InsaneJournal

WHO: Erik Lehnsherr & Irene Adler (with special guest appearance by Charles Xavier)
WHAT: Erik can't control his ability the way that he used to, but Irene has a plan.
WHEN: May 8th; Afternoon
WHERE: The X-Mansion; Kitchen
RATING: PG-13
STATUS: Log; COMPLETE

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It was a matter of frustration that he hadn’t returned to his own world yet and an even greater one that Erik found himself still struggling with the presence yet lack of his abilities. They had been getting stronger since he had been here, progressively since there had been little else to attend to in the hours that he had spent in majority by himself, but they still seemed out of his reach in a way that they hadn’t been since he was a very young child. Unable to break through the wall which was stifling his powers, Erik had considered other options available to him to try and harness his powers, but none of the methods that he had developed over the years seemed to give him any greater control. The amount of frustration that was building on him seemed to offer him a greater break through as it built, but the random shaking and flying of items was not what he was aiming for. He had always worked to try and calm himself quickly whenever each of those incidents began and had irritatingly always found himself back at square one after having done so. Taking a break from his attempts had left Erik searching out a number of places in the Mansion to seclude himself with his thoughts, and he had found, after repeated trials, that despite his encounter with Ms. Adler, the kitchen seemed to be the best place to be alone. The library and the study were both frequented by Charles and the other students, and while there were the occasional individuals wandering in to get food, they rarely stayed long once they spotted him hunched over the table with a coffee and a book in hand. Which was exactly what he was doing at the moment, his copy of Slaughterhouse Five held expertly in one hand as his other idly twiddled with spoon that he’d used to stir the coffee sitting off to one side and quickly cooling as it went ignored. Hearing the kitchen door open, Erik glanced briefly up for his book, having found that eye contact seemed to make those who entered retreat quicker, but upon spotting the figure in the doorway, he had a feeling that she was unlikely to flee as many of the others had. “Morning, Ms. Adler.” Since her encounter with Erik, Irene had taken a few precautions in case their paths should ever cross again, with multiple reasons for doing so. She knew that he wasn't nearly as likely to be as willing to engage her in conversation the second time around as he'd been willing to the first. She also knew that, with every encounter they had, her sheer existence as a human in a place meant to serve as a sanctuary for mutants would grate on his nerves. And finally, she understood that each and every day - particularly when faced with annoying, or displeasing, situations that he didn't especially like - he became more and more in touch with his own abilities. So, she had taken a few steps to ensure that he didn't have too much of an upperhand whenever they inevitably ran into one another once more. For starters, she had ensured that nothing she wore had any metal on it whatsoever. Secondly, she had taken to watching the iron content in her bloodstream until she was rather anemic. And finally, she took one lazy, rainy afternoon to sit down and figure out a feasible way to force his abilities to resurface fully so that she could make that happen on her own timeline rather than during a random encounter over which she had no control. So while it might have seemed to others as though she accidentally crossed his path in the kitchen for a second time since his arrival in Colligo, the fact of the matter was that it was anything but accidental. In fact, she had plotted and planned out virtually every second of the encounter until there was very little - save for him bringing his own butcher knives with him - that he could do that would put her in a very real risk of harm's way. And even then, she still arrived with a syringe filled with Claire's blood in her pocket, just in case. Of course, planning something out and acknowledging it that'd been a plan all along were two very different things. So when Erik looked her way upon her stepping into the kitchen, Irene hardly made it obvious that she had expected him to be there. Instead she immediately went still before tipping her head toward him in a polite gesture and responding with a curt, "Good morning, Mr. Lehnsherr." Then she made her way to the stove, fully intent on brewing herself some tea before even so much as acknowledging him outside of the perfunctory greeting. The fact that she was a mere human who was all but dismissing him was, she hoped, going to be enough to garner his attention. If not, she supposed she'd simply have to get more creative. One way or another, though, she knew one thing with absolute certainty. Erik "Magneto" Lehnsherr was not leaving her sight until he had his abilities fully restored... with, no less, a human to thank for making it finally happen. As much as he shouldn’t have been affected by it, Erik couldn’t help the spike of irritation in him that formed as she turned away from him. It wasn’t something that should have been an issue. She was just a human. There was no reason for him to be concerned about what she thought or how she behaved towards him. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel as though he was being dismissed off hand because of the way that their last encounter had wrapped up. Trying to turn his attention back to his book, he felt himself glancing over towards her every few seconds despite the way that he was trying his best to keep his concentration focused on what was most important at the moment. But by the time her kettle was percolating, Erik had closed his book, sitting it down on the table in front of him as he picked up his coffee and took a sip. “Are you going to be long, Ms. Adler? I was trying to concentrate. Granted, I’m sure you’re well aware of just how much of a distraction you can be.” At first, Irene gave no indication she’d even heard him speak. In fact, for one very long, extended moment in time, she didn’t seem to realize he existed at all. Her focus was instead on a fashion magazine left upon the counter, perfectly manicured, red-tipped fingernails idly flipping through the pages as she waited for just the right pitched squeal to come from the kettle to indicate it was finished. Once that happened, she calmly pulled it off the stove and set it down. Then, at long last, she cast an idle glance in Erik’s direction. “I’m certain someone of your age and life experience is more than capable of reading without complete silence, Mr. Lehnsherr,” she replied simply before looking back to the magazine article in front of her. “Besides,” she tacked on in what was clearly a dismissive tone to go hand in hand in what was an equally obvious dismissive turn of her body away from him, “I’ve as much right to be in this kitchen as you. If you don’t like it, I’m also certain you’re more than capable of finding the door.” Well, he definitely wasn’t going to leave now. With her having made the suggestion that he find somewhere else to spend his time, his natural spite kept him rooted to the spot, sipping his coffee to silence any angry comebacks that might filter into his mind. It wasn’t really surprising, considering who she apparently was, that she wasn’t moved by any attempt at intimidation or requests from a man. Even in the story, she was a woman of remarkable independence whose only motivators were compassion and fear, neither of which were mustered by an individual so much as a situation, so Erik knew that nothing that he did or said would win himself the solitary that he had hoped for. So, instead, he decided that he might as well try and tolerate her. If anything, she could provide him with a bit of information on this place, more than he had been able to extract from the others or garner from his own observations. Though, he hardly thought she’d willing to give it up, but that had never stopped him before. “No, no, I think I’m more than fine just here,” Erik said with a bit of a smile over the edge of his cup. “I would so hate to move only to find myself intruding on someone else’s solitary time. It’s rather rude, if you ask me.” Irene's smile was as polite as ever but clearly not in any way sincere as she tipped her head ever so slightly. "I suppose it is a touch rude," she admitted easily enough as she gathered up her teacup and the magazine then turned to face him. "Then again, I'm scarcely incapable of admitting my own faults and, well, I'm afraid that politeness has never been my strongest suit when I see no need to behave in such a manner." Carrying her teacup to the table, she sat down across from him without bothering for an invitation that she knew was never going to come. Taking a sip of her tea, she added pointedly, "Of course, I could easily say the same for those who see fit to interrupt my teatime with inane questions which don't concern them." Eyes sparkling a bit with determination, she tacked on, "Now, far be it from me to interrupt what I'm certain you're finding a rather fascinating read. Go on, back to your book with you." Making certain to use the tone she tended to reserve for those clients of hers who preferred to be scolded like small children, she began to once more idly flip through the pages of the magazine as though she hadn't a care in the world. Erik was a man well into his seventies, someone who had lived a long and complex life, and had learned many things over the years. He had prided himself on being the leader of a movement, the figurehead of hope in an otherwise hopeless situation, and to be talked to like he was some infant child who needed to be distracted in order to behave was an insult to everything that he had gone through. Biting down hard on his cheek, Erik pushed his irritation to the back of his mind. It wouldn’t do any good to comment on it. No more than it would to request that she leave again. Ignore the metallic tinge of blood in his mouth, Erik took another sip of his coffee and winced as it hit the fresh wound that he’d carved into the side of his cheek. Setting the cup down, Erik moved to pick up his book, only managing to fiddle with the edge of the pages as he glanced across the table at her, “Then I suppose we can call this even,” He said, leveling her with an intense gaze. “Though, you never did tell me exactly how you and Charles know each other. All I managed to get was that you are not his therapist. Which, truth be told, does not really narrow down the options. And I’m certain that Charles is unlikely to hire an opera singer to be some sort of companion to him. He has better taste. Shall I have to continue to guess, Ms. Adler?” Idly flipping the pages in a magazine she was in no way, shape, or form reading, Irene waited until she had calmly counted to twenty before raising her gaze toward his. By that point in time, her response was a well thought out one and her gaze was precisely as she wanted it to appear - mostly neutral, with just a touch of amusement that clearly was at his expense. With a soft sigh that was meant to indicate annoyance, she marked the page she was on before setting the magazine down and facing him directly. "As I've already stated numerous times, Mr. Lehnsherr, it is not my place to discuss such matters," she stated flatly. Her lips twitched ever so slightly as she agreed, "So yes. I suppose you shall have no choice left but to guess as I've certainly no intention of telling you." Studying him for a moment, she placed her hands flat on the table and leaned forward ever so slightly, her voice dropping just a tad as she did so. "Tell me," she said with feigned innocence, "does it bother you greatly to know that you engaged him in an entire conversation over text, yet he refused to divulge the information you were seeking?" She flashed him a knowing smile. "If it's any consolation, he wasn't quite as focused in that particular session of ours as he tends to be. So you did manage to get his attention, if only for an instant." Picking back up the magazine, she used it as nothing more than a prop to allow herself a means to completely disregard the man before her. She waited a few more seconds before tacking on in a knowing tone, "Of course, in the end, he still took my advice over yours and opted against providing you with the very information you were seeking. You really would think that someone who believes themselves so terribly superior would be capable of outwitting a mere human." Dark eyes flickered up from the page to meet his across the table. "Then again, your claims that you were superior really have fallen rather flat when compared to the evidence to the contrary, haven't they?" she mused. If Erik didn’t know better, he would say she was trying to piss him off. She had condescended towards him and now she was prodding not only at his inability to get the sort of information he wanted but also criticising the strength of his relationship with Charles. Maybe this wasn’t the same Charles that he knew, the one that he would have still called his best friend and the greatest advocate of mutant rights that he had ever known, but there was still an irritation that come with the idea that Charles trusted this woman in front of him, this human, greater than he did him right now. “It’s not a consolation,” Erik spat, his grip on his book tightening enough to bend the pages and crease the cover, the spoon on the table rattling back and forth where it sat next to Erik’s arm as he stared down at her. “And this has absolutely nothing to do with not being able to outwit you, Ms. Adler. There’s no need to outwit someone when you can squash them like a bug,” Erik said, a tightness in his voice as his fists clenched. “That’s what you and your pitiful kind always seem to fail to understand. Your arguments mean nothing to me when my very existence is the answer against them.” Although she didn't necessarily need proof positive that her ploy was working, Irene was grateful for the rattling of the spoon nonetheless. It proved that what she was saying, that the tactic she had taken, was doing what she'd intended. Was it a bit unnerving, knowing that she was about to unleash the full potential of a man who would, and could, easily kill her without a moment of hesitation much less regret? Of course. However, Irene trusted in her own ability to judge a situation, if nothing else, and she knew that the instant Erik's power returned, Charles would be upon the scene in a matter of seconds. He would keep her from meeting a rather grissly end, she was sure of it. And, if for some reason he was delayed, she was all but positive that she would still be brought back to life, no worse for the wear. So, rather than cower away from him as others might, she narrowed her eyes ever so slightly and raised the stakes that much higher. "Then squash me already," she all but purred. "Go on," she challenged a heartbeat later. "We're in a kitchen. There are all sorts of weapons at your disposal that you could use to silence me, once and for all." She stared across the table at him, unblinking and certainly unflinching, for several long seconds. Then she laughed; the sound was low and definitely taunting in nature. "Unless," she tagged on, "you can't." Her eyes widened ever so slightly with obviously fictitious sympathy. "Oh," she cooed, "how utterly dreadful that must be. To be well and fully..." She smiled thinly. "Impotent in the face of someone such as myself." With a scoff, she dropped her gaze back to her magazine. "Typical, really. Pathetic, the lot of you," she muttered with a sigh as she reached for her teacup and mentally began to count the seconds before his reaction. At Irene’s declaration of Erik as ‘pathetic’, the spoon on the table twisted suddenly, warping against the force of Erik’s anger as he paused his chair back away from the table, standing, his hands pressing down against the table top as he glared at her. The room creaked as everything metal shifted, the pans banging together in the cabinet, the fridge moving off its foundation, the stove hissing gas as the dials turned on their own. But Erik seemed oblivious to all of this. If he did notice, it was only in the back of his mind, the forefront completely dominated with the way that this woman, this human, was laughing at him. Issuing a challenge that he knew that he couldn’t rise to meet even as much as he might want to. “I am not pathetic. Or impotent. Even without my ability, I am more dangerous than your kind realize because I represent an ideal, a idea. I am a martyr, toppled from greatness by the humans determined to eliminate our kind by any means necessary, and I am what those like me will work to prevent from happening ever again. No matter how much you try, you will never get rid of us. And you will never make us into you. Never!” Erik barked, his rage reaching a vicious peak and everything in the room responding to it. The storm of pots, pans, cutlery, and various other bits and bobs that responded to Erik only lasted a matter of moments, less than a minute, before they froze in the air at Erik’s realization of what had just happened and clattered to the floor from where they had been hanging, leaving the older man staring in disbelief at the forks, spoons, and fridge magnets littering the table top. So close and yet so far. That was all Irene could think as Erik seemed to realize what he'd done, thereby causing it all to come to a screeching halt. He had been so very, terribly, wonderfully close to achieving his goal and yet he'd held himself back. And why? It certainly wasn't because of her. She was nothing more than a pathetic human, clearly below his consideration and certainly not someone that he would feel any need to protect. So why, then, had he stopped when he was finally on the precipice of all that he'd been striving for as of late? Thinking quickly, knowing that she needed to up the ante a bit, she decided to do so in a rather spectacular fashion. Eyes narrowing ever so slightly - the look seemingly born of some form of anger when, in reality, it was little more than determination - Irene tried once more to tap into the pure, raw power that Erik had churning inside of him. "Look at you," she spat, the words coming out clipped and laced with contempt that she was quite good at imitating even if she didn't precisely feel it. "You're a laughingstock of an ideal that will die the instant that you do." She barely paused, just long enough to lean forward across the table once more. Ignoring the litter that covered the surface, she kept her focus solely on her target. Her tone turned harder with each spoken word, the gist of what she was saying far more cruel than she had hoped she would ever have to become. "Your parents would be ashamed, I imagine," she hissed. "Seeing you now. Having come so far, only to fail when it truly mattered. Unable to defend even your dignity against one singular, insignificant human." She slowly arched an eyebrow in an unspoken challenge, leaning ever further across the table and closer to him. "You aren't a martyr, Mr. Lehnsherr. You're nothing more than a pathetic disgrace. You know it, I know it, and everyone else who sees you is well aware of it as well." Her lips twisted into a positively deadly, knowing sort of smirk. "Including, and especially, Charles." Forks, knives, whatever that littered the table with a sharp edge was near Irene’s throat in an instant, even without Erik thinking about what he was doing, he was commanding the items as he glared down at her, a dangerous edge flashing in his blue eyes, “Charles might disagree with me. He might have always disagreed with me, but he understood. He knew what I was trying to do, what I was trying to achieve, just as I knew what he was doing. We were each working for our kind in the way that we saw fit, and he would never, never think of me like that. No more than I would ever dare to denigrate what he was trying to achieve. So don’t you dare speak of anything that you couldn’t possibly understand, human,” Erik spat. “You might know Charles, but if you truly think that’s what he believes me to be, you don’t know him nearly as well as you think you do.” Although the proximity of the various sharp objects near her throat was certainly something that sent a chill up Irene's spine, she didn't so much as flinch in the face of the very real danger she was facing. Instead she reminded herself that she a syringe filled with regenerative blood in her pocket - the needle made of something other than metal so as to ensure Erik wouldn't be able to keep it from her should it prove necessary. She also held tight to the fact that this was precisely what she had been aiming for. He was speaking - nay, arguing - with her while various bits of cutlery hovered in mid-air. It was a clear sign that he wasn't consciously aware of what he was doing, that he was no longer trying desperately to control the return of a power he had spent most of his life struggling to keep under wraps. In short, it was absolutely perfect and, in that instant, Irene knew that her goal had been reached. Still. Despite that realization, she leaned a bit forward, letting the forks and knives nearest to her press into the flesh of her throat. "If you're so very certain of that fact, Mr. Lehnsherr," she said in a low voice, "then I propose we simply ask him. Wouldn't you agree that's the most direct course of action..." Her head turned ever so slightly, gaze falling to the doorway of the kitchen to the man standing there. "Charles?" Charles stared at the pair of them, torn between shock and...well, actually it was mostly just shock. He didn’t know why he was all that surprised by this turn of events. Erik had more than his fair share of anger issues, and had always had a habit of resorting to violence when pushed, and Irene could be quite manipulative when she chose, and it was a bit terrifying how good she was at pushing just the right buttons in any situation. Having experienced her knack for making people do what she thought was best for them, he really didn’t envy Erik in the slightest. Still, there were rather a lot of forks and knives close to her throat and it made him uneasy. He’d have gotten rid of them, except that he was afraid of disrupting the tenuous balance that seemed to exist in the room. Besides, he wasn’t entirely comfortable using the relatively new extension of his mutation around Erik. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him, he just wasn’t sure how the other man would react, and he didn’t want to give Erik more cause to be wary of him. “I think,” he said calmly, “that you are both going to drive me mental one day. Erik...please put the cutlery down. This really is a disproportionately violent reaction. And Irene...while I certainly appreciate your desire to help Erik, I’m not entirely certain this was the safest way to go about it. You could have been hurt.” He needed tea. He really needed tea to deal with this. Or scotch. Or both. Erik hadn’t expected Charles to actually show up in the kitchen. Turning his gaze almost instantly at Irene’s statement that he was there, though, Erik’s rage slowly started to curb itself in the face of his friend’s inspection, and at the request, Erik turned his attention back to Irene, a bit of surprise at the way that she was being threatened by the cutlery in the air, but moved it from its dangerous position close to her jugular all the same. Helping him? She had...done this on purpose? So, he really hadn’t known better. She actually had been trying to piss him off. Erik’s mind struggled to find a reason. She might have been Charles’s friend, but she had absolutely no attachment to him, no reason to push him like this, to break him through that barrier that he’d been coming up against in a way that hadn’t even occurred to him. And the way that he was looking her at the moment just screamed the one question that he couldn’t get himself to actually ask. Why? “I think it was just violent enough, thank you,” Erik said after a long moment, reaching back to pull his chair in and sit back down. “Considering what she was saying.” While most people who had put themselves in the same situation might have expected some sort of gratitude the instant Erik realized what she'd done, Irene was not one of them. She would have rebuffed such a statement, calling it out for the sheer hypocrisy that it represented. So, although it might have appeared to some that he was being rather rude in purposefully ignoring it all, she was rather glad for it. She had helped him do what he'd been wanting to do and that was more than enough reason for her to leave him be for the moment. Of course, just because she had no real reason to continue to poke at him didn't mean that she was going to let him out of her sight. No, even as he took his seat and she slowly straightened back up to her full height, she kept her gaze on him. Up to and including when she addressed the other man in the room. "Charles," she said in a no-nonsense tone, "do shut up." Slowly she turned her gaze to him. "I was well aware of the danger, thank you, and perfectly equipped as well. I'm a fully capable woman who hardly goes into situations such as these without a clear understanding of what I'm facing. I would appreciate it if you would remember as much." Wordlessly she pulled the syringe from her pocket and set it on the table, arching a brow ever so slightly as she stared the telepath down. "Furthermore, Mr. Lehnsherr was well within his rights to respond as he did and you certainly have no room to judge him for overreacting to a situation of my own creation." There was an unspoken reminder of their own experiences together that hung in the air with those words, her eyes flashing with pleasure at the memory. Raising her chin a few notches, she tacked on, "Now do stop floundering about and pour yourself some tea already. The scotch is still, I'm assuming, on the top shelf as well, if you feel you must." Then she looked to Erik, one eyebrow arching ever so slightly. She didn't say a word to him, instead simply sitting back down and reaching for her own teacup as though nothing amiss had ever taken place. Charles could have argued. Perhaps he even should have argued. There was no way that Erik wouldn’t know there was something unconventional between them if he didn’t. But he and Irene had discussed things in her time staying at the mansion, and she had helped him to understand that hiding this from Erik gave the other man’s opinion more weight than necessary. He wasn’t afraid of being judged by this older version of his dearest friend, so there was no reason to act as though the connection that existed between himself and Irene was shameful. Of course, there was also the fact that her tone had the same effect it always did. When she talked to him like that, he wanted to listen. More than that, he wanted to do whatever it took to please her. By now, it was an almost unconscious response, and he almost forgot Erik was there as his mouth snapped shut and he went completely still. “Yes, ma’am,” he said at last, because not responding at all would have been rude. He moved over to grab a tea cup and poured himself the tea, foregoing alcohol at the slight indication that Irene would prefer he didn’t. He knew she felt that he relied on it too much as a crutch, and he really didn’t want to make her cross. “I was concerned,” he said softly, his tone slightly sheepish, as he sat down and took a sip of his tea. “I know you’re perfectly capable of handling yourself, but you can’t predict everything and...I can’t...I would rather not have a repeat of the last time you were hurt.” He glanced over at Erik. “I apologise for judging your reaction. It wasn’t my place.” He looked up at Irene, as if checking to see if she approved. He still felt the slightest bit dazed from the way she had spoken to him. Erik always respected a woman who was ready and willing to stand up for herself, her behavior, and her beliefs. Even if she was a human who had just spent the last hour or so working to piss him off, he couldn't help but be a little impressed by the way that she was standing up to Charles, asserting herself and making it clear that she had done absolutely nothing wrong, and he didn't have any room to judge her or him in the way that they had conducted themselves. Had Erik been a little less proud, he might have thanked her for the assertion, for putting herself forward for the both of them instead of just herself, but the fact of the matter was that Erik was an immensely prideful individual. And he was still a little injured by her stunt even if it had been for his own good. The demand that she had laid out on Charles, however, made Erik raise an eyebrow at the situation, responding in kind to Irene's look over at him, but it was Charles's reaction that confused him even more. Erik had known Charles for nearly half a century, as friends, enemies, allies, and opponents. He had seen Charles at his best and at his worst, and he had watched him respond to everything from political opposition to threats of genocide. But he had never, never, seen Charles acquiesce to someone so quickly. Particularly in a way that left him trying to explain his reasoning and methods before apologizing for stepping in where his opinion wasn't wanted. Glancing between the pair of them, a deep furrow on his aged features, it took a long moment before his mind slowly started to piece together everything that Irene had said to him, everything that he had witnessed, and all of the pieces started to slowly filter together. Charles was her student. They had sessions. There was a matter of confidentiality. And with the way that his old friend was behaving now, there was only one result that all of his life experience could extract out of all of these facts together. "Certainly not a therapist," Erik said after a moment, glancing back over at Irene with wide eyes. "And not an opera singer either. Though, it seems I was a bit off when I said Charles wouldn't look to you for companionship," He said before glancing back over at Charles with a hint of amusement layering the confusion on his features. "Lonely, old friend?" For as intelligent as Erik Lehnsherr was capable of being, Irene was of the personal opinion that - much like most other men she knew - he was also equally capable of being quite clueless at times. And although she was a bit impressed that he had finally, finally sorted out precisely how she knew Charles, she wasn’t so impressed that she was willing to silently overlook the insinuation that the two of them had been intimate at times solely due to something as ridiculously mundane as lonliness. Whether he was attempting to make light of the situation or not was beside the point for her. She simply wouldn’t stand for him to belittle the goals Charles had set for himself that she’d helped him reach, nor would she let him make Charles feel at all uncomfortable for having taken such unorthodox measures as he had to reach them. Raising her teacup to her lips, she stated rather flatly over the top of the steaming liquid, “There is a rather large gap between companionship and the search for understanding of one’s self through means which might not be typically considered.” She refused to comment more than that, letting Charles decide for himself what he did, and didn’t, want to share. Yes, she had discussed with him that being ashamed of his interactions with her was wholly unnecessary, but even she knew there was a difference between admitting that they’d been intimate and getting into gritty details. Taking a sip of the tea, she set the cup back down and pinned Erik with a look. “And I’m certain he’s rather lonely, currently, given the fact that his chosen companion is currently unavailable. If you’re going to waste time asking questions, Mr. Lehnsherr, at least have them be intelligent ones.” Then her gaze slid to Charles and she fashioned him with a rather fond smile. “You really needn’t worry about me,” she reassured the telepath, the edge to her tone nowhere to be found. “Although I do appreciate it, I assure you. I’ve no intention of taking my own life or allowing someone else to take it either.” Her eyes sparkled as she tacked on a rather bemused, “Not without one hell of a fight.” Charles was trying really hard not to let his annoyance with Erik show. Of course he was lonely. His Erik, the one he was in love with, was gone, and this one was being completely obtuse in regards to how that was affecting him. Thankfully, Irene pointed that out so that he didn’t have to. Still, he was hardly going to just let the man demean his and Irene’s connection to something as simple as a product of loneliness. It was so much more than that, and she meant so much to him, and he could hardly just ignore the slight. Finishing his tea, he steeled his jaw and turned his attention to the other man. “If you must know,” he said quietly, “Irene was helping me. After the...” He nearly called it the incident as he once had, but a glance at Irene stopped him. “After I was...paralysed, and even after I was healed here, I felt rather...disconnected from my body. It hardly helped that events here led me to be more grounded in the mental than the physical. Irene has been quite instrumental in helping me to reconnect with my physical body.” He looked away. “Besides, she pushes me when it comes to my abilities, both in terms of using them and also not becoming overly reliant on them. Very few people do that.” He gave Irene a small, grateful smile and then, as if to demonstrate just how much Irene had helped him, brought his fingers to his temple in a wholly unnecessary gesture and watched as one of the forks flew across the room and imbedded itself in the wall. He gave Erik a small smile. “So I would kindly ask that you not make light of her role in my life,” he said softly. “I would truly be lost without her.” Erik wasn't entirely sure if that was just a demonstration on Charles's part or a threat, but he certainly got the point. While the Charles that he had known had been capable of very much the same thing, it was only after decades of practice and even then, seemingly dependent upon the necessity of the situation. This was something else entirely, and Erik was well able to recognize that. Sparing the briefest of glances over at Irene, his expression furrowed with a momentary confusion. She was human. Obviously so. She had declared at much. There was no reason for him to doubt her. But even as Erik had started to consider this from another level after his conversation with young Ms. Suresh over the network, this still left him confused. "Why do you care?" It wasn't meant to be rude. It was a question, asked in earnest, one that Erik very much wanted to answer to. She had went to such lengths to help Charles, but that was understandable to Erik. Charles was a good man, a great man, someone that many people loved and loved to be around. Wanting to help him was as natural as wanting to help a drowning child or an injured animal. It was pure human instinct, one of the greatest, but going to such lengths to help him, putting herself in the middle of a dangerous and possibly lethal situation just to draw out his ability in a way which had yet to occur to him and likely never would have, didn't make any sense in Erik's mind. Nobody wanted to help the neighborhood dog who snapped at you every time you got close, who would happily rip off your face should he feel it was necessary. So why would she bother with him? Irene's attention fell to her teacup as Charles spoke with Erik. She was proud of Charles for sticking up for himself and saw no reason to join in, as he was doing a rather splendid job all on his own. She did, however, glance over at him when he looked her way, casting a fond smile in his direction to mirror the one he gave her. When he used his telekinesis - something that had taken more time to help him finely hone than she even wanted to dwell on - her smile grew with pride. "You and those fingers of yours," she remarked idly, mostly teasing. Raising her teacup to her lips, she added almost in passing, "As pleasing as they can be, you really should get out of that particular habit. It's almost an insult to your true capabilities." Then her gaze went to Erik, her smile turning to one of borderline amusement as he finally asked what had been so clear from the moment he'd realized what she'd done for him. Setting her cup down, she met his gaze and simply stared at him for a heartbeat or two. When she did speak, her tone was even and her words fairly to the point. "What happened to you was scarcely of your choosing and, frankly, abhorable," she explained. "I saw an opportunity to assist, knew that you would scarcely accept assistance from someone such as myself and, even if you would, was well aware that it wouldn't work if you knew what I'd intended." She shrugged slightly and the corners of her mouth twitched. "So, I took action and did what needed to be done." Pausing for a moment, she tacked on with a rather knowing gleam in her eyes, "In short, Mr. Lehnsherr, it was the right thing to do. Even I, on occasion, am capable of recognizing and acting upon such things." Charles couldn’t help but laugh as Irene joked about his use of his fingers. “I promise you it was just a visual aid,” he said. “I hardly wanted Erik thinking he had accidentally done that. I’ll keep my fingers to myself from now on.” There was a pause, then he smiled slightly. “Well, for the most part anyway.” What? If Erik could make light of his relationship with Irene, he could certainly make a few colourful jokes of his own. He wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed by their association and he wouldn’t let anyone change that. He listened to Erik’s question and Irene’s response, keeping silent. Anything he said now would just break the moment that seemed to be taking place. While he hardly expected Irene’s words to completely change Erik’s view of the world, or even to provoke a thank you, he thought that it could be good for his friend to see that there were humans who could be good and selfless and sympathetic toward mutants. If nothing else, it might temper him until he went back to his own world, and if they were lucky it might even change his interactions in the future. He was hardly going to assume as much, but he could certainly hope. Erik wasn’t sure what to say. He knew what he should say. Thank you was perhaps the most appropriate statement that could have passed his lips right now, but just as he couldn’t bring himself to say it initially, he couldn’t do it now either even though the words would have more sincerity to them at the moment. Instead, Erik took the statement before what it was and nodded towards her. It was enough to acknowledge that he understood what she was saying without having to force words out of himself that, while he might mean them, probably wouldn’t have sounded like it. Charles’s crack about keeping his fingers to himself prompted Erik to roll his eyes with a laugh, even as uncomfortable as he was with the idea thankful for something else to push the subject onto, “Shall I leave you two to the room, then?” Erik asked with a playful grin before glancing about at the scattered cutlery and pans around the kitchen and biting his lower lip, relaxing as he was able to clean up the mess that he’d made with a few waves of his hand. “There. You’re unlikely to get stabbed with anything sharp now if you happen to need the table for...things,” Erik said with a smirk as he stood. Irene gave a slight laugh at Erik’s response, eyes shining as she replied simply with, “As though I haven’t a table of my own.” Then she, too, rose. “And if both of you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ve a friend scheduled to pop by at any moment. I shudder to think what he might get up to, if left to his own devices in this place.” Then with a tip of her head at Erik, and a knowing smile at Charles, she exited the room and began making her way toward the front door. She hadn’t been lying, after all. Sherlock was due to stop by for a visit and she’d rather he not get pettily cross if she wasn’t about to greet him properly. Besides. A lady always knew when to leave well enough alone and she’d had quite enough goading of both Erik and Charles. For the time being, at least. Charles shook his head, taking a sip of his tea. Erik really didn’t get it, did he? Much as he cared for Irene now, sex wasn’t a factor in their friendship any more. He was hardly going to do that to his Erik. “I can assure you,” he told Erik, “that the only thing that would happen if you did leave us to the room would be tea drinking and conversation.” Honestly, the man could be something of an idiot at times, and he was very lucky that Charles was more amused than annoyed by him at this point. He nodded his head as Irene stood to leave. “Give Sherlock my regards,” he said calmly, rising to his feet and clearing up the tea. He waited until she had left the room before turning his attention to Erik. “I’m glad that she helped you,” he said after a moment. “What happened to you...it wasn’t right, and I am happy it has been fixed. You should not have had to spend so long as something you despise.” He paused. “I won’t ever fully agree with you, because...well, I don’t think you’re right. But I honestly don’t think our viewpoints are so different as you might think. Just...so you know.” “I know, Charles,” Erik said as he finished his drink and moved to put his glass away as well. It seemed that this conversation was slowly wrapping up, but he couldn’t help but feel that he should at least make it clear to Charles that no matter how much he might disagree, they would eventually find a common ground. “It really is just a matter of which one of us proves to be right in the end, old friend. We both want the same thing. I still believe that. We just don’t agree on the best way to reach that goal,” He said, stepping in next to Charles and settling a hand on his shoulder to catch his full attention. “And when it comes down to it, Charles, if the humans back home were more like the ones here, it seems that you would have easily won me out philosophically,” Erik said with a bit of a sad smile and a shake of his head. “Unfortunately, they are a long way from it,” he said before flicking his fingers and indulging in the lack of the block there between himself and his ability. “For one, none of them would have ever taken such risks to help me.” "I've never felt that it's a matter of right or wrong," Charles said with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I don't think this is a situation that can ever be boiled down to such simple terms. We had different methods and philosophies, but nobody is completely right. All I know is that the idea of opposing you for decades is...not something I can really fathom." They had taken different paths back home, but he'd spent so much time here that it was hard to imagine finding himself at such cross-purposes with Erik. It was unfathomable. "And so...I'm glad that it hasn't come to that here." He sighed. "Perhaps that's naive of me," he said, "or selfish, but I cannot bring myself to care. Erik...my Erik...he means everything to me. And we've found a way to make this work. Through compromise and understanding." He stopped. "It isn't always easy, but we've found a balance here. And not all the compromise has been on Erik's side." That was all he would say on that matter, not particularly eager to discuss the things he had done in Colligo or the lines he had crossed. "I can't pretend to know how things changed back home, but I do think that people there could have proved to be just as good as they can be here, given the chance." He smiled. "But I'm not trying to argue with you. The fact that you can acknowledge that there are some humans who have the capacity for good is enough for me." He glanced at his watch. "Unfortunately," he said, "I do have some work to do. But..." He paused, considering. He'd kept Erik at a distance since he'd arrived, and he was beginning to feel that maybe that had been unfair. "Would you care for a game of chess later this evening?" It was a relief to clear up some of the awkwardness between them, and even as Erik took in what Charles had to say about the other him despite the issues and questions that it raised in him, he knew that it was best not to bother with that right now. They could always discuss it tonight. “Most assuredly.”