➻ three | cardiovascular distress and it's many symptoms

[unwheeled]

 [What is this? A video? A video in which Charles is neither screaming his head off nor waving his intellect around at all and sundry?

Bless.

Actually this appears to be accidental - there's the noise of a tea kettle being quickly removed from heat, that buildup of a whine abruptly cut off and sloshing of water in a metal container. Most of the frame is occupied by the kitchen counter, a deep blue ceramic teapot, a jar of loose leaf tea and half of Charles' upper body - button up shirt with rolled up sleeves pushed past his elbows - sort of puttering around in the immediate area.

Loose leaf tea goes into a small metal tea straining ball, ball goes into the teapot, kettle pours hot water into teapot, kettle is returned to stove out of frame. Charles reaches up into a cabinet to obtain a cup, takes it down - 

and drops it, suddenly, where it rolls off the counter and quietly shatters on the floor. His fingers are turning blue and he turns his palms upwards.]

Ow?

[Charles uses his hands to push himself away from the counter (his face isn't visible at this point) though doesn't get too far, if the soft thud is any indicator. There's a sound rather like a door slamming and then opening simultaneously in the next second.

The feed ends there.]

Comments

[spiderkid]

Teach? Professor X! You there?

video | roughly five minutes later

[unwheeled]

Yes? What?

[Charles looks a little drawn but otherwise okay.]

I'm fine Miles! See. I'm all right. Sorry.

video

[spiderkid]

What happened?

video

[unwheeled]

[Charles sighs.] I fainted. But I'm - ow - fine now.

Other than pricking my fingers on things.

video:

[charring]

Charlies? What happened?

video:

[unwheeled]

I, uh, I fainted.

[Charles is staring at this...thing wrapped in barbed wire in his hands.]

And broke a cup but I think I'll be fine?

Re: video:

[charring]

Is this...do you faint often? [Seriously. Is this a thing?]

video;

[studmuffin]

[ Have one deeply worried teenage boy, Charles. You remind him of his dad and this - well he's feeling pretty panic-y right now. ]

You better be okay, Prof.

video;

[unwheeled]

One day that thing won't come on every time sometimes happens to me.

Or maybe one day things will stop happening to me.

I'm fine. Truly, I'm fine. Beating...heart and all.

[See, look Stiles he's even cradling it. Barbed wire looking little thing.]

video;

[studmuffin]

[ There's a moment where Stiles just pretty much feels everything click into place. There's no way that's Charles' heart, he'd bet his young and dumb life on it. Because okay - he's a geek, he fully and completely knows that - but he's also a human being too and he's met Charles now, met him enough to know that as an image of who he is, well, that isn't it.

That's someone else entirely.

But he sucks in a breath and smiles enough, a genuine thing. ] Hey, that's good, that's uh -. [ Does he want to say be careful? No, probably not. ]

It's February. Wouldn't be the City without a hideously themed curse.

[eiremagic]

I'm coming over.

[unwheeled]

[Startled? More than a little.]

Oh, okay? Erik is here I'm not...apt to faint again, I suspect.

[eiremagic]

Your fingers are blue.

video

[horseish]

What happened?

video

[unwheeled]

I, ah. I did something foolish and made tea in a pot that had my heart in it. So I fainted, but I'm all right now.

video

[horseish]

Why is your heart a tea pot?

[hulkbusted]

I probably don't have to ask what happened, but around here assumptions are bad ideas.

[unwheeled]

I made tea out of it. Not...purposefully.

[hulkbusted]

That sounds... yeah, only around here. Are you recovered?

[trenchknives]

You, uh, you okay there?

[unwheeled]

Now I am! All...better, more or less.

[trenchknives]

You don't need a doctor or somethin'? A stiff drink?

[Because obviously they're about the same usefulness.]

audio;

[intheblanks]

[A voice comes through on the device, wherever it might have been knocked in that tumble.]

If anyone can hear this, pick up.

Pick up.

[And, fainter, to someone whose voice merges into the background noise on Chase's end of the call:

Damn it. I keep saying we need a way to trace these lines.

video | roughly five minutes later

[unwheeled]

What? Hello?

Sorry.

video | roughly five minutes later

[intheblanks]

[Chase is expecting someone else to come though - a friend, mid panic - if anyone at all. So he stops and pulls back slightly to check the image on the screen matches the one from the video before.

He's at a desk, a wall of network connected computers to one side, the bustle of the ER department to the other.]

That rules out anaphylaxis.