Title: Cease To Troll Immediately!
Co-Author: lj userspeak_me_fair
Characters/Pairing: Charles Xavier, Erik Lensherr (Circa the 80's). Mention of Scott, Jean, Storm, Sean, Raven, Azazel, the children in general.
Warnings: Adorable!Charles. Silly!Erik. MiddleAged!Cherik flirting. This would be fluff if we weren't so damn good. As it is we like to think of it as Carnival Cotton Candy.
Disclaimer: Fiction twice over and not ours; Roleplay fic. Sleepy me (Erik) and dazed speak_me_fair (Charles) to blame.
Summary: It's 1985, and the American military has just begun experimenting with the internet. Of course, our two favorite mutant leaders have hacked the technology, and Erik is trolling Xavier Academy. Hard. What will happen when Charles IMs him and tells him to stop?

Brotherood of Mutants, Alpha Base: September 9th, 1985: 2:31 am

To the extent that Mutant Arch-terrorists were capable, Magneto was having a ball.

This had not been the objective when he and a certain balding telepath teamed up two weeks before and, in a rare moment of flawless collaboration, hacked into the US Army's technical mainframe. They had regarded this "internet," and particularly the live messaging feature, as a dangerous development to get a jump on, a weapon they needed to learn before it could be used against them both.

But then that certain telepath had set up a Local Area Network at a certain school full of a certain number of teenagers. He'd given a portent-filled schpeel about "seeing the specemin in action" and "youth being at the forefront of innovation," and then he'd given Magneto the master pass code...because innovative youth almost always required a babysitter or four.

"Erik, what are you up to?"

Not babysitting.

Mystique's question was an unwelcome intrusion, discordant in the study that was silent but for the whirring mechanics of the computer. Couldn't she see he was busy?

"Nothing, my dear. Now run along."

Cerulean scales intercepted his line of vision a moment later, and he almost swore. Mystique looked back at the screen he tried in vain to click away from, and then rounded narrow yellow eyes at him.

"I know we're in between missions, but don't you have anything better to do than poke at the children with this new stick of ours?" She reached forward, and loosed a strand of his silvering hair. Her next words were a purr. "Like me, maybe?"

Magneto winked, but bat her hand away and pointed to the screen. "Tempting as that is, I'm well on my way to putting Scott in his place-"

"Tch. Scott."

"Go to bed, dear. Leave me to my game and I'll be more inclined to join yours some other time."

Mystique, who knew defeat when it happened to her, gave him an exasperated sigh and nodded towards the competitor for her mentor's attention. "The X Factor…let me guess, Charles's idea? The narcissism-"

"Hush."

He waited until her footsteps had faded completely…and then recommenced the mayhem:

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The X Factor

A Forum For Mutants, By Mutants.

Mods: TheOneEyedMonster –PM-

TOroroNado –PM-

Jeanetick –PM-

Discussion: When Is It Cool To Use Our Gifts? (And When Is It Totally Not!)
-Go Earlier- -Save Thread- -Report Abuse-

OnceAndFutureSteel: So you're really going to sit there, smug as anything, and tell all the mutant world to submit to arrest by the human authorities? As long as they present 'justifiable cause?' Aren't you the one who has molten lava coming out of your eyes? Are you a 9 year old girl? Is that it? Are we overcompensating with the screenname?

TheOneEyedMonster: YOU AGAIN OMFG HOW DID YOU GET BACK ON! I BLOCKED YOU LIKE TEN TIMES!

OnceAndFutureSteel: Or maybe you're just that special type of stupid, that smiles at its own extinction. Like the Dodo bird.

TheOneEyedMonster: Who ARE you, dude! I know you're in this building somewhere and when I find out where I'm gonna make you regret every word. I'll tell the Professor, how do you like that? Fucking freshmanwe'll see what X has to say when he knows he's got a sociopath enrolled.

Jeanetick: Scott, chill. But seriously Mr. Steel, this is the other Mod, asking very nicely for you to just go away already. We've tried to be patient, but now you're just being disrespectful.

OnceAndFutureSteel: You know what I think is disrespectful? Lying. And you're lying to yourself Jean dear, if you thing for even a moment that Scott will ever be able to satisfy you. Not with that homo-sapien loving attitude.

Jeanetick: Um no you did NOT JUST TALK ABOUT MY BOYFRIEND LIKE THAT! You're real brave at your dorky keyboard but I bet you wouldn't say that to my face!

OnceAndFutureSteel: Wouldn't I? I have nothing to fear from your gifts after all. Since 'We here at X Academy are all about words first; Violence is so not a happenin' mutation.' Honestly sometimes I think Charles is standing over your shoulders.

TheOneEyedMonster: Did you just call the Professor Charles?

OnceAndFutureSteel: Never mind what I called him. Pay attention to what I'm calling you. Pawn.

Magneto stretched, and relished the heightened frequency of the vibrating nickel in the monitor's circuit boards as his bait was taken hundreds of miles north. He decided he would have to buy another pair of these pajamas; something about the black and gray stripes really communicated'evil bastard,' and he was fast doing some of his best work clad in silk that was not, strictly, his taste...but a certain Other's.

Ping

Erik leaned forward, stunned by the Private Messaging signal he'd thought he disabled. Then he read the message, and grinned in a way that made him grateful for being by himself. Speak of the devil...

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somaticdenovo: You do realise I can hear Scott losing his mind from three floors away? You're not as subtle as you think, my friend.

OnceAndFutureSteel: You give them all far too much credit, Carles.

OnceAndFutureSteel: er...Charles.

somaticdenovo: I wasn't giving him any credit at all, as it happens. He still hasn't worked out how you keep overcoming his bans. And your usernames are not precisely...um...opposite of obvious. Unobvious. No. Wait. They're obvious.

OnceAndFutureSteel: : ) Maybe not, but then again, I haven't been the primary object of Scott's thoughts for 20 odd years. Also the children never expect adults to join the game.

OnceAndFutureSteel: ANd what a stupid way to deal with a problem..."banning." You can't ban someone in the field. Is that what you're teaching your X-men, Charles? How to bun the Sentinels to death?

OnceAndFutureSteel: *BAN.

somaticdenovo: damn, you deprived me of a marvellous mental image in which we all threw Ororo's latest attempt at baking at their heads. I sometimes wonder if that wouldn't be more effective.

OnceAndFutureSteel: If her baking is anything like Mystique's. Most definitely.

somaticdenovo: And in all these years you haven't learned not to let her near an oven? Now who's getting too much credit? Curious minds want to know - why isn't the kitchen in fact sealed to her? Oh, and you just gave away the fact you have a kitchen. The hidden details I am learning!

OnceAndFutureSteel: It's just like the good guys, to think the bad guys live in mud huts. I'll have you know that all my fixtures are state-of-the-art, and that I make one mean dish of curried chicken. :-P

...Would you look at that. The face is moving...now why would the American military feel the need to communicate with moving faces?

somaticdenovo: ...what face is moving? There is no moving face. There is a yellow blob with what looks like - no, never mind, I don't think I want to know.

somaticdenovo: Has someone drugged you? AGAIN?

OnceAndFutureSteel: No! I'm just experimenting. You remember what that is, don't you? Or have the children sucked the life from your bones, and so early in the term. Tsk tsk.

somaticdenovo: :inherently skeptical look: WHY CAN'T THESE DAMNED THINGS SPELL PROPERLY - no, yes, sorry, what? Oh, life. No, alas, still enough for teaching at least.

OnceAndFutureSteel: HAH. You should be careful, Charles. I know where you live. You run the extreme risk of one of those "visits we do not talk about later," when you type as you speak.

OnceAndFutureSteel: But I will have flustered you with that last. Quick, ignore it. And tell me about the new ones. I like living vicariously through your 'peace.'

somaticdenovo: As ever, you forbid me intrigue. Now who's - you know I can't tell you - ah. Sean's daughter has inherited his rather dubious talent for making the world wish it could go deaf. I sometimes wish I had the leverage to throw her out of something myself. If only to reduce proximity.

OnceAndFutureSteel: O:-) Now you're just begging. In all iron seriousness though; it's interesting, that so many of the gifts are linked by blood. Azazel and Mystique's boy was a teleporter, and that idiot, Scott...not half the power of his father, but elementally the same.

OnceAndFutureSteel: Explanations, Professor? I use them, but don't claim to understand them, these mutant progeny of ours.

somaticdenovo: I'm terribly sorry, you wanted me to explain why anyone would voluntarily choose _Azazel_ as a potential partner? Mutations aside, there's no answer to that.

OnceAndFutureSteel: ...Sometimes I forget who you are. And then you remind me.

somaticdenovo: I live for these little moments of hubristic satisfaction.

OnceAndFutureSteel: Key word being hubris, Charles. They were happy, she and he. For a short while. He is...loyal. Too, I think, for the flighty Raven.

OnceAndFutureSteel: WHY IS THE BOX FLASHING?

somaticdenovo: Er...I hesitate to ask this, but _what_ box?

OnceAndFutureSteel: The...one we're talking in! Typing in damnit! I think...oh. Oh okay I had accidentally "highlighted" it. CTRL A or some nonsense. Really I don't think this is ever going to catch on. I'm only a _little_ drunk this brave new world and its gadgets should allow for that.

:somaticdenovo has stepped away from the computer:

OnceAndFutureSteel: !

OnceAndFutureSteel: Charles. You. Did. Not. That is just rude! We are engaging in important experimentation.

Automatic message: brb

OnceAndFutureSteel: And now you're giving me rasberries? You typed the sound for a rasberry? I hope you're alone!

Automatic message: brb

somaticdenovo: Sorry. Sorry. Sometimes I think you had the right idea in _not_ having anything to do with running this bloody place.

OnceAndFutureSteel: Loaded words. What happened? By the way. I'm coming over.

somaticdenovo: Oh God. No. Don't. You don't want to _know_.

OnceAndFutureSteel: Give me three good reasons, Charles. Good reasons, now. It's Friday night. Even President Reagan is tucked away in his morphing pod, and you _are_ in theory, the one who makes the rules.

Besides. We both know I'm better with them.

somaticdenovo: You do at least have the ability to make them shut the hell up and vanish, which to be honest I'm rather inclined to make shameless use of at this point. Fine. You're right. I have no good reasons... _morphing pod_?

OnceAndFutureSteel: :-D :-D :-D Still got it. Or maybe, you just never had it. Serenity, I mean. Where is your serenity now, Charles? :-)

And morphing pods are where they keep evil, foul-smelling things that may or may not be alive. At least...that's what I learned from watching one of Angel's eggs hatch. *shudder*

somaticdenovo: Please, never tell me anything again. Dear God. And Serenity? Here? On a Friday night? You must be _joking_.

OnceAndFutureSteel: Well you know what they say. If you can't beat them, join them. (Or I could just beat them)…Should I bring whiskey? I know I have enough turtlenecks stowed in the bottom drawer to last two nuclear wars.

OnceAndFutureSteel: Also I just bought a Shelby Mustang. Does the Good Guy feel like joyriding with the Bad Guy?

somaticdenovo: This is the sound of me giving up completely. Bring whatever you please, you will anyway.

OnceAndFutureSteel: Ah, the sound of Charles's submission is silence. We'll have to fix that. ; )
See you in ten seconds.

:somaticdenovo has left the conversation:

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somaticdenovo: Scott, Jean, I don't care what the bottle of gin made you think, the rest of the world does not want to know the 'mutant powers of a real one-eye'. Log off now or I'll get Erik to do it for you. Thank you.

:TheOneEyedMonster has left the conversation:

END