charles xavier (cerebrally) wrote in realitycrash, @ 2012-01-30 12:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | charles xavier, erik lehnsherr |
Who: Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr.
What: Erik just learned the future, and the future is awful.
Where: Charles' room in the Manor.
When: January 28th, late evening.
Warning: X-Angst, probably R-rated.
Not going to Erik, Charles thinks, might actually just kill him.
It wasn't an easy promise to make in the first place, that he wouldn't go to find Erik immediately when his mind was a maelstrom of torment, but he had made it because he had to do what was right. Erik needed his space for whatever this was, and Charles had to respect that space. It was the right thing to do as a partner. It was the right thing to do simply as a friend. But he was bitterly aware the right thing was often a very difficult proposition, and he wanted to take Erik's face in his hands and pull him to his shoulder where nothing could possibly hurt him.
It was a ridiculous thought. Things were going to hurt Erik regardless of what Charles did, and the horror of it to Charles was that Erik didn't even acknowledge these things as pain. That had been taken from him a long time ago, and Charles knew he couldn't restore it simply by holding him and assuring him all would be well now. It was very rare for Charles to hate anyone. He looked for the good in even the darkest of places, teased it out by degrees and let it soften him to a place where he could feel empathy instead of revulsion, but Charles hated everyone who had done this to Erik. Everyone who had done this to anyone else at all, gone into them and scarred their human softness into the ragged surface of the moon.
So he's here, pacing his room so much that he might wear a track in his carpet like Erik has threatened so many times, and there's nothing he can could without trespassing on the sanctity of those scars. They've gotten Erik through a great deal more than Charles has, after all, and he can't blame Erik for trusting his isolation at first before whatever comfort Charles is going to be able to offer. That's the other thing, the lack of knowledge. That he doesn't know what's wrong but can only assume it's somehow worse than losing Shaw, because he hadn't stayed away from Charles then. Which means it's somewhere beyond what Charles can imagine, although the one thing he knows of here that he's sure would produce this--he doesn't want to think of it, but he can't help it anymore than he can help breathing, and he wonders who could be so cruel.
Or if the real cruelty lies in him, for being a coward.
There's nothing to do but wait and curse the infuriatingly slow progression of the clock, hyperaware of the ticking of seconds and the stillness of the door, so it's within the instant he hears it click open he turns-- "Erik--"
To say he is distressed when Erik crosses the room with his bladelike precision only to fall to his knees and press his head against Charles is a vast understatement, and Charles caresses and holds Erik's head at once, so shocked that it doesn't occur to him to sink to the ground himself right away.
"Erik--my God, what happened?"