Behind Blue Eyes: Section 2
Behind Blue Eyes
Section 1 ~ Section 2 ~ Section 3 ~ Section 4 ~ Section 5 ~ Master Post
Erik handed Raven a mug of coffee and sat next to her on the couch. Raven stared at her hands, both curled on either side of the mug, and tried to get herself back under control. The last dozen or so hours had been terrifying. While she was holding Charles into the raft, between one wave and the next, she felt herself drawn into his mind. Not the voice-like quality of him communicating with her thoughts, or the full body paralysis of his commands, but something more akin to drowning in the ocean of his telepathy.
It was dark, and cold, but within the long moments of thoughtless time, she was suddenly sitting beside Charles. It was nighttime on the Westchester estate, and they sat in the hay of the barn, the straw somehow not scratching as they leaned back to look at the ceiling. They were both young, and they were both scared, but she was still Raven and he was Charles. When he looked over at her, while she knew she should feel fear, she was not afraid. At least, not of Charles.
"I brought you back here, Raven," said Charles, running his young fingers through his hair, hair that never was allowed to grow that long when he was young. "Because I need to you remember what happened when we were kids."
Raven looked around. The barn. How could she forget this evening, she wondered. She still had nightmares about it.
"I'm sorry, Raven," replied Charles to her thoughts. "But I think this has happened again. And it's even worse this time."
Raven looked at Charles, and watched him grow older, into the man she knew. His eyes were shadowed and their surroundings melted away, into a cold white room with a large, heavy table in the center. The table had thick leather straps, flung open, ready and waiting for their next guest. I don't know where this is, thought Raven, unable to look away.
"Neither do I," said Charles, almost under his breath. "But I need you to help me."
Anything, Charles.
"I can't trust myself to have anyone near me when I'm like this. Even now, I feel this…darkness…trying to pull you in with me. Keep the others away. I'll find my way through."
A door crashed behind them, and the sound of heavy steps filled the air. As Raven looked over, a looming, shadowy man filled the doorway, his hands filled with sharp, terrifyingly large instruments. In a language Raven didn’t understand, the figure crooned a sing-song question, and laughed. Raven felt her blood run cold as Charles’ breath hitched response. She turned towards him, as his sandy hair darkened and his blue eyes faded to grey.
"Go! Before it's too late!"
Raven came back to herself, shaking and shaken, still floating safely in the ocean. From what she could tell, no one had noticed her shared vision with Charles. And if she was going to keep them safe, she thought, she was going to have to keep the others from contact with Charles at all.
She had seen this once before, of course. By morning, Charles should be back to himself.
But in the morning, things were worse. She took on Charles' form and convinced the rest of the team to leave, but with each passing moment, Charles' condition worsened. She had managed to get his body to drink some water, but as her bare skin neared his, she could see the nightmare lab table, and hear the screams. She thought she was going mad when Erik returned.
Now, Erik was sitting with her, getting more and more impatient with every passing moment. She knew she was going to have to come clean with him, but aside from Charles, she had never opened up like this to anyone. Erik’s seething anger was not making her feel comfortable.
"Why did you come back?" she asked, looking over at Erik.
"I figured that there was a reason you needed everyone else gone, but I couldn't just leave you here to deal with it on your own. I respect privacy, but I also need to make sure our team is safe." Erik leaned back into the couch. He then looked her in the eye, and with a gaze that could not be denied, he asked the question that she had been dreading. "What is wrong with Charles?"
"I told you earlier, he's over extended himself," she said, her expression blank, carefully setting the coffee down. "He'll be fine by morning."
"Bullshit." said Erik, as he stood up, his patience at an end. He grabbed Raven's arm and yanked her to her feet. "The others might have chosen to believe your puppet show before, but you and I both know that this is more that simple exhaustion. Why won't you tell me?"
"Because I think you did it," she hissed, wrenching her arm back. Erik looked as if she had slapped him, but did not didn’t protest. "Or had a hand in it. I've seen this happen before."
Erik walked away, towards the cracked bedroom door. As he reached the door, he could hear Charles's labored breathing, and he stopped. The telepath was no longer murmuring, but it was clear that some kind of mental battle raged beneath the surface. After a moment, Erik reached for the door, when Raven interrupted him with a cough.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," she said, gesturing again to the empty seat on the couch. From the look on her face, she was resolved to do something, though what, Erik could not read. "I almost got pulled into that whirling mess earlier. You might not escape as easily. But since I see you’re bound and determined to help, let me tell you what I know."
Erik looked down once more at the door that led to Charles, and his hands cracked with tension at how badly he wanted to push open the door and leave Raven’s explanations behind. Erik knew, however, that if he was to be a help and not another burden, he needed everything Raven could tell him. With once final glance at the door, he turned and joined Raven on the couch.
"Why do you think I did this?" he asked, placing his hand near hers on the couch, attempting to regain some peace between them.
"Because of the things I saw in Charles' mind."
"I don’t understand?"
"I think Charles might have felt it when you killed Shaw."
Erik's heartbeat rushed in his ears. The sight of Shaw's eyes as Erik pushed the coin through his skull still bore down on him. Knowing for certain that Charles, at that moment, was looking out...
"But…Charles must have sensed people dying before…"
"This is more than just feeling a death, Erik," said Raven, placing her hand on his, and looking in his eyes. "As far as I know, this has only happened once to Charles."
Raven stopped suddenly, and looked away. Erik reached up, and with a gentle hand, turned her face back towards his.
"Tell me what happened, Raven. I need to know, if I’m going to help Charles."
Raven took a deep breathe and continued.
"It happened when we were both teenagers," she said, looking out the curtained window, but hers eyes miles and miles away. "For the most part, Charles made sure that I was safe in his home. Our home, I guess. But one summer, his mother hired a gardener, one she had hired before from out of town. Named Woolsworth."
"Woolsworth watched me and Charles, like he knew we were keeping secrets. While Charles had somehow convinced his mother, and the rest of the household that I belonged, something about how Woolsworth acted made me think he suspected something. I thought it was creepy, but Charles brushed it off. He said I just wasn’t used to a stranger's attention, having been fairly isolated after I moved in with him.
"In any case, Charles had his hands full anyway. His grandmother was dying. And in her death, the careful lies that he had woven into his families brains were coming unraveled."
"Something he has gotten better at with time," muttered Erik. "I'm sure."
"I wouldn't know," said Raven, glancing back at him for amoment before letting her gaze swing away. "So, not only was he trying to deal with his mother and step-father's grief, but also poke around in their brains to make sure they still thought I was belonged among them.
"Even though Charles wasn't worried, I still didn't trust the gardener. It was one of the few times Charles was absolutely wrong, and I was unconditionally right."
Raven lapsed into silence, her eyes distant and flickering, no longer seeing the cabin.
"What happened?" asked Erik quietly, trying not to disturb her thoughts. She closed her eyes for a moment, and started to tell her story. Erik could almost see the events unfold in his mind's eye.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Westchester Estate, years earlier
The kitchen was always a special place for Raven. Even years after she was given free rein of the large Westchester house, the thrill of being able to walk into the kitchen, and grab whatever she wanted, never failed to brighten her often temperamental disposition. If she was able to do so without being noticed, all the better. And on the hottest days, the special treat of lemonade from the very back of the fridge was often her desired goal.
This weekend, it was particularly easy to get into the kitchen, because the maids that usually worked for the family were gone for a wedding. They had left an assortment of cold meats, cheeses, and snacks for the children to tide themselves over until they returned. Charles and Raven had the house to themselves that afternoon, even though Charles' sick grandmother had taken a turn for the better. Sharon, Charles' mom, had decided against taking her overly sensitive son along for a day of waiting among the dead and dying for the old woman to be released form the hospital, even though Kurt had no such compunction with dragging his real son Cain along. Raven was enjoying the relative freedom of the empty mansion. She enjoyed practicing sneaking and getting around when the consequences for being found were nothing, rather than the continued sighs and disapproving glances from the help.
As Raven opened the fridge, she was happy to see the desired target of her search; the cold pitcher of lemonade. It was filled to within an inch of the top, most likely untouched by any other person in the house. Charles never really appreciated the lemonade, having always had the freedom of perusing a kitchen whenever he pleased, but to Raven, it meant the lemonade was a never not a luxurious treat.
She poured herself a large glass, and replaced the pitcher in the fridge. Even though no one was around to notice, she was careful to make sure that the only thing that would show she had been there was the lower level of lemonade in the pitcher. Taking the glass in both hands, she walked out to the patio to sit in the shade. On her way by, she saw there was a bowlful of tart raspberries, left out from breakfast. With a snatch, she stuffed her mouth, and scurried outside.
Even though the Xaviers were wealthy enough that certain rooms in their house were cooled, they were also cheep enough that when most of the people were out of the house, the machines stayed turned off. Raven could barely stand to be inside, where the air seemed to thicken with every minute of sun that beat upon the house. Even though the outside was just as oppressively warm, being able to sit under the shade of a willow tree made the day more comfortable.
As she settled, Raven took a huge drink of the lemonade, downing nearly half the glass. It tasted sweet going down, but after she swallowed, there was an oddly bitter aftertaste. She ran her tongue alone her teeth, trying to place what was wrong. Had the lemons gone bad? Or was is some kind of sugar substitute? She took another big gulp, but the strange taste was still there.
As she looked at the lemonade, she felt her head begin to swim. It was almost as if someone had dropped her into syrup, her limbs seemed to be moving sluggishly and her mind was matching pace. The edges of her vision darkened, and the last thing she felt was the glass slipping out of her hand and spilling down the hill.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Raven woke, she wasn't sure where she was. It looked like a barn loft, but she was not sure if it was the one on the edge of the Westchester estate. Her hands were tied behind her back, and attached to some kind of wooden poll. Her ankles were tied to a large metal ring that was bolted to the floor, and a wad of cloth had been shoved in her mouth, and attached with a silk scarf. To her left was a large wooden crate, big enough to hold a person, and a small table with four cameras sitting in a row.
"They told me I was crazy," said a deep male voice from the shadows. From the darkness behind Raven, Woolsworth emerged, with another camera in his hand, his eyes wild with excitement. "But I knew I was right. And now I have proof."
He suddenly stopped, and looked down at Raven, whose eyes were as wide as saucers. As he looked her over, his gaze as heavy as a hand dragging across her body, his smile grew more fevered, more terrifying.
"They told me things like you weren't real, but I knew that there was something weird about you. I've been a gardener here for fifteen years, and I didn't remember a baby girl being born. I returned from visiting my parents, and suddenly you were there, and everyone thought you had always been. So I've been watching you, and I noticed you’re always hanging around the little weirdo, and keeping out of sight of everyone. But I didn't know you were a monster."
He reached down and touched her cheek, twisting one finger in her hair. In horror, Raven realized that the hair he was twirling wasn’t her normal disguised blonde locks, but her natural red ones. She jerked her head away, eliciting a deep, sinister chuckle from Woolsworth.
"Yes, my little monster, I know you can change your appearance. I'm not sure how you made everyone think you belonged, but I don't need to. I've got an interested party that is going to set me up for life, just so he can figure these little things out. And all I have to do is get you across the border in one piece."
Raven trembled and tried to yell, but the cloth muffled the sounds. If anything, her struggles just made Woolsworth smile wider. He kneeled beside her and placed his hot, heavy hand on her knee. Raven felt a sick shiver go up her spine as she watched Woolsworth's expression shift from amusement to something darker.
"'In one piece' has a lot of connotations," he said, his hand rubbing harshly up her thigh. "Maybe you and I can have some fun before we get on the road."
"Get away from her, you animal," yelled a young man's voice. It seemed to come from every direction at once. Woolsworth straightened suddenly and his hands flew to his head, clutching at his skull as if it was about to explode. All the muscles in his body began to contort, but not a sound escaped from his mouth. Before Raven could get truly terrified by what was happening, Charles' head popped up through a doorway in the floor, one hand plastered over his temple. Raven had never been happier to see anyone in her life.
When Charles saw Raven tied to the post, his whole face grew dark and tight. After pushing the door all the way open, Charles climbed out of the holes and walked over to Woolsworth, who was still writhing on the floor. For a long moment, Charles just stared at him. The only sign of effort was his hands tightening until his knuckles whitened. Then, with a grunt from Charles, Woolsworth's eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Raven sat there, stunned as the echo of Woolworth's collapse resonated through the room. Before she could put two thoughts together about it, Charles was kneeling beside her, tugging at the ropes around her mouth. He was almost in tears before he got them untied.
"I was so worried," he said, as Raven spat the last of the cloth out of her mouth. "I couldn't find you anywhere, and then all of a sudden I heard you in my head, and you didn't know where you were, and never do this to me again!"
"I didn't exactly plan this," said Raven, both relieved and irritated with Charles' overflowing of emotions.
"Oh, god, I'm so sorry," said Charles, dropping the rope he was untying and awkwardly hugging Raven. " I was just so worried."
"It's ok," said Raven. "Just help me get untied."
Charles kept untying, and kept getting angry, then apologizing, and Raven would try and calm him down until she started to panic. Then Charles would sooth her, and they would start all over again. After a while, Raven was free, and both of them were crying and babbling apologies for the tiniest slights. Sitting in the straw in a darkened barn, they hugged each other until they both felt drained. After many long minutes, Raven took a deep breathe, and pushed her brother away.
"As much as this is a great family bonding moment," sad Raven, her voice thick with tears and false bravado. "We need to get out of here. This whole place is giving me the creeps."
"You are absolutely right,” said Charles, helping Raven to her feet. Now facing the front of the barn, she was able to see where she was at last.
It had gotten a lot darker since Raven had last seen the sky. As they left the barn's loft, she recognized it as a building just on the other side of the Westchester estate, a building she had assumed belonged to one of the farms nearby. As she and Charles reached the ground at the bottom of the ladder, she saw the familiar crest above the door, marking it as part of the Xavier Estate. Raven tried not to roll her eyes. Every time she thought she knew what belonged to the Xaviers, she was surprised.
Raven welcomed the silence as they moved through the barn, calmer now. Until Charles tried to talk about what had happened.
"You know," said Charles, as they walked past the empty horse stalls. "I am very much surprised that Woolsworth ended up being such a creep."
"I don't know why," said Raven. "I told you a hundred times that he's always been a little off."
"I don't remember any of that!"
"Of course you don't. You thought I was being silly and dismissed it."
"I did not!"
"Charles!" said Raven, stopping in her tracks and glaring at him. "I think if anything came out of this night, it should be that I am occasionally not utterly useless when it comes to people!"
Whatever Charles was about to say was interrupted by a huge shadow rising behind him. Raven felt her face go slack with fear, and her voice froze.
"What is it…" said Charles, before Woolsworth's large hand knocked him to the ground, causing him to crumple like a broken doll. Totally ignoring the fallen boy, Woolsworth took a step towards Raven, his face livid with anger.
"Come here, you monster," he growled, his face twisting in the moonlight. "We have some unfinished business."
Raven waited no longer. Turning on her heel, she fled across the straw strewn floor, trying to keep ahead of the man crashing behind her. She weaved through the farm equipment, knocking over anything she could get her hands on to try and slow down her pursuer. But no matter how much she scrambled, Woolsworth was always a step behind her, his voice deafening, his steps like jackhammers.
Blinded by panic, she scrambled back up the ladder, to the edge of the balcony, hoping to take the hay-rope down to the ground and escape. But as she neared the end of the wooden planks, Woolsworth grabbed her and threw her to the ground. Raven clawed at the floor, trying to get free, but with one swift movement, Woolsworth flipped her on her back, and slammed her into the ground.
As Raven lay there, stunned, Woolsworth wrapped his hands around her neck and started to squeeze. Raven wasn't sure if he was trying to kill her, stop her, or if his anger had caused all thoughts to leave his mind. She clawed at his hands, but they wouldn't budge.
In a panicked moment, Raven shifted to the tallest person she could think of, one of the maid's nephews, Robert. With his longer legs, she was able to get the right angle to hit Woolsworth right in the middle of his crotch. In his pain-filled moment of distraction, she was able to lever her now-longer legs to toss Woolsworth off of her, where he landed in a pile of rigging ropes just to the side of their furious struggle.
While the blow stunned him, Woolsworth was not down. Even though he was tangled in the ropes, he tried to surge forward, to get a hand on Raven. Hoping to pull him off balance again, Raven grabbed a rope in front of her and pulled as hard as she could.
Somehow, luck finally shone on Raven. The rope she grabbed somehow looped around Woolsworth's neck, pulling him backwards. But what should have been a deterrent only seemed to spur the madman on. With each pull, the rope tightened, but Woolsworth gained a little ground. Unless something changed, Raven was not going to be able to hold on.
Suddenly, Woolsworth froze, as if something was holding all of his muscles very still. From below, Raven heard Charles make a sound of exertion, and figured he was holding Woolsworth off with his powers. Breathing a sigh of relief, Raven let the rope slacken slightly.
As soon as the rope slackened, however, Woolsworth seemed to regain some power over his body. He reached towards her again. In a panic, she pulled tighter and held on. As she watched, the rope cut into his neck, and his face turned red, then purple, and finally black. With a shudder, Woolsworth dropped to the ground, falling through the rope like sand through fingers. Without thinking, Raven turned him over. Instead of surging forward and tackling her, his tongue sagged out of his mouth, and he was utterly still. As raven looked down at him, she realized what she had done. He was dead.
As Raven backed away from the corpse, she heard a groan from Charles. Quickly fleeing the balcony, she rushed to Charles' side, effortless shifting back to her normal disguise.
Charles was half sitting, leaning up against a barrel, holding a bleeding gash on the side of his head from where Woolsworth had struck him. His eyes fluttered open and shut, and he was obviously holding onto consciousness by inches. Raven looked around, and grabbing what looked like a clean strip of cloth, tried to stop the worst of the bleeding.
"We need to get back to the house," said Raven, helping Charles to his feet. She was a little surprised that his hand slipped from her shoulder to brush the top of her collarbone.
"We don't need to go that far, baby," said Charles, his voice lower than usual. "There's plenty of room around here."
"What are you talking about," said Raven, turning to look at him. "This isn't funny, Charles."
"You don't see me laughing," said Charles, his voice dipping into a growl. His normally blue eyes flashed something darker, and his grip around her shoulder tightened.
Raven pushed Charles away, just as he shoved himself away from her. As Raven gaped in horror, Charles gripped his head and started to mutter to himself too low to be understood. He fell to his knees, still ranting nonsense, until he stopped between one breath and the next.
He looked up at Raven, his eyes now blue and haunted, both hands clasped to his head.
"I can't fight him and stay here," he said, his voice hollow and terrified. Then, without another word, he pitched back, falling to the ground unconscious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raven fell silent for a long moment, staring off into the distance. She grew still and calm, obviously reliving that night in vivd memory.
"What happened then?" asked Erik, trying to gently shake her out of her reverie.
"I panicked. I didn't want to leave Charles, but I didn't know what I could do. There was no one close enough to help us. I had to carry him back myself.
"The going was difficult. Every so often I could feel something on the edge of my mind, like he was trying to pull me into his mindscape. I could see a dark, blackened wood. When I felt myself being pulled in, I’d have to shake Charles out of it, by yelling, or stomping, or at one point, running us into a tree.
"When I finally got Charles back to the mansion, I felt like I had run a marathon. I got him to his bed, and found a maid to come take care of him. I told her some story about how he had fallen, and either she bought it, or she didn't care, because she ran off to help him. I thought I was in the clear, until I heard her scream.
"I rushed to Charles’ room, and I found the maid lying on the floor, curled in a ball, eyes open and unseeing. I rushed toward Charles. The walls begin to fade into the darkened woods from before, but I tried to keep focused on where I was. I got to Charles as the maid started to yell about the dark man coming, and I could see the shadow of Woolsworth stomping through the woods, chasing her towards us.
"And then it all stopped. The maid woke up and shuffled blankly out of the room. Charles opened his eyes for a moment, and looked straight at me, and his eyes were his own again. By the end of the evening, he had beaten whatever Woolsworth had left behind in his brain, but I don't know how he did it."
"Didn't you ask him?" Erik said.
"Of course I asked him." Raven rolled her eyes in frustration. "I had been through just as much as he had. But he told me he didn't remember, and even if he did, he wouldn't tell me. I only know something horrible happened in his head trying to save my life. Eventually, I let it drop. We learned to be more careful, and we moved on."
Raven looked over to Erik, her story over. Erik let the information sink in, and attempted to order his thoughts. One detail nagged at him.
"So, that took what, five hours for Charles to recover?" Erik asked, looking back to the room where Charles lay dreaming. "It's been considerably longer than that now."
"You think I don't know that?" said Raven, her voice rising, tears leaking from her eyes. "Charles never takes longer to do something the second time than the first! I tried to make contact with him again, but I hit a mental wall. If he doesn't let me in, I don't know what to do!"
Erik took Raven into a well-meaning, but extremely awkward hug. She stiffened at first, but then relaxed into his shoulder.
"We'll have to figure it out together," he said into her hair. "You said when you touched him before, he communicated with you? That you saw some kind of vision?"
"Yes, he was in a room with a horrible person who was approaching," said Raven, her brow furrowing in concentration. "He spoke in some harsh sounding language, in a sing-song tone. The room looked like a creepy doctor's office, and in the center there was a hard table with leather straps."
Erik felt his blood chill in his veins, and his hands tightened at Raven's back. She pulled away from him, and looked him in the eye, but he spoke before she could ask any questions he could not afford to answer. "Maybe if I touch him, and I see what he's thinking, I can help him from the inside."
"You might be powerful, Erik," said Raven, gentle scorn in her voice. "But you are not a telepath. How do you think you’ll be able to affect his mind?"
"Well, if you’re right about my part in this," said Erik, sounding confident than he felt. "Maybe my presence will be enough. I…may have been in the room you saw. I can help."
"But what if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll have tried," said Erik, standing up and brushing off his pants, gathering his gumption to make a move. "In any case, he's my friend. One of a small number. I cannot sit by and simply hope he recovers."
Raven looked to him, to see if there was any judgment in his words, and when she found none, she nodded. Someone had to do something, and she did not have the resources. Perhaps Erik did.
"We don't know how long it could take," she said, though she made no move to stop Erik as he moved towards the door. "Even if he lets you in, it could be hours before you find him, let alone help him start back. If you get lost…."
"Don't think about that," said Erik, tossing her a grin with more confidence than he felt. "We'll both be back before you know it."
Raven still wasn't convinced, but Erik was obviously out of patience. With a sigh, she stood up and walked over to Erik, placing her hands on his shoulders.
"Until midnight," she said, looking out the window at the now-darkened sky. "It seems fitting, like in on of those fairy tales Charles used to believe in. If you aren't back by then, I'll have to get creative. And you probably will not enjoy it."
"With incentive like that, I can't possibly fail," said Erik, placing a small kiss on the edge of her hairline, before entering the room. "Rest easy. I'll get Charles back."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erik didn't know what he was expecting when he saw Charles in that bed. At best, he supposed, he thought he'd just see the younger man laying, as if asleep, nightmares furrowing his brow. At worst…perhaps more furrows? In any case, he had not been expecting what he found.
Charles lay in the middle of the bed, surrounded by what was left of the sheets. The sheets were torn and flecked with blood, slicked and stuck to the still-bleeding scratches on his arms. His face, even in sleep, was twisted and restless, seeing worlds beyond the walls. His lips were dried and cracked, his eyes caked with the salty remains of tears. Deep dark circles, dark enough to look like paint, nearly painted a picture of where his eyes would be, if his lids weren't cemented shut. While it was clear that he had thrashed around the bed, at the moment the only motion was from his face, contorting in some unknown fear.
A half-step into the room, Erik ran into what he could only describe as a wall of pure feeling. He had to stop himself from running out of the room, the sheer panic wafting off Charles causing his heart to race. He reminded his boy that the sense of panic was coming from outside his head, and he was able to hold his ground. With resolution he stepped forward, each hairsbreadth forward a push back against the terror that crashed into him from Charles’ unconscious mind. After long minutes, he finally made it to the side of Charles' bed and sat, his body covered in sweat before he had even tried to begin.
Erik raked his hand through his hair, already wet with sweat. The words that Charles had muttered earlier ran through his head. The darkness, or to be more accurate,die Dunkelheit. When Erik was a young man under the control of Shaw, he remembered the small room he was kept in between experiments. The room Shaw almost lovingly called die Dunkelheit. His fingers ached at the memory of the nights he clawed against that door, hoping that this night Shaw would have forgotten to lock the door, that he could escape. That opportunity never came, really. Even after he had escaped Shaw, he was always haunted by the fact that Shaw was out there. Even after his death, Shaw was still controlling him in a way: only in looking down at Charles did Erik realize he might truly never be free.
One thing Erik did know, however, was that he could not let Charles face Erik’s memories alone. Pushing his fear and doubts aside, he twisted his torso to lean over Charles and look down into his face. Before he could give himself a chance to change his mind, he placed his hands on either side of Charles' head and closed his eyes.
"Charles," said Erik, as his fingers touched the clammy, damp skin of the telepath's face. "Let me in."
Before Erik could take another breath, he was falling, twisting and turning in a place with no walls and no floor. The bed, the cabin, even Charles was gone as he free-fell through strangely luminescent nothingness. Though he felt wind rush by him as he tumbled, he could not see the ground, nor any other landmark to gauge his location. It was as if he had been dropped into space, an empty purgatory.
"Charles!" he yelled, his voice not echoing, but sinking, absorbed into the darkness. "Let me help you! Let me find you! "
"Charles isn't here right now, my little monster," came the deafening, omnipresent voice from Erik's nightmares. In the formless void, the outline of Shaw's cold, hateful eyes appeared, narrowing to focus on Erik. "But you're been a very, very bad childling. Die Dunkelheit is waiting, just for you."
Between one breath and the next, Erik was transported into the hauntingly familiar darkened box of a room, his wrists bound with thick leather straps. As he yanked at his bindings, bile rising in his throat, he saw his arms were not the arms of a strong man, but those of an undernourished, under-exercised child.
Panic bubbled over Erik's already confused mind, overriding years of training that had taken him from the scared little boy he was back then to the man he was today. He was lost in a storm of screaming, tugging, trying more than anything to escape. The bindings held him as hard and fast as they ever had when he was young. His cries were just as futile, his tears just as fruitless. He was trapped.
The door of the closet creaked open, just as it always had, just before the real terror began. The line of piercingly bright light hit him directly in the eye, ruining what little dark vision he had managed to gain. Instinctively he shied back, shrinking into himself, trying, with all the energy he had been using filing to escape, to fade back into the wall, to hide. It wasn't going to work. It never did.
The door was flung open wide, and Erik froze, hoping irrationally that his lack of motion would make him harder to see. With a thick clunk, the leather straps that held his arms loosened, but his fear kept him in place. The lights were so bright he was momentarily blinded, and when the familiar arm reached towards him to yank him into the light, he was helpless to resist. The much stronger man pulled him out of the darkness, and with a casual toss, threw him towards the middle of the room. Erik stumbled into the familiar wooden exam table. His legs still shaking, he was flipped on his back, pinned down, and strapped to the table before his eyes cleared. What he saw a moment later shocked him clear to his core.
Charles stood above him, in the lab coat and thin black glasses that belonged to Shaw, a stethoscope around his neck. With a casual air, he tapped a finger on his lips, which were drawn back in a curious and amused grin.
"Well, Erik," said Charles, his voice sounding exactly like Shaw’s voice from Erik's nightmares. "It seems that you've been a very bad boy. Been using your powers to hurt me, yes?"
"W-w-w-hat is hap-” Erik stuttered, before Charles casually backhanded him across the mouth.
"We've talked about this before, child," continued Charles, walking over to a black box with wires dangling from knobs. At the end of those wires were little clamps, which he took in his hands and gave a trial squeeze. "You'll never learn if you never listen. Now, I'm going to have to teach you another lesson. Hold still."
As if those words released valve inside him, Erik began to thrash back and forth, accomplishing nothing whatsoever. Charles' hands (or were they Shaw's?) deftly unbuttoned his shirt, baring Erik’s chest to the naked air. With another casual blow to the head, Charles stunned Erik again, and in the moment of stillness, attached the little clamps to Erik's nipples.
"Let's try this again," said Charles, going to the black box and turning the knob to 5. "Remove the clamps."
Erik felt the electricity flow through his body, sending waves of pain and something else through him. He tried to focus, but with each wave of electricity his body tensed and writhed on its own. To his horror and his agony, he felt himself getting hard, and through eyes that were filling with pain-fueled tears, he could see the rising evidence beginning to tent his trousers.
"Oh my," said Shaw's voice from Charles' lips, satisfaction dripping from every syllable. "Aren't you a healthy boy. Maybe I'm using the wrong tactic."
Charles leaned down to Erik's ear, his nose inches from where Erik’s sweat was pouring off his face and soaking into the table. Charles leaned in, his lips touching the very edge of his earlobe, his breath thundering through Erik’s mind.
"Maybe you enjoy this."
With a jolt, Erik remembered why he was here. This memory, though vivid, was not what he was here to remember. He was here to help Charles, not relive the worst days of his life. With the barest of thoughts, he removed the clamps and wires, and tossed the box across the room.
"Brilliant!" said Charles, still grinning Shaw’s evil smile from ear to ear. "Now, for the next test."
"Charles!" shouted Erik. "You need to snap out of it. You are not Shaw. You are Charles Xavier. You need to remember who you are!"
Charles looked at him, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. He looked down at his hands, and as if he was surprised at what he saw, he flinched away.
"Charles, talk to me," said Erik, pulling at his straps. Whether it was his continued pulling, or thanks to Charles' distress, he managed to get one of his arms free, and used it to work on the rest of the straps. "Hang on Charles. Tell me how to help you."
"Erik?" asked Charles, his voice once again his own. He stumbled forward, and caught himself on a cabinet. "Where are we? What is this place?"
"We're inside your mind, Charles," said Erik, trying to keep his voice calmer than he felt. He was almost free, just two more straps. "You got lost after Shaw died. We need to get out of here."
"Shaw is…dead?" asked Charles, holding his head in confusion, rubbing his fingers across his forehead. "But I just saw him…"
"I killed him, Charles," said Erik, finally freeing himself from the table. When he stood up, he was his normal size again. "My friend, I made you help me."
Charles looked up at Erik, a trickle of blood leaking from the middle of his forehead, in exactly the same place that Erik forced the coin into Shaw's skull. As Erik looked on in horror, the confusion in Charles' eyes faded into a focused glee.
"You made him help, boy?" said Shaw, using Charles' mouth like a speaker. "You're more like me than you think."
In a flash, Charles was strapped to the table, shrinking before Erik's eyes into a boy of no more than 12. No older than he had been when he was at Shaw's mercy. Erik saw his own fear reflected in those young eyes, staring at him with youthful tears streaming down his face.
Without thought, Erik stepped forward to help Charles, but the young boy let out a terrified scream. Erik reached down to undo the straps, but Charles was whipping himself back and forth so much that he couldn't get his hands on the fasteners. He got about half of them free, and suddenly, Charles' flailing arms were everywhere. Erik tried to dodge them and get the rest of the straps loose, but he wasn't quick enough. One of Charles' arms struck him full across his face, hitting the glasses right off the bridge of his nose.
Wait a minute….
Erik saw those glasses slide across the floor, and he lifted one hand to his face. His hand rested on the clammy skin and the pencil-thin mustache just above his trembling lip. Both hands reached for his face now, not recognizing the features as his own. Scrambling across the room, Erik reached towards the small stand mirror that he remembered Shaw kept turned towards the wall, to be used when he wanted to examine his lab-rats more thoroughly. Tossing a tray of instruments across the room, Erik turned the reflected surface towards him. What he saw there froze him where he stood.
In the mirror, he saw Shaw staring back at him, Shaw’s lab coat hanging from his shoulders, the slight indents from Shaw’s pencil-thin glasses on his nose, Shaw’s fine brown suit. In contrast to horror Erik felt mounting in his mind, a sick grin played across his face. He reached up again to touch his face, and the reflection followed, tracing every line and contour. A voice began screaming softly in the back of his head.
"This can't be happening…" said Erik, and his voice was still his own.
"But of course it is," said Shaw in the reflection. "I couldn't have planned it better. Why live in this telepath, when I can live on in my star subject. You."
Erik screamed, a long, loud wail that hurt even his own ears. Throwing the mirror across the room, he barely flinched back when the shards rained down. His cries faltered as he looked over to the table, to see Charles sitting in the remains of his straps, a fully grown man again.
"Erik," said Charles, his eyes clear and filled with concern. "You must let him go. Leave Shaw to me, and get out of here."
"I can't do that," croaked Erik, gripping his own arms, his eyes wild. "I forced you into this. I can't leave you to him."
"You didn't force me into anything I didn't choose," said Charles, stepping off the table and cautiously approaching the twitching, terrified man. "I could have broken away at any time. But it would have meant losing you to Shaw, to his madness and his darkness. I couldn't do that, Erik. I have things under control. Just go."
"You've been unconscious for almost two full days," growled Erik, shying away from Charles' outstretched hand. "That's not what I'd call control."
"Two days? Really?" Charles stopped, his brow wrinkling in surprise. He looked around the nightmare room, as if seeing it for the first time. "I had no idea it has been so long…"
"Shaw is killing you, Charles," snapped Erik, his eyes sweeping the lab with increasing desperation. "I can't leave you here with him. You're not strong enough to handle this."
"I hardly think you are in a position to judge what I can handle," Charles said disapprovingly. He took another step to close the gap between himself and Erik. "I almost have him locked down. Please Erik. Leave, so that I can finish this."
Erik nearly relented, when he felt a sickening joy leap from the back of his head. He froze, and Shaw’s hauntingly familiar laugh bubbled up in his mind. Without a doubt, Erik knew that if he left, Shaw would not be locked down, as Charles so simply said. Shaw would worm his way into the darkest parts of Charles' mind, and he would never, ever die. They would never be free.
Erik was going to have to do something drastic.
Looking around frantically, his eyes lit upon a scalpel, long and sharp. He glanced down at it, then back at Charles. Charles followed his gaze, giving the blade a puzzled look. As Erik reached out and pulled with his powers, the world seemed to slow down, each, as if covered in molasses. Charles' eyes flashed from confusion, to the wide eyes of comprehension, to narrowed eyes of panic as the blade landed in Erik's palm. The blade was pointing inwards, directly towards Erik's heart. Charles looked into Erik's eyes, and saw some cold determination that propelled his body forward, lunging for the knife. But he was too late.
"He can't have you. I'd rather die than let him," said Erik, screwing his eyes shut. Before Charles could stop him, Erik plunged the scalpel into his chest, avoiding his ribs and burying the blade straight into his heart.
Pain exploded through him, and he heard Charles yell as he fell to the ground. Pain pushed through his limbs, followed by the ever more deafening sound of Shaw screaming through his mind. He barely even felt it when Charles gathered him in his arms, and held Erik to his chest. As consciousness faded, he felt himself smile.
Erik slipped into the warm blankness of nothingness, comforted in the fact that he'd done it at last. Shaw was gone.
Next Section
Section 1 ~ Section 2 ~ Section 3 ~ Section 4 ~ Section 5 ~ Master Post
Erik handed Raven a mug of coffee and sat next to her on the couch. Raven stared at her hands, both curled on either side of the mug, and tried to get herself back under control. The last dozen or so hours had been terrifying. While she was holding Charles into the raft, between one wave and the next, she felt herself drawn into his mind. Not the voice-like quality of him communicating with her thoughts, or the full body paralysis of his commands, but something more akin to drowning in the ocean of his telepathy.
It was dark, and cold, but within the long moments of thoughtless time, she was suddenly sitting beside Charles. It was nighttime on the Westchester estate, and they sat in the hay of the barn, the straw somehow not scratching as they leaned back to look at the ceiling. They were both young, and they were both scared, but she was still Raven and he was Charles. When he looked over at her, while she knew she should feel fear, she was not afraid. At least, not of Charles.
"I brought you back here, Raven," said Charles, running his young fingers through his hair, hair that never was allowed to grow that long when he was young. "Because I need to you remember what happened when we were kids."
Raven looked around. The barn. How could she forget this evening, she wondered. She still had nightmares about it.
"I'm sorry, Raven," replied Charles to her thoughts. "But I think this has happened again. And it's even worse this time."
Raven looked at Charles, and watched him grow older, into the man she knew. His eyes were shadowed and their surroundings melted away, into a cold white room with a large, heavy table in the center. The table had thick leather straps, flung open, ready and waiting for their next guest. I don't know where this is, thought Raven, unable to look away.
"Neither do I," said Charles, almost under his breath. "But I need you to help me."
Anything, Charles.
"I can't trust myself to have anyone near me when I'm like this. Even now, I feel this…darkness…trying to pull you in with me. Keep the others away. I'll find my way through."
A door crashed behind them, and the sound of heavy steps filled the air. As Raven looked over, a looming, shadowy man filled the doorway, his hands filled with sharp, terrifyingly large instruments. In a language Raven didn’t understand, the figure crooned a sing-song question, and laughed. Raven felt her blood run cold as Charles’ breath hitched response. She turned towards him, as his sandy hair darkened and his blue eyes faded to grey.
"Go! Before it's too late!"
Raven came back to herself, shaking and shaken, still floating safely in the ocean. From what she could tell, no one had noticed her shared vision with Charles. And if she was going to keep them safe, she thought, she was going to have to keep the others from contact with Charles at all.
She had seen this once before, of course. By morning, Charles should be back to himself.
But in the morning, things were worse. She took on Charles' form and convinced the rest of the team to leave, but with each passing moment, Charles' condition worsened. She had managed to get his body to drink some water, but as her bare skin neared his, she could see the nightmare lab table, and hear the screams. She thought she was going mad when Erik returned.
Now, Erik was sitting with her, getting more and more impatient with every passing moment. She knew she was going to have to come clean with him, but aside from Charles, she had never opened up like this to anyone. Erik’s seething anger was not making her feel comfortable.
"Why did you come back?" she asked, looking over at Erik.
"I figured that there was a reason you needed everyone else gone, but I couldn't just leave you here to deal with it on your own. I respect privacy, but I also need to make sure our team is safe." Erik leaned back into the couch. He then looked her in the eye, and with a gaze that could not be denied, he asked the question that she had been dreading. "What is wrong with Charles?"
"I told you earlier, he's over extended himself," she said, her expression blank, carefully setting the coffee down. "He'll be fine by morning."
"Bullshit." said Erik, as he stood up, his patience at an end. He grabbed Raven's arm and yanked her to her feet. "The others might have chosen to believe your puppet show before, but you and I both know that this is more that simple exhaustion. Why won't you tell me?"
"Because I think you did it," she hissed, wrenching her arm back. Erik looked as if she had slapped him, but did not didn’t protest. "Or had a hand in it. I've seen this happen before."
Erik walked away, towards the cracked bedroom door. As he reached the door, he could hear Charles's labored breathing, and he stopped. The telepath was no longer murmuring, but it was clear that some kind of mental battle raged beneath the surface. After a moment, Erik reached for the door, when Raven interrupted him with a cough.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," she said, gesturing again to the empty seat on the couch. From the look on her face, she was resolved to do something, though what, Erik could not read. "I almost got pulled into that whirling mess earlier. You might not escape as easily. But since I see you’re bound and determined to help, let me tell you what I know."
Erik looked down once more at the door that led to Charles, and his hands cracked with tension at how badly he wanted to push open the door and leave Raven’s explanations behind. Erik knew, however, that if he was to be a help and not another burden, he needed everything Raven could tell him. With once final glance at the door, he turned and joined Raven on the couch.
"Why do you think I did this?" he asked, placing his hand near hers on the couch, attempting to regain some peace between them.
"Because of the things I saw in Charles' mind."
"I don’t understand?"
"I think Charles might have felt it when you killed Shaw."
Erik's heartbeat rushed in his ears. The sight of Shaw's eyes as Erik pushed the coin through his skull still bore down on him. Knowing for certain that Charles, at that moment, was looking out...
"But…Charles must have sensed people dying before…"
"This is more than just feeling a death, Erik," said Raven, placing her hand on his, and looking in his eyes. "As far as I know, this has only happened once to Charles."
Raven stopped suddenly, and looked away. Erik reached up, and with a gentle hand, turned her face back towards his.
"Tell me what happened, Raven. I need to know, if I’m going to help Charles."
Raven took a deep breathe and continued.
"It happened when we were both teenagers," she said, looking out the curtained window, but hers eyes miles and miles away. "For the most part, Charles made sure that I was safe in his home. Our home, I guess. But one summer, his mother hired a gardener, one she had hired before from out of town. Named Woolsworth."
"Woolsworth watched me and Charles, like he knew we were keeping secrets. While Charles had somehow convinced his mother, and the rest of the household that I belonged, something about how Woolsworth acted made me think he suspected something. I thought it was creepy, but Charles brushed it off. He said I just wasn’t used to a stranger's attention, having been fairly isolated after I moved in with him.
"In any case, Charles had his hands full anyway. His grandmother was dying. And in her death, the careful lies that he had woven into his families brains were coming unraveled."
"Something he has gotten better at with time," muttered Erik. "I'm sure."
"I wouldn't know," said Raven, glancing back at him for amoment before letting her gaze swing away. "So, not only was he trying to deal with his mother and step-father's grief, but also poke around in their brains to make sure they still thought I was belonged among them.
"Even though Charles wasn't worried, I still didn't trust the gardener. It was one of the few times Charles was absolutely wrong, and I was unconditionally right."
Raven lapsed into silence, her eyes distant and flickering, no longer seeing the cabin.
"What happened?" asked Erik quietly, trying not to disturb her thoughts. She closed her eyes for a moment, and started to tell her story. Erik could almost see the events unfold in his mind's eye.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Westchester Estate, years earlier
The kitchen was always a special place for Raven. Even years after she was given free rein of the large Westchester house, the thrill of being able to walk into the kitchen, and grab whatever she wanted, never failed to brighten her often temperamental disposition. If she was able to do so without being noticed, all the better. And on the hottest days, the special treat of lemonade from the very back of the fridge was often her desired goal.
This weekend, it was particularly easy to get into the kitchen, because the maids that usually worked for the family were gone for a wedding. They had left an assortment of cold meats, cheeses, and snacks for the children to tide themselves over until they returned. Charles and Raven had the house to themselves that afternoon, even though Charles' sick grandmother had taken a turn for the better. Sharon, Charles' mom, had decided against taking her overly sensitive son along for a day of waiting among the dead and dying for the old woman to be released form the hospital, even though Kurt had no such compunction with dragging his real son Cain along. Raven was enjoying the relative freedom of the empty mansion. She enjoyed practicing sneaking and getting around when the consequences for being found were nothing, rather than the continued sighs and disapproving glances from the help.
As Raven opened the fridge, she was happy to see the desired target of her search; the cold pitcher of lemonade. It was filled to within an inch of the top, most likely untouched by any other person in the house. Charles never really appreciated the lemonade, having always had the freedom of perusing a kitchen whenever he pleased, but to Raven, it meant the lemonade was a never not a luxurious treat.
She poured herself a large glass, and replaced the pitcher in the fridge. Even though no one was around to notice, she was careful to make sure that the only thing that would show she had been there was the lower level of lemonade in the pitcher. Taking the glass in both hands, she walked out to the patio to sit in the shade. On her way by, she saw there was a bowlful of tart raspberries, left out from breakfast. With a snatch, she stuffed her mouth, and scurried outside.
Even though the Xaviers were wealthy enough that certain rooms in their house were cooled, they were also cheep enough that when most of the people were out of the house, the machines stayed turned off. Raven could barely stand to be inside, where the air seemed to thicken with every minute of sun that beat upon the house. Even though the outside was just as oppressively warm, being able to sit under the shade of a willow tree made the day more comfortable.
As she settled, Raven took a huge drink of the lemonade, downing nearly half the glass. It tasted sweet going down, but after she swallowed, there was an oddly bitter aftertaste. She ran her tongue alone her teeth, trying to place what was wrong. Had the lemons gone bad? Or was is some kind of sugar substitute? She took another big gulp, but the strange taste was still there.
As she looked at the lemonade, she felt her head begin to swim. It was almost as if someone had dropped her into syrup, her limbs seemed to be moving sluggishly and her mind was matching pace. The edges of her vision darkened, and the last thing she felt was the glass slipping out of her hand and spilling down the hill.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Raven woke, she wasn't sure where she was. It looked like a barn loft, but she was not sure if it was the one on the edge of the Westchester estate. Her hands were tied behind her back, and attached to some kind of wooden poll. Her ankles were tied to a large metal ring that was bolted to the floor, and a wad of cloth had been shoved in her mouth, and attached with a silk scarf. To her left was a large wooden crate, big enough to hold a person, and a small table with four cameras sitting in a row.
"They told me I was crazy," said a deep male voice from the shadows. From the darkness behind Raven, Woolsworth emerged, with another camera in his hand, his eyes wild with excitement. "But I knew I was right. And now I have proof."
He suddenly stopped, and looked down at Raven, whose eyes were as wide as saucers. As he looked her over, his gaze as heavy as a hand dragging across her body, his smile grew more fevered, more terrifying.
"They told me things like you weren't real, but I knew that there was something weird about you. I've been a gardener here for fifteen years, and I didn't remember a baby girl being born. I returned from visiting my parents, and suddenly you were there, and everyone thought you had always been. So I've been watching you, and I noticed you’re always hanging around the little weirdo, and keeping out of sight of everyone. But I didn't know you were a monster."
He reached down and touched her cheek, twisting one finger in her hair. In horror, Raven realized that the hair he was twirling wasn’t her normal disguised blonde locks, but her natural red ones. She jerked her head away, eliciting a deep, sinister chuckle from Woolsworth.
"Yes, my little monster, I know you can change your appearance. I'm not sure how you made everyone think you belonged, but I don't need to. I've got an interested party that is going to set me up for life, just so he can figure these little things out. And all I have to do is get you across the border in one piece."
Raven trembled and tried to yell, but the cloth muffled the sounds. If anything, her struggles just made Woolsworth smile wider. He kneeled beside her and placed his hot, heavy hand on her knee. Raven felt a sick shiver go up her spine as she watched Woolsworth's expression shift from amusement to something darker.
"'In one piece' has a lot of connotations," he said, his hand rubbing harshly up her thigh. "Maybe you and I can have some fun before we get on the road."
"Get away from her, you animal," yelled a young man's voice. It seemed to come from every direction at once. Woolsworth straightened suddenly and his hands flew to his head, clutching at his skull as if it was about to explode. All the muscles in his body began to contort, but not a sound escaped from his mouth. Before Raven could get truly terrified by what was happening, Charles' head popped up through a doorway in the floor, one hand plastered over his temple. Raven had never been happier to see anyone in her life.
When Charles saw Raven tied to the post, his whole face grew dark and tight. After pushing the door all the way open, Charles climbed out of the holes and walked over to Woolsworth, who was still writhing on the floor. For a long moment, Charles just stared at him. The only sign of effort was his hands tightening until his knuckles whitened. Then, with a grunt from Charles, Woolsworth's eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Raven sat there, stunned as the echo of Woolworth's collapse resonated through the room. Before she could put two thoughts together about it, Charles was kneeling beside her, tugging at the ropes around her mouth. He was almost in tears before he got them untied.
"I was so worried," he said, as Raven spat the last of the cloth out of her mouth. "I couldn't find you anywhere, and then all of a sudden I heard you in my head, and you didn't know where you were, and never do this to me again!"
"I didn't exactly plan this," said Raven, both relieved and irritated with Charles' overflowing of emotions.
"Oh, god, I'm so sorry," said Charles, dropping the rope he was untying and awkwardly hugging Raven. " I was just so worried."
"It's ok," said Raven. "Just help me get untied."
Charles kept untying, and kept getting angry, then apologizing, and Raven would try and calm him down until she started to panic. Then Charles would sooth her, and they would start all over again. After a while, Raven was free, and both of them were crying and babbling apologies for the tiniest slights. Sitting in the straw in a darkened barn, they hugged each other until they both felt drained. After many long minutes, Raven took a deep breathe, and pushed her brother away.
"As much as this is a great family bonding moment," sad Raven, her voice thick with tears and false bravado. "We need to get out of here. This whole place is giving me the creeps."
"You are absolutely right,” said Charles, helping Raven to her feet. Now facing the front of the barn, she was able to see where she was at last.
It had gotten a lot darker since Raven had last seen the sky. As they left the barn's loft, she recognized it as a building just on the other side of the Westchester estate, a building she had assumed belonged to one of the farms nearby. As she and Charles reached the ground at the bottom of the ladder, she saw the familiar crest above the door, marking it as part of the Xavier Estate. Raven tried not to roll her eyes. Every time she thought she knew what belonged to the Xaviers, she was surprised.
Raven welcomed the silence as they moved through the barn, calmer now. Until Charles tried to talk about what had happened.
"You know," said Charles, as they walked past the empty horse stalls. "I am very much surprised that Woolsworth ended up being such a creep."
"I don't know why," said Raven. "I told you a hundred times that he's always been a little off."
"I don't remember any of that!"
"Of course you don't. You thought I was being silly and dismissed it."
"I did not!"
"Charles!" said Raven, stopping in her tracks and glaring at him. "I think if anything came out of this night, it should be that I am occasionally not utterly useless when it comes to people!"
Whatever Charles was about to say was interrupted by a huge shadow rising behind him. Raven felt her face go slack with fear, and her voice froze.
"What is it…" said Charles, before Woolsworth's large hand knocked him to the ground, causing him to crumple like a broken doll. Totally ignoring the fallen boy, Woolsworth took a step towards Raven, his face livid with anger.
"Come here, you monster," he growled, his face twisting in the moonlight. "We have some unfinished business."
Raven waited no longer. Turning on her heel, she fled across the straw strewn floor, trying to keep ahead of the man crashing behind her. She weaved through the farm equipment, knocking over anything she could get her hands on to try and slow down her pursuer. But no matter how much she scrambled, Woolsworth was always a step behind her, his voice deafening, his steps like jackhammers.
Blinded by panic, she scrambled back up the ladder, to the edge of the balcony, hoping to take the hay-rope down to the ground and escape. But as she neared the end of the wooden planks, Woolsworth grabbed her and threw her to the ground. Raven clawed at the floor, trying to get free, but with one swift movement, Woolsworth flipped her on her back, and slammed her into the ground.
As Raven lay there, stunned, Woolsworth wrapped his hands around her neck and started to squeeze. Raven wasn't sure if he was trying to kill her, stop her, or if his anger had caused all thoughts to leave his mind. She clawed at his hands, but they wouldn't budge.
In a panicked moment, Raven shifted to the tallest person she could think of, one of the maid's nephews, Robert. With his longer legs, she was able to get the right angle to hit Woolsworth right in the middle of his crotch. In his pain-filled moment of distraction, she was able to lever her now-longer legs to toss Woolsworth off of her, where he landed in a pile of rigging ropes just to the side of their furious struggle.
While the blow stunned him, Woolsworth was not down. Even though he was tangled in the ropes, he tried to surge forward, to get a hand on Raven. Hoping to pull him off balance again, Raven grabbed a rope in front of her and pulled as hard as she could.
Somehow, luck finally shone on Raven. The rope she grabbed somehow looped around Woolsworth's neck, pulling him backwards. But what should have been a deterrent only seemed to spur the madman on. With each pull, the rope tightened, but Woolsworth gained a little ground. Unless something changed, Raven was not going to be able to hold on.
Suddenly, Woolsworth froze, as if something was holding all of his muscles very still. From below, Raven heard Charles make a sound of exertion, and figured he was holding Woolsworth off with his powers. Breathing a sigh of relief, Raven let the rope slacken slightly.
As soon as the rope slackened, however, Woolsworth seemed to regain some power over his body. He reached towards her again. In a panic, she pulled tighter and held on. As she watched, the rope cut into his neck, and his face turned red, then purple, and finally black. With a shudder, Woolsworth dropped to the ground, falling through the rope like sand through fingers. Without thinking, Raven turned him over. Instead of surging forward and tackling her, his tongue sagged out of his mouth, and he was utterly still. As raven looked down at him, she realized what she had done. He was dead.
As Raven backed away from the corpse, she heard a groan from Charles. Quickly fleeing the balcony, she rushed to Charles' side, effortless shifting back to her normal disguise.
Charles was half sitting, leaning up against a barrel, holding a bleeding gash on the side of his head from where Woolsworth had struck him. His eyes fluttered open and shut, and he was obviously holding onto consciousness by inches. Raven looked around, and grabbing what looked like a clean strip of cloth, tried to stop the worst of the bleeding.
"We need to get back to the house," said Raven, helping Charles to his feet. She was a little surprised that his hand slipped from her shoulder to brush the top of her collarbone.
"We don't need to go that far, baby," said Charles, his voice lower than usual. "There's plenty of room around here."
"What are you talking about," said Raven, turning to look at him. "This isn't funny, Charles."
"You don't see me laughing," said Charles, his voice dipping into a growl. His normally blue eyes flashed something darker, and his grip around her shoulder tightened.
Raven pushed Charles away, just as he shoved himself away from her. As Raven gaped in horror, Charles gripped his head and started to mutter to himself too low to be understood. He fell to his knees, still ranting nonsense, until he stopped between one breath and the next.
He looked up at Raven, his eyes now blue and haunted, both hands clasped to his head.
"I can't fight him and stay here," he said, his voice hollow and terrified. Then, without another word, he pitched back, falling to the ground unconscious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raven fell silent for a long moment, staring off into the distance. She grew still and calm, obviously reliving that night in vivd memory.
"What happened then?" asked Erik, trying to gently shake her out of her reverie.
"I panicked. I didn't want to leave Charles, but I didn't know what I could do. There was no one close enough to help us. I had to carry him back myself.
"The going was difficult. Every so often I could feel something on the edge of my mind, like he was trying to pull me into his mindscape. I could see a dark, blackened wood. When I felt myself being pulled in, I’d have to shake Charles out of it, by yelling, or stomping, or at one point, running us into a tree.
"When I finally got Charles back to the mansion, I felt like I had run a marathon. I got him to his bed, and found a maid to come take care of him. I told her some story about how he had fallen, and either she bought it, or she didn't care, because she ran off to help him. I thought I was in the clear, until I heard her scream.
"I rushed to Charles’ room, and I found the maid lying on the floor, curled in a ball, eyes open and unseeing. I rushed toward Charles. The walls begin to fade into the darkened woods from before, but I tried to keep focused on where I was. I got to Charles as the maid started to yell about the dark man coming, and I could see the shadow of Woolsworth stomping through the woods, chasing her towards us.
"And then it all stopped. The maid woke up and shuffled blankly out of the room. Charles opened his eyes for a moment, and looked straight at me, and his eyes were his own again. By the end of the evening, he had beaten whatever Woolsworth had left behind in his brain, but I don't know how he did it."
"Didn't you ask him?" Erik said.
"Of course I asked him." Raven rolled her eyes in frustration. "I had been through just as much as he had. But he told me he didn't remember, and even if he did, he wouldn't tell me. I only know something horrible happened in his head trying to save my life. Eventually, I let it drop. We learned to be more careful, and we moved on."
Raven looked over to Erik, her story over. Erik let the information sink in, and attempted to order his thoughts. One detail nagged at him.
"So, that took what, five hours for Charles to recover?" Erik asked, looking back to the room where Charles lay dreaming. "It's been considerably longer than that now."
"You think I don't know that?" said Raven, her voice rising, tears leaking from her eyes. "Charles never takes longer to do something the second time than the first! I tried to make contact with him again, but I hit a mental wall. If he doesn't let me in, I don't know what to do!"
Erik took Raven into a well-meaning, but extremely awkward hug. She stiffened at first, but then relaxed into his shoulder.
"We'll have to figure it out together," he said into her hair. "You said when you touched him before, he communicated with you? That you saw some kind of vision?"
"Yes, he was in a room with a horrible person who was approaching," said Raven, her brow furrowing in concentration. "He spoke in some harsh sounding language, in a sing-song tone. The room looked like a creepy doctor's office, and in the center there was a hard table with leather straps."
Erik felt his blood chill in his veins, and his hands tightened at Raven's back. She pulled away from him, and looked him in the eye, but he spoke before she could ask any questions he could not afford to answer. "Maybe if I touch him, and I see what he's thinking, I can help him from the inside."
"You might be powerful, Erik," said Raven, gentle scorn in her voice. "But you are not a telepath. How do you think you’ll be able to affect his mind?"
"Well, if you’re right about my part in this," said Erik, sounding confident than he felt. "Maybe my presence will be enough. I…may have been in the room you saw. I can help."
"But what if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll have tried," said Erik, standing up and brushing off his pants, gathering his gumption to make a move. "In any case, he's my friend. One of a small number. I cannot sit by and simply hope he recovers."
Raven looked to him, to see if there was any judgment in his words, and when she found none, she nodded. Someone had to do something, and she did not have the resources. Perhaps Erik did.
"We don't know how long it could take," she said, though she made no move to stop Erik as he moved towards the door. "Even if he lets you in, it could be hours before you find him, let alone help him start back. If you get lost…."
"Don't think about that," said Erik, tossing her a grin with more confidence than he felt. "We'll both be back before you know it."
Raven still wasn't convinced, but Erik was obviously out of patience. With a sigh, she stood up and walked over to Erik, placing her hands on his shoulders.
"Until midnight," she said, looking out the window at the now-darkened sky. "It seems fitting, like in on of those fairy tales Charles used to believe in. If you aren't back by then, I'll have to get creative. And you probably will not enjoy it."
"With incentive like that, I can't possibly fail," said Erik, placing a small kiss on the edge of her hairline, before entering the room. "Rest easy. I'll get Charles back."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erik didn't know what he was expecting when he saw Charles in that bed. At best, he supposed, he thought he'd just see the younger man laying, as if asleep, nightmares furrowing his brow. At worst…perhaps more furrows? In any case, he had not been expecting what he found.
Charles lay in the middle of the bed, surrounded by what was left of the sheets. The sheets were torn and flecked with blood, slicked and stuck to the still-bleeding scratches on his arms. His face, even in sleep, was twisted and restless, seeing worlds beyond the walls. His lips were dried and cracked, his eyes caked with the salty remains of tears. Deep dark circles, dark enough to look like paint, nearly painted a picture of where his eyes would be, if his lids weren't cemented shut. While it was clear that he had thrashed around the bed, at the moment the only motion was from his face, contorting in some unknown fear.
A half-step into the room, Erik ran into what he could only describe as a wall of pure feeling. He had to stop himself from running out of the room, the sheer panic wafting off Charles causing his heart to race. He reminded his boy that the sense of panic was coming from outside his head, and he was able to hold his ground. With resolution he stepped forward, each hairsbreadth forward a push back against the terror that crashed into him from Charles’ unconscious mind. After long minutes, he finally made it to the side of Charles' bed and sat, his body covered in sweat before he had even tried to begin.
Erik raked his hand through his hair, already wet with sweat. The words that Charles had muttered earlier ran through his head. The darkness, or to be more accurate,die Dunkelheit. When Erik was a young man under the control of Shaw, he remembered the small room he was kept in between experiments. The room Shaw almost lovingly called die Dunkelheit. His fingers ached at the memory of the nights he clawed against that door, hoping that this night Shaw would have forgotten to lock the door, that he could escape. That opportunity never came, really. Even after he had escaped Shaw, he was always haunted by the fact that Shaw was out there. Even after his death, Shaw was still controlling him in a way: only in looking down at Charles did Erik realize he might truly never be free.
One thing Erik did know, however, was that he could not let Charles face Erik’s memories alone. Pushing his fear and doubts aside, he twisted his torso to lean over Charles and look down into his face. Before he could give himself a chance to change his mind, he placed his hands on either side of Charles' head and closed his eyes.
"Charles," said Erik, as his fingers touched the clammy, damp skin of the telepath's face. "Let me in."
Before Erik could take another breath, he was falling, twisting and turning in a place with no walls and no floor. The bed, the cabin, even Charles was gone as he free-fell through strangely luminescent nothingness. Though he felt wind rush by him as he tumbled, he could not see the ground, nor any other landmark to gauge his location. It was as if he had been dropped into space, an empty purgatory.
"Charles!" he yelled, his voice not echoing, but sinking, absorbed into the darkness. "Let me help you! Let me find you! "
"Charles isn't here right now, my little monster," came the deafening, omnipresent voice from Erik's nightmares. In the formless void, the outline of Shaw's cold, hateful eyes appeared, narrowing to focus on Erik. "But you're been a very, very bad childling. Die Dunkelheit is waiting, just for you."
Between one breath and the next, Erik was transported into the hauntingly familiar darkened box of a room, his wrists bound with thick leather straps. As he yanked at his bindings, bile rising in his throat, he saw his arms were not the arms of a strong man, but those of an undernourished, under-exercised child.
Panic bubbled over Erik's already confused mind, overriding years of training that had taken him from the scared little boy he was back then to the man he was today. He was lost in a storm of screaming, tugging, trying more than anything to escape. The bindings held him as hard and fast as they ever had when he was young. His cries were just as futile, his tears just as fruitless. He was trapped.
The door of the closet creaked open, just as it always had, just before the real terror began. The line of piercingly bright light hit him directly in the eye, ruining what little dark vision he had managed to gain. Instinctively he shied back, shrinking into himself, trying, with all the energy he had been using filing to escape, to fade back into the wall, to hide. It wasn't going to work. It never did.
The door was flung open wide, and Erik froze, hoping irrationally that his lack of motion would make him harder to see. With a thick clunk, the leather straps that held his arms loosened, but his fear kept him in place. The lights were so bright he was momentarily blinded, and when the familiar arm reached towards him to yank him into the light, he was helpless to resist. The much stronger man pulled him out of the darkness, and with a casual toss, threw him towards the middle of the room. Erik stumbled into the familiar wooden exam table. His legs still shaking, he was flipped on his back, pinned down, and strapped to the table before his eyes cleared. What he saw a moment later shocked him clear to his core.
Charles stood above him, in the lab coat and thin black glasses that belonged to Shaw, a stethoscope around his neck. With a casual air, he tapped a finger on his lips, which were drawn back in a curious and amused grin.
"Well, Erik," said Charles, his voice sounding exactly like Shaw’s voice from Erik's nightmares. "It seems that you've been a very bad boy. Been using your powers to hurt me, yes?"
"W-w-w-hat is hap-” Erik stuttered, before Charles casually backhanded him across the mouth.
"We've talked about this before, child," continued Charles, walking over to a black box with wires dangling from knobs. At the end of those wires were little clamps, which he took in his hands and gave a trial squeeze. "You'll never learn if you never listen. Now, I'm going to have to teach you another lesson. Hold still."
As if those words released valve inside him, Erik began to thrash back and forth, accomplishing nothing whatsoever. Charles' hands (or were they Shaw's?) deftly unbuttoned his shirt, baring Erik’s chest to the naked air. With another casual blow to the head, Charles stunned Erik again, and in the moment of stillness, attached the little clamps to Erik's nipples.
"Let's try this again," said Charles, going to the black box and turning the knob to 5. "Remove the clamps."
Erik felt the electricity flow through his body, sending waves of pain and something else through him. He tried to focus, but with each wave of electricity his body tensed and writhed on its own. To his horror and his agony, he felt himself getting hard, and through eyes that were filling with pain-fueled tears, he could see the rising evidence beginning to tent his trousers.
"Oh my," said Shaw's voice from Charles' lips, satisfaction dripping from every syllable. "Aren't you a healthy boy. Maybe I'm using the wrong tactic."
Charles leaned down to Erik's ear, his nose inches from where Erik’s sweat was pouring off his face and soaking into the table. Charles leaned in, his lips touching the very edge of his earlobe, his breath thundering through Erik’s mind.
"Maybe you enjoy this."
With a jolt, Erik remembered why he was here. This memory, though vivid, was not what he was here to remember. He was here to help Charles, not relive the worst days of his life. With the barest of thoughts, he removed the clamps and wires, and tossed the box across the room.
"Brilliant!" said Charles, still grinning Shaw’s evil smile from ear to ear. "Now, for the next test."
"Charles!" shouted Erik. "You need to snap out of it. You are not Shaw. You are Charles Xavier. You need to remember who you are!"
Charles looked at him, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. He looked down at his hands, and as if he was surprised at what he saw, he flinched away.
"Charles, talk to me," said Erik, pulling at his straps. Whether it was his continued pulling, or thanks to Charles' distress, he managed to get one of his arms free, and used it to work on the rest of the straps. "Hang on Charles. Tell me how to help you."
"Erik?" asked Charles, his voice once again his own. He stumbled forward, and caught himself on a cabinet. "Where are we? What is this place?"
"We're inside your mind, Charles," said Erik, trying to keep his voice calmer than he felt. He was almost free, just two more straps. "You got lost after Shaw died. We need to get out of here."
"Shaw is…dead?" asked Charles, holding his head in confusion, rubbing his fingers across his forehead. "But I just saw him…"
"I killed him, Charles," said Erik, finally freeing himself from the table. When he stood up, he was his normal size again. "My friend, I made you help me."
Charles looked up at Erik, a trickle of blood leaking from the middle of his forehead, in exactly the same place that Erik forced the coin into Shaw's skull. As Erik looked on in horror, the confusion in Charles' eyes faded into a focused glee.
"You made him help, boy?" said Shaw, using Charles' mouth like a speaker. "You're more like me than you think."
In a flash, Charles was strapped to the table, shrinking before Erik's eyes into a boy of no more than 12. No older than he had been when he was at Shaw's mercy. Erik saw his own fear reflected in those young eyes, staring at him with youthful tears streaming down his face.
Without thought, Erik stepped forward to help Charles, but the young boy let out a terrified scream. Erik reached down to undo the straps, but Charles was whipping himself back and forth so much that he couldn't get his hands on the fasteners. He got about half of them free, and suddenly, Charles' flailing arms were everywhere. Erik tried to dodge them and get the rest of the straps loose, but he wasn't quick enough. One of Charles' arms struck him full across his face, hitting the glasses right off the bridge of his nose.
Wait a minute….
Erik saw those glasses slide across the floor, and he lifted one hand to his face. His hand rested on the clammy skin and the pencil-thin mustache just above his trembling lip. Both hands reached for his face now, not recognizing the features as his own. Scrambling across the room, Erik reached towards the small stand mirror that he remembered Shaw kept turned towards the wall, to be used when he wanted to examine his lab-rats more thoroughly. Tossing a tray of instruments across the room, Erik turned the reflected surface towards him. What he saw there froze him where he stood.
In the mirror, he saw Shaw staring back at him, Shaw’s lab coat hanging from his shoulders, the slight indents from Shaw’s pencil-thin glasses on his nose, Shaw’s fine brown suit. In contrast to horror Erik felt mounting in his mind, a sick grin played across his face. He reached up again to touch his face, and the reflection followed, tracing every line and contour. A voice began screaming softly in the back of his head.
"This can't be happening…" said Erik, and his voice was still his own.
"But of course it is," said Shaw in the reflection. "I couldn't have planned it better. Why live in this telepath, when I can live on in my star subject. You."
Erik screamed, a long, loud wail that hurt even his own ears. Throwing the mirror across the room, he barely flinched back when the shards rained down. His cries faltered as he looked over to the table, to see Charles sitting in the remains of his straps, a fully grown man again.
"Erik," said Charles, his eyes clear and filled with concern. "You must let him go. Leave Shaw to me, and get out of here."
"I can't do that," croaked Erik, gripping his own arms, his eyes wild. "I forced you into this. I can't leave you to him."
"You didn't force me into anything I didn't choose," said Charles, stepping off the table and cautiously approaching the twitching, terrified man. "I could have broken away at any time. But it would have meant losing you to Shaw, to his madness and his darkness. I couldn't do that, Erik. I have things under control. Just go."
"You've been unconscious for almost two full days," growled Erik, shying away from Charles' outstretched hand. "That's not what I'd call control."
"Two days? Really?" Charles stopped, his brow wrinkling in surprise. He looked around the nightmare room, as if seeing it for the first time. "I had no idea it has been so long…"
"Shaw is killing you, Charles," snapped Erik, his eyes sweeping the lab with increasing desperation. "I can't leave you here with him. You're not strong enough to handle this."
"I hardly think you are in a position to judge what I can handle," Charles said disapprovingly. He took another step to close the gap between himself and Erik. "I almost have him locked down. Please Erik. Leave, so that I can finish this."
Erik nearly relented, when he felt a sickening joy leap from the back of his head. He froze, and Shaw’s hauntingly familiar laugh bubbled up in his mind. Without a doubt, Erik knew that if he left, Shaw would not be locked down, as Charles so simply said. Shaw would worm his way into the darkest parts of Charles' mind, and he would never, ever die. They would never be free.
Erik was going to have to do something drastic.
Looking around frantically, his eyes lit upon a scalpel, long and sharp. He glanced down at it, then back at Charles. Charles followed his gaze, giving the blade a puzzled look. As Erik reached out and pulled with his powers, the world seemed to slow down, each, as if covered in molasses. Charles' eyes flashed from confusion, to the wide eyes of comprehension, to narrowed eyes of panic as the blade landed in Erik's palm. The blade was pointing inwards, directly towards Erik's heart. Charles looked into Erik's eyes, and saw some cold determination that propelled his body forward, lunging for the knife. But he was too late.
"He can't have you. I'd rather die than let him," said Erik, screwing his eyes shut. Before Charles could stop him, Erik plunged the scalpel into his chest, avoiding his ribs and burying the blade straight into his heart.
Pain exploded through him, and he heard Charles yell as he fell to the ground. Pain pushed through his limbs, followed by the ever more deafening sound of Shaw screaming through his mind. He barely even felt it when Charles gathered him in his arms, and held Erik to his chest. As consciousness faded, he felt himself smile.
Erik slipped into the warm blankness of nothingness, comforted in the fact that he'd done it at last. Shaw was gone.
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