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Charles
“Not like this, I need you.”
My fingers scramble feverishly with my sleeve and I roll it up past my elbow, revealing the twisted bloody web of track marks running up and down my arm. I hear a faint, sharp inhale from Logan and his shock slams into me like a brick wall along with all of his thoughts:
“Holy shit, that’s a lot of… How long did Hank say he’d been doing drugs? Fucking hell. What do I say? Should I say something?”
I flinch. At this point, I care more about getting that fucking serum back in my veins where it belongs than Logan seeing my arm. I glance up at Logan while fiddling with my sleeve cuff.
Logan raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. His gaze darts back down to my track marks for a split second, but that’s enough time for another one of his thoughts to enter my brain.
“Hank said that he… Is that how he overdosed?”
I grit my teeth and turn my attention back to my sleeve. “So Hank told you about that, did he?”
“What?”
“Yes, I can hear you. Your thoughts are louder than most.”
Logan sighs. Pauses. “To be fair, I pushed Hank to tell me.”
“Course you did.”
“All right, look. That’s not important. We need to find Raven, and we need your powers to do it.”
Before I can respond, the soft clomp, clomp of hurried footsteps approaching interrupts my thought process.
Hank rushes into the room with the syringe.
Adrenaline fires through my veins and I rip the syringe out of his hand like a spoiled child at a candy store. I hold the syringe at eye level and the yellow serum inside catches the sun, turning it a golden honey color, and I can feel my heartbeat hammering against the pale skin of my neck. I want it, I want it, I want it, I need it, I fucking need it–
“Charles,” Logan warns. “Don’t. We need you.”
I shoot him a fiery glare.
He tries again. “Charles– .”
“Fuck off!” I fumble with the syringe and angle the needle downward into the crook of my elbow. My entire body is shaking, and the heat of both Hank’s and Logan’s eyes melt the skin from my bones. I wince, my tongue poking greedily at my lips like a crazy person, and I squint at my arm through my…shit, those are tears. My thoughts wage war in the silence.
Do it.
But they said they need me.
Do it now.
But what if I do it and I regret it?
You won’t regret it. Have you ever? You’d be indulging in something that you love.
Maybe this isn’t the kind of love that I want.
What love? Erik betrayed you AGAIN. You have every reason to give in.
Erik. Fucking Erik. He said he wanted me, that he wanted to get back together. But he chose his mission over me again.
With a choked sob, I drive the tip of the needle further into my skin, enough that it stings, and my thumb trembles on the plunger. A little more pressure, and I’ll break through the skin, opening the pathway into my vein.
Why are you stopping? DO IT.
This feels wrong.
So? It’s felt wrong before, and it’s never stopped you.
Things are different now.
What the fuck do you mean different?
Raven, she…she needs help…
Don’t you think you could be of more help to her if you could walk?
I grit my teeth, my cheeks throbbing with the cold sting of tears.
You know you want to. You always want to.
Shut up.
You have no reason not to. No one would blame you.
Stop it, shut up.
Just press the needle in a liiiiiiittle farther, you know what to do.
Shut the fuck up. I can’t. I shouldn’t.
Do it.
I CAN’T.
DO IT–
I hurl the syringe across the room and bury my tear-streaked face in my hands, my breath shaky. There are sobs building in my throat but I fight to hold them back, so instead they emerge as pitiful whimpers muffled by my hands.
Eventually though, I reveal my face with an exhausted sigh and drop my head back against the wall behind me. “All right, fine. Let’s do it. Let’s find her.”
I’m hit with a massive bomb of emotions, relief from Hank, and anxiety from Logan, and a shudder runs through me so forcefully it hurts. I tense up and groan at the pain that slices through my head. Shit, this is not gonna be easy…
Logan
“All right, fine,” Charles mumbles. “Let’s do it. Let’s find her.”
Despite the fact that I’ve been staring at Charles for an uncomfortably long amount of time, I can’t look away. I haven’t even grasped the fact that Charles Xavier, Professor X, used to be an addict. But I have no choice but to grasp it, because seeing all the fucking track marks on his arm and watching him bleed out on his mental battlefield as he grapples with whether or not to inject fucking drugs into himself makes it all too real. I don’t like it.
I know Charles, but not this Charles.
I know the spirited, confident, unshakable Charles.
I don’t know this hollow, crumbling, drug-addicted Charles.
Charles blinks up at Hank. “Hank, do you mind…helping me to my study, please?”
Hank nods and crouches down to loop an arm around his shoulder.
I follow them with a set jaw as Hank pretty much drags Charles up the stairs. There’s a deep hole in my gut and an unsettling feeling in my veins. Seeing Charles like this, it…it feels so WRONG.
When we reach his study, Charles points to the closet. I open it for him to try and feel like I’m helping even slightly, and in the shadows among clothes and boxes is his wheelchair. It’s significantly less advanced than the one Charles has in the future, but it’s a wheelchair nonetheless.
Charles purses his lips and although his piercing gaze doesn’t waver from the wheelchair, I can see him warring with his own mind.
Hank looks over at him. “You ready for this?”
Charles scoffs. “Absolutely not. But it has to be done. Hank, if you would.”
I pull the wheelchair out of the shadows. Hank eases him into it and Charles gets situated. He runs his fingers along the arms of the chair, tracing the control stick.
“How does it feel?” I comment.
Charles gives me an exhausted but cold look and doesn’t respond. He wheels past Hank. “Well, come on, then,” he spits out bitterly. “We might as well get it over with.”
We take the elevator down to Cerebro’s futuristic halls and the glowing blue veins snake along the walls like rivers, plentiful with power. The glossy floor casts a reflection of all of us. However dusty, the history still remains.
We turn a corner. Far ahead at the end of the hallway is the door to the chamber, looming before us with the giant X at its center. My footsteps click on the floor, one by one, but then I hear Hank curse beside me.
“Shit.” He disappears from my side.
I glance over my shoulder to watch him only to notice Charles frozen in place a few yards away, staring forward with wide, red eyes. His hands tremble and seize the arms of the chair in a bone-white grip, and he’s breathing faster and faster by the second.
Hank crouches in front of him, grabbing each of his shoulders with strong hands. “Charles, you’re okay. You’re fine. Try to breathe.”
Charles’ body shudders as he lets out a broken sob. “Ha-Hank…”
“I know, I know. But this is nothing you haven’t dealt with before.”
Charles squeezes his eyes shut and clutches at the fabric of his shirt– right over his heart. He’s fighting for every breath, and the white of his knuckles matches the pasty-white color of his face.
The unsettling feeling in my stomach worsens tenfold. Holy shit. He’s not just upset, he’s having a fucking panic attack. I walk hesitantly up to them, and when I get closer, I note the tears streaming down Charles’ face. Unsure of what to do, I kneel by Charles and lay a hand on his back, in-between his shoulder blades. His muscles twitch under my touch.
Charles hangs his head, shivering and crying and gasping for breath. His sweaty hair drapes around his face, creating a haggard image of despair. “I-I can’t do it… I can’t go in there…”
“Yes, you can,” Hank assures him. “Charles, listen to me– yes, you can. You can do this. We’ll take everything one step at a time. You know what the first step is?”
Charles’ only response is a whimper that sounds too much like a wounded animal.
Hank places an outstretched hand firmly on Charles’ chest. “Breathe. You feel my hand?”
No answer.
“Charles, do you feel it?”
Another sob. Then a nod.
“Okay, good. Focus on it. Don’t breathe against it, breathe into it. Push against my hand with your breath.”
Charles tries once and ends up breaking down into tears in the middle of his exhale. “I-I can’t, I can’t breathe…!”
Hank is unfazed. “It’s okay. Just try again.”
I watch in unsettled awe as Hank continues to work with him. Based on how Hank is handling this, it’s obviously happened many times before, and a weird sort of admiration for him settles on my heart. Charles is at his most vulnerable, literally struggling just to breathe, and Hank is taking it all in stride. His patience, I think, is what’s baffling me.
I come out my thoughts to find that Charles is breathing easier, slower.
There is a ghost of a smile on Hank’s face. He starts to rub and massage Charles’ chest. “That’s it. You’re doing great. Come on back.”
Hank leads him through a few, long, cleansing breaths.
After an eternity, Charles opens his bloodshot eyes and lifts his head, wiping the sweat and tears from his face. His muscles still twitch and tremble, but he’s much calmer, at least on the outside. He grips Hank’s hand and squeezes. “Thanks,” he croaks, his voice raw from all the crying.
Hank smiles and lowers his hand. “You’re welcome.”
Charles throat constricts and he swallows roughly. “Sorry.”
I butt in before Hank can. “Okay, none of that.”
Charles glances over at me, not expecting me to chime in.
“This is a big moment for you, clearly. How long has it been since you came down here?”
“The last time we came looking for students,” Hank clarifies.
“Which was how long ago?”
“A lifetime ago,” Charles mumbles. “Months. Years.”
I nod. “Right. So, it makes a whole lot of damn sense for you to react like your life is ending.” I shrug and stand up. “Because it is. Your old one is, anyway.”
Charles’ only answer is to wheel himself past us and continue forward.
I hang back and lean in toward Hank, speaking at a low volume. “Is that normal?”
“What?”
“That. The…panic attack. Him freaking out like that.”
Hank cringes. “Sometimes, yeah. He used to have attacks all the time, but now it’s more…depression. Staying in bed all day. And up until recently, the drugs and alcohol.”
I work my jaw, scratching at my stubble. Damn it. Damn it. This almost doesn’t even feel like Charles. Well, scratch that, it doesn’t. Period. This is a very different Charles and I definitely don’t like it. He’s too messed up, too broken, too…wounded. And I can’t–
“You know, Logan, I can hear you,” Charles snaps. “Your thoughts are really damn loud.”
I curse to myself under my breath. Future Charles is so good at shielding his mind when he wants to, I keep forgetting that this Charles doesn’t have that type of control.
We march up to the giant circular door and the blue orb in the center flickers to life. The horizontal line illuminates Charles’ face, scans him, then splits into the two rows, tilting upward into the X. A robotic voice echoes:
“Welcome, Professor.”
Charles’ hands clench the arms of the wheelchair and his shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep breath. He’s still shaking, I can see it. Part of me wants to comfort him, but I’m not good at that, and I have a feeling that nothing I say would be any help with the headspace that Charles is in.
The door slides open and the cavernous maw of the chamber yawns before us. It’s intriguing for me, I imagine haunting for Hank, and downright terrifying for Charles. But we proceed onward nonetheless. We follow the path, encased by the blue checkered dome, and at the end sits the Cerebro machine. Much less futuristic than the one in…well, in the future, and as we approach, I notice a thick coating of grey over everything. I’m about to comment on the paint job, but when we arrive before it, I realize that holy shit, it’s dust. It’s so thick that I could carve a picture into it.
Hank leans forward and flicks a few switches. “Since Raven’s wounded, she won’t be moving fast. It shouldn’t be that hard to find her, right?”
Charles doesn’t say anything. He lifts the helmet and inhales. On his exhale, he blows a big breath of air onto the helmet and dust scatters everywhere like a splash of rain. He stares at it for one second…two…three…four. Five. Six. When he finally moves, he runs his tongue along his lips and goes to fit the helmet on his head. “I…don’t know how this will go. It’s been a while.”
Hank pats his shoulder. “You’re gonna do great.”
No response.
Hank leans into his space and snaps his fingers in front of his face. “Hey. Look at me.”
Only Charles’ eyes move, and they dart upward for half a second.
“Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. It’s gonna be fine. Okay?”
Charles frowns, poking this inside of his cheek with his tongue. “I wish I could believe that.”
Hank doesn’t comment on that and instead reaches forward to put his hand over one last knob. “You ready?”
“No. But we don’t have a choice.”
Hank nods. The knob clicks as it’s turned on, and the walls around us darken, collapsing into vibrant colors and dancing lights. Charles inhales sharply. A dark-red world map appears, littered with an array of little lights. The projection moves around from light to light, from person to person. As Charles progresses through Cerebro, the lights, the people, get more blurry. The speed at which he cycles through the humans and mutants increases. The images start to blur together, melting into one another like the world zipping by when looking out a car window. It’s making me dizzy.
Wait, it isn’t typically like this. It’s not supposed to look like this, right?
The speed escalates still. Chaos unfolds in the blood-red madness.
Whirling. Twisting. Spinning. Red bursting colors. Piercing screams, shrill screams, so many screams. People in pain, in agony, riddled with trauma. The wheeling carnival ride of the entire world’s pain orbits in dizzy circles, whirling, twisting, spinning.
Charles lets out a gasping cry, a half-sob.
Hank turns his attention from the projection to Charles. “Charles?”
The dials on the console gyrate feverishly out of control.
“Charles!”
The whirlwind of red persists.
Another scream rises above the rest, raw and tortured.
It takes me a second to realize that it’s Charles himself.
I put a hand on his wheelchair and inhale to call out to him when the dials all shatter and glass flies everywhere. Hank and I recoil. Cerebro’s power dies, the lights go down and return to blue.
The stark contrast between the cacophony of screams and then the deafening, weighty silence that follows makes my stomach churn.
I shift my attention to Charles and with a jolt, I note that he’s slumped in the chair, completely limp, his head lolled forward against his chest.
Hank pulls his wheelchair away from the console and rushes in front of him. “Charles!”
No answer. He’s out cold.
Hank rubs his forehead in a nervous habit. “Shit. Um…” He stands abruptly. “I need to go check the generator. Can you…?”
“Yeah, I’ll stay with him. Go do your thing, bub.”
Hank sighs in relief. “Thanks.” He breaks into a run and speeds out of the chamber.
Then I’m alone with an unconscious Charles Xavier, one that has convinced himself that he has no place in this world.
Charles
The darkness is thick. No dreams, no nightmares, just pure, desolate silence. I am broken, I am empty, I am nothing.
But the darkness doesn’t last long. There’s a crack in the veil, a stream of light, and my consciousness fades in like the sun emerging from behind a cloud.
I peel my eyelids open and the light turns into physical reality. I see my chest, which moves as I breathe, and my clothes scratch against my chin. Shit, did I pass out?
I force my neck to bear the weight of my head as I lift it and then pain hits me at the same time, stabbing through my skull. I gasp and grip the side of my head.
A pause ensues as I grit my teeth through the pain, and in that pause, I fail to sense Logan’s presence.
“Hey, bub,” Logan’s voice rumbles beside me. “Welcome back.”
I grimace. “What happened?”
“You blacked out.”
“For how long?”
“A minute or two.”
I crane my neck to look behind me. “W-where’s Hank?”
“He went to check the generator. He’ll be back soon.”
I drift my gaze over to Cerebro and at the sight of dust-smudged helmet, a powerful bomb of anger goes off in my lungs and I dig my nails into my palms hard enough to feel pain. I don’t even know where this anger is coming from, but all at once, I’m angry at nothing, at everything, at everyone, at ERIK.
“What’s goin’ in that brain of yours? I can’t read minds.”
Silence. My anger dissipates and is replaced by the hollow, hopeless, numb feeling. I stare with glazed eyes into my lap. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“You both keep saying that and you expect me to believe it! And in case you forgot, I’ve been broken and so damn messed up for years. I can’t just flip a switch and be back to normal, I…” My face crumples and for a moment I think I’m going to start crying again, but I inhale and exhale through it. “I can’t shed ten years of self-loathing in ten minutes, Logan.”
“Then start one scale at a time.”
I don’t look up.
Logan sighs and kneels in front of me. “Look into my mind.”
I look at him like he’s insane. “What?”
“If you look in the right place, you’ll see what you need to see.”
I hesitate. Both his eyes and his thoughts are dead serious. I reach a shaking hand toward him and lay two of my fingertips against his temple–
Red, flashing pain.
I cry out, flinching.
Blood, tears, screams.
“I love you.”
Death.
Claws, experiments.
Trauma, lost memories.
Blood, blood, blood.
Red everywhere, silver claws, painful claws, claws that he didn’t ask for.
Blood, always blood.
I rip my hand away and the images stop, but the damage has been done. I hang my head and press a fist against my mouth. I’m shaking uncontrollably again. “I-I can’t…”
“Look again. This time, you’ll– .”
“No, no!” I scream, and it echoes through the chamber. “I don’t want your pain, your suffering, your trauma– I-I can’t handle it!”
“Don’t take that on. Look beyond.”
“I can’t!”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
My eyebrows scrunch together. “What?”
“You’re afraid, not incapable.”
I don’t have anything to say to that.
“Come on. Look again.”
I obey, and my hands aren’t shaking as bad. I push past the blood and the trauma and the memories and find a chink in his past. But it’s not his past. It’s his future. Our future.
My future.
Holy shit, that’s–
ME.
I see me.
I see a devastation, a hopeless planet. I see rage and pain, death and destruction. I see what the humans do, and what I’ve learned that they always do. Maybe Erik was right.
But I look into the eyes of my future self, and see the universe reflected back like a ripple in the ocean.
I see salvation. For myself, for my life.
I see grandeur, a kingly steeple of grace.
I see a mirror, my own eyes, full of something. Something that I haven’t seen or touched or felt in so long that I’ve forgotten it existed.
“We need you to hope again.”
It echoes, like a song in the wind.
I pull myself out of Logan mind. There are tears sliding down my cheeks, but they’re different tears now.
“What did you find?” Logan asks.
I give Cerebro a sidelong glance and an overpowering desire to banish the dust and start anew takes over me. I answer him with one word, a word that holds the future in its grip.
“Hope.”