{ being completely and utterly broken took a lot out of you. was it a surprise he was using skateboarding as something to get his mind off of it? he didn’t think so, at least. but don’t annoy him, he’s had enough and he’s changed. he’s not taking anyone’s shit anymore. he doesn’t care about you, or anyone. just his dogs, who were out of the vicinity. don’t do anything that would tick him off. }
Summer was going to find out what had happened. Merlin was — nowhere to be found. Not entirely surprising. She wasn’t in the mood to play wordgames with Tony, or push her way through Mordred’s stiff upper lip facade. That left Xavier as the easiest nut to crack.
Who was conveniently using the hallway to skateboard in.
“Xavier.” The stern tone, so he would know she wasn’t going to let him get away. “What’s going on?”
Summer had only been gone for a few days. Barely even forty-eight hours. Not even long enough to ask one of the boys to look in on the cats. She stopped at the top of the stairs, bag of holding slung over one shoulder, and frowned. The emotion in the hall was thick, like tomato soup fog. Heavy. She had the sense that if she touched metal she’d get a shock; the emotional atmosphere was so charged.
What the actual frack had happened while she was gone?
Summer laughed so hard she almost choked. “I didn’t even put up the twinkly kind! These are just the steady ones.” She ruffled his hair again, giggling. “I love you, you know that.”
Reaching down and around the leg of the couch, Summer fumbled and clicked a switch, lighting up the room with webs of fairy lights all round the walls. “I think I have it covered,” she laughed. “I’m not Christian, you know, this is the return of the light, for me. I would say Festival of Lights, but the Jews have snapped that one up.” Helios, sprawled on the floor, blinked his blue eyes open, and the lights reflected in starry points in them.
“Insist. Being alone — it’s not a good time to be alone, so we’ll spend it together.” She grinned down at him. “I’ll even let you share my bed, kick the cats out of it. We can sit up til all hours with a fire and carols and eggnog and fairy lights. Mickey’s Christmas Carol, family tradition.”
She ran her fingers through his hair. “Seems a bit odd. You’re not going to be alone in that flat, are you? You just got settled in there. Come and stay with me.”
“What about Mordred?” she asked, lifting a hand to stroke Merlin’s hair. “I know why I’m alone but you two — that doesn’t make any sense.” Trans-oceanic plane tickets were expensive, and frankly it wasn’t worth it. And there would be /no/ explaining if she went home any other way. Not to these folk; magic and psychics had no place in their lives.
