Chapter Text
Charles had been feeling the aches for some time now, almost five years.
He managed to avoid Jean’s pestering about his health for nearly ten before that, and he wasn’t going to give in now, was he. But that was before he started sicking up an hour after he managed to get any food down, and before Hank found him slumped over in the shower, skin pink and raw with burns. Too drowsy to turn the knob to the right temperature, and too lethargic to correct the handle’s placement in time without tumbling out of his chair and to the ceramic floor.
Ororo was with him the day the doctor made his last house call. An early prognosis, made with enough urgency, and an earnest request to visit the nearest specialist. Jean is quickly informed, and so he is whisked to radiology appointments.
He wishes they wouldn’t, and their solemn pleas may have swayed a weaker man. His bones may be thin, and his skin ghostly, but his mind doesn’t betray him yet.
He can’t.
He cannot suffer through the minds of hospital frequents. He will be cannibalized by his own thoughts, consumed by the souls of the weary and desperate. No, he would sooner take fate into his own hands.
He doesn’t inform his friends, nor charges of his intentions, although his bright students suspect correctly enough, he thinks fondly. So while none of them has addressed in plain the proverbial elephant in the room, or the Abrahamic Azrael, they watch him like hawks.
He would liken them to vultures for their ferociousness, if not for their grave, melancholic projected thoughts.
They take shifts, arranging to supervise his every move and preside over his every meal. He knows that by not addressing it, he is only causing them more anxiety. But he can’t ease their worries, without demeaning his own decision. So he reminisces; of pleasant times and kinder years. He reminds them of a twin Charles. A mentor, confidant, and friend. Not the lifeless face, and the tatters of a wretched body that will likely curse his final memory in this life.
It’s a warm day in May, a spring sun. He can only hope that the radiance of her rays can cast light on the silhouette of his fleeting shadow.
It’s Kitty’s day, having swapped with Scott for the early evening. Sweet Kitty, who casts a weary look his way before rushing to investigate an apparent strange smell coming from the kitchen. She promises to return shortly, and he gives her a warm smile and a nod as she rushes out of the room. He waits until the murmur of her hurried thoughts has retreated to the kitchens before reaching under the mattress of his bed and pulling out a small clear bag.
Pills. Eight of them.
He went through quite the trouble to procure them, an excitement involving a significant amount of mind rifling and wiping.
They are unassuming in almost every way. With no indicator of their contents, and no warning of the consequences. He mourns the drama of their appearance, almost wishing he had a vial of mysterious greenish liquid instead. A white unlabelled pill was almost offensively unassuming. Perhaps a testament to the normality of his end, ordinary and so very human. Amused, and with a sad smile, he thinks Erik would be offended.
He glances up from where he had emptied the bag of its contents onto the palm of his hand, and looks out through the window of his study, now room, and at the setting sun. The grounds of the school are sprawling, and the sheer regularity of the day gives him a somber peace.
They will live on.
The children will learn in their classrooms. They will love, laugh, and dance on the grounds of his childhood home. They will fill the halls with joyful moments stretched across time and they will graduate their need for a room in this home. But there will always be others who need it.
And for that he can know that the sun will set on their faces tomorrow as it did today, and their souls will have known kindness.
He smiles wetly, closes his eyes, and downs all eight.
Kitty returns with a glass of water and watches him intently, his dutiful guardian.
It takes about half an hour for his body to convulse with the need to reject the pills.
He’s fallen off his perch on the bed while lurching, and is emptying his stomach contents into a plastic tub he perpetually keeps by his bedside these days, when the door bursts open violently enough to knock a chess piece onto its side. The White Queen.
His eyes are still locked onto the piece, a sense of foreboding finality flooding his chest at the sight of his Queen, when his view of the board is obstructed by a large figure. He faintly registers the shouts of alarm coming from his watchful company, and latently registers the metallic scent of gunpowder he associates with only one other.
He shoves the tub away forcefully and under the bed, concealing it from view. His hand is rushing to desperately clutch a handkerchief tightly over his mouth with one hand, as he rights himself with the other. He knows his body cannot support its weight on one hand alone, but will not allow Erik to smell spew on his breath.
So he struggles to sit up, panting with the exertion and effort of trying to look less like a carcass in his old friend’s eyes. He’s shaking with the effort of sitting up, but refusing to look up, his bleary frown leveled at the floor, so close to his own sick, while Erik looks down at him gloriously unchanged by time. And time has been glorious to Erik.
When a warm hand encircles his elbow and a steadying pressure attempts to help him settle back onto the bed, he can't help but notice the lines of Erik’s body, the length of his hair, the strength in his hands.
When Erik stands before him, obscuring the setting sun’s rays from his eyes, and casting a shadow of a man of marble on his weary body, he can’t help but fixate on the way Erik’s thumb and forefinger completely encircle his bony elbow.
He can’t bear but watch the fabric of his shirt sleeves bunch up in Erik’s hands, and mourn the days where he dressed with a reflection of his pride, than with a reminder of his fall from it.
He tries, for his own self-respect, to use the last of his dignity to face Erik on equal footing, but the exhaustion of straining his muscles too far for the day catches up to him.
He falls back onto his haunches with a pained groan, his atrophied legs uselessly at his side, and his aching body begging him for a break, when a shaken Erik settles by his side and grabs onto his arms with both hands tightly.
The pain of the stumble is enough of a reminder of his failure. As a figurehead for his students, and as an equal for his friend. The shame of seeing pity on Erik’s face is enough to force him to stay on the ground, avoiding his gaze, and his attempt at helping him up.
“Please, Charles…please stand up.” Erik’s voice is unsteady, trembling with emotion, and he hates to hear it.
Charles cannot bear it.
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he knows that the quivering laugh he produces only makes him more pathetic in Erik’s eyes, but he wasn’t expecting the pills to make him this weak.
He especially wasn’t expecting the X-men to contact Erik. Some of them somewhat understand; the record of moments in time that recite the depth of which he shares with Erik.
He knows why they called him, though he cannot imagine the younger members conceding.
He cannot look at them. They judge him, but have never loved and lost, languished, and yet longed nonetheless. Never the way Charles and Erik love. He imagines Jean sensed his finality, and informed Erik of his confrontation with fate.
Erik’s hands tighten around him, and he angrily forces Charles’ eyes to look into his. “Charles! I know what you’re planning on doing and you must think fools of us if you think we’re letting you go through with this,” he growls out with finality. Erik’s pleading is mostly lost on Charles, who is entranced by the intimacy in Erik’s eyes.
The stormy green-grey of his gaze is so familiar…haunting him cruelly with the ghosts of whispered dreams, untouched by life outside their bed. He’s dazed with the memories of Erik’s emotions as he stares into the one he’s seen most often than not.
Erik’s anger is desperate today, a gnashing thing with teeth. Charles is lost in the beauty of the dancing shadows in Erik’s tortured eyes.
Erik’s eyes…always so sad. He reaches up unconsciously, his fingers placed into the hollow under his eyes, before sweeping across his cheek. He watches meticulously as the skin yields under his fingers. He knows he shouldn’t do this, but his end has emboldened him.
His heart cannot hurt him more than his body already has.
“It’s done..,” is all he can whisper to a beautiful, despaired Erik, as he cradles his strong face in Charles’ pale thin hands.
Erik lets out a mangled howl. A sound from deep within his chest, and crashes in on himself. His body folds in half, his head forcefully knocking into Charles’, hoping that enough of his soul can be absorbed into Charles’ if he tries.
He’s trembling, clutching onto his arms. Charles’ feels the rattle of his breathing through the thin skin of his eyes, and through the planes of his body where Erik has him desperately encircled.
He keeps his hold on Erik’s face, his forehead pressed to the other’s.
Erik’s hands wrap around his thin shoulders and his sunken waist, mindful of his legs, and cradle his stick figure, rocking them back and forth. Erik’s moans low and with an agony that breaks Charles’ heart. “Please don’t do this, please…let me help you, please .”
Charles knows it's cruel of him to do this to Erik, knowing how many people he has lost. But he lost his Erik a long time ago, and has grieved that loss for many years more. He knows that his Erik is buried deep down, beneath the walls of hatred that Erik has carefully constructed around his heart over the years.
He hates to do this to Erik, but his Erik would understand. Would allow Charles to be selfish in this life, and embrace him in another. Like coming home.
“Shhhh, it’s alright Erik. It’s going to be alright, darling.” He whispers to Erik, in the intimate space between them. Where Erik’s breathy exhales caress his eyelashes, and take him back to a cherished moment.
He uses what strength remains in his body, and soul, to ask for one last thing. He pulls away from Erik’s crushing embrace to peer into the deep green, melancholic sorrow of his tearful eyes, the heartsick jut of his lip nearly taking away all his strength. He gathers his courage, and with a withering wide-toothed smile that his Erik could never resist, he asks,
“Will you dance with me?”