Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Charles woke it was still dark. The curtains in his room were deep red and drawn tight, meeting in the middle of a big bay window. It was the only window in his bedroom and most mornings it was the light that snuck in around the edges of the curtain that woke him, but not this morning. This morning it was earlier, perhaps five o’clock, although Charles wasn’t sure of the exact time.

Winters in upstate New York were dark. The sunset earlier and rose later. Frost sprinkled across the frozen ground, ice glittering as the sun danced across the sky, and then the world was plunged into darkness again. An early dark, a hard dark, where the sunset around five in the evening.

Eventually, the snow would be gathered into big heaps, looking like a confectioner’s sugar. Soon enormous snowdrifts would surround the mansion and many of the lower story windows would be whited out. Hank or Alex would take the shovels and plow a path to the car for him. Though his wheelchair would often stick in the snow anyway, even when they toiled to pack it down.

Charles took a few moments to resent Hank for all his fur. Where he was freezing, Hank rarely wore a jacket. One of the few men in perhaps all the world who had such a luxury.

After a few minutes of more thinking and he propped himself up on his elbows. A moment passed and after some resistance from his lower body, he worked himself into a seated position and tossed his blanket aside.

Charles took a moment to breathe, breaths coming heavily from the exertion he still wasn’t used to. His legs were thinning. His hair was thinning, perhaps slowly, but undeniably. Sometimes the fact that he was paralyzed still stopped his heart. Damn fucking legs. Charles never would have thought this would be his life, the idea had never once crossed his mind. He was young, he was thirty. Thirty was young, wasn’t it? And yet…

He took his right leg by his clad knee, pulled at his pants, and swung it off the edge of the bed. Next, his left leg which always took a little more work than his right leg seemed to. After a few more adjustments of his lower body, he was able to transfer his body from his bed to his chair. Placing both hands on his armrests he shifted his hips with what little mobility he was lucky enough to have.

He pulled each foot onto their footrest which was Hank’s design, modeled after chairs for sport. Easier to maneuver, more lightweight, and manageable. It took up far less space to have his feet resting on the one bar than on two separate footrests. It could be taken apart so that he could move it in and out of the car himself. He was happy with it. Fuck. He was happy with it. Compliancy? No. No. They told him, the doctors said he would never walk again. It wasn’t compliancy. It was reality.

Then he worked his sleeping pants off, getting a little frustrated as his left hip refused to move at all. Even though his right hip had barely any mobility, it was enough to make a large difference in Charles’ life. He manhandled his legs free of his pajamas and reached for his slacks hanging wrinkled on the open drawer of his dresser. He took the task one leg at a time. Forcing them up over his ankles and then his shin, thigh, and then around his hips, still that damned left hip, then onto his waist. He sighed, already tired, the surgeries still taking their toll on his body.

Shoes and socks came next. He took his leg by the bottom of his pants and propped each leg, one at a time, on the opposite knee. Slowly forcing each brown oxford shoe on his feet, which were unmoving of course. The task was mostly aggravating. Who knew shoes would be such a problem?

With his shoes on he admired the way his body, and all bodies adapted to injury. His shoulders just a little more toned, his stomach now flat but only above his belly button-or, he thought...his T12 vertebrae. His chest and upper abdominal muscles picked up where his lower abdominal and hip muscles had been paralyzed.

He pulled his button-up over his head, and then, finally, his black tie.

He looked at himself one last time before leaving his room, his top button still undone.

Charles threw the occasional look out the hallway windows as he made his way to the entryway. The dark just barely beginning to dawn. There were only mentions of sunshine in the air now, a pinkish tone to the dark blue morning. A yawn forced him to slow his chair just a bit and he compulsively covered his mouth with one hand. He met the wheels again after gliding quietly forward for a second or two. His rhythmic pushing resumed. Taking the corner he entered the main hall, the darkly stained door held back to winter like the strong helm of a ship.

Charles yawned again and reached to pick up the bag he’d packed the night before. The pack was still wrinkled into the left corner of his reddish loveseat.

Today was the day he thought to himself. He was going to break Erik out of prison. And not any prison, the one beneath the Pentagon. A less intelligent man might tell Charles not to do it, or even that he couldn’t, pointing at his wheelchair as if it were any hindrance to him. A less intelligent man might presume to tell Charles what he could and couldn’t do. Charles could do just about anything he wanted with nothing more than a controlled thought. Charles was a god, and he knew it.

Within a few sleepy seconds, he was out the side door and down a steep-ish ramp. His wheels spinning under frozen fingers. He gripped his chair, bringing it to a halt, coming to a controlled stop outside the driver's side of his car. It was the only one Hank had modified with hand controls. The lewd black paint burned cold, sharp with winter’s air. The door came open and Charles closed the gap by another half foot. A quick transfer and then his two legs were pulled in without much issue. He put on his seatbelt, the last thing he wanted was to ruin his nice clothes if he fell out of the car. The chair came apart and Charles removed each wheel in quick succession, placing each snugly onto the passenger seat. He reclined his chair and dragged the frame across his lap.

It was with a great amount of uncertainty that Charles backed his car out. The small black frame slowly swallowed up into the windblown snow. The sky was still dark, sunlight pushing vapidly on the other side as if it didn’t care for winter either. He knew very well that if something were to happen, an accident say...or perhaps if his car became stuck, he would be left with just his telepathy to save him.

Later, when Hank came to, it would be with a whole lot of sunlight in his eyes, a horrific headache, and a missing paraplegic.

Chapter Text

About halfway to DC Charles realized how cold his hands were. He pulled into the breakdown lane and dug out some driving gloves. Much better. The drive would take him five long hours if he didn’t stop, but there was no need to stretch his legs he figured. Not at all what Hank would say and perhaps Charles would pay for it later. He pushed on the gas harder. About two hours from DC, he began to rehearse his plan. He was a tourist, nothing more. Once he was inside the Pentagon, he would be wise to disappear. A far from an impossible feat for him. Nobody could know he’d been there. As far as his intel informed him, Erik was being held on the lowest level, which he had made sure had an elevator. He would imagine his absolute frustration if he made it that far only to discover hundreds of stairs that he could not descend. What had stopped the world’s most powerful telepath from breaking the mutant terrorist Erik Lenhenser out of prison, why a staircase, of course, one of the few things Charles could not easily overcome.

Charles was going in empty-handed, but his left pocket was full of small metal barbells, so maybe not so empty-handed after all. A smile crossed Charles’ face as he pulled to a rough stop in the parking lot. Best to hide in plain sight, he figured. He leveraged a deep breath. Charles had not been out in public since the accident, despite having had ran a school, he felt surprisingly self-conclusions. He ran his hands nervously down his thighs. Was he doing this?

Erik, he thought, can you hear me?

Nothing.

 “I need you to destroy the surveillance tapes as soon as you can…” he said under his breath, but he was speaking to no one.

He could appear invisible, but only insofar as the human mind went. 

He began the process of fumbling his chair from the car, setting it up next to him on the cement. In short order, he was pushing his way across the parking lot. Tucked between his knees were a few pamphlets about the DC area. He stopped briefly to pull his overcoat more tightly around himself. As he grew closer to the entrance his eyes scrambled for a ramp. He hadn’t even considered that he wouldn’t be able to get inside the building.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself, rolling to a dead stop at the bottom of a tall staircase. Thought they must have some type of entrance he could use. He called out as nonchalantly as he could muster, swallowing his annoyance, “Excuse me!” He repeated himself as a guard made his way down to him, eyeing Charles with odd disbelief. Charles pushed the thought from his mind.

“Can I help you?”

“Um yes…well, you see I’ve come all this way to see this marvelous piece of American history and I can’t, well I didn’t consider you wouldn’t have a ramp.” Charles thought he may have laid it on too thick. He looked at the guard sheepishly.

Charles gripped the hand rims of his wheels.

The man was thinking: I have no idea what the fuck to do about this.

“Huh,” he said, having never even considered the situation before, “We don’t get cripples out on their own.” He crossed his arms and looked disapprovingly down at Charles. He thought about Vietnam, many people assumed he had been injured in the war, after all, what happened in Cuba was mostly classified.  In the end, Charles supposed it was a war he had been injured in, despite it having been friendly fire.

Charles bit his tongue but was fuming. He took a deep breath through his nose, playing it cool, “Yes well here I am.” He swatted away the idea like a bad smell, “And I’d like to get inside please.” If it took much longer Charles was going to stop asking and force them to do something about it.

As the guard turned his head to shout up the stairs, Charles knew exactly where this was going. They were going to have to carry him. Bloody fucking damnit, they were going to carry him. Certainly, he must have some sort of back entrance, something, anything other than this. Anger boiled up again but he forced it down, smiling politely. Charles was choking on it.

Within minutes he was being manhandled, which was the only word Charles could think of to describe it, while a third man dragged his chair behind him. Below, people gawked, staring up at Charles as he was carried, not unlike a child. Charles wanted to throw up. But once again he forced it down, if he wanted to break Erik out, he had to get inside the fucking building in the first place.

Charles eyed the man who was carrying his chair warily. Praying he didn’t break it. It was made for him, for his body, if it was broken now, he might be months before he had a proper chair again.

In the end, everything was fine. His chair was unbroken, and the men placed him carefully back on it. Charles thanked them and made it as if they had never seen him. From that moment to the moment, they were on the road again, he was a man amongst shadows. Once inside the Pentagon nobody stared at him because they didn’t know he was there at all. Which was a nice change of pace, it was almost like he was able-bodied again.

Charles found the elevator easily, but noticed a little defeated, that it only descended so far, there had to be another one, one that went deeper, one that reached the small plastic cell where Erik was being held. For a moment the thought of a bloody staircase standing between him and Erik made his heart race. No, he thought, I’ve seen the semantics.

He needed a badge though, that he was sure of, something to grant him clearance. He began scanning the surrounding minds, of which there were many. Telepathy was deadly, without raising a hand it he could quite easily kill everyone here.

He could do just about anything he wanted. Searching. Searching. He moved slowly through the crowds of people, none of which appeared to spot him. In reality, he stuck out, thanks mainly to his wheelchair, but right now, nobody looked his way. Charles moved through their thoughts, a predator in tall grass, he left no trace.

The Pentagon is a steady relic of gleaming marble. And for all of their security measures, a thing of the past. Suddenly a mind out of the fog of many minds. Her tight pencil skirt hugged her figure generously. Charles admired her the same way he admired men. She sat inside her office, typing quickly on a large typewriter. Out of her mouth hung a long cigarette. She didn’t even see him.

Give me the badge. He thought. The woman turned her head, eyes glazed over. She stood, moving toward him, and unclipped her badge, placing it on Charles’ outstretched hand. He really could do anything he wanted to. That was the part which, even to this day, he found unbelievable. Anything, or nearly anything, really at this point he was only limited by his body, an even then, barely. Was the whole situation an abuse of his power, sure, but he’d be damned if it didn’t feel good. It felt good to flex his mind. For a year he had sat in his house, afraid, nervous, and self-conscious. And for what? Wheelchair or not Charles had to be one of the most powerful men on the planet.  

Now that he had what he wanted he found the elevator once again, descending the five levels, only to find himself in a kitchen. At the back was a door, made of pale plastic, with seemingly no handle, no lever. He approached it, leaning forward, running his hands along the perfectly smooth surface curiously, searching for a place to put the badge. There had to be some way to open it. Behind him was a bustling kitchen, completely oblivious to his presence.  Later when interrogated nobody would mention a man in a wheelchair because nobody had seen one, and that, many of them were sure, they’d remember, because there wasn’t an accessible entrance. How would he have even gotten in?

Charles fiddled along the door’s edges. Looking over it carefully. Fingers sliding purposely. After a moment longer he felt a small raised bump, intuitively he placed the badge flat against it. A beep was heard distantly, almost inaudible, and the door slid open to reveal another elevator with several buttons, none of which were numbered. He made his way inside as the door slid shut, he rolled forward and pressed the lowest button with his knee cap, then he felt the elevator descend, this time much deeper. As Charles moved lower, he began to feel fewer and fewer minds and then suddenly: Erik.

Charles?

Erik. He thought quietly, gather yourself I’m here to take you home.

You’re here?

I’m here.

The elevator door opened to a long hallway with another plastic door. Charles made his way down the hall, above him hundreds of minds, writhing, with their stupid thoughts, menial, buzzing, absent; below him just one. At the end of the hall is a round room with a vaulted ceiling. In the middle is a deep well with a glass overlay. And inside the well…Erik.

Charles rolled to a stop, unable to peer over the edge, his feet nearly touching the glass. He moved around it, looking for an opening, which he found in short order.

“Erik,” he called. He cursed his stupid body, transected spinal cord leaving him partially useless. Anxiously he pushed the right wheel of his chair back and forth, the footrest banging somewhat loudly against the stone in the quiet room. He messed with his tie, “Erik,” Charles said again reaching into his pocket and pulling out a handful of metal barbells. He dropped them gingerly through the thin opening in the glass, he waved a shaky hand, trying to get Erik’s attention.

“Charles?”

The barbells clattered.

“Erik, make good use of that metal. We need to get going, I’d rather not spend too much time here.”

“I thought I was dreaming.”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Then, the glass shattered. An alarm blared. And the room was bathed suddenly in red light. Erik made quick work of the cell, pulling himself up through the new opening. Shoes crunching on broken glass as he stood at his full height, looking, For the first time since Cuba, and Charles. They made eye contact. It lasted for a second before Erik’s eyes flicked down to his body, then his legs, and then he took in the wheelchair.

Charles backed up hurriedly, “We can talk about it later, for now, you need to destroy the tapes in the surveillance cameras. We need to go; I can make us invisible but the cameras will still see us.”

“How did you- “

“Later.” Charles cut him off.

Erik nodded, “Fine. Later.” Within mere seconds they were plunged into darkness.

“Electrical is down.” Erik muttered, “The generators will kick on, but that won’t include the surveillance system.”

A loud whirring could be heard, again red light. The door opened. Guns. It was always guns. Charles took a deep breath, brought two fingers to his temple, and then the guards were frozen, having not had time to pull the trigger. It was too easy for him. He might even venture to say that since being shot his body had begun to compensate, his brain kicking into overdrive.

Erik raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Make room for my chair please.” Charles said, “I need to concentrate so you need to push me.”

Erik stepped in front of Charles to move aside the bodies. They stood unmoving, stiff but whole. Reeling against the unnatural aspect of not being able to move. Erik pushed them to the side. Their eyes were terrified and still tracked him. It made the hairs on Erik’s body stand. He shivered violently but hid it well. Then, with hands that felt as though they did not belong to him, Erik took hold of Charles's wheelchair, guiding it gently forward. Neither of them said a word as they moved through the dimly lit Pentagon. People had been scrambling everywhere, panicking at the fact that Erik had somehow broken his cage. Now they were now frozen though, time still moving forward without them, bodies screaming for lack of movement. Did it hurt, he wondered. Erik’s own mutation, for all that it allowed him, paled in comparison. Charles had, in a moment only, frozen hundreds of people stiff with a thought, and would, he was sure, erase their memory of the incident as well. His ability to reroute the security cameras, lift a submarine from the ocean…to bend and warp metal, was something far different from manipulating the human body and mind. Charles was quiet but didn’t really seem to exert himself much. One hand raised to his head, fingers ghosting his temple. The other massaged the flesh of his thigh making odd and absent circles, perhaps a new nervous habit.

Charles’ chair rattled over the threshold of the door as they made their way into the light. Erik noticed the stairs.

Charles’ hand left his temple, he said in a rather small voice, “…this is the one part I can’t do on my own…” and cleared his throat.

Erik looked out across the expanse of the parking lot. As people slowly began to regain autonomy. He said nothing. Only turning to Charles and lifting him free of his chair. He hadn’t known why Charles was using a wheelchair, not until he lifted him, holding him against his chest. He knew better than to use is powers right now, he was the definition of a wanted man, although he knew nobody would remember this happening. Erik felt the shiver of metal in Charles’ lower back, its outline running along his vertebrae, making up for bone that had been shattered. Erik readjusted Charles in his arms, moving to make his way down the stairs. He ignored the way there was no movement in his legs, burying the realization until he could process it later on.

Chapter Text

They had been driving for some time before Erik spoke.

“I didn’t,” Erik started but stopped and then tried again, “Are you?” He grumbled, “I don’t understand how I didn’t know.”

Charles glanced warily over to Erik’s form, still clad in his prison uniform.

“I didn’t want you to. And you never came asking after me anyway.”

“You didn’t want me to?” Erik tried the words for himself, Erik’s eyes drifted again to Charles's body, strong arms commanding what was left.

“I didn’t realize how bad you had been hurt, if I had I would’ve- “

Charles snapped, “Stop, I don’t want to hear it. You made your choice; no body of mine was meant to stop you from doing what you had to do.”

Erik swallowed. He had been ignoring the metal in Charles’ lower back all night, but it was hard, knowing that he had done that.

“And what do the doctors say?”

Charles shook his head but said nothing. He pressed down on the gas, speeding up to pass the car in front of them.

“We need to get you a change of clothes.”

“Indeed,” Erik said, pulling absently at his prison uniform. He gripped his shirt and pulled it off over his head. Underneath, he wore a thin white top. Charles did his damnedest not to look at Erik’s lean, healthy, unbroken body. In comparison, a startling difference between the two. Where Erik had had a year to build his strength, to tone his body, Charles was still recovering. There was some resentment.

In front of them, the sun set over the asphalt, painting the sky a greedy purple.

Erik allowed his eyes to fall closed. But suddenly the car swerved and he was jolted awake. Erik was not sure how much time had passed. Instinctually reaching with his powers to slow the vehicle, horns honked loudly, as he scrambled to figure out what was going on. Eyes swinging wildly from the road to Charles, as he struggled to regain control over the vehicle. Erik slowed the car, Charles pulled into the breakdown lane with a look of pain on his face, and he flicked on the hazard light. He was breathing heavily. Charles pressed his head against the steering wheel, a hand placed firmly on his lower back. Erik observed him quietly, unsure of what to say. In the spot between the hem of his shirt and the rise of his slacks, a bit of skin shown, mottled with pink scar tissue. He noticed the spasm next; Charles’ legs were twitching violently.

To himself, Erik wondered how Charles’ legs were moving at all.

“involuntary,” was all Charles managed to get out in a rather pained voice.

“What do I do?” Erik said, his stomach twisting, “Charles, tell me what to do.”

glovebox.”

Erik ripped it open, heart racing, he saw several pill bottles, many half full, “Do you need a hospital?”

Charles shook his head.

“Which bottle?” Charles said nothing, seemingly consumed by pain. Erik asked again, unsure of how serious the situation was, “Charles, which one?” Erik pulled all of them from the glove box, staring at the labels. Many to be taken several times a day. A muscle relaxant seemed to make sense, maybe something for the pain. Erik opened them shakily, pouring a few of each into his hand, he eased Charles back against the seat and handed him the pills. Charles swallowed them without water. His legs refused to calm down.

“God, Charles,” Erik brushed the hair from Charles’ face, “I didn’t know.”

Charles’ hands groped for the lever to recline his seat, falling back with his eyes still closed.

They waited in silence for the pills to take effect. The sun fell below the horizon and bathed the world in the cool darkness. After some time, who knew how long, Charles’ spasms slowed and then stopped altogether. He had simply been driving too long.

As the seconds ticked on, Erik eyed Charles’ wheelchair in the rear-view mirror. Struggling to comprehend how it had come to this. Six months earlier everything had been different. Now, things would never be the same. Erik looked at Charles's legs, which had stilled. Charles said the spasms had been involuntary. Everything was slowly adding up, and it made him sick. How had he not known? After all, had they meant nothing to each other? Erik asked himself if he still would’ve left if he had known. What if he had stayed? What if Azazel had gotten Charles to a hospital? What if he hadn’t wrenched the bullet from his back so haphazardly? Could he have prevented this?

After some time, Charles opened his eyes and stared at the lightly colored roof of the car. Slowing his breathing.

Saying nothing Charles began to rearrange his body.

-----

Chapter Text

At the motel, Erik climbed out of the passenger seat of Charles’ old Ford. He unfolded his long body, stretched his legs, and stared out into the dark grey of the parking lot. There was so much on his mind, and he know Charles could likely hear it all. He stalked around the edge of the car, not quite knowing what to do. Charles made no effort to get out of the vehicle. After a short moment, Erik pulled open the door and looked down at Charles, who was again resting his head against the steering wheel, gripping it quite firmly.

“I’m exhausted,” he whispered in a rather small voice.

“You need to get out of the car, Charles. To stretch your back, we will go inside and lie down.”

Charles took a deep breath.

Please get my chair.

But Erik didn’t need to be asked. He didn’t use his mutation. It felt wrong. After all, it was his mutation that has done this in the first place. Instead, he dragged the chair out manually, locking the wheels into place. He didn’t move to help Charles, and he wouldn’t unless he was asked. Erik knew all too well what it was like to lose his autonomy, he wasn’t going to take what little Charles had left away from him.

Charles’ hand was low on his back again, fingers prodding slowly. It had been little more than a year; Erik knew Charles’ body was still healing.

If you wouldn’t mind fetching my medication from the glove box.

“I already have.”

Charles looked up at him sheepishly. His arms shook as he moved to transfer himself from the car to his chair. He faltered and Erik caught him. Charles took a deep breath. Erik’s stomach, not for the first time, twisted with guilt. It had been him. As much as he had wanted to blame Moria, in the end, it was him. He had hurt plenty of people, and killed people, but never had he felt remorse for what he had done, because until now, as far as he truly believed, they had been bad people. Nazis. War criminals. Shaw.

Charles wasn’t a bad person. He was the best of them.

Erik pulled himself back. Charles still struggling with exhaustion.

“I can do this.” He heard Charles whisper and thought maybe he wasn’t supposed to have heard him say that.

“Charles,” he crossed his arms, “can I help you?”

“I can do this; I do this every day.”

“You’re exhausted.”

Charles tried again, using his upper body to attempt to force his lower body into movement. Nothing. Again, he tried, hands trembling on the armrests of his chair. Shoulders straining with the effort. Nothing.

God damnit, he thought. Charles tried again. Nothing. He couldn’t. Despite having done these dozens of times before now he felt almost like he had at the beginning of his therapy, learning to transfer all over again. He thought it was perhaps because Erik was watching. Charles took a deep breath. Erik didn’t move. Charles shook his head and then heaved his body from the driver’s seat of his Ford onto his wheelchair. Shakily dragging his feet onto their footrests.

No, Erik thought, Charles certainly could not move his legs. And it was his fault.

Charles was nearly panting with exertion.

“There, see, I told you I could do it.”

Erik nodded quietly and stalked across the parking lot. The key was already in the door but Erik didn’t need to ask how that had happened.

Charles rolled gently across the threshold and into the dim dark of the motel room.

“There’s only one bed,” Erik stated.

“Beggars shan’t be choosers. Last time I checked, it was better than prison.”

Later the blue light of a winter night crept, crawling across their bodies, and desperately sad, neither Charles nor Erik slept for a long time. Bodies closer than they had been in a year. But they didn’t touch each other. Erik’s arms tucked behind his head, he relished the cool calm of the motel room, the softness of the bed, and the sound of Charles breathing quietly next to him. Charles lay flat on his back, two pillows under his legs.

Finally, Charles whispered, unable to break the atmosphere, “Ask me again,” he said, hoping he wouldn’t regret it.

Erik opened his eyes, though he hadn’t been sleeping, and his heart began to race, last time they were so close was the night before Cuba, “What do the doctors say, Charles? I need to know.” Erik rolled slowly onto his side, training his eyes on Charles’ face, the man’s eyes locked to the ceiling, lips pressed firmly together. Erik knew already, just from having watched Charles for the afternoon, but he had a bit of hope, somewhere at the back of his brain. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps Charles might recover.

For some reason, one which Charles could not identify, he had dreaded telling Erik. More so that anyone else. From the beginning, his first thought was: Erik can’t know.  Maybe because he had loved fucking Erik and he was scared Erik would never want to fuck him again. It was something like that anyway.

“Well,” Charles began, “Last year, in the hospital, they told me I wouldn’t ever walk again.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“It is. It is that simple.”

“There has to be some kind of treatment or something.”

Charles shook his head, hair falling into his eyes, “I’m afraid not. Not with how badly everything went after you left.”

“How bad is it?”

Charles hummed quietly, “How bad indeed,” he said finally, “My spinal cord was transected.”

And Erik thought, oh shit. That was bad. That was very bad. Erik didn’t know a whole lot about anatomy, but he did know that the words transected and spinal cord were not meant to go together.

“Such a delicate thing, the spinal cord,” Charles said under his breath, “delicate, thin, surrounded by bone. Bones are easily broken I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry, Charles, I wasn’t, I never…I never wanted it to be you.”

“I don’t need you to be sorry. Everyone is so damn sorry all the time. Sorry isn’t going to fix this.”

Chapter Text

That night Charles dreamt about the beach, which was not uncommon for him. In his dream, he knows the gun will be fired seven times.

Charles is scrambling through the sand, scooping up pieces of his broken back. The beach was littered with bone, pieces of him that had been left behind. They are cream-white and firm in his hands. Firm but broken, like shards of glass.

It was always the same. Charles gathers his bones, fitting them together, and with shaky hands he pours the milky white fluid of his spinal cord back inside.

It never works.

In the background, Moira’s gun fires seven times.

Charles counts the gunshots as he stares down at his hands, the bones falling apart, his spinal cord running through his fingers. Shot one, he watches as the sand turns red with his blood. Shot two, his lower back is burning. Three, Charles cries out, bordering on hysterical. The feeling of an electrical shock race down his legs and is gone. It is agonizing.  And as he nears the seventh shot his heart begins to race.

Shot four, I don’t want to hurt you, don’t make me.

Shot five, go with him, I know it’s what you want.

Shot six, don’t move.

At shot seven, Charles wakes, covered in sweat and breathing heavily. The words ghosting his lips: I can’t feel my legs, the sound of the seventh shot echoing across his mind, spinning across time and space, the noise haunting him, the memory spitting him in half, the feeling of the bullet entering his back, the feeling of it being pulled free, the feeling of blood pouring from his body.

He is back, hyperventilating, hot sand burning all around him, trying desperately to breathe through the realization that he can’t feel his legs.

This time when he wakes there are tears. He covers his face and sobs. He can’t catch his breath. The memory of the pain terrifies him. But this time Erik is there, staring at him in the dark with large brown eyes. Charles can feel the same panic, caught in his chest. He’s heaving. For a moment he’s back there, on that fucking beach, under that damn sun, he can hear the surf crashing, the sound of missiles dropping into the ocean, and of course, seven gunshots.

Mr. Xavier, many people with spinal cord injuries have some type of trauma surrounding their injury, this is normal.

What can I do? Erik thinks.

Charles says nothing but continues to cry. He can still hear the gunshots, ceaseless. He can still feel the sand. He can still taste the antiseptic. Erik wraps his arms around Charles and holds him close. He doesn’t ask Charles about his nightmare. Erik knew nightmares. Erik knew trauma. And besides, he was fairly certain he already knew what it was about. He just held Charles until he had finished crying.

Breathe. Erik thinks you’ve got to breathe.

Charles presses his face into Erik’s chest. Erik feels Charles’ legs against his own. He wraps his legs around them and pulls Charles closer. Charles’s legs don’t respond, but of course, they don’t. In the dark, moonlight glints hauntingly off the metal of Charles’s chair.

With time Charles begins to compose himself but makes no move to back away from Erik.

“I can’t get it out of my head,” Charles whispers.

“I know what it’s like. Even though Shaw is dead I still see him sometimes. I often hear the sound of my mother’s body hitting the floor. You might never get it out of your head. Sometimes I feel like a ghost. Like I’m haunting myself.”

“I thought I was going to die that day.”

Erik only held him tighter. Knowing very well how it feels to think you are going to die, and then having to learn to live again after.

“The chair is just a constant reminder.”

I’m sure it is, Erik thinks.

I need a smoke, Charles thought back, I bet you could use one too.

“Just say the word,” Erik says, slowly easing Charles away from him. A hand on each shoulder, gentle, warm hands pulling away.

“Jacket pocket.”

So, Erik does, finding his way back to bed in the dark. The moonlight dripped through the window, casting blue shadows. The red flicker of a match lit the end of two cigarettes, smoke drifted upward. Erik lay on his back, shirtless and tempting, taking slow drags. Charles’s hands shook slightly as he held the cigarette to his mouth.

“I’ve done a pretty good job of accepting my…situation,” Charles began, speaking through a mouthful of smoke, tasting ash on his tongue, “But every once in a while, I feel sick about it. I just never thought…”

“I can’t imagine you ever would’ve considered it,” Erik said, “can’t imagine that anyone does.”

“I’m just not one to get myself into this sort of trouble.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Here I am.” Charles agreed. Oh, how far he’d come from chasing coeds at Oxford.

Erik crushed what was left of his cigarette into the glass of the ashtray, and lit another, “Get some rest, Charles.”

For a while they just lay, side by side, smoking cigarettes and trying to ignore their trauma. The low glow of burning tobacco tossed dancing shadows across the wall behind them. The night wore on. After they had smoked a pack between them Charles fell into a fitful sleep and Erik’s eyes never left the ceiling, the metal in Charles’ back ugly, never leaving his mind.

Chapter Text

“Charles, tell me you didn’t,” the sun lingered behind Hank’s blue form, casting a large black shadow, the snow behind him pale and cold.

Erik however, had already exited the car to extract Charles’ chair. Charles was looking Hank dead in the eyes, hand gripping the steering wheel firmly.

“Is this where you’ve been for the last two days? Is this what you missed PT for?”

“Hank,” Charles sputtered, “surely one missed day won’t make much of a difference. I’m not going to walk again, regardless of much pt you make me suffer through.”

Hank huffed, “Not to mention you’ve committed a federal offense. And you,” Hank whirled around to face Erik, gripping him firmly by the shirt collar, Erik lurched forward but made no move to defend himself, Hank had a fistful of his shirt, “You fucking little,” Hank growled, low, sinister, “I should kill you right here for what you did to him.”

“I didn’t know,” Erik said, hands gripping Hank’s wrist firmly, as he was lifted off the ground, still he didn’t fight back.”

“You didn’t…you not knowing is not a fucking excuse for your unhinged behavior.”

“Leave him be Hank!” Charles hollered, pounding on the steering wheel. Charles felt small, despite the immense power that his telepathy allowed him, there was little he could do until his chair was at arm's length. He wasn't about to enter Hank's mind, but other than doing just that, his options were limited for breaking the tension. So, he pounded on the steering wheel again.

Hank didn’t. He pulled Erik closer. But this time Erik shoved Hank away, “You heard him, Hank." Hank still had one hand on Erik’s shirt, he pulled him back toward his face again, this time baring his teeth.

“Not to mention you shot the president.” Hank tossed Erik to the ground like he weighed little at all. Erik fell backward into the snow. Hands pressed uncomfortably into the ice, skin turning red, and sore.

“I didn’t,” Erik said, making no attempt to stand back up, “I didn’t shoot the president. I was framed.”

“Oh bull- “

Charles cut him off again, “That’s the truth, Hank, he didn’t shoot the president.”

“Kennedy was a mutant; he was on our side. He had been pushing pro-mutant legislation. Someone wanted him dead; I was there to save him. You would know that if you did anything other than hide away in this damn house."   

“Great job you did of that,” Hank said crossing his arms, he scoffed, “Did you curve that bullet as well?” he turned back to Charles, “You have PT in an hour,” he said, stalking back toward the house. Erik watched him go, and once he was gone, he got to his feet.

When Charles looked up, he saw that Alex had already gone back inside, saying nothing at all.

-

PT was always arduous. First Charles had to make a floor transfer, which he was decidedly not good at. Once that was accomplished, Hank stretched his legs, which almost always caused spasms. Then Hank performed a quick sensory assessment, which never yielded any improvement. It was often discouraging, even though Charles had already been given his prognosis he couldn’t help but feel a small bit of hope every time Hank pricked his legs, searching for sensation that was long gone.  But it was always the same. Nothing. After PT Charles would lift weights for about an hour. By the time everything was said and done it was all he could do to make the transfer to his shower chair.

This time, however, Charles attempted to make conversation, as he lay with his eyes closed very much not feeling the small pinpricks Hank was administering.

“Hank,” Charles began.

“Tell me if you can feel anything, even the slightest sensation.”

“Hank,” Charles said again.

“Focus, Charles.”

Charles scrunched up his face, sighing slightly, “Are you still doing it?”

Hank made a quiet noise.

“Yes? Does that mean yes?”

“I’m assuming that means you don’t feel anything?”

Charles shook his head, and opened his eyes, “You’ve seen my images, right?”

“I have,” Hank said pulling Charles’ pant leg back down over his shin.

“Considering you’re…well,” Charles said, “Do you concur with the other doctors then?”

“You know my primary study wasn’t medicine, right?”

Charles lifted himself onto his elbows like they had shown him how to do one hundred times,  “I’m aware, but you are also incredibly intelligent, and from my understanding have some background in anatomy. Not to mention the knowledge you’ve picked up in the interim. I just want to know if you think my injury is complete or not. We haven’t discussed it.”

“I’m not your neurologist.”

“Hank. Please.”

-

Dinner was uneventful. Albeit tense and silent. Erik was not present. Charles had not seen Erik since they had returned to the house. After dinner, he took two shots of whiskey alone in the dark kitchen. How long had it been, a year? Something like that anyway. And still, his legs remained insensate. He still had to remember to empty his bladder. And still… he couldn’t get hard; not really anyway.

After the whiskey he made his way to the elevator, trying to slow his breathing. Above him, a door slammed and his heart jumped into his throat. He gripped his chair to a rough halt. A hand flew to his chest and he counted to ten.

He whispered, “Bloody hell.”

The sound of a gunshot echoed roughly through his skull. It had only been the slamming of the door, he told himself.

Ahead of him the dimly light hall, for a moment only, he saw Cain. Dumb fucking freak. 

Mr. Xavier, this is normal.

He counted to ten again. Tried to breathe.

Fag, came Cain’s mocking voice.

Then, he counted backward from ten. At nine he closed his eyes. By the time he was finished, his heart had calmed, and the voices in his head had grown quieter.

He decided to retire to his study instead.

-

Charles was downing more scotch. The bottle balanced between the couch cushion and his hip was an old one, tasting vaguely of oranges, perfectly crafted for the cold weather. Charles relished the way it slid down his throat, an ember that warmed his belly and back. He knew drinking would throw off his bladder schedule completely. He took another drink anyway. He sat feeling sad, in a strange way, stretched out on the wine-red couch, with a fire dancing along the brick of the chimney. Everyone slept. After all, it was late. Or perhaps early? Fuck if he knew. Another sip, savoring it at the back of his mouth. His eyes trained not on the mesmerizing fire or the navy night full of stars just outside the glass window behind his desk. Instead, it was the small thing in his hand, no bigger than a thimble.

He brought the small thing closer to his face, letting it roll across his hand. Then, he grasped it between two fingers. Another sip of scotch. Dizziness settled on his body and he quite enjoyed it, feeling for a moment not quite inside his body. The bullet in his hand, crumpled and dark, had once been inside of his body, he knew that well. And had, for such a small thing, done a hell of a lot of damage. He had kept it because Erik had left it in the sand. As he lay there, head in Moira’s lap, staring into the sun, he groped through the sand, reaching for anything he could still feel, and so his fingers closed around the bullet.

Charles dropped the bullet back into the small box where he kept it and sat the box on the floor. He polished off his drink, struggling to sit up. His abdominal muscles were half numb as well, and for a moment he floundered in his drunken body. He was drunk. Quite a bit drunker than he had anticipated being. He had had more to drink tonight than he had had total since he returned home from rehab.

He didn’t typically feel sorry for himself. But Erik being here… just dredged up too much.

He fumbled lightheaded into his chair, nearly falling forward but steadying himself. He dragged his feet onto the footrests. Charles pushed forward to the door of his study, making his way into the unlit hall.

He fumbled with his chair, okay, so maybe a bit too drunk, as he pushed it down the dim hallway. He made his way to his bedroom, which could now be found on the first floor.

That night he dreamt of pressing a handgun to Erik’s forehead. But as the dream wore on, Charles realized it was not so perfect a replica of his memory. He was looking at himself instead, he was the one with the gun pressed to his head, and Erik was the one with his finger on the trigger this time. He was saying something to Charles, which took him a few moments to understand.

“I can stop it, Charles. I can stop the bullet. I promise I can. Let me pull the trigger. I can stop the bullet.”

But Erik does not stop the bullet. Charles wakes up again to the sound of a gunshot and remembers that he is paralyzed.

It is early. Even earlier than he might normally wake. Everyone is still sleeping, except Erik, who remains on the highest floor of the house, crafting something small from metal, his eyes shut.

Charles reaches out from his bed, one hand massaging small circles on his hip, he cannot feel it, Did you not sleep at all? Charles thinks as gently as he can manage.

At first, Erik says nothing, and Charles only feels the warm press of his mind. Then, What about you? Did you sleep?

Not much.

A void opens between them. There is silence for a good while. Charles can feel the methodical workings of Erik’s mind, as he pulls and pushes at the metal in his hand. How one might consider it clay, so easily as Erik can manipulate it. Unfortunately, it is not clay, it is metal, and in the hands of anyone else it is hard and cold and Charles knows that all too well.

What are you making?

Come and see Charles.

That nauseating sensation returned, though fleeting, it was a type of sadness that was still new to him. The elevator didn’t go so far as the attic. The way the house was built hadn’t allowed it. He said as much.

Ah, Erik’s voice softer but still impassive, I hadn’t considered.

It was so like Erik, to immediately go where Charles could not reach him, even if he hadn’t intended to do so. As Charles lay in bed, he let his mind be consumed by the meditative process which had Erik's attention. Push. Pull. Pull. Pull. Push. Like the ocean, he thought, like the tide and the moon. Push and pull. Erik thought of his mother as the metal came into shape. Charles grew tired again, seeing, at last, the image of Erik’s hands, delicately pulling the last bit of metal into place. Yet, he could still not see the shape of it.

Charles lingered the state between sleeping and waking, laying in his bed. Snow begins to fall outside until he cannot see the dogwood tree outside his window, but knowing that the gnarled bark is there is enough. It is the same tree he had watched from bed, as he was still healing, while his spine was still in two pieces but long before he was allowed to use his wheelchair. There had been a robin in the tree for a while, which he had watched make a nest, fragile eggshells harboring tiny fragile hatchlings, breaking their eggs, and crying for the first time into the sun.

Charles began the process of getting out of bed. He would need to empty his bladder, to get dressed. It would take roughly an hour.

Chapter Text

Erik continued to fiddle with the metal. The glow of dawn reached the attic finally, coloring the dark brown wood auburn, warming Erik’s face. The metal was soft in his hands; warm, grounding. It would grow firm just as soon as Erik commanded it to. Snowfall made the world quiet and still. From the highest floor of the house, he could see all the grounds, surveying what he could, looking out from the rounded attic window. The snow he thought, was cadaverous, white, the color of bone, the color of starvation. For Erik, the snow reminded him of the camps. He tried not to think of the ash falling from the stacks of the crematory, the way it had mixed with the snow. Even being young he had known it was the byproduct of burning bodies. The ash fell often, even on Hanukkah.

Erik recalled the way snow felt on his skin, burning at first, like being branded, pressing into the soft tissue until it went numb, and as the minutes of exposure went on, more numb still.

He knew many who had lost fingers, some who lost whole limbs, the cold gnawing at them all, a hungry dog not content to starve. How Erik had survived was only due to Shaw taking him on. He had been Shaw’s lab rat, among other things. He might have rather frozen to death than be tortured, as he often was. But in the end, at least he had survived long enough to kill him. The comfort in that was small, but it was enough…at least most of the time.

But…now there was Charles. The only soft thing he had ever loved.

Charles, whom he had damaged irrecoverably.

Charles, who would never walk again.

Charles, who was paralyzed.

 Charles, who had finally felt pain, and the evilness of the world.

Charles, who could at once break him free of the Pentagon with a thought, but who could not climb the attic stairs.

Charles had forced him to reevaluate his vengeance. Even when it had been vengeance that had burned more brightly in his chest than anything ever had. Erik was a thing of anger, all-consuming and blinding. But Charles, he was a thing of the mind, a man of peaceful reaction and pacifism, so far as Erik knew. They were not meant to be together; their history spoke to that.

The fantasy of killing Shaw had consumed him for so very long, and he was so tired.  Even though Shaw was dead, Erik was still haunted by him. Finding Shaw in the dark corners, at the end of gloomy hallways, and at the bottom of stairwells, sometimes even reflected behind him in the mirror. The worst of it had been seeing Shaw against the white wall of his prison cell. For all he could do, Shaw would just not leave him.

Always he said the same thing.

“She didn’t do this Erik. You did.”

Charles had been right about one thing if nothing else. Killing Shaw hadn’t brought him peace. But he would still do it one hundred times if it meant he got to watch him die.

Yet, something had him second-guessing.

Would he still have killed Shaw if he knew it would end with him putting Charles in a wheelchair? Erik choked on the thought. He had never loved someone the way he had loved Charles. He had never thought himself capable. He had been so addled by obsession and resentment. As the missiles found their target he brought them to a stop, commanding them with an outstretched hand. For a moment, in the time between pulling the missiles to a halt and turning them around, Erik felt peace grow in his chest, it was fleeting. As soon as it had come, it left him.

He knew whatever he did next would likely change the course of history.

So, he had turned the weapons of man back on themselves. He had been prepared to watch the world burn. Humankind would always be a snake seeking only to consume itself. Erik knew that.

If it weren’t for Charles, Erik would’ve killed those men. He would have relished in watching them burn, enjoyed seeing their ships sink, and taken solace in allowing the ocean to end what was left.

Erik hoped they still dreamt of that day, in bed with their wives, as they put their children to bed. If they were lucky those men were still scared, perhaps they were never the same after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Erik wonders if Charles ever considers how much of himself he gave up that day, to save those men. He wonders if Charles is at peace with that.

In his sleep, Erik sometimes hears the sound of the missiles hitting the water. With what is left of himself he knows that if he is not careful, he could become…well…no he’d rather not consider it.

Erik sits back on his heels in a low squat, the abstract shape of his metal sculpture clasped in his hand, he peers through the middle, where he had left a hole, and takes a deep breath.

If only Charles were made of metal, then he might put him back together. But no, despite their genetic lottery, both Erik’s and Charles’ bodies are strikingly human. They both knew that too well.

In his memory, in the time before Charles, there had been so much starving. Of course, he meant that literally. For many years he ate only what he had to eat to survive, Erik had never been one to eat for pleasure. Staying thin meant he was almost always ready. And, having lived that way for as long as he remembers, meant that he could go long periods without eating. He was starved for other things too. Of a home, of a bed. Starved of normalcy. Never examining his pain, constantly wearing it about him, a garland of secrets against the bony outline of his chest.

That damn coin, a grey gleaming of silver in his memory, the beginning and the end.

Erik rose, leaning into a stretch, and moved along the shadows of the attic until he reached the door. He did not take the elevator, instead descending the four staircases on his own, feeling the sun on his chest and shoulders.  He waits a moment in the sun until he can feel Charles’ chair approach him, metal gliding easily over wooden floorboards. Despite the too-obvious tragedy of Charles’ injury, the way his chair worked was quite beautiful. The way Erik’s mind registered it as smooth, almost like velvet in his mind. For someone who barely ever ate, to see Charles now left him feeling famished. Seeing Charles like this, intact only by what grace God had, sleep-rumbled, sock-clad, making his way through darkened halls lit only by sunlight, broke something in Erik’s heart he hadn’t still known he had.

Charles looked up at him, as he made his way down the last flight of stairs, coming to a slow stop, hands only ghosting the wheels of his chair. There was the low creak of each step as he moved downward. Erik noticed the way his feet were crooked on their footrests, how Charles’ right knee lent on his left. It made little difference to Erik. It was the loveliest thing he had seen in so long. Against the white walls of his cell, he often had dreamt of Charles, the feeling of his mouth against the nape of his neck. Of course, he hadn’t known then how Charles had made out after Cuba, but in the scope of things, it made such a small difference to Erik. He only hoped there could be forgiveness, but he knew that it was not his place to ask for it.

A thought returned to him again, but slightly different: here is the only soft thing I have ever loved.

Charles turned toward him, “Erik,” there was a small smile, which faded slowly, then returned, “…you’ve been up all night…thinking it seems,” his eyes become unfocused for a moment as he reaches out to Erik’s mind, “…about me…”

“Among other things, yes.” Erik comes to rest in front of Charles, lowering himself to sit on the final step. He looks to see the halls are empty, it is still early, and they are the only ones awake. At first, he does not reach out to Charles’ chair, hovering in a moment of uncertainty, before reaching out, long fingers curling around the right-sided handrim, and very gently pulling Charles closer. He does so without his powers. What good might it do if he can’t touch every inch of Charles himself, by his own hand? Charles’ hand closes on his forearm.

So much starving before Charles, he thinks. He melts at the touch. Fingers running along the smooth rise of the wheel. Erik looks up, meeting Charles’ own, a sad look on his face, “I’ve missed you so very much,” he whispers, the sunlight in his hair turns brown to red, and Charles runs his fingers through it.

“So have I.”

Charles’ hand moves up, gripping his shirt, pulling just slightly on the fabric. Erik obeys, moving closer.

His hands work gingerly, moving apart Charles’ legs so that he could get closer still. Hands roving atop boney knees for a moment only, pulling at the armrest until he hears the thump of the footplate against the wooden step. Satisfied he returns his attention to Charles, running his fingers along his jawline.

There is a thought that passes between them. So, Erik does not need to ask. Erik leans in himself so that Charles doesn’t have to struggle, and he kisses Charles slowly. Erik kept one hand on his chair so it might not roll backward, continuing to kiss him carefully. It wasn’t that Erik was worried he might hurt Charles in some way, but that after everything that happened, Charles deserved some gentleness. They continued to kiss. Before Erik allowed himself to grow hungry for more, he pulled away.

There was a lot unsaid.

Especially in the way that Charles pulled back at him, allowing Erik to come back for more. Erik wants nothing more than to pull him from his chair, to feel him on his lap. Erik feels Charles’ smile against his mouth.

Erik lets out a small and quiet sound. Beginning to kiss more deeply. He wants to ask Charles what he can still feel, where he should put his hands, and what feels good in his body. He wants to devour him. But he knows that they are not there yet. Instead, he pulls away again, standing, then leaning into another kiss, hands finding the wheelchair again, fingers floating across what exposed skin there is.

In Erik’s mind, there is a prayer, one that he keeps to himself so much as he can. He knows Charles can hear his thoughts; he’s given up on keeping any secrets.

Erik is looking again into Charles’ eyes. He could tell Charles wanted to say something but didn’t have what words he needed.

There would be time.

The day draws on with glances between them that are veiled as accidental eye contact. Hank busies himself in his lab, further out somewhere on the grounds Alex releases his anger, and later on he shares a marijuana cigarette with Sean. Very few words are passed between anyone as everyone readjusts to Erik’s presence and the realization that he did not, in fact, kill Kennedy.

At lunch Erik only has coffee. He takes it black. Charles drinks tea, with sugar, and toast. They take their drinks to the greenhouse, where Erik sits next to Charles, his face partially concealed by rosebushes and the smell of lilacs. He leans his head on Charles’ knee. It is quiet for a while. If Erik hadn’t known better it might be summer. Outside it was snowing still.

He works to finish his tea, allowing his fingers to find Erik’s hair again, it was longer, and more unkempt than it had been a year ago. But then he doubted he would’ve been allowed scissors in prison.

“What a beautiful day, to have you here, with me,” it is a whisper that is hardly more than a thought. Charles very much wants to climb out of his chair and sit next to Erik on the ground. He pulls his feet from the footrests of his chair, decidedly throwing caution to the wind, after a small muscle spasm he says to Erik, “help me to the ground.”

They spill the last sip of earl grey on the flowerbed as Erik takes Charles’ weight, helping him to the ground. Charles readjusts his legs, clumsily laying backward, his head resting on Erik’s arm.

“Not so graceful as I once was,” he says. While it is much warmer inside the greenhouse, many of the plants inside are still dead. Charles finds the collar of Erik’s shirt, and tugs once and then twice, pulling Erik again into a kiss.

A fire sparks low in Erik’s stomach. This time he does ask, finally gathering the courage, it hurts regardless, but he needs to know so that he can please Charles too. He pulls away, falling back onto his side, “Charles I…where does the feeling stop?”

Charles closed his eyes without saying anything and took Erik’s hand in his, finding his middle with his other, then placed Erik’s hand in the spot just above his navel. Erik had taken more than he had realized. Charles says, “it’s okay,” and nothing else. Kissing him again.

There would be time.

Chapter Text

The night drew late. A storm had rolled in around six, the snow was heavy and falling fast. The temperature had dropped well below zero and in some parts of the estate, frost had begun to grow along the inside of the window panes. As the wind blew, the house creaked and moaned, and windows rattled. The moon was low, as if cold itself, settling on the crest of the horizon. Rounded and white, waxing gibbous, between half full and laden. The moonlight cast long shadows on the wooden floors. The building felt very hollow. Charles imagined a school not for the first time, where students might fill the empty spaces, and so he might finally have a purpose for all these bedrooms.

To keep warm the boys had gone to bed, and Charles had moved to his study, lighting the fireplace and staring at it for a very long time. The pain of his injury kept him awake most nights.

Charles hadn’t spoken with Alex since he had returned home from DC.

The storm grumbled on.

What had he learned they were called? Nor’easters?

The lights flickered, then went out.

Darkness settled a heavy hand, then, Charles registers the absence of noise, which is the hum of electricity going out. A steady gust of wind shook the windows again, distinct in the silence of the power outage. The Westchester estate grows reticent. Charles hears little more than the howl of the wind. The ache in his low back returns again. Low on his spine, nestled in the crest of his hips, settling just above where the feeling slipped away. No matter the gentle prodding, or the slow massage of his fingers, even regardless of painkillers, his back still hurt. He leaned forward in his chair, one forearm across his knees helping to keep his balance, feeling the bumpy rise of scar tissue under his fingertips. The scar no longer than five or six inches, ran symmetrical to his spine, coming to rest on the center of his lower back. Charles thought how silly for such a small thing to have done so much damage.

For all the uncertainty his physicians had, even one who had said with time some feeling might return, that maybe eventually Charles might be able to stand unassisted, so far there had been little to no improvement. Regardless of how fierce his focus or protracted his concentration was, no matter how direct his thoughts were, his legs refused to cooperate. Hank could help him to stand, but he had still been unable to do so on his own. At this point, he would’ve taken fleeting feeling, or being able to move his feet, even the spasticity to stand would be welcome. Charles knew he’d likely never walk again, actually, he was quite certain of it. But if he could stand, he might be able to use crutches, or braces that might allow a bit more mobility.

Charles’ moved away from his spine, pushing carefully at the tissue on either side. There came a knock on his study, so Charles found his way upright again, brushing some lint from his pants.

A knock comes again.

He knows that it is Erik before he knocks a third time.

The door opens without Erik touching it. He looks at Charles in a way that continues to surprise him. He looks at Charles like he is still whole like he is still hungry for him in the same way he had been before.

“It’s cold tonight,” he says as a way of greeting and crosses the threshold into the study, “and the power has gone out.”

Erik wore a dark sweater with slacks and wool stocks. Even in so many layers, Charles can see how lean his body is. He tries desperately to avoid thinking about it.

“Are you cold, Charles?” Erik asks lightly, stopping to sit in the red armchair, beckoning Charles to come closer without saying anything at all. Erik pulls himself tight, crossing his legs until he’s no longer touching the floor.

And God, after everything, he still looks so young. Charles is close enough to touch him now but makes no move to do so.

Erik smiles, “And what I am to do, now that you’ve broken me out of prison, hide away here forever?”

Ah, Charles thinks, there it is.

The first inkling of his betrayal, Erik would leave him eventually.

He knows this.

But he doesn’t stop Erik as his hands find him, nearly touching his leg, then moving up, fingers closing over the waistband of his pants, rolling his chair closer with a tug.

“I suppose,” Charles manages, willing his voice not to break at the thought of Erik leaving him again, “you could stay, and help me open the school.” Their knees are touching now, though he cannot feel it, he looks again, Erik’s hand had closed on his thigh. He cannot feel that either.

Touch me where I can feel it, he says without speaking a word.

Erik’s hand moves, this time under his shirt, stopping at his ribs. Charles shivers but leans into it. Erik is going to leave him; it would always end the same. Their history spoke to that, Charles knows that much. He kisses Erik anyway. He kisses Erik like it might be his last chance.

They had been circling each other all day with slight touches, eye contact, goosebumps, and thoughts…a current passing between them, pale blue and calming. Telepathy is a river that flows both ways, against the laws of nature. Obeying nothing but his own command. It is a mutation that should have never existed. Despite many preaching mutant pride, telepathy was feared even among their own. Erik’s fingertips ghost his nipple, pulling at the fabric of his shirt from underneath. They kiss again. Erik’s mouth still tastes like coffee.

Charles knows that they will have to move to the bed if anything will be accomplished. He breaks the kiss and says as much, savoring the taste of Erik’s coffee-stained lips. Bitter and dark. So very like him. Charles gathers that Erik would take him right there on his lap, but it is no longer so simple. These days are not as they were. And at that, Charles could cry, but not with Erik standing over him, bending to find his mouth again. At this moment Charles wonders instead why he ever doubted that Erik would want to fuck him. At this moment it is very clear that his injury made little difference to Erik. Insofar as sex and attraction are considered at the very least.

Charles grips the wheels of his chair, moving backward. On the wooden floors, they make little noise. It is only the occasional clatter of his chair that give away their location, and even then, the howling of the wind is louder. The halls are black, deeply darkened by the lack of light, their shadows like ink stains. Charles’ bedroom is distinct from the others only by the widened doorway.

On the bed, Charles lets Erik pull him free of his shirt, allowing him to fall back against the mattress. Erik moves in for his neck, a hand in his hair. Charles feels his telepathy slipping, his carefully crafted walls threatening to come down as he makes space for arousal. Charles reaches in turn for Erik’s shirt as well, his hands trembling as he does so. There is a moment of silence as Erik works it off, tossing it behind him with little consideration. Charles feels his face go red. Erik is perfect. Especially when compared to his own body. Toned. Lean. Hardened unfortunately by a lifetime of starvation and survival.

Then there is Charles and his half-working body.

“nonsense…” Erik whispers with another kiss pressed against the left of Charles’ neck. Not for the first time, the sadness in his chest threatens to consume him.

Very little of their bodies are visible in the low moonlight. Charles chokes on his pride and reaches out, forcing Erik’s pants to his knees. Erik is hard. Erik is hard for him. Erik smiles a crooked smile, “You too, love,” and his fingers find his waistband again. Erik helps him to wriggle free of his pants. Charles closes his eyes, not wanting to see Erik’s face as he takes in his new body and flaccid dick.  

Erik whispers, “Charles, open your eyes,” something in his chest breaks for Charles, who had been so confident a year ago, “It’s okay…” but Erik knew that it wasn’t okay, and would likely take a very long time for Charles to return to the person he had been.  He can tell Charles wants to cry but won’t let himself.

Erik brushed a single tear from the underside of Charles’ eye, then ran a hand through his hair. Still straddling his hips, he bent to kiss him, then again, “It’s okay, Charles,” and then, “Tell me if this isn’t something you want.”

After a moment longer Charles did open his eyes, reaching up to tug Erik closer, pulling him again into a deep kiss, with his other hand Charles began to stroke Erik until he is hard again, “I do want this.”

The was an outcry of wind again and all the windows rattled, moonlight shimmered the color of candle wax along the wooden floors.

Erik wanted to make sure that there was little Charles would need to do to manage his own limbs. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered how this would work. Erik lent back on his knees and moved Charles’ legs so that he could pin them between his arms and ribcage, helping Charles to lean into a stretch he knew he could not feel.

Erik did not ask if Charles could feel him as he pushed inside, but instead split his focus between his own orgasm and making sure to touch Charles everywhere that felt good for him. What had Charles said to him once? That sex with telepathy was like drowning in ecstasy, like trying to swim against a current that went both ways.

Erik dropped his shields as well; the way Charles had taught him. Immediately he could feel the undertow and he dove, without even thinking, as he would have done a year ago. Before long he could not have told you whose body belong to whom.  His whole-body tingling, his sense of time gone, overall, there was a sense of something greater than himself, he reached for something to ground him, found a fistful of Charles’ hair, and leaned in to take his nipple between his teeth. How he knew it was Charles was beyond him, as he could not have told you where his body was.

Charles below him was flushed pink with arousal. His hands gripped the bedframe above his head as they found a rhythm and lost themselves in it.

Charles came first, not rushing the orgasm as it pulled at him from the inside.

Erik came inside Charles, his whole body tense as he finished but turned weak in short order. He let Charles’ legs drop back to the bed, allowing his shields to remain low as he laid on top of Charles, face pressed to his belly, fingers still wrapped in Charles’ hair. Charles’ own climax lasted a while longer than he was used to, he let it leave in its own time, ebbing from his body like low tide.

Charles had not cum in a year.

He almost began to cry again.

Erik whispered something that Charles identified as Yiddish but could not understand what it meant.

The storm drew on and the night was late. They both were breathing easy, in love, as they had been before. Charles wondered how long it would last. His fingers found Erik’s hair. Charles wondered how long until he was gone.

Chapter Text

The following morning was spent mulling over hot tea, black coffee, and the news broadcasts as federal agents began scrambling to locate MAGNETO! Magneto had been reported missing from the Pentagon facility two days earlier after being indicted for killing the president. More baffling still are the many people with gaps in their memory and the destroyed security tapes. No less feverish were the people for the identity of the person who had smuggled in a handful of ball bearings that he had used to break out and why they had been left at the scene.

Everyone feared some type of mutant uprising with Magneto at the helm. Far more exciting than the reality of him just laying low somewhere in upstate New York, making love at night and spending days hiding in the greenhouse admiring the way the plants overwintered. Mystique would be looking for him as well, he knew.

Outwardly Charles pretended to be amused by the state of things in Washington, but at the back of his mind, he knew that one loose end in his plan would leave him potentially identified as being involved, which he was of course. Charles swallowed hard, choked down his tea, and smiled, as fake as it was. They wouldn’t identify him. He had worked so hard to make them disappear after Cuba. Wiping the minds of everyone involved, often as they came to interrogate him in the hospital, turning them away with eyes glazed over, fumbling for their things as they left, coming back to consciousness many miles later, driving or at home with their families with no memory of Charles or his x-men, as they liked to be called. He had destroyed all medical files of himself and his injury. He had worked at those loose ends for months and finally, the last of them, Moira herself, was dismissed with a kiss.

He might have just thrown all of that hard work out. And for what? To suck Erik’s cock? Charles took a deep breath, looking over at Erik, who seemed to be quite enjoying himself and the idea of the whole of Washington looking for him.

“Erik,” Charles forced his mouth to move, “I have physical therapy I need to do this morning,” anything to get them away from the television.

Charles left the sitting room, even before Erik had gotten up, moving into the hall. His breath started to come fast again, that tightness in his chest came with his panic attacks. Charles wasn’t taking time to identify the trigger like he had practiced with his doctor, instead he nearly falls from his chair as dizziness takes him but catches himself momentarily on the wall. He urges himself to breathe deeply, it’s not unlike the war neuroses of World War Two he remembered his doctor saying, affective shell shock as it had been called in academic circles of psychology. There is some type of loud sound that he cannot identify that startles him, he closes his eyes, and he can almost taste the ocean in his mouth. 

He hears a voice, “Dr. Xavier?” And then another, “Xavier?” He is back in the hospital. He hears other voices and then suddenly, “Charles?” That was Hank’s voice, he looked up. He’s back home, in Westchester, and Hank’s kneeling in from of him, hands on his shoulders. Charles looks at Hank, startled by his very human-looking face, and dark eyeglasses. Hank is saying something but Charles can’t hear him.

Charles hears instead Hank asking him where the feeling stops. He is in so much pain he almost can’t speak. A flashback. He has to think of every word as he says it, deliberately forming sounds. It stops at his waist he says and draws a line across his belly with shaking hands. He is in the sand again; the realization is fresh. The road ahead is new and long and terrifying, it’s happening all over again. Here, he says, just above his navel. Still, he fights like hell to stay awake. He is dizzy from blood loss, and fighting with the realization that both his legs are numb and that he cannot move. He sees Hank’s mouth moving. In front of him. He’s home. He’s home. The beach is a memory. A vivid and horrible memory.  Charles becomes more present in his body as he begins to feel the way his chest is heaving. This is the worst attack he’s had in months. He’s not on a beach, he’s at home, in the hall between the sitting room and dining area. Charles gestures to Hank that he can’t breathe, a hand gripping his shirt where it had settled on his narrow frame. Still holding Charles’ shoulders Hank mimics a deep breath, trying to encourage Charles to breathe.

Hank knows that if Charles doesn’t take a deep breath soon, he would probably faint. Behind him in the hall is Erik, who looked panicked as he watched on, holding two tea cups, one in each hand. Alex has come from his own room and is hurrying down the hall. Alex shoves his way past Erik, who spills a bit of tea but doesn’t move.

Alex staggers before he can reach Charles and Hank, “He’s projecting,” he hears Erik turn away, stumbling at well. Alex hears the tea cups break, the boney sound of shattering porcelain.

“He’s going to faint,” Hank says. It goes unsaid that Hank is particularly good and handling Charles’ panic attacks and projections.

Hank looks back to Charles just he falls forward, eyes going vacant and his body becoming limp. Hank catches his weight, taking Charles’ unconscious form against his chest, "I've got you," he says quietly, "You're okay." He looks at Erik again but he’s already gone.

“Is the professor, okay?” It’s Sean’s voice from behind Hank in the hall.

“He’s just had a panic attack, he’ll be okay,” Hank lifts Charles from his chair, his frame lighter now than it ever had been. Hank can feel the boniness that hadn’t been there before. He supposed that could cancel Charles’ physical therapy for today.

Hank takes him to his room; he would go back for his wheelchair later on. He passes Alex who is pale and sweating slightly. Once in his room, Hank places Charles on his bed and tucks a pillow beneath his feet. Hank goes to the bathroom, to splash cold water on his face and take a few deep breaths. Charles begins to stir. Hank eyes him from the bathroom mirror, then turns to make his way back to Charles.

He pulls a chair close to the bed as Charles began to open his eyes. They settle on Hank, curious.

“You look…” Charles struggles to speak, he eventually settles on, “different,” and passes a hand across his face, moving to sit up, “I thought I had dreamed it. How?”

“A medication I developed.”

Charles pulls himself up to rest against the headboard, his chest in a knot, grimacing through a muscle spasm, “How does it work?” he asks finally.

“A conversation for later,” Hank says, then changes the subject, “That was a bad attack.”

“I suppose,” Charles says, “I didn’t even get a chance to sort it out, it came on so fast.”

Hank didn’t hesitate, he knew if he didn’t say it now that he would never say it, “Erik is the trigger.” He says it very pointedly and then crosses his arms over his chest, “And we’re harboring a criminal.” Charles has an inkling of a thought which didn’t belong to him, a slender whiplash, Charles looks at Hank. Blinking through the noise of a thought.

“Hank, it’s not- “

Hank cuts him off, “And he’s going to hurt you again.”

Charles began to gather slowly that Hank’s concern at more than surface-deep. Charles looked at Hank’s body, his pale skin, and bespectacled face. Since his injury Charles had confided in Hank, mainly because it felt natural, the quiet pull of correlation had. Hank’s transformation has been a tragic accident as well. So, when he held Charles after Cuba, taking the brunt of the anger and depression, it was because he understood. Truly understood. And here he was, somehow having medicated his way out of disability, now able to pass as normal, whereas Charles didn’t have that luxury, no medication on earth existed that could treat his spinal cord injury. How absolutely absurd it was that they had nearly been to the moon but they could not fix a broken spine.

“I’m happy for you,” He heard himself say.

“What?”             

“I’m happy for you that you look normal now. How long does the medicine last?” Charles was fairly certain that his statement had some level of jealousy. That Hank could go out into the world without struggling under the guise of looking different. That and the idea of losing Hank for good. As if Charles hadn’t been pushing him away. 

“That’s what you’re getting out of this?” Hank was angry, he could feel the sourness of anger in his mouth. Anger was a rare emotion for Hank, who was more prone to languishing, “This medication? This shit lasts like two hours at a time, and I had been on my way to show you when you had a panic attack in the hallway. If you had given me the chance, I would’ve told you I’d been working on developing a drug to treat your injury when I stumbled upon this formulation.”

“Hank, I…”

“He’s not a hero for what he did.” Hank is fuming now. To Charles, it finally made sense why he hadn’t seen the boys in days, or why Hank hadn’t left his lab, “Don’t forget who turned those missiles around. He would’ve killed all the men on those ships, thousands of men. He shot you and he’d do it again.”

Charles’ eyes drift away for a moment, he looks at his legs, and not for the first time he feels as if his body is not his own. If only not for Erik, he thinks. He feels dizzy for a moment, still settling from his panic attack. He knows that Hank is right. God, it was February already and he was so tired of pretending he was okay. He had been so drunk in pretending to have what he had before a relationship, summer breathlessness, a mutual goal, a working body.   

“I love you, Charles, I always have. He wasn’t there for you, hell he didn’t even know,” Hank stood up, making to leave, yanking open the door, “And now I’ve got to watch you get hurt again.”

Then he was gone.

Charles didn’t move. He wasn’t getting anywhere without his chair anyway. He allowed himself to disconnect from his body a bit. Slipping away from the real world into his head. There was a noise, Charles looked and it was Hank, with his wheelchair, he didn’t look at Charles as he left it by his bed before storming out again. Hank, who even in his anger, was always looking out for Charles.

Charles feels himself begin to fall mentally, into his own mind, as sleep crept up on him. He was always tired after a bad panic attack. In his dream, he is on the beach again. The bullet comes out. He feels his legs for the last time.

“Where does the feeling stop?” Charles can hear the worry increasing exponentially in Hank’s mind. Charles in is so much pain that he can’t think clearly. He asks himself the same question, forcing himself to break through the thunderhead of pain which began to overtake him.

Hank’s voice again, “Charles, where does it stop? Look at me.”  

Finally, he says, “My waist, it stops at my waist, here,” he says and draws a line across his belly with a shaking hand. “Here,” he says, “his hand shaking just above his navel. He’s fighting to stay awake. The shock is the only thing that keeps him from fainting.

Moira moved a lock of hair from his brow. Charles tried not to hyperventilate.

He fails.

His breath comes fast. It is air hunger.

Charles, look at me, don’t close your eyes, stay awake. Look at me. I’ve got you.

He wants to say that he can’t breathe. Far more pressing though is the reality that he can’t move. My legs are numb. Charles reconciled that against what he had learned in his anatomy classes has Oxford. His hand returns to his midsection, he finds the place between abolition and restoration, finds the line past which there is nothing, as clear a line as the shore and the sea, and he counts the bones in his back, noting where the feeling stopped. He swallows hard, throat scratchy and raw. He wants to cry. He doesn’t. Charles’ fingers rove the edge of a wasteland that is his broken spine, distressingly distinct. 

Again, he counts the bones in his back. He starts at the base and his neck and counts to seven. His neck is fine. He moves his arms slightly just to prove it to himself, but the pain in his lower back blooms again. There is noise everywhere and everyone is panicking. As bad a situation as he was in, he felt as though he was handling it remarkably well. And it is good to know that his arms are working, anyway. The boys are talking over him, and in the distance, Moira has a satellite phone pressed against her chest, hoping someone will answer their cries for help. He squeezes his eyes shut against the sun. In taking inventory of what parts of himself are still functional, he reaches his shoulder blades, starts at one again, and counts to twelve. He is quite sure that it is the twelfth vertebrae that must be pressing on his spinal cord. He knows below his middle back there are another five vertebrae and the end of his spine that had not been able to communicate with his brain in nearly an hour. Charles knows that the more time that passes without feeling in his legs the less likely he will be to recover fully.

He asks Hank if he is paralyzed. Hanks says that there is no way to be sure. It’s double talk, Charles knows. Charles says again that he can’t feel his legs. Hanks tells him not to move, and that everything will be okay. Charles knows that he couldn’t even if he wanted to. He knows that time stops for no one and that he’s probably never going to be able to walk again.

In the distance, along the shoreline further north, Charles hears the sounds of a fleet of boats beaching themselves on the sand. Thank God, he thinks, and stops himself from crying. Charles hears, “Hands up! Drop your weapons! Step away from the injured party!”

Charles remembers thinking how incredibly unlikely of a situation this was. Not even six months ago he’d been drinking beer in a bar downtown, his sister at his hip. He was an academic, Dr. Charles Xavier after all, why the fuck had he thought it wise to go to war was beyond him.

The sun is blocked up by a shadow. He looks up. His vision had begun to fade, he is so very tired. He hears himself beg for help, “…please…my back please…” The last moment he recalls is screaming in pain as he was rolled onto a backboard and sand falling from his hair.

Charles wakes in a sweat. He wants to shower but noticed the power had gone out again.

Chapter Text

The blizzard of 1963 was to last five days. After day two they had all taken to the study to sleep. Alex and Sean buried themselves in sleeping bags and extra blankets, eating peanut and jelly sandwiches made on one piece of bread folded in half. The road from the estate had long since been made impassable by heavy snow which meant they hadn’t been able to restock the kitchen. Charles hadn’t been able to shower but luckily, he used his wristwatch to remind him when to empty his bladder. Although without electricity they could not flush the toilets more than once or twice before they too stopped working. The pipes were frozen anyway. Charles more or less laid claim to the spot closest to the fire as he was the most suspectable to the cold.

“It’s like camping,” Charles said, somewhat unenthusiastically, “and we will all stay much warmer this way.” It had been one day since his panic attack. He sat on the couch, feeling the warmth of the fire on his face though his hands were cold. Hank finally returned to the study with a few extra blankets, his new body pale in what moonlight there was.

“Can you imagine had this been rain? We would’ve had a washout for sure.”

“Just the same, the road is still impassable.” That was Erik’s voice, his lanky form closest to the window, toward the back of the room. Still, Erik fought the urge to run, finally beginning to come to terms with having been forced to stay put.

As he looks at Hank and the way that Hank looks at Charles, he wonders how long until Mystique comes for him, and Azazel with his tail between his legs.  How silly of him to imagine things had stayed just the same. As Erik watched Charles tell a story, as he began to retreat inward a bit, he realized just how outside of this little ragtag family he was. He was not the man he was, he hadn’t been since he had failed to protect the president, since he was made into a scapegoat, being dragged away in plastic zip ties across the grassy knoll in Dallas; dirt between his teeth. The bullet had bent. And Charles? Well, he was a far cry from who he had been as well. Incredible how much could change in just one year. Erik struggled to reconcile it. It was transformation in its most chaotic form.

He looks from Charles’ hands to his face and sees how his eyes are just a tad darker, his skin a bit paler. He watches Charles’ fingers as they fumble with the fabric of his pants, observing the calluses that had formed over the last year. When Erik looked at Charles now, he was equally as attracted to him, but found that he wanted to explore Charles’ body all over again. To relearn his scars and pain and to burn into his brain the outline of Charles’ body beneath his own hands. The snow flew and the wind rumbled and howled a dull scream across the grounds of the estate, drumming on the panes with frosted fingertips. Erik allowed himself to close his eyes and when he opened them again the fire had died back, only coals now nestled in a skeleton of charred wood. He observed the room quietly for a few moments. Making sure it was only his hypervigilance that had woken him. He detected the breathing of both Alex and Sean, the faint smell of marijuana, woodsmoke, and old books. His eyes began to adjust to the low light. Then, he heard it, a soft sob. Finally, his eyes pulled in what little light there was, and he could see Charles, face red with tears. Hank knelt in front of him, nearly propping Charles up, helping him to sit from his place on the low mattress. Charles’ hand was wrapped tightly in the fabric of Hank’s shirt, a fist having formed, knuckles white with pain.

He heard Hank whisper very small and low, “…breathe…” and then, the shaking of Charles’ shaggy head of hair.

“…bad pain night…” was what Erik could hear, “…phantom pain…” and after a while he heard, “…I hate this so much…” and his gut twisted in regret. He had done this. The bullet had bent. Erik watched, eyelids half hooded, as Hank coaxed Charles through a breathing exercise. If Charles knew Erik was awake, he didn’t say anything, perhaps even distracted by the pain he was in. How mighty a pain it must have been to distract someone had powerful as Charles. Erik knew that it wasn’t so simple, even as he watched Charles cry, he knew it was more than pain. It was heartache, disability, permanent change, and it was grief. It had Charles in a chokehold. Erik could feel it, slowly smothering Charles, drowning out who he had been. It wasn’t as simple as adjusting to his new body, it was readjusting to who he was now, as a person. That took time.

Looking at him now, face screwed up in pain, blue eyes pale in the deep shadows cast by the moonlight. Erik’s heart twisted violently with remorse. He let his eyes fall closed again, his nose and cheeks cold as the fire began to die. What sleep he had was fitful and bloodied by the voice of his mother. Alles ist gut.

--

He woke shivering, although only barely. Sighing once he saw the snow still falling. It had now been three days and the whiteout continued. The power was still out. He glanced at the fireplace, noticing Alex there, feeding a low fire.

“It’s still snowing,” says Alex, not turning to look at Erik.

The blankets from the previous night are still strewn across the wood floors of the study.

“It sure is,” Erik replied gruffly, running his thin fingers along the curve of his biceps, trying to warm himself.

Alex rose from his crouch, working out a strain in the muscle of his upper back.

“Where is Charles?” Where was anyone? How had he managed to sleep in?

Alex finally turns to Erik, shrugging, it was the first time they’d spoken since Erik had arrived in Westchester, “Hank was planning to administer a muscle relaxant this morning, Charles was in a lot of pain when he woke up.”

Erik recalls the sight last night, the crop of Charles’ hair nestled against Hanks's shoulder, sobbing for the pain to stop. No doubt only worsened by the storm. Erik found himself… jealous? Was what Hank provided to Charles more than medical care?

Erik rose, working out the knotted muscle in his own back. A cold night on the floor hadn’t been good for anyone it seemed.

--

When Erik eventually saw Charles again it was in the darkened halls of the Westchester estate. Erik found Charles as he went around placing candles on the window sills and the end tables, doing his best to brighten the darkness caused by the power outage and lack of sunlight. He moved slowly, methodically, a pile of candlesticks cradled in his lap, a thick blanket covering his lower body. Erik can hear the sound of a match being lit and then the quiet hiss of it going out.

Erik stops by Charles, lifts a candle from the pile, and lights it with a match he pulls from the matchbook in his pocket.

Between them, a candle flame.

“They are going to come for me, once the roads are passable again.”

“They won’t think to look for you here,” says Charles, hand again nervously falling to the handrim of his wheelchair. Something Erik noticed that Charles had taken up doing when he was nervous.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because you crippled me,” he says. It hits Erik like a hard fall, for a moment he can’t breathe. He composes himself. Clears his throat. Charles takes the candle from his hand and places it in the candlestick on the end table next to him.

The candle flickers with the movement and threatens to go out, then begins to glow again.

“And anyway, even if they did…” Charles taps his temple and shrugs.

“All of the United States is looking for me, surely you can’t stop them all.” Erik thinks again of the knoll and the book depository where he could feel the rifle in Oswald’s hands.

Don’t underestimate me, Charles doesn’t say, “Well, for now, the roads are impassible and the power is out. The sun has been obscured by the whiteout,” he hands Erik another candle, “Let’s play chess,” Charles says finally.

Erik eyes Charles warily, the green blanket on Charles’ lap is dotted with an old knitted pattern. It looked warm and he hoped that it was. The roads being impossible to traverse would buy them time, but if Charles had a medical emergency, then the snow would become a huge problem.

“My mother made it, years ago, before she died. She’d roll over in her grave if she saw me now…” Charles pauses, looking down, running his hands along the fabric, “It is very warm, Erik, don’t worry about me.”

Now with the many candles burning along the breadth of the estate, the whole of the property felt cozier, warmer, and more like daytime. The storm, however, wore on and the building creaked like the hull of a ship taking on water.

--

Erik moved his pawn.

Charles moved his rook.

They fell into a comfortable silence.

After a while, Charles spoke, “I hate the blanket, it makes me feel more like an invalid.”

“You wouldn’t need it if it weren’t so cold in here.”

“I wouldn’t need it if I weren’t paralyzed,” Erik looks up at Charles, whose eyes didn’t leave the board.

It was true of course, and so Erik said nothing and moved his rook, mirroring Charles’ move.

“How long do you suppose the snow will last?”

Charles considers this, reaching for the radio and turning the dial until the low crackle is audible.

A voice over the radio advised avoiding travel at all costs and most horrifically that many people living in the city had died, and many others were being directed to warming shelters. The broadcast changes. They are still looking for Magneto, the accomplice of Lee Oswald, but are being hampered by the storm. The authorities believe that they may have narrowed him down to New York City.

They both listened for a few minutes. Then, Erik rose to stoke the fire. He looked at the frozen landscape and the falling snow. He thought of the ash again and the inconceivably large stacks of the Auschwitz crematory. Soft like the wings of a butterfly between his fingers, he recalls, but it is the cremated remains of thousands of people. For a second, he’s back there, in the camp, and he’s so cold. He knows that his mother’s body was among the bodies burning. It was an inescapable thought it seemed, one that he is always dragged back to. When he turned around again, heat from the fire still on his face, Charles is looking at him.  

His eyes lost focus momentarily and then returned, making eye contact with Erik. Erik knew that Charles had caught his thought, as simple as finding a stone in the river, he knew. It took a great deal of strength for Erik to be willing to surrender to that kind of power.

Telepathy was a river. Thoughts beautiful stones all of them, smooth and glimmering. Even dark thoughts could be considered beautiful, depending on how Charles held them, and how the light passed through them in his mind. Charles knows that the darkest of thoughts and memories are of the smoothest kind, having been turned over in the mind so many times, having been held so close to the heart.

“I’m sorry,” Charles said. It was a whisper.

Without thinking, Erik pulled down his sleeves to cover the number on his forearm. There were many scars there too, but none made him feel so vulnerable.

“It is something that cannot be apologized for,” Erik said, pausing, considering something before continuing, “You gave me back a very important memory a year ago, you’ve done what you can. You’ve done more than anyone could for me.”

“It should have never happened.”

Erik’s eyes darkened, “We have to make sure it never happens again.”

Charles looks away. Here they were again. Cuba was a sour memory in his mouth. The sound of the missiles hitting the surf, gunshots…Erik’s voice booming over the breaking of waves. Brothers and sisters! Of course, he couldn’t hear the sound of his spine being broken, but the memory of the pain is enough.

And then, the sounds of bodies burning.

But that memory wasn’t his own.

For a moment, he’s drowning, his telepathy dragging him under. Charles takes a deep breath, bringing his mind back to the surface, he wants to sigh, he’s so tired, he doesn’t, “Come back to the board,” he says instead.

The authorities narrow down Erik’s location more every few hours. They would come for him. But not before the snow lets up, which will last two more days.   

Chapter Text

The Maryellen is docked off the coast of Florida, finally having completed its journey from Cuba. Today marks the second day that Charles has gone without being able to feel his legs and he had been doing his best to keep time. But in his current state, unfortunately, time meant very little. Though a typical passing would only take a boat like the Maryellen one day at most, it had taken two due to several legal problems. Not the least of which was the fact that the government had yet to decide if they posed a threat or not. They had no idea what to do with them. Afraid they were spies, terrified at the idea that communists had infiltrated their ranks. Then of course the bigger questions surrounding mutations. And the glaring reality of Erik turning the missiles around in the air. And so it went, on and on and on. The arguing did not seem to end. Charles had listened to the arguments for two nights as he clung to the idea of walking again. His back was in agony, prone and helpless.

At the moment, what to do with the mutants who had stopped the world from ending, seemed of utmost priority. Moria explained that they, not Erik, had saved everyone and Charles was paralyzed as a direct result of the sacrifice made to prevent anyone from being further hurt. He heard often from Hank how badly Charles needed a doctor, and that if Charles ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life it would be their fault alone.

Screaming. Doors slamming. The boat listed. Silence.

Each afternoon he heard Hank, his own hands cuffed as well, as he was forced by the makeshift infirmary, “I think we made progress today!”

But there is an undercurrent desperation Charles can feel, even beneath the morphine, that is a gleaming curtain in his mind he can hear Hank’s voice like a ghost in his head: I’ll get you off this boat.

For the next two days, everything continued as expected. Hank and Moria fought with several entities he’d never actually see with his own eyes. More fighting. At some point, the same medic who had been with him the whole time would arrive to drain his bladder and administer more morphine. He never once spoke to Charles and was terrified of the concept of telepathy.

By day five he knew his body was beginning to shut down. He didn’t like the idea of dying, but it was comparable to the pain that had settled at the base of his spine. The morphine had begun to loosen his concept of time and space. He had yet to have any treatment for the injury to his spinal cord. He wants to scream but finds he is too tired. He wishes he could say he was not in pain, but that wasn’t true. The ache in his back is deep, bony, and terrifying, even despite the high dose of pain medication. His mind is in a vise grip. He watches his body as the boat lists again, as if it is not his own. His legs were unmoving as ever. The hole in his back was bandaged by thick gauze that wrapped around the entirety of his midsection.  He’d long since lost his uniform, now in hospital-like garb that left his wound accessible. He's handcuffed and he is completely immobilized. Without his arms, there was almost nothing he could do but lie there. He tried not to let that scare him but the attempt was disastrous. Charles finds that he is often panicking. He finds himself flashing between the beach, The Maryellen, and his days at Oxford studying anatomy. There he’d learned what the repercussions of spinal cord injuries looked like. How relevant one of his last courses would end up being. He recalls his professor outlining the bony anatomy of the vertebra, a pillar of white in his mind. His memory of the beach is like a heart attack, thinking of it leaves his chest heaving and his lungs air-hungry. He suspects he has a fever now, an infection setting in.

A knock echoes off the walls of the ship and startles Charles from a daydream that he was unaware of having. It is the man who removed him from the beach, who had turned him over in the sand, and to whom he’d cried for help. Though they’d said little to each other, Charles knows that they will remember each other for a long time.

“We have a doctor arriving shortly for you, who will advise how best to proceed with moving you and relinquishing you from our custody,” some silence, “I’m sorry this happened to you, sir. Just…don’t try anything.”

“You’re scared of me," Charles manages.

“That doesn’t mean that this should have happened to you.”

“And…” Charles is drowning in the pain between his shoulders, but he continues, “What of the man who did this to me? Are you afraid of him?”

“Yes,” says the medic, and thinks more so. His eyes fixed on the vial in his left hand, the needle in his other, “only just in case,” as he looked at Charles again and drew up the liquid.

Charles laughs, only barely, and on an exhale, “I haven’t been able to feel anything below my waist for five days. Do you think you’ll need to sedate me? Do you think I have enough energy to try and attack you?”

“Like I said, just in case.” Then his radio sounds and the medic pauses to listen, a moment longer, he says, “The doctor has arrived. He is a neurosurgeon, one that your pal Hank knows personally. Anyway,” the medic looks again to Charles, but before he could say more there came another knock. Maybe he would be lucky and he overestimated the severity, perhaps it was not so bad after all. But, Charles had a sinking feeling he was never going to walk again and had his suspicions that anything else was wishful thinking.

How ironic. For a man who could make anyone do anything, it was poetic justice in a way, that he could no longer even control his own body.

Burned into his mind are the seconds after being shot, and the recognition that there is a bullet in his back—that and the realization that his life had been changed forever.

A few moments later, as Charles watches as the medic continues to draw up the sedative, there comes another knock. The boat lists to the right and a doctor stumbles through the door and over the threshold, taking in the situation at hand.

“How long has he been lying on his back?” The doctor looks at Charles and he feels his mouth run dry; he’s terrified. The question seemed clinical as if it was asked with a purpose. Beneath the morphine, his ability to read minds was limited to emotions and impressions. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Since arriving in Florida three days ago,” says the medic, turning with a vial of sedative in his hand. The syringe gleamed in the yellow sunlight.

The doctor shakes his head, and gestures to the handcuffs, “And what good are those? Handcuffs for a spinal cord injury doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, medic.”

Charles shifts his arms and grimaces at the flare of pain in his lower back.

“Trust me, doctor, these are a precaution.”

“So I’ve been told,” he sighs, now turning his attention back to Charles, “How many days since the injury.”

“Five,” says Charles, “It took us two days to get from Cuba to Florida, and now we’ve been at port for three days.”

“Have you felt as if there have been any improvements in that time?”

“No,” Charles begins to cry as his voice breaks and forces himself to stop, lifting his cuffed wrists to his face until the metal is cool on his forehead. He takes a quivering breath. He looks to the doctor and realizes he’s just barely older than himself. Was he a mutant too? Charles searches for a name but the morphine muffles his reach.

“Here is the situation as I see it,” the doctor begins to explain, “We need to get you to a hospital for treatment. Your current treatment,” he looked at the medic, standing there with the syringe grasped in a slightly shaking hand, “at least in my opinion, is unacceptable. But,” he continues, “I need to know how severe your injury is, I need to do a brief evaluation. You will only need to answer a few questions, I know that you are very tired.”

Charles nods, clears his throat, and says, “Doctor, I can’t feel my legs.” He forces himself to breathe but feels that he is going to faint even as the words drop from his mouth. He allows his hand to call back to where they’d been resting across his lower belly.

From his bag, the doctor removes a few instruments. “I had not been informed about the severity." The doctor glares at the medic in the corner of the room, who is standing closest to the door, ready to make a break for it if need be.

The doctor runs a tool along the bottom of Charles’ feet. He frowns and does so again. And then again. He straightens one foot on the edge of the bed, notebook balanced on his knee.

“…friend of Hank…” Charles whispers, feeling intense exhaustion begin to take hold. He looks at the doctor again, this time with more intent, fighting the current of opiates that had softened his thoughts. Maybe he would be okay.

“Can you try and wiggle your toes,” the doctor asks, then, makes a note in his notebook.

“Can you feel my hand touching your foot?” The motion of a pen and the sound of a scribble.

Charles shakes his head and says nothing. This was his body now.

“Right, close your eyes for me, Charles. Everything will be okay, even if it doesn’t seem like it right now.”

Charles does, and he feels just how tired he is, again he finds himself fighting to stay awake.

“Where was he shot?” He hears the doctor ask the army medic.

“Low on his back, to the left-hand side.”

Charles worries the handcuffs against the bones of his wrists.

“And when you got to the beach, was there such a severe deficit then?”

“Yes,” confirms the medic, “I administered a steroid.”

The doctor returns his attention to Charles, “I’m going to perform an evaluation and then I’m going to have a conversation on what our next step will be. All you have to do is tell me when you can feel anything. Any sensation, I don’t care what you feel, just if you do.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“I know Charles, one more test, okay? Charles. Tell me when you feel my hand.” 

Charles felt nothing for a long time. An absolute wasteland he realizes with a shock. Then, when the doctor reached his right hip, he felt the uneven line, recognizing that he had somewhat less feeling in his left leg, and so, he finally said. “…there…” in a very small voice, feeling like he might break further. He asked the doctor the question that Hank had refused to address five days earlier, “Doctor, am I paralyzed?”

“That is a likely outcome, yes. Of course, need to move you to a proper hospital for further evaluation and treatment.”

“I’d like nothing more than to be off this ship and out of these handcuffs.”

An hour goes by. Or longer. Charles lost most of what he had left of his sense of time that morning when he met the neurosurgeon. Charles’ eyes had glazed over by the end of the conversation, as he forced himself not to cry. Burying the fear at the back of his mind. Instead of focusing on the doctor’s notebook balanced on his knee, being able to read his writing there: T12/L1. Charles can tell this is an estimate, a thought, a diagnosis, a life sentence he thinks at the time. It is an acknowledgment. One that meant that he'd spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the sunlight on his eyelids, and on the bridge of his nose. He takes as deep a breath as he can, and then, surrenders entirely to the reality of the situation. This was his body. And it was the only one he had.

When he opens his eyes again, he realizes that he is outside, no longer on the boat and that his wrists are free. He takes a moment. Above him is a cold sun, and beneath his shoulders a cold ground. He feels snow on his fingertips. He realizes that it is not 1962 but 1963. Then, Hank is above him. But Charles can’t hear him. There is the echo of a gunshot that causes him to recoil in fear and Hank to hit the ground next to him. He sees his chair tipped on its side in the snow, it’s not far and he begins to reach for it. Hank rises to his feet in a hurry and begins to drag Charles through the snow. They reach some tree cover at the back of the property. Hank is heaving with effort and Charles is breathing heavily. He feels a pain in his head and reaches for the back of his skull, feeling a growing lump.

Hank takes Charles’ hand away from the wound on the back of his head, and says, “I need to get us out of the cold.”

Charles looks dazed. A headache splits his skull down the middle and a bright pain races down his neck. He recognizes that he cannot, with any accuracy, know how cold he is, “what happened?” He looked at his legs in the snow and, not that he’d been unaware, but he couldn’t feel anything. Still newly paralyzed, just a year since the gunshot wound, Charles still finds moments like this one, that startle him into a new level of understanding. He looks at Hank again. What the fuck.

“They took Erik,” Hank says, then as if on cue, there is the sound of a burnout. The smell of rubber and heat, which hangs in the cold air, is a signal of having lost the battle Charles didn’t even know they were fighting. Suddenly, Sean is screaming.  There is the sharp sound of shattering glass. A final gunshot.

The scene grows quiet, the sun is beginning to set but the sky is still bright. A purple hue is growing along the horizon.

Charles’ stomach dropped, his face going pale, “Sean,” he said, and nothing else, shielding his eyes from the light reflected off the snow.

Hank, however, is already on his feet. Running back into the sounds of commotion, toward where he’d heard gunfire. From where he is propped up against a tree, Charles looks through Alex’s eyes, feeling as if he had no authority over anything that was happening around him. Charles is concussed but a blurry image of Sean lying below Alex in the show forms in his mind. He can’t see it well. Only later would he learn that the image of Sean he’d seen was blurry not due to his own limitations but because Alex was crying. And only later would Charles realize those were the last moments he’d see Sean alive.

Sean was on his back with Alex above him, hands pressed against a gunshot on his lower abdomen. Blood bubbles up between his fingers. Sean’s own bloodied arm reaches up to grip Alex at his shoulder, fingers forming a fist, knuckles white, his face screwed up in pain. Alex presses hard but knows that he is failing. An artery had been severed. Hank was nearly there and running hard, but the look on Sean’s face told Hank that he didn’t have long.

"They used plastic bullets," came the sound of Alex's voice breaking. 

“Let me take him,” Hank says scrambling to gain control over the situation, “you get the professor.” He takes Sean into his arms, blood running down the front of his shirt and pants. He begins to sprint; he may only have seconds to stop the bleeding.

He runs for the back door, watching Sean grow paler still. He was losing too much blood.

He hears Sean say, very distant, a whisper, barely a breath, “…is Erik okay?”

And Hank finds himself saying, as he moves into the warmth of the house, feeling dizzy himself, but only from fear, “Yes, Sean, he’s okay thanks to you.”

The men who’d come for Erik were gone now. Any evidence they’d been there at all was only visible by the damage they’d done, that and a long series of tire tracks gleaming in the sun as they turned to ice.

Charles was half-conscious in the snow as Alex lifted him from the ground. Only his upper body was shivering. His headwound had dried and his hair was matted with blood and dirt.

Alex is the only one among them to come away unhurt. He readjusts Charles’ weight in his arms and whispers, “I’m sorry all this has happened." Alex begins moving through the fresh powder toward the back door of the mansion. Making note of the trail of blood that marked Hanks's descent to the medical bay, that and his own bloody hands.

They would have the replace some of the carpets as they would not be successful in removing the stains. Everything hurt on Charles’ body and the place where his back and been broken was a hot coal, a lingering numbness, and a reminder that nothing would ever be the same.

Alex is thankful that Charles is not quite with them enough to know that Sean was shot, at least not yet. But Alex knows that they do not have long before the realization dawns on him as well.

Alex and Charles sat side by side on the entryway couch until Hank returned. When he finally joined them, it had been the longest hour of their lives, and Hank was covered in what Alex could only assume was most of what blood Sean had left. At the sight of Hank, Charles began to sob. Things unravel, as they typically do, and end in blood. Trauma marks the body with new scars. The mind begins to drown in grief.

“I couldn’t stop the bleeding,” was all Hank said. Charles had never seen anyone in his life harbor pain the way Hank was at that moment, as if the weight was his alone to carry. Charles couldn’t stand to support Hank anymore, but Alex was already on his feet. Charles knows he will never forget the way Hank stood in the stairwell entryway, bloody, exhausted, and knowing that he couldn’t save Sean. Then, “He died protecting Erik.”  

Alex squeezes Charles’ shoulder with a firm fist.

This couldn’t be happening.

There is a flash of memory, only seconds long, and a voice: mutant brothers and sisters.

Alex steps forward.

Hank looks down and sees only deep maroon where life had been.

Charles is still crying.

Erik has been taken.

None of them know what to do or how to move forward, only that they must.

They waited to have Sean’s funeral until the snow had melted. That way Charles could be present without the extra frustration of his chair mired in the slush and sleet.

A year later when they opened the school, above the fireplace Charles had Hank place a large commemoration to the "First Class,” and beneath the photo it read: the mutants who’d saved the world.

It would be a decade until Charles saw Erik again. In the meantime, he coped with the fear and uncertainty of the government returning for the rest of them. After all, Sean's memory was at stake. Which only drove him closer to his dream. Creating a shelter, a home, for all mutants but especially the children and young people for whom the government would come first. 

Each night before bed he’d make his way to Cerebro, to look for Erik again, never being successful. He’d then retire to his bedroom where he would say a prayer in Sean’s memory and then drag his paralyzed body to bed. Still, there is much work to be done, even on days when it is everything he can do not to fall apart.