FIC: backraise [off balance part three]
Fandom: X-Men
Characters: Charles, Erik, Raven, Moira, Hank, Alex, Sean (& Gambit)
Rating: R
Warnings: Deals with the aftermath of rape and graphic descriptions of post-traumatic response.
Summary: There's no such thing as ghosts.
My laptop is fixed; thank you so much for your patience guys! Honestly, the response has been amazing, I can't even begin to describe how happy it makes me.
part one: wheelspin
part two: laydown
backraise [off balance part three]
hear you now the captain,
heed his sorrowed cry,
the weight upon your eyelids
is dimes laid on your eyes
- The Decemberists, ‘The Island’
i dread too much, i dream too much,
i’m haunted by the ghosts in my machine
- Annie Lennox, ‘Ghosts in my Machine’
two days ago...
Charles cracked. The quiet in the night, the horrible violent awakening from the vividness of nightmares to the grey vapidity of nothing, nothing at all, nothing to whisper to the twisting hurting pieces of his mind grew too strong, and he opened his mind and heard everyone.
Oh god, he heard -
can’tcontrolitanymoretheburstsaretoostrongtheycomeinwaveseveryoneburns -
- no-onewillhelpandsheneverevenseesmysmilebutiwillchangeherforthebetter -
- flyingdreamsofflyinglikeaswallowlikethisishowiwasmeanttobe -
- wishicouldhelphimwhydoeshelookatmelikethathowdoimakehimsmile
- and then he was Raven, confused and awake, clutching her eiderdown to her as she curled in her bed, staring right ahead through yellow eyes and wishing she could save her brother who doesn’t smile any more.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, someone laughed.
Charles pulled out in a hurry, shut down the walls again with a sound through his mind like a blink and a squeal of tires, and decided never to do that again.
The world has been blessedly, horribly silent since.
the longest day:
midnight.
Charles sits cross-legged on his bed, unable to sleep, his lips pressed against his steepled fingers, staring out into nothing at all.
Here tonight in the quiet, Charles announces to the empty room that he is better; that he will be the better man. And he will be fine. He will smile and laugh and teach, and everything will be fine.
He sits on his bed and doesn’t sleep until an hour before the dawn. He tries to ignore the throbbing in his head; the clawing at the walls that he’s certain is unimportant, and tries not to give in to the dreams of hands, and lips, and things he doesn’t need to remember any more.
For a moment, he is sure he sees someone sitting in the corner of the room, smoke curling from a chair that is completely empty, but he takes it as read that it’s tiredness. Tiredness which cannot possibly be affecting his work, so is irrelevant.
And the silence ticks on.
dawn.
sweat step sweat step sweat step silence yes.
morning.
Charles jogs in from the track whistling; a tune he isn’t quite sure that he knows with a catch in his breath. Erik stares as he enters the kitchen and heads for the fridge.
“Are you - alright?” Erik asks, pausing with a mug of coffee halfway to his mouth.
Charles looks at him over the fridge door.
“Yes,” he says, “fine. Excellent. Groovy. Why?”
“I - just - you don’t have to do this, Charles, you know?”
“Oh, you can’t mope around forever, Erik,” Charles says, still breathless from the run, and he takes a swig of milk from the bottle and wipes his mouth on a teatowel. Erik grunts in response, but looks unconvinced.
“Otherwise,” Charles continues blithely, “you get obsessed with revenge, and you upset everyone, and that’s not healthy at all.”
Erik starts, but Charles is still humming something mindless (to fill the void), and having grabbed a slice of toast from the table, he shouts “Alex!” with his lips and his mouth and actual words, and leaves the room to train children who, as he has said before, just don’t understand what they need.
midday.
The man is standing in the hall looking at the ceiling as Charles enters, talking animatedly to Alex about how impressed he is that Alex kept practising on his own, and Charles doesn’t notice him at first.
Really, he thinks later, that should have been a sign, even then - that he, Charles, didn’t notice something.
“Mr Charles Xavier?” the man says, stepping forward.
“Yes,” says Charles, coming to a stop, and trying to fight off the urges to run, run away and make him disappear all at once. “May I help you?”
He pulls out a detective’s badge and holds it up. He has yellowing teeth that speak of too many cigarettes, a weary look in his eye, and thick rimmed glasses. “Mr Xavier, I’m from the county police department. I’d like to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“You told them where you live?” Erik hisses, appearing from nowhere, sounding rage-filled and twisted.
“No…” Charles says, confused.
“What’s this about?” Erik asks, folding his arms. The detective looks at him, unimpressed and apparently unconcerned.
“Do you have a visa to be in this country, sir?” he asks.
“Is it about the noise?” Charles asks, desperately hoping that Erik won’t kill the man. “Because… er… we have some young men on the premises who-”
“Mr Xavier, I understand from information received from colleagues in Lousiana that you recently had a run in with Mr Remy Le Beau. I’d simply like to speak to you about it, if that’s alright.”
Charles feels everything fall away; feels like dropping to the floor; feels like he’s been shot. Somewhere far off he can hear that same wretched person laughing again, and he makes a note to throttle them later. “I - I chose not to press charges,” he says, backing against a wall without meaning to move.
“So I understand,” the detective continues, “but I’d still like to talk to have a chat.”
Charles feels for the wall with his hands, clinging onto anything that is real and solid. But he cannot manage words, and Erik turns to the detective.
“Is he being arrested?” he asks. Charles wants to be grateful for somebody speaking, but all he can manage is half a word from his throat that comes out in a blur of concern.
The detective smiles thinly. “Not yet.”
“Where - where -” Charles tries, dizzy with worry.
“Just come along with me to the local police station, Mr Xavier, and everything’ll be fine,” says the detective.
“I’ll go with him,” Erik says, and suddenly Charles feels a flare at his arrogance, at his patronising cheek, and he remembers that he is better.
“I will be fine, Erik,” he says, stepping forwards, just as the detective looks Erik up and down, and says, finally, “who exactly are you?”
“I’m his lawyer,” says Erik, dripping with sarcasm, “and who are you?”
“You know what, Erik,” says Charles, rounding on him, “if I need a lawyer, I’ll call my actual lawyer.”
“Look, Charles,” says Erik, slowly, but Charles glares at him. He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Alright, just… be careful.”
“Honestly,” says Charles, smiling in a way he does not feel, “it’s fine,” and he tries not to feel like a criminal as the detective gestures to a waiting car.
He clenches his fingers into fists, climbs in, and decides with finality not to have a panic attack as they pulls off down the drive.
afternoon.
“Remy Le Beau,” says the detective, and leaves it at that.
Charles thinks that this is going to be a very dull interview if that’s all that’s said.
“Yes?” he says.
The detective sighs as if Charles is being deliberately difficult, reaches into his suitcase, and slides a mug shot across the table.
The man in the photo is leering at the camera with crooked teeth and a look of pride and excitement, flirting with the photographer and the world. He is holding a placard with a name and a date of birth some thirty years earlier on it in long white fingers, quite far from his body, as though it has nothing to do with him. Charles feels sick to his stomach. He glances at the red rimmed eyes as briefly as he can get away with, and then pushes it back across the table with trembling fingers. “Yes?” he says again, his voice level.
“That is the man you are familiar with as Remy Le Beau? Don’t be afraid to take your time.”
“That’s him,” says Charles, not letting himself look down at the photograph, “I wouldn’t say we were familiar.”
“Were?” asks the detective, leaning forward.
“Well - I’ve only met him once, and he assaulted me. I don’t really think we’ll be firm friends.”
“He’s got a roguish look in his eye, doesn’t he?” the detective muses, looking at the photograph himself. “He does look like the career criminal type.”
“He said he was a thief,” says Charles, suddenly desperately wanting to go home, “is that why you’re here?”
The detective laughs quietly. “No, Mr Xavier.”
“Look, if this is about - his assault, I’ve already said I don’t want to press charges, I just want to forget about it and go about my life.”
“And how are you doing with that? Forgetting about it?”
Charles presses his lips tightly together. “Wonderful,” he says, smiling thinly. “Never better.”
The detective smirks and writes something down. “Interesting,” he says, picking up a piece of paper, “and yet you claimed he forced sodomy on you, didn’t you? Well, that is surprising. And you see, that makes me concerned with what I see as the anomaly here, and it makes me wonder what exactly you were doing in New Orleans in the first place.”
Erik warned him, grabbed his arm before he got in the car, whispered ‘if they want to ask about the children, make something up, for god’s sake, play with their minds or something’. And Charles was prepared to lie; Charles was prepared for anything, but god, how can you prepare for this?
“I - I’d gone for some CIA recruitment,” he says, “I explained all this. It’s in my statement.”
“Well, the CIA don’t seem to know anything about that. In fact, they presumed you’d gone back to England after an incident at the facility you were working at.”
“Ask Agent McTaggert, she’ll tell you all about it.” says Charles, pinching the bridge of his nose and praying that Moira will have enough sense (and love left for him) to say something that supports him.
“Oh, don’t worry, Mr Xavier, I intend to.”
The detective picks up the picture and looks at it, looks right into the dark red eyes. “He was twenty nine, Mr Xavier,” he says, and then he looks up. “How old are you?”
“Thirty four,” says Charles, “but I don’t see-”
“Now, Remy ‘Gambit’ Le Beau, according to this rather sizeable file I have here, was an accomplished thief, a street fighter, and a bit of a ladies’ man. A sizeable list of past partners here, both sexual and professional. However, I see nothing in here to suggest a history of sexual violence.”
Charles swallows. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t assault people,” he says, “it means that nobody came forward to report him.”
“Very true. How did you feel, after your… accident?”
Charles looks at the ceiling and breathes out through his nose. He wants nothing so much as to climb inside this man’s stupid misguided thoughts and make him say goodbye, but he doesn’t, because he isn't sure if he could resist the urge to destroy. “I’m managing,” he says, although it does not even begin to answer the question.
“So you’re saying you gave no encouragement to his suggestions of homosexual activity?”
“What? No! None whatsoever,” Charles says, wearily. “I’ve said this. I don’t want to have to say it again.”
“Mr Xavier,” asks the detective, “would it surprise you to know that Mr Le Beau is dead?”
Charles feels a lead lump in his chest, feels a squeezing, feels the panic and the bile rising. “Yes,” he lies, the shock all too real. “I mean, I’m surprised.”
The detective looks unconfused, and smiles a grim and unamused smile before leaning forwards, his hands clasped in front of him. “Really,” he says, and it is not a question.
“I mean, I’m not sorry, but I’m - how - how did he die?” asks Charles, because perhaps if someone says it he can finally believe that it’s real.
He expects, perhaps, that the words will hurt, that they will be confusing and terrifying and nauseating. He doesn’t expect them to make him want to cry.
“Someone took him to pieces,” says the detective. “I presume they blew him to high heaven with some form of explosive, or maybe they just cut him to shreds. The New Orleans forensics department hasn’t said yet, although believe me, they will. At any rate, they found his head on one side of the room, fingers on the other, and blood on just about every surface imaginable.”
The detective watches him very closely, glances at the file, and then, almost as an afterthought, adds “Say - Mr Xavier, you were pretty bloodied up when you came into that station, weren’t you?”
Charles tries very hard not to panic, but it’s hard when his heart feels like it’s clenching in his chest. “I told you,” he says, “he assaulted me. It was my blood. And I - might have fought back, so I suppose he - he might have bled, I don’t really-”
“How did you leave him? Your statement is, I’m afraid, a little confused. You say your friend Mr Lehnsherr found you?”
“Yes,” says Charles, mouthing in his panic, “I mean - Remy - Monsieur Le Beau left. After he was done with… with what he wanted, he left the building.”
“And just left you to go free?”
“I don’t know, it was all a blur.” Charles places his head in his hands, and then-
“Ah, mon petit,” says a voice that is both soft and hoarse at once, “for someone ‘oos special talent is convincin’ people o’ falsehoods, you’re an appallin’ liar, non?”
Charles feels the bottom drop from his stomach and the blood rush to his head, and he flicks his eyes to the side and watches in horror as a man with blood trickling from his bright red eyes scrapes a chair across the floor, sits in it, places his feet up on the desk, reaches into his grubby trenchcoat, and pulls out a dogeared cigarette. The man looks right at him, and blows him a kiss, and Charles knows in that moment that he is the only person in the world who can see this living corpse.
The detective says something, but Charles cannot hear, cannot hear anything but a chuckling ringing in his ears, and the quiet flickering sound of paper on skin.
Charles cannot think. “No,” he whispers, staring at the ghost of the man he killed, the man who even now is smirking and licking the rolling paper back down as he twirls it between long cold fingers.
“So at no point did you refuse his advances?” repeats the detective, sounding confused.
“Non,” says Remy Le Beau, lighting with a battered match a cigarette clamped in clenched teeth, “’e was beggin’ me for it, officer.”
“I - ” Charles wrenches himself back to reality, back to this world where dead men don’t laugh with that horrible, hissing corpse-rattle, “I - no, I meant I told him no. I told him I didn’t want it.”
“Well,” says the detective, peering over his glasses, “Mr Le Beau wasn’t that much larger than you, Mr Xavier. Are you seriously saying he physically overpowered you?”
“Yes,” Charles repeats, his mouth dry, “and anyway, I said no.”
“Are you sure he understood you?”
“He spoke English, didn’t he?” Charles says in bewilderment, “What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, a young British fella like you-”
“I’m from Westchester,” Charles snaps, “I have dual nationality, and I don’t see how that comes into it.”
“It comes into it, cher,” says Remy, blowing smoke from his nose and lips, “’cause it makes you dat much prettier, see?”
“It comes into it,” says the detective at the same time, and Charles tries to listen to the man who is actually real, “because it may have led you to not be clear with Mr Le Beau. I repeat, did you at any point… encourage him to believe you may have had leanings in that direction?”
“I am not,” says Charles, trying to remain calm, “homosexual.”
“The thing is, I don’t see anything here to suggest Mr Le Beau was either.”
“I don’t see how my sexual orientation would come into it anyway,” Charles snaps.
“Didn’t mean to offend you, sir, I just fail to see how a man of your size could be coerced into sodomy if he wasn’t in some way encouraging it.”
“I didn’t fucking encourage it,” Charles shouts, furious, and Remy’s laughter rings in his ears like alarm bells, harsh enough that he wants to strangle the sound from his lungs, and make him die, die again.
“Ahm ‘ere to make you an offer, Monsieur Le Beau,” Remy whispers, and suddenly he is by Charles’ ear, chuckling with his cold dead lips brushing Charles’ shivering skin, his long arms entwining around Charles’ neck, and Charles is on his feet, knocking his chair over, and shouting “don’t”.
“Mr Xavier,” says the detective, “if you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to keep you overnight in the cells-”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Charles hisses as the detective reaches for his arm, and he pushes him away hard enough that he falls against the table.
“You do that again, you goddamned British faggot,” says the detective, pulling out some cuffs, “and I swear to god you’ll be looking forward to a lot worse in the county jail showers.”
evening.
Remy follows Charles into the station cell, sauntering in through the wall at an easy, loping pace. Blood is streaming steadily from his eyes and his ears and his mouth, and it coats his teeth with a red stain.
“You know, ’is nice to see you again, cher,” he says with a sinful scarlet grin, “you’re lookin’ trés beau.”
Charles deliberately doesn’t look at him, because he doesn’t exist. He certainly doesn’t feel his pulse racing and the urge to be sick, to bash his head against the wall or hyperventilate rising again.
“Ah’m glad they’re workin’ out tha’ you killed me, doh, you shouldn’t ge’ away wiz it, no matter ‘ow pretty you are,” Remy says, casually flicking ash from the end of his cigarette. It hits the concrete floor and fades away into nothing at all.
“You deserved it,” says Charles, and feels like he’s signed his sanity away in blood.
Remy chuckles. “Ah’m bewildered tha’ you think you ‘ad any sanity left at all, to be honest.” He smirks. “Now, if ah was ‘aving this dream, I would be wond’rin why…”
“I know why,” says Charles, his head in his hands, “because I killed you and I - can’t fucking sleep.”
“Well, ah’d ‘ave sympathy, petit, but do you ‘ave any idea just ‘ow much it hurt?”
Remy shuffles up next to Charles on the iron-sprung bed, puts his hand just close enough to Charles’ thigh that it makes him panic, and says “You enjoyed i’.”
“You deserved it,” Charles repeats, and he tries not to smell Remy’s breath, which reeks of death and sex and blood and stale nicotine, “you - you did all that to me, you did worse, it wasn't my fault.”
“Oh, pfft,” says Remy, trapping his cigarette between his teeth and shrugging in a way that is more French than any Frenchman Charles has ever met, “all ah did was stop you playin’ ‘ard to get. You were temptin’ me.”
“You're not homosexual,” says Charles icily.
“Non, cher,” says Remy, and he leans over and gently, all too gently, places a lying kiss on the nape of Charles’ neck, “ah’m ‘alf French.”
Blood drips down from his eyes and lips into Charles’ hair. Charles gags, but he cannot pull away. “You’re American, you bastard,” he gasps.
“Details,” Remy replies with a smirk, “Nawlins is pra’tically France.”
Charles pushes his face closer into his hands and lets out a tiny sob.
“Oh, cher,” says Remy, sounding pitying and full almost of love, and Charles suddenly wants to kill him all over again, wants to rip out his heart and eat it and make him watch, but as he starts to bring the violent words out it turns into a cry, and then a sob, and then, finally, the tears squeeze out of his eyes.
“Fuck,” he hisses, wiping them away as quickly as he can, “this is fucking ridiculous, he’s not even real, I’m out of my fucking head.”
“I wonder why tha’ is?” asks Remy, placing a hand on the small of his back that Charles doesn’t feel strong enough to shrug away.
“I bled,” he whispers, “for six days, you know?”
“Ah know,” says Remy, because presumably he does.
“There was a red streak on my face for weeks. You cut the skin on my cheek. And now - fuck -”
“Now zere’s nozing to suggest you din’t lie but da way dey look a’ you.”
“Like I’m weak.”
“Eh, you are weak,” says Remy, and Charles snorts through the tears that are streaming down his face, through the blubber and the mucus and the streaking of his cheeks that have only just healed.
“Fuck you,” he says.
Remy moves his hand further down Charles’ waist. “Would you like to, cher?” he asks. “’Cause, you know, we ‘ave a while…”
“I am not,” Charles hisses, “reliving my own rape.”
“Well, oui, you are,” Remy points out.
“I don’t understand why this is happening,” he says in a hoarse voice, “it’s wrong, I was better, I’m - fucking depressed, I’m not insane.”
“Mebbe you’re missing me,” says Remy. “Or mebbe ’is guilt.”
“I have nothing to feel guilty about,” Charles mouths, unable to give voice to the lies.
“Well, den,” Remy shrugs, “ah suppose you mus’ be crazy, cher.”
Charles can feel his shoulders shaking. He is suddenly terrified that he will start laughing. “I can’t even let myself hear. I should be over this. I should be moving on.”
He looks at Remy, who is nodding in agreement. His dark red eyes gleam in the dim light of the bare bulb.
“How do I stop this?” he asks the man who made it happen, the irony not entirely lost of him.
“Ah wonder what ‘appens,” Remy says, staring at him like he is something altogether amazing, “when a telepa’z ‘as to find somethin’ else to do with ‘is ‘ead.”
“I can’t stop that,” Charles says, choking on the words, “I can’t let them feel this, I can’t kill them like I killed you, I care too much.”
“Oh, charmed. Would i’ kill you to say sorry?”
“I’m not fucking sorry,” Charles hisses, and he stands up then, lets Remy’s hand fall onto the springs and throws himself to the other side of the cell, as far away as he can get.
Remy stands, and moves over towards him - places his hands on the wall on either side of Charles’ face, and leans right in so his dead lips are close enough to kiss. Charles feels like he’s going to be sick, and then he whimpers “Please, no.”
“Mebbe I’m no’ dans la tete, petit,” says Remy, stubbing the cigarette out against the concrete, right next to Charles’ ear. “Mebbe ah’m ‘aunting you. P’raps ah’m a ghost.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Charles whispers, and then the door of the cell falls open. He looks up.
“Charles,” Moira says, looking relieved and angry and a thousand other emotions he cannot divine, “I’ve sorted it out, come on.”
Charles stares at her, turns trembling and ashamed to Remy, but the man is gone.
“Are you alright?” she asks, as brightly as she can. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Charles bites his lip. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he repeats, and he follows her out on legs that support him, despite all the odds.
twilight.
“I’m sick,” Charles says to Erik when he gets back to the study that evening, shaking and sweating, “and I need help.”
Erik looks up and sees that Charles is swaying on his feet; within seconds he is standing beside him, holding him in a firm but gentle grasp and helping him into a chair. Charles flinches away from the embrace, retches, but manages not to be sick.
“I thought you were fine?” Erik says, squatting in front of him and brushing hair out of his eyes with fingers that are steady and calm.
“I think I’m going mad,” Charles says urgently, “and it hurts, Erik.”
There is a note to his voice Erik has never heard before, and if he didn’t know better, he would say it was pleading. He never wants to have to hear it again.
“I’m sorry,” Erik gabbles, taking Charles’ hand in his, “Gott, I should have… we will find you help, I promise you.” Almost instinctively, he goes to stroke Charles’ hair again, and Charles grabs at his hand, draws it close to his face to nuzzle it.
“I don’t know anyone who can help… with this,” Charles says into Erik’s fingers.
“Then I will help you,” Erik says fiercely, “and if I can’t, I will scour this earth until I find the one who can, and I will make them help you. And you will get through this, because you are strong.” He lifts Charles’ head to make eye contact.
“Erik,” the other man gasps, and then, “sleep with me tonight. Please.”
Erik raises both eyebrows, genuinely surprised. “I don’t - think -” he begins, but Charles grips his hand so hard the nails dig in.
“No. God no. Just sleeping. Please. I can’t be alone. I can’t hear anyone and I can’t let them in and I don’t want to be alone tonight. I don’t want to see him again.”
If Erik doesn’t understand the words, he understands the feeling; knows it all too well.
“Alright,” he says, finally, “alright, calm down. I’m not going anywhere, I'll protect you.”
He reaches out for the little table by the side of the chair, and presses the white king into Charles’ hand hard enough to leave a mark.
Hard enough that Charles can actually feel it.
“I’m here,” he says again.
midnight.
Erik walks upstairs with him, and disappears for only a few seconds - a few seconds in which Charles panics, convinced Remy will appear from any door or window or nowhere at all - to grab some pyjamas, and they clamber awkwardly into Charles’ empty and lifeless bed together, their bodies not touching at all.
“How - would you like to…” Erik tries, and Charles reaches out with one tentative shaking hand and touches it lightly to the back of Erik’s.
“I’m here, Charles,” Erik says, quietly, stroking his thumb across cold and quivering skin, “I promise.”
Charles lets go of Erik’s hand as slowly as he dares, and rolls over, the void between the two bodies in the bed suddenly not feeling as big as it did. He shivers, and pulls the blanket over his chest.
Somewhere in the world people are thinking, and talking, and making love, and for so many reasons he cannot hear it happening. But for all that, he cannot hear that laughter either. He breathes deep, and slow, and then a cold foot reaches across the mattress and touches his. He jumps slightly, but he doesn’t draw away.
Charles fills his mind with the warmth of Erik’s body and the lightness of his breathing, and the gentle shuffling of his head on the pillows. He smiles, but only for a moment, and it is real and gentle and scared.
For once, he has something to think about.
And finally, for the first time in four weeks, he falls asleep.
-
part four: drawing thin
Characters: Charles, Erik, Raven, Moira, Hank, Alex, Sean (& Gambit)
Rating: R
Warnings: Deals with the aftermath of rape and graphic descriptions of post-traumatic response.
Summary: There's no such thing as ghosts.
My laptop is fixed; thank you so much for your patience guys! Honestly, the response has been amazing, I can't even begin to describe how happy it makes me.
part one: wheelspin
part two: laydown
backraise [off balance part three]
hear you now the captain,
heed his sorrowed cry,
the weight upon your eyelids
is dimes laid on your eyes
- The Decemberists, ‘The Island’
i dread too much, i dream too much,
i’m haunted by the ghosts in my machine
- Annie Lennox, ‘Ghosts in my Machine’
two days ago...
Charles cracked. The quiet in the night, the horrible violent awakening from the vividness of nightmares to the grey vapidity of nothing, nothing at all, nothing to whisper to the twisting hurting pieces of his mind grew too strong, and he opened his mind and heard everyone.
Oh god, he heard -
can’tcontrolitanymoretheburstsaretoostrongtheycomeinwaveseveryoneburns -
- no-onewillhelpandsheneverevenseesmysmilebutiwillchangeherforthebetter -
- flyingdreamsofflyinglikeaswallowlikethisishowiwasmeanttobe -
- wishicouldhelphimwhydoeshelookatmelikethathowdoimakehimsmile
- and then he was Raven, confused and awake, clutching her eiderdown to her as she curled in her bed, staring right ahead through yellow eyes and wishing she could save her brother who doesn’t smile any more.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, someone laughed.
Charles pulled out in a hurry, shut down the walls again with a sound through his mind like a blink and a squeal of tires, and decided never to do that again.
The world has been blessedly, horribly silent since.
the longest day:
midnight.
Charles sits cross-legged on his bed, unable to sleep, his lips pressed against his steepled fingers, staring out into nothing at all.
Here tonight in the quiet, Charles announces to the empty room that he is better; that he will be the better man. And he will be fine. He will smile and laugh and teach, and everything will be fine.
He sits on his bed and doesn’t sleep until an hour before the dawn. He tries to ignore the throbbing in his head; the clawing at the walls that he’s certain is unimportant, and tries not to give in to the dreams of hands, and lips, and things he doesn’t need to remember any more.
For a moment, he is sure he sees someone sitting in the corner of the room, smoke curling from a chair that is completely empty, but he takes it as read that it’s tiredness. Tiredness which cannot possibly be affecting his work, so is irrelevant.
And the silence ticks on.
dawn.
sweat step sweat step sweat step silence yes.
morning.
Charles jogs in from the track whistling; a tune he isn’t quite sure that he knows with a catch in his breath. Erik stares as he enters the kitchen and heads for the fridge.
“Are you - alright?” Erik asks, pausing with a mug of coffee halfway to his mouth.
Charles looks at him over the fridge door.
“Yes,” he says, “fine. Excellent. Groovy. Why?”
“I - just - you don’t have to do this, Charles, you know?”
“Oh, you can’t mope around forever, Erik,” Charles says, still breathless from the run, and he takes a swig of milk from the bottle and wipes his mouth on a teatowel. Erik grunts in response, but looks unconvinced.
“Otherwise,” Charles continues blithely, “you get obsessed with revenge, and you upset everyone, and that’s not healthy at all.”
Erik starts, but Charles is still humming something mindless (to fill the void), and having grabbed a slice of toast from the table, he shouts “Alex!” with his lips and his mouth and actual words, and leaves the room to train children who, as he has said before, just don’t understand what they need.
midday.
The man is standing in the hall looking at the ceiling as Charles enters, talking animatedly to Alex about how impressed he is that Alex kept practising on his own, and Charles doesn’t notice him at first.
Really, he thinks later, that should have been a sign, even then - that he, Charles, didn’t notice something.
“Mr Charles Xavier?” the man says, stepping forward.
“Yes,” says Charles, coming to a stop, and trying to fight off the urges to run, run away and make him disappear all at once. “May I help you?”
He pulls out a detective’s badge and holds it up. He has yellowing teeth that speak of too many cigarettes, a weary look in his eye, and thick rimmed glasses. “Mr Xavier, I’m from the county police department. I’d like to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“You told them where you live?” Erik hisses, appearing from nowhere, sounding rage-filled and twisted.
“No…” Charles says, confused.
“What’s this about?” Erik asks, folding his arms. The detective looks at him, unimpressed and apparently unconcerned.
“Do you have a visa to be in this country, sir?” he asks.
“Is it about the noise?” Charles asks, desperately hoping that Erik won’t kill the man. “Because… er… we have some young men on the premises who-”
“Mr Xavier, I understand from information received from colleagues in Lousiana that you recently had a run in with Mr Remy Le Beau. I’d simply like to speak to you about it, if that’s alright.”
Charles feels everything fall away; feels like dropping to the floor; feels like he’s been shot. Somewhere far off he can hear that same wretched person laughing again, and he makes a note to throttle them later. “I - I chose not to press charges,” he says, backing against a wall without meaning to move.
“So I understand,” the detective continues, “but I’d still like to talk to have a chat.”
Charles feels for the wall with his hands, clinging onto anything that is real and solid. But he cannot manage words, and Erik turns to the detective.
“Is he being arrested?” he asks. Charles wants to be grateful for somebody speaking, but all he can manage is half a word from his throat that comes out in a blur of concern.
The detective smiles thinly. “Not yet.”
“Where - where -” Charles tries, dizzy with worry.
“Just come along with me to the local police station, Mr Xavier, and everything’ll be fine,” says the detective.
“I’ll go with him,” Erik says, and suddenly Charles feels a flare at his arrogance, at his patronising cheek, and he remembers that he is better.
“I will be fine, Erik,” he says, stepping forwards, just as the detective looks Erik up and down, and says, finally, “who exactly are you?”
“I’m his lawyer,” says Erik, dripping with sarcasm, “and who are you?”
“You know what, Erik,” says Charles, rounding on him, “if I need a lawyer, I’ll call my actual lawyer.”
“Look, Charles,” says Erik, slowly, but Charles glares at him. He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Alright, just… be careful.”
“Honestly,” says Charles, smiling in a way he does not feel, “it’s fine,” and he tries not to feel like a criminal as the detective gestures to a waiting car.
He clenches his fingers into fists, climbs in, and decides with finality not to have a panic attack as they pulls off down the drive.
afternoon.
“Remy Le Beau,” says the detective, and leaves it at that.
Charles thinks that this is going to be a very dull interview if that’s all that’s said.
“Yes?” he says.
The detective sighs as if Charles is being deliberately difficult, reaches into his suitcase, and slides a mug shot across the table.
The man in the photo is leering at the camera with crooked teeth and a look of pride and excitement, flirting with the photographer and the world. He is holding a placard with a name and a date of birth some thirty years earlier on it in long white fingers, quite far from his body, as though it has nothing to do with him. Charles feels sick to his stomach. He glances at the red rimmed eyes as briefly as he can get away with, and then pushes it back across the table with trembling fingers. “Yes?” he says again, his voice level.
“That is the man you are familiar with as Remy Le Beau? Don’t be afraid to take your time.”
“That’s him,” says Charles, not letting himself look down at the photograph, “I wouldn’t say we were familiar.”
“Were?” asks the detective, leaning forward.
“Well - I’ve only met him once, and he assaulted me. I don’t really think we’ll be firm friends.”
“He’s got a roguish look in his eye, doesn’t he?” the detective muses, looking at the photograph himself. “He does look like the career criminal type.”
“He said he was a thief,” says Charles, suddenly desperately wanting to go home, “is that why you’re here?”
The detective laughs quietly. “No, Mr Xavier.”
“Look, if this is about - his assault, I’ve already said I don’t want to press charges, I just want to forget about it and go about my life.”
“And how are you doing with that? Forgetting about it?”
Charles presses his lips tightly together. “Wonderful,” he says, smiling thinly. “Never better.”
The detective smirks and writes something down. “Interesting,” he says, picking up a piece of paper, “and yet you claimed he forced sodomy on you, didn’t you? Well, that is surprising. And you see, that makes me concerned with what I see as the anomaly here, and it makes me wonder what exactly you were doing in New Orleans in the first place.”
Erik warned him, grabbed his arm before he got in the car, whispered ‘if they want to ask about the children, make something up, for god’s sake, play with their minds or something’. And Charles was prepared to lie; Charles was prepared for anything, but god, how can you prepare for this?
“I - I’d gone for some CIA recruitment,” he says, “I explained all this. It’s in my statement.”
“Well, the CIA don’t seem to know anything about that. In fact, they presumed you’d gone back to England after an incident at the facility you were working at.”
“Ask Agent McTaggert, she’ll tell you all about it.” says Charles, pinching the bridge of his nose and praying that Moira will have enough sense (and love left for him) to say something that supports him.
“Oh, don’t worry, Mr Xavier, I intend to.”
The detective picks up the picture and looks at it, looks right into the dark red eyes. “He was twenty nine, Mr Xavier,” he says, and then he looks up. “How old are you?”
“Thirty four,” says Charles, “but I don’t see-”
“Now, Remy ‘Gambit’ Le Beau, according to this rather sizeable file I have here, was an accomplished thief, a street fighter, and a bit of a ladies’ man. A sizeable list of past partners here, both sexual and professional. However, I see nothing in here to suggest a history of sexual violence.”
Charles swallows. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t assault people,” he says, “it means that nobody came forward to report him.”
“Very true. How did you feel, after your… accident?”
Charles looks at the ceiling and breathes out through his nose. He wants nothing so much as to climb inside this man’s stupid misguided thoughts and make him say goodbye, but he doesn’t, because he isn't sure if he could resist the urge to destroy. “I’m managing,” he says, although it does not even begin to answer the question.
“So you’re saying you gave no encouragement to his suggestions of homosexual activity?”
“What? No! None whatsoever,” Charles says, wearily. “I’ve said this. I don’t want to have to say it again.”
“Mr Xavier,” asks the detective, “would it surprise you to know that Mr Le Beau is dead?”
Charles feels a lead lump in his chest, feels a squeezing, feels the panic and the bile rising. “Yes,” he lies, the shock all too real. “I mean, I’m surprised.”
The detective looks unconfused, and smiles a grim and unamused smile before leaning forwards, his hands clasped in front of him. “Really,” he says, and it is not a question.
“I mean, I’m not sorry, but I’m - how - how did he die?” asks Charles, because perhaps if someone says it he can finally believe that it’s real.
He expects, perhaps, that the words will hurt, that they will be confusing and terrifying and nauseating. He doesn’t expect them to make him want to cry.
“Someone took him to pieces,” says the detective. “I presume they blew him to high heaven with some form of explosive, or maybe they just cut him to shreds. The New Orleans forensics department hasn’t said yet, although believe me, they will. At any rate, they found his head on one side of the room, fingers on the other, and blood on just about every surface imaginable.”
The detective watches him very closely, glances at the file, and then, almost as an afterthought, adds “Say - Mr Xavier, you were pretty bloodied up when you came into that station, weren’t you?”
Charles tries very hard not to panic, but it’s hard when his heart feels like it’s clenching in his chest. “I told you,” he says, “he assaulted me. It was my blood. And I - might have fought back, so I suppose he - he might have bled, I don’t really-”
“How did you leave him? Your statement is, I’m afraid, a little confused. You say your friend Mr Lehnsherr found you?”
“Yes,” says Charles, mouthing in his panic, “I mean - Remy - Monsieur Le Beau left. After he was done with… with what he wanted, he left the building.”
“And just left you to go free?”
“I don’t know, it was all a blur.” Charles places his head in his hands, and then-
“Ah, mon petit,” says a voice that is both soft and hoarse at once, “for someone ‘oos special talent is convincin’ people o’ falsehoods, you’re an appallin’ liar, non?”
Charles feels the bottom drop from his stomach and the blood rush to his head, and he flicks his eyes to the side and watches in horror as a man with blood trickling from his bright red eyes scrapes a chair across the floor, sits in it, places his feet up on the desk, reaches into his grubby trenchcoat, and pulls out a dogeared cigarette. The man looks right at him, and blows him a kiss, and Charles knows in that moment that he is the only person in the world who can see this living corpse.
The detective says something, but Charles cannot hear, cannot hear anything but a chuckling ringing in his ears, and the quiet flickering sound of paper on skin.
Charles cannot think. “No,” he whispers, staring at the ghost of the man he killed, the man who even now is smirking and licking the rolling paper back down as he twirls it between long cold fingers.
“So at no point did you refuse his advances?” repeats the detective, sounding confused.
“Non,” says Remy Le Beau, lighting with a battered match a cigarette clamped in clenched teeth, “’e was beggin’ me for it, officer.”
“I - ” Charles wrenches himself back to reality, back to this world where dead men don’t laugh with that horrible, hissing corpse-rattle, “I - no, I meant I told him no. I told him I didn’t want it.”
“Well,” says the detective, peering over his glasses, “Mr Le Beau wasn’t that much larger than you, Mr Xavier. Are you seriously saying he physically overpowered you?”
“Yes,” Charles repeats, his mouth dry, “and anyway, I said no.”
“Are you sure he understood you?”
“He spoke English, didn’t he?” Charles says in bewilderment, “What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, a young British fella like you-”
“I’m from Westchester,” Charles snaps, “I have dual nationality, and I don’t see how that comes into it.”
“It comes into it, cher,” says Remy, blowing smoke from his nose and lips, “’cause it makes you dat much prettier, see?”
“It comes into it,” says the detective at the same time, and Charles tries to listen to the man who is actually real, “because it may have led you to not be clear with Mr Le Beau. I repeat, did you at any point… encourage him to believe you may have had leanings in that direction?”
“I am not,” says Charles, trying to remain calm, “homosexual.”
“The thing is, I don’t see anything here to suggest Mr Le Beau was either.”
“I don’t see how my sexual orientation would come into it anyway,” Charles snaps.
“Didn’t mean to offend you, sir, I just fail to see how a man of your size could be coerced into sodomy if he wasn’t in some way encouraging it.”
“I didn’t fucking encourage it,” Charles shouts, furious, and Remy’s laughter rings in his ears like alarm bells, harsh enough that he wants to strangle the sound from his lungs, and make him die, die again.
“Ahm ‘ere to make you an offer, Monsieur Le Beau,” Remy whispers, and suddenly he is by Charles’ ear, chuckling with his cold dead lips brushing Charles’ shivering skin, his long arms entwining around Charles’ neck, and Charles is on his feet, knocking his chair over, and shouting “don’t”.
“Mr Xavier,” says the detective, “if you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to keep you overnight in the cells-”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Charles hisses as the detective reaches for his arm, and he pushes him away hard enough that he falls against the table.
“You do that again, you goddamned British faggot,” says the detective, pulling out some cuffs, “and I swear to god you’ll be looking forward to a lot worse in the county jail showers.”
evening.
Remy follows Charles into the station cell, sauntering in through the wall at an easy, loping pace. Blood is streaming steadily from his eyes and his ears and his mouth, and it coats his teeth with a red stain.
“You know, ’is nice to see you again, cher,” he says with a sinful scarlet grin, “you’re lookin’ trés beau.”
Charles deliberately doesn’t look at him, because he doesn’t exist. He certainly doesn’t feel his pulse racing and the urge to be sick, to bash his head against the wall or hyperventilate rising again.
“Ah’m glad they’re workin’ out tha’ you killed me, doh, you shouldn’t ge’ away wiz it, no matter ‘ow pretty you are,” Remy says, casually flicking ash from the end of his cigarette. It hits the concrete floor and fades away into nothing at all.
“You deserved it,” says Charles, and feels like he’s signed his sanity away in blood.
Remy chuckles. “Ah’m bewildered tha’ you think you ‘ad any sanity left at all, to be honest.” He smirks. “Now, if ah was ‘aving this dream, I would be wond’rin why…”
“I know why,” says Charles, his head in his hands, “because I killed you and I - can’t fucking sleep.”
“Well, ah’d ‘ave sympathy, petit, but do you ‘ave any idea just ‘ow much it hurt?”
Remy shuffles up next to Charles on the iron-sprung bed, puts his hand just close enough to Charles’ thigh that it makes him panic, and says “You enjoyed i’.”
“You deserved it,” Charles repeats, and he tries not to smell Remy’s breath, which reeks of death and sex and blood and stale nicotine, “you - you did all that to me, you did worse, it wasn't my fault.”
“Oh, pfft,” says Remy, trapping his cigarette between his teeth and shrugging in a way that is more French than any Frenchman Charles has ever met, “all ah did was stop you playin’ ‘ard to get. You were temptin’ me.”
“You're not homosexual,” says Charles icily.
“Non, cher,” says Remy, and he leans over and gently, all too gently, places a lying kiss on the nape of Charles’ neck, “ah’m ‘alf French.”
Blood drips down from his eyes and lips into Charles’ hair. Charles gags, but he cannot pull away. “You’re American, you bastard,” he gasps.
“Details,” Remy replies with a smirk, “Nawlins is pra’tically France.”
Charles pushes his face closer into his hands and lets out a tiny sob.
“Oh, cher,” says Remy, sounding pitying and full almost of love, and Charles suddenly wants to kill him all over again, wants to rip out his heart and eat it and make him watch, but as he starts to bring the violent words out it turns into a cry, and then a sob, and then, finally, the tears squeeze out of his eyes.
“Fuck,” he hisses, wiping them away as quickly as he can, “this is fucking ridiculous, he’s not even real, I’m out of my fucking head.”
“I wonder why tha’ is?” asks Remy, placing a hand on the small of his back that Charles doesn’t feel strong enough to shrug away.
“I bled,” he whispers, “for six days, you know?”
“Ah know,” says Remy, because presumably he does.
“There was a red streak on my face for weeks. You cut the skin on my cheek. And now - fuck -”
“Now zere’s nozing to suggest you din’t lie but da way dey look a’ you.”
“Like I’m weak.”
“Eh, you are weak,” says Remy, and Charles snorts through the tears that are streaming down his face, through the blubber and the mucus and the streaking of his cheeks that have only just healed.
“Fuck you,” he says.
Remy moves his hand further down Charles’ waist. “Would you like to, cher?” he asks. “’Cause, you know, we ‘ave a while…”
“I am not,” Charles hisses, “reliving my own rape.”
“Well, oui, you are,” Remy points out.
“I don’t understand why this is happening,” he says in a hoarse voice, “it’s wrong, I was better, I’m - fucking depressed, I’m not insane.”
“Mebbe you’re missing me,” says Remy. “Or mebbe ’is guilt.”
“I have nothing to feel guilty about,” Charles mouths, unable to give voice to the lies.
“Well, den,” Remy shrugs, “ah suppose you mus’ be crazy, cher.”
Charles can feel his shoulders shaking. He is suddenly terrified that he will start laughing. “I can’t even let myself hear. I should be over this. I should be moving on.”
He looks at Remy, who is nodding in agreement. His dark red eyes gleam in the dim light of the bare bulb.
“How do I stop this?” he asks the man who made it happen, the irony not entirely lost of him.
“Ah wonder what ‘appens,” Remy says, staring at him like he is something altogether amazing, “when a telepa’z ‘as to find somethin’ else to do with ‘is ‘ead.”
“I can’t stop that,” Charles says, choking on the words, “I can’t let them feel this, I can’t kill them like I killed you, I care too much.”
“Oh, charmed. Would i’ kill you to say sorry?”
“I’m not fucking sorry,” Charles hisses, and he stands up then, lets Remy’s hand fall onto the springs and throws himself to the other side of the cell, as far away as he can get.
Remy stands, and moves over towards him - places his hands on the wall on either side of Charles’ face, and leans right in so his dead lips are close enough to kiss. Charles feels like he’s going to be sick, and then he whimpers “Please, no.”
“Mebbe I’m no’ dans la tete, petit,” says Remy, stubbing the cigarette out against the concrete, right next to Charles’ ear. “Mebbe ah’m ‘aunting you. P’raps ah’m a ghost.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Charles whispers, and then the door of the cell falls open. He looks up.
“Charles,” Moira says, looking relieved and angry and a thousand other emotions he cannot divine, “I’ve sorted it out, come on.”
Charles stares at her, turns trembling and ashamed to Remy, but the man is gone.
“Are you alright?” she asks, as brightly as she can. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Charles bites his lip. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he repeats, and he follows her out on legs that support him, despite all the odds.
twilight.
“I’m sick,” Charles says to Erik when he gets back to the study that evening, shaking and sweating, “and I need help.”
Erik looks up and sees that Charles is swaying on his feet; within seconds he is standing beside him, holding him in a firm but gentle grasp and helping him into a chair. Charles flinches away from the embrace, retches, but manages not to be sick.
“I thought you were fine?” Erik says, squatting in front of him and brushing hair out of his eyes with fingers that are steady and calm.
“I think I’m going mad,” Charles says urgently, “and it hurts, Erik.”
There is a note to his voice Erik has never heard before, and if he didn’t know better, he would say it was pleading. He never wants to have to hear it again.
“I’m sorry,” Erik gabbles, taking Charles’ hand in his, “Gott, I should have… we will find you help, I promise you.” Almost instinctively, he goes to stroke Charles’ hair again, and Charles grabs at his hand, draws it close to his face to nuzzle it.
“I don’t know anyone who can help… with this,” Charles says into Erik’s fingers.
“Then I will help you,” Erik says fiercely, “and if I can’t, I will scour this earth until I find the one who can, and I will make them help you. And you will get through this, because you are strong.” He lifts Charles’ head to make eye contact.
“Erik,” the other man gasps, and then, “sleep with me tonight. Please.”
Erik raises both eyebrows, genuinely surprised. “I don’t - think -” he begins, but Charles grips his hand so hard the nails dig in.
“No. God no. Just sleeping. Please. I can’t be alone. I can’t hear anyone and I can’t let them in and I don’t want to be alone tonight. I don’t want to see him again.”
If Erik doesn’t understand the words, he understands the feeling; knows it all too well.
“Alright,” he says, finally, “alright, calm down. I’m not going anywhere, I'll protect you.”
He reaches out for the little table by the side of the chair, and presses the white king into Charles’ hand hard enough to leave a mark.
Hard enough that Charles can actually feel it.
“I’m here,” he says again.
midnight.
Erik walks upstairs with him, and disappears for only a few seconds - a few seconds in which Charles panics, convinced Remy will appear from any door or window or nowhere at all - to grab some pyjamas, and they clamber awkwardly into Charles’ empty and lifeless bed together, their bodies not touching at all.
“How - would you like to…” Erik tries, and Charles reaches out with one tentative shaking hand and touches it lightly to the back of Erik’s.
“I’m here, Charles,” Erik says, quietly, stroking his thumb across cold and quivering skin, “I promise.”
Charles lets go of Erik’s hand as slowly as he dares, and rolls over, the void between the two bodies in the bed suddenly not feeling as big as it did. He shivers, and pulls the blanket over his chest.
Somewhere in the world people are thinking, and talking, and making love, and for so many reasons he cannot hear it happening. But for all that, he cannot hear that laughter either. He breathes deep, and slow, and then a cold foot reaches across the mattress and touches his. He jumps slightly, but he doesn’t draw away.
Charles fills his mind with the warmth of Erik’s body and the lightness of his breathing, and the gentle shuffling of his head on the pillows. He smiles, but only for a moment, and it is real and gentle and scared.
For once, he has something to think about.
And finally, for the first time in four weeks, he falls asleep.
-
part four: drawing thin