Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Erik sits on the floor of the stone cell, feeding crumbs to a rat. He needs the calories, but he needs the companionship more. A soldier – Beier is his name – enters the cell. "Oh look!" he says. "A vermin, and also a little rat."

Other soldiers laugh.

Beier raises his boot. The rat is a bit tame, a bit less fearful of humans thanks to Erik's daily feedings, and it is slow to react. When the boot comes stomping down, the rat has begun to flee, but not quickly enough. There is a crunch of breaking bones as Beier crushes the rat's back half. Its belly, tail, and hind legs are mangled now. The creature squeaks and chitters and writhes piteously.

Erik breaks the rat's neck, putting it out of its misery. He has grown strong; a year ago he would have shirked at such an act, even though the creature was a rat and he had killed it for its own sake. Then a thought occurs to him. Perhaps he should do something fierce and disgusting. Perhaps he should convince the soldiers that it is best if they fear him, best if they leave him alone. He grabs the rat's corpse and he bites off the tail, twirling it around his tongue.

Goodbye, friend rat.

Erik Lensherr could easily sense the metal in the lock, the shape and heft of each piece. With concentration, he could pick a lock and open the door without leaving any fingerprints. No sense giving the authorities any motivation to interfere. He slipped in quietly and grabbed an envelope from the kitchen table. Yes, it was the right name. He had visually identified the man earlier, but he believed in thoroughness.

Now he had to wait for the man to enter the kitchen. He would, eventually. And until he did, Erik would stand in the corner, perfectly still and silent, obscured by the refrigerator and the cupboard. As he waited, he thought about reasons to hate Beier, tried to rile up the emotion necessary for the more dramatic applications of his abilities. He could picture the man clearly: Beier wearing foul cologne that stank when it mixed with sweat on hot days. Beier laughing, pissing in his food. Beier wrestling him down to be strapped in for another of Herr Doktor's tests, tests that-

He interrupted his own reverie. There was no point in imagining too far afield. Focus on Beier.

And then, as if conjured by his focus, the man appeared, and immediately found one of his own kitchen knives pressed tightly to his throat. Erik stood behind him and hissed in his ear, for Erik was taller now, was stronger. "Listen to me very carefully," he said. "Here is what you are going to do. Send your son to his grandfather's to play. Ensure that he does not return for at least an hour. Then you will call your neighbor and invite him over in 20 minutes. I do not care what lie you tell. You are going to die regardless, but if you do what I say, at least your spawn will not have to see it."

It was the strangest suicide the local police had ever seen, though they had no reason to suspect foul play. There was no sign of forced entry, no fingerprints on the knives other than those of the deceased. And the man had made preparations – send his son away, writing a note. The strange element was simply the amount of damage the man had managed to inflict on himself before death. It had been obscured by blood and viscera at the crime scene, but when the coroner cleaned up the body, he announced that Beier had managed to carve a swastika into his own belly, 26 centimeters tall and as much as 14 centimeters deep in some places.

It was an ugly death.

Chapter Text

When he was pulled out of the water, Charles Xavier ought to have been terribly cold, and his body certainly was, but if his mind had been read at that moment, one would have found no awareness of physical discomfort. The whole of his thinking was instead focused on the intense and terrible and vigorous mind he had just touched, on the scowling man who had been pulled from the water with him. He had believed there were other mutants, of course, but there was a great distance between knowing and seeing. And even if the man had not shared his abnormality, Charles had never found himself so sympathetic to the cause of murder. He found the experience striking.

When he was pulled out of the water, Erik Lensherr appeared to be shivering from the cold, but a careful observer would notice that his teeth were clenched, not chattering, and that in fact the tremor was restricted to his right arm. The last time he had been that close to Schmitt, he had been a child. And yet Schmitt got away, did not have to face justice for his crimes. And in the same instant, this newcomer. This man who, like him, had strange powers. This man who, upon apparently becoming aware of what he could do, did not flee or open fire but rather dived right into the sea. He was violently angry and violently fascinated all at once.

Charles only had time to wrap himself in a blanket before Moira grabbed him, pulled him aside, and demanded he answer several questions simultaneously. Which left Erik Lensherr hunched on the deck below, studiously ignoring the glares of men with guns, in the company of the girl? woman? Xavier had identified as his sister.

Erik had no desire to be sociable. Schmitt had been so close, and yet he continued to draw breath. At the same time, however, Erik very much believed that it was always better to have information than to not have it.

"Charles? Well," said Raven, "he's really bizarre and really smart. And he thinks he's the boss of everyone. He thinks he's funny, but he's not, you know, at all. Oh, and he always makes his bed – like, even in hotels. Who does that?" A pause. "I suppose what you really need to know about Charles is that he's the real deal."

"You mean he's really a psychic," said Erik.

"Telepath. Charles hates the term psychic. He thinks its trashy or something. But that's not really what I meant. I mean that he really...believes in stuff. He really...it's hard to explain."

Erik just waited. He had developed skills as both an interviewer and an interrogator. He could see that she had more to say and that she would require little enough prompting to say it.

"Like this one time, he was in high school and there was this kid, Mike Rodgers, who was planning to beat him up for whatever reason. So instead of fighting him or avoiding him or using his powers, Charles just comes running right up to Mike after school and says to him, 'Oh thank god you're here! There's this guy planning to beat me up and I knew I could count on you for protection!' And so Mike ends up walking Charles home like some kind of bodyguard instead of trashing him."

"So Charles tricked him." The man is wily. Don't underestimate him.

"No, that's not- I mean, yes, it was sort of a lie, but it was more important why he did it. He could have just used his powers to make sure that Mike forgot all about fighting him, but he told me that if he did that, it would only keep him safe. He said if he got Mike to think of himself as someone who uses his strength for helping people, it would be better for everybody."

Erik found this bizarre. He said nothing.

"Or this other time. We had just moved to Britain and we had spent the day getting registered for stuff and utilities and everything. So I was supposed to wait back at the apartment and Charles was gonna go get us a pizza and he was only supposed to be gone 15 minutes. Well, on his way to the pizza place, he gets mugged by a guy with a gun. So what does he do about it?" She answered her own question. "I have no clue how he did it and he says he didn't use his powers, but I had to go out looking for him when he wasn't back after almost an hour. And there he is, at the pizza place, with the mugger, chatting and talking like they're friends." She shrugged. "He's the real deal."

Erik said nothing.

Raven apparently took this as a request for continued explanation because she said, "It's like...you hear him say these things about what he believes and it sounds kind of stupid and naïve, but then you realize that he really believes it..." She smiled. "He's the most annoying person I've ever met, mind you. And occasionally he can be a completely oblivious asshole. But you know, mostly..." she shrugged and gestured to the right, as if pointing to everything she had just said.

"How do I know this isn't some kind of elaborate trick?" asked Erik.

"You mean that I'm not really a mutant? That I'm just pretending to be one to lure you into a trap of some sort?" Charles appeared to consider the issue seriously.

"Precisely."

"Test me," said Charles. "Go on. Ask me something I don't know but you do."

"What languages do you speak, other than English?"

"The dead ones, primarily. Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Aramaic, Demotic – well, I don't speak Demotic, no one speaks Demotic. Haven't a clue what it sounds like, but I can read and write Demotic." He shrugged. "I haven't much bothered with modern languages. If I wanted to speak to a living person who doesn't speak English, I could just touch their mind."

"Say something in German," said Erik.

"Ich möchte ein groβer Bier. Of course, I could have just been lying to you a moment ago when I claimed not to speak German."

"Were you lying?"

"No, but that's the thought that's going to come back to you repeatedly and you won't end up trusting that this is real any more than you do now. Come up with a better question. One I truly couldn't have known the answer to."

"What is on my left arm?"

Charles dropped his gaze. "A tattoo you received at Auschwitz." He looked back up. "But then I could have seen that as you were getting out of the water. You're not really trying. You want to be able to believe this is a trick, so you're asking me easy questions. Really think. Think of something I couldn't have seen, couldn't have read in a book, couldn't find in any records anywhere."

Erik was silent for nearly a minute. "What was my little sister's favorite bedtime story?"

"Ah, now that is a good question. It was not a single story. Your father used to tell her tales of a brave and clever princess who outsmarted ogres and trolls and dragons. He used to tell you the same story, but about a prince." Charles was unsure whether to stop and be satisfied or press on. He decided this was a battle that had to be won right now. "In one story, there is a giant who is eating all of the kingdom's food, and the princess – or prince in your case – challenges the giant to a contest to see who can throw a stone up so that it is in the air the longest. If the giant wins, the kingdom will give him all their food. If the princess wins, the giant will leave and never return. When the day of the contest comes, the giant throws his stone very high and everyone is afraid the giant will win. The princess is clever and instead of a stone, she throws a bird's egg that is just about to hatch. The egg hatches in the air and the bird flies away, so the princess wins the contest and the giant leaves her kingdom alone."

"He told it better."

"Yes, I would think so."

"So this is real."

"That it is."

"How many are there?"

"Well, there's you, and me, and Raven, and Shaw, and the three he travels with, so at least seven."

"Don't be glib."

"I don't believe anyone is certain. I strongly suspect there are a great many more than that, but all I know for certain," he shrugged, "is seven."

Chapter Text

Now they were traveling together, from one new mutant to the next.

Erik lay awake, fiddling idly with his coin. He moved it slowly through the air, reflecting the thin light from the parking lot. He looked again at the clock. 3:03. Well, that was boring. 3 minus 0 equals 3. Add all the digits, it's six. Multiply all the digits, it's zero. He had developed dozens of tricks to entertain himself, but none were currently effective at holding the restlessness at bay.

He looked at the bed to his right. Charles Xavier was apparently what Erik's grandfather would have called a 'messy sleeper'. His arms and legs pointed every which way and he rolled often. Thankfully, he did not snore.

Charles rolled to his side and murmured in a rather high-pitched voice. "Bitte," he said. "Bitte bitte bitte." He repeated it over and over again. Why was Charles pleading in his sleep? And why was he doing it in German? Did this mean he spoke German? But if he really was a telepath, why would he have lied about the languages he knew?

Erik stood, pocketed his coin. He grabbed the room key from the nightstand. It seemed as good a time as any to go for a run.

Charles walked out of the bathroom with one towel around his waist and another around his head. "Your turn," he said.

Erik briefly wondered if he was expected to don the same garb which would expose a number of rather gruesome marks, but before the thought could turn into a concern, Charles spoke again.

"Once you get in the shower, I'll get dressed, then I'll get us some coffees. I should be back in about 20 minutes."

"Quit reading my mind."

"It was an educated guess. You wore a turtleneck yesterday. It's June. I can infer that you are rather private about your torso."

"Quit reading my torso."

"Do you believe in souls?" asked Charles.

"What kind of question is that?" Erik absently stirred his whiskey, grateful the airport had a bar.

"The kind I ask when we have three hours to kill before our flight and I've already had three of those." Charles pointed to Erik's drink. "So then. Souls, yea or nay?"

"No, I think there are brains and there are minds, but there are no souls."

"So you don't believe in an afterlife, correct?"

"That's right. I imagine that seems a bit nihilistic for your tastes."

"Not at all, my friend. I too believe that this world is all there is. All the more reason to have a good run of it. But we are getting rather far afield." He paused. "If you don't believe in an afterlife, why do you want to kill Shaw?"

"That doesn't make any sense at all." He took a deep sip from his glass. "I don't see how the two are related."

"Well, if you kill Shaw and there's no such thing as an afterlife and therefore no such thing as hell, then Shaw will never suffer again."

"Yes, but he'll never cause suffering again."

"Why not keep him alive and torture him? Make sure he suffers?"

Erik opened his mouth as if to speak, then drank the rest of his whiskey in a single gulp. "Now you're just fucking with me."

"I think it is a very sensible question. If you hate Shaw, you obviously want to cause him the maximum amount of suffering. Killing him would prematurely end that suffering. So why not imprison him and inflict every torment you can think of?"

Erik's voice was a little high-pitched. There was a very slight tinge of desperate confusion. "And that plan would meet with your approval?"

"I wasn't aware that your plans required my approval."

"So you're not in favor of torturing Shaw?" He sought confirmation. Gravity was returning.

"Who cares about that? It's far more interesting that you're not in favor of torturing Shaw."

"Who says I'm not in favor of it?"

"Your plan has always been to kill Shaw, no more, no less. If I correctly understand what I saw in your mind, you intend to arrange a rather gruesome execution, but not to keep him alive and suffering for days or years," Charles shrugged casually.

"I'm not sure he can be imprisoned for any length of time. He's a very powerful mutant. And if he were to escape..."

"So it's a purely pragmatic concern."

"I'm not sure he can be made to suffer."

"A man who can't suffer? That's a rather terrifying thought."

"You've rummaged through my mind, seen what he's like, and that's what frightens you?" Erik's voice became rather loud.

"There are people in this world, mutants in their own right, who have no functioning sense of pain. This sounds rather marvelous until one considers all that a sense of pain protects us from. They bite off their own tongues, get bedsores, cause nerve damage, walk on broken limbs, all because they cannot feel the consequences of their actions."

"Where are you going with all of this?"

"Nowhere. I told you. I'm drunk."

"Don't lie to me, Charles. Do you, or do you not, speak German?"

"I do not. Although you know as well as I do that commanding me to be honest hardly makes me incapable of dissembling."

"This is important, Charles. If you're lying, I swear I will rip the wings off of this plane and use them to crush your corpse."

"I truly do not speak German. But I find it fascinating that you actually think you will be more certain of that fact after making that threat than before."

"You didn't make your bed."

"You know I've murdered people, right?"

"One thing at a time."

Chapter Text

Erik tried to pace back and forth across the hotel room, but it was small and the two double beds took up most of the space. After accidentally kicking his own suitcase for the second time, he ended up sitting on the corner of his bed, mentally drawing his coin out from his pocket – he never bothered to use his hands to move it any more – and letting it weave between his fingers. Though he remained frustrated that he was not actively, directly pursuing Shaw, he had to reluctantly admit that this recruitment was rather exciting. He did miss, however, having a bit more privacy at night. He slept so little; he was used to spending his nights practicing, exercising, spying, reading. Repeatedly sharing a hotel room with a British telepath was disrupting his routine, such as it was.

Then he heard it again, just as Charles rolled to face directly downward. "Bitte," said Charles, his German accent flawless despite being muffled by the mattress. "Bitte bitte bitte."

"Wake up!"

"Wha-" Charles murmured incoherently as he rolled onto his back. "Oh glory, it can't be 7:30 already, can it?"

"You're having my dreams," accused Erik.

Charles looked around for the clock, squinting one eye, then the other in succession.

"You're having my dreams. You said you were going to stay out of my head."

"I...yes, well..." Charles sat up, grudgingly consigning himself to wakefulness. "If I want to read a mind and find something the person knows, but isn't currently thinking about, that is quite a lot of work. I have to mean to do it. But there are other thoughts that are like shouting, rather like when you want to say something and you hold your tongue. It actually takes quite a bit of effort to not read those thoughts. Quite like if you had words written on your face and I was to look at you and talk to you but not read the words." He yawned broadly. "When I sleep, I don't...I can't control my brain when I'm sleeping."

Nighttime made Erik more irritable. He glared, said nothing.

"I'm sorry. I should have been more upfront about this; it's happened before. Once when I was in college I began to have rather sensual dreams about this young man on whom Raven had a crush. And I- er...that's probably enough about that."

Nighttime made Erik more honest. He glared a moment longer, then asked the question he really wanted to ask. "How can you sleep through it?"

Charles was now awake enough for pity. "Oh Erik, I'm sorry," he said, knowing that his answer would be of no use to his friend. "I can sleep through it because it's not my dream. It has less power over me."

"What..." Erik's voice was quiet, as though his will and his words were having a private battle. "What did you dream?"

"Do you really want to hear me speak it?"

Erik nodded, slowly.

Charles breathed deeply and allowed his eyelids to droop. He pressed his fingers to his temple and then began to speak. His voice was just a bit higher than normal, rather like the voice of a teenaged boy. The recitation was arrhythmic, with pauses and stresses in strange places.

"I am in a room and it is warm and it is not drafty and it is not wet and it is a terrible room. There are books there, and they are not bound in leather; they are bound in skin, in human skin. And there is a man there and he wants to read me, like I am a book wrapped in skin, and there are numbers on my skin and there are letters on my skin and he is turning the pages of my skin and it is fascinating, he says, simply fascinating.

"And the pages of my skin come off like leaves in the autumn. And I am naked before the man and I am ashamed. And then I am wearing clothes and they are fine clothes but I am still naked for there is no metal in this room. Metal is my birthright. I feel as though deaf and blind. But Herr Doktor comes to me and Herr Doktor brings me food and Herr Doktor tells me I am a god. And I tell him that gods must have mercy. But the night falls and there is no mercy for me.

"And I am in the camps and a little girl tugs at my trousers. I don't know her. I cry Jud in disgust and bring my boot down across her face and they are very good boots. They fit and they keep out water. And I am in the naked room again and I weep there because my mother has no grave. And then the shameful thing. The shameful thing. Herr Doktor sits beside me and his hand is on my shoulder and he says, "It is right to mourn for them. That which is necessary can still be sad." And I weep.

"And I am in the camps and he points and says "Precision!" That is my goal and I am a god and this is my birthright. And it is the girl and her nose is bent. And if I miss and if I refuse many more will die. I feel the metal in my hands – its heft, its coolness – and it is my birthright. And Herr Doktor says that I am a god. And I tell him that gods must have mercy. And I plead. Bittebittebittebittebitte. Why not a stone? Why not a rabbit? Bitte. Bitte. He cocks his gun and I kill the girl. My birthright and her blood and her piss and her skin like a book. There is no mercy for me."

Both men were quite silent for many minutes. Erik's right arm trembled mightily. His breathing was fast and shallow. His face changed shape from one moment to the next as if he couldn't decide what to think or say.

"The first night I dreamt that," said Charles, "I thought, how could you not hate him? How could you not want him dead?"

Perhaps because Charles had voiced Erik's position, Erik gave voice to Charles' position and murmured, "Because gods must have mercy."

Both men were quite silent for many minutes.

Then Charles said, softly, "Erik. When you are ready, would you please lower me down to the floor?"

Erik noticed only then that much of the furniture was aloft, lamps trembled, and hundreds of fine creases marred the window screens. His shoulders heaved quite like he was crying, but there were no sobs, no tears. He held his left hand flat, palm to the ground and breathed deeply. Charles' bed dropped down gently, with little clatter, as did his own. The lamps, the nightstand, and the radio were returned to their original places. He tried to concentrate on the screens, on mending the hundreds of tiny frays.

Charles stood and ripped the screen out of the window, tossing it on the ground outside. "It's the government's dime. Who cares about the bloody screen."

"Well I don't think I'm going to sleep at this point either."

"Should we start making prank phone calls?" Erik's arm had settled. His voice was nearly back to normal, complete with sarcasm.

"No, but I think I'd rather like to start a riot."

"You need more people for a riot."

Charles held his thumb and forefinger close. "A very small riot."

"I'm pretty sure that's just vandalism."

"Well, let's go do some of that."

"Are you sure Raven would approve?"

"Surely you jest. She would send me Molotov cocktails via Western Union if such a thing were possible."

"Are you drunk?"

"No, just in the mood for amoral lawbreaking." It simply wasn't fair to break someone into pieces if you give him no chance to put himself back together.

Charles threw on a t-shirt and shoes. He pocketed the hotel key. "Are you coming?"

"I certainly can't miss out on this." There was a vague smile, the first Charles had seen since Erik had awakened him.

Their hotel was a run-down building in a run-down part of town. They only had to walk half a block before finding a suitable abandoned building. Charles loosened a brickbat from the crumbling foundation and after a moment's hesitation, threw it at the building, underhand. It skidded along the outer wall before landing on the ground ineffectually.

"I don't think I'm very good at this."

Erik picked up the brickbat and handed it back to Charles. "You're going to give up after one try?"

Charles looked defiant and amused. He hurled the fragment at the building again, this time overhand and with considerably more force. A second-floor window shattered. "Well, that is terribly satisfying." He admired his handiwork, or rather, his unwork. "Would you like a turn?"

"Yeah, I think if we're taking turns, it's not really a riot." Nonetheless, Erik stood with his arms at his sides, palms forward. His right arm trembled slightly and creaking, rending noises emerged from within the building, though the outer façade was unchanged. The creaking noises ended with a crash and moments later, a small, neat pile of bolts, screws, and nails emerged from the broken second-floor window and landed quietly at the men's feet. "You're right," he nodded, "that is rather satisfying."

Charles threw another rock. Another window shattered.

Erik gave a soft laugh.

Charles wiggled another brick from the foundation and hurled it straight through the first-floor display window. Bits of glass spread everywhere and one lodged in the bosom of a display mannequin.

Both men began to laugh in earnest, laugh helplessly as though they had no choice at all in the matter.

They walked back to the hotel.

Chapter Text

"Does it take dollars?" Charles continued to rummage through his pockets.

"No, just quarters," said Erik

"Damn." Charles started to walk away from the jukebox, then stopped. "No wait, you can fix this."

"I could fling it through a window. Are you still in a riotous mood?"

"No, when you put a coin it, the coin depresses a lever, which is what triggers the machine to give you a play. That lever must be made of some kind of ferrous alloy."

"You're not bothered by the 'thievery' aspect of that plan?"

"You are?"

"Who cares about that? It's far more interesting that you're in favor of stealing." Erik paraphrased Charles' words from a few days ago.

"For your information, I planned on leaving a dollar behind."

"Well, for your information, I don't know what a jukebox looks like on the inside, so I would probably just end up breaking it."

"No, no, you can do this. You can sense the metal right? Take your time, feel about, like a blind man getting to know an object. You're looking for a strip of metal no more than a few centimeters long, attached to some kind of hinge or fulcrum. When you find one, push on it gently. If it yields, it's the one we want."

"I don't think I can do that."

"I respectfully disagree."

"Why do you always say 'respectfully' when you mean nothing of the sort?"

"I like irony. And you know what else I like? Jukeboxes, so let's give it a try, shall we?"

Erik sighed. He closed his eyes, his fingers curling around unseen components. There was an ungodly screeching, scratching noise; everyone in the diner looked up. Charles quickly put both hands on a chair, as if he had just moved it and looked as surprised as everyone else.

"Okay, that wasn't it," Charles muttered out of one corner of his mouth.

"Quiet," said Erik, "I've almost got it." A moment more, then Erik twisted an unseen lever and the device lit up.

"Brilliant!" Charles rubbed his hands together and arose to select a song.

"After all that, you'd better pick something good."

Charles sat back down. Mick Jagger began to sing Paint it Black.

Erik quite agreed.

Alex Summers walked through the prison corridor, flanked on either side by Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr. Either he was on a shockingly bland and linear acid trip, or he was finally getting out of prison.

They passed by the door to the east wing, where booking was. "Wait," said Alex, "what about my effects?"

Erik smirked. "I've heard you can create quite spectacular effects all on your own."

"Not effects, my effects, dumbass, my stuff. When you get out of jail, they give you back your stuff."

"Well," said Charles, "you may not actually be precisely eligible for release. Did I forget to mention that?"

"We may have forgotten to mention that," said Erik.

"I don't fucking care, faggots. I want my stuff back."

"Yes, well, perhaps we could discuss this further once you're done escaping. Mid-escape is a really poor time to reconsider such matters."

"But I-"

"Look kid, he needs to concentrate," Erik gestured at Charles, "or those guards are going to be really pissed off that you're not in your cell. So shut up and follow the leader."

Suddenly Charles turned down a different hallway. "Quickly, now, gentlemen. Mr. Summers' absence appears to have been noticed."

"What the fuck is going on!"

Charles grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and handed it to Alex. "Grab on tight. Both hands, there's a good chap. Stay still and say nothing." He turned to Erik. "Straight up, if you please."

The fire extinguisher rose, pinning Alex to the ceiling, moments before three guards walked past. "Hey! What are you two doing here?"

Charles' fingers went to his temple. "Visiting my brother's friend, Michael Montgomery. You see, my brother's in the service and I promised him that I would visit. He's been friends with Mickey since they were quite young. I never knew Mick too well myself, but I have to-"

The guard interrupted him, "That's...that's fine," and they jogged off down the hallway.

The fire extinguisher – Alex attached – floated back down to the ground. Charles grinned broadly. "That was pretty badass. We're pretty badass."

Alex pointed at Erik. "He's pretty badass. You're pretty...Jeeves."

Erik spun around and pinned Alex to the wall by his throat. He leaned in close, whispered something, then lowered the boy back to the ground.

"I apologize for my disrespect," said a stunned-looking Alex. "Thank you for, um, whatever it is you're doing."

"You're, ah, welcome," said Charles. Then he thought at Erik, What on earth did you say to him?

Erik thought back no words, only a smirk.

Only later did it occur to Charles that Alex may have had an item of personal significance in his effects, perhaps a letter or a photograph.

"Was there...er...something in particular that you wanted to retrieve from your effects?" he asked when they were safely in the car about 40 miles away from the compound.

"Yeah, my drumsticks."

"Your what?" That was not what Charles had been expecting.

"Yeah, those motherfucking cocksuckers took my drumsticks away and I want 'em back."

"Well that's just anatomically illogical, unless you're suggesting that their mothers were also hermaphrodites."

"Hang on now," said Erik, "maybe those are two separate activities done at different times."

"Or," replied Charles, "at the same time, but to two different people."

"Logistically challenging," said Erik.

"Strange family," said Charles.

"You guys are going to harvest my organs."

"Hardly. We're just having a spot of fun regarding your – shall we say – limited vocabulary." He turned back to Erik. "Now then, should we let him have drumsticks?" asked Charles. "Doesn't seem all that dangerous."

"He could take one and stab it up through someone's nose. That'll kill a guy."

"You speak from experience, I presume?"

Erik furrowed his brow. "Now why would I have had drumsticks?"

"I stand corrected."

"Regular sticks on the other hand..."

"Oh god, you guys really are going to take my organs," said Alex, shrinking further into the backseat.

"I feel like I should be doing something ominous at this point. Roll my eyes all the way back into my head, spit blood, something of that nature," said Charles.

"Well, we all have our limitations," said Erik.

"Indeed," replied Charles. "For example, one can be motherfucked or cocksucked, but not both."

Alex inched closer to the car door.

Erik raised his left hand – his right remained on the steering wheel – and sharply drew his fingers together. All of the locks in the car clicked.

"All right, you pussy-licking fags-"

"Again with the illogical combinations!" interrupted Charles. "Calm down, Mr. Summers. We have no designs on your organs. I know what you are and what you can do and I am not afraid of you. I would like to offer you a very simple deal. No profanity for the next," he looked at his watch, "three hours, and I will purchase you new drumsticks. If by that time you're not interested in working with us, we will drop you off wherever you like. We can even take you back to solitary if you prefer."

"And if I do swear?"

"Same deal, no drumsticks."

"The Doors are leagues better than The Who."

"Two words, fa-" Alex caught himself. "Two words, man. Keith Moon."

"He's just one guy, and a drummer can't carry a band."

"Jim Morrison is just one guy."

"Jim Morrison is a god, not a drummer."

Alex bit his tongue to hold back a stream of profanity. These better be the best fucking drumsticks in the world.

It was dark by the time they got back to the CIA headquarters. They had agreed it was best to escort Alex there personally, though their commitment to that premise had waned after Charles had purchased the agreed-up drumsticks and Alex began tapping them on every available surface.

"Alex, give it here." Charles held out his hand.

"Give what?"

"Alex, firstly, you're on bloody government property. Secondly, you're trying to lie to a telepath. If you're going to break rules, at least do so intelligently."

Alex scowled and pulled the small vial from his shoe, but said nothing.

"There's no need for language like that. And I'll have you know, my mother was a saint."

"No, she wasn't," said Raven, who had come out to greet the new recruit.

"You're not helping," said Charles to his sister. He turned back to Alex. "No hallucinogenic or stimulant drugs until we get your powers under control. Consider it motivation."

"So all we have left is the beatnik kid," said Erik.

"I believe Mr. Cassidy considers himself a hippie."

"What's the difference?"

"Hippies smell worse, but their music is better," said Charles. "No bongos."

Chapter Text

The drive to Boston seemed peaceful and serene, if for no other reason than they had left Alex Summers behind at the CIA facility.

"It isn't really fair," said Erik rather suddenly. "You know everything about me and I know very little about you."

"Well," said Charles, "I was exaggerating a bit when I said I knew 'everything.' I have the gist, not all the details." He paused. "But you're right, there is a certain asymmetry."

"That's putting it mildly."

"Well, go on then. Ask. I'll answer."

He wanted to ask, what do you know of pain, of fury, but the words weren't there, so he started with a schoolchild's standby, to test Xavier's honesty. "Tell me something embarrassing about yourself. The most embarrassing thing you can think of."

"All right." Charles shifted his gaze upward and to the left as he thought, then looked squarely back at Erik as he said, "Got it." He paused for effect. "My stepfather once caught me masturbating to a picture of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower."

"What?"

"You heard me. I'm not repeating it."

"I...well...I...guess that you...really, really...like Ike. I should get you one of those buttons."

"It wasn't..." Charles sputtered. "It was more..." He glared, not finishing either sentence.

Erik was forced to admit to himself that Charles was almost certainly telling the truth because he couldn't imagine anyone making up such a thing.

After a few moments of fiddling with the radio and suffering Erik's uncomfortable sideways glances, Charles spoke. "That's not really what you wanted to ask, though, is it?"

"I can tell you with great certainty that I wish I had never heard that answer."

"Well, you are the only living soul other than myself who knows that, so keep it under your hat."

"Believe me, if I could, I would purge it from my brain."

"Me too," said Charles, "me too."

Many minutes passed with the radio stuck on a classical station. Charles stared out the window and felt a bit like a child, for it had been a long time since he had been someone's passenger.

"All right," said Erik, "how about this question. If you and Raven are brother and sister, why do you have different accents?"

"Ah, that is a considerably better question, though I still think it is not what you wanted to ask. I lived in England with my mother and father until I was 5 years old. Then we moved to the United States. I met Raven there when I was 12 years old."

"You're 12 years older than her? You're older than you look."

"Ah, no, Raven and I are not genetic siblings. We sort of adopted one another. She was perhaps 5 years old at the time, so we're seven years apart."

"Perhaps 5 years old?"

"Well, she was about the size of a 5-year-old, and her mind seemed to the like a child of about that age, but she didn't know her age or her birthday or even a last name." He paused. "You haven't yet seen her innate form. It's blue and scaly and her hair and eyes look quite unnatural." Charles gazed absently out the window. "One summer we tried to investigate who her parents were or where she came from, but she remembered very little and we made no progress. I wanted to keep trying, but I realized she didn't want to."

"She wasn't curious?"

"Well, given the circumstances, it's almost certain that her parents abandoned her. I suppose she had no desire to revisit that. At any rate, we agreed she was 5 years old and made up a birthday for her and have proceeded with that premise ever since."

"So your parents just decided to have a little blue kid move in?"

"No, I adopted her, not them."

"They didn't notice another child around the house?"

"It was a very, very big house."

"Still, I would think..."

"At first I wanted to pass her off as my sister, but my powers weren't sufficiently developed to delude my mother in such a major way. So, instead everyone thought that she was one of the servants' children – yes, there were servants; don't look at me that way – and if anyone tried to think too hard about which one, they found themselves quite distracted. She had to stay transformed, of course, but I set her up in a nice room, quite near my own, and I took care of her. We took care of each other, actually."

"Raven said your mother was no saint," said Erik, further testing the waters.

"She wasn't even Catholic," quipped Charles. "I know, I know, that's not what you're asking. What Raven meant was that she was a drunk. She was a perfectly kindly drunk, but a drunk nonetheless. It made her rather...passive." He paused. "She didn't start drinking until after my father died. Actually, not until after she married my stepfather. But all of that happened before Raven became my sister, so she doesn't remember my mother any other way, whereas I remember quite a few sober years. Thus, we have different perspectives on the issue."

"So you're the only saint in the family."

"You don't think I'm a saint. You think I'm a fool."

"I don't think they're mutually exclusive."

Using Cerebro, Charles had found dozens of mutants, and they had discussed at some length which to recruit and which to ignore for the time being. The first criterion they had settled upon was age. They agreed that the individual had to be old enough to freely and independently decide whether or not to join. And they decided that the arbitrary legal age of majority, 18 years old, was a reasonable cut point, at least temporarily.

Sean Cassidy, as it happened, was a slight exception to their age criterion, being 17 years and 8 months old, but they agreed that he was quite independent, if not precisely mature. After graduating from high school, he had immediately moved out of his home to live with friends in a large communal space rather like a barn. His parents were apparently unperturbed by his lifestyle, as they welcomed him home each week for Sunday dinner.

Some of the new mutants were rejected for reasons of practicality, like a young North Korean man (getting him out of North Korea would be a quest in and of itself) or an American mother who was the sole provider for her 3 children. A few were put on the 'later' list because their powers were unlikely to be helpful in the immediate future, like a Guatemalan auto mechanic who could survive on sunlight alone.

And in pursuit of the final recruit they had agreed upon, Charles was driving along a dull and deserted stretch of highway. This irritated Erik, because Charles followed the speed limit.

"Wait, why are you getting off here? I thought Sean lived outside of Boston."

"He does," said Charles. "We're taking a little detour."

"No, we're not. We need to be ready for Shaw as soon as he surfaces. I know what you're after and I can most certainly bust up the car engine."

"Well that'd be a clever move. Without transportation, you'll be ready if Shaw strikes anywhere in a 200 meter radius."

They both glowered in silence.

"How about this:" said Charles, "it's less than an hour detour. We'll skip lunch – you never eat anyway – and still make it to Boston in the same amount of time."

Erik didn't answer.

Charles said, "When we were in the water, and I told you that you weren't alone, that meant something to you."

After a moment, Erik leaned back in his seat, resigned. "When we leave this place, I drive. As fast as I damn well please."

Meadowlands Asylum was set back a good distance from the highway. The grounds were large, but populated so thickly with pine trees and brambles, that it was difficult to imagine anyone taking a relaxing walk. Charles and Erik each wore index cards with the words Official Badge pinned to their shirts. Charles claimed this helped give focus to his telepathic projection. Erik suspected he just did it to be a bastard. Charles told an orderly to take them to Petra Sodano.

"The next one is Petra Sodano. She's 31 years old, but I don't think she'll be much use to us. She's a childhood schizophrenic."

"If she's 31, isn't that adulthood schizophrenia?" asked Erik.

"Childhood schizophrenia is quite different from regular schizophrenia. They don't have language, they do and say meaningless things over and over, they don't form social relationships. She's also retarded, which is quite typical that bunch."

"Well, what's her power?"

"She projects a field around her which causes normal humans – not mutants – discomfort, pain, and illness. The closer they get, the worse they feel. Apparently her parents were successfully training her to do simple tasks at home until this field emerged around age 13. They began to withdraw from her, she became hard to handle, and they institutionalized her."

"That could be incredibly useful," said Erik. "If we could just take her and test her and find out how it works, we might be able to recreate it, to keep the humans away when they turn on mutants."

Charles waited a beat before speaking softly and slowly. "You want to take someone with the mind of a child and subject her to tests she can neither understand nor consent to?"

He found Erik later, in the men's room, the place clearly stinking of vomit.

Charles had argued in favor of visiting Petra, not for recruiting her. "She has a very lonely mind," he said. Even the kindest nurses and orderlies tended to avoid her, to direct their ministrations elsewhere. They probably weren't even aware of doing it, but they had learned – gradually and unconsciously – that it was simply better to be elsewhere.

The orderly had the dazed, unfocused look that Erik had learned to associate with Charles' mind tricks. He unlocked the door, then walked away soundlessly.

The woman – Petra, presumably – crouched on the floor of her room. On her left was a bin full of 8.5 by 11 inch paper, mostly used record sheets and fliers. She picked up a single sheet and folded the paper over. She licked the fold, turned it inside out, then licked the fold again. She tore the paper at the crease, leaving behind a thin rectangle and a perfect square, 8.5 inches to a side. The room was full of stacks of paper squares. She added the newest one to a stack, then appeared to change her mind. She took it back and put it on a different pile. When Erik and Charles entered the room, she looked up as though startled, but she did not look in their direction. She tapped her finger on a bedpost.

"She has a good sense of rhythm," said Charles. "Perhaps we should have brought along Mr. Summers."

"Only if you want her first word to be 'cocksucker'." Erik remained near the doorway, uncomfortable.

"Hello, Ms. Sodano. My name is Charles Xavier and this is Erik Lensherr."

"Eee-eee-eee-eee." The sound was high-pitched and kept time with her finger-tapping.

"She doesn't understand what you're saying," said Erik. "Why don't you," he put two fingers to his temple to indicate telepathy.

"If she doesn't understand language, I won't be able to communicate to her the idea of a mutant, or even the idea that things will be better in the future. Those things are too abstract."

"Eee-eee-eee-eee."

"I've seen you manipulate emotions before. Could you just make her less lonely?"

"It would only last for a little while," said Charles. "I wanted to give her some hope."

Erik picked up the top square in a stack. "In my experience, feeling better for a little while is worth it." He returned the square to its place. Erik truly did not know whether he said that to push Charles to move along faster, to make his friend feel better about his failed efforts, or because it was true.

They continued to Boston. Erik drove, but only marginally exceeded the speed limit. Sean was by far their easiest recruit. By nature, he was laid back and a lover of the strange, traits which were only enhanced by his frequent substance use. He responded to their invitation with by asking if all of his friends could come along. When they purchased him a train ticket, he stared at it, grinning, before announcing that trains were groovy.

He also offered to share his stash of marijuana with them.

They found a motel and it occurred to Erik that once they left Boston, he would no longer have to share a room with Charles Xavier.

Erik was in a good mood.

Chapter Text

Erik lay flat on the floor of the hotel room. Above him, two daggers wielded by unseen hands parried one another.

Charles lay on the twin bed further from the door – the one he always claimed – and thumbed lazily through an embryology journal. He skimmed each article, noting only the broad gist.

"That's quite a show," Charles said.

Erik ignored him.

"Those are different from the knives I saw yesterday. How many do you have?"

"Always one more than you think I have."

"You know what's interesting?" asked Charles.

"I can't remember a time when you weren't talking."

"You know what's interesting?" repeated Charles, completely ignoring Erik's complaint.

The daggers continued to spar.

Charles took silence for permission, or at least acquiescence. "When I touched Petra's mind, it was very...unusual. Normal minds are ordered by narratives, by stories, by words. It actually makes it quite easy to project an image because I can just tell someone, 'You see a tree.' and that's plenty of information, but if I were going to project the same image to her, I would have to concentrate on every leaf, every twig, every shadow. I'm not entirely certain I could do it. Petra's mind is just her senses, without the hierarchy, the filtering, the meaning provided by language. Each thought is the thing itself, not the idea of the thing."

"Fascinating," said Erik.

"What is very interesting to me is that your mind is quite similar."

The daggers paused. "I think in words."

"Of course you do," said Charles, "for all of your current thoughts. But in your memories of the camps, of Shaw, there are few words, limited concepts, no narration. It's just...senses."

Erik sat up, the daggers now hovering near his head. "That's simply false, Charles. I'm perfectly capable of applying words to those things."

"I disagree."

"Not everyone talks as much as you do, Charles."

"You're claiming you have plenty of words; you just keep them to yourself."

"That's exactly right."

"Then prove it. Tell me about Schmitt."

"I want to kill him," said Erik.

"That's something about you. Tell me about Schmitt."

"He's...he's evil."

Charles nodded. "And?"

"And what? There's... he..." Erik's brow narrowed. "There was... He could..." His eyes scanned back and forth quickly, rather like a librarian searching for a book that was not where it should have been. "He was always... He had a mustache back then," he concluded lamely. "He doesn't have it anymore."

"You don't think it is just the slightest bit odd," said Charles, "that you have either been this man's captive or his hunter for well over half your life and all you're able to say about him is that he's evil and he had a mustache?"

Erik said nothing.

Charles batted at the daggers which now hovered at his throat. "Get these things away from me, please. We both know you're not going to kill me. And, ugh! This one has dried blood on it! Erik, that's terribly unhygienic."

The daggers returned to rest on the floor next to Erik. He stood. "Words are unimportant," he said. "You are soft and weak. Stories are for children. You understand nothing of Shaw."

"Oh, I'm sorry, you're in the wrong room."

Erik looked confused, then annoyed. This seemed to be a strategy Charles was fond of – when he was losing an argument, he would say or do something unpredictable.

Charles continued, his voice taking on a sarcastic edge, "You're looking for conference room C. That's where you'll find all of the other Holocaust survivors whose mutant powers manifested as they were being dragged from their last surviving family member, thereby catching the eye of a homicidal sadist who went on to imprison and torture them for years. Yes, I believe all of those individuals meet on Thursdays."

Erik felt a twitch in his right arm.

"My point is, Erik, not a person in the world has experienced what you have. But I happen to believe that I am in a rare, possibly unique, position to understand your life. As far as I know, there is only one other person in this world who can see through your eyes, feel through your skin, and think through your mind. She's made of rocks and she works for your nemesis." Charles' tone softened. "In contrast, I genuinely like you and, although we may not agree on the best method, I genuinely want you to be free from whatever hold Shaw still has over you."

Erik grabbed the room key and left, saying nothing.

When Erik returned, Charles was lying on his bed, over the covers, with the lights out. He was not asleep.

Erik lay down on his own bed, not even bothering to remove his shoes.

Each man stared at the ceiling in the dark.

Erik spoke first. "You said you experienced my 'agony'. I don't know if that is true or not. What I do not believe you can understand is what it is like to do something evil." Charles began to object, but Erik interrupted. "I don't mean cheating on a math test. I don't mean shoplifting a candy bar."

Charles' voice was very quiet. "I beat up Raven once. She was seven and I was fourteen. It was nothing close to a fair fight. I hurt her very badly."

"And I assume there was some kind of noble reason?"

"I told myself there was, but...that wasn't really true."

They had lain in silence for nearly in an hour.

"I am going to tell you two things," said Charles, suddenly. "One that very few people know, and one that no one else knows."

"What are you going on about?"

"It's not meant as comparison or counterpoint to your experiences. I'm just answering the questions you wanted to ask in the car, earlier today. And because I believe we are friends and because it is unfair for you to be so exposed before me and I for I to then offer nothing in return."

Erik said nothing. He did not complain about having his mind read (or being the subject of one of Charles' suspiciously accurate deductions). He had felt oddly tame since returning to the room.

"The thing that very few people know is that I used to get kicked around on a regular basis by my step-father and my younger brother."

"You got beat up by your little brother?" asked Erik.

"Younger brother."

"Younger brother, little brother...what's the difference?"

"About a hundred pounds! Minimum!"

Erik chuckled.

"My step-father – his name was Kurt Marko – married my mother about a year after my father died. He was really just interested in my family's money. He was a very...ill-tempered man. He brought along with him a son named Cain. Now I ask you, who in their right mind names a child Cain? That's really just asking for trouble."

Charles continued, "Kurt was...gentler with me than he was with Cain. My mother, being intoxicated a great deal of the time, was not all that concerned with much of the proceedings, but she would certainly notice if I were maimed or killed. So there were limits. He could only push so far with me. Not so with Cain. He could do whatever he damn well pleased to Cain. And Cain knew it, and he resented it. Or rather, he resented me."

"Why didn't you use your powers?" asked Erik.

"I was just beginning to hear thoughts. I couldn't control people or suggest things yet."

"Were they...aggressive with Raven?"

"No, she was...well, she was rather beneath their notice. I know that sounds awful, but as long as she stayed out of the way, they would have no reason to interact with her at all," said Charles. He paused. "So that is something very few people know about me. Something no one knows about me is that I could have left the Markos behind four years earlier than I did. I had a scholarship to Eton – that's a boys' school in Britain – but I couldn't take it."

"Because of Raven," said Erik.

"Indeed. She could pass as a boy, of course, but she couldn't enroll in Eton and she certainly didn't talk or act like a high schooler. And I would have had to live in dormitories, which cut off a lot of options." He sighed. "So anyway, we moved to Britain four years later. It all worked out." Charles rolled to his side to face Erik. "You must swear to me you will never tell Raven. I never let her see the scholarship letter. She would feel quite badly about it."

Erik swore.

Chapter Text

Interlude – Duet at 14 Years of Age

Erik Lensherr is running as fast as he is able.

His stride is long. He is not wearing shoes and so he expects a sting with each footfall. He does not expect the pain that radiates up the bones in his legs. If he had been attending school, he might have known that sunlight spurs production of vitamin D, without which bones grow brittle. But he has not been attending school; he has been living in a dark pit.

When the guards came for him this time, he was ready. He had palmed a shell casing and had spent many nights reshaping the metal into a dozen thin shards. He had counted his footsteps to know when the door was near, then flung the metal wide with his mind, scattered it with force and speed like birdshot.

Erik runs between two buildings. He pulls off his pants – his lack of shoes is convenient in this respect – and draws from within them a skirt. He knows from the footsteps that guards are nearly upon him. He steps into the skirt, kicks the pants under the wall, and falls dead into the dust.

He wishes for rain. He would sink farther into the ground. I am a dead woman, he thinks, lest his thoughts betray him. I am a dead woman. He wills his body perfectly still and silent. He is not certain where they will take him if they think he is a corpse. He suspects that bodies are burned, but this is no deterrent. Dead is another kind of free.

A guard kicks his side to turn him over. I am a dead woman he thinks and he makes no sound. The guard snorts, grabs his right arm to drag him away. I am a dead woman. I am a dead woman. It is working.

And then another guard arrives. "What are you doing?" he says. "That's Schmitt's catamite."

Erik does not know the word 'catamite', but he does know the word 'Schmitt'. He remembers his father's last words to him. They were practical, for Erik's father was a practical man. "Defend your mother. Defend your sister. Defend yourself. If you must fight them, there is no fair fight. Go for the eyes." Erik's mother is dead. Erik's sister is dead. Erik is alive. So Erik leaps to his feet, clawing and biting. He is swarm. He is legion. There is a terrible cracking sound as the second guard grabs onto his right arm as well.

They march him back to his pit, to his cell. The guard on the left holds his right arm. The guard on the right holds his left. The right arm, the broken one, is pressed to his chest. Erik is fearful. Schmitt will be angry, not just because he tried to escape, but also because he failed. Failure does not become a god.

Charles Francis Xavier is running as fast as he is able.

He times his breathing to his steps, keeps his arms tight, concentrates on keeping his left foot straight – it always wants to turn to the side. It feels good to run. He had given up football – no, soccer, stupid Americans – and wrestling because his mind reading powers gave him an unfair advantage, but running is simple. He tags a maple tree. "Okay, Raven, how fast was that?"

She turns the pocketwatch around in a circle. "Show me which one's the seconds again."

He laughs. "Don't worry about it." He clambers onto a boulder and finds that he can just barely reach the branch overhead. Climbing feels good too.

"Do you have to go to your stupid thing tonight?" asks Raven.

"I want to go to it," says Charles. "Come on, Raven, please? It's just one night I want to spend with kids my own age."

"Who's gonna read me my chapter?"

"Ok, first of all," he says, "you're perfectly capable of reading it yourself. And second, I'll read you a chapter when I get home. I'm not going to be that late. It's just a school dance." He helps her down off of the boulder. "I'll tell you what. I'll read you two chapters."

"Three."

And he chases her back up to the house. They are both running and they are both laughing and Charles bookmarks just how much of Caddie Woodlawn he plans to read to her when he gets back that night.

Erik is brought to Schmitt's office. He does not struggle. He knows he is going to be punished and there is something relaxing about certainty.

The guards leave him with Schmitt.

"Sit down, Erik. We must tend to your arm."

Erik sits. The relaxing certainty is gone.

Shaw prods at Erik's arm, testing for tenderness and pain. He determines that the fracture cracked, but did not split, the bone. It does not need to be set. He splints it with slats of wood and a long strip of cloth. Schmitt is a doctor, after all.

"Now that we have dealt with that unpleasantness," Schmitt claps his hands together, "I have a present for you, Erik."

Now there is an opposite certainty. Something very terrible is going to happen.

"It's your birthday, Erik. You're fourteen years old."

Erik has lost all sense of the date. Sometimes, when he is in his cell for weeks and weeks, he loses track of day and night.

Schmitt hands him a box, wrapped in blue paper. Erik waits for instruction. If this is a trap, he will not run headlong into it.

"Open it, Erik," says Schmitt. "I think you will like it."

Erik is not sure what 'it' is. He removes the paper to find a very thin wooden box, almost as thin as a picture frame, with glass where the lid should be. There are tiny metal knobs on the sides. Inside, he sees thousands of tiny black lines. They wiggle, like bugs.

Schmitt takes the box from Erik, saying, "Let me show you how it works." He removes a magnet from his desk, one he has used for testing Erik before. He moves the magnet over the glass and the black lines follow in an obedient line. He puts the magnet away, hands the box back to Erik. "Now you do it."

Erik traces a line with his finger. This is easy. The tiny lines of metal are small and light and near. He makes a circle. He makes a square.

"Now," says Herr Doktor, "I will show you something else." He takes the box again and takes a battery out of his desk. He strings wires from the battery to the knobs on the box. Suddenly the little pieces of metal take on a shape. They form lines, arcs, like a rainbow of grey upside down and rightside up.

Erik is genuinely interested. The battery moves the metal, just like he does.

Schmitt puts the box away, but Erik is not too disappointed – once he saw the metal knobs, he knew that he would not get to keep it. Schmitt again reaches into his desk and pulls out a piece of tagboard with a light bulb in a ceramic socket attached. A wire runs from one of the socket leads to the other, forming a coil in between, but there is no power source, and the bulb is dark. Schmitt takes out his magnet again and threads it through the coil. "Watch closely," he says, as he shakes the magnet back and forth. When he shakes the magnet, the light bulb glows.

Erik has forgotten about punishment. There is no battery, but the light bulb glows.

"What can we learn from these things, Erik?"

"The...the electricity makes the magnet, and the magnet makes the electricity."

"Excellent," says Schmitt, his voice delighted, "you are a very clever boy."

They are in Raven's room. Charles is dressed up, just showered, clearly full of nervous energy.

"Tell me the rules for tonight again," he says.

"I know the rules," says Raven.

"Please?" he asks, simply.

She pouts, but playfully. She ticks her fingers as she speaks. "Stay in my room. Don't make noise. Don't transform. Stay away from Cain and Kurt."

"Thank you," says Charles. "I'll only be a couple of hours."

And then he's off and he meets up with Frank and Robbie and it's not much farther to the high school.

Everyone is awkward and everyone is shy, but Charles genuinely likes to dance and he likes the music – big band swing. Even so, it takes many minutes of teasing and encouragement from his friends before he will approach Annette Walker and ask her to dance. Charles is not a good dancer, but he is an adequate one (the best lessons money can buy) and that is more than can be said for most ninth grade boys, so he soon finds that he has the attention of quite a lot of girls who are pleased to find a partner who doesn't step on their feet.

Charles uses his powers to match the right compliment to the right girl. If she's worried about her braces, he tells her she has a beautiful smile. If she thinks all eyes are on her prettier friend, he tells her that he noticed her first thing. If she thinks boys are all shallow, he asks her about her classes. He will, in time, come to ponder the ethical implications of mind reading for this purpose, but tonight is not for pondering. Tonight is for dancing and girls and free cigarettes.

Erik is on the clean table, with straps on his arms and his legs.

"If electricity and magnetism are the same thing," says Schmitt, "you should be able to control them both."

Erik does not know what is coming, but he thinks to himself, The electricity makes the magnet and the magnet makes the electricity. He sees the electricity machine out of the corner of his eye. He knows they use it on dead people sometimes, to make their muscles move. There is cold and metal and tape on the top of Erik's right foot. He cannot see what it is. Herr Doktor is in the way. Then Schmitt moves and Erik can see it is a wire from the electricity machine and Schmitt is putting one on the bottom of his foot as well.

Erik has an insane impulse to ask Schmitt what a catamite is.

"The electricity," says Schmitt, "wants to go from one wire to the other. It will take the shortest path, which goes through your foot. I want you to move the electricity, make it go around you instead of through you." And without a pause, he says, "50 volts," and someone flips a switch and oh god that hurts.

The electricity makes the magnet and the magnet makes the electricity.

Erik tries to feel the electricity, the way he can feel metal. It is very small and very light and he ought to be able to move it. Someone is saying numbers and it hurts very badly and he knows he mustn't, mustn't, mustn't move the wires or the machine. He has to find the electricity. He saw it with his own eyes, didn't he? A magnet can make electricity. Electricity can make a magnet. They are the same thing and again and the pain is making it very hard to think. He used to beg but he does not beg anymore. Begging does not behoove a god. Where is the electricity? Why can't he see it? There is a foul smell and Erik sees there is smoke from his foot.

The numbers are very high and Erik screams and the wires fly across the room.

The guards take him back to his cell.

There is evening, and there is morning, and Erik is on the clean table again.

There are many days like this. Erik doesn't even want to count them because counting is numbers and the numbers hurt. Schmitt puts the wires in different places. The skin on Erik's right foot is too burnt to feel pain.

Erik can't find the electricity anywhere. He can't see it. He can't feel it. And he is alone in Schmitt's office and instead of looking for food or keys or weapons, he grabs the dictionary and looks up 'catamite' and no he is not.

Charles is bouncing on the balls of his feet with every second step, as if he can't quite stop dancing yet. As he makes his way to the mansion's main entrance, he is pleased to the point of delirium.

"Hey! Charlie-boy!" Cain is sitting on the very edge of the step, awkwardly balanced. He must've gotten whipped and now he is spoiling for a fight.

Charles threads his fingers together behind his head, as though relaxing. "Cain," he says, "I am having such a fine evening, even you can't wreck it."

Cain hops down from the step and Charles wonders how somebody who doesn't even shave yet can be so huge.

"What do you want, Cain?"

"I want you to stop being so goddamn high and mighty."

Charles wonders why Cain never wants something he could actually provide, like help with homework or a pony. And while Charles is wondering, Cain pins his arms behind his back. Cain braces with his left foot and uses his right to sweep Charles' legs. With no arms, Charles lands on his knees with a sickening crack.

"Why don't you pick on somebody your own size? Like a walrus!"

Charles does not want to raise his head, but he does, and he sees exactly what he does not want to see: Raven leaping from the railing, teeth bared in an attempt to eke as much fierceness as possible from 60 pounds.

Cain catches her by the throat. Raven is clawing at his hand, her feet kicking ineffectually.

Charles tries hitting Cain, telling him to stop. He tries yelling, "Go to sleep," but it doesn't work, maybe because of whatever is so strange about Cain or maybe because they are brothers or maybe because Charles is too upset to concentrate. Raven is turning blue. Not blue like oxygen deprivation, but blue like her skin. And Charles really doesn't know how far Cain will go and what happens if Cain sees Raven for what she is and Charles yells, "DIE!"

Cain crumples, his grip on Raven's throat falling away. There is blood trickling from his eyes, ears, mouth, nose.

Erik hears the numbers again, hears the switch being thrown. At first he thought, The electricity makes the magnet and the magnet makes the electricity, but now all he can think is, I am a dead boy. The machine hums and his body shakes and his muscles clench.

He has tried to imagine the electricity. He has tried to listen for it as it moves. He can feel pain when it pushes through his skin. He can smell it. He has tasted it burning his tongue. But it is not like the metal. He cannot sense it.

I am a dead boy, he thinks. He imagines that he is one of the dead bodies whose muscles are made to move with the machine.

And then suddenly, for just one instant, he sees it. It's like a lightning strike. Everything is visible for just one moment. But once he sees it, he knows it's there and the pain helps him claw his way back to it. Everything has a direction. When the metal moves, he moves the directions in the air, in the earth. The magnets have a direction. The electricity has a direction.

And he can shape it. He can change the direction of the wires, of the air. The electricity moves away from his skin in an arc above it.

"This is beautiful, beautiful!" cries Schmitt, and Erik agrees. The air crackles. It is like seeing for the first time.

Erik eats his dinner with Schmitt. They eat good food. There is nothing to say and they do not speak.

When Erik is returned to his cell, he feels something strange in himself. His heart does not beat so fast. Air reaches the bottom of his lungs. His mouth tastes like spit instead of dust.

He is at peace.

Charles can't hear anyone's thoughts; his blood is too loud in his ears. He remembers the Bible story where Cain and Abel are brothers and one kills the other and then asks if he's his brother's keeper.

He yells at Raven, "Why didn't you just follow the rules?" and he hits her face with the back of his hand. He is not as strong as his brother, but he is strong enough to knock her over.

He is a murderer. He has killed his own brother. He's not his brother's keeper. He's supposed to be Raven's keeper and keep her secret and keep her safe but she's not careful and he has to stay close to fix her mistakes. And if it wasn't for her, he would be at Eton and he wouldn't have to deal with Kurt or Cain and he would be able to study and play sports and go out with friends. She doesn't follow the rules and she's not careful and he has killed his brother and if it wasn't for her, he would be far away from all of this.

Charles looks down at his feet and he sees they are kicking Raven, over and over again. She is blue and she is crying. She can't maintain her human form anymore. She can't go back into the house like this.

Charles doesn't look at her. He says, "Go down to the stables. I'll come for you later."

She gets up, staggers off.

Charles vomits into the bushes, over and over again even after his stomach is empty. Is he going to go to jail? He can't. Who would look after Raven? Maybe they can live as hoboes or steal a lot of money. He killed his brother. He is suddenly aware of how Raven looked, lying on the ground, getting kicked in the face and the gut. His stomach retches again and his blood is very loud.

Erik is nearly asleep when Herr Doktor enters his cell. Schmitt stands behind him, grabs his hair, and whispers in his ear, "Don't think I forgot that you tried to escape."

And Schmitt is gone. In his place is a guard, one Erik has seen before. His name is Beier.

Everything has a direction and Erik can see Beier's direction and Erik's mouth tastes like dust again.

Things became very much worse after that.

I am a dead boy.

Cain coughs. Charles never thought to check his pulse. Charles leaves him, relieved to know that he can't kill with his thoughts and terrified to know that he is a murderer in his heart.

Charles walks to the stables, where he finds Raven trying to staunch her nosebleed with straw. He lies next to her and reads to her from a dressage manual and says he's sorry until she has slept enough, regained enough strength to transform again. Any other time, he might be bothered that his mother does not bother to ask where he has been or why he is carrying a bloody girl, but now he is glad that she has passed out in the parlor.

He has his real sister and when she wakes up, she asks for chapters of Caddie Woodlawn and he knows that this sin can be forgiven, even if it does not deserve to be.

Chapter Text

They were in a cramped military aircraft approaching Soviet airspace by way of the Arctic Circle.

"I think I got the better code name," said Charles.

"Sure, nothing says flashpoint military operations like 'schoolteacher'." Erik does not look up from his crossword puzzle.

"But it's got that X in there."

"So?"

"X is a very good letter. It's got mystery," said Charles. "It's where pirates bury their treasure." He paused, then added lamely, "It's also used in maths."

"Well, that'll strike fear in the hearts of our enemies."

"You do realize that your code name is a combination of the words magnet and neat-o, right?"

Erik looked up. He had not, in fact, realized this.

Charles continued. "It rhymes with incognito, sure, but less impressively, it also rhymes with mosquito and burrito."

"Charles, are you reading my mind right now?"

"What? No, of course not."

Erik's eyes narrowed and he thought something very loudly.

"Oh, all right then. No need for that," said Charles, subdued. He muttered, "Spoilsport."

They were in a cramped military aircraft leaving Soviet airspace by way of the Arctic Circle.

Charles said, "I have a new game for us to play. It's called, The next time you go running into a Soviet military camp like a one-man pack of wolves, how about you give me some bloody warning?!"

Before Erik could protest that he did give some warning, their captive spoke up. "I've got some games we could play that would be a lot more fun," she said.

Erik growled. "Why won't you let me gag her?"

"I didn't say don't gag her, I said don't cut out her tongue."

A stray seatbelt, propelled by its metal buckle, pressed Emma Frost up to the bulkhead by means of her jaw.

As soon as they landed, they got word of the attack. Charles was horrified by the scope of the devastation. Erik was furious they missed Shaw. "Now do you see what we're dealing with?" he said.

"I don't decide who lives and dies," replied Charles. "That's not a power men should have."

"You don't think you'd make better decisions than Shaw?"

"I think if I made that decision, I would be no better than Shaw."

"Why do you own a house in the United States?" asked Erik.

"House isn't really the right word," said Raven. "It's a mansion. Seriously, you're not going to believe how huge it is."

Charles sighed and turned to Erik. "Do you recall my mentioning that I am disgustingly wealthy?"

"That was in a strip club. I thought you were just trying to impress the girls."

Simultaneously, Raven said, "When were you in a strip club?" and Charles said, "The whole point of a strip club is that you don't have to impress the girls."

"Where did you get all this money?"

"Mostly inheritance, combined with a little judicious investing." Charles took in Erik's look of distaste. "Oh, and cheating at roulette is so much more noble."

Raven stood in the doorway of her brother's quarters.

He smiled at her. "Are you having fun showing off all the old passageways?"

She smiled back. "Yeah, Sean is stuck in a dumbwaiter." She shrugged. "We'll get him out later."

"How are you holding up?" He gestured for her to sit down. "After that attack, I-"

"I'm fine." Raven shook her head. "Well, I'm not fine, but that's not really what I came to talk to you about."

Charles waited.

"It's about Erik. You...spend a lot of time with him and-"

"Am I neglecting you? I promise I will set aside some time just for us."

"No, that's not what I meant." She paused, trying to find a better way to explain. "Erik is kind of...scary."

"Well, he-"

"More than kind of scary. Even Alex is afraid of him. I heard Moira talking on the phone to somebody and she was saying that he killed, like, a dozen people at that Soviet place.

Charles sighed. "You've seen the numbers on his arm? You know what they mean?"

"Yes, Charles. Just because I'm not as smart as you doesn't mean I'm stupid."

"Well, he has reason to be rather bitter."

"Yes, but you do this thing where you get really focused on why something is the way it is, and you forget that it is the way it is. You used to do it all the time with the Markos. You'd explain on and on why they act the way they do and act like it was some kind of a solution. You think because you know all about a problem, you've solved it."

Charles furrowed his brow. "What exactly is your worry?"

"I don't know. But the fact that you're not worried really concerns me. You should be a little frightened, not weirdly obsessed."

"I'm not obsessed."

"Yes you are, but that's not my point. I would feel a lot better if I thought you understood the danger."

"I suppose we have different ideas about what constitutes danger."

Erik sat in the library, moving the chess pieces around the board. He was playing both sides of a game that looked to be headed toward an unimaginative stalemate.

He didn't like this house, this mansion, this fucking castle. He didn't like the fine rugs on the floors or the real paintings on the walls. Charles said he hadn't lived here for over a decade, but the place was in good repair; nothing was dusty. Charles must have hired people to clean and maintain it in his absence and Erik hated that too. He even hated this fucking chess set, with its heavy pieces of polished marble.

"I didn't know you played chess," said Charles, leaning on the doorframe.

"I thought you knew everything."

"Yes, well, sometimes I feign ignorance to blend in with mere mortals."

Erik snorted.

"You know," said Charles, "Alex is uncomfortable here, too. He walks straight down the middle of the hallways, lest he brush against either of the walls and somehow break something. Conversely, Mr. Cassidy observed, and I quote, 'The statues have peckers.' He then spent the next hour and a half wandering the halls giggling at artwork."

"Wonderful."

"I didn't read your mind. When we passed through the kitchen on Raven's little tour, I saw you glance in the pantry. You looked...well, nauseated, actually. One never quite gets used to plenty, I imagine."

"Why is there even food here? You told me you haven't lived here for over a decade."

"I sent word ahead and asked the housekeeper to stock up." Charles examined Erik's expression. "Oh, that bothers you too. These people are not slaves. They're treated well. In fact, I've kept them on for the most part because I want them to have jobs."

"Fine."

"Would you like to see the ledgerbook? Would you like to talk to one of them? I told them to take several days' vacation because I assumed we wanted privacy, but I can certainly invite one to tea." Charles took Erik's silence as judgment. He felt rather defensive, particularly given the number of Erik's crimes he had overlooked. "Look, as far as I'm aware, our only other option would be harvesting squash on Sean's commune. This place doesn't smell like patchouli and offers far more privacy." Charles stepped back from the door. "Come with me. I want to show you something."

Erik tipped over the white king and stood. "You've made your point."

"This is something different."

Erik followed Charles back to the room he had been assigned. "This house was built on a Victorian model," said Charles, "which means lots of back passageways between rooms." They entered Erik's room. "I chose this room for you specifically because of this." He gestured to an off-white panel of wall.

"It's a wall."

"Go on, sense it."

Erik extended his right hand, fingertips spread. "There's...there's something running the whole length of the wall, but it's not hollow like a pipe."

"Precisely." Charles pressed into the corner of the panel with his shoulder. "Damn, it's stuck." He tried approaching with more momentum, but his efforts only yielded a sore shoulder. "You want to give it a try?"

Erik shrugged, waved his hand and the panel spun ninety degrees.

"You could have done that before I hurt my arm."

"I could have."

"Well, at any rate, most of the passages around here lead to central areas, like to the coal room and the basement, and of course you can get to the outside from there, especially if you're willing to crawl through a coal chute. But this one leads directly to a small cabin by the stables." Charles grinned, pleased with himself. "Your very own escape route."

Erik peered down the narrow hall. He felt his heart rate slow and the muscles in his arms relax just slightly. He looked back at Charles. He meant to say thank you, but the words weren't there, just as when he'd tried to describe Schmitt.

"You're welcome," said Charles. "Dinner is in an hour."

Chapter Text

"I want to practice deflecting things." Erik had donned a grey sweatsuit, like the others.

"I think that's an excellent idea," said Charles.

"I want you to shoot me in the face."

"Have you ever noticed how you take things that are reasonable and make them disturbing?"

"It'd be a great way to train my reflexes."

"It's not about reflexes, it's about trying to make yourself invulnerable, commit suicide, or both."

"Do you badger all the others this way?"

"I assure that I have been equally unnerved every time in my life that someone has asked me to shoot them in the face."

"Are the suits going to have capes?" asked Charles.

"Capes?" said Hank. "I thought you wanted protection from G-forces, from projectile impacts...I don't think a cape would help with that unless it was more of a tower shield and that's not really a cape and-"

"Don't mind my brother." Raven rolled her eyes. "He just wants to look like Superman or something. When we were kids, he used to run around with a towel tied around his neck."

"I was running to get away from you," said Charles in a faux-nasty tone.

"Uh-huh." She looked skeptical. "And the towel?"

"Style."

There was a sound like a knock at the door, but it wasn't a sound and it wasn't at the door.

Erik? Charles spoke directly into the other man's mind.

Are you in my head?

Not reading anything, I promise. I was just hoping that you would come down to the library and join me for a game of chess.

Erik agreed, felt Charles withdraw from his mind. It was a vaguely, briefly lonely feeling and Erik wondered if Charles created it on purpose. He entered the library to find the board already arranged and two glasses of brandy poured.

"What would you have done if I said no?"

"Enjoyed quite a lot of brandy."

"Don't. You're a...strange drunk."

Charles walked over to the record player. He lifted the needle. "What kind of music do you want?"

Erik looked up quickly, as though startled. "I-I don't care."

"You must have some preference."

"I really don't care at all." Charles almost missed it. The tremor in Erik's right arm was too fine to be seen with the naked eye. But Erik was holding a glass of brandy and the tiny waves in the amber liquid were unmistakable.

"You're a shitty liar, you know that? We spent about twenty hours in a car together bickering over the radio and now all of a sudden it's all the same to you?"

"I could be mistaken, but this does not look like a game of chess." Erik turned the board around. "You be white, go first."

Alex walked into the kitchen to see Sean seated between Charles and Erik, eating a bowl of cereal.

"Lever," said Erik.

"Leee-ver," replied Charles, saying the word with an exaggerated long-e sound.

Erik shook his head. "Leh. Ver."

"Leeever."

Sean turned around to face Alex. "Just keep walking, man. Just keep walking."

Charles placed the gun on the table in front of Erik.

"What's this?"

"A slight variation to your shoot-me-in-the-face plan. It's a BB gun. I knew I had to have one in the basement somewhere."

Erik lifted the weapon, examined it carefully.

Charles continued, "If you fail to deflect it, it will be painful and may even cause some tissue damage, but it won't kill you."

Erik put it down. "It won't work."

"Why the hell not? I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of that."

"I'll know it's not real."

"I could fix that."

"I could force your little toy down your throat."

"Kinky," said Charles.

The barrel of the BB gun crumpled inward.

"I gotta ask, man," said Alex, "Where do you keep getting all these mannequins?" He pointed to the human figures at the other end of the fallout shelter.

"Mannequin room," said Charles.

"Fine then, don't tell me."

"No, really. There's a room in the east wing, second floor. It's full of mannequins, maybe one hundred or so. It's been that way for as long as I can remember. I think they might have been there when my family moved in." He sighed. "I'm just glad they're finally getting put to good use."

Chapter Text

Seventeen is a weird age. You're done with high school, but you're still not legally an adult. One thing I don't get is what you're supposed to call people. Adults call each other by their first names. Kids call adults Mr. or Mrs. Somebody. But there's not a clear cutpoint, an age where you switch from one to the other. So when I met these guys at the aquarium, I wasn't sure whether to call them Mr. Xavier and Mr. Lensherr or Charles and Erik.

My mom said you never go wrong erring on the side of being more polite, so I tried calling the one guy, the short one, Mr. Xavier, but then his sister (who is really hot, by the way) says, "That's Doctor Xavier to you!" at the same time the guy says, "Just Charles, please." So now I really don't know what to do. I try to avoid saying their names. Once Dr. Xavier's sister codenamed him Professor X, I started calling him The Professor in my head, because he really does sound kind of like a teacher, which is weird because he's not like any teachers I've ever met.

The other guy, in my head I call him Mr. Lensherr. I haven't really had much of a reason to talk to him out loud, and I'm fine with that. He's always staring at something and it's kind of creepy. The reality is, I'm kind of a nervous guy. I always want to look before I leap. Actually, I'd rather not leap at all, when you get right down to it. If I'm really honest with myself, I think it's part of why I smoke so much grass. It makes me less anxious.

Hey, here's a question for you. If you put eight people in a room, all ages seventeen to – I don't know, those guys can't be more than like 35, how many do you think have two living parents who they're on speaking terms with? The answer is one, just one.

The Professor and his sister are orphans. Alex grew up in foster care and doesn't have any contact with his birth parents or his foster parents. Angel says she doesn't talk to her family and she wouldn't say anything else about it. I don't really know for sure about Mr. Lensherr – I'm sure as hell not asking him – but Raven told me that he survived the Holocaust, which I guess explains all the staring. Now I kind of feel bad for thinking he was creepy. Darwin's mom thought he was some kind of demon or something and kicked him out. He said he talks to his dad on the phone sometimes, like at Christmas, but that's it. I talked with Hank for a while over lunch about his parents. Hank said that when he was born with his feet all weird, his dad figured that his mom must have cheated so he left them both. I get the feeling Hank's mom wasn't too happy with the situation either, because of the way Hank said stuff. Like, instead of, "I went to college," it was "they sent me off to college." I notice stuff like that.

I notice a lot of things, in fact. People must think that being a stoner makes you blind and deaf or something, because they don't expect me to see what's right in front of my face. I notice that Darwin always keeps his back to the wall. I notice that Hank keeps looking at Raven and scratching his scalp. I notice that Mr. Lensherr pockets sugar packets when he thinks no one's looking.

But then there's me. I have a great family and it's not that I wasn't thankful for them before, but man, I am really thankful for them now when I see how much worse things could be. I mean, I knew stuff like that happened, but I never saw so much of it in one place. I have two parents and an older brother and a younger brother and three younger sisters. My older brother, Tom, is just one year older than me, but we finished high school together because when he was in the ninth grade, he got mono and he missed a ton of school and had to repeat the grade. Anyways, my mom always trained my brothers and me up right. Once we were maybe eleven or twelve, she said that we were becoming men and we had to think about what sort of men we wanted to be. That worked on almost everything. Do we want to be the sort of men who get ahead by cheating? Do we want to be the sort of men who keep their commitments? And so on and so forth.

When I first started breaking glass with my voice, my mom treated it like it was nothing important, like I was just double jointed or something. At first my dad was a little freaked out, but my mom stared at him and after maybe a minute, he said, "I want to be the sort of man who stands by his son." Besides Tom calling me Soprano Sean, nobody in my family has given me any grief about it and Tom's just teasing. Nothing like what the others talk about. I wondered if maybe my mom was a mutant, too, and her power was that she could make people feel guilty by staring at them. I asked the Professor, but he laughed and said, "No, that's just Catholicism."

I think a lot now about what kind of man I want to be. When that demon-looking guy and the man in the helmet – Shaw – showed up, I was very strongly in favor of the hide-under-furniture plan. And then we saw all these guys falling out of the sky. I thought about what my next phone call to my mom would be like: 'So, Sean, are all the CIA agents on the ground where they belong?' 'Well, they're on the ground now...there was a little detour...' Okay, so the conversation probably wouldn't have gone like that but it's really hard to think when people are dying all over the place. I really didn't do much to help in that fight, but I did stay with them. I didn't run away. That's got to count for something. I know the man I want to be isn't a coward.

So now we're staying at the Professor's estate, which is closer to Boston than the CIA place, so I'm thinking maybe I can go home for a visit in a week or two. I like things okay here. I think the person I liked the best was Darwin, but he's dead. So one day I'm in this room (the rooms all have names, but I don't know them) and I'm on my knees and there's Mr. Lensherr in the doorway.

"What are you saying?" he says.

And okay, even though I feel guilty about it now, I'm still kind of creeped out by him, but the man I want to be is brave, so I take a deep breath and I answer him. "I'm praying."

"I guessed that. What are you saying?"

"It's...um...it's the prayer for Saint Michael the Archangel. He was my confirmation saint, so I had to memorize it."

"I see."

"And that teleporting guy, I know the Professor says he's just a mutant like us, but he kind of looks like a demon and the prayer makes me feel less afraid."

"Will you say it aloud, so I can hear you?"

"Um, sure. It's, Saint Michael the Archangel / defend us in ba-a-ttle." I learned it as a song, so even though I'm saying it now, I can't help but stretch the words out the way the song does. "Protect us against the wickedness / and snares of the devil. / Oh may God rebuke him / we hum-bul-ly pray. / And do thou O prince / of the heavenly host / by the power of God / cast into hell Satan / and all the evil spirits / who prowl through the world / seeking the ruin of souls."

Mr. Lensherr doesn't say anything.

I'm not sure if I've pissed him off. Why does he want to hear my prayers?

"I like it," says Mr. Lensherr. Then he turns around and leaves without saying goodbye.

I've never known whether that last part of the prayer meant spirits that ruin souls or spirits that go to, like, soul ruins. Like Stonehenge with souls or something.

I say the prayer again. I'm supposed to try flying today.

Chapter Text

Erik had no time for art for its own sake. He had learned to draw just well enough to sketch the faces of people he was hunting so that he could inquire after them. And faces was all he could draw. He would be just as stymied as anyone else trying to recreate a tree or a bicycle. He didn't bother drawing Azazel. He would never need to show a picture around to track him. He had drawn Riptide and Emma Frost after he saw them on the boat, but that was only a brief look in poor lighting. Having gotten a much lengthier look at Ms. Frost while they returned from the Soviet military encampment, Erik had formed a more accurate, more detailed mental image. He retrieved his original drawing and began to make adjustments. Pull the eyes closer together. More definition in the chin. He could see it perfectly.

He paused in his drawing, as though interrupted. Maybe Charles was right. Maybe his mind was...sensory. No, he had plenty of words for Emma Frost (including a new word he had recently learned from Alex Summers). He just knew how to focus his mind, store the most important details, retain everything he needed to know.

"Are you practicing?" said Charles.

"No, I usually tie my shoes in one take," said Erik, finishing the right foot and switching to the left.

"I meant, are you religious at all?"

"No."

"Then you won't mind if we have eggs and bacon for breakfast?"

"As long as Alex stops reaching over me."

"Well, I can't promise you his manners will improve, but perhaps I can rearrange the seating." Charles paused. "Has religion ever been important to you?"

"Yes."

"But not now?"

"Right."

"I only ask because Mr. Cassidy told me that you were watching him pray."

Erik said nothing.

"It's normal to want meaning, even to take comfort in what's meaningful to others."

"I don't."

"You don't what?"

"I don't take comfort in it."

"Do you want meaning?" asked Charles.

"You're the one who sees symbols in everything. Meaning is a way people placate themselves and tolerate the intolerable. I prefer to rid the world of the intolerable." Erik left the room.

Charles, speaking to no one, said, "Then why were you watching him pray?"

"Do you honestly believe the world will be a different place with Shaw imprisoned than with him murdered?" asked Charles.

"Why would that matter?" asked Erik.

"Belief and reality are quite separate, Charles. You can believe the world is a good place all you like, but that does not make it so." Erik stirred his drink with his finger.

"Only if you assume that the believer is not part of reality, but he always is. Look at Hank. He thinks that women will recoil at his mutation, so he buries himself in work and avoids them, so he never gets any practice talking to them and lo and behold: no girlfriend. So he assumes he was right all along. Or look at Alex. He thinks that life, by default, is a contest to be the toughest one in the room, so he walks into every room trying to win that contest, which forces others to play the game, which means he never experiences the sorts of rooms wherein toughness does not matter."

"Life is a tale told by an idiot / full of sound and fury / signifying nothing."

"So there's no such thing as causality?" asked Charles. "You don't think we would be very different people had we grown up in very different circumstances?"

"We didn't create the world we were born into. There are how many millions of humans on this planet? Each one of them apparently creating his own reality in the lowest, most barbaric way possible. Whereas we have evolved to be the inevitable victors. We are the gods."

"You sound like Shaw."

Even though it was late at night, Erik wore socks and shoes as well as the same grey sweatsuit he had worn all day. He stepped lightly down the hall, down the stairs, down another hall to the library. Can't sleep, might as well play chess.

He opened the door to find Charles sitting on a sofa, reading a leatherbound book.

"You're inescapable," Erik said.

Charles smiled.

Erik turned to leave.

"Don't leave," said Charles. "I appreciate the company."

Erik sighed, shut the door, sat down.

"Here." Charles handed him an unlit joint.

"You confiscate this from Sean?"

"No, I sent Raven out to buy it for me."

Erik raised an eyebrow.

"What? She's better at it than I am." Charles huffed. "Apparently, I look like a," he made quotation marks with his fingers, "narc."

"Why are you giving me drugs?"

"Well, for starters, because it is a potent anti-emetic," he sniffed the air pointedly, "and you smell like vomit. I imagine it would have been more helpful twenty minutes ago, but alas, this is not the best of all possible worlds."

"Are you high?"

"No," Charles held up his own, unlit, joint. "I was waiting for you."

Erik glared, mouthed how did-, then said, "No, you know what? Let's just skip the part where you pretend you figured it out like Sherlock-fucking-Holmes."

"Sherlock-fucking-Holmes, indeed." Charles held out a lighter.

Erik hesitated, but the thought of quelling the nausea that waxed and waned but never quite went away was too tempting to pass up. The lighter levitated from Charles' hand and flicked itself on.

Charles turned on the radio and adjusted the aerial. The Doors emerged from the static, playing Riders on the Storm. And neither man could ever recall which one of them said, "Perfect."

"Think!" shouted Charles, holding the candy aloft. "Think about how very sweet they are! Just- just think about how terrifically sweet they are!" He lifted his gaze toward the package of candies and stared in contemplation for many moments before he suddenly turned, hands spread from his sides, palms pointed out like a crossing guard. "Stop! Now, we must think about how very tart they are!"

He ate another candy, chewing it slowly. Then he sat down next to Erik. "This is the difficult part," he hissed. "Listen to me very carefully." He took another, very long drag on the joint. "We must now think of both at once. Think about how sweet they are. Now think about how tart they are. Now back to sweet! Now back to tart. Now-" He stopped, as though interrupted. "What if more things had wheels?"

"Charles," said Erik, "I believe I know why you became a telepath."

Charles looked up from his thoughts and his SweeTarts. "Why?"

"You are a man who believes in fairness. Everyone else must suffer hearing every thought that passes through your head so-" he gestured broadly "-it's only fair that you hear every thought of theirs."

Chapter Text

"What's that song?" asked Raven.

"That song?" echoed Charles. "Oh, the tragic ignorance of the young. This is a modern classic." He turned to Hank, Alex, and Sean. "Tell me you gentlemen know what this is."

"It's All Along the Watchtower. Bob Dylan," said Alex.

Hank snorted.

"What's so funny, freak?"

"You're...well, you're wrong," said Hank.

Alex put down his sandwich. "It's All Along the Watchtower! Now quit laughing and shut your fucking face!"

"I'm laughing," said Hank, "because you apparently can't tell the difference between a Bob Dylan song and the Jimi Hendrix cover." He stood, dropped his plate in the sink. "Bozo."

"Are you a religious man, Charles?" Knight to E4.

"No, not really." Pawn moves to threaten. "I believe I was christened in some miscellaneous Protestant denomination, and my family used to attend church on Christmas for the pageantry, but that was it."

"The enlisted men in the German army wore as part of their uniform belt buckles that said Gott Mit Uns."

Erik withdrew his knight. "God with us," he translated.

Pawn takes bishop. "Man creates god in his own image."

Erik castled and changed the topic. "Does it bother you to be here?"

"You mean here in the library or at the estate in general?"

"Your move."

Charles slid a pawn forward. "I had thought it might, but it doesn't. Well, perhaps a very little."

Erik captured a bishop.

Charles captured Erik's queen. "Why do you ask?"

"I thought I would see what it was like to be you." Erik slid his knight forward. "Check."

Charles moved his king to the right. "And how do you rate the experience?"

"Pointless," he said, moving a pawn up one space. "Check."

"I rather enjoy it." Charles captured the threatening pawn with his rook.

Erik captured the rook with his second knight. "Checkmate."

"It's called shell shock, Erik." said Charles.

"I've never been anywhere near artillery fire."

"It's a syndrome named after its best-known cause, not its only cause."

"And I'm about to learn more about it."

Charles either missed or ignored the sarcasm. "The oldest, most ancient parts of the brain evolved to focus quite directly on survival. These parts of the brain are very emotional, very sensory, very concrete. You can't reason with them, any more than you could reason with a lizard or a deer. Shell shock is the name we give it when those parts of the brain learn something that we logically know is not helpful or true."

"Remarkable." Erik's voice was perfectly flat.

"In the canonical case of trench warfare, the ancient brain learned that loud noises immediately preceded death, which was absolutely true in the trenches. Then the soldiers went home and they knew perfectly well in their newer, more logical brains that they were in no danger from artillery shelling, but the ancient brain doesn't listen to reason, so it would send out signals telling the body to prepare for danger every time a car backfired or a train whistled."

"You're still talking."

"The ancient brain is very stupid. If a rabbit is eating a new fruit and a stick cracks, and suddenly a wolf is chasing it, the ancient brain is just as likely to decide the fruit is a sign of danger as it is the stick cracking, even though the latter obviously makes more sense."

"You got me. I don't like fruit."

"No, what you don't like is record players. There's probably more than one thing, but that's certainly near the top of the list."

"I don't have any problem with record players." Erik sounded sincere.

Charles continued as if Erik hadn't spoken. "At first I thought it was music, but the radio doesn't bother you at all. But, on a record player, when someone sets the needle, your breathing gets faster, your heart rate increases, your pupils dilate. This part I can't observe, but I would be willing to bet that you feel like you're going to vomit."

"So you think I want to kill Shaw because I don't like record players?"

"No, I think you want to kill Shaw because you hate Shaw. I think you have a less enjoyable life because you don't like record players. After all, you quite like music and there are so few things you enjoy."

"What are you doing?" asked Charles, as he walked into the room.

"Hey," said Alex, putting up a hand in defense. "You said no hallucinogen or stimulant drugs. This is just beer."

"I was actually talking to Mr. McCoy."

Hank looked up from the piano, startled. He had been tapping a seemingly random series of keys, individually and in pairs.

"I, um...well..."

"Do you play the piano?"

Hank shook his head. "No, I'm just tuning it. It's...it's really out of tune."

"Yes, well, I don't believe anyone plays it," said Charles, "but feel free to adjust as you see fit."

"I don't see what this has to do with Shaw," said Erik.

"Have you ever thought about what your life would be like after...taking care of Shaw?" asked Charles.

"I prefer to focus on the task at hand."

"Do you plan to die?"

"I suspect we all will eventually, but one never knows."

"Do you plan to die after you take care of Shaw?"

"I certainly don't intend to die beforehand."

"So fear doesn't hold you back?" asked Charles.

"That's right."

"So you're not afraid at all of record players?"

"Two in a row."

"Then put a record on. Third shelf up, fourth from the left. It was a favorite of my mother's."

Erik placed the record on the turntable, lifted the needle. His right arm was trembling mightily and he tried to turn so it wasn't in Charles' line of sight. What the hell was happening? He could feel his heart pounding. It's just a goddamn record, he thought. And then he thought, The ancient brain is very stupid and doesn't listen to logic. And then he thought, Shut up, Charles. He put the needle down and Édith Piaf began to sing La Vie en Rose.

Suddenly, to Erik everything looked very close, as if every object in the room were inches from his face.

He heard himself say, "You're a real bastard, you know that?" and left the room without killing Charles Xavier.

"Raven, to what do I owe the pleasure?" asked Charles.

"Sit down," she shoved him lightly but firmly back into his chair. "You're in trouble."

"Wh-what di..What did I do?"

"Erik is acting even weirder than usual and I'm sure it's your fault."

"I wasn't aware he was acting weird in the first place."

"Yeah, well, that's just more evidence of your bad judgment." Raven folded her arms.

Charles opened his mouth to speak, but Raven glared and he shut it again.

"I ask you to be careful and then you go and- well, I don't know what you did, but I know you did something and I know it wasn't careful."

"What exactly is Erik doing that seems 'weirder'?"

"He was outside moving sticks and rocks around and talking to himself in gibberish."

"Are you sure it's not German? Or, um, I believe he also speaks French."

"Okay, first of all, I'm not stupid and if it was German or French I would have recognized that, and second, are you saying that moving sticks around and yelling in French would be a perfectly normal activity?"

He chuckled lightly.

"Don't laugh! You're not taking this seriously!" Raven's skin rippled and she breathed deeply to calm herself. "This is going to be just like Cain."

"This is not going to be just like Cain."

"You don't know that. The last time you did this, somebody died and I had to-." She didn't finish her sentence.

Charles turned his head to the side and shut his eyes. After a moment, he returned her gaze. "This is not the same at all. And, someone's going to die this time if I don't intervene."

"Who? That Shaw guy? Let him die."

"You know I can't do that."

"I know you won't do that. Because you're stubborn and unreasonable."

"I can't just abandon Erik to this...darkness," said Charles softly.

Raven sighed, but her voice was intense. "I'm not even going to tell you to be careful, because you won't. But you have been lecturing me about risks since the day we met. I have to be in disguise all the time because it's too big a risk to look like this." She morphed into her natural form. "You guilt me out of doing all kinds of fun stuff: no alcohol, no pot, not even roller coasters, because it's a risk and you say it over and over, is it really worth the risk? Well, you have to ask yourself, is saving the life of some evil guy who's trying to blow up the planet worth the risk?" She didn't wait for a response. She turned around and slammed the door.

Chapter Text

1961

I love my brother. I really do. But sometimes I can't see how somebody can be so smart and so stupid at the same time. He told me that he used to have a lot of trouble telling the difference between his own thoughts and other people's thoughts. He always says it in the past tense. I know it sounds weird, but I think he still has some trouble telling the difference between himself and somebody else. Bodies draw a clear dividing line, but he's always saying that it's really only minds that matter and I guess if you're Charles Xavier, minds don't stay separate like they're supposed to. Sometimes he says we when he means I.

I really believe that my brother is a good man. He wants to help people. He always wants to repair everything, make everything better. But he gets so focused – obsessed really – with these plans of his that he ends up doing really stupid stuff. He thinks he's always got to fix and build.

My brother is a screwdriver and everybody gets screwed.

1950

"C'mon," said Charles. "We're going on an adventure."

Raven looked skeptical. Having recently turned eleven, she felt she was starting to get wise to people's tricks. "Is this some stupid school thing?"

"Nope."

"How come Kurt let you take the car, then?"

"He didn't. This is...sort of a secret mission," Charles winked at her.

"Are you gonna get in trouble?"

"Probably." Charles sounded unconcerned.

"I don't like it when you get in trouble."

His face brightened and he smiled, affectionate. "I know it looks scary, but remember it doesn't really hurt me." He tapped his temple. "Everything that matters is all in here."

For the first time, Raven wondered if perhaps her brother was lying to her, but she shook off the thought and said, "So what's our adventure? Are we finally going to rob a bank?"

"No! Of course-" He frowned, then added, "Stop asking me that."

"Are we going to rob a zoo?"

"No, we're not robbing anything. And why would we rob a zoo?"

"We could get a pet monkey."

"I already have a pet monkey," he said as he tousled her hair. She smiled.

"So where are we going?" asked Raven, once they were on the highway.

"Binghamton, New York. You can find it in the atlas if you like."

"How far is it?"

"About three hours."

"So there-and-back is six hours? You're going to be in big trouble!"

"Don't worry about it," said Charles.

"People don't stop worrying about things just because you tell them to."

"Come on, Raven, focus. Secret mission. We've got work to do."

"Well, what do we gotta go to Binghamton for?"

"We're going to the hospital there."

"Why?"

"Well...Cain is...sick," he explained.

"Is he gonna die?"

"No, it's not that kind of sick."

"Damnit," she pouted.

"Okay, first of all, you shouldn't be disappointed that someone isn't going to die and second of all, don't swear."

"Damn, damn, damn, damn."

Charles rolled his eyes, but he flashed her a smile via the rearview mirror.

Raven smiled back. Then she remembered to focus on the mission. "So we're going to the hospital to get Cain medicine or something? Why can't we get it in the hospital in Westchester?"

"It's...it's complicated. Don't worry about it."

Raven leaned back into the seat and thought People don't stop worrying about things just because you tell them to.

"If I had known this trip was gonna take so long, I would have brought something to do."

"We could play Geography."

"That's school stuff. I'm not doing school stuff on a Saturday."

"Ok, how about this. I have a friend named Jack, who...likes to yak and yak."

"I'm too old for that game."

"Oh, you think you're too old for everything. Come on. Jack, likes to yak and yak."

"So I kicked him the back."

"Yes, I went on the attack."

"Then stuffed his body in a sack"

"And hung it up with a tack."

"Which made some ducks start to quack."

"So what's the plan?" asked Raven. "What are we gonna do at the hospital?"

"We're going to...oh, I guess it's stealing. But we're just stealing some paperwork."

"You are the most boring criminal ever."

"Do you want to hear the plan or not?" Charles sounded slightly stern.

Raven crossed her arms.

"It's pretty straightforward. I'm going to use my powers to distract people until I see someone in charge of records who is leaving or taking a lunch or something. I'll indicate that person to you with my mind. Then you go to the ladies' room and transform into her." He sighed. "I don't know very much about how this hospital is set up, so we might have to improvise."

"What's improvise?"

"It means make things up as we go along."

"That sounds like the opposite of having a plan."

Charles laughed. "True enough."

"So what's the papers we're stealing, anyways?" When he failed to immediately answer, she added, "I'm going to see what it is when we get them."

He sighed. "It's Cain's medical records from before he and his dad came to live with me."

"How is that going to help?"

"Well...hmm, let's see. How do I explain this? There are holes in his mind."

"Is that why he's so stupid?"

"Raven!"

"It's true!"

"It's not about being stupid," he said. "It's...remember last year, when his arm got broken?"

"When Kurt broke it, you mean." Charles always talked about bad things like they just happened, like nobody did them. It bugged Raven.

"Okay, fine, when Kurt broke it. I saw the X-rays of his arm," Charles said. "There were wires in there."

"Are you saying you think he's a robot?" Raven contorted her face in derision.

"No, sometimes doctors have to put wires in a broken bone to make it heal correctly."

"Like they did in your fingers?"

"Yeah, sure. But here's the thing. I've read Cain's mind, and he has no memory of his arm being broken before last year. That's what I mean by holes."

"You want to do some impressions?"

"Okay!" Raven concentrated on transforming her voice box, deepening the lungs, then spoke with a British accent, "I'm Charles and I think I'm smarter than everybody else and I have a stupid accent and-"

"That's Frank Sinatra, right?" They both laughed.

Once they were out of the hospital, Charles threw the files in the back seat, but stopped before getting in the car. "You know what?" he said. "I think that was such a successful mission, we should walk over to McDonalds before we go back."

"Yes!" Raven pumped her fist in the air in triumph.

He let her eat in the car. "In for a penny, in for a pound," he said.

"What's that one mean?" asked Raven, in between loud slurps of her milkshake.

"It's like...if you're already in trouble and it can't get any worse, you might as well do whatever you want."

"I'm pretty sure that trouble can always get worse."

"True enough, but in this case, I think it won't matter."

Raven stole several of Charles' fries. "That was a really easy mission. There was hardly anybody there. How come you needed me?"

"Because together, we are an unstoppable team."

"Don't patronize me," said Raven, using yet another word Charles wished she had never learned.

"Okay then, I brought you along because I didn't know what the hospital was going to be like, and I wanted to be ready for anything. Besides, I enjoy your company."

Raven finished eating and opened up the file. "What's FLK mean?"

"I have no idea and put that away. You don't need to be nosing around in there," said Charles, apparently unaware of the concept of hypocrisy.

Raven continued to flip through the pages.

"Knock that off!"

"So really, how come you brought me along?"

"Because I really did not want to have to make this trip twice."

Raven thought, I don't see why you had to make it once, but she kept that thought to herself. Instead, she said, "Because you're going to get in trouble?"

"Yes," said Charles, exasperated, "now would you please leave it alone?"

"Okay." But it was like picking at a scab. Once she knew it was there, it was impossible to ignore. "Did you even tell Kurt you were taking the car?"

"No, I did not."

"Did you tell him you were going to be gone all day?"

"I left a note."

"He's going to be really angry."

"Raven, would you please shut up?"

"It just seems like kind of a stupid thing for you to do."

"Look," hissed Charles, "I know bloody well that I am going to get the shit knocked out of me tonight and I am not looking forward to it. So I would really like it if you would just shut up and let me enjoy my Saturday."

Normally, Raven apologized when Charles got angry. He didn't get angry very often, and it was usually when Raven did something dangerous. But this time Charles had done something dangerous, and for no good reason. She looked up at him and saw the twitch in the corner of his eye and something clicked. "You're a liar," she whispered.

"What?"

"It does hurt, doesn't it? You've been lying to me!"

Charles furrowed his brow for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I- I just don't like it because it's rather annoying and it's inconvenient. Have you ever tried getting bloodstains out of clothing? I've lost quite a few shirts that way."

Raven pressed back into the seat, as if moving away from him. "First of all, you don't do your own laundry. Second of all, you have, like, a million shirts, and third of all, you're a liar! You've been lying all this time!"

"Raven!" he protested.

"Liar!" she yelled. She unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed into the backseat, curled up on the drivers' side where he couldn't see her. She said nothing for the rest of the ride home.

Charles is laying flat on his bed, face up, no pillow. It is sometime after midnight. He is concentrating very hard on the mind of his brother, Cain, a mind that has never seemed to have a normal capacity to wait, to control itself, to feel concern or worry or generosity. A mind that is sleeping down the hall.

He is only vaguely aware when Raven climbs into his bed, something she did regularly when she was very young, but almost never as of late. She must be sorry about the fight.

He sees Cain's mind and it is like a picture with many tears, bits ripped off and burned through. Other pieces are distorted as they try to fill gaps they were never made for. There is no coherent image, no I, no order, no self. Charles spends many minutes orienting himself. The landscape is familiar, but it is always changing. There is no steadiness. Cain, where are you? he wonders.

Once he has his bearings, Charles moves from one fissure to the next. At each, he searches for the memory that belongs, using what he learned from the medical records as a guide. As he moves, he sees a creature in his peripheral vision, always briefly, never quite real. As he fills in the gaps, the picture that is Cain's mind begins to take shape and take color, though it has no form. There is one gap left and it is a strange moving shape. He sees the creature again, like scaly, solid smoke. He knows what belongs in the final hole and stops to wonder whether he should rejoin this thing with his brother's mind, but his wondering doesn't matter as the creature scuttles past him, through him and leaps into the last gap. The mind begins to rumble and roar. The mind begins to toss as if at sea.

Charles is laying flat on his bed. He is Cain Marko. He is reaching beside his bed for a length of pipe. He is hunter. He is pressing his teeth together. His feet are on the floor. He has no thoughts. He has no mind. There is no more terrifying beast than he.

Charles shakes his sister. "Raven," he whispers, eyes unfocused, "get under the bed. Stay hidden no matter what happens."

He is Raven and he is truly afraid because he knows what Cain is capable of, even if Charles does not.

He is Cain and he is walking down the hall and he cannot hear his footfalls for he has no thoughts and he has no mind.

He is Charles Xavier and he is beginning to think he may have made a mistake.

Charles is standing when Cain throws open the door and he does not need telepathy to see that there is murder in his brother's heart.

"Cain...please," he whispers.

"Cain please Cain please Cain please Cain please Cain please Cain please," is the response. It is not teasing and sing-song as it was when they were young. It is dead; it is vacant.

The pipe strikes Charles in the side of the chest. He feels a strange sensation, like gagging. There are snapping noises, like twigs. He falls to the floor. Cain drops the pipe and lifts his brother by the throat with both hands.

Raven can see her brother's feet kicking at the air, but then they stop kicking. They fall still, toes pointed down, useless, and she knows that she must do something or he will die.

"Cain please Cain please Cain please Cain please."

Raven creeps out from under the bed; there isn't enough room to transform underneath. She lies silent in the bed's shadow as she switches, and thinks Don't let Charles be dead and don't let him kill me either. Then she stands and hopes Cain is every bit as stupid as she has always said. "What are you doing making all this noise at this hour!" she yells. Her voice is deep. She is Kurt Marko.

Cain is startled. He drops his prey. Raven is relieved to hear Charles gasp. He scrambles to his feet and sprints out of the room, Cain right behind him.

Raven knows she is breaking the rules. Never transform when someone else could see you. Never turn into anybody at the estate. She remembers Charles sitting next to her, saying, "I don't want to scare you, but if they catch you doing those things, we'll probably have to leave. This won't be our home anymore." And she remembers that she felt glad, because he said we'll have to leave, which meant he would go with her. Right now, she is panicking, because they were making a lot of noise and someone would come check soon and this is the worst possible person and she is face-to-face with the real Kurt Marko.

They hear glass shatter. Kurt runs toward the noise. Raven runs away.

The pipe falls to the ground below, surrounded by shards of glass and Charles knows that he has to follow it because the only other direction he can go is right back toward Cain. It's only the second floor he tells himself, the high dive at the pool is a bigger drop. And he leaps. He means to roll when he hits the ground, but the muscles in his chest don't want to work properly, so his right leg bears the brunt of his weight.

He keeps running across the grounds without looking back because there is no doubt Cain is following. He thinks calm at his brother, but this does nothing. He thinks sleep at his brother to no effect. He will not think die. He chooses not to. His leg hurts terribly and he is aware of this, but somehow unconcerned, as if his body knows how to prioritize his senses.

He tries to feel his brother's mind, but he feels nothing. Whether this is from his own pain and exhaustion or some trick of Cain's, he does not know.

Charles sees that he is nearing the stables. He has an idea. He pulls a lighter from his back pocket. He doesn't smoke, but he thinks it's cool to carry one.

Here is the problem with Charles' idea: He understands oxidation and combustion temperatures from chemistry books, but he never played with fire as a child. Given time, given calm, he would come to a full and deep understanding of the likely outcome of his plan, but does not have the intuitive and immediate sense that comes from personal experience.

Cain catches up with him as he enters the stables. Charles sets fire to the straw.

There is smoke everywhere, thick and black and liquid. There must be flames, but Charles cannot see them. There are loud and panicked whinnies from the horses as they kick and buck. He tries to crawl away, but Cain grabs his leg.

"I'm sorry," yells Charles, "I'm sorry!"

"I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry," in a blank monotone is the last thing Charles hears.

When Raven leaves the mansion, she doesn't know where to go. Charles is probably dead, but if he's not, there's no good reason he should have to leave too. She morphs into one of the many throwaway forms Charles had helped her gather from nearby towns and she starts to walk.

The first time Charles wakes up, it is dark and he is in an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar bed. He moans softly in pain. Someone does something. He doesn't know what, but he sleeps again.

The second time Charles wakes up, it is daytime and he sees the hospital machines around the room. He looks to his side to see who he shares a room with, but the other bed is empty. He can't stay awake for very long. His thoughts are heavy.

The third time Charles wakes up, a nurse says, "Wait here, the doctor wants to talk with you," and Charles thinks Where else would I go?

There's a hand on his uninjured shoulder. "You awake, son?"

Charles nods, tries to keep his eyes open. The doctor comes into focus.

"How are you feeling?"

"Superb."

"Well, if you can make jokes, that's a good sign."

Charles smiles weakly.

The doctor pulls over a chair and sits. "I need to talk with you about what happened. I know you're not feeling too good yet, but it's not going to be any easier if I wait."

Charles feels something heavy spread throughout his body.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Smoke."

The doctor nods. "As best we can tell, you and your brother were in the stables when the fire started. You both probably passed out from smoke inhalation. You've got some other injuries, probably from the horses kicking." Actually, the boy's injuries look nothing like hoofprints, but he knows that family – the Xaviers, Markos, whatever – could buy and sell this hospital several times over, so if he was told horses, he will say horses.

"It seems your father ran in there after you, dragged you boys out. He saved your lives." He pauses. "One of the horses must have kicked him," he says. That injury did look like a hoofprint. "The blow hit him right in the back of the head. Your father probably died instantly, no pain. I'm very sorry, son." The hand on Charles' shoulder again.

"Step-father."

"What was that?"

"He was my step-father."

"Oh...is there, is there any family we can call for you?"

"I'm eighteen."

"What I meant was-"

"Where's...what about my brother? Cain?"

"We were hoping you might have some ideas on that one. He came in with you, with burns and smoke inhalation. We wanted to keep him overnight for observation, but once we patched him up, he got up and left. You have any idea where he might be?"

Charles shakes his head. His face feels hot and light, as if it were separate from his body. "Where's my sister?" he asks.

The doctor furrows his brow. "Your medical file said you just have the one step-brother."

Tears are falling and stinging. "I need to find my sister. Where's my sister?" He presses his fingers to his temple. "I can't find her. Why can't I find her?"

The doctor adds something to his IV. Charles sobs until he sleeps once more.

Chapter Text

Charles sat down in the dirt, near enough that he could hear Erik's voice, but far enough that he didn't interfere with...whatever Erik was doing. He took out his pocket watch – yes, he had a regular watch, but he liked having a pocket watch – and set it on the ground as well, open so he could see the time. The pocket watch had belonged to his father, had his father's initials on the front. He thought about what it might be like to have no physical remembrances of one's family. No mementos, no talismans, no photographs, not even graves. His mother and father were buried in a cemetery nearby, as was his step-father, and though he had visited their graves rarely since he had moved to Britain, it was good to know they were there.

He turned his attention to Erik, who was essentially as Raven had described him: He was carefully arranging sticks and small rocks on the ground, though from his vantage point, Charles could discern no pattern. There was another, smaller arrangement of sticks near the creek, but its function was equally opaque. He was talking to himself and the words clearly were not English, French, or German, though Charles doubted it was gibberish. Charles had dabbled in linguistics and cryptology during his undergraduate studies, and he knew the hallmark of meaningful language was a measured blend of repetition and novelty. If an utterance was perfectly repetitive it would contain no information, but neither was real language was ever perfectly novel. Words and syllables had to be reused. Whatever Erik was saying, it fell between the two extremes. It was not pure repetition, but there was some repetition. Charles observed that the syllable nye tended to follow the syllable do, which meant that do-nye was probably a word or a phrase or at least a part of one. Which meant Erik was speaking language, not nonsense.

Charles glanced down at the time. He had been sitting for twelve minutes. When he had last spoken to Erik, he had been hasty and he had no intention of repeating the mistake. He was headstrong, yes, but not stupid. He could be patient when it occurred to him to be. So he sat, watched, and listened until the pocket watch indicated that thirty minutes had passed. Erik still had not shown any sign that he was aware of Charles' presence.

Charles spoke, loudly enough to ensure that he was heard, but no louder. "I'm sorry," he said, "It should have been your decision."

Erik showed no reaction at all.

Charles returned to watching and listening.

Seventeen minutes had passed since Charles had last spoken; forty-seven minutes since he had sat down.

There was a clattering sound followed instantly by an indignant squawk. Charles turned to the noise and finally understood the purposes of the small structure Erik had assembled on the bank of the creek. A large bird – an osprey, Charles guessed, but it was impossible to be sure at this distance – was pinned to two rocks by a weighted stick. Erik removed the bird from the trap and broke its neck.

"My god, Erik!" said Charles, shocked, before remembering his plan.

Now he would have to wait another thirty minutes.

Erik showed no reaction at all.

Erik had laid the dead bird in the midst of his stick arrangement. He had positioned it quite carefully, with the head pointed directly to the right, wings spread straight from the body, and talons pointed straight down. The arrangement felt familiar to Charles, but he couldn't precisely place it.

Charles looked at his watch. Seventy-three minutes since he had sat down. He was no closer to deciphering what Erik was saying, though he was now virtually certain it was language, or at least meaningful. His memory was not so perfect that he could rule out small variations, but he suspected Erik was repeating himself every few minutes.

Seventy-seven minutes.

"Can I help you with...what you're doing?" Charles had hoped he would have a name for the activity by this point.

Erik showed no reaction at all.

It was unnerving, really. When Raven gave him the silent treatment, she made it quite obvious that he was being ignored. Erik, in contrast, seemed perfectly unaware of Charles, as though he were somehow blind and deaf to the present day.

The sun had mostly set and Charles was having difficulty perceiving Erik's creation in the shadows. As the watch ticked closer to one hundred and seven minutes, he hoped that absurdity would succeed where remorse and sympathy had not.

"So I've been thinking of growing a goatee," said Charles.

There was a pause in the muttering. "Don't," said Erik.

"I thought it might look rakish and daring."

"It would make you look like a B-list porn star." Erik carefully placed the stick he was carrying, then turned and added, "And there's a reason there aren't any British porn stars."

Charles laughed. "Quite right."

Erik sat down beside him and said, "You should know that you came very close to dying today."

Charles nodded solemnly, saying nothing because he could think of no appropriate response.

"There's no metal in it at all," said Erik.

"What is it?"

Erik stood; Charles followed suit and from that vantage point it was easy to see what Erik had constructed. The osprey was splayed above a circle of sticks inscribed with a swastika made of stones. The letters DEUTSCHES REI formed an arc below.

"Do you want to finish it?" asked Charles.

Erik shook his head. "It's not necessary. I don't feel like killing you anymore."

"Do you want to take it apart?"

"We should bury the bird, I suppose."

"Well," said Charles, "it's a waterbird, so perhaps by the creek?"

"No, it's not; it's an eagle."

"I've never seen an eagle around here." Charles approached the bird, careful not to disturb the arrangement around it. "No, it's definitely an osprey."

"Damnit!"

This was a different kind of absurdity and it made them laugh, though neither smiled.

The bird was buried. The rocks and sticks had been disheveled. The landscape no longer resembled the insignia on Erik's coin. The sun had nearly set.

"Shall we go into town, then?" asked Erik.

"Certainly," said Charles, willing to go pretty much anywhere that kept Erik speaking English. "Let me just notify the others that we'll be absent from supper." Charles brought his fingers to his temple. He desperately wanted to ask Erik about the language he had been speaking earlier, but he held his tongue. This was both practice and penance for him.

Charles brought his hand down and they turned toward the town. "It appears Mr. Cassidy is still rather cross with you," he commented.

Erik shrugged, smirked.

"You could have told him you had a hold of his suit."

"Yes, but then how would he have overcome his fear of falling off two hundred foot tall reflector dishes?"

"I've got it," said Charles, pulling out his wallet.

"Damn straight, you do. I would've made you pay for drinks this whole time if I'd known you were living in a castle."

"I wasn't living in a castle. I was living in a series of hotels and I happened to have a spare castle."

They laughed, clinked glasses.

"And it's not a castle," added Charles. "Castles have moats and battlements and drawbridges and plague rats."

"Plague rats?"

"It's an important part of the motif."

"You think I would look like a B-list porn star? Really?"

"Well, not quite...more like the guy who gets the B-list porn stars ready for work."

"Ah, very dignified."

They returned to the not-a-castle very late. They were too tired and too drunk for chess, so they settled in the parlor. It was strange, Charles thought, to begin a friendship with near-constant contact for several weeks. He lacked a clear sense of whether the evening was over.

So they sat side-by-side on the sofa, staring at the blank and silent television.

"Shema Yisrael," said Erik.

"Hmmm?"

"That's what I was saying. It's a prayer. In Hebrew." Erik's eyes were unfocused and his hands were perched in the air as if lightly grasping something very close. "My parents taught me to say it. You say it when you wake up and when you go to sleep and when you die. I could not see the others but I could hear them."

"In the camps."

"Yes. I would say it along with them. They couldn't hear me, but I could hear them. I could hear them when they were dying. I breathed in their bodies as ashes in the air. I would hear them as they were herded to death and they would say it over and over. And I would say it with them."

"What do the words mean?"

Erik shook his head very slowly, almost imperceptibly. "I don't remember, Charles. I truly... I don't... It's not there."

Charles' first impulse was to offer to search Erik's mind, to unlock that memory if it still existed. His second impulse was to point out that there must be a translation available in a book somewhere. His third impulse was to put his hand on his friend's shoulder. But tonight he was being patient so he did none of these things.

"What we're doing, Charles, it's dangerous. More than you know. We have to stand together."

Charles looked down, saddened, because he could never be sure that he stood for the same thing as the man who sat by his side. He could have sympathy, even love, for Erik, but the fact remained that Erik had murdered, brutally and without remorse, people who in many cases were no threat to anyone, anymore. How would an alliance with such a man function?

Charles felt a hand on his back.

"Don't be sad, my friend," said Erik, "I already forgave you. It was a strange mistake, but I know you meant no cruelty."

Charles felt sick at heart, for betraying his friend in his thoughts.

Chapter Text

One week before the president's address

"Who taught you to play chess?" Charles moved a pawn forward, to block the queenside advance of Erik's knight.

"Shaw."

"That's...not the answer I expected."

Erik slid a rook one space to the left. "He felt I should have a cultured pastime. I'm a god, remember? Even gave me my own chess set. Wooden, of course."

"Do you still have it?"

"No."

"What happened to it?"

"I hollowed out the pieces, filled them with iron, and used them as weapons. I ran out about a year ago."

Charles found himself considering the number of pieces in a chess set and wondering just how many lives had ended at his friend's hands. He made a stupid move, capturing a pawn with a pawn and leaving his queen exposed.

Some, perhaps most, people would have backpedaled or softened upon seeing the horrified look on Charles' face. If Erik had been asked why he pressed forward, he would have stated that, just as Charles liked to challenge him, he liked to challenge Charles, challenge him to see that some problems justified, even required, the use of lethal force. And this would be true.

But it was also true that Erik had predicted a man such as Charles would not be able to tolerate who he was and what he had done. He was not even aware that he had made such a prediction. It was more of a pattern, an expectation, the way one knows the hero marries the princess. If he were aware of this prediction, he might have admitted that he was uneasy with subverted expectations. And this would be true as well.

But it was also true that Erik was sitting in the mansion of a man who had never starved, never known a fraction of the suffering he underwent. He resented the judgment of such a soft, privileged man, but he had great respect for Charles and so was unaware of his bitterness.

"You like irony, right? You told me so." Erik sipped his drink. "Once, I killed a bishop with a bishop. Actually, I used all four bishops to kill him. Two for the wrists and two for the ankles, then," he made a spreading motion with his fingers and hands.

"I don't recall any clergymen in Shaw's retinue."

"I never knew the man personally, but he supported the regime and more recently he was a denier."

"Where does it end, Erik? Are you going to kill every German alive at that time? Are you going to kill all their descendants?"

"If I am a monster, it's because I am what they made me."

"The tragedy of it, Erik, is that you're not a monster. You're an honorable man. One who has done monstrous things, yes, but a man of honor nonetheless."

Erik only shrugged and smirked. If monsters are not defined by the doing of monstrous things, the word loses all meaning.

Charles found that he could not distract himself from the image of a bishop, drawn and quartered by chessmen. Perhaps Erik was unwittingly projecting. Perhaps the idea was just so bloody and visceral. Perhaps Charles' mental shields were weakened, their energy sapped by all of the effort he put toward recruitment and training. Whatever the reason, it was a gruesome image. The man dying terribly, weeping and begging; Erik impassive, unmoved. He stood up and tipped over his king. "I...I can't do this. I just- I can't do this."

The evening following the president's address

When Charles turned six years old, his father gave him a BB gun. He gleefully ran around the house with it, marching, crouching, playing solider. Then his father took him outside to practice shooting at squirrels and sparrows. With his father's hands gently laid over his, Charles took aim and pulled the trigger. A pigeon dropped from its branch, dead. He was both upset and embarrassed that he should feel that way, but his father smiled kindly and said, "You're sensitive; there's nothing wrong with that." Charles never fired his BB gun again. In fact, Charles never fired any gun after that. When he heard that riflery was included in his tenth grade physical education curriculum, he politely declined to participate and earned the only B on his high school transcript. When he was twenty and Raven was thirteen, they discussed getting her a gun, so she could defend herself, should things go drastically wrong. Since a thirteen-year-old girl could hardly waltz into a firearms store for instruction, he had planned to teach her how to shoot, but of course he did not know himself. He had scheduled a lesson, but when the time came, he found that the part of him that resisted firing a weapon was much stronger than the part which argued its practical value. And most recently, at the age of twenty-nine, he had somehow agreed to shoot a dear friend point-blank in the face, had even gone so far as to cock the pistol, only to find once more that, despite believing heart and soul that the bullet would be deflected and no one would be harmed, he simply couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.

Yes, he had once wished someone dead, but that had been an unknowing impulse in the mind of a teenager who feared for his sister's life. Yes, his actions had once led to a man's death – he lived with the guilt of that every day – but he knew in his heart that he had not meant for anyone to die, that he had acted rashly but without malice.

Now Charles Xavier was considering an act of premeditated murder.

He shifted his weight so that exactly half of his face was visible in his bedroom mirror. This was an old habit he had developed for thinking through difficult problems. He found that staring at half of his face somehow freed the other half to diverge farther, to consider wilder ideas.

"I am not a god," he said aloud.

The unseen half replied that gods aren't the only deciders of life and death. There were many moral philosophers who pointed out that money spent on luxuries condemned the poor to death and disease. Physicians do triage. Truman and everyone on the Manhattan project, they had their bombs. Even condoms were a decision of life and death, in a sense, choosing whether or not to create a life – and whether or not one got VD, but that wasn't really relevant.

"I don't want this to end."

His cynical side spoke again, this time making the opposite argument. You would betray your ideals for the comfort and security of a friend? You'll have other friends.

"It won't be the same. And what about him? Will he have other friends?"

Such arrogance! You think you're the only friend he will ever have?

"We need each other. He keeps me...realistic. If not for him, I never would have considered this."

Does that mean you need him? Or does that mean you need to stay away from him?

"We need each other."

You need him. He doesn't need you.

"He does. I think he does."

If his war really does come to pass, you will be a liability in your present state.

"I...just don't want for us to part ways."

Well, what the hell am I'm supposed to say to that? That's not even an argument.

Charles stood outside Erik's door, reached for the handle and quite suddenly, Charles was aware that there was an additional reason he hadn't read Erik's mind beyond the initial flash he had gotten in the ocean. Certainly there was an ethical standard of keeping his word, respecting others' privacy, but he realized that he feared what he would find there. He had been thirteen years old when the camps were liberated and he had listened to the news on the radio. The stories lacked detail, but they did tell of oversized crematoria and mass graves. Charles must have been quite visibly upset, because his mother started turning off the radio and binning the newspaper as soon as it arrived. He knew some details, of course. Two years ago, he read Frankl's From Death-Camp to Existentialism and he had absorbed not just the factual information but the affect as well. It had troubled him greatly, but Frankl found meaning in his experiences, so Charles did as well. Erik would not be Frankl. Erik did not make meaning; he despised meaning. Everything was the thing itself and to think otherwise was foolish at best and dishonorable at worst. Erik would be sensory. Not words, not abstractions, but specific details of color and sound and sickness. But that was what he wanted, wasn't it?

He hesitated, then knocked.

"Charles, I take it you're aware of the time?" Despite the hour, Erik wore pants, socks, and a long-sleeved shirt.

"You weren't sleeping." Charles wore shorts and a t-shirt.

"Fair enough," Erik gestured for him to come in. Erik's room was somewhat smaller than the others' and only afforded two places to sit: the bed and a desk chair.

Charles sat on the bed. His head was tilted down and to the side.

Erik leaned against the door. "What's this about?" He suspected he already knew the answer.

"I don't want our...alliance to end tomorrow."

"So you're here to ask me to spare Shaw."

Charles shook his head slowly. He looked a little bit stunned, a little bit unfocused, a little like other people did when he controlled their minds.

"Well, what then?" Erik felt uncomfortable taking the more talkative role.

Charles' lips were dry. "I want to take an oath. With you. But I don't want to give my word if I can't keep it."

"Well, that certainly clarifies matters."

"I don't think...I don't think it's in me to really want someone dead. To plan for it, to mean to do it."

"You don't have to want him dead. You just have to stay out of my way."

"Action and inaction are not so different."

"Why are you here, Charles?"

Charles was silent, his lips moving like he was trying to speak. He looked at Erik, then back to the floor. "I want...," he said, "I want to look at you."

Erik's mind lit up from every corner. What did that mean? Was it dangerous? He's not blind, must be a metaphor. Is he going to interfere with killing Shaw? He is acting strangely. "Explain yourself, Charles."

Charles is perfectly still. "For my oath, I would help you kill Shaw. But I'm not sure that I can. I'm not sure that I can feel that kind of rage or...hate. So I thought, what would make me most angry? To see what was done to you," he answered his own question. "If that makes me hate him, then I will take my oath and we will kill Shaw tomorrow."

"And if it does not?"

"Then it will be a painful day for all."

Erik stood motionless. Just as Charles was always watching him, he was always watching Charles. And he knew what it must have cost his friend to entertain the possibility of murder. "What is this oath?" he asked.

"That we will murder Shaw together, that we will do what we must to protect ourselves and our fellow mutants, and that we will never kill in cold blood again," Charles shook his head. "I'm sorry, Erik, but that's all I can give...I'm not even sure I can give that much. It's...it's eating your soul, these murders."

"I thought you didn't believe in souls," said Erik, glib, but he considered the oath deeply. It meant he wouldn't have to face Shaw alone. It allowed for self-defense and the defense of his brethren. Would he really need to keep hunting once Shaw was dead?

"The word isn't important. I'm talking about the part of you that matters, Erik."

Erik took off his shirt.

He sat down on the bed, to the right of Charles. "Look," he said.

Charles had lain with women of course, many times and quite successfully (at least that was his opinion). His experiences with men were more limited. Once in college, when very drunk, he had sucked off a friend who had proceeded to return the favor, a sequence of events that had repeated twice more before the young man dropped out of school and they lost contact with one another. Even those encounters, faltering and embarrassing as they had been, lacked the same sort of vast and tremendous intimacy he felt looking at Erik's skin. There was a fearsome nakedness to it that actual nudity couldn't compete with.

"When you look, you'll...think of it, won't you?"

"Yes."

"Will it make me think of it?"

"No."

"Then look," said Erik. "This is strength." They both knew he meant the skin, not the muscle beneath. Erik stared straight ahead, motionless, and it occurred to Charles that perhaps the reason he saw none of this when he touched Erik's mind was that Erik took great pains to avoid seeing it himself.

Charles started with the tattoo. It was the obvious place to begin, and inches from his hand. The numbers were a bit blotchy; the ink had spread in some places. They were stretched out, angled to the right. Perhaps the skin had been held strangely when the ink had been applied initially, or perhaps one patch of skin had grown more than another. He ran his fingers over the thin blue numbers.

Shaw had pulled him out of line to...speak with him, but he had to get back in the line. Couldn't bring lice into the camp. They were filthy, riddled with bugs. He is in a group of men, a head shorter than the smallest. The children were taken elsewhere. Erik is not certain yet, but he suspects they were killed. He knows now why his father kept telling him to stand as tall as possible, to tell them he was eighteen. It wouldn't have mattered. There's no way he could have passed for eighteen. Instead, he is saved by this strange and horrible miracle.

They demand the men strip. There is no place for modesty here. Their heads are shaved, quickly, roughly. A man in striped clothing with a yellow Star of David grabs his arm and pokes the needle into it. Erik is surprised. He had seen the tattoos, of course, but – and this thought makes him feel younger than ever – he didn't know how tattoos were applied. Before here, before the train cars, before hiding, his family had lived in the Jewish ghetto. Tattoos were against Jewish law. Why would he have known anything about them? It hurts, the needle piercing his skin, but none of the men act like they are in pain, so Erik bites his lip. There is a shower, freezing cold, and then they are given those same striped clothes to wear. Erik takes the smallest he can find, but it clearly doesn't fit.

Erik takes Charles' hand and moves it up to his right shoulder. There is a silvery-white circle, smaller than a dime.

Schmitt disapproves of Erik's ill-fitting clothes. He writes a note and signs it with his seal. He tells Erik to take the note to the Kapo at the Kanada delousing station. Erik spies an open pack of cigarettes. He tries to palm one, but fingers on his wrist, twisting, hurt but no damage.

"If you want something, ask. I might say yes."

Erik nods.

"Speak up. I want to hear your voice."

"May I take a cigarette, Herr Doktor?"

Herr Doktor hands him two. And hall and stairs and door and he is outside and it is cold.

He is walking through the camp, arms held straight at his sides, the note clutched in the right hand, the two cigarettes tucked behind the bit of rope he was using for a belt. It is as if he sees the other prisoners for the first time and he remembers what his father told him.

"Listen carefully, Er-" a fit of coughing overtook the Erik's father. "Listen carefully, Erik," he said again. "While your mother is asleep. She doesn't want you afraid, but you need to know this. When we get there, everyone will have a mark. You need to know the colors, so you know who is safe. Red means they are political, against the regime. They will not be hostile but they will always try to start trouble. Pink means perverts. Harmless, mostly, but still be careful. Black is the defectives. They will probably...there isn't a word for it. They will end up a body without a soul, giving up, dying. There is nothing to do for people like that. The most important thing is to stay alive and if they've forgotten that, they can't be helped." Erik later learned the word for people like that. Everyone sneered at Muselmänner. "Brown is gypsies. They will look out for each other. The last color is green. Green means criminals, very dangerous. Stay away."

Erik nodded.

"You have to know it. What is red?"

"Red is political. They stir up trouble."

"What is green?"

"Green is...the perverts?"

"No, green is convicts, dangerous. That's the most important one to remember. Start again."

"Red is political. And there is...black for defectives, brown for gypsies. Pink for the perverts and green for the dangerous ones. And then yellow, for us. They're safe."

"Erik, listen to me very carefully. No one is safe. There is no such thing as safe. You may see kindness, but you cannot count on it." He sighed. "Your mother doesn't want you to be afraid. She is...she is a wise woman, Erik but I disagree with her about this." He put his hands on either side of his son's face and whispered, "I want you to be terrified." He dropped his hands back to his sides. "Now say the colors again."

He sees no brown. Maybe they are somewhere else. He sees dirt and frost and stones. He sees a red and and some yellows digging a trench. He sees a pink lying on the ground, either dead or Musselmann. Somebody jammed a metal rod inside of him. Erik doesn't know how long it is. He walks past a Kapo. Red – they stir up trouble. "Oh thank you," says the Kapo. "You brought cigarettes for me," and he snatches both away. Keep walking.

Charles realized that this must have been a strategy on Shaw's part. Force him back out into the camp so he can see what he's avoiding, make him feel lucky to have what little security he was afforded, make him more willing to cooperate.

He is still walking. He can feel his feet. He can hear them touch the ground. He sees the Kanada station, sees there are men lined up outside, seven yellows, three blacks, and one pink. The men stand straight and still. He sees the Kapo. Green triangle. Dangerous, stay away from green. But his feet have already taken him forward and his hand is already giving the note to the Kapo.

"Ha! It says here that you are special!"

The men are perfectly still. He can see snot dripping from their noses from the chill, but no one moves to wipe it away.

The Kapo whirls around, takes the cigarette that he has been smoking and jabs it into Erik's shoulder. A sound, but a small one. He is getting better at keeping silent. He points to the yellow at the head of the line. "Go get him clothes. Two of everything." The yellow is visibly relieved at being allowed to move. The Kapo turns back to Erik. He is missing many teeth. "If you are so special, perhaps you can solve my problem," he says. He gestures across all the men. "Who is stealing from me?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Choose. Or I choose two."

Erik's right arm begins to tremble. He cannot feel the burn on his shoulder. He remembers what his father told him. Black is the defectives. They will end up a body without a soul, giving up, dying. There is nothing to do for people like that. Best to kill someone who is already dead. His right arm rises and points to the first black triangle in line. Then he shuts his eyes and listens for sounds besides screaming.

Erik reached to take off his socks and Charles realized with a start that he had never seen his friend's feet, which would be normal even between close friends, but not between ones in such close quarters for so many weeks.

He took off the left sock first. His left foot looked normal. He took off his right sock very slowly, very gingerly. His right foot did not look normal. There was a sort of pit on the top, a space where flesh should be and flesh was not. The skin around it was white and brackish. Erik felt quite naked. The first two were just marks, but this was a weak point. This could be used against him.

Charles could see Erik's unease. He leaned back in the bed and drew a knife out from under the pillow. He held it to his own neck. "Keep it here." The knife balanced of its own accord. "Now I'm more vulnerable than you."

"I know that you could always freeze me."

"Before you cut my throat? That would pit the reflexes of an expert hunter against those of an overeducated, soft, nancy boy and we both know it's no contest."

Erik drew his foot up, rested it on the bed. Charles ran his fingers over the top and the bottom.

Numbers.

Pain.

Numbers.

Pain.

Charles caught himself feeling pity. That wasn't the goal. Stop looking at the boy. Look at the man who is calling the numbers, who is causing the pain. He is alert. He is curious. He is fascinated. If he offers a kindness, it is planned, it has a goal, it is not pure.

Numbers.

Pain.

Numbers.

Pain.

"Stop." Erik moved Charles' hand away from his foot. "Move on," he said.

"Can you feel what I'm thinking? I don't want to-"

"No, but I know where that leads, and I don't want you to..."

Charles put his hands in his lap. Erik had directed him thus far. He would wait for Erik to show him where to go next. The knife still floated by his throat.

Erik turned and lay face down on the bed, his face pointed toward the door, away from Charles and Charles got a good look at Erik's back for the first time. There were two features of note. The first was a deep purple band running the along the spine, with many small, round pink scars immediately to either side. The second was a broad swath of his lower back which extended below the waistband of his pants and looked as though it had been carelessly sculpted from clay, uneven in both texture and color.

"Oh, Erik," said Charles before he could stop himself.

"This is not for your pity. This is for your strength. Read it."

Charles reached forward, but he hesitated.

"You gave me serenity. I give you rage. A neat arrangement, yes?"

Charles touched Erik's spine.

He is in an odd position: kneeling, leaning forward, his chest supported on a platform set at a 45 degree angle. His hands and legs were bound beneath him. He could not see what they were doing to him, but he could feel the wires, the metal probes sticking out of his exposed spine. Herr Schmitt says, "Move the bar," and he makes the iron bar in front of him rise a foot or so from the ground. "Good," says the Doktor, "you're doing beautifully."

Then, "Turn on right L3, 20 millivolts." Erik's leg seizes and slams against the platform. "Now Erik," says Herr Schmitt, "move the bar."

And he does and it is excellent and then, "Now L1, 35 millivolts." His leg seizes again, but he also tries to bend at the waist but of course cannot because the table is in the way. "Move it, Erik." The bar flops to the side. "Don't be sarcastic. Move it properly."

"I can't," breathes Erik. "It's not working."

"40 millivolts."

His muscles clench impossibly.

"45 millivolts." Schmitt leans in close and whispers, "Erik, you are being stubborn. I don't believe the metal is in your spine, but we must be certain."

We must be certain.

"Three times one is three. Three times two is six. Three times three is nine," Erik chants with clenched teeth; he is long past arguing sense. Now he just argues. He mutters, he shouts. "Three times four is twelve."

One, two, three, his mother is dead.

Three times five is fifteen.

If you want to eat, you'll find a way to open the can. Otherwise, we will take detailed notes when we dissect your corpse.

Three times six is eighteen.

You are a king born to peasants.

Three times seven is twenty-one.

His eye is paralyzed but it can still feel and there is a needle boring through the pupil.

Three times eight is twenty-four.

Charles doesn't know what is happening and there are screws holding his head in place.

Three times nine is twenty-seven.

The probes on his spine begin to rattle.

Three times ten is thirty.

"Erik," says Herr Schmitt, "Don't do that. You will hurt yourself very badly if they come out at the wrong angle."

Charles and Erik try to calm themselves.

Herr Schmitt opens his record player.

Three times eleven is thirty three.

The needle touches the disc. It's Wagner, the Ring Cycle, Seigfried.

The metal probes fly from his body. Charles screams. Erik says, "Three times twelve is thirty-six."

Charles stared down at the malformed swath which ran across Erik's back. He was determined to press on, to finish what he started, but Erik caught his hand.

"No," he said. "I don't want..."

"Okay."

"Are you angry?"

"Yes."

"Do you see the danger that faces our kind?"

"Yes."

Erik hesitated. Could he really give up hunting? But no, Shaw was the important thing. They had to kill Shaw. They had to survive. That was all that mattered. "Shall we take our oath?" he asked.

"Yes."

Chapter Text

Having taken their shared oath, they sat on Erik's bed in silence, waiting for the dawn. Erik's shirt and socks remained on the floor, though Charles didn't know whether this was a sign of trust or simply of a taboo that, once broken, ceased to matter.

Erik was the first to speak. "If we do this as I have planned, will it hurt you?"

"N-" Charles stopped himself, chose not to lie. "Yes, it will hurt, but it won't...I won't suffer because I choose this. I want this to happen."

Erik nodded and they were silent again.

"Good god, Erik, your feet smell terrible. If you want to wear socks all the time, fine, but wash them."

Charles stared at the wall. Erik was intelligent. It was easy to forget that he was uneducated. "You have to make the coin spiral. When it's..." The words stuck. "The brain is in two halves. And people can survive having them cut apart, if it's a clean cut. Surgeons have done it to people with terrible epilepsy, to stop the convulsions."

This was vital information. Erik never would have known. "Thank you, Charles."

"You should carry a weapon."

"My mind is my weapon."

"I believe in backup plans."

"Erik, I really don't think I can use a gun. I'd probably just choke. Maybe with time and practice, but... Look, when I was six, I shot a bird and I wet my bed for a month. It's just not-"

Erik stood, opened his suitcase and withdrew a single black sock. "Don't worry; it's clean." He took the dagger that had hovered against Charles' neck only a few hours before, and began to run his fingers over the blade. As he did so, the metal came off in drops, like liquid, until hundreds of steel pellets hovered in the air beside him. Charles stared in fascination as Erik held the sock open and guided the metal beads in.

"That's...that's incredible. I didn't know you could do that."

Erik handed him the sock. "It is a...Totschläger. I don't know the word for it in English. If anyone comes near you, spin it around, hit them in the head. Should knock them out, not kill them."

Charles smiled. "We're going to look so damn heroic. And I'm going to be carrying around a sock."

"Shove it in your back pocket."

"I don't think the suits have pockets."

"Well, then shove it down your pants. It'll accentuate things."

"I'm plenty accentuated all on my own, thank you very much."

Softly. "May I ask why you didn't want me to look at your burn?"

Erik stayed silent for almost a minute, then said, "Charles, you are very, very naïve. It angers me often, but I am also...envious. I want things to be-" He gestured in frustration. "I want that things are...so it is okay to be naïve." He nodded, more to himself than to Charles. "The burn is from a," Erik freezes in place for several moments. "I don't want you to see that place."

Charles is thirteen and the voice on the radio is saying that they have found huge furnaces and open pits where thousands upon thousands of bodies were burned. There really is danger. People really do terrible things.

They sit in silence until dawn.

"Do we really have to wear these?" When Alex had heard they were supposed to wear flight suits, he had expected black or grey, not something that made him look like a colorblind acrobat.

"Well, as none of us are mutated to endure extreme G-force or being riddled by bullets, I suggest we suit up."

"Wait, what's G-force got to do with anything? Isn't that the thing that drives girls wild?"

Charles looked faintly amused and faintly horrified. "You're thinking of 'g-spot'. G-force is the effects of acceleration and deceleration on the body. Which is, in a sense, related to the g-spot, but-" Charles shook his head. "Let's just get to the airbase, shall we?"

Everyone got nervous in different ways. Moira reviewed her notes endlessly. Alex told truly disgusting jokes to anyone who would listen. Raven constantly shifted her gaze from one companion to the next as if she were counting them again and again. Sean muttered intensely to himself, the prayer of St. Michael the Archangel. They could only see the back of Hank's head in the cockpit. He focused on flying.

Erik sat mostly still and silent, but if one watched closely, one would see his muscles twitch and clench. His knuckles tighten as if to make a fist, then relax. His lips pull back, baring his teeth. His feet pressed hard against the metal floor, preparing him to launch forward at any moment.

He needed this, like a drowning man needs to breathe.

Charles did not feel nervous. He felt ready, he felt hungry. He had his sister and his brother by his side, a supersonic plane, and a sock full of little iron pellets. What had he to fear?

And he was going to murder a man.

"That was inspired, Charles," said Moira. How many more wars could be averted in this way?

"I'm going after Shaw," said Erik. "You say here."

Charles shook his head. "No, we do this together." He turned. "Beast, Havok, keep the others busy. Raven, stay back, protect Moira."

Raven looked ready to object, but silenced herself.

As they ran forward, Erik tore a hole in the submarine, knocking down the weathermaster with the steel plate. They could hear the sound of Azazel teleporting and Charles hoped dearly that Hank and Alex were ready for the fight. They were in the control room. They shut down the reactor.

There were strange noises from the sea. So soft, Raven could barely hear them. Creaks, clanks, distant squeals of metal echoing the fighting just outside of the plane's wreckage. Of course ships made noises all the time, but this was different. There was a unity to this. They were all moving at once. Raven tapped Moira's shoulder. "I need binoculars."

"What is it?" Moira handed her a pair.

"I don't...I don't know. I still can't see."

Moira looked through her own binoculars. "I don't see anything out of the ordinary."

Raven breathed deeply. When they were young, she and Charles had experimented with her shapechanging abilities. Could she make one leg shorter than the other? Could she grow a tail? Could she become ten feet tall? And the answer to all these things was yes, she could, but it was difficult and it hurt. She had to keep so much more in mind. When she turned into a regular person larger or smaller than herself, she never had problems coordinating hands or legs that were suddenly a different size than she was used to. But when she sprouted a tail, she had to think about every muscle, every nerve, every tendon. Raven tried to remember everything she had ever heard in her life about eyes.

"Just ahead," whispered Charles. "That's the void, the place I can't touch. He must be in there."

Erik charged ahead. "He's not here, damnit! He's not here!"

Good eyes. Hawks have good eyes. Really good eyes, they're big. They have really big pupils. They have lots of those receptor things in the back. Eyes have lenses. Maybe she could manipulate those like adjusting binoculars.

Raven's eyes began to grow and they weren't fitting and she had to adjust her head and she must look monstrous – no, exquisite – and it hurt, it felt wrong. Everything was too bright, too close.

She looked out to sea again. The turrets were moving. That's what it was. The two armadas had kept all their missiles pointed at each other and now-

She had to warn Charles. She tried to call out to his mind, but there was no response. There wasn't even recognition.

She turned to Moira. "All the ships. They're preparing to fire on us." Raven was breathless. Her eyes were returning to normal. "Stay here. I have to go. I have to warn them."

The wall opened.

"Erik, what a pleasant surprise."

They stepped forward.

"And you brought a friend," said Shaw with a broad smile.

Charles found himself blinking quite a lot, and found that his eyes darted quickly from one corner of the room to the next. He was here to kill a man.

Erik gazed back at Shaw. "You know why I'm here." Your crimes cannot go unpunished.

Charles forced himself to think of why they were there. The needles, the electricity, starving, you should be terrified, move the coin, try the chocolate, it's good. He was here to kill a man.

They walked forward, into the sub's core, the room full of mirrors.

Shaw's voice sounded like oil. "Erik, I'm sorry for what happened in the camps. I truly am. But you should know that everything I did, I did to make you stronger, to unlock your gift."

Raven ran toward the sub. She couldn't send her thoughts into Charles' mind. Did that mean- Was he dead?

Shaw on every side. Erik's panic began to tip his fury, but Charles strengthened his mind. Erik straightened. He was not frightened, he was not trapped, he was not small, he was not weak.

They stood before him, rage and serenity, fear and dread, strength and brotherhood.

"You killed my mother," said Erik.

"You are a cancer on this world," said Charles.

Erik sent pipes and wires flying through the air as Shaw's hands dropped to his waist, palms up, gathering energy. The wires formed nets and hands. Shaw took a step forward. Charles did the first thing that came to mind and swung his makeshift weapon at Shaw's side. Shaw seemed unaffected by the blow, but the moment's distraction allowed Erik's wire hand to grasp the helmet.

Charles froze Shaw.

Erik produced his coin, the coin that he had carried everywhere since the age of twelve. "Now," said Erik, "I am going to count to three, and then I will move the coin."

Charles was Shaw as a man and as a little child. Charles was trapped. Please let me go. Please.

"One." Eins. I have judged you.

Charles was Charles, in a burning barn with a bitter step-brother who wouldn't let go of his leg.

"Two." Zwei. I will not allow you to exist.

Charles was Erik, reaching desperately for the fence, for his mother on the other side. Let go of me! Let go! Get off! Let me go, please!

"Three." Drei. You will never kill again.

The coin is on his skull and he is please please please let me go and he is cinnamon and he is bells and he is green and he is sideways and he is please let me go and he is fear and he is hunger and he is sandpaper and he is sleep and he is warm and he is desperation and he hates this man, he truly hates and there is nothing wrong with being sensitive and please let me go you're hurting me and gravity and–

Charles let Shaw go and collapsed, leaning against the hull.

Shaw fell to the ground, a coin half-in, half-out of his brain. He rolled to the left.

Erik snarled. Rage.

Then everything happened at once.

Shaw touched the left wall. He was too weak, too confused, too damaged to imbue it with all the energy he had stored, but whether by reflex or hateful miracle, he sent a burst of energy along the length of the sub. Charles cried out as the hull shrapnel pierced his skin.

Erik drew forth every pipe, every wall panel and brought them down on Shaw.

A metal pipe struck Raven through the chest. She mouthed the words, "The ships are trying to kill us," but there was no air behind them.

Chapter Text

Erik looked back and forth from Raven to Charles to Raven to Charles. Shaw was dead and gone from his mind. Charles was collapsed on the floor, skin white and dripping with sweat. Raven was dead. Erik knew what death looked like.

And her last words – "The ships are trying to kill us."

He could feel the missiles in the sky, but there were too many.

"What ha-?" breathed Charles.

Erik looked down at Shaw's corpse. That was all the serenity he needed. The missiles exploded in mid-air.

Erik knelt down, propping Charles' head up on his lap. He looked back toward Raven's body, but she couldn't be seen from this vantage point. There were footsteps, clangs, the others were coming.

"I'm sorry, Ch-" he began.

Charles rasped, "Where's Raven? I thought...I thought I saw her."

"She, Charles...she-"

The teleporter arrived first. His clothes and swords accompany him when he teleports, thought Erik. He must bring with him anything he touches.

Shards of metal leapt from the ground and formed a vise around Azazel's right hand.

"Ships have doctors," said Erik. "Fetch me a medic, and you'll keep the hand." Erik could feel Charles' voice complaining that this was not exactly in the spirit of their agreement but he could not tell whether this was telepathic projection or imagination.

"I want to see her!" Charles struggled to move, but cried out in pain.

Hank pressed down on his shoulders. "You have to stay still," he said.

Alex stood toward the back of the wreckage, suspicious and uncertain what to do.

Sean ran forward. "You can see in my eyes, right?" His head twitched faintly up and down as if pleading with Charles to agree.

Charles nodded and his face took on a distant, blank appearance.

Sean turned back to Raven. "Oh god," whispered Sean. His words had a British accent and his eyes were full of tears. "Oh god, Raven, I'm- I-...No, no, no, no, no." Sean embraced her, putting one arm around her neck and the other behind her hair. "I'm so sorry, Raven, for everything. I should have- I-," Sean began to weep fully and words seemed to fail him.

Azazel returned with a ship's doctor in tow. The man was twisting from side to side in fear and confusion, but at least he was holding a backboard.

Erik pointed to Charles. "Stabilize him."

"What? Who are-?"

Erik cut him off and spoke in a steady voice, "Do as I say or I will cut off all of your fingers, one at a time."

The doctor was attending to Charles, who now appeared barely conscious. Azazel held out his bound hand.

"One more trip," said Erik. "We have to get him to a hospital."

Alex stepped forward and began trying to separate the wires and pipes and poles that pinned Raven's body.

"Don't bother," said Erik. "It's not her."

Alex inclined his head toward Charles. "He'll want to bury her."

They joined hands. They jumped. And again, and again, and again. When they finally landed in the parking lot of a Westchester, NY hospital, Erik removed the metal shards and Azazel fled, presumably to rescue his allies.

Alex and Sean were holding the backboard, being the two closest in height. Charles occasionally moaned or murmured. Beast cradled Raven's body. Erik carried a helmet.

Erik strode between cars before stopping at a navy sedan with tinted windows. He waved his hand and the lock clicked open. "Havok, can you hotwire a car?"

Alex nodded.

"Then do it. When you're done, meet Banshee inside. Beast, take her body. Drive back to the mansion. We'll call when there's news. Banshee, help me carry him."

Alex and Sean sat in the waiting area, feeling restless and increasingly aware that people were staring at their clothing. Even though they were sitting side-by-side, each turned outward slightly, so they approximated standing back-to-back. There were times when extra caution was warranted.

A man in lavender scrubs approached them. "Are you the boys who came in with a," he checked his clipboard, "Mr. Xavier?" The man pronounced the name zay-vier.

"It's Doctor Xavier." Alex pronounced it the way Charles did: ex-zay-vier.

"Yeah, okay, well, are you guys family?"

"No," said Sean at the same time Alex said, "Yes." Alex continued. "I'm his cousin. Sean's a friend. My name's Alex Winters. That's Winterssss, with an S." Alex's voice had taken on a Southern accent.

"Does he have any other family?"

"Well, there's my Ma, she's his aunt."

"She live around here?"

"No sir, she lives in Mississippi."

"And her phone number?"

"Yeah, she don't hear too good, so we don't talk on the phone much."

"So it's just you."

Sean interrupted. "Is he going to die?"

"I'm just an orderly. The doctor will talk you guys once they get him into surgery. They got to try to put his spine back together, so it don't get worse. He's in good hands, boys." With that marginal reassurance, the orderly left.

"Why'd you lie about your name?" hissed Sean.

"Because I'm supposed to be in jail, dipshit."

"Why'd you tell them you were his cousin?"

"Cause they have to contact his relatives. And if they end up nosing around the mansion while Hank's hiding there, it's bad news."

"I don't think we need any more bad news."

"So where'd Erik go?" Alex was gradually folding down the corners of every page in a magazine.

"I thought he went with Hank."

Alex shook his head. "Figures."

It was dark when the doctor finally called them back. The adrenaline had worn off long ago and both boys felt like shit. They sat down, glanced at his nameplate (Marvin Tours, MD). The doctor shut the door behind them. Sean immediately started looking for exits, a habit he had learned from Erik.

"So this was a car accident?" said the doctor. He was a Black man in his late 40s with thick spectacles.

They nodded.

"And you're his cousin." The doctor pointed at Alex.

Alex nodded. "Is he gonna be okay?"

The man ignored his question. "I don't mind lies. I'd be in the wrong line of work if lying really got my goat. All day, everyday. 'I only had three beers.' 'I just left him alone for one second.' 'I don't know how that got in there.' I'm not the police, and I'm not your mama. But I have a responsibility to all of the people who work here and to all of the patients, a responsibility to provide them with a safe place to work and recover. Now I don't know what happened to that man, but I do know it wasn't a car accident."

Sean opened his mouth to speak, but the man continued. "I'm not even going to ask you want it was, but I want you boys to answer me one simple question, and think before you do: However this happened, is anyone in this hospital going to be in any danger?"

Sean answered right away, "No, no it's not like that."

Alex waited, thought. They hadn't seen the fight with Charles and Erik and Raven and Shaw. They just ran inside when the missiles exploded and it can't have been a coincidence that Erik was the only one still standing. But would he really attack a hospital? Then Alex thought of the more important question, which was, what answer will get Charles in surgery or whatever he needs the fastest. "No, there's no chance of that," he said.

The doctor nodded slowly. "All right, then."

"So is he going to die?" asked Sean.

"Right now, the chances of that are low. The damage was mostly to his spine. Now the brain and the spine are supposed to be separate from the rest of the body and from the outside world, because an infection there can be devastating. So that's still a risk. Once we do the surgery and seal things back up, he'll be much safer."

"Is he gonna be a cripple?" said Alex.

"We won't know the extent of the damage with certainty until the swelling goes down and the surgeons remove the debris in the wound, but some degree of permanent loss of function is likely."

Alex glanced at Sean. "When they fix his back, are they going to put pins in it?"

"Yes, it's called a spinal fusion. The surgeons use metal pins to brace the areas where the bones are broken."

"Do you have to use metal?" Sean asked, "Can't you use something else?"

The doctor looked surprised and suspicious. "Why would that matter?"

"It's a religious thing," said Alex, folding his arms.

"Well, I'm afraid all surgical pins are either steel or titanium. There's no other options."

"Use titanium," said Alex. "When you said metal, I thought you meant iron. It's really iron we object to."

"And this is Dr. Xavier's religion, too?"

They both nodded. "Look," said Alex, "Is there really any downside to the titanium ones?"

"Fair enough."

Chapter Text

"Charles," said Erik, "would insist that there is some sort of terribly important symbolism here, that you represent something, that all of this means something. But you and I both know the truth: Things are what they are. Everything else is just illusions, a drinking fountain of collective madness that people drink from so they can go on believing that the world is their own personal playground."

Erik pointed, though he wasn't pointing at anything or anyone in particular. "That's the key. Everyone wants to think they're special, as if the world couldn't go on without them in it. Delusions."

"Hey, Professor," Sean lingered at the doorway, whereas Alex strode right through. Alex gave a half-wave in greeting.

Charles looked up. "Are you both all right? Are you injured at all?"

Alex shook his head. "No. I mean, Sean sprained his ankle, but besides that."

"And Hank? And Moira?"

"Um," said Sean, "Hank's okay. Moira is, um, I mean I think she's okay. She's...um..."

"Erik left her," said Alex.

"See," said Sean, "everything was just happening really fast and we wanted to get you to a hospital. Mr. Lensherr made that teleporting guy take us back. Moira was between Hank and Mr. Lensherr and she wasn't really holding Hank's hand because he was holding...um..."

"Raven," filled in Alex.

"Right, so after we made the first jump, Erik just pushes Moira away and he says that she's not one of us. Then he told the teleporter to keep moving. I don't know where we were when that happened. It was the first jump, so I'm guessing it was somewhere south of here."

"I see," said Charles. "And Eric?"

Alex shrugged. "He took charge of everything. He was telling everyone what to do and it all seemed like good ideas, so we were doing what he said. Then, I don't know, I guess we all thought he was with someone else. Nobody's seen him since we got to the hospital. He didn't look injured either. Just you and..."

"Where is Raven's body?" Charles' voice was flat and his face has no expression.

"At your house," said Alex. "We wanted to wait to ask you what you wanted to do."

"It seemed wrong to bury her without you," added Sean.

"Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to do so." Charles' eyes unfocused, as if he were staring at an object dangling between him and his visitors. Then he shook his head and looked back at them. "I'm told I need at least two weeks in a sterile hospital setting and then another six of inpatient rehabilitation. I could probably take a day's leave from the rehab, but even two weeks is too long to wait."

Alex and Sean said nothing, each hoping that the other would ask.

Charles either read their minds or made one of his suspiciously accurate guesses, because he added, "Yes, six weeks. Apparently this cripple business is complicated," giving an answer, albeit vague, to their unasked question. He breathed in sharply. "Alex, if you will excuse us for a moment, I would like to speak with Sean."

"Well," said Erik, "fuck him and fuck his little quest to make a goddamn story out of everything. I am talking to you for one reason, and one reason alone – because he can't read your mind."

Erik touched the sweat on his forehead. The helmet was too small for him and overly hot.

"Life is cheap," he said, "Everybody dies. He might be dead. I don't even know."

"Mr. Cassidy, I just wanted to thank you very," Charles paused and breathed deeply, "thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to see her one last time."

Sean looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, it was no problem, I mean, I'm so sorry about her dying and we're all gonna miss her. I mean, probably not as much as you, but..."

"Would you please send in Mr. Summers? I would like to speak with him as well."

"See this," Erik took out one of his sketches. "This is Charles. You probably don't even remember him. Or maybe you do. What do I know? And this, this is Mystique, his sister. I killed her. That's what I do. I kill people."

"But this one, Charles," Erik pointed to the sketch on the left. "He thinks everything is what you make of it, so a killer isn't a killer if you take the right view. A cage isn't a cage if you think you're free. Pain isn't pain if you choose it. Well, dead is dead and nothing can be done about it."

"Should somebody say something?" Alex looked calm, but he was clutching his shovel tightly.

Sean nodded and looked at Hank expectantly.

"Oh, um...Raven was um, she was really, she was just really alive." Hank sounded much more like the nervous scientist they had first met than the confident mutant he had become. "She was the most alive person I know. She was just...she believed that we should be ourselves. I wish we'd had more time to get to know her. And I'm really going to miss her."

"Me too, man," said Sean.

"Yeah, we all will," echoed Alex.

"You see, Charles is an optimist, which is another way of saying delusional. He wants harmony. Peace at any price. With the humans, yes, but also with me. Well, this is his damn price."

He took both sketches and handed them over. He had prepared them with his listener in mind. "You can keep these, I suppose. Add them to your collection."

"Mr. Xavier." The neurologist strode into the room wearing a white coat and an impressive tie.

"That's Doctor Xavier."

"My apologies. Are you a medical doctor?"

"No, I have a doctorate in genetics."

"Well, what I'm here to do is establish the degree of sensory and motor loss, and screen you for cognitive impairment – problems in thinking."

"Yes, I know what cognitive impairment means," snapped Charles.

The neurologist ignored the comment. "Raise both your arms out straight, palms up, don't let me push them down," he said as he pressed down lightly. "Good, now close your eyes and keep your hands steady."

Charles started to tire when the man started testing motor function in his legs.

"I'm going to lift up your right leg. Don't let it fall."

"It's going to fall."

"We're going to test it."

"Lovely."

He largely tolerated being poked repeatedly to establish sensory zones. It was unnerving, really, how clear the boundary was. Skin works, skin doesn't work. Now you feel it, now you don't. He could have drawn a line on himself with a marker. Touch above and he'd feel it. Touch below and he would never know the difference.

Some of the tests were humiliating. Why did it matter if his asshole had reflexes? Charles gritted his teeth and glared angrily down into the bedsheets.

By the time they had moved on to the cognitive tests, Charles had no patience to speak of.

"Tell me, what is fifty plus fourteen."

"One forty-four." He waited for the neurologist to raise an eyebrow before adding, "In base six. It's eight squared, also known as the sixth power of two. I don't have any cognitive impairment."

"All right, let's try this one. Tell me what this proverb means: A stitch in time saves nine."

"It means the same as 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,' but the opposite of, 'Haste makes waste'." Here's another proverb, he thought. Leave me the fuck alone.

"Okay, now I want you to name a color, then a profession, then another color, then another profession, and so on until I tell you to stop."

"Sepia. Ombudsman. Azure. Actuary. Ecru. Paleobotanist. Taupe. Assistant drug mule."

The neurologist suppressed a sigh.

"Do you know what the worst part is? No, of course you don't. The worst part isn't that he might hate me. The worst part is that he might not. He doesn't understand that some sins should not be forgiven. It would dishonor her memory. He doesn't understand that it doesn't matter why something happened, just that it happened."

Petra tapped one hand against the other in a quick rhythm. "Eee-eee-eee-eee," she said. She took the sketches, drawn on square paper, and carefully added them to her stacks. Then she returned to her bed and rocked back and forth. "Eee-eee-eee-eee."

"Yeah, well, eee-eee-eee-eee to you too. Thanks for the company."

Chapter Text

My name is Alex Summers and I fucking hate stairs. I mean, if you have to have a basement or a second floor or something, fine, then you can have stairs. But what is up with all these motherfucking asshats who have just one stair between the sidewalk and their door? Don't these cocksuckers have any respect for gimps?

I may not be all cultured, but I know that when somebody loses a family member, you buy him a drink, so I've been looking for a bar that I can take Charles to, but they all have these little goddamn stairs all over the damn place and I really don't think that handing him a bottle of Jim Bean and saying sorry about your sister is exactly in the spirit of things. Besides, I owe the guy. He got me out of prison. And I don't just mean his weird-ass jailbreak. Look, there was a reason I was locked up; I was a danger to people. Now, I don't have to worry that I'm going to spontaneously make somebody's house blow up and I have him to thank for that. And Hank, with his mad scientist shit. I don't owe Sean anything, but I guess it's kind of a package deal.

Sean is sure that it's all Shaw's fault and that if Erik did anything it was an accident. Hank won't say anything about the matter. Me, I think it's not on and off. See, sometimes I would get in fights with guys and my powers would go off and people would get hurt and I really didn't mean for it to happen, so Sean would say it's not my fault. But at the same time, I knew that if I got pissed, my powers would go off, so maybe I shouldn't have been getting into fights, so I think that part is my fault. Erik did get us to safety. Leaving Moira behind was an asshole thing to do, but the more I think about it, the more I think we left her in Florida, because the signs were in English, so that's less bad. Whatever. He's probably off playing his little faggot chess games or whatever he does in his spare time. I'm not sold on him being the bad guy or the good guy. I just don't give a damn. I'm a practical sort of guy.

So me and Sean saw Charles after his surgery and he was all zoned out, which I don't know if that was from whatever drugs they gave him or he was all stunned about Raven dying. Then Sean said he wanted to talk to me alone and he tells me that he wants me to be in charge of money while he's out of commission and he's going to set up an escrow account. What the fuck, man, I've never even had a savings account, which I don't say, but I do point out that I'm a wanted man. And then he said that between mutant tricks and the CIA my record got destroyed about a month ago and I'm a free man.

Normally, he would have teased me or something and said, "Well, you're a free man, but I still wouldn't go traipsing around Indiana," or he would have said one of those stupid philosophy things, like, "You're a free man, but are any of us really free?" But now he's all just-the-facts, which is fine by me. (Also, normally, I would have been really pissed off that he didn't tell me this, you know, a month ago.) And he points out that Sean isn't eighteen and Hank can't exactly go strolling through town. So he writes down an account number and tells me how much is in it and it's a pretty damn big number. I may not be a math genius, but I know that division makes numbers pretty small pretty fast so I figure on being conservative and tried to work out how to make the money last us a year. If Sean and me move into the East Wing, we could close off the West and then we wouldn't have to heat it and that would save a lot of money. I couldn't find a calculator, so I had to do it all paper-and-pencil. I wrote up a sort of a budget and showed it to Charles the next day. And he says, "No, no, you misunderstand. That's per month." Then he explains that the account he set up for me just gets the interest from all his other money.

That's when I decided to stop worrying about money.

Which was good, because I had other things to worry about. Sean wanted to tell the hospital people that Charles had a sister and she died in the car crash so that they'd be a little nicer to him or something and I had to point out that when someone dies in a car crash, the police come and there's death certificates and autopsies. Basically, I have to keep an eye on Sean to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Hank's a real miserable son of a bitch these days. He can't leave the estate at all and he can really only go outside at night. Even though Charles' house has pretty much everything already there, I get it – it sucks just being locked up in one place. So Sean and me tried to cheer him up. We got him some real primo shit, but he didn't want it. We offered to let him do some science on our powers, but he said he really didn't have any ideas.

I've been taking turns with Sean visiting Charles, first at the hospital, then at the rehab place. I don't know what they talk about, because Charles really doesn't have much to say. If we've got some practical business to discuss, like about remodeling the place, we talk about it. Otherwise, we just sit there and don't say anything. Whatever. Quiet doesn't bother me. One time, though, I was leaving the rehab place and this one bitch of a nurse pats my arm like I'm a dog or something and says, "You're a saint, to keep visiting him when he's like this," and I recognized her because I had seen her before, talking to Charles like he's a goddamn five-year-old. I may have yelled at her a little bit.

I guess Charles heard me, because the next time I came to visit, he says, "The 'F' stands for Francis." I had no clue what he was talking about and he says, "My middle initial. It stands for Francis, not fucking." And then I remembered that I may have told that bitch that was Charles Fucking Xavier in there and he saved the world from nuclear war and she should show some goddamn respect.

I had an idea to cheer up Hank. There was this movie theatre about two miles from the rehab place and I asked Charles if he could freeze all the people inside and we could take Hank to the movies, but Charles said it was a bad idea because people would notice if two hours of their lives were missing. But then just before I left that day, he looked like he was ready to cry and he said, "Alex, I am terribly proud of you."

Man, I didn't know becoming a cripple made you grow ovaries.

We've got all this money, but not much to do with it. I was going to buy Hank some science shit, but I've got no idea what he needs and I'm pretty sure a K-mart kids' chemistry set isn't really going to cut it. But Hank keeps saying that we shouldn't waste Charles' money. Sean tried arguing with him that his science experiments weren't a waste and blah blah blah. I had a better idea. Sean and me were going to waste money on the stupidest things we could think of, so Hank would have to admit that his science crap was less of a waste than whatever we were buying. First thing we got was a whole sheet of acid and when we were dropping it, Sean was totally sure that the air was solid and he kept bumping into it like a million invisible walls. Funniest fucking thing I've seen in my entire life. Second thing we got was a couple of trees to replace the ones I burned down while we were dropping acid. We kept at it, but it wasn't having any effect on Hank until Sean got a moped and I got a drum set when finally Hank hands me a list. I think it was the drum set that did it. The moped just makes Sean look like a fag.

So now we do this weird little scavenger hunt for Hank almost every day. Some of what he wants is normal stuff, like wires and nails, but I had no goddamn clue where I was going to find aluminum perchlorate. I guess when he worked for the CIA, he could just order chemicals and lasers and shit like he's buying a combo meal at McDonalds. So we've had to get creative, both to find stuff and to explain why we need it. See, apparently, smoke detectors have really small amounts of something called americium in them and that matters for some reason if you're a weird-ass science freak. And if anybody asked why we needed thirty-six smoke alarms, we're donating them to a church mission group that builds orphanages in Mexico. Or Africa. I don't really remember. Or another time he wanted camping lanterns. Actually, he just wanted the lining, but we couldn't get the lining without the lantern. We had to buy like fifty of them and the guy at the store was real suspicious, but Sean thought real fast and said that this kind of lantern was the only light that would work if the Soviets nuked us.

At first, Sean kind of annoyed me, like the little brother I never wanted. When he heard I was in jail before joining up with this jacket, he was real impressed, like it was some kind of goddamn achievement. I wanted to explain to him that it really wasn't all that difficult. Since we got back from Cuba, he wants to hang around me all the time. He has this big family and I guess he's just not used to being alone. He's not pissing me off so much these days, though, and he's somehow managed to get himself some good drug connections in Westchester already, so that's handy.

Like I said, I've been visiting Charles every other day since Raven died and he got blown up or whatever happened. He doesn't say much and it's hard to tell because of course we never see him standing, but I'm pretty sure he's lost a lot of weight. I didn't read too much into it. If I had just one person left in my family and they died and I got crippled all at once, I'd be pretty pissed off too. He didn't really seem to be getting any better, but I figured not enough time had passed. Then it was maybe five or six weeks after everything happened, and I came in to visit him, and he said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Summers. You're looking well." We talked for the whole time and he didn't zone out and stare into space at all. All of a sudden, he was back.

Chapter Text

Charles realized quickly that rehabilitation was not about helping him to regain function in his legs. In fact, the very first exercise on the very first day was a physical therapist showing him how to use free weights to strengthen his arms and how to do a series of modified sit-ups to strengthen his abdominal muscles. "You're going to need these muscles to transfer in and out of your wheelchair," he had said, "so we want to start building them as soon as possible."

He had read enough minds in the hospital to know there was essentially no expectation that he would regain any motor function, not after he had failed to improve in the first week. The cut was incomplete, which was supposed to be a good sign, but apparently all that was preserved was just enough sensory fibers for him to feel a pins-and-needles sensation running down his right thigh. He had known that rehab was going to be about making do with what he had left, not regaining what he had lost, but it was somehow different to see firsthand that he was not, in fact, leaving the wheelchair behind in the hospital.

To Charles, it seemed almost crass to be morose about his paralysis so soon after Raven's death – surely the loss of his sister was worse than the loss of his legs? But it was easier to push the former from his mind than the latter. There were the obvious complaints: no more running, no more dancing, no more climbing, but he found it was the less obvious ones that pissed him off the most. Like the way that so many things were out of reach, even in the damn rehab facility. And he discovered that he used his legs much more than he had previously imagined. Things like rolling over in bed, putting a shoe on his foot – he had always assumed the foot was passive, but apparently not – and even simply sitting in a chair, especially if he wanted to slouch. Everything seemed to rely on tension, resistance, or counterbalancing that his legs would no longer provide. And what about sex? He hadn't had enough real privacy since the accident to experiment, but given the complications involved in simply emptying his bladder, he wasn't terribly optimistic.

And whenever he stopped thinking about the paralysis, he would start to think about Raven and about how she only had the one day of walking around outside in her true form. And how she had warned him about Erik, but then this wasn't really Erik's fault, and that would bring him to the topic of Erik and by that point his brain was too weighed down to think of much anything at all. He wanted Raven and he wanted Erik and– he was quite ashamed of this – he wanted his parents.

Me and Alex had been taking turns visiting the Professor. It's really awkward trying to have a conversation with somebody who doesn't talk back but it's even more awkward saying nothing, so I've usually ended up just babbling on like an idiot. I mostly told him stories about stupid things my brothers and I did growing up, like when we were in junior high and we went to the beach with Ricky Carlisle who's my little brother's friend and Ricky dared my brother Tom to catch a crab at let it pinch one of his balls and Tom did it and screamed louder than I ever did and his balls turned purple. And we got these terrible sunburns and we all competed to see who could get the biggest piece of skin when it started peeling. Look, it's not Shakespeare, okay? I was just trying to pass the time and maybe get a laugh out of him. Most of the time he puts on a weak smile at the funny part and says one word like "Wow," or "Interesting."

One time I tried asking him about Raven. When my Uncle Marty died all of a sudden, my mom's whole family got together and told stories about him and that seemed to make everyone feel better, so I thought maybe he might like to tell stories about her, but when I asked, he just said, "You knew her," and what the hell does that mean?

I really wanted to make sure that the Professor's house fit him, at least sort of, when he came home. Somebody professional was remodeling one of the bathrooms, but it occurred to me that there was a lot of other stuff that needed to be done. I brought in a tape measure and measured how high he could reach – I think he was actually pretty mad about that, but I figured it was better for him to be a little mad now then constantly pissed off if he comes back home and can't reach things in his own house. So I cut three strings the same length and me and Alex and Hank all went through the house and made a list of what couldn't be reached. Some stuff we just moved. Other stuff, Hank came up with solutions for, like these little bars on light switches so you could reach them from a little bit lower. Actually, it was kind of good for us to have some real work to do because otherwise, we were just hanging around.

I was playing Boggle with Hank and I was trying to convince him that ginchy really is a word. I mean, he was gonna win anyway – he always does. Man, I was pretty proud of myself for finally finding a six-letter word, but Hank wouldn't budge.

Then Hank was telling me that he called his mom because it was her birthday and she was really upset because a bunch of CIA guys have been harassing her. I guess they came by her house and started saying that Hank is some kind of communist. They were demanding that she tell them where he is or they were going to mess stuff up for her, like make her lose her job or something. His mom was asking him to turn himself in, like she wasn't on his side.

I wanted to call my family to see if they're okay, but at the same time, I'm thinking that maybe it's better for them if I don't. I know I shouldn't think this, but I'm a little jealous of Alex because he doesn't have any family so he doesn't have to worry about this stuff.

You know how certain words make you think of certain things? Like if you say fruit, I always think of apples, even though there are lots of kinds of fruit.

One time, before we ever went to Cuba, I heard Mr. Lensherr and the Professor arguing, and Mr. Lensherr kept saying mutants were going to get exterminated and we should strike first. Whenever I heard the word exterminate, I would think of those bug gassing guys who put the big circus-looking tent over your house. But man, when I saw those missiles coming at us, I kept thinking of the word exterminate. We didn't hurt anybody – well, I guess Alex punched some people and I might have popped a couple of eardrums – but all we were trying to do was keep everybody from nuking each other. And it wasn't just the Soviets trying to kill us, it was the Americans too. There were so many missiles in the air, all I could think was that my parents wouldn't get to bury my body because there wouldn't be a body left.

Things happened so fast afterwards that I sort of forgot about it for a while. But then I saw this ad for an exterminator and the word made me think of all those missiles coming straight at us. And that was when it hit me. You know how sometimes you start thinking about something and then you have to get the real thing, like you start thinking about how French fries taste and then you've got this craving for them? It was sort of like that. There was this picture in one of my books from high school. In senior year I took this class called History of the Twentieth Century and it was about stuff that happened pretty recently and why countries and stuff are the way they are today. It was a pretty interesting class, but I really don't remember much from it, like I couldn't tell you the dates that anything happened. But there was this one picture and it really stuck in my head and I just had to see it again.

I looked through the Professor's books (at least the ones in the library; I didn't want to go through his personal stuff without permission). Then I went to a public library and started looking through books for it, but it wasn't there, so I got directions to another library and I finally found the picture. The one I saw in my book. See, my high school teacher said the Nazis took people's stuff before killing them and I just wrote that down. But then I saw this picture. It's just a room but it's full of eyeglasses. I mean, really entirely full of them. Think about how small a pair of glasses is, and how big a room is and every one of those glasses is from a person they murdered. I tried to estimate how many there were, but I gave up pretty fast.

So now I have two images that I think of when I hear the word exterminate. One is a whole lot of missiles going right at me and the other is a room full of eyeglasses.

I'm still not sure if I want Mr. Lensherr to come back or not, but I'm starting to think he had the right idea about some things.

It was Alex who thought of it first. We were eating dinner. It was just takeout Chinese food, but I sort of made this rule that we all were going to eat dinner together every night. Alex was showing off, using his drumsticks like chopsticks. I was using a fork. Hank really hadn't gotten the hang of using regular silverware with his paws (Oops, hands! Sorry, Alex must be rubbing off on me.) so he was using some kind of skewer thing that I think is for grilling.

Anyways, Alex said to Hank, "You said when they were looking for mutants, they found a whole list, more than just us, right?"

And Hank said, "That's right," in this really deep, commanding voice because that's how he talks now.

"Well, do you still have the list?"

"Of course."

"So does anybody else have it?"

Hank put down his skewer. My fork paused on its way to my mouth. Hank said, "I...I'm not certain. No one else should have had it, except for my now-deceased supervisor. But it was the CIA. You never really knew who was doing what. It's not...unthinkable that someone else had access."

"We should warn them!" I blurted out.

"Yeah," said Alex, "that'll be a real easy phone call." He switched to this mocking voice, "Hi, this psychic pal of ours wore a magic hat and he told the government you have superpowers and...no, you can't talk to him, he's busy being crazy and crippled and shit...anyways, watch your back! Ta-ta!"

I was worried enough about this that I didn't even bother to tell Alex off for calling the Professor crazy. Instead I said that we should go find the other mutants and invite them to come back with us, just like the Professor and Mr. Lensherr did for us. And then if they don't want to come, maybe at least in person we could show them our powers and then they would believe us about warning them.

"It's not that simple," said Hank, "the ones that were omitted must have been omitted for a reason. Some aren't even in the United States and any of us would get arrested if we tried to leave the country."

"But some are in the U.S.," I said. "Come on, we've been planning all this remodeling to make this a school for mutants. That's what the Professor wanted anyway. Just 'cause he's...out of commission for a bit doesn't mean we should wait and let a bunch of mutants get captured up. It's not like this place isn't big enough for lots of people to live here."

Alex said he wasn't sure because what if there were other ones like him who were just going to wreck the place and Hank said he wasn't sure because he didn't think we should offer protection if we weren't sure we could provide it. And Alex pointed out that hiding a lot of people is harder than hiding a few. And Hank asked if the monthly account had enough money in it to support five people or ten or twenty.

I'm not usually sure of stuff. That's what worried means, really. If you know things are bad, that's dread or maybe panic. And if you know they're good, then you feel fine. Worried is when you don't know if things will turn out okay, and like I said before, I worry a lot. But I'm sure about this. The CIA isn't looking for Hank for friendly reasons. And the government pointed all those missiles at us. If we can warn even some of those other mutants or let them come here and join up with us, we should. The man I want to be takes action when other people are in danger. The man I want to be is brave.

I had decided I was going to tell the Professor about Hank's mom and the other mutants and our plans. Even if he didn't say anything back, it was his house and his idea basically and he deserved to hear it firsthand. But then Alex came home from the rehab place and said that Charles was all better and we were like, he can walk? And Alex said, "No, shithead. That's impossible. I mean he's happy and talking and everything."

I had to see it for myself because trusting Alex's judgment about emotions is like trusting Hank's judgment about weed. Everybody's got things they're good at and things they're not. Besides, when people are miserable, they don't get happy all of a sudden – they go from miserable to sad to down to okay to decent and they they're happy.

So I drove down to the rehab facility even though visiting hours were over. Some of the staff were pretty nice and would bend rules if you made up a good enough story. And when I got there, I was in luck because it was Frank at the front desk and he was a real nice guy and we've chatted a lot before. Frank said to me, "You know, your friend must be some kind of genius." I agreed and I was about to start explaining why I needed to get in, but Frank kept talking. "I saw him in there today playing chess against himself with his eyes shut! He must've remembered where all the pieces were and everything."

Well, now I knew why the Professor was feeling better. Mr. Lensherr was back.

I wasn't sure why, but I felt kind of angry. Maybe it seemed unfair that me and Alex had been sticking by the Professor all this time, but Mr. Lensherr just shows up out of the blue and that's what does the trick. Or maybe I would have been okay with it if the Professor felt a little bit better, but cheering up totally was kind of like saying, Well, it doesn't matter that my sister's dead as long as I've got my creepy friend back. These were the sort of thoughts my mom would call unworthy. I hopped on my moped and headed home to get incredibly baked.

Chapter Text

Charles wheeled himself back to his room. He was getting better at handling corners, but doors still slowed him considerably. The vague tingling in his right leg had intensified to resemble the profoundly uncomfortable sensation produced by hitting one's funny bone. He absently rubbed the affected area, though he knew from experience that this would have no effect. He picked up his left leg and braced it behind his right knee. He had begun to unwork his shoe laces, when the suddenly glanced around the room in a startled sort of way.

"Erik?" he asked, cautious yes, but mostly indifferent. Perhaps he would have been excited if he had not had this experience so many times before, to have been so certain that he sensed his friend's presence only to find no physical sign.

Charles turned his attention back to his shoes.

"You're losing your touch," said Erik, now seated on the bed, a few feet away. He wore his usual black slacks and turtleneck, along with Shaw's helmet.

Charles startled and dropped his shoe. "I don't have visual hallucinations," he said. Auditory, yes, he thought, but visual, no. Over the past few weeks, he had begun to feel as though he could hear the thoughts of those dead or gone from him – Raven, his parents, Darwin, Shaw, Kurt, Cain, Erik – especially when he was exhausted or falling asleep.

"What a coincidence. I don't either. Perhaps we should start a club."

Charles stared openly, tilting his head slowly from one angle to another as if trying to assure himself that hallucinatory phenomena were indeed out of the question. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, then opened his eyes again. Erik was still there.

"I came here with a gift for you, Charles."

"Is it liquor?"

Erik gave the slightest of laughs. Then he removed the helmet and handed it over. "Keep it, destroy it, give it to Hank to study. It's yours."

"Erik..." Charles turned the helmet over in his hands. It felt solid enough. If this was madness, it was quite convincing.

Erik sat in silence on the lowish bed. It was the same height as the chair, he realized. Must make it easier to get in and out.

"Where have you been?" asked Charles.

"I've been living in an abandoned piano works."

"Well, did you at least learn to play the piano?" The quip, weak as it was, slipped out of his mouth as if by reflex.

"I most certainly had better things to do with my time."

"Philistine."

"Snob."

Charles looked at his watch. He had been interacting with Erik for no more than two minutes. The last time they had been together, they had murdered a man, his sister had died, and he had been paralyzed. After over a month apart, they had interacted for just two minutes and they had already fallen back into an easy banter where each word flowed inevitably from the previous one. Over the past weeks, Charles had felt talking to be an unbelievable effort, words rarely forming in his mind, let alone on his lips, yet this back-and-forth was as natural as breathing. It was eerie, discomfiting. He looked back at Erik. "I'm told you...helped all of our people escape."

"I kept our oath."

And I didn't, thought Charles. "I hope it was enough."

Erik furrowed his brow.

"I'm...sorry I couldn't...hold him."

"It was enough. Shaw is dead."

Raven is dead, thought Charles.

Erik looked as though he were the mind reader. "And did you come to a conclusion as to why she died? What is the moral of the story?"

Charles' eyes flashed as though waking from a dream. "There is no moral," he said. "Because it's not a story, just a series of strange and terrible marvels."

"Life is a tale told by an idiot / full of sound and fury / signifying nothing," echoed Erik.

"And one day," said Charles with greatest of conviction, "we will find that idiot. And I do hope you beat the shit out of him."

They laughed, they embraced, they remained together until dawn.

"Two visitors today! To what do I owe the pleasure, gentlemen?"

Alex and Sean exchanged glances. Just ask him, Hank had said. Easy for him to say. He wasn't the one who had to do it. It was an awkward question to begin with, made more awkward by the fact that none of them seemed to know quite how to feel about it. For them, it had never been settled whether Erik was in any way to blame for Raven's death or Charles' paralysis. Since the time they had met Erik, they had all found him intimidating, even frightening, and yet the three young men could not avoid the reality that Erik likely knew more than all of them put together about fighting and surviving, skills which they were going to need, especially if they were going to try to protect other mutants from the government. Assuming he was really on their side.

And then there was the oddly intense relationship between Erik and the Professor. Hank simply stated that if it had been him, he would have been more wary. Alex, for his part, repeatedly referred to both men as faggots, though in all fairness, Alex called most people faggots at one time or another. And then there was the fact that if they really were in danger, they were much better off with Charles having returned to his usual self, weren't they? And if Erik could cause that transformation, wasn't that good? Unless of course something about Erik diminished the Professor's judgment – he should have been more wary, right? And around and around. They had debated endlessly, both in conversation with one another and in rumination in their own minds. Until Hank pointed out that Sean could have been wrong, that maybe Charles just played chess with his eyes shut for a challenge, and maybe they should just find out if Erik had really returned before getting so worked up over whether it was a good or bad thing.

Sean found his voice first. "Alex said you were doing better. I wanted to see for myself."

Charles raised an eyebrow, looking first at Alex, then at Sean. "You're wondering about Erik."

"Aw, don't do that, man!" Sean shuddered. "It's creepy."

"My apologies, Mr. Cassidy. Your thoughts are rather loud."

"So where is he?" asked Alex in an impatient tone.

Charles pressed his fingers to his temple. "At a diner a few miles west of here. Eating a turkey sandwich."

The implications of this were startling. Sean considered a dozen potential responses battling for his voice only to hear himself blurting out, "They're after Hank!"

"Are you sure they allow alcohol in this place?"

"It's not that sort of rehab. And...maybe? I don't know. What they don't know won't hurt them."

Charles and Erik tapped their Styrofoam cups together and drank.

"Somehow," said Charles, "the materials at hand fail to give the toast its usual gravity."

Erik peered down. "I've got little floating white things in my scotch."

"I believe those are prizes."

"You're a very strange man."

"And about to get a lot stranger. I don't know what happens when you mix booze and muscle relaxants, but I suspect they target related neurochemical pathways."

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Why are you taking muscle relaxants?"

"Because otherwise my legs want to stick straight out at the knee. Rather inconvenient, though possibly handy in some rather bizarre unforseen circumstances."

"There's no way you can be drunk already."

"Don't underestimate my ability to get drunk. Especially when I'm already drugged."

"When do you leave here?"

"Whenever I like. I'm scheduled to remain six more days." Charles paused, stared at his scotch. "You are, of course, more than welcome to your quarters at the manor at any time." He laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"You have your quarters, but all the nickels are mine. I keep them in a sock. To hit people with."

"I have missed you, Charles. God knows why, but I have missed you."

Sean approached Erik, who was sitting in the kitchen, reading a newspaper. "I want you to teach me to fight," he said. "I should know how to defend myself, and other people if I need to."

Erik shook his head. "You're a kid, it's not your concern."

Sean opened his mouth to argue, but Erik returned to his newspaper, signaling the matter closed.

"I really do want you to teach me to fight," said Sean. "Being young didn't stop all those ships from firing missiles at me, so it shouldn't stop me from learning to defend myself."

Erik shook his head. "If I teach you to fight, you'll become reckless and overconfident. Now go away."

"I don't know what your problem is, man," Sean stood in the doorway, arms akimbo. "I thought this was what you wanted, but either way, I need to learn combat stuff and you're the only guy around to teach me."

"I thought I'd made myself very clear. You have no idea what you're talking about. You have no idea what you're getting into. The answer is no." Erik stared directly at Sean, opening his eyes just a bit wider than usual. The effect was intimidating.

"Bite me," said Sean, staring right back. "I'm not gonna give up on this."

Erik put down his book with a laugh. "Fair enough," he said. "I will train you."

"Really? This isn't just some kind of trick?"

"You never know what is a trick and what isn't. That's a good first lesson. Instead of thinking of things as true or false or safe or unsafe, you have to think about the possible outcomes, how likely each one is, and how risky each one is. So, how likely do you think it is that I'm tricking you?"

"I don't know...um...maybe a 20% chance?"

"All right, assuming that's correct, that would mean there is an 80% chance I am sincere. Now, let's assume I am tricking you, because you often may not have much time so you should consider the worse possibilities first."

"Okay?" Sean felt that this was getting a bit hard to follow.

"So if I am tricking you, and you play along, what is the risk?"

"I don't know. You could kill me or turn me over the CIA or something?"

"Do you really believe that?" Erik smirked.

"I'm really confused. Is this supposed to be real or practice?"

"Both. I'll spell it out for you this time. You face a definite threat from the US government. You know that with certainty. If you don't seek training, you will fall prey to that threat. In contrast, I might be tricking you, but then again I might not. You see? One path leads to certain death, whereas the other only leads to possible death. It's still the better bet."

"So even if I think this might be dangerous," said Sean, "doing nothing is definitely more dangerous."

"Precisely," said Erik. He produced a knife from thin air. "Keep this with you at all times. I'll know if you don't."

"I understand you've agreed to train Mr. Cassidy."

"You think that's a bad idea?"

"No," said Charles, "I'm wondering why you're not training all three of them."

"Alex didn't ask and Hank doesn't really want to."

"I believe Hank asked you to train him."

"He asked once. I told him he wasn't cut out for it and he let the matter drop."

"You conclude, therefore, that he does not really want to."

"I think you might have less enthusiasm after you see my training methods."

"I trust you, Erik. You wouldn't treat any of them as you were treated."

"Open your mouth," said Erik.

Sean obediently opened wide and tried to suppress a mental image of Erik Lensherr, dentist. He was considerably less amused when his knife moved to lie sideways against his lower jaw.

"Close your mouth," said Erik.

Sean did as he was told. He found he had to peel his lips back to keep the corners of his mouth from touching the blade.

"There are only two rules for this: The knife stays where it is and keep getting back up."

Sean would have asked for further explanation, if not for the knife in his mouth and the fact that Erik immediately grabbed him by both arms and pushed him to the ground. He clambered back to his feet, indignant, only for Erik to hook one of his legs around both of Sean's and send him tumbling to the ground again. Sometimes Erik kicked Sean back over while he was trying to get to his feet. Other times, Erik waited until Sean had begun to wonder if the exercise was finished. He pushed him forward, backward, and sideways. He knocked him down by his stomach, arms, head, legs. He pushed and pulled at the metal in the knife, making it dig into the corners of Sean's mouth. It hurt, being knocked around, but Erik was careful and the ground was soft. Sean probably wouldn't even bruise and the lacerations on his lips were superficial.

It felt like ages, but after only twenty minutes, Erik offered Sean a hand to help him up. "I want you to leave the knife where it is, go inside, and look at a mirror."

Sean did as he was told and was surprised at what he saw. It was him, yes, but fierce. There was blood dripping down his jaw, some fresh and some congealed. Curling his lips back from the knife forced him to bare his teeth. He looked himself in the eye and saw a curious intensity, a degree of vigor and determination. It was worth it, to see himself like this. He didn't have to be like this, not all the time, but he could.

"They're really planning on finding the other mutants?" Erik was frankly impressed that Alex, Sean, and Hank had managed to cooperate in any sort of organized fashion. He edged a pawn forward. The chessboard was balanced on the small nightstand provided by the rehab facility. Charles sat in his wheelchair. Erik sat on the bed.

"I'm not sure their activity could really be described as planning so much as intending very loudly, but yes. We don't know who has the list and protection, or at least warning, is in order." Charles sighed and castled. "This is something you were right about, Erik."

"I wish I weren't." He moved his knight out. Erik had a special fondness for knights, leaping around the board and showing up where they weren't expected. He tended to overrely on them.

"Don't despair. I accept that we may need to use force to defend ourselves for the time being, but that's just one front, not the entire war." Charles captured a pawn with a bishop.

"And the other front is what, psychic brainwashing?" Erik captured a bishop with a pawn.

"Have you ever heard the name of Alan Turing?" Charles slid his rook to the side.

"I can't say that I have."

"He was a brilliant mathematician and a code breaker during World War II. The best of all of them, actually. He cracked the famous Enigma code that was giving the Allies so much trouble." Charles paused. "It's your turn, you know."

Erik moved his queen back several spaces.

"After the war, he was prosecuted for homosexuality." Noticing his friend's curled lip, Charles added, "There are all sorts of mutations, Erik." Charles pressed forward with his remaining bishop. "Anyways, he was chemically castrated then took his own life."

Erik captured a pawn with his knight. "This would seem my usual argument, Charles. The majority abuses its power."

"That's not the point I'm trying to make. The point is that I know the name of Alan Turing. Many people do. They know who he was and what he did for Britain and for everyone who opposed the Reich. And they know how his government turned on him. And it makes them angry. People who quite generally think of homosexuality as a perversion still take Turing's side." Charles brought out his queen, capturing Erik's knight.

"They tried to kill us right after we stopped a war." Erik plunged his remaining knight into a mess of Charles' pieces.

"That's why we have to fight both ways. Perhaps our genius Mr. McCoy will invent a miracle cure. Perhaps a mutant singer will be the next John Lennon." Charles pressed his rook forward and captured Erik's remaining knight. "Check."

Erik moved his king to the left.

"It's still illegal in Britain, you know. For two men to have sex with one another." Charles moved a pawn with no clear aim. "They really do arrest people."

Erik captured a pawn with a pawn. "You speak from experience?"

"Not my own, but that of classmates or, when I was in undergraduate, a professor was arrested and charged." Charles moved his queen three spaced to the right.

"Hm." Erik's pawn reached the far side of the board. "Give me my knight."

Charles picked up the piece. He looked at Erik and he felt reckless, perhaps because it was his last night in the rehabilitation facility, perhaps because he could almost hear Raven's voice saying Mutant and proud, or perhaps because he was intoxicated with a combination of liquors and muscle relaxants. As Erik leaned forward to take his knight back, Charles kissed him.

Erik pushed Charles back. "Schwul!" he cried in disgust.

Chapter Text

"You moron!" said Charles, with a tone of benign exasperation. "I'm a telepath. You can deceive yourself all you like, but you can't deceive me."

Erik glared and said nothing.

"I've no idea whether you have any romantic interest in me specifically, but given what I read from your mind while you were in the water, I do know that you're not repulsed by my gender alone."

"You said that was a quick scan, just the overall gist of things."

"And you thought that this was just a minor detail?"

"No, I think you're completely wrong." Erik's face and voice were flat.

"And I respectfully disagree."

"I should think that I would know my own thoughts better than you know them."

Charles sighed tolerantly. "Erik, I can think of at least," he paused, rolled his eyes up and to the left, "four reasons right off the top of my head why your self-perception is likely to be faulty in this case, but every one of them will piss you off, so perhaps you might agree to simply cede the possibility that there could be a side to you of which you are unaware."

"My thoughts are my own. You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Would the court stenographer please read back the part where I'm a bloody telepath?"

Charles had recommended Lyle Saunders, age 25, as their first recruit. He lived in an isolated cabin in rural Pennsylvania, near enough to Westchester that they could go there and back in a single day. When Charles had described Lyle as, "an amicable gentleman" who "regularly grew wings," Alex and Sean had naturally assumed that he could fly.

"Naw," said Lyle, "yer thinkin' of two wings comin' outta my back." He shook his head with a laugh. "I get plenty more than two sometimes, and they show up wherever they damn well please." As if to illustrate, a butterfly wing and three bat wings emerged and flapped helplessly from his elbow. Lyle shuddered mightily in a manner reminiscent of a dog shaking itself dry and the wings began to recede. "It don't bug me too much as long as I stay up here and don't spook the townsfolk."

Lyle was not born the sort of man who would want to be a hermit – he liked to talk, gamble, and compete. He readily admitted that he would have taken them up on their offer even without the threat of being harried by the government. He was not a leader, but was a ready joiner. He was an affable man, though – due to his long isolation – he occasionally required reminders about basic social conventions, such as personal hygiene and ogling women.

"Can we at least agree that you are uninterested in women?" asked Charles.

"If by that you mean I don't attempt to mate with every female I see."

"You don't think it's uncommon for a man your age to have never had sex with a woman?"

"I don't see why I should be so fucking eager to undress with some strange woman and gasp about like a dying fish."

"I'm not terribly fond of the female body myself and even I have a higher opinion of heterosexual intercourse than that."

"Right," said Erik, switching over from defense to offense, "and since when are you...like this? To hear Raven tell it, you were forever bringing women home from bars."

"Yes, well," Charles smiled regretfully, "that was..." He inhaled sharply. "I didn't necessarily have sex with quite a lot of them. I would...mean to do so, sort of want to want to do so, but when the moment came, I would find myself quite...uninterested. So I would browse about in their minds just enough to find a worry that would preoccupy them, casually bring it up, and then find myself in the role of 'good listener'. But I did have sex with them sometimes – suffice it to say, I have a good imagination. I wanted very much to be normal. I presumed that if I persisted long enough in acting the part, I would eventually become normal. It didn't work."

"When I was in undergraduate," continued Charles, "there was a young man named Thomas Wytt. We didn't know each other really, be we were lab partners for microbiology simply because we were alphabetically adjacent. We had these experiments to do that required one to make an adjustment every few hours. Lower the heat, add a substrate, agitate the solution. It was terribly dull and it took almost eighteen hours to complete. So we brought a case of beer and homework from other classes and settled in for a long night. And when we were very drunk, we sucked each other off. We were drunk and we weren't even close friends and we were surrounded by foul smelling bacteria growth cultures, but it was the best sex I had in my life."

"Well Charles, that was a very lovely story of self-discovery and what I would assume was a great deal of venereal disease transmission." Erik turned a chess piece over in his hand in a failed effort to look bored.

Hank spoke with Mary Ann Travers over the phone. She was a single mother of three living in east Texas who had the ability to command reptiles. She made quite clear that she had no intention of leaving her home, uprooting her children, or in any way approaching the sin and liberalism that she felt was rampant anywhere within a two hundred mile radius of New York City. Nonetheless, the thanked Hank for the warning. "I have plenty of firearms and a whole mess of snakes ready to defend my home if need be, and I do appreciate knowin' when there might be a need."

The conversation became more contentious when Hank brought up the subject of birds.

"I can talk to reptiles," said Mary Ann. "Reptiles. Like snakes and lizards and tortoises."

"I know in common parlance we separate them out, but birds are actually just a subtype of the reptile clade. It's the only way the phylogenic tree makes sense."

"I don't talk to no birds! I talk to reptiles."

Hank muttered, "You mean you talk to some reptiles, those other than birds."

"Do you really think you're going to convince me of this via rhetoric?" asked Erik.

"I suppose it is unlikely. However, I assumed it rather safer for my person than any other methods of persuasion I may have considered." Charles almost followed this statement with a salacious wink, but thought better of it.

Erik let out a soft growl, as if to confirm Charles' assumption.

"The reality is, Erik, I have seen your mind and it couldn't be plainer: you're attracted to men. They're who you notice. They're who you fantasize about. They're the subject of your wet dreams." It occurred to Charles that Erik might actually be unaware that it was unusual for adult men to have wet dreams – the energy was typically discharged in another manner. "All we're debating is whether or not you should think you're attracted to men and that's a separate issue entirely."

Erik seethed. A few short months ago he would have probably attacked the man, or at least destroyed quite a lot of property (though a few months ago, he never would have been in this situation, so it was difficult to make a comparison). At minimum, he would have left some time ago. But this was Charles, who had broken a dearly held belief to help him to kill Shaw, sacrificing much in the process. He forced himself to be still. He could be still. He focused on his right arm until the trembling abated. He inhaled deeply and held his breath until it hurt, then forced himself to exhale slowly. "All right," he said, "you think I'm wrong. Explain to me why you would know my thoughts better than I would."

They next visited Abigail Whitman, a fourteen-year-old girl who had found her aunt and uncle's home less than welcoming since her shadow had begun acting of its own accord. Nothing was wrong, exactly. She wasn't mistreated. But as soon as Sean mentioned the school in Westchester, Abigail's aunt began nodding vigorously.

"Well, that sounds like the right idea, doesn't it?" she said. "A separate school for," she gestured at Abigail, Sean, and Alex, "you."

Charles wished fervently that he were sober. He knew he had to choose his words carefully, that Erik's willingness to hear him out was less out of an honest readiness to consider what he had to say and more out of a general sense of obligation. The reality was, sex had never been a mystery for Charles and he knew he had a tendency to be overly frank on the matter. His ability to hear others' thoughts had long preceded his ability to filter out those thoughts and most people thought about sex most of the time. Actually, the reality was that Charles tended to be overly frank on every topic, whereas Erik preferred – no, required – more distance.

He started with the least objectionable, though least likely possibility. "Perhaps," said Charles, "you felt like I did, that you were different enough already, that another difference would be too much."

"You're not very good at this telepathy thing."

Good, a joke. Because he didn't know how to structure the remaining possibilities. They all ran together. "If I were a young man," Charles spoke softly, "in a place where certain traits meant pain or death, and one of those traits was to be a Jew, and one was to be a homosexual, and one was to be a mutant and I was already two of those things. And if both my mutant powers and these desires emerged at the same time – Shaw believed that puberty was key for the emergence of mutant powers, didn't he? – and my powers proved to be a curse and so perhaps they were related and these desires were a curse as well. And if my first experiences with sex were taken from me without my consent by cruel and greedy men. Did they know? Did these things happen because I am a Jew, a freak, or a fag?" Charles held his head at an odd angle: down and to the left, but with his chin pointing outward. "If I were that young man, I might decide that I was not a fag, there would never be a pink triangle on my clothing, that any passing thoughts I might have were just distractions and tricks."

Erik stared off into the distance for some time, silent, but remarkably calm. It was still strange to hear words put to his thoughts, struggling ideas that wriggled and crept. The effect was remarkably like freezing a deer with a bright light. The beast was still and it could be studied. It was not tame, but it was controlled, if only for the moment.

Finally, Erik spoke. "I hope I didn't hurt you when I pushed you backward."

"I'm fine," said Charles, his voice warm with affection and the lingering effects of alcohol.

"Why do you always...why can you never leave things be?"

"Because, god help me Erik, I know that you are a man of strength." He sighed. "And because there is so much of this world that you're not a part of. Joy is a part of life, just as much as pain."

They caught up with Gregory and Isaac Cooper, 10-year-old twins, in Arkansas. Alex, Sean, and Hank had all been uncomfortable, looking at the file.

"They got sold to the circus?" asked Alex.

"It doesn't say sold, just...given," replied Sean.

Hank had growled at no one in particular.

Sean had patted his arm, tried to cheer him up a bit. "Well, we're bringing them home now, man."

When they actually arrived at the travelling carnival's winter homestead, things were not at all as they had expected. Yes, the twins had skin like tree bark with patches of leaves and moss where hair would be. Yes, Gregory and Isaac had, at a very young age, been abandoned to the carnies by whatever kin had carried them. And yes, they had been put to work as exhibits in a freak show. But the boys had no desire to leave the circus. The carnies had raised them like family. They were friends with the other children. They had adults who fed them, told them stories, and made them wear coats when it was chilly. The boys whispered to each other, then called over Big Eddie.

"You're talking about important stuff," said Gregory.

"Big Eddie makes the important decisions," said Isaac.

So they spoke with Big Eddie, a bald man with few teeth, while Gregory and Isaac looked on. Big Eddie listened carefully as they described the danger, asked for demonstrations of their powers, and posed a number of questions about the sort of care and schooling that would be provided. He asked Alex and Sean to step away for a moment and they saw him embrace both boys, one in each arm. They could hear only snippets of what he was saying: "to keep you safe," "not forever, we'll phone," "visit," and "family."

"I sent 'em to pack. They'll go back with you." Big Eddie leaned in close and whispered, "You'll take good care of those boys. I wouldn't've sent 'em with you if I thought otherwise. But heaven help you if I ever find out I was wrong."

"Open the nightstand drawer," said Charles. "Look inside the book."

Erik opened a hardcover copy of The Once and Future King to find several joints acting as bookmarks.

"Mr. Cassidy thought they might help with the spasticity, but I must admit that I have not yet had the chance to evaluate that claim."

Erik still looked quizzical.

"I suspect that you're feeling rather tense." He paused. "It'll settle your stomach if nothing else."

Erik gestured to the smoke alarm on the ceiling.

"So disable it."

Erik held an open hand toward the device, then drew his fingers into a fist. A metallic crunch could be heard.

"I suppose I was actually suggesting that it be disabled in some way such that it could be reactivated later."

"How the hell am I supposed to know how a smoke alarm works?" He looked at the joints, then back at Charles. "Do you want to...sit on the bed?"

Charles smiled. "Very much so."

As Charles began to shift in his chair, Erik offered, "Do you want help?"

"Thank you, thank you, thank you for asking," said Charles, sounding terribly relieved. "No, I do not."

Gerry Fallone was hard to find, both because he was homeless and because he regularly took on gaseous form. He was confident that he was safe from any government incursions. "They can't find me, man. I just float away."

Alex pointed out that they had found him and that they didn't have nearly the resources of the CIA.

"But you're like me," said Gerry. "Blood calls to blood."

As Charles transferred from the wheelchair to the bed (a process which could take up to ten minutes when he was sober), Erik amused himself by finding a lighter in a nearby room. He used the lighter's metal bits to tug it out of the other patient's pants pocket and down the hall.

They lit up, letting long, slow drags mix with the alcohol they had already consumed. They leaned against the headboard and relaxed. It was only a twin bed and Erik found himself wishing that Charles was the one up against the wall, because Charles' right leg would occasionally slip off the side of the bed and hang awkwardly until Charles noticed. Then he would pick the leg up by the knee and return it to the bed.

"Stay! Staaaaaaay. Good leg." Charles patted himself on the thigh.

Erik laughed and shook his head.

"It is a good leg!" protested Charles. "Not like the left one. That one's traitorous."

"Are any other parts of you traitorous?"

"That's a matter of opinion." He suddenly opened his eyes very wide. "I don't like the word opinion. Looks too much like onion and who has an opinion on that?" Charles pointed forward at the air, as if daring someone to challenge him on his previous statement. He wobbled on the edge of the bed and Erik, almost by reflex, put an arm around him.

Normally, Erik would be embarrassed by such behavior, but in his current state, he merely rubbed a bit of fabric from Charles' nightshirt between his fingers and remarked, "Your clothes are really comfortable!" He took a long drag on his joint and pulled Charles closer. "It's just those vests," he said. "You're always wearing vests. How often does it really happen that your chest is cold but your arms are not?"

For his part, Charles merely echoed the word vests, clearly enjoying the mess of consonants at the end.

Erik put down his joint, so he could pick up his scotch and drink the remainder in one gulp.

"You know what else pisses me off?" asked Charles.

"What's that?"

"Birds. What are they up to? Always flying and looking at things and having those legs and..." He shuddered.

"You know, I'm none too fond of birds myself."

"What pisses you off?"

"Everything," said Erik in a sleepy sort of way.

"Oh, that's sad," said Charles, pleasantly detached. He then poked something invisible inches from his head.

"Where's the rest of the scotch?"

"I don't think there is any more."

"Then I'm taking yours. You're plenty drunk already."

"Hey! Who made you the king of how drunk I plenty am already? And if you're the king, why don't you buy better hats? That beret you have makes you look like a mushroom."

Erik drank down the remaining liquor in Charles' cup. Each breath felt noisy.

"Charles," he said, "would you do me-"

"Yes."

"-a favor?" Erik ignored the interruption.

"What is it?" Charles' eyes went from very small and squinty, to very large, and back again.

"I was wondering if you..." Apparently Erik still required more alcohol because the words weren't coming. "I was, maybe you could..." He squinted his eyes shut and opened them again. "Your lab partner..." He gave up with words. He took Charles' hand and pressed it to his temple, guiding Charles into the pose he used to focus his telepathy.

"Ohhh," said Charles. "You want me to suck your penis!" He grinned broadly. "That sounds like a lovely idea!"

Erik looked frightened and thought, in his own defense, that most people would be unnerved by that response.

Charles began to reposition himself then stopped and looked back at Erik. "I don't want to hurt you. If it hurts," he said, "I'll stop."

"Can you do this in the dark?"

"Yes."

The light clicked out.

Erik could feel Charles sliding his shirt up a few inches, then laying across his stomach. Charles rubbed Erik's groin through the fabric of his pants and yes, it was pleasant. It would have been a comfortable position if not for the size of the bed; Charles' right leg was dangling off the side again. When Charles began to unwork his belt and his pants, Erik felt both aroused and afraid.

"I can stop," said Charles.

Erik shook his head. Even in the dark, Charles got the message and returned to his efforts. He freed Erik's cock from his boxers and began stroking it slowly. He added his mouth and Erik gave a soft gasp.

"I like that sound," said Charles. "Let's see if I can make you do it again."

Like most beginners, Erik came too soon and without warning. Charles gagged.

"Are you all right?"

Charles smiled again and amused himself licking up the remainder. "Quite all right, thank you. Though perhaps at some future date, we shall discuss the etiquette of fellatio."

"Thank you, Charles." Erik seemed a bit out of breath. "That was really...are you sure you didn't do some...?" Erik tapped his temple, a gesture indicative of telepathy. The room was dim, but visible under the streetlights outside.

"Most certainly not. That wasn't mind tricks. That was technique!" Charles' mock outrage softened. "And I'm very glad you enjoyed it."

Erik looked down at him. "Should I... I mean, would you like...?" He pressed his tongue against his teeth as he thought about the possibility of reciprocating.

Here, mused Charles, Erik was not alone in his discomfort. Of the over two dozen individuals who had provided him with evaluation or training since he had suffered his injury, not one had mentioned sex. "I appreciate the thought, Erik, but it's...um, rather complicated." Charles was weirdly grateful that the abnormal sexual function associated with spinal cord injury provided him with a nice, neat way to avoid an activity that might trigger flashbacks which would ruin what was turning out to be a lovely evening. It could be dealt with later.

Charles rested his head on Erik's chest and looked terribly pleased with himself. "We're outlaws," he said with a note of pride. "I mean, if this were Britain. I don't actually know the laws here."

They slept. They had no dreams that night.

Chapter Text

Two Months After Charles' Return to the Mansion

Unsurprisingly, Alex got along well with Lyle. They would drink cheap beer and play cards or go fishing. Both were used to isolation and comfortable with silence. They kept each other company.

Alex spent a lot of time with another resident as well; it was often debated whether this was necessarily good for either party.

Alex and Petra were sitting in the kitchen. Petra seemed very focused on slowly touching her thumb and forefinger together in a perfectly stead rhythm.

"That's Charles," said Alex, pointing. "What do you say to Charles?"

"Say to Charles?" echoed Petra.

"Say hi Charles."

"HiCharles." She mushed it into one word and it sounded almost like a sneeze.

"Say hi Erik."

"HiErik."

"What do you say to Sean?"

"BITE ME SEAN!"

Alex offered her a congratulatory high-five.

It was compromise, not perfection.

The twins had latched on to Hank. If one were determined to find deep meaning in the situation, one might conclude that they felt a kinship with another mutant whose appearance was abnormal. If one were more cynical, one might conclude that they were children far from home, and to them, Hank resembled nothing quite so much as a giant stuffed animal. Isaac in particular needed frequent reminders that it was considered impolite to pet Hank. When Hank wasn't with Gregory and Isaac, he was usually alone or occasionally meeting with Charles to discuss plans for the building of subbasements and a new model of Cerebro. He enjoyed his work and he took pride in it. He liked teaching the twins science and helping them with their own inventions. (Gregory and Isaac were bright, but not geniuses; their "inventions" largely consisted of everyday objects attached to model rockets.) He was pleased to discover that they were handy with a toolbox as well, thanks to years of helping to assemble and dismantle rides. For their sake, Hank tried to be more positive about appearance-affecting mutations, but he wasn't sure he believed it himself. So if he was still confined to the estate and if he still had no real friends his own age, well, it was compromise, not perfection.

Since Erik returned, Sean had regarded him with a respect that bordered on awe. He led a bipolar life. When he was training with Erik, Sean pushed himself harder than he ever thought possible, straining toward whatever goal Erik had set as if it were a matter of life and death. One time, they were engaged in a simple exercise in which Sean's goal was to stop Erik from taking a plastic clothespin attached to his shirt. Erik had knocked Sean's hands back with an iron fencepost. When he reached in to take the clothespin, Sean bit down, hard enough to draw blood. Erik clearly hadn't expected the move because he let loose a stream of German profanity, but he then praised Sean and Sean was proud. When he wasn't training, he would relax and switch back into the same old Sean. And if he couldn't make that switch quite as easily or as completely as he believed, if Charles couldn't quite stop himself from mourning for the boy Sean had been and the man he had become, well, it was compromise, not perfection.

Erik, true to form, had become skittish following his night with Charles. He remained at the mansion and they remained friends, but there was no more kissing and certainly no more oral sex. He had been very intoxicated, he thought, and he remained suspicious that Charles had perhaps fiddled with his mind that evening. Erik also found it more difficult than expected to give up the hunt. There were still faces to be erased, names to be deleted and it galled him to take no action. And if he sometimes disappeared from the mansion for days at a time, sketched the faces and burned them over and over again, well, it was compromise, not perfection.

Erik had learned that he slept better if Charles bore some of his dreams. This was something Charles readily agreed to do, so after sharing the mansion for about two weeks, they began to share a bed as well. It was a very big bed; there was no touching. Charles dreamt of needles and wires, of hunger and rage, but there was no telling of dreams. Erik could not bear to hear words for people whom he could no longer kill. Charles shared too in Erik's wet dreams: images of violent, angry thrusting – from behind, never face-to-face – that left Charles-in-the-dream bloody and bruised and sore. Sore, for Charles was never paralyzed in Erik's dreams; he tried not to think about what this might mean. Despite Charles' claim that homosexuality was "just another mutation" (and despite the reality that he and Erik did not actually have a sexual relationship), he used his powers to ensure that none of the mansion's other residents were aware of their sleeping arrangements. And if Charles continued to very faintly hear the thoughts of those dead and gone, most often Raven, and if he could not truly feel comfortable with their preparations to defend themselves with force, and if he continued to drink more than was strictly healthy, well, it was compromise, not perfection.

"You don't have to do this just to make me happy," said Charles.

"You don't have to do this just to make me happy," said Erik.

"No," said Erik, "I want to," though there was reluctance in his voice.

"No," said Charles, "I want to," though there was reluctance in his voice.

Charles nodded. "Okay then."

Erik nodded, "Okay then."

Erik leaned forward and kissed Charles.

Charles shot Erik point blank in the face.

This was compromise, not perfection.

Chapter Text

Deleted Scene #1:

I wrote this scene early on, but dropped it because I decided it was unrealistic for Erik to agree back during the recruitment phase. I mainly hung onto this piece because I liked the line about notaries. I like notaries.

"Just take off your shirt, Erik," murmured Charles, as he flipped lazily through an anthropology journal, taking in only the barest gist of each article.

Erik froze briefly, then returned to adjusting the windows. "It's homo superior, Charles, not plain homo."

"What it is, is it's 95 bloody degrees in this hotel room no matter how much you keep fidgeting with the blasted windows. And I should like for this not to be the second night in a row that you wear turtlenecks to bed and sweat and stink to high heaven." Using his finger as a bookmark, he closed the journal to look directly at his traveling companion. "You smell, my friend."

Erik merely raised an eyebrow.

Xavier wrinkled his nose. "Well, that kind of language isn't really called for." He twisted around, sat up in bed. "Look, I've seen your tattoo. When I first...felt your mind, I noticed it. And I know there are other marks. And it seems you've been putting quite a lot of effort into hiding them and I just think that there must be a more productive use to which that effort can be put and-"

Erik raised a hand, palm perpendicular to the floor. "You're babbling."

"You're sweating. A lot." He paused. "Look, what if I gave you one of my nightshirts? They have short sleeves, you won't be so hot."

"I am not wearing your clothes."

"Well, see, I would give it to you and then it would be your clothes. I know the whole process seems complicated, but I would be happy to get it notarized if you-"

Erik raised a hand, palm perpendicular to the floor and Charles stopped talking. Erik drew a small knife from the neck of his shirt and stowed it between his mattress and boxspring.

"I suppose I'd do best not to ask how many knives you have with you."

As he began to slide his shirt over his head, Charles politely turned his head to the side. He wanted them to be comfortable with one another, not to humiliate the other man.

"No," said Erik, "you wanted this, you look." He slid the shirt over his head and dropped it near his suitcase. And looking on, Charles realized that he really had not had a picture of what it would look like, that Erik must have made a distinct effort in his life to avoid looking at himself, so that although Charles had seen glimpses of how each mark was born, their entirety, their collective was nonetheless a shock. Then he saw Erik's reaction to his face, suddenly looking quite uncertain.

Charles swung his legs around so he was sitting on the side of the bed. He gestured next to himself. "Sit down, Erik, please."

Erik hesitated.

"Bring your knife if you like."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Of course you're not, but there is much in this world that is quite worth fearing, and much of that is in your memories, in your mind, and so telepathy is understandably quite frightening, even if the telepath himself-" he gestured toward his chest "-is not a very imposing figure."

Erik sat down, a knife from his suitcase floating over and resting at his side. His muscles were tensed and a slight whistle with each inhale indicated his teeth were clenched.

"Now let's not be stabbing me, right then?" Though his companion did not technically agree to the condition, Charles proceeded as though he had. He took Erik's left forearm in both hands and turned it upward, so the numbers were quite visible. They were a bit blotchy; the ink had spread in some places. They were stretched out, angled to the right. Perhaps the skin had been held strangely when the ink had been applied initially, or perhaps one patch of skin had grown more than another. "You were..." Charles whispered, "you were surprised by the needle. You didn't know how tattoos worked. No one in your neighborhood had ever gotten one – they're against Jewish law, correct? So you weren't expecting a needle. You yelped when it first stuck you. Surprise and pain. There were a few tears, though just a few, but later you looked back on it and you were ashamed to be bothered by something as mild as a needlestick. But you've always hated it, hated those numbers. You once smashed a telephone when the number the operator gave you to dial was too similar." He paused, looked up.

Erik was quite still, as if frozen. Though his muscles were tense, they did not twitch. Charles could see tiny vibrations in the knife, however.

"Erik?"

"Keep going," he whispered, commanded.

Charles ran his index finger very lightly over a pink line perhaps four inches long on the man's bicep. "This is from barbed wire. You were crowded into a space. You don't know why they brought you and the others there, but it is dark and it is foul and there is barbed wire between you and the outside. You try to get out, to crawl between the wires. You cut your arm but you didn't care. And then a man in an SS uniform hits you in the head with the butt of his rifle and knocks you out."

Deleted Scene #2:

I thought it would be fun to subvert several traditional tropes by making exactly one character gay. There would be no pairings of any kind, the character would just be gay. That was my plan for Alex, but I eventually abandoned it because I thought it would make his tough-guy antics sad overcompensation rather than funny and largely meaningless. Alas. This would have occurred sometime when they are at the mansion, training before meeting Shaw.

Charles fiddled idly with a pen. "Mr. Summers has been finding excuses to spend time with Raven. I rather hope Hank makes a move soon. I'd much rather she date him."

Erik sniffed dismissively. "I don't think you have to worry about Alex."

"And why not?"

"He's...I don't know the word in English. Schwul, rosa," when comprehension failed to dawn on Charles' face, he elaborated more crudely, "fucks men."

Charles' eyes widened in unmistakable surprise.

Erik laughed again. "You didn't know? Some psychic you are."

"And how did you arrive at this conclusion?"

"I searched his room."

"Why did you search his room?"

"I searched everybody's rooms."

"Okay, first of all, that actually does not answer my question. And second of all, what did you find that convinced you of this?"

"Pictures."

"Of a boyfriend?"

Erik rolled his eyes. "Pornography."

"Ah. Well, that is rather strong evidence." A pause. "The word you were looking for was homosexual. There's other terms, derogatory ones, which ironically I believe you have already heard from Mr. Summers."

Here's a few other deleted scenes from that same time period. These are ones that I just never found a good place for.

Deleted Scene #3:

A voice rang out from two floors above, halfway between yelling and singing. "WHO threw the OVERALLS in mistress Murphy's CHOWDER?"

"Oh glory, Sean's gotten into the liquor cabinet."

Deleted Scene #4:

Various other ways to lead into Xavier getting high.

"And there are some...advantages to being off of government property, yes?" Charles pulled out his wallet, and handed a thin stack of bills to Raven with a wink. "And don't sample!" he shouted as she walked back to the car. "You're lucky I give you the key to the liquor cabinet!"

"This key?" She held it up, grinned, and tossed it to him. She looked at Erik. "You see, I told you my brother likes to think he's the boss."

SOME TIME LATER

Raven dropped a paper grocery bag on the table in the parlor. Charles looked inside eagerly. "Did you order the bloody combination platter?"

"You didn't specify. Besides, I wanted to be hospitable to our guests."

"This isn't hospitality; this is multiple felonies."

Raven shrugged, indifferent.

Deleted Scene #5:

This issue has always bugged me.

"We're the new species, Charles." Erik somehow looked both faintly amused and deathly serious.

"You know, I'm not entirely certain that we are. 'Species' is a technical term, a scientific one, not a referent that social and demographic groups can just claim. It would mean that we cannot interbreed with non-mutated humans, and I've yet to see any evidence of that. And, of course, to be a species, we would have to mate successfully and produce fertile offspring." A pause. "Quit being so juvenile. I meant mutants in general, not you and I specifically."

"I'm quite glad. Otherwise you're setting the bar rather high."

Deleted Scene #6:

Xavier is paralyzed long before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, when the realities of being physically handicapped were far different than they are today.

The rehab facility itself was depressing. He noticed that very few patients ever completed their course of treatment and checked out. It didn't seem likely that they had all checked in just before he did.

A bit of telepathy combined with simply reading carelessly mislaid files (Some of the nurses seemed to forget that the patients could read. And hear.) confirmed his suspicions: most of the patients had been there for years and there was no plan to return them to the outside world. If he had been in a more gracious mood, Charles would have considered the fact that his wealth offered him basic opportunities to return to the community that were otherwise unavailable.

Alternate Ending:

I had originally planned to keep the beach scene exactly as it was in the movie. About 10 chapters in, I started to lose my resolve. This is what the epilogue would have been if I had stuck with the original beach scene. It occurs about

10 years after

the beach scene. (Also,

Cats

wasn't released until 1981, so I would have had to rework that whole reference and I had been having so much fun finding creepy little parallels between Jesus Christ Superstar and XMFC.)

Charles opened the envelope to find two tiny scraps of paper.

Show me just a little
Of your omnipresent brain

For your followers are blind
Too much heaven on their minds

"Those are from Jesus Christ Superstar," said Sean. He had grown another inch or two, but he had also stopped hunching, so he appeared much taller than he did when Xavier had first recruited him.

"Are they?" asked Charles, "I'm amazed he would stoop to Andrew Lloyd Weber."

"It's better than Cats."

"Everything is better than Cats."

"I could loan you the album if you want."

"I'd like that."

Sean looked over Charles' shoulder at the newspaper. "Do you...still want to go to the park today?" They both knew that park meant chess and chess meant pleasant conversation with Erik Lensherr, aka Magneto.

"Yes, I do. It's never the right time to ignore old friends."

Sean didn't disapprove of the Professor's choice to continue meeting with Erik Lensherr, but neither was he comfortable with it. He changed the subject. "Speaking of old friends, Alex called last night."

"Oh?"

"He said he's coming for Thanksgiving dinner. Bringing a girlfriend apparently. Lisa, Laura, something like that."

"Wonderful." Charles smiled warmly.

They both glanced at the boy sitting across the room, who was slowly eating a bowl of dry cereal. Sean had been happy to stay at the mansion to learn and teach. Hank hadn't really had much of a choice. Alex had stayed on for a few months, before announcing that he just wasn't cut out for communal living. He called from time to time, visited more rarely, but a few weeks ago, he had sent them a gift in the form of a bewildered, scrawny, teenage boy with a thick black scarf wrapped tightly around his eyes. The boy wasn't blind; he simply sent out waves of destruction whenever he opened his eyes. Charles and Hank had been working intensely to devise a solution.

They looked back out the front window. Hank was sitting on the lawn, in a circle with five mutant teens, discussing with them the finer philosophical underpinnings of Milton's Paradise Lost. Two twin girls, no more than ten years old, were building a domino chain in mid-air, that spiraled and dipped, attached to nothing at all. Four boys – or was it five? or six? played soccer.

"We are the men we wanted to be, Professor."

"That we are, Sean. That we are."

As Sean left the room, Charles murmured to himself, sadly, "It seems that my old friend became the man he wanted to be as well."

Charles set down the newspaper. The front page headline read, Mutants Attack Military Installation, 27 Dead. The photograph showed Magneto hovering above the chaos, surrounded by metal swirling and people running terrified, in perfect control and majesty, like a god.