiration so
The short walk from his stop doesn't help much more, and by the time he reaches his apartment and unlocks the door, it's developed into a deep, sulky tiredness. He collapses onto the couch, limbs splayed, head tilted back. He doesn't want to move. Christ, he probably won't even have cause to for another month.
The worst part...well, no, the worst part is not having a job for...however long it takes the Board to decide. But one of the worst parts is for that time, however long, he'll have to keep taking the drugs, to be ready whenever they deign to get back to him. Charles groans, and grabs a throw pillow (the throw pillow, it's not worth having more than one), balancing it carefully on top of his tilted back face. And there he stays until whenever Athos gets home.]
hey man my prompts are typically thematic but that never means i want u to stick to it
It's just hard to feel that while he's two-cheeks-deep in his desk chair all day long. But he can't complain too much - the only reason he has the time for this is because they don't currently have any open cases to be working on, and his cold cases are still just that: cold. He doesn't have anything else to do, and so it's time to do the things that are literally the lowest of the low on his list of priorities.
It helps that the Captain has actually told all three of them that if they don't get their paperwork at least up-to-date-as-of-a-month-ago then they can watch any new interesting cases go to Marsac's squad, and none of them particularly want to see that happen.
But he does finish up (mostly - part of it is just Treville coming out of his office and telling them all to go home because he's tired of seeing Aramis mope around the office) eventually, and he packs his things back up and makes the journey home.
He's not precisely expecting to find Charles with his face squarely buried in a pillow when he arrives. He carefully sets his things down, watching the other man, before he decides to venture a guess. ]
Poor day?
it segued through ideas on me
He'd been more into mutant rights when he'd been younger and gradually, the idea of teaching just became more important. Possibly that was biting him in the arse now: if he'd only fought harder, he might still be teaching. Stupid of him, really. Stupid of him to think he could blend in and be alright.
Athos catches him off guard when he speaks, which Charles can't help but resent a bit. He should be able to tell he's arrived far out in the hall, outside of the building, even, but thanks to X, people can sneak up on him without alerting him at all. He talks without moving, the pillow still on his face.]
I've been labelled unethical for bloody existing.
they tend to do that
This is though, unfortunately, a situation he is not entirely sure how to approach. He sets some of his things by the door as he watches Charles continue to be fairly despondent, albeit angrily so, apparently, and crosses the room to him at least to slightly rearrange the pillow to minimize the risk of accidental suffocation. He doesn't remove it, but he does shift the angle just a bit. And he also wants to look at Charles' face for a moment, just. Because he does.
Just for a moment though, and then he replaces it slightly differently and goes to remove his bag and jacket and such. He doesn't actually seem that shocked, but he's internally somewhat floored at what Charles said. ]
How is that possible? [ The anti-mutant prejudice wasn't anything neither of them weren't familiar with - Charles for experiencing it and Athos mostly just for hearing about the experiences - but it hadn't actually gotten so far as all that just yet. Not that he was aware of, anyway. ] What happened?