fic: your star has faded (charles xavier)
notes: this is also for phoenixnoor. unbetad.
They fight.
They fight and Charles freezes the minds of every one of them he can, has them walk themselves to the police station. Ignores the shouts in his head, his sister Raven Mystique screaming loudest of all, what are you doing--Charles stop--I’m your sister you can’t do this but Charles shuts his eyes tighter, tells himself that she gave up that right the first time she killed a child.
Charles knows that they’ll be out soon enough, ready for blood once again but see, there’s this split second every time Charles does something that isn’t simply passive-aggresive, this split second when Erik looks at him from under that stupid fucking helmet with dispair and shock and hurt and anger and Charles wants to laugh in his face.
Charles lies bleeding on that beach for three and a half hours, waiting as Sean flies to the Cuban mainland.
He wakes up in a cold, white hospital and it smells like rubbing alcohol and death and Charles hears rushed murmurs of Spanish and he doesn’t fully understand the language but you don’t need words to get pain and suffering.
He cannot feel his legs and he erases the memory of Hank’s existence and he’s strangely okay with this, he thinks.
He wakes up and he’s not screaming, but he’s fucking projecting and this is so embarrassing, feeling the twitches of consciousness from other rooms in the mansion, all on his same floor because--
He tries to get off the bed to get a glass of milk, splash some water on his face. He fails.
He cannot walk and he turns his head to face the white, blank wall and he does not cry. He ignores Hank, Sean, Alex’s pleads to tell them what to do, because they are not okay and they are not okay.
“I want my baby sister,” Charles says, but he does not look at them and he does not particularly care for the jumbled thoughts they try to not send at him.
Hank thinks, she left us, and he doesn’t mean to let Charles hear but there a lot of things that people don’t want Charles to know.
Charles thinks, ever-observant, Hank. And you are blue and the grass is green and my legs don’t work. Your skills of deduction amaze me, and he’s sure he didn’t mean for Hank or Alex or Sean to hear.
They just do.
-
Charles is little and he doesn’t quite understand how to control his powers yet but he hides Raven in his room, enters his mother’s mind and it’s a terrible place to be but he has to do this--he enters his mother’s mind and he tells her, you have a daughter. Her name is Raven and can sometimes change into other people but you are okay with this. This is okay. You will tell no one. You will tell no one. You will tell no one. You will tell no one.
The next morning, Charles brings Raven down to breakfast in one of his too-small pajamas and he gives her toast and orange juice and eggs and absolutely everything she could ever want to eat and his mother says, “Raven, darling, don’t stuff your mouth in such a way. You’ll start to resemble the Richards children,” and Raven looks up, blue eyes of her form for the day wide, toast halfway up to her mouth.
Charles nudges her mind, says, call her Mother, Raven, and she does.
“Sorry, Mother,” Raven whispers, shy and scared and nothing like you’d expect an Xavier child to sound but Charles will work on that .
“Mother, Raven’s clothes are all too small,” and he’s been repeating this in her mind all night long.
His mother nods, snaps her fingers and has Anna Marie take Raven’s measures and no one questions anything; they take Raven in as if they saw her come out of his mother themselves and you didn’t think that Charles would leave any loose threads, did you?
Raven is fifteen and she gets her heart broken and Charles knows that it’s a terrible, terrible thing to do and that he shouldn’t use his powers in such a manner, but he has the boy who hurt her blurt out all of his dirty little secrets in the cinema and Raven giggles into his shoulder and Charles smirks.
It is 1962 and they are getting prepared the morning of and Raven bounds up to Charles, grins and jumps into his arms, blue--mutant and proud-- and tells him, “I adore you, no matter what happens today, and you’ll always be my favorite.”
“You are a silly, silly girl, darling,” and plants a loud kiss on her cheek and nothing could ever go wrong, not with Raven smiling at him like that and Erik tolerating Moira and Sean can fly, did you know that?
The sky is blue and the sun is out and Charles feels fantastic.
It is 1962, two weeks after, and Charles feels absolutely nothing.
“Prof, we don’t know what you want.”
“I want to walk,” says Charles.
Hank has his claws against Raven’s throat and Charles can’t do this.
“Hank,” he chokes out.
Hank pulls back and Erik chooses that moment to send a bullet flying full-speed at a bystander, keeps the pellet a millimeter away from entering the woman’s brain.
“Checkmate,” he says.
The human dies.
Four years later, Charles has eleven new students.
He buys a gun, a ‘62-make that’s gone out of production and has Azazel shoot himself in the head with it.
“Check,” he says.
This is not the first person he has killed.
They fight.
They fight and Charles freezes the minds of every one of them he can, has them walk themselves to the police station. Ignores the shouts in his head, his sister Raven Mystique screaming loudest of all, what are you doing--Charles stop--I’m your sister you can’t do this but Charles shuts his eyes tighter, tells himself that she gave up that right the first time she killed a child.
Charles knows that they’ll be out soon enough, ready for blood once again but see, there’s this split second every time Charles does something that isn’t simply passive-aggresive, this split second when Erik looks at him from under that stupid fucking helmet with dispair and shock and hurt and anger and Charles wants to laugh in his face.
Charles lies bleeding on that beach for three and a half hours, waiting as Sean flies to the Cuban mainland.
He wakes up in a cold, white hospital and it smells like rubbing alcohol and death and Charles hears rushed murmurs of Spanish and he doesn’t fully understand the language but you don’t need words to get pain and suffering.
He cannot feel his legs and he erases the memory of Hank’s existence and he’s strangely okay with this, he thinks.
He wakes up and he’s not screaming, but he’s fucking projecting and this is so embarrassing, feeling the twitches of consciousness from other rooms in the mansion, all on his same floor because--
He tries to get off the bed to get a glass of milk, splash some water on his face. He fails.
He cannot walk and he turns his head to face the white, blank wall and he does not cry. He ignores Hank, Sean, Alex’s pleads to tell them what to do, because they are not okay and they are not okay.
“I want my baby sister,” Charles says, but he does not look at them and he does not particularly care for the jumbled thoughts they try to not send at him.
Hank thinks, she left us, and he doesn’t mean to let Charles hear but there a lot of things that people don’t want Charles to know.
Charles thinks, ever-observant, Hank. And you are blue and the grass is green and my legs don’t work. Your skills of deduction amaze me, and he’s sure he didn’t mean for Hank or Alex or Sean to hear.
They just do.
-
Charles is little and he doesn’t quite understand how to control his powers yet but he hides Raven in his room, enters his mother’s mind and it’s a terrible place to be but he has to do this--he enters his mother’s mind and he tells her, you have a daughter. Her name is Raven and can sometimes change into other people but you are okay with this. This is okay. You will tell no one. You will tell no one. You will tell no one. You will tell no one.
The next morning, Charles brings Raven down to breakfast in one of his too-small pajamas and he gives her toast and orange juice and eggs and absolutely everything she could ever want to eat and his mother says, “Raven, darling, don’t stuff your mouth in such a way. You’ll start to resemble the Richards children,” and Raven looks up, blue eyes of her form for the day wide, toast halfway up to her mouth.
Charles nudges her mind, says, call her Mother, Raven, and she does.
“Sorry, Mother,” Raven whispers, shy and scared and nothing like you’d expect an Xavier child to sound but Charles will work on that .
“Mother, Raven’s clothes are all too small,” and he’s been repeating this in her mind all night long.
His mother nods, snaps her fingers and has Anna Marie take Raven’s measures and no one questions anything; they take Raven in as if they saw her come out of his mother themselves and you didn’t think that Charles would leave any loose threads, did you?
Raven is fifteen and she gets her heart broken and Charles knows that it’s a terrible, terrible thing to do and that he shouldn’t use his powers in such a manner, but he has the boy who hurt her blurt out all of his dirty little secrets in the cinema and Raven giggles into his shoulder and Charles smirks.
It is 1962 and they are getting prepared the morning of and Raven bounds up to Charles, grins and jumps into his arms, blue--mutant and proud-- and tells him, “I adore you, no matter what happens today, and you’ll always be my favorite.”
“You are a silly, silly girl, darling,” and plants a loud kiss on her cheek and nothing could ever go wrong, not with Raven smiling at him like that and Erik tolerating Moira and Sean can fly, did you know that?
The sky is blue and the sun is out and Charles feels fantastic.
It is 1962, two weeks after, and Charles feels absolutely nothing.
“Prof, we don’t know what you want.”
“I want to walk,” says Charles.
Hank has his claws against Raven’s throat and Charles can’t do this.
“Hank,” he chokes out.
Hank pulls back and Erik chooses that moment to send a bullet flying full-speed at a bystander, keeps the pellet a millimeter away from entering the woman’s brain.
“Checkmate,” he says.
The human dies.
Four years later, Charles has eleven new students.
He buys a gun, a ‘62-make that’s gone out of production and has Azazel shoot himself in the head with it.
“Check,” he says.
This is not the first person he has killed.