Charles Xavier (tohopeagain) wrote in the100, @ 2015-07-11 22:37:00 |
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He is… awake. And pain-free, for that matter. Drugged, he decides. He still can’t feel his legs, but there is knowledge that his shoulder hurts -- or it will when the drugs wear off. There is also knowledge that if he could feel his legs, there would also be pain. People are nearby, moving, talking. He can hear them, but audibly with his ears but -- yes. Their thoughts. Wishes, desires, dreams, fears -- a red-headed woman is sad, working through it because it’s what she’s supposed to do, and there are stars and a ship, larger than he could imagine and a name, linked to so many more. Another -- a doctor from Chicago, and a doctor from Seattle who misses and one from the deep reaches of space and a man who thinks in green and another, sleeping as he dreams of a -- yes. A werewolf. He veers back to the woman -- -- Charles laughs, but it’s a choke outside. The Enterprise, but not Kirk, not the pointy-eared man Spock, but a different captain that resembles him and this startles Charles so much that his eyes open and he’s seeking, spreading his mind outward and touching so many but -- by habit -- sliding by. A blue one, a beloved face; Charles veers away and lands in another. ERIK. WHERE AM I? Charles asks. He holds back, refrains from looking further into Erik’s mind although it’s tempting and Mount Weather is tantalizing and heavy and oppressive and a Nazi. ERIK? The psychic response is immediate: a sudden jolt to attention, a moment of discomfort. Erik's never liked having anyone in his head, not even Charles. Sometimes especially not Charles. The thoughts that come through are jumbled -- a mix of anger and relief, longing and bitterness, several half-starts at communication that are part apology and part argument. What he settles on sending through clearly is this: WE WERE TAKING BETS ON WHEN YOU'D SHOW YOURSELF, CHARLES. This time, Charles does laugh, garnering a glance from the dark-haired man from space. Charles hears worry for a river before he slides away and faces Erik mentally once more. WHERE ARE WE? THEY’LL TELL ME, BUT I NEED TO HEAR IT FROM YOU FIRST. He allows the doctors to lift him into a sitting position, and accepts a glass of water, but waves away their questions. RAVEN -- MYSTIQUE IS HERE. I FELT HER. And a pause while he assures the red-head, Beverly, that he’s fine, before he continues with Erik. HELLO, OLD FRIEND. WE LEFT SOME THINGS UNDONE. Erik's thoughts seem to bristle at being called old friend. It hits him in a deep, uncomfortable place, stirs unwanted longing. DON'T. He doesn't want to deal with Charles being affectionate, not when there's so much between them. He thinks Charles needs to ask Mystique, not him. ALTERNATE REALITY, THEY SAY. INTERDIMENSIONAL HOLDING SPACE. FROM ONE PRISON TO ANOTHER, CHARLES. WE'RE TRAPPED. Charles recoils, bringing himself forward to the activity in the room. They are clearly waiting for him to wake up completely, and are checking his pulse and blood pressure and any number of things that doctors do. But he opens his mind again to Erik, listening intently. He disregards -- for now -- the distaste in Erik’s tone, the cynicism that complements his own idealism. ANOTHER REALITY. IS LOGAN HERE? MYSTIQUE IS… AND HANK. I CAN FEEL HIM. WHO ELSE? -- NO, I’LL ASK MY QUESTIONS LATER, THEY’RE HERE TO ASK ME WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP. CHARMIING. Charles exits Eriks head and focuses on the doctors before him. He explains who he is, and his powers, that he is aware that there are people from his world here and could he please be roomed with him since they would understand his physical needs? Beverly tells him there is a wheelchair for his use; he sees that it is not equipped with a motor. He smiles faintly, taps quietly on Erik’s mind. HOW STRONG ARE YOUR ARMS, ERIK? Erik's response is mildly amused. FAR STRONGER THAN YOU'D THINK. WHY. GOOD. YOU CAN COME TO MEDICAL AND HELP ME FIND MY NEW LODGINGS. 506-D. MY WHEELCHAIR IS MANUALLY OPERATED, AND I WAS VERY RECENTLY STUCK UNDER A STEEL BEAM. Charles grins at his companions, and nods, and signs the paper held out to him. I AM RELEASED. By the time Charles is headed toward the main entrance to medical, Erik is already there — he started walking the moment he heard Charles's thoughts in his mind, leaving his room and rushing to get him without even being asked. It's absurd, considering the circumstances. He and Charles have spent years apart. They were reunited briefly, but their relationship had been tense, and by the end of it Erik assumed their friendship was severed forever. And yet, here he is, making his way into the medical facility like it's simply a given that Charles would ask to see him. However, he stops just short of actually getting close, and he offers a brief nod. "Charles." Ah. So that’s how it’s going to be. Charles lifts his chin briefly, and then nods in return. “Erik. You look well.” In fact, he looks no different than the last time Charles saw him. A relief, really; the stray thoughts from those around him and had brought to his attention that sometimes people arrived at different times in their lives. Charles had worried needlessly that Erik would be… either more or less informed that he is. It’s a relief, however, to see him. “Thank you, for… escorting me.” Erik doesn't answer immediately. He's still getting used to seeing Charles like this. He's never spent any significant length of time around Charles in his wheelchair. It breaks some small part of him; he knows this is his fault, that he caused this, and that Charles is in that chair because of him. And yet, at the same time, it brings him a sort of relief. If Charles can't walk, if he's using his powers, it means he's back to himself. He's embracing his gifts again instead of giving them up, acting like he's ashamed. "Of course." He glances away, out down the hall, and then he beckons Charles with his fingertips. The wheels of the chair begin to turn on their own with a small tug of Erik's powers. "You're near me, for better or worse," he says. Charles folds his hands into his lap, allowing Erik to pull his chair along as if it’s done daily, and not the first time that Erik has actually seen him like this. “Am I? Am I also near the others?” He holds his hand up as he draws even with Erik, a silent request to stop. “... it’s possible we should call a truce. I’m… bewildered, confused. I would appreciate your help in acclimating myself to my new home before we are at loggerheads agin, Erik.” Erik lets the wheelchair stop as he does, glancing down at Charles. He's not used to the height difference, not used to looking down at him this way, and there's something unsettling about it. It's difficult to stay angry at him, not after seemingly reconciling before — well. Erik knows he was the one who went off the rails. He knows he lashed out and went against the plan, regardless of who was actually right in the matter. "I…" Why does Charles want the truce, is the question. "More people know you than you realize," he says rather than answering — or perhaps as his way of answering. "You have other X-Men, students of yours from years to come, in worlds parallel to ours. I'm sure you should feel rather proud of yourself." Charles takes a moment to let that sink in. “Oh.” He raises his left hand, but only to drag it through his hair. “I -- well, I do. But I meant Raven and Hank. Mystique, I mean. My -- our friends.” He looks up to meet Erik’s gaze, and it wasn’t enough, because he had to incline his head even more. “Have you always been so bloody tall?” Erik's mouth curves up slightly into a vaguely amused smile. He's torn between wanting things to be the same as they were and knowing they never will be. He and Charles think too differently. Charles is weak. He's an idealist in a world that isn't going to abide by him. The world doesn't work the way he thinks it does, and Erik resents him for not waking up and figuring it out. He'd love to shove their feelings on mutant rights aside, but that's all there is. That's Erik's life, that's his cause, and without it there's little else — the idea that he has to settle in and find something normal to do after a life of seeking revenge and then fighting oppression is possibly one of the most difficult and unsettling things he's faced. "I, ah." He clears his throat, trying not to chuckle. "Mystique is here," he says, though there's a faint edge to the way he says her name. He knows Charles is only using her chosen name because he's around. Charles frowns. And looks at Erik. “I know. I felt her.” He lifts he tablet he’d been given. “Perhaps I should have asked her to help me.” Instead of you, he means, and he’s tired, and overwhelmed, and still becoming used to the people just on the edge of his mind, of keeping them away and leaving their privacy in tact. Talking is exhausting, so he looks at Erik again, and projects himself into the other man’s mind, allowing him to see Charles’s exhaustion in a way that didn’t show on his face. JUST TAKE ME TO MY ROOM, ERIK. YOU’RE NOT INTERESTED IN PEACE, AND YOU NEVER HAVE BEEN. Erik frowns. "Get out of my head." He barely twitches his fingers and the wheelchair starts forward again, and Erik walks alongside it but refuses to look over. Charles doesn't need to be in his mind, and while Erik would usually appreciate the fact that a mutant is using his powers naturally, it's an unwelcome invasion of privacy and Charles is just being lazy and manipulative — at least, that's what Erik tells himself. "The 'peace' you seek is imaginary, Charles, and you know it," he says. There's far more turmoil in his mind than his tone of voice. In fact, when he says it he's calm, almost soft-spoken. His head, however, is a hostile place to be. It always is. Charles disappears, as requested, but not before he’s glimpsed the chaos within Erik. He’s silent for most of the trip to his apartment. But, Erik wants manipulating and lazy? Well, he can have it. “It’s so imaginary that no one’s come after you with pitchforks and torches, with the cry of mutants are evil? Terrible. Thank you, Erik, you may go.” He grips the wheels and propels himself forward, until he reaches his own door, and looks back. Erik freezes the wheels on the chair and rounds on him, coming in to lean in with his hands on the arms of the chair. He has to quell a violent instinct to just crush the wheelchair underneath Charles, to take it right out from underneath him. "Don't you dare mock me." “And don’t you dare tell me a peace that was very nearly ripped from our hands is imaginary,” Charles snarls, curling his hands into the front of Erik’s shirt. “You may live with your delusions of a perfect world where mutants reign supreme but you did not see the world I glimpsed in Logan’s mind. You did not see the blood and the loss and the extinction of mutants and humans alike, all in the name of your brotherhood.” He tightens his fists for a moment and then pushes Erik away, as hard as he could. Erik is shoved back a couple of steps, but the door to Charles's room slams open. He's not going to have this conversation in the hallway, not when he's keenly aware that he's being watched. He has no problem using his powers to pull the wheelchair into the room, and then he bangs the door shut behind Charles. "What would you have me do?" he snaps. "Take a serum to suppress my gifts and shutter myself in my room while our people die? Peace doesn't just simply exist because you choose inaction, Charles!" Charles laughs. Partly because it’s true -- he had messed up so badly, had wrapped himself to tightly in himself out of grief and anger that he had ignored the world -- but also because Erik couldn’t see past the end of his nose. “And what were you doing just before I left home? Ensuring peace worldwide? Or starting a war? You don’t understand, Erik. War will only kill us. Everyone.” "No, it won't. Do you know what kills us, Charles? Hm?" Erik is different these days. There's something slightly more erratic in his behavior, but ten years of solitary confinement will do that to a person. He's had ten years to think about this, ten years to plan, ten years simply to stew in his own anger over a truly unjust situation, and it all spills out in the way he speaks now. "Complacency kills us. Trust in a government that doesn't represent or respect us. Being happy and content to live in a world that doesn't view us as people, and expecting the people in power to not enact laws to restrain those who might be a threat." “Did you not just experience everything that I did? A world spiraling out of control because of the death of one person? Erik, you very nearly caused World War Three on your own, in the middle of a bloody baseball stadium surrounding the White House!” Charles still feels that he is coming out of a cocoon, stretching his wings and discovering that he knows how to fly, only the world he knew is changed, gone, thrown away with no rhyme or reason than some nameless something wanted them elsewhere. “You mistake complacency for being willing to work with the government. You are unwilling to implement change in a way that will benefit all people, not just you and those you care about. Instead you sew destruction and hatred everywhere, and it has corrupted you,” Charles says, his voice a soft growl. “The solution is to become a person in power -- not the power. Because it is true, Erik, is it not, that absolute power corrupts absolutely? And that is what you want.” "What I want, Charles, is freedom," says Erik, his voice low. How can Charles not comprehend this? He's privileged, self-absorbed, an academic with no practical experience. "The government won't work with people like us. The government won't represent the minority, not when it can use us as a simple scapegoat for their mistakes. One mutant in government isn't enough; Kennedy did nothing and they killed him for it anyway. The government needs to be overthrown before it insists on wiping us out." Erik knows. He's lived with it already, he's seen it happen, and he's seeing it again. Charles shakes his head, unwilling to continue in this circular argument; they’ll only say, over and over, the same things until they’re brimming with anger again and the room is torn apart. “I’m sorry, Erik. For so much, but mostly that we haven’t yet reconciled these differences of opinion.” He sighs, and straightens his shirt. “For the time being can we at least agree to disagree?” Erik sighs, turning away. He's quick to anger, his temper is even more dangerous than it used to be, but it's hard to stay angry at Charles when the man is in a wheelchair and speaking to him so quietly, and he feels as if he can't lash out. He's missed him so much. "It's…" He can't fight that. He wants to, but the need to fight isn't immediate. He nods. "One day you'll figure this out, Charles. One day you'll learn you can't sit in your mansion and hope everyone holds hands." Charles concedes the point with a small nod to Erik. “But this isn’t the school. I need you here. I need all three of you, Erik. And I think you need me.” He hopes so, at least. Charles’s mouth quirks in a grin. “I can’t believe you uprooted a damned baseball stadium.” Erik starts to smile, but it's wary like he can't trust the fact that Charles is being warm. He doesn't know if there's an angle, because it's almost disarmingly friendly despite their argument and all of their grudges and differences. "Can't you?" Charles looks at him for a moment before he starts to smile, nodding. “Yeah, yeah, I can. It’s just the sort of thing you do. Go big or go home, that should be your motto.” Erik's expression softens a little, and it's rather sad. "Well, I can't go home." Charles sobers, too, and holds out his hand to Erik. “I know. None of us can.” Erik glances down at Charles's hand, but he doesn't take it. He wants to, and that longing is there in his mind, but there's something about Erik that's like a wild animal in the process of being domesticated. He doesn't trust kindness when it's offered, he craves contact but doesn't know how to accept it. He's been alone too long over the last decade. "I didn't mean our world," he says after a moment. "I meant with you." Charles stiffens and his face falls into stillness. He keeps his hand outstretched for one second, two, three, and slowly withdraws it, drawing it back to curl his hand around the edge of his seat. “I see. I’m sorry to hear that, Erik.” It’s the end, then. Not even apocalypse can hold them together, and inside, a part of Charles is screaming his denial, throwing a fit worthy of Magneto himself. “Perhaps you should leave, then.” Erik stares at him, blinking once — there are tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and he refuses to acknowledge them. Without his helmet, Erik is always a raw nerve around Charles, his mind open and vulnerable. Charles's dismissal hits him hard. He didn't mean it that way, didn't mean it to say that he refused to return (though that was true), but that Charles is never going to accept him again. Despite their differences, part of Erik still yearns for Charles's acceptance and longs for his friendship. He misses him horribly, no matter how angry he is. "You're right," he says stiffly, heading for the door. His fingertips trail lightly over Charles's shoulder as he passes him. Charles shudders,his hand coming up to wrap around Erik’s wrist, holding it tightly. There’s too much between them -- damn his own pride, he won’t let Erik walk out, not like this. Despite his request for him to leave, he holds on. “I missed you. Fuck it all, Erik, I missed you.” It's been ten years. They had, what, a few months together in 1962? Those few months shaped Erik's life forever, for better or worse, and Charles has become one of the most important people in his life, but it almost seems insane to Erik that someone would miss him. He squeezes Charles's shoulder. He wants to say he's sorry he's a disappointment, but at the same time he doesn't believe that he is. He's doing what's right, what's necessary, and it kills him that Charles doesn't see it the same way. It kills him that Charles is in this chair right now, and that it's his fault. Sometimes he thinks that Charles will simply stand up, that this isn't their reality now. "I thought of you. Constantly," he admits. “I hated you. For six months. A year. Then I pretended to hate you both, because you took her away and I was alone,” Charles admits miserably, leaning his head to rest it against Erik’s arm. “I never stopped -- I always missed you. Hank -- he knew. God bless him, I think he knew and he stayed and he probably saved my life.” He clears his throat and swallows past the lump that’s lodged itself. “I needed you to know that.” Erik's other hand comes to rest against Charles's hair, sifting through it. It's so long now, and Erik's not sure if he likes it or not — not that it matters what he thinks. "I hated you," he says quietly. "Sometimes, I still do." Erik's emotions are volatile and confusing, torn between constant extremes of love and hate, and sometimes they intersect. "But I …" He's not sorry for taking Raven away. He's not. Raven made her choice and that isn't Erik's fault. Raven also abandoned him, and that sting is far more fresh. He smooths Charles's hair down, touches the back of the other man's neck. He's not sure what he wants to say. Saying I hate you is easier than the rest, but his surface thoughts are bubbling over, impossible to ignore. Charles lets them in, a splash of color that is Erik filling the corners of his mind. And he sighs, his thoughts mingling with Eriks and echoing back into the other man’s head, softly. Erik is a cacophany, chaotic and loud, uncertain and skittish and nosing up against Charles’s own. “I know.” He sifts Eriks thoughts out, though, allowing himself just those seconds before shutting himself away and leaving Erik’s privacy in tact once more, but with an inkling of the depth of Charles’s feeling both for Erik and Raven. Erik is quiet for a long time, calmed by Charles's thoughts if nothing else. He's not sure why, but there's an understanding there that despite political differences they may still be close as people. It's not an easy distinction for Erik to make. He's never really felt like a person, not since Auschwitz. He's been a tool for revenge, a monster, a weapon, and he's always had some cause or another to follow, and it's been about what he is rather than who. Charles seems to think that their differences can be put aside, like Erik can be separated from what he thinks and believes and does. He doesn't know whether that's true. "I'm so sorry I did this to you," he says finally, something breaking in his voice. "I never meant to hurt you." “Hey… No, don’t --” Charles reaches out, patting Erik’s shoulder, then neck, then rests his hand on his head, pulling him close. “I know. I know you didn’t. I forgive you.” Charles pulls Erik into a loose hug, breathing deeply now to keep his emotions in check. “It’s all right. It’s all right, Erik.” Erik's not sure what to do with the hug at first, but the reassurance unsettles him. His composure shatters and he sinks down to his knees beside Charles's chair, shifting just enough to rest his forehead against the other man's knee. "I never would have hurt you—" He says it now. Maybe it won't be true in years to come, and it wasn't true the last time they saw each other. Erik gets blinded in his anger and sees his cause as the only thing, but now he sees Charles in this chair, a result of what he's done, and he can't forgive himself. Charles leans over him, his nose brushing Erik’s hair. He moves hands to Erik’s head and opens his mind to Erik, soothing cool blue to ease Erik’s pain instinctively. He takes nothing. I KNOW. I LIVED, ERIK. I’M ALIVE, I LIVE, AND I’M HERE. He sits back, withdrawing and wiping at his eyes. He tries to speak, but shakes his head. He is alive, a fact that seemed to have escaped him ten years ago. He is alive, and the fact of a weakened body does not mean a weakened spirit, or soul, or mind. He was injured. It happened, but he lives. |