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Charles was gone in an instant and Erik followed. Their bodies becoming loose and falling or...were they rising? It was impossible to tell. His skeleton momentarily malformed. Erik felt like his stomach was at the back of his throat, his body being pulled apart like a doll. Bones coming apart at his joints, muscles pulled into strips and strings, blood emptying his veins like he’d pulled the plug from the bathtub. They had hurriedly become ethereal forms. Two minds glimmering haphazardly in some other space. He wasn’t sure where Charles had gone but could feel him all around. He had become a psychic power. He’d become the same kind of feeling that left you with goosebumps, the same breath of nervousness before an act of incredible courage. He felt like a lump in Erik’s throat. It made him shiver in the same way he’d shivered during sex, that fleshly feeling of climax. Fingers and lips and arms tangled around Erik, Charles’ form distant and present at the time same.
And then, just a quickly as it had happened, it was over. An incredible silence roared on the inside of his ears. A steep pressure building in his skull. After a few moments more he opened his eyes, which he hadn’t realized had been closed at all. And where were they now? A study that looked very familiar but also different. Charles’ study, but everything was slightly off. The colors were darker.
A few more moments and Erik felt his body again. Hands gripping firmly on Charles’ chair, head pressed to the cool metal, trying to not vomit.
“This is your power?” Erik asked meekly, without looking up, “All this?”
Charles pressed his lips together and made a quiet noise of confirmation.
“How far does it reach?” Erik asked, a quivering inflection at the back of his voice.
“As far as I can manage. Miles. Hundreds of miles normally,” he paused, seeming to think, “Sometimes thousands on a good day, and I have Cerebro too.” Charles reached down to pry Erik’s hands from his wheelchair.
Erik released himself, a little unwillingly, hands on his knees, still not rising, “You can see that far? And into the head of everyone, you can reach?”
“Yes. It requires a huge amount of self-restraint.”
“I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. Your power is physical. Jean and I...and I suppose Emma...it’s different for us.”
Erik finally allowed himself a look around. Eyes finding Charles’ still unmoving legs, “Even in this place...even with all this power...you’re still limited by your body.”
“Ahhhh yes.” Charles said a little sadly, “I’ve been working on that for a long time now.” A forgiving hand squeezing his own thigh.
“But it’s been so long.”
“You’re right...I suppose my injury still permeates even this far. I suppose my brain has forgotten my legs...after all this time. But I’ve comes to terms with it by now...” there was a long silence, then Charles waved his hands and the study vanished by pieces, books becoming paper, and paper becoming shreds, furniture coming apart, nails and wood separating. Windows becoming sand again.
Erik knelt in awe, understanding what Charles meant now. They were exposed to the soft rain beyond the complex of the mansion. But it didn’t touch their skin. Erik made his way to his feet but still held on to Charles chair.
“Would you like to see the past, Erik?”
Erik qualmed, an intense feeling of anxiety in his stomach, “You can do that?”
“The past is easy, though I’m afraid the future isn’t my forte. The past his set in stone Erik. It’s linear. Unchanging. Looking at the past is like watching a film.”
“I’ve been asking for years to see...” Erik paused, “but...you never...”
“I wasn’t strong enough. And perhaps I’m a tad intoxicated now...” Charles avoided eye contact, eyes glancing away from Erik quickly. Roaming his body and recalling forty plus years of history. His drunken brain loose and wavering lead the way. The ground became mud now, dripping apart and then vanishing. The rain stopped too, and then the trees crumbled into seeds and wood and autumn leaves. Then there were rushing Erik’s ears, hugely loud as the whole house disintegrated. Then, before he could even come close to reacting to that a beach rose up from beneath him. Hot sand filling his pockets and hair, it was like they had just climbed up from under it, as he was a kid and the entire world was blanket tossed up by his mother as she made the bed.
Then the ocean seemed to have been poured into the scene and the heat came. And a huge sun. And a great screeching metal sound as a plane crashed into the sand.
Erik looked up at Charles from his place on his knees and suddenly saw the vividness of it. The poetic parts melted away and it became very real. Charles looked just slightly strained as sand fell from his shoes, as he brushed off his pants and fumbled with his half embedded wheels caught under inches of the stuff. Charles’s wheelchair crookedly settled into place.
“I usually do a better job at the placement of everything but I’m buzzed so...” Charles took a moment to pause, “...this is what you get.”
“This is Cuba,” Erik said hoarsely, still on his knees.
“Yes,” said Charles, gaping frustratingly at his chair, unable to move it.
Erik stood slowly, more sand falling from folds and pockets on his clothes. He pressed his lips together and turned to Charles, “You’ve gotten the heat of the whole thing right.”
“Ah...yes,” Charles said, a small bead of sweat forming on his own brow, “these things always feel so...real.”
Then in another disorientating rush, gunshots became audible. Just five. And then a huge amount of pain filled his body. Erik knew what was happening. He watched as Charles hit the ground and he was aware of a sickening feeling in his stomach as the equally as sickening sound of a bullet meeting flesh filled his body.
He turned to Charles quickly only to find his empty wheelchair half buried and when he turned round again he was staring down at Charles. His tight flight suit full of sweat. Then suddenly he came apart and everything flickered like lights before a power outage.
Then it was just Charles, his head resting on Moria’s lap. Then Sean and Alex and Hank.
And then the moment came as another enormous sound filled his ears, his vision swimming with darkness. He'd never been able to see this moment and still, the guilt stalked him like a deadly animal every moment of every day. Soon he heard Charles’ voice at the brink of breaking. The words rattling around at the back Charles' mouth like bitter candy in a plastic bag, “I can’t feel my legs.” Sweat matting hair to Charles’ forehead, glossy eyes welling over in pain, “I can’t...I can’t feel my legs.” Then a moment of realization washed over the scene as the groundwork began to decay. Erik’s vision growing darker still.
Then sinew and tearing flesh. Pain. Tendons are torn from bone, Charles’ slender pale spinal cord unraveling like twine at his feet. Nerve sacks spilling open like dams. The beach crumbled and Erik hit lelonium hard. Hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. Hard enough that it wasn’t for a few moments that he noticed he was in a hospital. Hard enough he was sent into a coughing a fit before he could even think about staggering to his feet.
Erik saw Hank, alone, pouring over X-Rays the doctors had let him see. That thin white spinal cord disrupted by two shattered vertebrae in Charles’ lower back. Hank looked like himself again and Erik had no idea how he’d managed it.
Everything went blue like the backlit x-ray panel. The quiet sounds of the hospital buzzing wearily inside his head. Another spin and flash and Erik watched as Charles was pulled up from the bed into a standing position, unresponsive hips swaying unsteadily, feet forced flat to the ground. This only lasted a few moments before Charles cried out in protest. His back on fire. Hank was there, still human looking, aiding Charles’ nurse. Charles sobbing as they lowered him back onto the bed. Hank taking Charles in his arms. They sat together has the nurse left the room.
Things began to speed up, the images broken and momentary. In the background of every scene, it almost looked like scaffolding, as if it were all a play as if it were a movie for him to watch. Nausea grew at the top of his stomach and moved into his throat. Drink and drugs, physiotherapy, wheelchairs, surgeries, hopefulness shattered like thin ice. Muscle atrophy, catheters, pressure sores, release, and tension. Mounting fear took Erik. He couldn’t breathe. One second a imagine the next, darkness. The loudness deafened him. And then, as if there was nothing smooth about psychic power and telepathy, everything blew apart and he found himself back, head pressed forcefully into Charles' leg. A dizziness buzzing around inside his head like flies.
He looked up and saw Charles, sobbing quite uncontrollably, a bottle propped up on his thigh.
Erik, without even the slightest bit of hesitation, took Charles in his arms. Charles was as loose as fabric though, and crumbled forward, falling from his wheelchair and into Erik. But instead, Charles fell straight through him and hit the carpet with a thud. His legs awkwardly twisted behind him. The liquor emptying from the bottle. The stench of whiskey drifted across the room and filled it to the ceiling.
With a pang of shock, he realized that he was still in Charles’ head.
Hank burst through the door, his lanky skeleton crossing the room in only seconds, and pulled Charles onto his back. Dark stains grew on his blue jeans as they began to soak up the booze.
Erik found himself forcibly choking back tears as Hank called out to Charles. But Charles was unresponsive. Hank slapped Charles twice and when he wouldn’t wake he pulled Charles upright and held him in his lap.
This was all too fucking much. Erik, now unable to hold back his own tears, found himself fucking sobbing too.
Hank was on the phone with emergency responders before Erik even had time to breathe. The two of them, whiskey stained and covered, waited for help to come. Hank’s arm gripped Charles chest tightly, and even though his left shouldered held the phone to his ear, he still managed to press two fingers to Charles’ throat to feel for a pulse and at the same time cry into Charles’ hair.
Then the ceiling splintered into wood, the windows exploded, and whiskey melted the floor away.
In the next flash, Charles looked happier. Stronger. He looked healthy.
Then another and he’d landed a teaching position.
A third he straightening a tie and pulling himself easily into his chair, straightening his feet on the footrests. Hank’s helping him into the car.
Champagne but Charles drinks tea instead.
A car with hand controls. A match of basketball. One of tennis. A classroom at the nearby college. A research paper being published. An interview. Erik began to see only good things now. And they grew so quick that they were only colors. And then, for this time Erik was sure, it all...stopped. A screeching halt like a train and Charles study moved to the forefront. Erik is standing still and as he turned he can see Hank, standing just behind Charles, their hands interlaced.
“Erik,” Hank said straightening up, “It’s good to see you.”
Erik quickly, and he hoped discreetly enough, wiped his eyes of tears.
“You too, Hank. I hope you’re well.”
Hank only smiled, “Yeah. We’re great, both doing really well.” Then he looked down at Charles a little shocked, “You’re drinking,” was all he said.
Erik looked down to see that this was true. They both had been. He had forgotten.
“Yes well...it was a bad decision and I only had a bit. Would you be so kind as to take the bottle and dump it out? I thought maybe I’d celebrate but...I’ve changed my mind.”
Hank nodded quietly and took the bottle into the kitchen.
“He’s been good to you Charles,” Erik said.
“I suppose he has,” Charles whispered.
“What are you two celebrating?”
Charles felt a fading smile drift across his face, “It’s October 22nd.”
Erik opened his mouth to speak but closed it instead. And before Charles could say anything more Hank came back through the door, nodded to Erik, and placed a kiss on the top of Charles' head.
Charles met the second one by turning his face up to meet Hank, “Are you almost ready? Everyone from the school is going to be there tonight while you present.”
“I’m ready when you are darling.” Charles turned to Erik, “Forgive us, Erik, I’ve got my presentation at the college and we’ve got to get going or I’ll be late.”
Erik nodded his head and followed them out.