Checkmate: Games of War » [Cherik]

Chapter Five

If Hank was a crueller man, he might say that Charles wallows in his mind-numbing depression. It was the drugs that facilitated his mobility combined with the alcohol that he consumed as a substitute for food and drink that dulled his mind; the sharp scientific edge lost. For Charles, his depression was like quicksand; the more he tried to escape it the deeper he sunk, the weight was crushing and it was practically inescapable. But Charles would never call it depression - that would be acknowledging the issue. And acknowledgement would've been progress on the road to recovery. 

The morning was ordinary excluding one fact, Hank slept in. Which meant Charles wasn't awake or present. Hank was usually awoken by Charles pottering around at hours of the morning when only ghouls and insomniacs stirred. 

Hand blindly mashing at his bedside for his glasses, Hank found his spectacles and propped them onto his noise. He squinted at his digital alarm clock, with tired blurred eyes. Blinking twice... Midday, just past. Having usually being awoken by the din Charles caused most mornings had clearly taken its lethal toll. But he was grateful for the rest. 

He was expectant that Charles hadn't made his breakfast, let alone considered lunch. The man was a withering sack of bones and would neglect sustenance if Hank didn't prepare the meal and sit and glare him into putting measly forkfuls into his mouth.  

Being a prestigious biologist, Charles knew the risks of alcoholism, and the effect on his assaulted liver. But he had lost such a volume of self-respect that it no longer bothered him what he deprived himself of and fed himself with. Sometimes Hank contemplated if he was deliberately courting death, and then swiftly dismiss the thought for fear of believing it. 

Hank rolled drearily out of bed and hauled on loose fitting clothes in the shortest time possible, and then began his scavenger hunt for the ratty haired professor. Leaving that man to his own devices never served him well.

He called politely into rooms, knocking sheepishly on doors, peering down the vacated corridors. The Xavier mansion was a palace that would take at the very least half an hour to cover its entirety. But it was as Hank reached the east wing of the building that through the ivy-crossed panes he saw the gazebo in the Spring sun, down by the lake, and the twig-like silhouetted figure of the professor. 

Hank hot footed it out of the building, down the gravelled pathways, down the stairs and across the lush green pastures - which were truly in need of a shave - and bounded over to the wooden shelter. 

The shack they entitled a gazebo swayed much like the professor; leaning at a squiggly angle. 

Charles was draped in his usual scraggly dressing gown, the silk smattered with stains and looking creased and crinkled. And he wasn't without his usual companion of whiskey in his hand. 

"I was worried about you..." Hank breathed heavily, padding into the creaking gazebo. He levelled with his friend. "You didn't wake me up, I couldn't find you-"

"Thought I'd finally offed myself?" Charles joked morbidly, his shaky hand ferrying the glass to his lips, his stubble chaffing on the crystal. 

It was like some horrible nightmare that Charles had relapsed so drastically. It was painful to see that such life, such a mind and such gifts were going to waste; it was like watching a winning lottery ticket go up in smoke.

Hank choked on his next sentence and pushed his glasses up with agitation. "Have you eaten today?"

"I watched the sun come up from out here, today..." Charles fended off the question; aimlessly staring at the lake with its tethered rowing boat and rot-eroded oars. "What day is it?" Charles bleakly remained focused on the calm blue waters, rippled slightly by the passing breeze, the bright light glancing off the surface and reflecting blinding polygons onto the wooden shack.