FIC EXCHANGE: REALITY
Title: Reality
Author: dedkake
Recipient: hardlyabird
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Not much. Angst. Some dark!Charles.
Prompt: In the first days of recruiting for the academy, Charles interviews a child who can change reality. Sensing that Charles is distraught over being at odds with Erik, the kid makes it so they can be together. This world diverges from his own because Charles lets Erik blow the ships up and sides with him - cue angst and wondering if he should find the kid again to change the world back.
Notes: A little different than the prompt, but I hope it’s still okay!
They are ten years old and twins and they look so small sitting there on the couch holding hands. Charles has to keep in constant connection with their mother’s mind to know exactly what to say to put her at ease, to convince her it’s okay to trust her children, her precious, terrifying children, to some strangers who certainly don’t look like they are responsible adults. So he doesn’t notice what the little girl is doing until he’s gasping for breath and nearly falling out of his wheelchair. It’s different than the way he invades the mind, much sharper, targeting a specific area of his brain, and it makes it hard to breathe.
Distantly he can feel that the mother’s mind is a panicked jumble of fear and resignation; Sean is calling to him, moving across the room slowly, cautious; through his own pain and confusion, the twins are a silent wall in Charles’ mind and for a moment, he finds himself wishing Erik was here. Erik was always better with the younger ones.
“He can help you,” the little girl says.
“She showed me what you want. I can give it to you,” the little boy says, leaning out from his sister’s shadow for the first time.
Charles sucks in a deep breath and carefully wrenches his mind away from the girl. She looks shocked for a moment, and then curious, but she says nothing. “What is it that you do, exactly,” Charles asks, hoping they won’t give him another demonstration. Clearly the girl is some sort of telepath, but the boy is different, doesn’t feel the same, doesn’t feel like anything Charles’ has ever encountered.
“Just what he said,” the girl says, looking at her brother.
“She tells me what you want and I give it to you.”
And then, before Charles can say anything more, the boy snaps his fingers. His sister looks thrilled, but the boy remains a mask of seriousness out of place on his young face.
“Just like that,” he says.
Charles takes another deep, calming breath and before he can let it out-
Charles is tucked neatly into his desk at the mansion, staring out the window and idly tapping his pen against the signed contract that will give Janos cover as a teacher at the school. They might have declared war on humanity, but after the missiles had impacted and the ships had sunk, the governments of the two leading world superpowers had remained tight-lipped about the mutants. The loss of life had been written off as a small battle that each government was willing to overlook for a more extended period of peace.
Erik and Charles had not been fooled. The humans were looking for proof, evidence of the existence of mutants to justify a war against civilians. Charles’ office at Oxford had received more visits and letters than the university was willing to handle for him and Charles had heard news that many of his colleagues were receiving similar attention or had disappeared completely.
At first, Erik had wanted to go on the offensive, had wanted Azazel to transport them right to the Oval Office and attack humanity at a vital point, and while Charles had been willing to accompany him in his endeavors, he had been grateful that Erik had chosen to rally the mutant troops before heading to full war. So they had gone back to the mansion to rebuild Cerebro and recruit as many mutants as they could while Erik set his tactical genius to work, planning multiple attacks and strategies for a war that had already begun. The cover as a school was most definitely temporary, but still necessary if they wished to have a safe base in the coming years.
Flipping through the stack of teacher certifications to make sure they are all signed and perfect, Charles finds Sean’s at the bottom, unsigned and a little wrinkled. There’s no reason that Charles can think of that Sean wouldn’t have signed the form, unless he had misplaced the paper, but Charles can’t remember finding it anywhere. Whatever the reason, all the forms need to be finalized with the state tomorrow morning and Charles doesn’t intend on overlooking anything.
He pushes his chair back from the desk and ends up tipping it over and falling rather painfully to the ground. “Shit!” he hisses, rubbing at his elbow. For some reason he had thought the chair had wheels, but that made no sense; no chairs in the mansion had ever had wheels. Picking himself slowly up off the floor and setting the heavy chair back in its place, Charles tries to pull himself together. There are things to do and he can’t be making clumsy mistakes like overbalancing chairs.
He stumbles as he crosses the room and realizes he must have fallen harder than he thought; his legs are numb and they burn and tingle like they have been asleep. He shakes his head sharply and lifts his fingers to his temple to locate Sean.
Alex is coming down the hallway to tell him that dinner will be ready in a few minutes, Charles gleans from his mind, and the anger coming off of him is so strong that Charles considers slipping past him unnoticed. But Alex might know where Sean is, so Charles drops his hand to his side and waits for Alex to reach him.
“Professor,” Alex grumbles in greeting, stopping a good ten feet away.
Charles tries to offer a warm smile, but imagines it comes off as weak and strained and Alex’s anger sharpens in his mind. “Alex, dinner in ten minutes, yes? But I’m wondering,” Charles starts, but there something in the back of his mind stops him from asking about Sean. He frowns and tries to pin down exactly why-Sean isn’t here, hasn’t been for weeks. How had he forgotten?
Alex is glaring at him, and it’s clear that he would rather be anywhere else, but he’s waiting for Charles to finish his question.
“You’re still upset about Sean,” Charles says, and it’s a statement because he knows it’s true, knows that Alex hasn’t forgiven him and probably won’t ever.
“Of course I’m still upset!” Alex snaps, body language switching from defensive to offensive in a second. “All he did was disagree with Erik’s disgusting plan and you sent him away. You took his memories, Professor, he won’t be able to come back even if he wants to!”
Charles swallows and lets the words sink in along with everything else Alex is refusing to say. It’s true; Sean had been a major threat to their mission and to their security, so Charles had sent him back to the life he had had before and it had nearly broken Alex to lose another person from their team.
“I’m not going to apologize. Everyone is better off this way. You’re so angry with me, Alex, but you’re still here. If you sympathize with Sean so much, I’d be happy to send you back with him. I wouldn’t let you go back to prison, don’t worry,” Charles says softly, but he knows it is a challenge. He’s offered before.
An angry growl catches in Alex’s throat. “I can’t,” he growls, “I need you.” And then he turns on his heel and runs back down the hallway, leaving Charles with the distinct image of a young boy with dark hair and a pouting face.
Charles feels the resolve tightening in his chest. He has to find them. He has to find the children before they get caught in the middle of this war.
In the kitchen, Charles helps Azazel set the table and carefully avoids looking Alex in the eye. When Raven pushes through the door, giggling with Angel about something to do with the garden, Charles nearly drops the plate in his hands. “Raven,” he says, voice catching.
She looks up at him with a fond but confused expression in her yellow eyes. “Yes?” she asks, amusement still on the edges of her tone.
After a long second where he can’t remember how to breathe, Charles smiles and says, “Glad you’re here.” He has no idea why he feels the truth of the words more keenly than he has before, than he should, considering he’d seen her at lunch.
“I’d never miss dinner, Charles,” she says, smiling as she takes her seat.
“Nor should you.”
At the sound of Erik’s voice, Charles does drop the plate and it shatters on the floor. There’s silence for a moment before Charles mutters an embarrassed apology and the room breaks into amused laughter and conversation again.
“Are you okay?” Erik asks, kneeling next to Charles to help him pick up the larger pieces of broken china. Charles’ heart is beating too fast and he feels hot and tense and-“Charles?”
He lets out a long, shaky breath. “I’m fine. Just feeling a little off today,” he says, turning a smile up at Erik. “I’ll go get the broom.” He can tell that Erik isn’t entirely convinced.
After dinner, Charles worms his way out of kitchen duty by claiming important paper work. He doesn’t think Raven believes him, but she lets him go anyway. Erik had been smirking at him from around a cupboard door and Charles isn’t surprised at all when he senses Erik following him upstairs. Dinner had been uneventful, but Charles could tell that Erik was more than a little restless even from a distance.
“You can stop lurking in the stairs,” Charles says over his shoulder as he pushes the door to his room open. Erik is sliding past him before he can even turn around to close the door.
“The way you were staring at me at dinner,” Erik says, holding his gaze, “what was that?”
There is an unexpected ache in Charles’ chest as Erik leans into him and for a moment, all Charles wants is to wrap his arms around Erik and just feel him. So he does, digging his fingers into the smooth material of Erik’s turtleneck and breathing in the lingering scent of dinner mixed with aftershave on his neck. “I’ve missed you,” he breathes, tightening his hold.
Erik makes a low, amused sound that rumbles through them both and tips his head to look down at Charles. “It’s only been a few hours, Charles. I didn’t even go out today,” he says, his amusement written clearly on his face.
“I know,” Charles says, pressing a kiss to the underside of Erik’s jaw, “it just felt like a very long time.”
Pulling back slightly, Erik smiles and asks, “chess?”
“Of course,” Charles says and moves toward the minibar in the corner, falling easily into their routine.
Erik wraps his arms around Charles’ waist as they’re waiting for the kettle the next morning and it makes Charles tense, sets his hair on-end.
“We can’t,” he starts, pushing away from Erik, but the sentence hangs because Charles doesn’t know what he meant to say. Nothing had happened between last night and now that would make it wrong.
There is an amused smirk on Erik’s face and no uncertainty in his mind as he takes a step closer to Charles. “The kids won’t be awake for another hour,” he says, voice husky with promise.
Charles huffs a frustrated laugh. “That’s not what I meant,” he says, but can’t remember what he did mean. There’s something dull in the back of his mind that makes everything about this moment wrong, but he can’t find a solid reason anywhere in his mind or in Erik’s.
“Then what did you mean?” Erik asks, breath warm against Charles’ ear and hands warm on his hips as he backs him into the counter.
“I don’t know,” Charles says, leaning into Erik’s touch, because that does make sense.
Erik hums against his neck and Charles’ thoughts stutter into silence, but not even the roll of Erik’s hips can chase away the feeling of unease hanging around the back of his mind.
The briefing room is just a converted den on the ground floor of the mansion, but it is clean and large enough to hold everyone comfortably. It’s the same room Erik and Charles had used as a strategy room with Moira, back at the beginning, and Charles knows Erik hates it, but it is the best room for the job.
“And you didn’t learn what their powers were?” Erik asks, sounding only slightly frustrated.
Charles gives him a reassuring smile, sending him as much comfort as he can offer at a group meeting. “Sorry, Erik,” he says, because there’s nothing else to say.
Hank clears his throat and shuffles his papers. “This Cerebro isn’t capable of those kinds of readings, but the plans for the newer version are coming along quite well,” he says, voice filled with the excited tone he gets about his projects, but he manages not to go into detail.
“I just know that they’re children, a boy and a girl and the girl-” Charles stops. He knows that she’s a telepath, but that doesn’t make sense. There’s no way he could know. And even if it’s just a hunch, he should tell them, prepare them for a potentially dangerous encounter, but he can’t. For some reason he does not want Erik to know what these children are capable of, even if he’s not sure what that is himself.
“Yes?” Raven prompts, kicking him under the table.
Glaring at her, Charles says, “they’re twins. That’s all I remember. Sorry.”
He feels guilty, but can’t dwell on it because Erik is moving on and Charles gives him his full attention.
“Okay. It will be a routine extraction. The Professor and I will infiltrate as the school administration, learn what we can about the children from the parents as fast as possible. Mystique and Angel will be our backup if anything goes wrong. Once the Professor has convinced the parents that their children are away at a school that they conveniently cannot locate, we’ll evacuate. Azazel will be waiting outside. Clear?” Erik’s voice is smooth and commanding, and Charles wants to scream.
Instead, he leans forward over the table. “Excuse me,” he says, “is it really necessary to steal the children? Couldn’t we just be honest with the parents?”
Erik’s face goes cold. “Charles,” his voice is dark and edged with anger, “the parents are-”
“Are the enemy? Is that what you think?” Charles asks, suddenly exasperated with the entire situation. “Not all humans are trying to kill us!” Charles knows this is the wrong thing to say, but feels it needs to be said anyway because it is at once everything he believes in and everything he doesn’t believe.
The room is silent for a moment before Erik stand up and growls a commanding, “Out!” and then it is just Charles and Erik and the anger boiling between them.
Erik breaks the tense silence first. “I don’t understand, Charles. Two days ago you were doing this without complaining-what makes today so different?” He is almost violently angry, pacing so heavily that it’s causing the floor to shake with each turn.
Charles sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache that Erik’s anger is bringing on. “I know I was, but now-I don’t know. This isn’t what I want. This isn’t what any of us should want. They’re just children, for God’s sake!”
Erik stops pacing right in front of him and leans in close. “That’s the point, Charles,” he says, voice tight with his frustration, “they’re children and they need our help!”
“Taking them away from their families will not help anyone. You have to offer them help, not force it on them.” Charles doesn’t back down an inch as Erik stares him down. It’s not as if Charles doesn’t understand where Erik is coming from; the children will be the most vulnerable when the war becomes public and even the most loving parents won’t be able to protect their children from society then. But for some reason, today Charles feels like there must be another way to save them.
After a few moments, Erik backs off and throws his hands up in the air. “Fine. If you’re not going to do this, I’ll take Emma with me instead,” he says and it’s a challenge.
Charles feels his own anger curl deep in his stomach and has to take a deep breath to control it before he does something he’ll regret. “You can’t take her, she’s not strong enough to do what you want,” he says, jaw tight.
“You haven’t left me much of a choice, Charles,” Erik says and there’s a vulnerable edge in his voice that Charles hasn’t heard in a long time.
Immediately, Charles deflates. “I’ll go,” he says softly, “I’ll go with you and do what you want but please just think about what I’ve said.”
Erik glares at him silently, his mind is a swirl of emotion Charles doesn’t feel comfortable sorting through, and leaves without saying another word. Charles stares down at his hands for a moment and wonders why he ever thought that Erik’s plan was a viable option and how he ever agreed to it.
Absently, Charles picks up the mission brief from the table and begins to fold the pages as he thinks until he sees the children’s names again. When he focuses on their names, on their address, he realizes he can picture their faces in his mind. He’s seen them before. He’s been to this address before. And suddenly he knows it’s not just his mind playing tricks on him-this life he has here isn’t the life he’s been living for the past two years. This life is fake. This life with this war and this broken family is nothing he has ever wanted, but these children had given it to him. They had said it was what he wanted.
The realization makes Charles’ blood run cold. Everything feels wrong, out of place. This table that he’s sat at since he was a child feels unfamiliar, his chair no longer feels like his own, even the air tastes different. He doesn’t know if he can continue living this way and he doesn’t know if there’s a way to go back.
There’s a soft knock on the door and Charles nearly jumps out of his chair, his mind reaching out and finding Angel.
“Professor?” she asks, and Charles can hear the concern in her voice and in her thoughts.
“Is it time already?” he asks, standing and giving her one of his most charming smiles. It makes him sad to see her now, knowing that he has missed the great opportunity of working with her in his own life.
She smiles back at him, mildly reassured by his mood and ducks back out of the room, calling over her shoulder, “Magneto wants to leave as soon as you’re ready.”
Swallowing down his unease at his dislocation, Charles follows her out of the room and down the hall, running through different plans in his mind.
He stops outside the kitchen door, because he knows from his false memories that this is where they always teleport from, and frowns. Azazel, Raven, and Angel are all inside, but Erik is missing, which is wrong because Erik is always early for missions, always the first one there. Pushing his way into the room, he starts to ask, “Where’s Erik?” but the question dies on his tongue.
Erik is standing there, in the center of the room, with the helmet resting firmly on his head. The room is silent as Charles and Erik stare at each other across the room. Charles takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He should be used to this, to not having Erik’s mind at his fingertips, but the few hours Charles has been conscious of this life makes Erik’s absence even more difficult.
A quick sweep of the minds that he can feel tells Charles that they assume Erik’s just being cautious around unknown mutants, but Charles knows better. The betrayal he had seen on Erik’s face during their argument should have been warning enough. The helmet is just for Charles, a threat to Erik now that he disagrees. That they can’t even trust each other enough in a world that they designed together hurts and Charles knows he has to get his real life back, has to set things right before reality spirals even further out of control.
“No one’s going to let you into their home with that ridiculous helmet on, Erik,” Charles says, trying to keep his tone light. Better to keep everyone unaware of the reason behind the helmet and better to keep the real threat the children might pose away from Erik.
“Then make sure no one sees it,” Erik grumbles, grabbing Azazel’s hand.
Charles almost refuses, almost tells them that this is wrong, that it isn’t real, but nods instead and steps further into the room to hold onto Raven’s outstretched hand. He’ll go with them and talk to the children again, make them change it back. He just can’t let Erik know what he’s doing. The helmet might be more helpful than it’s ever been, Charles realizes, and it makes him feel ill.
They are ten years old and twins and they look so small sitting there on the couch holding hands. Charles has to keep a constant connection with their mother’s mind to know exactly what to say to put her at ease, to convince her it’s okay to trust her children, her precious, terrifying children, to some strangers who certainly don’t look like they are responsible adults. And he notices this time, when the little girl jumps into his mind.
What are you looking for? he asks her as she needles around. It takes all his concentration to keep in contact with her and protect himself at the same time.
Distantly he can feel that the mother’s mind is a panicked jumble of fear and resignation; Erik is calling to him, cautiously moving across the room. Through the pain of the girl’s attack, he can feel that she is confused, that she recognizes him in the distant way that he had recognized her name on the mission brief when he had first seen it.
“He can help you,” the little girl says.
“She shows me what you want. I can give it to you,” the little boy says, leaning out from his sister’s shadow for the first time.
Charles sucks in a deep breath and says carefully, I think you already have.
“I think so, too,” the girl says, looking at her brother, who nods.
What did you do?
“She told me what you wanted and I gave it to you.”
Charles’ heart stutters. This isn’t what he wanted. This could never be what he wanted. He looks at the girl and feels disgusted with himself. If this war is what he really wanted, how could he go back to his real life-but then there is the image of Raven smiling, of his toes moving in the grass, of Erik stretched out in bed, and he wants so deeply it hurts. The girl is giving him a look that says she knows.
“No,” Charles chokes out, because those are the things he wants, but, “I can’t have those things.” Those things don’t belong to him anymore, and perhaps they never did.
And then, before Charles can say anything more, the boy snaps his fingers. His sister looks thrilled, but the boy remains a mask of seriousness out of place on his young face.
Charles takes another deep, calming breath and before he can let it out-
Author: dedkake
Recipient: hardlyabird
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Not much. Angst. Some dark!Charles.
Prompt: In the first days of recruiting for the academy, Charles interviews a child who can change reality. Sensing that Charles is distraught over being at odds with Erik, the kid makes it so they can be together. This world diverges from his own because Charles lets Erik blow the ships up and sides with him - cue angst and wondering if he should find the kid again to change the world back.
Notes: A little different than the prompt, but I hope it’s still okay!
They are ten years old and twins and they look so small sitting there on the couch holding hands. Charles has to keep in constant connection with their mother’s mind to know exactly what to say to put her at ease, to convince her it’s okay to trust her children, her precious, terrifying children, to some strangers who certainly don’t look like they are responsible adults. So he doesn’t notice what the little girl is doing until he’s gasping for breath and nearly falling out of his wheelchair. It’s different than the way he invades the mind, much sharper, targeting a specific area of his brain, and it makes it hard to breathe.
Distantly he can feel that the mother’s mind is a panicked jumble of fear and resignation; Sean is calling to him, moving across the room slowly, cautious; through his own pain and confusion, the twins are a silent wall in Charles’ mind and for a moment, he finds himself wishing Erik was here. Erik was always better with the younger ones.
“He can help you,” the little girl says.
“She showed me what you want. I can give it to you,” the little boy says, leaning out from his sister’s shadow for the first time.
Charles sucks in a deep breath and carefully wrenches his mind away from the girl. She looks shocked for a moment, and then curious, but she says nothing. “What is it that you do, exactly,” Charles asks, hoping they won’t give him another demonstration. Clearly the girl is some sort of telepath, but the boy is different, doesn’t feel the same, doesn’t feel like anything Charles’ has ever encountered.
“Just what he said,” the girl says, looking at her brother.
“She tells me what you want and I give it to you.”
And then, before Charles can say anything more, the boy snaps his fingers. His sister looks thrilled, but the boy remains a mask of seriousness out of place on his young face.
“Just like that,” he says.
Charles takes another deep, calming breath and before he can let it out-
Charles is tucked neatly into his desk at the mansion, staring out the window and idly tapping his pen against the signed contract that will give Janos cover as a teacher at the school. They might have declared war on humanity, but after the missiles had impacted and the ships had sunk, the governments of the two leading world superpowers had remained tight-lipped about the mutants. The loss of life had been written off as a small battle that each government was willing to overlook for a more extended period of peace.
Erik and Charles had not been fooled. The humans were looking for proof, evidence of the existence of mutants to justify a war against civilians. Charles’ office at Oxford had received more visits and letters than the university was willing to handle for him and Charles had heard news that many of his colleagues were receiving similar attention or had disappeared completely.
At first, Erik had wanted to go on the offensive, had wanted Azazel to transport them right to the Oval Office and attack humanity at a vital point, and while Charles had been willing to accompany him in his endeavors, he had been grateful that Erik had chosen to rally the mutant troops before heading to full war. So they had gone back to the mansion to rebuild Cerebro and recruit as many mutants as they could while Erik set his tactical genius to work, planning multiple attacks and strategies for a war that had already begun. The cover as a school was most definitely temporary, but still necessary if they wished to have a safe base in the coming years.
Flipping through the stack of teacher certifications to make sure they are all signed and perfect, Charles finds Sean’s at the bottom, unsigned and a little wrinkled. There’s no reason that Charles can think of that Sean wouldn’t have signed the form, unless he had misplaced the paper, but Charles can’t remember finding it anywhere. Whatever the reason, all the forms need to be finalized with the state tomorrow morning and Charles doesn’t intend on overlooking anything.
He pushes his chair back from the desk and ends up tipping it over and falling rather painfully to the ground. “Shit!” he hisses, rubbing at his elbow. For some reason he had thought the chair had wheels, but that made no sense; no chairs in the mansion had ever had wheels. Picking himself slowly up off the floor and setting the heavy chair back in its place, Charles tries to pull himself together. There are things to do and he can’t be making clumsy mistakes like overbalancing chairs.
He stumbles as he crosses the room and realizes he must have fallen harder than he thought; his legs are numb and they burn and tingle like they have been asleep. He shakes his head sharply and lifts his fingers to his temple to locate Sean.
Alex is coming down the hallway to tell him that dinner will be ready in a few minutes, Charles gleans from his mind, and the anger coming off of him is so strong that Charles considers slipping past him unnoticed. But Alex might know where Sean is, so Charles drops his hand to his side and waits for Alex to reach him.
“Professor,” Alex grumbles in greeting, stopping a good ten feet away.
Charles tries to offer a warm smile, but imagines it comes off as weak and strained and Alex’s anger sharpens in his mind. “Alex, dinner in ten minutes, yes? But I’m wondering,” Charles starts, but there something in the back of his mind stops him from asking about Sean. He frowns and tries to pin down exactly why-Sean isn’t here, hasn’t been for weeks. How had he forgotten?
Alex is glaring at him, and it’s clear that he would rather be anywhere else, but he’s waiting for Charles to finish his question.
“You’re still upset about Sean,” Charles says, and it’s a statement because he knows it’s true, knows that Alex hasn’t forgiven him and probably won’t ever.
“Of course I’m still upset!” Alex snaps, body language switching from defensive to offensive in a second. “All he did was disagree with Erik’s disgusting plan and you sent him away. You took his memories, Professor, he won’t be able to come back even if he wants to!”
Charles swallows and lets the words sink in along with everything else Alex is refusing to say. It’s true; Sean had been a major threat to their mission and to their security, so Charles had sent him back to the life he had had before and it had nearly broken Alex to lose another person from their team.
“I’m not going to apologize. Everyone is better off this way. You’re so angry with me, Alex, but you’re still here. If you sympathize with Sean so much, I’d be happy to send you back with him. I wouldn’t let you go back to prison, don’t worry,” Charles says softly, but he knows it is a challenge. He’s offered before.
An angry growl catches in Alex’s throat. “I can’t,” he growls, “I need you.” And then he turns on his heel and runs back down the hallway, leaving Charles with the distinct image of a young boy with dark hair and a pouting face.
Charles feels the resolve tightening in his chest. He has to find them. He has to find the children before they get caught in the middle of this war.
In the kitchen, Charles helps Azazel set the table and carefully avoids looking Alex in the eye. When Raven pushes through the door, giggling with Angel about something to do with the garden, Charles nearly drops the plate in his hands. “Raven,” he says, voice catching.
She looks up at him with a fond but confused expression in her yellow eyes. “Yes?” she asks, amusement still on the edges of her tone.
After a long second where he can’t remember how to breathe, Charles smiles and says, “Glad you’re here.” He has no idea why he feels the truth of the words more keenly than he has before, than he should, considering he’d seen her at lunch.
“I’d never miss dinner, Charles,” she says, smiling as she takes her seat.
“Nor should you.”
At the sound of Erik’s voice, Charles does drop the plate and it shatters on the floor. There’s silence for a moment before Charles mutters an embarrassed apology and the room breaks into amused laughter and conversation again.
“Are you okay?” Erik asks, kneeling next to Charles to help him pick up the larger pieces of broken china. Charles’ heart is beating too fast and he feels hot and tense and-“Charles?”
He lets out a long, shaky breath. “I’m fine. Just feeling a little off today,” he says, turning a smile up at Erik. “I’ll go get the broom.” He can tell that Erik isn’t entirely convinced.
After dinner, Charles worms his way out of kitchen duty by claiming important paper work. He doesn’t think Raven believes him, but she lets him go anyway. Erik had been smirking at him from around a cupboard door and Charles isn’t surprised at all when he senses Erik following him upstairs. Dinner had been uneventful, but Charles could tell that Erik was more than a little restless even from a distance.
“You can stop lurking in the stairs,” Charles says over his shoulder as he pushes the door to his room open. Erik is sliding past him before he can even turn around to close the door.
“The way you were staring at me at dinner,” Erik says, holding his gaze, “what was that?”
There is an unexpected ache in Charles’ chest as Erik leans into him and for a moment, all Charles wants is to wrap his arms around Erik and just feel him. So he does, digging his fingers into the smooth material of Erik’s turtleneck and breathing in the lingering scent of dinner mixed with aftershave on his neck. “I’ve missed you,” he breathes, tightening his hold.
Erik makes a low, amused sound that rumbles through them both and tips his head to look down at Charles. “It’s only been a few hours, Charles. I didn’t even go out today,” he says, his amusement written clearly on his face.
“I know,” Charles says, pressing a kiss to the underside of Erik’s jaw, “it just felt like a very long time.”
Pulling back slightly, Erik smiles and asks, “chess?”
“Of course,” Charles says and moves toward the minibar in the corner, falling easily into their routine.
Erik wraps his arms around Charles’ waist as they’re waiting for the kettle the next morning and it makes Charles tense, sets his hair on-end.
“We can’t,” he starts, pushing away from Erik, but the sentence hangs because Charles doesn’t know what he meant to say. Nothing had happened between last night and now that would make it wrong.
There is an amused smirk on Erik’s face and no uncertainty in his mind as he takes a step closer to Charles. “The kids won’t be awake for another hour,” he says, voice husky with promise.
Charles huffs a frustrated laugh. “That’s not what I meant,” he says, but can’t remember what he did mean. There’s something dull in the back of his mind that makes everything about this moment wrong, but he can’t find a solid reason anywhere in his mind or in Erik’s.
“Then what did you mean?” Erik asks, breath warm against Charles’ ear and hands warm on his hips as he backs him into the counter.
“I don’t know,” Charles says, leaning into Erik’s touch, because that does make sense.
Erik hums against his neck and Charles’ thoughts stutter into silence, but not even the roll of Erik’s hips can chase away the feeling of unease hanging around the back of his mind.
The briefing room is just a converted den on the ground floor of the mansion, but it is clean and large enough to hold everyone comfortably. It’s the same room Erik and Charles had used as a strategy room with Moira, back at the beginning, and Charles knows Erik hates it, but it is the best room for the job.
“And you didn’t learn what their powers were?” Erik asks, sounding only slightly frustrated.
Charles gives him a reassuring smile, sending him as much comfort as he can offer at a group meeting. “Sorry, Erik,” he says, because there’s nothing else to say.
Hank clears his throat and shuffles his papers. “This Cerebro isn’t capable of those kinds of readings, but the plans for the newer version are coming along quite well,” he says, voice filled with the excited tone he gets about his projects, but he manages not to go into detail.
“I just know that they’re children, a boy and a girl and the girl-” Charles stops. He knows that she’s a telepath, but that doesn’t make sense. There’s no way he could know. And even if it’s just a hunch, he should tell them, prepare them for a potentially dangerous encounter, but he can’t. For some reason he does not want Erik to know what these children are capable of, even if he’s not sure what that is himself.
“Yes?” Raven prompts, kicking him under the table.
Glaring at her, Charles says, “they’re twins. That’s all I remember. Sorry.”
He feels guilty, but can’t dwell on it because Erik is moving on and Charles gives him his full attention.
“Okay. It will be a routine extraction. The Professor and I will infiltrate as the school administration, learn what we can about the children from the parents as fast as possible. Mystique and Angel will be our backup if anything goes wrong. Once the Professor has convinced the parents that their children are away at a school that they conveniently cannot locate, we’ll evacuate. Azazel will be waiting outside. Clear?” Erik’s voice is smooth and commanding, and Charles wants to scream.
Instead, he leans forward over the table. “Excuse me,” he says, “is it really necessary to steal the children? Couldn’t we just be honest with the parents?”
Erik’s face goes cold. “Charles,” his voice is dark and edged with anger, “the parents are-”
“Are the enemy? Is that what you think?” Charles asks, suddenly exasperated with the entire situation. “Not all humans are trying to kill us!” Charles knows this is the wrong thing to say, but feels it needs to be said anyway because it is at once everything he believes in and everything he doesn’t believe.
The room is silent for a moment before Erik stand up and growls a commanding, “Out!” and then it is just Charles and Erik and the anger boiling between them.
Erik breaks the tense silence first. “I don’t understand, Charles. Two days ago you were doing this without complaining-what makes today so different?” He is almost violently angry, pacing so heavily that it’s causing the floor to shake with each turn.
Charles sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache that Erik’s anger is bringing on. “I know I was, but now-I don’t know. This isn’t what I want. This isn’t what any of us should want. They’re just children, for God’s sake!”
Erik stops pacing right in front of him and leans in close. “That’s the point, Charles,” he says, voice tight with his frustration, “they’re children and they need our help!”
“Taking them away from their families will not help anyone. You have to offer them help, not force it on them.” Charles doesn’t back down an inch as Erik stares him down. It’s not as if Charles doesn’t understand where Erik is coming from; the children will be the most vulnerable when the war becomes public and even the most loving parents won’t be able to protect their children from society then. But for some reason, today Charles feels like there must be another way to save them.
After a few moments, Erik backs off and throws his hands up in the air. “Fine. If you’re not going to do this, I’ll take Emma with me instead,” he says and it’s a challenge.
Charles feels his own anger curl deep in his stomach and has to take a deep breath to control it before he does something he’ll regret. “You can’t take her, she’s not strong enough to do what you want,” he says, jaw tight.
“You haven’t left me much of a choice, Charles,” Erik says and there’s a vulnerable edge in his voice that Charles hasn’t heard in a long time.
Immediately, Charles deflates. “I’ll go,” he says softly, “I’ll go with you and do what you want but please just think about what I’ve said.”
Erik glares at him silently, his mind is a swirl of emotion Charles doesn’t feel comfortable sorting through, and leaves without saying another word. Charles stares down at his hands for a moment and wonders why he ever thought that Erik’s plan was a viable option and how he ever agreed to it.
Absently, Charles picks up the mission brief from the table and begins to fold the pages as he thinks until he sees the children’s names again. When he focuses on their names, on their address, he realizes he can picture their faces in his mind. He’s seen them before. He’s been to this address before. And suddenly he knows it’s not just his mind playing tricks on him-this life he has here isn’t the life he’s been living for the past two years. This life is fake. This life with this war and this broken family is nothing he has ever wanted, but these children had given it to him. They had said it was what he wanted.
The realization makes Charles’ blood run cold. Everything feels wrong, out of place. This table that he’s sat at since he was a child feels unfamiliar, his chair no longer feels like his own, even the air tastes different. He doesn’t know if he can continue living this way and he doesn’t know if there’s a way to go back.
There’s a soft knock on the door and Charles nearly jumps out of his chair, his mind reaching out and finding Angel.
“Professor?” she asks, and Charles can hear the concern in her voice and in her thoughts.
“Is it time already?” he asks, standing and giving her one of his most charming smiles. It makes him sad to see her now, knowing that he has missed the great opportunity of working with her in his own life.
She smiles back at him, mildly reassured by his mood and ducks back out of the room, calling over her shoulder, “Magneto wants to leave as soon as you’re ready.”
Swallowing down his unease at his dislocation, Charles follows her out of the room and down the hall, running through different plans in his mind.
He stops outside the kitchen door, because he knows from his false memories that this is where they always teleport from, and frowns. Azazel, Raven, and Angel are all inside, but Erik is missing, which is wrong because Erik is always early for missions, always the first one there. Pushing his way into the room, he starts to ask, “Where’s Erik?” but the question dies on his tongue.
Erik is standing there, in the center of the room, with the helmet resting firmly on his head. The room is silent as Charles and Erik stare at each other across the room. Charles takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He should be used to this, to not having Erik’s mind at his fingertips, but the few hours Charles has been conscious of this life makes Erik’s absence even more difficult.
A quick sweep of the minds that he can feel tells Charles that they assume Erik’s just being cautious around unknown mutants, but Charles knows better. The betrayal he had seen on Erik’s face during their argument should have been warning enough. The helmet is just for Charles, a threat to Erik now that he disagrees. That they can’t even trust each other enough in a world that they designed together hurts and Charles knows he has to get his real life back, has to set things right before reality spirals even further out of control.
“No one’s going to let you into their home with that ridiculous helmet on, Erik,” Charles says, trying to keep his tone light. Better to keep everyone unaware of the reason behind the helmet and better to keep the real threat the children might pose away from Erik.
“Then make sure no one sees it,” Erik grumbles, grabbing Azazel’s hand.
Charles almost refuses, almost tells them that this is wrong, that it isn’t real, but nods instead and steps further into the room to hold onto Raven’s outstretched hand. He’ll go with them and talk to the children again, make them change it back. He just can’t let Erik know what he’s doing. The helmet might be more helpful than it’s ever been, Charles realizes, and it makes him feel ill.
They are ten years old and twins and they look so small sitting there on the couch holding hands. Charles has to keep a constant connection with their mother’s mind to know exactly what to say to put her at ease, to convince her it’s okay to trust her children, her precious, terrifying children, to some strangers who certainly don’t look like they are responsible adults. And he notices this time, when the little girl jumps into his mind.
What are you looking for? he asks her as she needles around. It takes all his concentration to keep in contact with her and protect himself at the same time.
Distantly he can feel that the mother’s mind is a panicked jumble of fear and resignation; Erik is calling to him, cautiously moving across the room. Through the pain of the girl’s attack, he can feel that she is confused, that she recognizes him in the distant way that he had recognized her name on the mission brief when he had first seen it.
“He can help you,” the little girl says.
“She shows me what you want. I can give it to you,” the little boy says, leaning out from his sister’s shadow for the first time.
Charles sucks in a deep breath and says carefully, I think you already have.
“I think so, too,” the girl says, looking at her brother, who nods.
What did you do?
“She told me what you wanted and I gave it to you.”
Charles’ heart stutters. This isn’t what he wanted. This could never be what he wanted. He looks at the girl and feels disgusted with himself. If this war is what he really wanted, how could he go back to his real life-but then there is the image of Raven smiling, of his toes moving in the grass, of Erik stretched out in bed, and he wants so deeply it hurts. The girl is giving him a look that says she knows.
“No,” Charles chokes out, because those are the things he wants, but, “I can’t have those things.” Those things don’t belong to him anymore, and perhaps they never did.
And then, before Charles can say anything more, the boy snaps his fingers. His sister looks thrilled, but the boy remains a mask of seriousness out of place on his young face.
Charles takes another deep, calming breath and before he can let it out-