[open] a friend in need's a friend indeed

[nedofpies]

Who: Ned and OPEN
What: Random encounters & fallout from dream-walking tomfoolery
Where: House 20, the garden, anywhere around town
When: Day 89

It's been a long week. A long, mostly-sleepless, weird week during which Ned has seen far more of his friends' and neighbors' subconsciouses than he would have liked to. Plus, a creepy city made of crystals that everyone seems to have seen, but no one will claim as their own. Shady stuff. Today, he is determined to wear himself out. Perhaps if he's tired enough, whatever mojo the men behind the curtain have put on him won't be strong enough to stir him out of a deep and dreamless sleep.

It's probably a futile tactic, but he can't just do nothing.

So he is a bustle of activity - cleaning the house, walking around town, checking on the crops to see if they are holding up well (carefully, with an eye for any enterprising tigers roaming too close to the edge of the forest), keeping an eye out for new faces and an ear out for rumors of missing ones.

Comments

[mentis]

"Yes."

It's clear all right. Charles feels like he's getting an insight into Ned previously unseen. Ned's power is so much like theirs that both Charles and Erik seem to regard him as more mutant than not. To know that Ned himself has suffered the same fate so many of the children had, well, it makes it easier to attempt this reconciliation.

"Until recently I hadn't considered the house I grew up in to be anything more than that. A house, walls, a roof. Looking at it now I can't imagine it not being something more. It's ... large enough to hold dozens upon dozens of people comfortably." That he comes from money is no big secret, but as ever Charles is mildly cautious of being judged. He remembers Erik's reaction to it quite vividly.

"I've given some thought into doing that here. Not on the same scale but - finding some way to hold a community center. We've had an influx of young mutants and I'd rather like to give them that stability."

[nedofpies]

Ned hears that tentative note in Charles' voice when he describes the size of the house, but he had already called it a mansion once in the conversation, so Ned doesn't really see why. Besides, at the moment, Charles' wealth is the last thing on his mind. He's imagining a place for that many mutants. How good it would be for them. How much better their lives would be, with just that place to call their own.

When Charles starts talking about setting up a community center for young mutants here, Ned brightens. It is not, perhaps, quite so urgent (there are no orphaned nine-year-olds, here, no one all that young or homeless), but it's still very promising.

"I think it's a great idea. Bring them all together, introduce them to one another. Let them ask you and Erik questions, if they have them..." He tilts his head to the side, then, curious, "I know about Elizabeth - are there more new arrivals who would, ah. Qualify for the community center?"

THAT WAS MY FAULT I FORGOT ABOUT THE MANSION I AM DUMB FORGIVE ME

[mentis]

"Two young mutants from my world," he responds with a quick upturn of his mouth, "Or actually, the world where Charles Xavier is far too old, has absolutely no hair, and uses a wheelchair."

It's the first time he's mentioned the last word out loud, but as long as he keeps thinking of how far the two universes are he won't panic about it too much. "Though I am rather jealous of his car collection."

He flashes Ned a grin and then finally takes a bite of his pie. "Oh, this is good."

AHAHA oh god, it's cool? That happens in real convos constantly, IT'S UNINTENTIONAL REALISM, ilu

[nedofpies]

Ned gives Charles a surprised look. "Freaky. If I met someone here who said they knew me from another world, even if it was a future version of me, I'd be weirded out. A lot."

Like, Charles seems really really calm about the whole thing. Maybe it's just his personality, or just his Englishness, or some combination of the two. But Ned can't even imagine.

The compliment about his pie makes him grin and duck his head, but he's still not ready to let the topic go, if what Charles was going for was a subtle change of conversation topic.

"How do you know it's another world, and not the future of your own?"

[mentis]

"Because I absolutely refuse to be bald."

Charles offers him up a cheeky grin, one that speaks volumes of the man he used to be. Here, he is often wound up in a feeling of responsibility. But people like Erik know the soft, ridiculous creature he had been merely a few months ago. He looks boyish, conspiratorial.

The fact that he had been ... chair bound would also trouble him if he let it free from it's steel trap within him, "I've been told by a certain mumber of ladies that my hair gives me charm, I intend to keep it."

[nedofpies]

The sheer indignation - over something as superfluous as whether or not he'll go bald! - earns a laugh from Ned. He doesn't laugh often, or loudly, but when he does, it transforms his whole face, makes him look like a different man entirely.

"A certain number, huh?" he echoes, voice rich with amusement. Ned is one of the people here who has never really seen that aspect of Charles. He's seen a few sides (pedantic, nurturing, tea-loving, terrifying, apologetic, determined) but never flirty or Casanova-ish.

"I'd say it would take more than losing your hair to deprive you of charm."