Continued from There's no Place Like Home.

===

Where the two children went next was really a game of the lesser of two evils-- and a matter of sore arms. Chase was antsy around the DocProf, but he was fearful of how his mother would react, if she'd known that he'd been out joyriding in the X-Jet. Innately, Chase knew that if Gemma really wanted to find him and "hunt him down" so to speak, she'd be able to, but he'd rather not dwell on that idea for long. First, he had to take care of Michael, and then he'd face his mother. The boy had to have priorities.

Chase had barely made it into the Infirmary, barely been able to deposit Michael onto a bed, before the muscles in his arms decided that they were too tired to carry on, and just stopped working.

"Mr. DocProf?" Chase inquired crisply, frowning slightly, "Are you in here?"

"Is that you, Chase?" the DocProf replied. The elderly man came tottering into view, but he paused upon spying two, very human boys-- both sported unfamiliar faces, and one was rather beat-up.

"It's me," Chase announced simply, taking into consideration that the last time that they'd met, he'd worn no guise. He stepped aside, and gestured to Michael, "I found him like this... C-could you please-- would you be able to help him? His name's Michael."

DocProf was already approaching the bed before Chase could make the inquiry, his brow buckling in disapproval. This child was obviously greatly uncared for. He was too skinny, battered and bruised, and had been for some time now.

"Where did you find him, Chase?" the DocProf inquired, arching a grizzled eyebrow in the eight-year-old's direction. Chase averted his gaze.

"Kat and I found him," he mumbled, "Up in Maine."

The DocProf sighed in exasperation, and said nothing-- he only grinned and shook his head, before focusing on the smaller boy. He leaned down and placed his hands on his knees, so that he was more at the boy's level.

"My name's DocProf," the DocProf explained, while Chase deposited Michael's backpack onto the bed, "What's yours?"

Scary. Everything here had the right to be called scary. To him, all of it was ridiculously large and impressive, and everything loomed over him. It was for that very reason that the frightened little boy clung onto Chase as tightly as he could. He bit his lip lightly. Things were different here. The lights were so much brighter and he had to squint to see in them, and let his eyes adjust as he opened them once again. They were in a room now, and he did not much favor the scent that was brought from it.

He wormed a bit as he was put down on the bed, moving back in the bed so that he was towards the very very back. Chase was calling someone. Calling someone?! Was he in trouble? What had he done wrong this time?! Michael moved back as far as he could, and he even ducked a bit under the sheets at the old man that came out. He looked up with short, quick glances like a frightened young animal.

It was exactly what he thought it was. The doctors. His mother and father, trying to make excuses about why Michael couldn’t go see the doctor for a check-up, told him that doctors just wanted to stick metal things in your arms and inject crazy things. Therefore: he had a firm belief that doctors were not friendly. Michael looked away from the man who approached, and actually squeaked a little bit. However: He kept his power in check. He calmed himself down enough to know that his power wouldn’t be a bother.

Michael did not respond as the DocProf first leaned down to him, but noticing that Chase had set his backpack down on the bed, he made a mad scramble for it, almost toppling over as he grabbed at it. The boy hugged the backpack tight to his chest, and with some more short glances up at DocProf, he opened the bag.

He took out a well-worn rubix cube. The boy had a special one, that was four by four, instead of three by three. His gloved hands then moved to start fiddling with it, distracting himself. He couldn’t get away…they were probably stronger than him, and Chase was a pretty cool person. He came to rescue Michael, and no one ever rescued him before.

"...M...Michael." This was something he uttered with the barest tinge of a cracked voice being allowed out.

Chase maneuvered up onto the bed upon which Michael was huddled, so that he had a better vantage point for the interactions that ensued. Michael latched onto his backpack and nearly sent himself toppling off of the bed in pursuit of it, before his hands found the Rubik's cube. Michael then began to toy with it, and Chase watched with arched eyebrows. Chase had never been patient enough for such difficult puzzles... while more intellectual children would fuss with these things for hours, Chase was practical above all else. He would rather break a puzzle apart with a hammer and rearrange the pieces, or peel off the stickers and replace them in the proper locations.

Upon being given Michael's name, the DocProf smiled paternally.

"I'm called the DocProf," the DocProf introduced himself in low tones, "I am the doctor here at Xavier's. I take care of all of the children here. Is it okay if I ask you some questions?"

"He's kinda shy," Chase mumbled, on Michael's behalf. Okay, Michael was beyond kind-of shy... Chase was kind-of shy, Michael was beyond-shy. He was even worse than Chase was. Chase leaned closer to Michael, and whispered, "It's okay to tell DocProf things... he's nice... he's a good guy."

DocProf's gaze spoke volumes. This child was too scraggly, too beat-up, to be an Xavier's kid, DocProf's gaze seemed to say. He was surveying Michael rather intently. He needed to know more.

The questions began easily enough.

"How old are you? Can you tell me that?... Do you know how old you are?"

DocProf gave Michael the opportunity to answer, or to not do so. Whether or not he answered, though, DocProf continued to ask questions. Not in a demanding tone, but in a polite way.

"Do you know where you're from?"

Again, there was a pause, to either allow for Michael to answer, or to remain silent. These weren't really essential details, DocProf would learn in due-time, after he healed Michael, after perhaps Gemma or the police could talk to him.

"Michael," the DocProf said, his voice still low, "Can you do things that other people can't? Do you have a gift?"

Michael was still kind of wary of this man, he didn’t really want any interaction with him at all, but he didn’t dislike the older guy. And though he did not nave any intense hatred of the man in any way, he didn’t really answer whether or not he would allow questions. Within a few moments, it was easy to see that Michael had solved his rubix cube in an odd way. The center color, for every square, was a different color than it’s surroundings, which were made up of a singular, solid color.

He looked slightly at Chase, as he heard confirmation that perhaps this person was alright to be near, even if he was a doctor that would stick things in him, though he did mutter something about that. “Doctors stick metal things in your arms.” It was a mutter of course, so probably hard for the DocProf to hear. As the questions came, Michael allowed for a bit of a pause before he answered any of them.

“three plus three plus three.” He said this because he liked that there was a pattern of numbers that could lead up to nine. Threes and threes. Three times three, three plus three plus three. All of them were wonderful.

“My room…” This was said very, very meekly. He wasn’t trying to be snarky, or sarcastic, that was really the only thing that he knew about things anymore. He had already forgotten the name of the place he lived in. He forgot it a while ago. The only reason he knew the address to write it online was because he took a look at a bit of old mail, then tossed it away afterwards in anger. The next question threw him off, however.

Michael looked at his hand quickly. Left hand. Left gloved hand. He was hiding something. He most definitely was hiding something. Michael shoved it beneath the blankets quicker than his body should move, and most likely painfully, since he had to hide it beneath his backpack. “Not allowed.”

>> “Doctors stick metal things in your arms.”

"Not this one," Chase murmured back, "It's okay. He's nice. He doesn't need metal things." Chase presumed that Michael meant needles, but stuck to the other boy's terminology.

Then, the conversation shifted into inquiries, which Michael answered to the best of his ability. He was nine years old (Chase had done that addition problem in his head), he was from Maine but he didn't know it... he said he was from his room, but Chase didn't interject on his behalf. Chase stayed quiet, and began twisting the bedsheets beneath them into something akin to a corkscrew.

Then, DocProf asked Michael if he was a mutant. And Michael quickly buried his gloved hand under the blankets, and quickly replied that something was "not allowed".

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me," the DocProf assured the brown haired child, "Did you know-- I have a gift, too? Look at my hands-" the DocProf held his hands out for inspection, "They look normal, but if I hold them over an injury, my hands start glowing. I can tell how someone got hurt, and then I can fix them. Just like magic."

Chase smiled. DocProf had a way of explaining things in ways that children could understand. The DocProf's gaze held that grinning gleam that an old grandfather's gaze might get if he was jesting with his grandchild... except, Chase knew he wasn't kidding.

"Do you want to see?" the DocProf inquired of Michael, "I could show you."

Michael looked at Chase, who was fiddling with the sheets, and then quickly back at the doctor as he spoke. He was nervous, and he was scared, but Chase told him that this doctor didn’t need any special metal things. He looked down at his hand, shoved beneath the sheets, and he frowned. He had lots of hurts all over him, and maybe…maybe he could let this person make one or two of them better. He shifted just a little bit, and very slowly.

The worst was on his back, there was a rather large cut, not so much a scrape or a scratch, that was probably caused by something sharp. It hurt Michael a lot, but people couldn’t really see it, so he ignored it. This meant that it got a little bit infected. He took another look at the DocProf, and he slowly fiddled with his shirt so he ended up taking it off. This wasn’t very attractive either. He really did need what he was going to get here, because he might not have lived much longer under such conditions.

“B…back hurts. But…you can’t make it…hurt and…and touch it. Touching it or…or putting something on it hurts.” He spoke quietly, but it was loud enough for the elderly man to hear. He focused on his calming breathing, even though he was almost shaking with the effort of keeping himself calm. There were just so many things here, and none of them made sense yet. He looked at Chase for a moment, taking comfort in the boy’s relaxed smile.

“D…don’t tell daddy.” He said after a moment. “Don’t tell daddy I’m seeing a doctor.” He said it softly, and wasn’t sure if anyone could even hear him. His daddy was a very very bad part of his life, but he was there, nonetheless.

Chase's smile faltered when Michael pulled off his shirt, seemingly out of the blue. Wounds weren't things that he had to deal with in the Townsend household. It was the curse of being a shapeshifter-- you couldn't see the leftovers from when Mr. Townsend lost his temper, not when Chase was in his human-form. The only scars prominent enough was the scar on his jaw and the knick on his eyebrow., but the bruises and the scratches? He could hide those.

Looking at another boy, who looked how Chase would have and should have looked wiped Chase's smile clean off of his face. He just didn't understand some adults. He didn't like them, either. People weren't supposed to act like that, those people were bad. Even DocProf seemed a little taken aback, but he adjusted his sleeves, and let his hands linger an inch above the child's exposed back, a grim frown upon his face. Chase looked away, towards the DocProf and his hands, as his hands began to radiate with their telltale glow.

DocProfs' eyes closed, lids flickering lightly as he witnessed how the wound came to be. Only when the vision was over, would the mending of the wounds begin.

The boy’s wounds had a story as to how they came out. The story was enough to make many people wretch in disgust. The memories luckily did not surface in Michael’s mind as this was done, and the little boy leaned forward, his body revealing to DocProf exactly what happened for that wound.

There were images swirling about, recent ones. There were sounds as well. It was all being seen through the boy’s eyes, but his eyes were filled with tears, so there were blurry images around him. The noises were hard to mistake, however.

The little boy looked up at his father with his blurry eyes, tears staining his own cheeks as he saw the man holding the bottle in his hands. His father threw it on the floor, and it shattered in front of the little boy, glass going everywhere. DocProf felt his hands waver, as he saw clearly what was happening to Michael. His father picked the boy up and threw him on the floor, and at that point the glass must have caused such a wound that he had on his back.

DocProf felt the vision end and quickly hurried into healing Michael wound. A warm feeling spread through the boy, and he felt at peace. He was calm and relaxed fully for once, and the boy closed his eyes as the DocProf took in all that he could.

Such memories for such a poor little boy should not be anything anyone would go through. Glimpses of his room showing the Doc that he indeed had been there for longer than he should have. None of his scrapes came from outside of the room at all.

He healed many of the larger injuries that Michael had, but he pulled back afterwards. He was not trying to be selfish, however, he knew that the bruises and knicks would all heal.

What he was also avoiding were the memories the little boy’s injuries had to offer. His head was already full of them, and he didn’t need to see more.