The X-Project

Ororo gets a slightly alarming phone call from Nathan, who's at his father's house in San Francisco having a scotch-assisted catharsis and trying to set off the smoke alarms. (Yes, really.)


Another day, another round of paperwork. Ororo was elbow-deep in a pile of receipts, bills, and purchase orders, sorting through them in a methodical fashion in order to put them in some semblance of organization before addressing them properly. She didn't foresee encountering anything out of the ordinary, but it had to be done all the same. She actually didn't mind doing it, but that didn't mean a distraction wouldn't be welcomed at any point.

Just then, the phone rang. It seemed she was in luck.

"Hello?"

"Oh, you're in the office." Nathan sounded amused. Very amused. Perhaps a little overly amused, all things considered. "What a shocker. Do you ever leave the office, Ororo? Here I thought I was just going to be leaving a message on your voicemail..." In the background, there was a ripping sound. Paper?

"Nathan?" The voice was familiar, though the tone was a bit... unusual. Ororo frowned into the phone, sitting back from her desk. "Is everything all right?"

"Oh, fine," Nathan said breezily, holding the letter over the candleflame. It caught fire, and he dropped it neatly in the bowl with the others, watching the glowing edges curl inwards as the paper blackened. Gideon had possessed exemplary penmanship, really. "Just calling to say I have no idea when I'm going to be back."

"...I see." Now this was definitely not normal. While he was a busy man, Nathan always seemed to adhere to some sort of schedule, and even when he was ill he had made plans to cover his class. This wasn't like him at all. "Is this a request to find a substitute for your class, then? For an indefinite amount of time?"

Nathan opened the next letter on the pile. From Gideon, again, to his... to Saul and Esther, during yet another time between visits to Alaska. Thank you very much for the picture, Esther. Nathan is certainly growing very quickly! He's looking more and more like you by the day, Saul. Grimacing, he held it over the flame, too. He didn't need to read any more of this crap.

"Indefinitely... no, I wouldn't say indefinitely," he said, dropping the letter into the bowl with the others and picking up his glass, tossing back the contents. Scotch, rather than tequila; very nice scotch from the cellar, and he really ought to be sipping it, but oh, well. "Indefinitely," he said, wheezing a little, "implies permanence via lack of definition, and, well, I'm not quite ready to go that far. But there's more to do than I thought."

"I see." She really needed to say something else, but she was a little preoccupied trying to figure out exactly what was 'off' about her friend... "Nathan, are you drunk?"

"Ororo," Nathan scoffed, drawling out her name. "Me? Drunk in the middle of the day? Sure you jest." There was a miasma of smoke in the air, and Nathan waved at it impatiently, then remembered something. "Oh, crap, I forgot to pull the batteries out of the smoke detectors..."

"Smoke detectors? Nathan, what are you doing?" Several years as headmistress had given her plenty of time to practice her 'officious voice', and Nathan got the full brunt of it now. It was almost a shame he wasn't there in the room to get the officious scowl that went along with it. "You are drunk, and apparently there is a fire... are you sure you are all right?"

"There is not a fire," Nathan said very patiently, a telekinetic nudge slamming the door to Saul's study shut, a little harder than he'd intended. He decided that it would be a good idea to get up and open the window himself. Didn't want to break it. Somewhat unsteadily, the phone resting on his shoulder, he went to do so. "I am just burning garbage," he said, returning to the chair behind the desk. "You know. Detritus of years gone by. I don't know why he would have saved it all, but it was stashed away in the safe along with my baby pictures. I'm going to start on those next," he informed her cheerfully.

It was all she could do not to launch into a lecture right then and there. As it was, he got "That does not sound very safe, Nathan. I would ask you to promise to be careful, but I have a feeling that oath might go forgotten with the next glass of whatever it is you are imbibing." Hmph.

"Munroe, I have defused nuclear weapons drunker than this," was the irritable reply. "I think I can handle burning my father's letters." He opened the next - and froze. Not Gideon's handwriting at all. This handwriting he was familiar with, from the letter she'd left to him, and... "Oh," he said brightly, aware he'd fallen silent for a little too long, "and here's one from my mother calling Saul all kinds of horrible names. Such language."

"Perhaps you ought to take a break," Ororo suggested then, still frowning in concern at the man on the other end of the line. "Go outside. Get something to eat. Rest. Have a coffee. There is no rush for you to return, if you have things to take care of."

"You are mothering me over the phone, Ororo," Nathan said, sounding offended. "You can't do that. You're not a psychotic precog conniving with people two thousand years in the future!" He held his mother's letter over the flame, then dropped it accidentally on the desktop, rather than in the bowl. "Ow! Dammit," he hissed, beating at the flaming letter until it went out. "Okay, maybe I'll burn the rest later. I'm almost out of scotch, anyway, and I promised myself I was going to go through the library and do terrible things to his terrible philosophy books. Nietzsche needs to die."

Rolling her eyes, Ororo surpressed the first reply that came to her, which was to point out quite astutely that she wouldn't need to mother him if he would conduct himself in a mature and rational manner. That probably wouldn't have gone over too well. "You need to take it easy. If I hear anything about a fire out there with a large, flaming bird fleeing from the scene, you are in deep trouble." Despite her somewhat joking tone, Ororo was more than a little concerned. She wondered briefly if calling Moira might be a good idea - but then, would she want to be the messenger in this case?

"Oh, come on. I'm not burning Saul's house down. Some nice couple wants to buy it, remember? A nice couple with nice children..." The tightness in his chest could go away anytime now. "Look, Ororo, I'm hanging up now," he said, more briskly. "You get out of the office, you crazy woman. I'll, um, call again. When I know when I'm coming back."

The next letter on the stack was from his mother, too. Holy fuck, do I need to go drink myself into a coma...

After a few more pleasantries and the click of the phone from the other end, Ororo sat for a minute, contemplating what Nathan had said. She certainly wasn't going to be leaving the office, since her computer was there, and she needed that to compose a pressing email.

Pietro, Kurt,

I would appreciate it if you could stop by my office at your earliest possible convenience. There is a favor I would ask of you...