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Today had been a good day, Charles decided. He had finally helped Erik gain control of his powers, and had grown closer to him as a result. They had ended the day with a match of chess, trying not to think about what the morning would bring.
He said goodnight to Erik and made his way to his room, changing slowly before climbing into bed and closing his eyes.
At some point in the night, he was woken by the sound of his door creaking open. He opened one eye.
“Raven, you’re too old to be climbing into my bed at night now…” he grumbled, before the light was turned on. “Jesus, what’s the- who are you?” He asked, sitting up and squinting at the slightly swaying man in front of him.
He looked slightly familiar, and smelt of alcohol.
“I said, who are you?” He asked again, louder.
“Oh for fuck’s sake…” The stranger growled, gripping his long, greasy hair and tugging at it. “No…no don’t…don’t do this, I didn’t want to be here…come on….” he willed between gritted teeth, eyes tightly shut.
At the man’s obvious distress, Charles stood and hurried over to calm him. When he touched him, he gasped as memories of his own, and visions of the future flowed into his mind.
He staggered back, staring at the man.
“You’re….me….but how?” Charles asked, shocked and rather concerned. “What happened to you?”
The future Charles slumped into a chair and looked around.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon, I reckon. Hank’s experimenting, he’s bound to work out what he’s done soon. He’d better, I’ll be needing my next dose soon…” he murmured, glancing to the clock, before eyeing the man in front of him.
“Oh great, you haven’t been to Cuba yet. Even on the serum I can practically feel your positivity from here…it won’t last. Soon, you’ll get shot, your sister and Erik will leave and you’ll be left with Hank and those stupid kids, paralysed. They’ll leave you too, the kids. Oh, and make sure Hank gets researching a good cure straight away, because he nailed this one pretty slowly, but it works a treat.” He said with a slow grin. “Erik’s here, then, if you’ve not gone to Cuba yet…” He realised, smile fading.
Charles listened to the man - his future self - in front of him, overwhelmed by the negativity of his imminent future.
“No…no he wouldn’t leave, not if I was injured…” he insisted, glancing down at the man’s legs warily.
Future Charles laughed dryly.
“I forget how naive I was back then…Erik’s a selfish bastard, he killed the president and, in my time, is currently serving time for it, underneath the Pentagon. He doesn’t care about you, Charles. The first moment he has, he’ll get that helmet from Shaw, so that you can’t read his thoughts. So drop the pitiful crush you have on him, and overpower him while you can. He is not your friend.” He growled, starting to tremble. He glanced at his hands. “Looks like I’m returning to my own time…for the love of fuck, listen to what I’ve said.” He begged, before disappearing.
Charles was alone in his room again. He sat there, on his bed, thinking for a long time, before lying down to sleep. They had an important day tomorrow.
*
Charles did nothing different in Cuba, even with the forewarning from his future self. He refused to stop Erik prematurely, he just couldn’t bring himself to, and he still fought him on the beach.
When the bullet pierced his spine, he was not shocked. He screamed as he fell, but once on the ground, stayed quiet, unlike most if they had been shot.
He let Raven go, it was what she wanted. The same for Erik, he would not use guilt to force him to do something he did not want to do.
Instead, he lived out the next few years, knowing as soon as the Vietnam war began that the boys would be leaving, and he did not try to stop them.
He tried not to drink at first, having seen what it brought him to, but eventually couldn’t bear the daily pain without it.
The day came that Hank was contemplating using Charles’ telepathy and projections to contact others from different times.
Charles stayed off the serum all day, just so that he could build up his mental strength enough to erase the thought from Hank’s mind.
He couldn’t trust himself, if he was sent back there again.