Archive of Our Own ^beta

As though privy to what must be a confusing cacophony of light and sound and color, Erik rests his hand (now eclipsed by its brace once more, if to offset the staring from others) at the small of Charles's back unobtrusively once they head into the fray. To Raven, he is entirely stoic and expressionless, and her brows arch, totally unimpressed by the greeting. "Oh, shut upppppppp, oh my G-d," she thwaks him and pulls him into a proper hug and noogies him, messing up his perfectly coiffed hair and rumpling his clothes and generally just getting all over him within the first two seconds of arrival. "Ohhhkay, and who is this again?" she sets a hand on her hip as she withdraws to give Erik a full once-over.

Unlike Charles, Raven doesn't have a natural accent, mimicking those around her and easily able to adopt any dialect or vocalization that she hears - it's a product of her mutation. For the moment, she's relaxed to her default - which is very much a product of her time in California, pursuing an acting career that wound up nothing more than a useful skill exercise for what she does now - having encountered her employer during the course of trying to make it big. It's just as much a decoy as anything Charles can whip up - allowing the men around her to underestimate her and relegate her to an airhead, stupid. It works in her favor. (And which Charles still isn't too sure what all her career is, but it involves hanging around armed guards and flying all over the world.)

At once she's abrupt, different to any other woman that Erik has ever met, even though she perfectly blends into the heavy fabrics and petticoats that are all the rage these days. He blinks a little, uncertain quite how to respond. He rests his palm over his own chest and bows his head. "Erik," he repeats softly.

She waves her hands at him a little. "Say something else."

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," he intones.

"Oh, cześć!" She smacks him on the shoulder, too, and he patiently endures it without so much as a flicker. It's a familiar greeting - not the Polish-typical churlish formality that accompanies a more typical dzień dobry between those who are unacquainted. He isn't certain if it's because she doesn't know the difference or if she just is like this - naturally pushing social boundaries aside with a just-as sunny smile.

"Mówiesz po polsku?" he wonders, and Charles - through watching them interact, realizes that Erik delivers his part of the conversation in an affectless monotone, rendering him extremely alien to Raven, who is one of the most extroverted and experimental people he's ever met.

"Like, an eensy bit," she smidges her fingers together. "OK, Charles, come on! Let's get some 'za. And then you can tell me everything about your new friend here." She links her arm with Erik's and pulls Charles into her from the other side.

Ah, Raven. His Raven. The woman with blistering wit who can easily pretend that she’s never had an original thought in her life. The woman who had practiced the art of imitation with such care that she sometimes convinced even Charles that she’s earnest about what she says; her thoughts begin to tumble in the manner of the characters she creates. She’s a wonder, Raven, and Charles covets her. There’s no reason to argue with her, to chastise her, to reason with her and beg her to be polite to their new friend, because she’ll operate against her own agenda, regardless. And it’s best that Erik grow accustomed to her idiosyncrasies early. So he simply raises his eyebrow at Erik as if he’s asking him to accept a challenge, and then allows her to pull the two of them along.

They reach Charles’s forest green Dodge Coronet, and once Charles deposits Raven’s (too heavy) bag into the trunk, they’re on their way back to town, Estelle’s Pizza the destination. “Alright, get it out of the way,” Charles muses as he pilots the vehicle down the Fitzgerald expressway, still under construction. “How warm and sunny was Portugal, how delicious was the food, how exciting was the night life?”

Dialectics, Charles thinks, and in a fashion that he has begun to deem Erik-like, he can’t quiet the refrain: The very fact that something is determined as a limitation implies that the limitation is already transcended. The limitations that regulate all mutant behavior—regulations placed, first and foremost, by mutants themselves—suggest a broader end, a world in which limitations are removed. Erik’s disavowal of the dialectic framework brings Charles pause, however.

It’s not fair, he knows, to try and frame Erik’s lived experience within a clean logical schematic, so he doesn’t; life, of course, is far less formal than that. On a larger scale, Charles believes that the first half of this century was characterized by a powerful dialectic between progress and regression, but such philosophical framing means precious little for those in the middle who are inevitably victimized by the synthesis. The course of any dialectic, of course, is driven by those who frame it, and if the power on either side is imbalanced, the resolution will follow suit. “Beautiful as our mutations may be,” Charles interjects.

“We live in an era which is not ready to accept us, don’t we?” His hands fold on the table before him as he regards his companions. Dialectics and logic mean nothing if one lacks common sense. “It is in our best interest, at least right now, to be regarded as the same species. The best way to secure safety and acceptance is to highlight our similarities, not flaunt our differences.” The door opens with a whoosh, and Charles catches the tail-end of a whispered conversation between the new patrons of the restaurant. They’d just come from a concert and were complaining about the people who had been seated in front of them. Racial slurs fly from both of their tainted psyches. Punctuation. He’s glad that neither Raven nor Erik can hear the disgusting tirade.

“It’s human nature. Demands for respect are never met by force. It’s impossible to force someone to believe something. True belief must come from within, and the best way to see that arise is by ingratiation, not separation.”

“At what cost?” Charles counters, ignoring Raven’s joyful expression—she loved to watch her brother be argued with. “I never labeled myself an optimist, I’m a pragmatist. You may think me naive, but change is something that, for the most part, happens incrementally. Because while many of us may be physically stronger on an individual level by virtue of our gifts, there will always be more of them than of us. We will not beat them. Unfortunately, we need their acceptance.”

"That would change, if we found one another," Erik said. "I've seen it happen. And yes, I know -" he drops off a little, eyes glossed over. "I know the cost. It is not acceptable, that is why I left. But we will accomplish nothing by fumbling in the dark hoping to hit on acceptance by accident. Change must be intentional. We do not need to beat them, but we need to show that we are not weak."

Imagining the chastisement from his mother, Charles leans forward and parks his elbows on the table, resting his chin atop his fist. “Let’s get hypothetical,” he says, locking eyes with Erik. “What is your ideal scenario for the future? How do you see our kind in this world? What is our role?”

Raven is watching them, uncharacteristically silent.

"I don't know," Erik whispers back. "I imagine us... free. Open. Not worrying about policemen and guns. Not worrying for our children. Not hidden under a basement. Where we have a say in our future. We have a voice." Mimicking Charles's position, Erik folds his good hand over the brace on his bad. "They will come for us, Charles. They will do what they've always done. As it has been throughout history from the advent of mankind. My sincerest hope is that we are collective enough to ward off atrocity."

Charles wants to reach out and clasp his hands around Erik’s own, but resists. Partially for Raven’s presence, and partially because he can’t bring himself to share in Erik’s vision. The end, of course, but even by his most extreme stretch, he can’t see Erik’s path leading than there. “Detente, then?” he asks, a brow shooting upward. “Cow them into leaving us alone? Of course I want the future you see, but the only way to get there is acceptance. Ingratiation. There’s no other option.”

"It won't work," Erik shakes his head. "It has never worked. Appeasement and assimilation aren't viable solutions in the long-term, Charles. You know that. They would never accept us. They would, at most, tolerate us until they are certain they can extinguish us. The only way we stand a chance is to level the playing field."

“It has worked,” Charles insists. “How do you think we’ve gotten to his point? It’s misguided at best to think that all great change has arrived via revolution. There are changes happening every day, but they’re so small that we can’t see them. It’s like evolution. Minute changes over time resulting in something entirely new.” Charles sits up straight then, feeling his pulse quicken. “Can you truly see your means reaching your end, Erik? Separatism? How will our two kinds be able to coexist under those circumstances?”

"How do any two powers coexist?" Erik returns, soft. "We learn. I am not a revolutionary, Charles. I'm not an extremist. I do not want to hurt innocent people. But I said Never Again and I meant never again for anyone."

“You didn’t answer my first question,” Charles says, timbre matching Erik’s own. “Do you genuinely believe that Separatism is the means to your end?”

"To an extent," Erik nods. "Coexistence is the ideal, of course," he murmurs, eyes creased fondly.

"G-ddddddd, get a room," Raven sticks her tongue out at them and shifts in her seat, plucking up the pitcher to pour herself another draft. She always was the designated driver, what with her mutation shrugging off alcohol like it was water.

Charles’s return smile is a white flag, accepting their common ground where they can find it. They’re not too far away from each other, he reminds himself then. Their goals appear to be the same; peaceful coexistence, freedom for their kind and for humanity. At any rate, they’re years away from any such world. Most don’t even know that people like them exist yet. And Charles would venture a guess that most other mutants are probably under the impression that they’re alone, too. Much work is to be done before they can even think about these decisions. He gives Raven’s shoulder a fond pat. “Erik and I have decided that we want to find others like us,” he says to her, but keeps his eyes fixed on Erik. “Gather us together. “We could use your help.”

Raven gawps. "What, like - actually put Greymalkin to use?"

"Grey... ?" Erik cricks his neck.

"It's an estate," she says. "I mean, I guess it's big enough. What are you planning on doing, putting an ad in the paper?"

Charles considers this. Truth be told, he had not been thinking about using the mansion currently in his name for this purpose, but it’s a good idea. It’s remote enough, large enough. A good idea. “I figured we’d travel,” he muses. “While you stay behind and get the manor all cleaned up and ready.”

Raven gives an almighty eyeroll, but - and it's saying a lot - she doesn't dispute it, either. "Like a home base. OK, I can dig it." But the real cache is government, right? I might be able to snag some watchlists, she thinks pointedly, with a wink. I may or may not have an asset who owes me a favor.

Be careful, Charles says back, and it’s an automatic refrain. Unnecessary, because Raven will do what she needs to do regardless of whether or not he harps at her to be careful, but he worries about getting involved with the government. We can discuss tactics later. In tandem, he rounds back toward Erik. “Would you be up for a little traveling?”

Erik peeks up from his pizza, a slight smile on his face. "Yes, I think I'd like that."

"And we should probably loop Hank in, too. Yes, I know about Hank. I did a full background check on all of your research partners, Charlie. Don't give me that look."

The look that Charles is offering is one of indignation, one that’s demanding an explanation for her secret involvement. It’s only partially serious; they both vowed long ago that they will always look out for each other. Her overstepping is more likely out of care than curiosity. “I’m sure he’ll be interested,” Charles agrees finally. “Would any of your brothers qualify for our new fraternity, Erik?”

"A few," Erik nods. "Janos Quested and Isadore Cohen are mutants. And there are a few I would trust to bring into the loop, who are not. Daniel Shomron, Carmen Pryde. They are good people, well-trained and adept."

If Erik trusts them, Charles decides that he does, too. He’s a hard judge of character—his agreement is not easy to come by. “I’m surprised that you’re seeing non-mutants in this, too,” Charles admits.

Erik nods. "Perhaps so. When you meet them, you may understand." Charles sees it - flashes - Erik's hand on Car's shoulder. The pipe displacing sand. Heartbeats. Blood pressure cuff. Bitter argument. Resigned camaraderie. Trust forged in heartbeats, silence. "Janos can generate hurricanes. Isadore... knows what is true. It is difficult to explain." 

"Now, that I have to see. What does that even mean?"

What it means, practically, is that Izzy possesses a form of reality manipulation that causes people to be more honest than not, whilst seeing through any manipulations or forgeries himself. "You will find out." Erik's eyes haven't left Charles, his tone that of an inside-joke only they are privy to. Warmth.

He’s treated to yet another series of abortive memories, a mosaic of Erik’s past coming together in vivid shards. There is intensity there, and heft. Yes, Carmen Pryde can be of help to them, Charles understands. A low smile rests on his lips, that same vibrancy of camaraderie flickering in his chest. It feels good, to share this with someone else. A friend. A partner. “I’m certain that we’ll encounter many people who can do things beyond describing,” Charles says, limned with excitement. “We should start right away. Well, after midterms.”

"Don't be fooled, nothing on G-d's green earth can stop Charles Xavier from studying," Raven smirks.

"Carmen is in law school, and Daniel is studying medicine. Isadore and Janos are engineers, like me. Izzy does not speak great English, but that should not matter much. I think it will be a good start. I can put the word out in TEP as well, to see if any more interest is generated. I have no doubt there are many mutants attempting to hide in plain sight." He gestures to Raven. It's apparent that Erik doesn't even care about his midterms, or at least has no intention of hunkering down and studying. He's done well on every test and assignment so far, and doesn't feel the need to over extend himself when something far more important is at stake.

Charles rolls his eyes at Raven’s comment. What’s the point of devoting all this time to his education if he’s not going to make it a priority? School was never her forte, so it’s never something they’ve agreed about. He’s glad that Erik seems eager, though. Whether or not midterms have crossed his mind, it’s evident that their new mission is now his primary focus. That makes Charles smile. “We should go visit Westchester this weekend, then. See what state the manor is in…can’t imagine that it’s anywhere near ready to host anyone.” His expression darkens a bit—the thought of visiting his childhood home, so deeply associated with memories of loneliness, is not pleasant.

Erik brushes his fingertips over the inside of Charles's wrist, a pulse of concern emanating from the contact. "We will turn it into a home," he promises. "For all who need it. Dzień, tak?" Erik murmurs, eyebrows lifting playfully. "It will be all right."

Charles knows that his sister will see their small exchanges of physical touch and will extrapolate. And he finds that he doesn’t really care. She’ll be annoying about it, but not incorrect. That closeness is there, and he craves it. “It will be,” he agrees, fingers wrapping around Erik’s own. “It’s been abandoned since my mother left it behind several years ago. We’ll have to put it in some work.”

Raven decides in that moment that Erik is a good egg. And once she's accepted you as part of her family? That's it. Signed and notarized.

Before he met Erik, Charles didn’t know much at all about Jewish culture. He knew about the High Holidays and certain customs, and an academic overview of the religious tenets. Shabbat, however, is a new concept. After devouring several articles about the practice, Charles decides that he’s honored to be invited to Erik’s home for the event. It’s under the guise of meeting their potential compatriots, but he knows that Erik is still cooking a hearty, elaborate meal for them all, and it’s touching. He arrives first, and allows Erik to help him out of his jacket. He’s in a grey cardigan and white shirt for the occasion; a modicum more casual than his typical suit. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he promises, offering the man a smile. “How can I help you prepare?”

As like before, Erik sets him to work in the kitchen, but much of the meal is already complete. It's simple, but hearty; curried chickpea stew spiced with cinnamon, paprika and saffron, braided challah and vegetables splashed with oil, given a char and salted. And baklava for dessert, as always. Erik's predictable, over time, but it's grounding. A two-fingered knock alerts them to Carmen. The sound of a vehicle driving off after headlights flashed over kitchen. "Well," Erik says softly. He's never been one for boosting morale, but all the same, he tries. "Let's get to it," is what he comes up with, wry.

Erik's measured tone is returned with a warm smile from Charles, though he's feeling a spate of nervous energy run through his veins. He's good with people, certainly, and he knows that his ability enables him to come across as charming and likable, but being liked is not the goal of this evening, is it. No, he needs to be trusted, respected. That's much harder to cultivate by fair means. "Let's," Charles agrees, standing somewhat stiffly beside the stove. When Erik returns with a trim young man with dark hair, about his height. Erik towered over the both of them. Pressing a friendly smile to his face, Charles extends a hand. "Charles Xavier," he greets. "It's wonderful to meet you, Carmen." A brief sweep of the man's external psyche reveals nothing dangerous, which is a relief, but he also isn't revealing much at all. He has a guarded way about him, and out of respect, Charles decides not to delve further.

Carmen is a lot younger than Erik, and while he has a guarded nature very similar to what is in Erik's mind, he is a lot more expressive with smiles and shakes Charles's hand with both of his. "Erik's told me a lot about you. I'm glad to meet you!" he adds, his accent a little muddled but largely irascible, brusque and firm. "Iz and Janos are on their way. Daniel is still at the hospital. This smells delicious, ah," he plucks up a kippah from the table and plops it on his head. "Shabbat shalom, and all the rest." He adopts Erik's minhag, even though it's not his own - a raucous gut Shabbos where Erik's line uses Hebrew. "Where are you from, Charles?"

"Do not be nosy," Erik chides.

"Nonsense. I'm not nosy. I'm inquisitive."

Carmen smiles easily. "I grew up in Warsaw, bounced around a bit. Me and Erik were like peas in a pod, yeah?" He nudges his friend's shoulder. "But we didn't meet up till now. A shame, really."

"I am very grateful you are still here," Erik replies warmly.

"You'll get on with Danny, he's a brit like yourself," Car grins back.

The vague similarities between Erik’s speech and Carmen’s accent become more clear now, and Charles grins at the two. Another question lingers, one which he will never ask aloud, but one which burns nonetheless. “I’ll be eager to meet him,” Charles says earnestly. The presence of two new minds at the doorstep becomes apparent. One mind is quick, an internal monologue in another Slavic-sounding language spilling in rapid-fire. The other is much different; rather than in discreet words, this mind synthesizes its surroundings in vivid imagery and more abstract sentiments.

This mind is currently regarding its companion—the quick-thinking man—but it formulates its opinions visually. Words flash across its frontal cortex, but not sounds. Immediately, Charles understands that this mind belongs to a deaf individual. Charles has only witnessed this manner of processing among those who have never been able to hear or haven’t been able to hear for a very long time. “I think your other friends have arrived,” Charles remarks, and right on queue, a succession of quick knocks carries into the kitchen.

Erik hops-to and ushers everyone inside, sparing a nod and smile (that looks more like a grimace, but he tries) for each. "This is Janos," he introduces, speaking loudly for (what he believes is) the man's benefit. "And Isadore. Shabbat shalom," he bows his head. "Please, have a seat, dinner will be served shortly. There is wine and beer, select what you like. It is all kosher and vegetarian," he runs through his spiel before disappearing into the kitchen to begin serving.

Janos likes Erik, he does. He can see that the man is smart and driven, and he likes people who are smart and driven. It’s why he accepted the invitation to this Shabbat dinner at Erik’s townhouse; he wouldn’t spend a Friday night with people he doesn’t like, after all. Izzy’s presence is a necessary condition, however; Izzy is one of the few people at MIT who feels comfortable enough to sign with him. The man’s English is about as good as his ASL, which, to be fair, isn’t great, but they can communicate well enough, and he enjoys Izzy’s sardonic translations. Not that Janos always needs a translator, of course. The imperative put upon him by his aunt as a child was to learn how to read lips.

Much of his first decade on earth was spent in the chaos and confusion of mapping lingual speech to words, and then words to meaning, but as a man in his early 20s, Janos Quested can feel comfortable enough to sit down in a group of hearing people and follow a complex conversation. It’s not a perfect system; especially in university as he encounters new words at record pace. When that happens, he must try to either match the pattern to a word he already knows or ask the speaker to spell it out, and then repeat it verbally until he can recognize it. What he doesn’t like about Erik Lehnsherr, however, is this. It’s evident that he’s just yelled a greeting—the others in the room have just jumped minutely, and his mouth has opened wider than is typical of an indoor conversation.

“Now you’re going to make all of us deaf,” Isadore grunts in heavily-accented English. His Russian roots are far more evident in his speech than are Erik’s and Carmen’s Polish. Accents and cultural speech patterns provide another layer of difficulty for lip-readers, but Janos understands what his friend has just spoken aloud, and gives a small smirk. Thank you for the invitation, signs Janos, uncaring that Erik will likely not understand the words on their own. Isadore hovers around the table before plucking a kippah from the surface and setting it atop his crown. He turns to Carmen and nods a greeting, and then gives a sidelong glance to Charles.

“This is the, eh, mental friend?” he asks Carmen, clearly more comfortable speaking with the man he’s already met than the one he hasn’t. “The one with mental powers?”

Erik signs you're welcome before disappearing into the kitchen, having picked up a few words here and there - it's difficult with what one hand being inoperable, but understandable as the sign is a sweeping gesture all the same.

"That's him," Carmen nods, elbowing Izzy slyly. "Pick a number, any number."

"He is not a carnival trick," Erik chides as he steps back into the room, dry. His arms are laden with dishes and the rest float alongside, and they arrange themselves neatly at the table. Erik pauses and then speaks, and tempers his volume with Izzy's reproach, but tries to enunciate as clearly as possible - he tries, OK? He's trying. Ya big boop. "Before we usher in Shabbat, I would just like to say, I am very thankful for this community of people who have accepted me and helped me to make a home here. Now, it's a tradition to not use electricity and so-forth, but for the sake of modern times, that is unnecessary to abide. May your meal be good and conversation bold," Erik raises his glass. "Now, would anyone like to light the candles? Typically it is done by a woman, but we appear to be sorely lacking in this department."

"I can do it," Car says, and strikes a match from the book out of his pocket. "Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha olam asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav vitzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat," he recites in a lyrical sing-song. "And then you may wash your hands there," Erik points to the station by the dining table. Carmen shows Charles how to sprinkle three times on his left hand, the Sephardic way, as Erik would have been taught. Erik goes through Hamotzi once and then sits down. "Let's eat," he grins a little. 

The ceremony of the candles and the washing of the hands is all new to Charles, but he’s happy to participate. He and Janos are the only gentiles at the table, but they both sprinkle water atop their hands and listen as Erik recites a prayer in Hebrew, similar in sound to the one that Carmen just chanted as he lit the candles. Once everything is said and they’re cleared to dig in, Charles eagerly breaks a piece of braided Challah and spoons some curried soup into his bowl. He’s in the midst of tucking in when Izzy speaks up.

“Next time, I bring gefilte,” he says, brow cocked. He’s entirely serious, but does not mean to be rude; it’s intended as a conversational comment rather than a dig at the spread that Erik’s prepared. “Normally, Shabbat is not for rabbits. Have you one pan to cook only? Maybe I buy you second pan.”

Izzy regards Erik intently, considering the implications. He hasn’t considered that before, but knows that there is earnestness behind that statement. Still, he’s not one to resist an opening for a jab. “Blood and guts make you act like little girl? Be a man, Erik Lehnsherr. Eat the guts.” Charles can’t help but snort a laugh into his stew. The turn of phrase is simply something he hadn’t expected, and it’s amusing.

"Little girls can be fearsome warriors in their own way," Erik murmurs fondly, taking the jab with characteristic gentle nature. "Not about blood and guts, but respect. I know when an animal I've eaten hasn't been."

Izzy stares Erik down in his typical deadpan, and then turns to Janos. “The man say he can see when animal did not get happy life,” he says, causing Janos to smirk. “In the blood of animal, this man see if animal was given bad time. We must send to asylum. Shock treatment.”

Janos, enjoying his friend’s bone-dry sense of humor, signs smoothly back. What if these peas were planted in bad soil? Can he see that, too?

Before Izzy can translate, Charles lets out a throaty laugh. Several pairs of eyes turn his way, and he realizes suddenly that he has been able to understand Janos’s silent joke by reading the narrative in his brain. It isn’t auditory at all; instead, the images of the words flash across Janos’s mind and marry the visual accompaniment, creating a perfectly cohesive and understandable statement, transmittable by telepathy.

“Why you laughing?” Izzy asks. “Do we need to send you to asylum too?”

Charles, with slightly red cheeks, regards Janos for a moment, and the man eyes him in return. Clumsily, Charles envisions his next sentence as words on a chalkboard: I apologize, I was privy to your last thought. I didn’t mean to intrude, I didn’t realize that we could communicate this way. Once he was sure that the “writing” was clear, he projected that thought toward Janos’s psyche, and then watched as the man received the vision. He reacted in much the same way that anyone else did the first time they received a targeted telepathic message. After a long moment, Janos lifts one hand and makes the sign for it’s okay with one hand, and then erases the chalkboard. In a neat cursive, new words reappear against the green backdrop.

Saves paper, talking this way. I don’t have to write everything down. Charles can only smile and offer a warm nod in return, grateful for Janos’s acceptance.

“Oh great, mental man and Janos now are having secret mental conversation,” Izzy observes. “Plotting to steal all our wallets, I bet.”

"He would do nothing of the sort," Erik defends Charles reflexively, scritching the back of his neck as he lifts his glass. "L'chaim," he toasts, and then downs the wine before ripping into the challah and stew. "To answer your question, I can indeed see that. Plants actually have a form of intelligence, believe it or not," he grins, well-aware that he sounds absurd.

"That being said, there is an issue of significance to discuss," Erik leads in. "Mutation," he murmurs, flicking his wrist and lifting the Shabbat candles to float overhead. "We do not know what it is, we do not have any leads in science, yet it is certain that those with these abilities are in danger of being snatched up. Some even have visible mutations. I knew a man, Azazel." He left Raven's name off, for now. "He was red." Erik's mind is all splinters about Azazel, grinding down pulp.

Charles is treated to a disjointed vision, a figure with skin as red as a fire engine. Black hair, a long, reptilian tail. There is intensity associated with the vision, and Charles is left wondering what became of this Azazel. However, they do have business to attend to.

“We’ve decided that it no longer suits our interests to remain in isolation," he says, simultaneously projecting the words for Janos as well. He wishes that he could think with such vivid imagist clarity as Janos in order to communicate with him in a way more native to his mind, but as he’s not accustomed to processing thought in that way, they must settle for this mental reading game. “If we’re ever to gain acceptance within larger society,” he continues, “we must gather. Join forces.”

Carmen balks a little. "Like a club?" he wonders.

"More... an institution," Erik elucidates. "We know what will happen the longer we continue to exist without official recognition. We cannot allow fear and prejudice to take hold once more. We need to unify, mutants and mutant supporters, to collect ourselves and determine our future."

Izzy’s stern face hardens into a frown. He’s less comfortable with English than he is with any of the other languages that he speaks, so he switches to Hebrew to interrogate Erik. “You‘re expecting us to place a target on our heads?” he asks, voice edgy. “And join this…institution? That sounds ill-advised."

"It is not," Erik returns softly. "The longer we are disenfranchised and disconnected, the more time governments have to draft laws that repeal our personhood, or to conduct experiments upon us, to torture us, murder us, enslave us - we need to go public. We need to unite, together, to explain to the world what we are, and what our role is," he gestures to Charles, having listened after all even whilst not necessarily on the same side of the debate.

"We cannot operate from the shadows any longer," he returns to English. "We must quickly take control of the narrative, and swiftly form a coalition. We will not all agree on what to do, I know," he nods. "But we are brothers and sisters. We are bound together by fate. We must listen to one another, and help one another. We have a saying. Kol yisrael arevim ze bazeh. It means every Jew is responsible for one another. And I too believe this of mutants, perhaps even moreso. Because our gifts, they are a responsibility. Are they not?"

It's the most Charles has ever heard Erik say at one time, quiet and soft-spoken, but effused of passion and sincere determination.

Charles hangs onto Erik’s words, embraces what they mean, feels them in his heart. Neither he nor Janos understood the quick exchange of Hebrew and Charles decided not to pry, but this sentiment in English was clear. Mutants caring for mutants. For their kind. All humans should feel this compassion for each other, but since they don’t, protecting one’s own is doubly crucial. He resists the urge to take Erik’s hand. Janos is the one to raise the next concern.

Our gifts are indeed a responsibility, he signs/telepathically communicates. But unevenly distributed. What you can do, Erik, and what Charles can do….that a much different level. Inherent stratification.

“In plain terms, please,” Izzy simultaneously signs and speaks aloud to Janos. The Russian’s ASL doesn’t extend that far.

Janos thinks for a moment, and then begins again. As mutants, we are less powerful, Izzy, than are Charles or Erik. I make tornados. Erik controls matter. It’s different.

Izzy grunts, and then nods in agreement. “A good point. Can all of us pretend to be same when we are not? I am afraid not for us, but for others we don’t know. You really are so…what’s the word…optimal?”

“Optimistic,” Charles says softly.

“Yes, this. How can you be so like that? You, chaver, know more than others that people betray. How do we stop people betraying?”

"It can't be about power," Erik murmurs. "That is what they will make it about. We must make it about people, about the person. It has to be a cultural shift, for children to be raised with the understanding that their gifts are a precious responsibility, that they should be instructed to do good. Yes, there will be harm done. Mutants will cause harm. We will need to address that." Erik has no compunctions, nor is he naive.

"People will betray us. There will be suffering. We cannot stop that. But it will be orders of magnitude worse if we are disconnected. Alone. Without common ground. They will try it all. To divide us, splinter us, turn us against one another. We saw it with our people, it happened in front of our eyes. They tolerate you when it is convenient and when life is a shambles, and they see you with your mutant powers, they will blame the mutant for their pain - and it will begin again."

"So what kind of institution will this be, exactly?" Carmen asks the loaded question. "What's your mandate?"

He presses his hands together, plaintive. "I have no doctrine for you. No propaganda. I don't know what our mission really is. That is what we need to come together, to draw up an agreement. To use the thing that makes us civilized, that makes us enlightened. Our ability to speak, negotiate, cooperate. That is humanity. And if they do not accept us, we will be in a better position to defend our right to life and liberty together, than apart."

Raven thinks Hank is fantastic and constantly pesters him about his science projects, even though Charles knows full well she hasn't the slightest bit of genuine interest in it. She just likes him, and how excited he gets over slight permeations of his experiments.

Erik has been a godsend, easily pulling apart and re-arranging the manor's internal structures to renovate it for their purposes, and growing more comfortable still with Charles taking up residence in the back of his head. A simple nod and he floats down the stairs, silently landing on his feet to allow his two friends inside. "Mind the mess," he warns dryly. "Welcome home, and hello," he signs the words as he speaks, having tried his best to learn as much conversational ASL as he could in the interim. It's still excessively clunky due to the brace, but it's effort nonetheless.

Both Izzy and Janos’s eyes take in the massive entryway of the mansion. It’s still a work-in-progress—the foyer isn’t their first priority, by any means, but even in its dingy state, it’s impressive. The grandeur, however, makes Izzy scoff. “You tell me that our mental friend had home here,” he muses. “What says them…golden fork?”

Silver spoon, Janos signs, dark brow cocked upon clocking the oil portrait of a dour-looking family from what appeared to be the 1920s hanging above an archway. Did people really sit for portraits anymore?

“Silver spoon,” he repeats aloud, but, knowing their mission, nods to the leather bag on his shoulder. “I have list in here. I hope that you have food ready?”

"You know I do," Erik snarks. It wouldn't be a gathering of the minds without food, after all. "We are... working on the... that," he waves airily at the 'the-ness' going on around them. The marble fixtures and gold paneling. Erik is advocating for warm colors and wood. Maybe some bright furniture pieces, some plants. He does love his plants. They walk past several.

"Oh ho," is Raven's first words to the trio. "And who are these gentlemen?" she arcs a brow. She's blue today, wearing a halter top with flowers printed on, a wide-brimmed hat and linen pants. Her red hair is twirled up in a complicated braid that falls down her back.

"Raven, meet Izzy Cohen and Janos Quested."

It’s been a long journey; Izzy is bone-tired and looking forward to a meal, a stiff drink, and a long sleep. One of the million rooms in this place has to have a bed ready for him, right? He’s about to ask Erik that very question as they enter a palatial kitchen when a woman with brick-red hair and blue, scaly skin turns on her heel to greet them. Izzy’s jaw nearly drops, but he schools himself into something more polite. The woman’s bright yellow eyes are dancing and mischievous, but Izzy is drawn to her coy smirk. Beside him, Janos lets out an audible gasp. His friend doesn’t often make noise, so it’s a surprise; a testament to the woman’s exquisite form. Neither of them have seen a mutant like this before.

But, Izzy is no simpering fool. He’s been raised right, he’s a gentleman, after all. Like Raven implied. And real gentlemen don’t fawn and keen. “Well, the freak show is in town now,” he says. Ever the gentleman, of course. “I give you a nickel, you do trick, yes?”

“No,” comes a stern voice from the hallway, and in marches Charles, sweaty and flustered. He’s in shirtsleeves and a pair of rumpled khakis, and his face is streaked with dirt. “That is my sister that you’re talking to, Izzy, thank you.”

The Russian smirks. “Fine. A quarter, then, for brother and sister freak show act.”

Raven does a cartwheel right up to him, and holds out her hand. "A dollar," she demands promptly, flashing a winning smile.

Erik tries to conceal his laugh behind his hand. "You did say she was in show business," he huffs, as he finds a glass tumbler and some of Charles's hideously expensive whiskey for Izzy.

“Mm, trying to swindle a poor foreigner,” Izzy replies, unable to keep himself from beaming broadly at the remarkable woman. He shakes her hand instead and offers a humble tilt of his head. “A pleasure to meet you.” Charles rolls his eyes and sinks into a chair at the table, tired and sweaty from his morning of manual labor. “I’ll have some of that, too,” he says to Erik, nodding at the whiskey. “And whatever you’re cooking. Smells better than anything that’s ever been cooked in this kitchen before.” Izzy looks dramatically around the space. “You mean when you host dinner for entire US army?”

"No army, just Carmen and Danny," Erik grins, suddenly struck by the fact that this was his family. It's sentimental, Izzy would surely guffaw and rib him over it, but for someone who had lost everything, it matters that these people are in his life now. He can't promise to always agree with the noble tenets of Integrationism, but he does promise that no matter what happens, he will do his best to ensure that they do not come to harm. If they want a school, he will make sure it is defended to the last man, woman and child inside.

"Good day," Daniel Shomron tromps through and raises a hand as he's called upon. He has a shock of blond curls and mischievous blue eyes, and wears a suit that's plenty dusted from hard work, sleeves rolled up. He'd lost his family in the Blitz, joined the Haganah shortly after as a medic and wound up stateside to pursue a career as a doctor. Now he was a resident at the local hospital, studying epidemiology.

Carmen follows suit, having already encountered Raven, his reaction is much more subdued. Needless to say, it had been a shock at first, but there's no denying her grace and ethereal beauty. "What's for dinner?" he looks at the wide spread of plates along the table. He does offer Izzy and Janos a wave, unkempt from assisting Charles and clad in a sweater-vest and khakis.

"Lots of deep fried goodness," Erik explains. A variety of fritters (mushroom, zucchini, pickles, tomatoes and hot peppers) and sauces, salad, Izzy, G-d. And dense sweet sugar-dusted treats known as sufganiyah.

Hank is the next to arrive. He's a shy, quiet man, a few years younger than Charles, but already working toward a PhD/MD. A natural genius with an affinity for exploring the intersection of biology and mechanics, Hank McCoy has eagerly joined Charles and his cause. He's spent a lonely lifetime feeling like a freak and endless hours trying to find away to make his blue, furry feet go away, but finding Charles and his friends has been an illuminating, validating experience. Maybe there is a world when he and the rest can live openly, freely. It's enough to bring him here, anyway. He nods a greeting to the newcomers but doesn't offer much else, taking a seat across from Charles. 

Indeed, Charles is pleased when all are seated around the table, Erik to his immediate left. Without thinking, he lifts a napkin and wipes a bit of sugar from Erik's cheek. The action does not go unnoticed by their peers, and Izzy, of course, feels the need to provide commentary.

"I understand now," says the Russian. "Lehnsherr is mom, Xavier is dad. Married, and we are all your kids." He nods, satisfied with his assessment, but a smirk is brimming.

Erik thwaks him with the back of his hand. "Eat your donuts," he groans amid an eyeroll, pressing his lips together to avoid expressing any amusement.

"You know, he has a point," Raven says.

"Oy vey gevalt iz mir," Erik throws his hands up in an exaggerated shrug. He knows his face is a little red, but he doesn't exactly deny anything, either. It's impossible to miss the affection between the two men, even when they are both trying to conceal it. One doesn't need to be a telepath to figure that out.

Charles, too, can feel a tinge of heat reddening his cheeks and the tips of his ears, but he takes it in stride. It's a poorly kept secret that the two of them have something between them. Natural chemistry, of course, but there's physical touch, too. Quiet conversations in the corner, long strolls through the grounds at night. To any onlooker paying marginal attention, the situation is obvious. Rather than denying it, then, Charles places a hand on Erik's forearm, for show. "Your mother and I would appreciate if you ate your meal without further comment," he says to a round of snickers from the table. "He worked hard on it."

Izzy raises his glass in assent. "Apologies, papa," he says with a grin. "I've been good son, though. Have list we need. Can go to many mutants right now. Are rooms all ready?"

With so much work to be done on the mansion, it had been a non-stop parade of projects and renovations - and being around Raven and Carmen for most of the time, there simply hadn't been an opportunity for Erik and Charles's relationship to deepen in a more physical manner; but that isn't to say that it hasn't deepened. On the contrary, Erik would classify Charles as his closest companion, and he hopes to have been able to provide similar support to the other man.

The fact that both are still quite self-conscious in the face of Izzy's teasing is pretty clear, but there is no embarrassment from Erik at all. He's ordinarily an extremely private person, and often rebuffed others' attempts to invade his personal space, but in this he is certain. And perhaps it couldn't have worked any other way, given how prickly his exterior is. "They are just-about," Erik nods. "By the time anyone gets here, the main areas should be fully functional, if not necessarily beautiful."

Charles removes his hand from Erik’s arm but remains close, their chairs nearly touching. The chaos of the past few weeks have kept them both very busy. Working toward a common goal has enabled them to grow closer, and Erik, still private, stoic, and serious as ever has somehow become…approachable. At least to Charles. He no longer looks at Erik and sees a locked box; instead, he sees an ever-evolving puzzle waiting to be solved. It’s exhilarating. But, business is business, and that’s the primary reason that they’re both there.

“You two,” Charles says to Izzy and Janos, “can take a break from traveling and help finish up here. Now that we have our list, Erik and I can start making visits.”

Dinner progresses much in the same vein, with Erik quiet and observant as usual, perhaps even moreso - not because he's displeased, but rather he thinks it might be the opposite. For the first time he can remember since he was eleven and his entire world was torn from him in a single violent act, compounding on violent acts, he thinks he is... happy.

The following morning, breakfast is a practically jaunty affair - everyone can feel it, not just the telepaths in the room, either. The air, the particles around them, seem uplifted somehow, good cheer suffused through the manor in Erik's version of a hum - of course, his expression remains its typical stern line. Raven of course, inspired them with a rousing social deduction game that Charles promptly ruined before falling asleep on Izzy. The smell of chocolate chip pancakes stirs her and she mumbles, "I don' wanna go to shool. Fuh off. Mrrp."

Izzy would be the first to admit that he had been skeptical of Erik’s invitation at the outset. The Polish man had been a strange acquaintance; certainly not near the level of “friend” when the call to join him for Shabbat came. It struck him as odd; did Erik Lehnsherr have friends? He hadn’t thought so. And yet, here he is, not a month later, sitting around a breakfast table with a group of fellow misfits. A brilliant and mysterious woman dozes on his shoulder, and people who he now indeed considers his friends chatter around him.

For the first time since the war, since well before the war, in fact, Izzy feels…home. It’s a strange and touching thing. Raven’s bleary words make him grin, and his friendly arm wraps around her blue form to provide support.

“Your brother is going to burn house down, druzhok,” he says to her, nodding toward the stove. Charles had asked Erik to show him how to make pancakes, and there’s now a flurry of activity at the burner as the telepath evidently fails to do anything correctly. “Best wake now, so we can run.”

Erik smacks Charles on the wrist admonishingly as he reaches for the salt instead of the sugar - those would be some truly grotesque pancakes - and very briefly, an image crosses Erik's mind. The woman, green-eyed and with the same auburn streak through her curly hair, doing the same to a younger Erik as he stumbles through her husband's kitchen like a bulldozer. It's a little too physical for modern American comfort - cuffs at the ears, herding a bit like cats. But nowhere near approaching abuse, just exasperation. It's faded from disuse, something lost to the ether and guarded beneath layers of stuttering fog, flickering to life. Something he didn't think he had any longer, through patient nurturing.

Every once in a while, not often, but sometimes, these shards pierce through. Pieces of his family lost to him, returning in hazy slivers. To those without telepathy, Erik is taciturn, but over the past few weeks it's become gradually clear that he expresses friendship through acts of service, keeping everyone fed and warm and laundered, a brief joke here and there. It doesn't seem, on its surface, that Erik does friends, until one day you woke up and realized he had been there the whole time.

This morning, it's pancakes, and the faint shadow of those who came before, who taught him how to add black pepper into the batter for a more complex flavor, to tend the leaves on winding tomato plants and brew a perfect espresso. The ways that they were not extinguished after all, little gifts to pass forward. "Perhaps... bananas," Erik huffs a little, holding up the bunch of fruit optimistically. "You can be the chief banana slicer."

"Charles's brain is a banana," Raven announces with a smirk.

Charles can't remember the last time this kitchen was this full. He'd been banned from the room entirely as a child; each meal was eaten in the opulent dining room and not at the round table around which his new friends were currently seated. Any attempts to help prepare a meal or even a snack for himself had been denied. He hadn't understood all of the steps that came with cooking even the simplest dish, like pancakes, and now, as he stared over their messy countertop, he can only feel appreciation.

Erik's mind, Charles notes, eases a bit as he's cooking. Even as Charles's ignorance threatens to derail everything, to ruin their meal, the stern edge softens as he measures, mixes, stirs, and simmers. It's as though they're peering through a window to a different time, a different reality, one in which Erik can simply share this level of care with others unabashed. It warms Charles so much that he doesn't even mind that he's been demoted to chief banana slicer.

"Better a giant pancake than a waffle, I'd say," he quips back as he sets to his task. "And your jokes, dear sister, are falling flatter than a giant pancake, mm?"

"Not entirely incorrect," Erik does his best to teach, though so much of what he knows is simple instinct. He guides Charles to the salt again and gestures for just a pinch. It never truly was about the food to begin with, though there's an inherent cringe-factor to wasting ingredients - he had conversely grown up all underfoot and bothersome, not cowed even from Iakov Lehnsherr's sternest reproach (one might have called him brave to cross the man's ire - Erik as a child had been exuberant or just foolhardy, but as an adult their demeanor matches).

He absorbed through osmosis, unfortunate that though Edie kept him from killing himself over the stove, she could barely make tea. What Charles was in poverty from was never an empty stomach, but an empty heart was just as painful. Nevertheless, Erik knows he now has the power to ensure neither himself nor his newfound friends suffer through the crushing density of starvation again - all the same, it's eased with a grimace, focused instead on what really matters. Least of all the actual meal, which he is certain he can salvage no matter how badly Charles mangles it.

"Just a little," he cautions. "There is coffee there," he adds to Izzy and Raven both, his version of good morning. "And I have left finishing instructions with Carmen on the rooms, but they are habitable. Did Hank find the name of the individual we are expecting to meet?" Erik asks Charles, his mind a whirr of neatly organized tasks. It's a big day - they've finally got enough data points to make their first expedition to what they believe is another mutant in the area. It is finally time to put theory to the test, to see if this idea of theirs holds weight in the real world.

After finishing their undeniably edible breakfast, Charles and Erik make their way down to the bowels of the manor. The old basement-turned-bomb shelter is now taking on a new life; metal panels lay scattered about the space, ready to be plastered over the concrete walls to create a uniform plane. While there are still a few boxes of c-rations and pieces of dusty furniture to clear out, the cavernous space is primarily filled with tools; workbenches littered with wires, scraps, half-finished mechanical components. It’s become Hank’s workshop, and will soon become the center of their outreach program. In the center of the room, the tall, lanky scientist with the massive blue feet is crouched over a table, beside which rests an unassuming wooden chair.

In the dim light, Charles can see the helmet as it sits on the table. Wires twine from its exposed crown, snaking along thick cables around each temple. The cables disappear into a massive black box on the floor, which is plugged in to a quiet generator. Cerebro, Hank calls it. The scientist glances up from his work—just have to tighten a few more joints, make sure the sensors are uncovered—to find the tall, rangy figure of Erik loping beside the short, slender one of Charles. Insurance, he supposes, but he resents the lack of trust. There’s no scientific reason to believe that his creation will have any harmful impact on Charles or his brain; he’s simply created an interface that amplifies something which is already present.

Nothing new is being introduced into Charles’s system. But, now isn’t the time to stew.

In fact, Hank can only feel excitement as the two approach, and he gestures for Charles to take a seat in the chair. When he does, Hank glances at Erik, and then back at Charles, and then speaks to the two of them. “I had a bit of a breakthrough last night. In particle physics, we call the excitation of acoustic atoms along their lattice a phonon. I had been so focused on trying to influence the movement of the phonon that I’d disregarded the lattice itself,” he says, knowing that the two, both men of science, will understand.

“Silly oversight. The helmet now will simply increase the size of the lattice as your brain waves are detected by the sensors. This will amplify your reach by…well, however much you want."

Of course, Erik's presence had been extremely beneficial in a few other ways, namely in being able to amplify exactly what Hank was working on so that he could see the results of his tinkering with his own eyes, no microscope or computer simulation required. Now that they're ready to truly do this, it sinks in that they're on the precipice of something... wondrous, and Erik can't help leaning forward as he watches Charles be patched onto the device, resting his chin on his hands and gazing intently at the process. And then it happens, the device whirring to life as the panels around them detached and rose, affecting a display of what Charles was seeing on an exponential level.

Blue dots at first, scattered to the ends of the cartographic representation of the Earth's globe - marker after marker, and then it zooms out, revealing more and even more. Each one a point - a mutant. Erik's eyebrows climb his hairline as they arc, knowing the result and seeing the result are two very different things. "Fascinating," he murmurs, a perfect representation of the Mr. Spock of their little friend group, a fact that Raven and Izzy have never missed the opportunity to tease him about. And then the points narrow again, and again.

Until Charles is zoomed in on a single one - and that point transforms into a small, holographic image of a red-haired girl running toward... a car - screaming, the squelch of - Erik blinks rapidly, unable to resist reaching out, but - this has already happened. It's a temporal echo, the past and present briefly intersecting to provide them with the understanding - yes, this is someone who needs their help. The girl's family, her community, are all worried sick and terrified of her in muted ways - she's only a child, after-all. They don't know what to do.

But, they do. Charles, Erik, Hank, Izzy. They know. They have a plan, and right now, it seems like they might be the only ones able to step in and offer genuine assistance.

It happens suddenly; there’s no build, no crescendo. The mansion is isolated, and so for the past several days, the rapping at the inside of his skull has been low. Only the mental energies of the people around him hum in his head, dulling the constant pain between his temples to little more than a minor annoyance. That all changes when the helmet whirs to life over his skull. It’s the Big Bang. First there was nothing, then there was everything. Noise. Light. Emotion. Pain. Brilliance. Depravity. All at once, it floods into Charles’s brain and through his senses. Sound too loud to tease out a single phrase, images moving too quickly to identify any figure.

Unbeknownst to him, his companions in the room are viewing a completely different landscape; one of control, targeted purpose. His brain is the interface for collection, Hank’s work provides the filter. Through the cacophony, an image finally tears to the front. The others don’t fade away; this one is merely brighter, louder, crisper. A flash of red hair, a rolling car, and—fear, horror, chaos—oh god, it’s more anguish than anyone should ever have to endure, too much for a body to contain—

Before he can register it, Charles is on the floor of the basement, a strangled cry tearing from his throat. Hands scrabble to push the helmet off, and when he finally wrests himself free of the thing, the silence, the stillness, is overwhelming. He’s lying beside the chair, and a trickle of blood steams from his left nostril, but he can’t feel that, he can’t feel anything, other than the imprint of the world’s emotions inside his chest.

Watching Charles be flung to the floor with blood streaming down his face, prompts Hank and Danny to immediately spring into action beside him, with the physicians acting quickly to ensure that his physical wellbeing is unharmed. While Carmen frets, wringing his hands like a soggy lump. Erik is still. His brows knit together in the center of his forehead. An island amidst the chaos, he is unmoved and impassive. He makes a very slow blink, and then gradually makes his way to Charles, kneeling down in front of him after gently ushering the others out of the way. Silent, light-footed. (this is what happens/when you find them here./the others beforehand teach you./to bear their remnants.)

As though he knows what to do, a type of telepathic first-aid that no one else on Earth could be privy-to, for the simple fact that it was an entire unknown in the field of medicine. The movements come organically, a reflexive key played in-tune. Hefting Charles upright, he uses the edge of his sleeve to dab away the blood droplets along his upper lip, before resting his hand along Charles's cheek. The warmth of skin-to-skin becomes a magnetic totem, tugging on that invisible strand he has felt between them from the first moment their minds touched, that quiet evening in his apartment permanently etched onto his being. Pulling on the strand. Dill and tzatziki, laughter and poetry. The orbit of atoms, like planets and stars.

"Tachzor elai, neshama," he murmurs the entreaty softly.

Charles knows that the rush of activity around him is being orchestrated in concern for him, but in this state, assuaging his companions’ worries feels unimportant. Even as a his eyelid is peeled open by a hasty thumb and an intense beam of light assaults his retinas, he doesn’t respond. The light is a dim candle compared to the light still pulsing behind his optic nerve, the memory of the entire world’s experience, one-by-one. Only when his torso is lifted from the ground does he vaguely feel like his body is his own again—pale as a ghost, is he—

and a warm sensation against his face, which has become stone cold. Return, return… Familiarity. Comfort. Safety. A mind like a temple, artfully constructed, beautifully furnished. Return to me. He relaxes, body slumping against Erik, fully supported by the other man. His eyes remain shut, but the touch is enough to keep him grounded. Slowly, the soft static of minds resonate in his head again, sharper and defined.

“Well,” he says finally, eyes still closed. His voice is soft, but not weak. “It works, Hank.”

A high-endearment, the highest one he knows. Charles is as integral as his higher consciousness. And in their proximity, Charles realizes it thus. Erik's sentiment for him is no mere trifling affection. It is deep, and abiding, and without condition. It is trust. That Charles will be Charles. And that Charles is exceptional and worthy and good. That Charles considers, and listens, and operates to preserve dignity and humanity and peace where he goes. Erik cannot claim to be similar, and he does not. But he admires these qualities, and respects them immensely.

Charles's voice in his mind always draws his good hand up toward his cheek, trying to press it ever closer. It's a quirk, something he doesn't realize he's doing. Savoring the warmth of another soul in tandem to his own. Savoring that it is good, and pleasant. Taking all that is offered without rebuke, despite his poor reputation for hostility. Charles's eyes are luminescent under the shimmering embedded lights of the rooftop. Erik is caught. Captured without binds. His bad hand lifts without volition, achingly gentle as he brushes the soft leather of the outside brace along that flush spreading over Charles's cheek, grinning wetly.

When Charles does it again, harder - more - Erik finds his good fingers buried in the fabric along Charles's chest, as an electric cable drops into endless water. Spark. Erik's mouth opens beneath his, largely out of reflex rather than skill or purpose, and he finds himself kissing Charles, now. This time, Charles feels it as it doubles back and plunges him into the depths. The lights in the car flicker and a soft noise emits from the back of Erik's throat, utterly without his intention.

"You are," he whispers back, breath shaky. "Safe with me. I won't harm you. I won't." This seems important to him, for some reason. That Charles know this.

The comment is so striking that, despite himself, Charles breathes a laugh. His lips still explore Erik’s, hands remain knotted in his shirt to shackle him close, but the laugh is warm on their skin. “I know you won’t hurt me,” he says aloud, hand finally leaving Erik’s jaw so that his fingers can card through tawny hair. It’s a softer in Charles’s fingers than he expects, but perhaps that’s fitting. Much of Erik has the same quality; a coarse exterior sheltering softness. Not all softness, of course, but just enough for Charles to sink into. He pulls back so that he can observe Erik in totality, and then smiles.

His hands fall away, one resting on the man’s immobile hand encased in its brace and the other on his thigh. There’s still intensity, heat, kinesis, but Charles somehow channels calm, too. It’s a strange dichotomy to have a racing heart and a placid breath all at once, but maybe it’s a signal of correctness. This, Charles feels, is correct. “I’ve never feared that you would harm me, my friend. From the moment I heard your mind, I—“ he hesitates, suddenly struggling to find the words. “It’s so magnificent. Brilliant. Powerful, but steadfast and righteous. You’re incredible, Erik. I’ve only sublime respect for you, but not a reason to ever mistrust you.”

"Let's...let's find the girl, first," Charles decides regretfully. Oh, how he'd rather curl up in a hotel room with Erik for the evening, just the two of them, but the memory of the girl's fear is imprinted in his psyche. Outside of their moment, the scar surfaces, red and fresh. It's not fair to her. His hand remains encased around Erik's own, the clawed fingers straightened in his grasp. Erik can't feel it much, that he knows, but he hopes hat the stretching at least encourages circulation, stimulates muscles. "Why don't you let me see if I can collect her first? I don't want to...overwhelm."

The tension in the room is thick. To the others, Charles and Erik are the decision-makers. It’s still a democracy, of course, but they look to the two of them to steer the course of their ship. Discord between the two threatens confidence, and Charles knows that. It’s important that the others believe in their mission, and in turn, their leaders must be united. Is it legitimate confidence or aspirational hope? he poses telepathically. Charles hates that he asks this of his friend. Of a man he trusts with his life. He hates that it is so pedantic, but he must ask. He must know that Erik’s confidence is pure and true. If you truly believe that this is our next best step, then I will step with you with full support. But I need to know that you’re sure.

Charles feels it as Erik genuinely considers the question - such is the nature of his Stoic tendencies, that blind argument doesn't come naturally - but it doesn't take long for that confidence to bloom across his cerebral cortex in poignant repose. Circuitry abounds, wires and gears. This is very likely their only opportunity to intercept this individual, and if what Charles says is true, they could have a lot worse to deal with down the line if he goes unchecked. And there it is - certainty. Erik is sure of that. He can't promise that he isn't just hoping he can reach the man - he cannot promise that. It's a good bet that he can. Erik went through a lot to help him, at his own expense. And honor culture is strong in the Arab world.

But he can promise that he is certain that they need to try. He grimaces, lips furrowing down. He doesn't reply verbally, but leaves the final decision to Charles. He won't subject them to this without Charles's agreement.

Erik is on guard, hackles raised as the fingers on his good hand curl up toward his palm instinctively. A hum of power beats through his body, as though charging himself up, the air molecules around him crackling with a surge of leashed energy. "I can feel him," Erik whispers back. "He is like an unnatural force. His structural composition is... unlike anything I have ever encountered," Erik says, eyes flicking back and forth as though reading invisible script across the sky.

"Well, that sounds fucking ominous," Raven contributes with a hand settled on her hip. She's wearing a loose hijab, Iranian-style with a long trellis across her chest and down her back, with a small tuft of sleek blonde hair visible at the edges. 

"I can see them, but I cannot... they are closed to me. These particles do not abide by our laws." Erik's features are drawn in a tight, grim line. "This way," he gestures for them to follow, into the beating heart of the working-class Al-Muniera district of Imbaba. It seems that Erik is leading them on a string, until - - - "There is someone else, here," Erik whirls about, setting a hand on Charles's shoulder protectively. "Come out, Little One," he murmurs, chin lifting up to let the scurrying woman (who had been following them zig-zagging from one alley to the next whilst they drew ever closer to Sayid's unusual siren call) reveal her presence.

Charles can sense her. The static in the air, rising and zipping up in a way that isn't Erik's doing. Charles follows Erik; it’s all he can do. He isn’t attuned to a shift in composition like Erik is; his access point is the mind, and in a sea of two million minds, plucking one from the masses is a tall task. The polyphony reverberates off of the inside of his skull while the manifold visual scenes play across his awareness like a hundred films at once. He’s nearly blinded by onslaught, and so all he can do is amble behind Erik, holding his shirt, waiting for the telltale screeching feedback that knocks him sideways when he makes contact with another telepath. Sayid, after all, shares that gift.

He’s listening to a man’s soliloquy in what he can identify as French when Erik stops him short. Eyes adjusting to the dim light of the alley, Charles is suddenly greeted with a clearer sonic of a fast-moving mind. She’s thinking in Arabic, but as he pushes, almost unwittingly through her psyche, he can see that she communicates in a language far more powerful. A language of currents and wind and pressure and heat. Around them, the cool night fills with electricity, and Charles can feel, implicitly, that it’s her bringing it from the bare night. “We come as friends,” Charles says out loud in calm English, for he can sense a deep mistrust within her soul.

A shadow wavers across the clay wall; a thin, figure. Its caster is still obscured by darkness, but Charles can make out her form. “We mean no harm—“ Just inches behind his heels, a bolt of quick lightning incinerates a discarded cardboard box. Charles jump’s involuntarily, leaping away from the now-smoldering paper. In the soft glow, the woman—scarcely older than a child, Charles gauges—observes their cluster with dark eyes.

“Provide me with one reason to believe that you are not here for harm,” she says, voice simmering with distrust. Her accent is thick but her English is confident. Another spark zips through the air, gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Or I will send the next one into your skull.”

The lightning man’s brusque explanation slides off of her stony exterior. A friend from the war? There were no friends in war. Ask her dead father, brothers, cousins. How many friends did they have in their graves? “If I were an Israeli,” Ororo grits, “I would want to have The Man Without Identity out of Egypt, too.” Because, of course, she knows what the Israeli (she’s not aware that he, of course, was born in Poland, but perhaps it doesn’t matter) speaks of.

The Messiah of Cairo, some have been saying. Descended directly from Ra, those straggling Kemetics insist. She’s never met him before, so she can’t know. This time, it’s the Brit who speaks. “We’ve no affiliations,” he insists, stepping forward in his expensive loafers, coiffed hair shimmering in the lightning. “We’re here to invite him—and you—to join us.” Suddenly, a scene tumbles across her awareness. A massive house in some leafy lane. People—mutants—basking in the sun. Children, adults, everything in between. Some have blue skin, others make their companions laugh by shooting beams of light from their palms. Some dreamy utopia, implanted into her brain.

Ororo is silent for a moment. “Why?” she asks finally, addressing both men. “For what purpose do you want to build such a place?”

Charles is thoughtful as he listens, keeping an ear tuned to Erik's thoughts as well. What one envisions often adds more context to what they say. As Erik speaks of Sayid, Charles understands that the bond formed between the two of them isn't typical, as far as friends go. War doesn't allow for anything typical. Long nights and grueling days, paired together by cruel fate. Anguish; how could human beings allow such things to happen? How could human beings enable such things to happen?

Such conditions birth connections that are rooted far deeper than mere acquaintanceship. Charles understands that. But when Erik's voice falters and a sudden drop forces him to nurse a visage of himself in a hospital bed, Charles sits upright. His hands find their ways to Erik's cheeks, and he holds Erik still. Their eyes meet, Charles's intense. "Listen to me, Erik," he says, Erik's face clutched in his gentle grasp.

"You and I both understand that what we've chosen to do is dangerous. We've taken a position in a debate that's hardly even begun. I'm sure that there will be difficulties ahead of us. Don't you think for a second, Erik Lehnsherr, that you are responsible for anything unfortunate that may happen. You and I are partners. We will take every step together, alright? If something happens where I stumble or am knocked down, I know that you will be there to help me back to my feet. As I will for you."

Gently, Charles swipes his thumb across Erik's cheekbone and offers a small, reassuring smile. "You are not a curse, my love. You're the greatest thing to ever come into my life. I promise you that."

This is how it goes when it does, indeed, go. Charles delivers his address with charm and smiles and argyle sweaters, and afterward, Erik reinforces their message with his stern visage, imposing height, tactful eloquence. However, this pair of students, undergraduates from well-off families like his own, appear to be among the sect within their camp that believe diplomacy an act of surrender. They’re not alone in that belief; many of their allies find Charles’s position too neutral, too close to center.

A small bit of digging, and Charles discovers that the young woman is a telekinetic and the young man is hiding a set of retractable claws within a pair of gloves. Erik’s tone has rankled them, and the young man steps forward now. “Do you want to have to bend to their whim and expectation?” he counters. “Do you want to have to dance like monkeys for them in order to get a sliver of respect? They’ll still pose an existential threat to us, even if they decide that we aren’t illegal, won’t they? We’re safe only as long as they decide to tolerate us.”

Erik levels them with a steely-eyed gaze that Charles very rarely sees him employ. He has always, even now, been soft-spoken. Of quiet temperament. "Then you had better hope," he says very, very softly, "that they decide to tolerate us. You do not have the luxury of retaining the privilege that you have grown up with, my young friends. Not anymore. That is closed to you, and you will never get it back." It's the part of Erik that's always more or less, in his private considerations, landed on agreement with them - but it's the part of him that Charles tempers. And it's the part of him that he understands well enough through his own experiences, is just a fantasy more than anything else.

"You can demand respect through teeth, and lose. And watch your families be killed and die yourselves as you're rounded off into camps for those of us failures-to-adjust. Who fail, for lack of a better term, to be good little monkeys. If we are lucky, they'll be re-education or conversion camps aimed at curing us of our affliction. If we are not, which it is very likely we wouldn't be, they will be extermination camps. Because as of this moment, the Jew is no longer the problem. As far as we represent a disease onto ordinary society, responsible for its ills, the Jew is an understandable problem. After all, at least according to most people, we are human beings."

He arches a brow, pointed. "We come from someplace. We have loyalties, we have beliefs. Who is to say that the mutant is the same? Who is to say that a mutant could be loyal to anything, or anyone at all? Mutants have no homeland, no religious doctrine. So, what is stopping us from taking by force, from the human?" He doesn't relish the next part, but if he had to endure it in the first place, better for it to serve a purpose. It's always a trick to get the brace of his right hand to cooperate with lifting the sleeve covering his left, but he manages with an unseen ruffle of his ability to provide a visual demonstration.

"As of this moment, the problem is mutant. And that problem is going to make them ask a very familiar question. Your gifts are quite beautiful - the both of them. Both of you. But they are trivial in comparison to the nuclear arsenal of 195 unified countries. What I want is not relevant. My parents were from Łódź. Do you know the story of King Chaim?" By this time, people were rapt. Erik usually went the long way around, but he could drive a point home with as much surgical precision as a strike. "He said, 'the time has come for me to ask you to give me your best. Give me your children!' He was a fat old bastard who sexually abused women, but by G-d, did he keep his town in line."

And there's the anger, soft. Piercing. It's not often that Erik allows it to rise, even in private. But even he is emotionally intelligent enough to understand that his typical monotone will not be what reaches these people. 

"My parents resisted. They were deported, alongside me. Alongside my family. Where I watched every one of them die. Do you think, that each of them wanted to walk around wearing a hideous yellow star, to say yes-sir, no-sir when made to pick up rat shit in the streets? Or when Nazis wanted them to dance, literally, for amusement? Do you think that you would be any braver than any of them, that their flaw was of character and not capacity? That you would valiantly oppose the machine and come out unscathed?"

It's not his intent to antagonize them by a long shot, but it's a severely-required dose of reality that many of them, having grown up safe and protected their entire lives, sorely needed.

"You do anyone who has fallen victim to oppression a grave disservice to suppose that you alone hold the answers where they simply didn't choose not to die, not to suffer. You fall into line." He raises a finger, leveling it out over the crowd slowly. "Because the alternative is the complete and utter annihilation of your community." Erik spares no detail. But to get straight to the point, he finally answers the woman's question. "I want to survive. I want to have a family someday. To have children. To watch them grow up in a world where they are not starving and spit at on the street. To that end, you ought to be kissing Dr. Xavier's polished loafers. Because of him, we might have a shot at just that. They like Xavier. Me, they tolerate."

It's a dry, self-deprecating remark that is his own form of easing the tension he's whipped up.

Without conscious collection the car warms as soon as they enter it, and Erik drops his forehead against the other's. Outwardly impassive, but Charles can feel the minute vibrations wracking his frame. "This - I-" he lets out a sharp huff. Overcome and at total random, not emotionally savvy enough to put together what is happening within himself. What he said at the rally comes forefront - about the leader of his ghetto. Placid and congenial and smiling, shaking hands with manicured Nazis in their slick uniforms. Erik doesn't want to be King Chaim.

He doesn't want the epithets hurled at him - collaborator, traitor, kapo - to become a reality outside of his own moral code and distinction. Helping Sayid is something he would choose every time. Having no choice - becoming an instrument of oppression and violence and imperialism - to see Charles placed in that role, to have their institution become the poster for asymmetrical prosperity between mutants and humans - to give the CIA their children. Erik is not certain when he stopped breathing. Charles can feel how thin the air becomes, how unsettled and twisted in his gut. He learned then how to stack bodies to burn most efficiently. The pop and crackle of fat searing like a steak. The smell. There isn't enough air. There isn't any air.

"Erik. Erik." Charles places his hands on either side of Erik's face and holds it still. It frightens him, to see Erik like this, so clearly terrified, imagining the past as the future. It terrifies Charles, too, but his lived experience provides no visceral connection. He knows that he can never understand. He quickly pushes beyond the outer shell of Erik's psyche and meets him where he's at, in that corner of the brain that trades fear, anger, and pain like currency. With a furrow of his brow, he encircles himself around Erik to provide temporary shelter from the most threatening of those exchanges. He doesn't cut Erik off completely from them; it's a valid place for Erik to be, and he doesn't want to force him to be okay. But there's no need for Erik to be vivisected by his own anguish. The window is cranked down to allow some of the cool night to enter the suddenly boiling car. The wind dances across their faces.

"We are tacticians, are we not?" he says to the other pointedly, blue eyes finding Erik's own stormy greens. "We determine how to best approach any given scenario in the pursuit of our mission. This—" he gestures obliquely toward the café, where he knows the two women remain, watching their vehicle now. "This is just another variable. A brand new chess piece, with its own set of capabilities and limitations. Shall we let it sit on its square and become a hindrance? Or shall we use it to aid our others?" The metaphor, Charles knows, is imperfect at best and paltry at worst, but his own mind is a little addled. "I meant what I said to MacTaggert, Erik. I have the ability to mislead them, to thwart their plans. I will not allow them to use us for instruments of harm and subjugation, and neither will you. I know that."

It's logical, and oriented. Ordinarily Erik acts as ethos, determining via rationality that what must take precedence is compassion for others. Raven, ever pathos with her long-standing love of theater and television, would disagree and instead consider Charles for such a role. But one as closely aligned to him as Erik knows that Charles operates within the realm of logic. Science, study, mathematics. That it's tempered with idealism and kindness doesn't detract from it as Erik's penchant for Stoicism likewise does not remove his inherent urge to ensure credibility and good character.

Charles is always more likely to divorce decisions about others from their sense of being, and treats most people equally whereas Erik treats them individually. Neither more right or wrong - but never more apparent than in this singular moment when, subjected to a veritable avalanche of faulty interoceptive shock circuits, it isn't logic or reason that brings him back. It's the feel of Charles's hands on his skin. The memory of his smile. The way he says my love. His quiet, steady confidence in his statements even if Erik barely registers their contents. We are together/and disparate. But it is when they are together that he imagines himself truly strong. Strong enough to endure this.

"I know," he whispers at last. His assurance in Charles's commitment to mutant safety over hope has wavered periodically, but just for an instant it is ironclad. Many have mistaken Charles for much over the years. Naïve. Weak. Privileged. Erik is not so foolish to proclaim he has never viewed him as a few of those things. Knowing him, it is different. As different as Charles knows that Erik is not inhospitable, barren, cruel, hostile, insane or inherently dangerous. Like him Charles possesses an equal drive to protect their kind. To protect their young. And of them both, Erik has had to make peace, he is perhaps more equipped to do so. After all, he is the only person Erik has ever encountered who has made him feel safe.

Little by little, Erik is creeping back. Charles is steadfast, still encircling Erik’s psyche, still a barrier between him and the cruelest of his insidious memories. They’re different. An hour ago, Charles felt flayed by Erik’s vocal proclamation of violence; now, it seems like a pesky midge in a storm of locusts. Charles knows that it still matters, but it’s hard to imagine such a thing forming a cleave between them at this moment. “Let’s go home,” he suggests. Erik can drive this thing without lifting a hand. Hell, he could fly it back to Westchester, if he so chose.

Normally, Charles would offer to drive in such a situation as this, but he expects that an exercise of his remarkable abilities will help him regain a some footing in his own head. Because, after all, he and Erik together are more powerful than any army. What happens when the unstoppable force and immovable object join forces? The CIA is just the newest iteration of human conniving; what they possess is of nature, not false structure. “The CIA is but an arm of government, my darling,” Charles reminds Erik as a thumb brushes his prominent cheekbone. “An institution, propped up by doctrine and men. You and I need no propping up, hmm? We stand stronger than they do, on our own two feet. Together, we’ll see safety and prosperity for our species. Nothing, Erik, has changed.”

There is something profoundly striking along the axis of his development as his eyes slowly refocus and his vision sharpens to the world, a lost consciousness deeply submerged by thick-veined hands. His expression falters, and he swallows, reaching forward to press his hand to Charles's chest. "I am sorry," he speaks softly. "I hurt you. I had thought I was saying -" there was never an intention of malice or undercutting of Charles's positioning. Erik had thought they both held awareness what the other believed, that they were united thus. But he made Charles feel that way - cut off. Separated by chasm. Inelegant and wobbling as he sometimes can be. "I do not want to kill anyone," he adds, barely audible.

Always when such occurrences arose that he became affected, did his voice do a poor job lifting. But he wants Charles to know. Because nothing has changed for him. He has and always will desire for joy and prosperity. How they get there is in flux, but Erik wants to participate. To help. Not to destroy, or threaten. He spoke a necessity for defending one's self against a credible threat to life, to put someone at ease who felt the only vocal representation they held would not adequately defend them. He did not know it would be interpreted any differently. By anyone, especially Charles.

Charles smiles softly and brings a gentle finger to Erik’s lips. Of course Erik had interpreted his reaction correctly, earlier. He can read others like a language, when he focuses. For someone who often has so little regard for niceties and interpersonal propriety, Erik is truly a masterful reader. “I know how you feel and what you believe. I have from the beginning, from the first moment you allowed me in here,” he says, radiating outward so that his energy warms the inside of Erik’s skull. “You never misled me. I merely didn’t expect you to expound such details tonight. But, it truly doesn’t matter.” And it doesn’t; not right now, at least. The authorities have been following them all this time, and they still have chosen to approach with open palms rather than artillery. “Let’s go. It’s a five-hour drive home, and I’m already craving your bourekas.”

Somewhere, Charles must know that if he asked for anything that Erik would quite literally move the Earth to provide. Erik has always a lead foot, which winds up with them ambling up the courtyard of Graymalkin a mere three hours later as opposed to five - very certainly coaxed from time and space itself. They're alone in the kitchen, with Erik providing quiet touches to correct Charles as he's taken to helping in their meals, steadfastly committing himself to learning once and for all how it's done. Of course, in truth, there is something entirely irreplicable about the finished product at Erik's hands.

"I had no idea," he murmurs after a lengthy silence filled with mutual pondering. "About Ms.--Agents Haller and MacTaggert." Erik isn't one to boast, but he himself knows that to be fooled so cleanly is abnormal for him. They must have had help, and that worries him. There is only one other telepath that he knows about (aside from Sayid who is not particularly gifted in this arena, and Nathaniel Essex, a war criminal with much invested in hiding from the CIA), and she would not have a single qualm about cooperating with the government.

Despite the speed with which they travel, it’s still quite late when they return to Westchester. Over the past year, the crumbling, austere manor has stopped seeming like a place of desolation and has transformed into something warm, inviting. The halls now bustle with activity; they have a dozen students and as many staff, now. Children play, adults laugh. They dine together at a massive table each day. Now, it’s home. The thought of losing it all twists Charles’s gut, and hardens his resolve.

“I admit that I’m surprised that you had no idea,” Charles agrees as he dices the eggplant into miniature pieces; his knife skills have improved, even if he still cannot be trusted with actual cooking, still. No one fears that he’ll use scissors to chop celery, anymore. “And, to be frank, I find their trickery utterly rude.” He pushes the eggplant toward Erik before setting to the mushrooms. “I imagine that there has been documentation about you since…well, since your time in the camps.” A foul grimace. “But how they came to know about Cerebro…”

The flash of a blonde-haired figure in Erik’s head stops Charles cold. He nearly drops the knife. “Oh…yes,” he agrees. “I’m sure you’re right. Emma must be on the inside already.”

Erik stares at him. Unlike before, there is zero movement within him or from outside that indicates anything at all. He offers a perfectly visible smile instead which is undoubtedly even more bizarre and frankly disturbing than if he had exclaimed aloud. "You have met Ms. Frost." He supposes that it isn't incredibly unusual for individuals with such a specific mutation to cluster together. Erik idly jabs his fork into his plate in a disconnected attempt that sees many more failures before success as though he has forgotten how to eat food. "Where did you meet?"

Breakfast rolls around and as typical of their routine, a sense of rhythm has taken hold nudging everyone into their respective places at the table. Jean and Aura take their plates out to the courtyard where he teaches her the different names of birds, and as predicted in the wake, their residents have some choice words in response to learning what the CIA has planned. Carmen grimaces and taps the end of his fork hard into the table. "They can't be serious. This is a school, not a military base."

Sayid, who had emerged from their sickbay down below to slowly integrate with their population after approximately two months of convalescence, nurses a glass of water and one of the protein replacement packets intended to dissolve in it given to him courtesy of the two doctors seated across. Next to him is Ororo, his preferred companion. "The government will not care about that," is his predictable response. There's something different about how he says it than the way Erik means it - the lack of belief that any government could be beneficial or that there was any way to morally run a state. Sayid is a trifle more of an anarchist than most would be comfortable with if they knew, but until now he's never mentioned it.

Raven rolls her eyes. "Listen, how familiar are you with military standards of OPSEC?" she asks Hank instead, preferring to focus on the problem instead of having a hissy fit. Men. "Like one-time pads and the like. Anything analog or digital we should convert to a new system than the one we have now. He is right. If this.... Frost lady knows about it then the CIA probably already do as well."

Glowering at the now-shining ball of glass at the center of the table, Hank crosses his arms. “By the time they get here, my lab’ll look like a high school chemistry teacher’s classroom, don’t worry.”

“I’m not,” Charles says. “I trust you, Hank. Now, if you’ll excuse me—“ Charles doesn’t need to say anything more, they know where he’s headed. He follows the angry thrum of Erik’s mind out of the dining room and through the hallway, until he finds the man on a balcony overlooking the courtyard.

“I never liked those plates,” he says coolly by way of greeting, standing several feet behind Erik.

Neshama, that sweet, gentle expression of intimate endearment, which Charles has come to covet like a jewel, is the last thing that Charles hears before his vision darkens. He's drawn inward, down the long corridors of Erik's latticework mind, until they find themselves...somewhere. It's different; people's memories are rarely this concrete. The human mind cannot recall scrupulous detail like this. Edges of the frame are always washed out, smoothed over, faded to fog and mist. The core of a memory can be as crisp as a Caravaggio as the ancillaries melt into Monet. But this is different. The woman before them does not have the ethereal mist of memory.

He recognizes her as Erik's mother, but there are discrepancies between her appearance now and the memories that Erik has shared with him. She's still pretty, still has a kind face and striking green eyes. But...she has more creases in her forehead, and her hair is more wild. This is normal, people tend to remember airbrushed versions of others; the brain is imperfect and has no natural interest in fly-aways and broken fingernails and sunspots on the back of hands. This woman, however, is not constructed of the electricity in Erik's synapses. They're perched on the edge of a cliff, and Charles gasps, stricken by the corporeal suggestion of Edith Eisenhardt.

"Wh...you're not a memory," Charles croaks by way of greeting. He doesn't know what she is, but he could not be more certain that he is not interfacing with Erik's reconstruction of his mother.

As Charles sets his senses on this artifact, the tsunami slowly rises. And then it washes over him, hitting him with a veritable wall of invisible energy firmly knocking his consciousness into... somewhere he doesn't recognize. A non-place. Non-time. There are footsteps behind him. He's quite sure he's been shrunken down and put inside a little match-box, crammed into a sea of metal scrap structures. The sounds are constant, grating. Neighbors yelling and screaming, dogs barking in the street. Fingers at his shoulder,

-Erik?

Winter sunlight streams through the window, and she snaps it shut. "You'll catch your death like that," she reprimands Charles in an ethereal whisper, staring down at his socked feet absent shoes. She places a mug of steaming coffee in front of him. "Now, don't ask. I pulled a lot of favors for this, so just enjoy it." There's a stuttering overlay, as though it's partially a memory, with him cast in the role of someone else, until her eyes settle on him and her brows pinch together curiously, and it becomes clear in the span of a few short seconds that she's not responding to a dream-like version of her son, but seeing Charles right where he is, argyle socks and all.

"You're the one, then?" she fixes him with a long, droll look. "If you are going to grace my table you'd better pick up that spoon, young man," she tells him in such a strikingly similar tone to the one Erik often employs on him during their moments alone in the kitchen that it's genuinely breathtaking. And sure enough, he's set the day's soup, whatever it is supposed to be. "Look, just try not to think about it," she pats him on the head absently. "Get it down, and then we can talk."

It's like part of her is stuck in this cycle, one-foot in that compels her to act out the sequence, until it's interrupted by a clear and present flash of recognition. A spark of connection. 

Charles is dizzy, and almost sick. As he blinks, he finds himself in different times, places, bodies. As if he's teleporting into memories that are not his own, that aren't memories at all, but dimensions. His physical body is rigid, spine stiff on the stone bench overlooking the grassy courtyard still thick with overnight frost. An icy wind should chill him through his thin sweater, but he doesn't feel it. Not at all. Instead, he feels the warmth of steam bedew his cheeks. Hands that he knows are his own twitch around a spoon of tarnished silver.

Something rich tickles at his olfactory nerves, and his mouth waters. Propelled by his own conscience and something extraneous, Charles sips the warm coffee and swallows several spoonfuls of soup. Something with beans and potatoes, but the taste is mild, as if it's being described to Charles. At the same time, he can recognize that Edie can, in flashes, recognize that Charles, in his grey sweater, wool socks, and short stature is not her leonine son. "Thank you." His voice is warbled, echoing off as if they are in a stone cave and not a humble kitchen. "Let's talk, now. Please?"

"I wondered when you would come," she laughs a little. "Oh, what a world, hm? Both of us cursed with knowledge, tayer." She pats his hand, and he sees in her spirit the rousing of that ancient dragon once more. "I knew you would find this place, eventually. I've had this conversation a hundred times and I will have it hundreds more. Do you understand?" her eyebrows lift, expectant. And Charles thinks he might. She is a kin to Erik, with abilities opposing in duality yet cut from the same cloth. Physics, quantum mechanics. Linearity is meaningless, everything has happened already and will happen again.

“I do,” he replies, and whether or not Edie is actually touching his hand or not does not matter, for he felt her warm palm against the cold of his own skin. “You’ve been waiting for me.” Charles looks around, and the kitchen skids into view as his eyes absorb the space. “Why?”

Erik's memories of the place are a lot kinder than the reality, with the whole area no bigger than a single room, a kitchen and a living space packed with as much of their stuff as they'd been able to take and much more that they couldn't having been appropriated aside. While Edie does her best to make it livable, to shield her family, it's only getting worse. Soon they'll have to deal with Sherer's thugs, and the price is far too high. Charles can see the tomato plants behind her, seedlings and bits of green onion sprouts nurtured in small cardboard boxes along the ledges.

"I suppose you're a linchpin," she smiles, gentle. "A person or event that makes enough ripples in the gestalt to bend its fabric around. Like a gravity well. See, you can take a little tablecloth and a marble, and drop the marble onto the cloth. What do you think happens? The marble is important enough to bend the cloth." 

“Seems we both might be linchpins, if you put it that way,” Charles agrees, and then chews his lip thoughtfully. “The three of us are,” he corrects. Himself, Edie, and Erik. Edie isn’t alive, Charles knows that, but somehow, a shred of her existence has remained in the temporal plane, inside Erik’s head. Not a memory, but living amongst them.

"There is much that I would tell you," she says very seriously. "How much or how little... I leave to you. But a warning all the same. You are on the precipice of war, dear-heart. There will be immensity of joy and sorrow both. The loss will feel immeasurable. The gains difficult. Oh, listen to me. I sound like a charlatan." She laughs a bit, lilting and melodious. "Everything which happens, as brutal and devastating as it can be, is part of a cyclic sequence." It's not difficult to deduce where Erik's searing intellect originates, for as in memory she is a mother, but in life she speaks with shrewd determination. Watchful, protective. A cast-off implanted here, now, across a vast chasm. "It has happened before. It will happen again. Some of it is random, meaningless. Some isn't. You will have to decide, tayer." 

It’s incredible, Charles realizes, that this version of Erik’s mother, some temporal echo, living inside of his head, has extended him more warmth and comfort than his own mother ever has. In a way, it makes him feel grateful, grateful that there exist souls like this, who truly love others, but it also saddens him, too. Why must the good be lost while the rotten take everything for themselves? “History is a cycle,” Charles agrees, smiling at the woman sadly. “And you can see what’s to come.” It’s not a question; Charles understands what Edie can do. “Are you allowed to give me advice? Or will that ruin things?”

It's not lost on Charles that the impetus for her arrival is directly in the wake of his musings on Sharon - a piece of her that Erik had wished to extend, without realizing that it's far more than just a tinged memory. "Oh, this isn't a storybook, tayer. I can tell you everything, if you wish. What I know may not come to pass. It may be altered, the tides changed. It may torment you beyond reckoning, and pull you from your life. That, I don't wish." She nudges the bowl across the table, adding a small cube of sugar to his cup to hide the stale, acrid sourness of tepid beans.

"Erik loves you. Yes, I always knew," she huffs sadly. "I told him to be mindful, but a mother always knows. You are family, boychik." It's an easy proclamation, but the truth of it shimmers along the threads and cords that wind around Charles and Erik both, inseparable. "There will come a time, though," she says, and there's something dark and vengeful about the shuttered expression that befalls her. "Where you will need to call on me again. Find me in this place, and I will come to your aid. Do not forget."

Suddenly, Charles’s heart feels heavy. Erik loves you. If life were perfect, they would be having this conversation in a real kitchen. He and Erik could love each other openly, and he and Edie could laugh fondly together, bonded over their affection for her son. It wouldn’t even matter that Sharon is cruel, hateful, judgmental; Edie isn’t. She would be more than enough, and they would be lucky to have her. But, life is harsh. It would be easier if the world was spiteful. It’s not. Instead, it’s utterly indifferent to good and evil, right and wrong, anguish and joy. Indifference cannot be reasoned with, it just is. Charles always knew this, but now, the reality of it burrows a hole in his heart.

“I love him, too,” Charles says softly. “With everything I have. Whatever is to come…it won’t change that.” He says it confidently, because he believes it, but her solemn warning leaves a quaver in his stomach. “I’ll be back. And I’ll look after him,” he promises with a sad smile. “But I should go. Thank you.” And with that, Charles pulls himself out of the center of Erik’s soul and lands in his body, which is now limp against the wall behind him, on the balcony once more.

The spring morning clouded over while Charles was away and is now releasing thick droplets of rain atop them. His sweater is soaked through and beads of water drip from the ends of his hair and onto Erik’s forehead. The rain is icy, but Charles finds it hard to move his legs, so he remains seated on the bench, wordless.

"You don't know all my flaws," Charles corrects lightly. Erik, Charles knows, only knows this version of him, the one that's excited, determined, in love. Maybe he has already seen Charles's tendencies toward pigheadedness, frustrating idealism, and, as Raven so kindly puts it, "the worst case of know-it-all disease the world has ever seen." Yes, that's all real, and it's tempered by his current desire for diplomacy and wide appeal, and it makes Charles's flaws perhaps seem more like quaint idiosyncrasies than fatal flaws. "Sometimes I wish that we could have a 'normal life'," Charles admits quietly, lazy as he continues to stroke Erik's chest.

"It's not what we've chosen, and I wouldn't choose differently, but a part of me wants what other people are creating. All those suburbs that they're building everywhere...cookie cutter homes, neighborhood barbecues, school performances, road trips to all the National Parks. Maybe one day, two people like you and I will be able to have that." Charles smiles sadly. It's a far-off future, if that future exists at all, he knows. "I used to vow that I would be a very present father to my own children. No nannies or anything of that sort. I'd drive them to school, tuck them into bed, hold them while they were sick. I vowed that they would never be afraid of me, or feel that I didn't know them. Maybe I won't ever be a father in that way, now, but I hope to extend that same care to our students, however many we end up with."

It brings a grimace to Erik's face, as he considers Charles's words. There's a lot he wants to say, trapped behind an endless quagmire of uncertainty. "You should know," he says softly. "There is no evidence of this," he adds beforehand. "Beyond what I know and what I feel. It might not make any sense," he warns. He looks up, doing his best to catch Charles's eyes, as though steadying him for what he's about to say. It doesn't come right away, though. As if aware how patently absurd it will sound.

Charles glances at Erik when the pause grows more pregnant, shooting a brow upward. "Darling, I can read minds, and you can see things at the quantum level. Nothing about us makes sense. Go on."

"I may have biological children, somewhere," he just says it, blunt. "I was liberated at twenty. There is a lot that happened which makes me suspect this is the case. Genetic samples were taken - a lot of them. There was a clear focus on producing a superior mutant caste. At the time I thought it was nonsense. Why me? I wasn't even a mutant. Of course -" his smile is sardonic.

The abruptness of the statement takes Charles aback for a moment, and then, from the corners of his own mind, he's treated to a vision of miniature versions of Erik running about the courtyard. They all have the same stony face, serious expression, and square jaw. He begins to chuckle to himself, but the chuckle then rises in his chest until it tumbles out of him in a peal of laughter. It's not funny—it's not at all; if there are children out there, being help hostage somewhere, treated as experiments, then they must find them, of course, but the entire notion adds a layer of intense complexity to their situation that all Charles can do is laugh. "What an absolutely horrific thing," Charles laughs, wiping tears from his eyes. "To think that there are children being bred for such a purpose. We ought to look for them. Get them safe, if they're unsafe. Your children, Erik, my goodness..."

"I know," he winces a little. "Believe me, I have tried. I will keep trying, and -" he clears his throat a bit. "If they are mutants, perhaps Cerebro will be able to locate them where I failed. If they exist at all," he warns. "It might be paranoia, but -" he taps his chest. "But they are from me. I feel them, out there. Somewhere. I can only hope that they were adopted, but they would be Roma, what you call gypsies. They didn't have an easy time after the war, and their community is not open to outsiders. Magda - that was her name." It's seeming less like a far-fetched fantasy the longer he explains his reasoning, even able to provide the identity of the woman who would be their mother. "Forgive me, I certainly did not intend to upset you," he frames Charles's cheek, concerned by his reaction. "I wish it were less plausible."

"I would trust your intuition about these types of things more than most," Charles reasons, lifting a hand to stroke a thumb along Erik's fingers. "Forgive my laughter; I did not mean to make light of this in any way. It's simply overwhelming, the size of our task before us. I'm certain that you were not the only one who was used to sire offspring against their will. But, we should take quick action to find them. If they're living happily with their mother, then we have no business interrupting that—unless you wish to have a relationship with them." It's truly absurd, Charles knows, because Erik hadn't so much as kissed another before the two of them had met. The extent of his mistreatment grows vaster each day. "They would be quite young, yes?"

"Yes," Erik inclines his head. "No more than ten or so, presuming a logical timeline." Charles's earlier statements replay in his mind, unwound like tape strands. "If - we could find them, I would wish to. I have very little business being a parent, but I would try. I did not mean to drop this on you," he laughs a little himself, understanding. "But you spoke of it, and - someday it might happen, that I do find them. For what it is worth, I think you are an excellent guardian, and the children here are lucky to have you."

Charles chuckles blithely, still riveted to the core by this news. “I suppose you and I won’t be sitting together holding hands as we watch them play little league, but I think that we can provide children with a good, happy life here. So long as we can protect them from prying agencies and sinister hands.” A grimace, now. “Speaking of…we’d best get to work preparing for our guests, shouldn’t we? MacTaggert and Haller may arrive at any moment.”

"To my everlasting consternation," Erik taps him on the nose. All he really wishes to do is stay here, cocooned away from the realities of the world. He doesn't suppose they can conduct such a visit from the warmth of their cozy bed, but one can dream. He gently draws Charles up and finds him a shirt, buttoning it deftly for him with one hand whilst peering down at him enigmatically. "The world waits for no one, hm?" he murmurs, fond.

"Evidently not," Charles replies, stock still as Erik dresses him. Once he's presentable, he guides Erik toward the vanity and shoves him into the chair before it. "Your hair is a nest," he declares as he plucks his comb from a drawer. The rain and subsequent hour spent lying against their pillows has made Erik's wavy hair mat against the back of his head. Though Erik can detangle it without so much as a glance, Charles appreciates the opportunity to prolong their domestic fantasy for just a moment longer. He begins to work his comb through the tangles, slow and meticulous. "If only you'd let me style you every day," Charles muses, nodding toward Erik's simple clothing. "I'd have you looking a proper gentleman, mm?"

"It is not!" Erik squeaks as he's manhandled into the chair. "And you would not," he turns and practically smirks, wolfish. "You like my jeans, you liar."

Sure enough, he's correct that Moira doesn't seem offended, or moved, but nor does she argue. None of this is important to her - not precisely. It matters, and it's clear she understands that, but what is more over-arching is her mission, not the feelings of people. There is simply too much at stake.

On the flip side, what it does mean, is that she's perfectly willing to concede to terms. "This is a joint operation," she explains, indicating Haller. "In fact, you'll be pleased to know that the CIA is actually not in charge of this," she says with a small smile. "Your primary points of contact from this point out will be Haller and her handler Kaplan. He's a tactical coordinator, so you couldn't be in better hands."

Raven enters the room in the middle of this explanation, and whistles. "I thought your espionage task-force was a legend."

"Not a legend. Very real, and yes, they're all nicer than me. They've been doing this a long time. Their terms are exceedingly simple: they want him alive."

"That's gonna be a problem," Raven's brows pinch together. She's been keeping up, mostly through Charles's concise summary in her mind, but also for the duration of their intrusion into what she's come to know as her home, given the nature of her own work, it's made sense for her to be looped in.

"How much of a problem, exactly?"

"A big one, morally and operationally speaking. He's too strong to take death out of the equation," she just says it, as equally blunt as Moira but with a lot more grim determinism and less amusement. "If we can't kill him, he'll probably kill us. That's just reality. I mean, what's his power, exactly?"

"As far as we can tell," Moira sifts through her documents to produce a thin file on Schmidt, under the alias Sebastian Shaw. "He converts energy into force. So, you shoot him, he'll just get stronger. Kaplan thinks that, with enough time, they could potentially develop a null field, but the problem will then be to get him in there."

He runs his fingers over their small pictures as Charles reads, over and over again. The girl has dark skin, thick corkscrew-curls that tumble down her back in waves, whilst the boy is fairer with a shock of white atop his head. Both have a light gaze. They're not color photos, but Charles imagines that it's the same vivid green as Erik's. There's no question that they're related. Wanda looks the spitting image of Erik, down to the freckles over her nose. 

"Kiedy byłem mały," Erik whispers. He doesn't seem to realize that he isn't speaking in English, a language which often fails him at moments where his psyche is most primitive. "Schmidt wysłałby mnie do niego. Któregoś razu tak mnie zranił, że miesiąc leżałam w łóżku. Prawie umarłem," Erik sways as he speaks, back and forth in Charles's arms. "Now he has them. Moje dzieckzo," he murmurs under his breath. His smile is haunting, with nothing of Erik's warmth or affection. Like a mannequin.

When he speaks of Schmidt, Charles has come to anticipate Erik's instability. His fear, and anxiety, even small traces of affection. With Viktor, there is only black, blind rage offset by a swamping vice grip around his heart. There's even a blind hope, somewhere. A blind hope, that maybe Schmidt tried to protect them. Maybe he tried to keep them safer. Not safe, not well. But maybe... Erik shudders. Maybe it won't be that way. Maybe he would have mercy. Not for him, but for his babies. Fingers shredding and clawing.

Schmidt is unpredictable and saccharine, but there are moments that Erik truly has love for him. Erik laughs to himself as he remembers Schmidt's paltry comfort. Nein, nein. Ihr Tod kam schnell, Kleine. Ich habe sie selbst getötet. Du erinnerst dich, nicht wahr? Ein Schuss in den Kopf. The Schmidt in his memories smacks his hands together, creating a loud boom of energy which quickly disperses. Hör nicht auf ihn. Er ist nicht zivilisiert wie wir. The relief warred with the burden of betrayal.

It's twisted, wrong, but Viktor inspires only fear, and it's greater than the fear Schmidt brings. When he first spoke of the man, it wasn't. Now, though. Now that Viktor has his children, Charles can't recall a time when Erik has ever felt like this. A brand new emotion, something without form. Dark and horrifying, a multi-tentacle monster made of oil slinking through the Deep, Deep World. Not just Erik's fear of Viktor. It's Erik himself.

"I am going to kill him," he says, a chill in his voice belied by only the softness with which it's delivered. "I will drown him until he tells me everything and then I will turn his molecules inside-out. I healed, when he did that to me. Perhaps he will, too." For just a brief moment, he transforms beyond his quiescent equanimity into well-and-truly the monster these men should fear.

Erik remembers the first time he spoke of Schmidt to Charles. How assured he was that he wouldn't hesitate to kill him. But all it will take is a split-second for Schmidt to turn Charles into a lump, just like Viktor. It's this, rather than cowardice or weakness, that does make him wary. The thought unsettles him, even as his eyes blaze.

Somewhere, Charles is laughing. You'd look the spitting image of Clark Gable. I will smile for the rest of my life. I'll never betray your trust, Erik. You're safe, with me. I promise. Brilliant. Powerful, but steadfast and righteous--wringing his hand at his side, Erik closes his eyes and calls upon his power. We have much to do together. Pigeons, kidneys, fingers and toes. Don’t forget the ears and eyeballs, Erik, dear,--

with an audible glimmer, a vast column of energy barrels toward Schmidt and knocks him off his feet. "Ah, wunderbar, herrlich!" Schmidt laughs, clapping. The final clap shoots a searing pulse at them both, which Erik deflects easily and redoubles back. This time, it flays, right down to the man's molecular structure, ripping into his very being.

Erik here wanted to visit Times Square and the Statue of Liberty-- Charles can feel it when Sayid is overpowered, and his mind winks out. Erik is steady, focused on Schmidt, his expression a concentrated shutter. He draws on memory like a shield, wrapping it around himself and through, and Charles feels the pulsing core of his being amplify outward and outward.

And then Erik disappears.

The following days are a blur of tests, assessments, medications, visits from specialists of all sorts. Spinal surgeons, pulmonologists, physical therapists. And when he’s not being tended to medically, he’s being hovered over by dearer faces. Raven, Hank, Daniel, Aura, Izzy, Janos, Carmen. Even Sayid, Moira, and Gabrielle stop in every now and again. They all offer expressions of gratitude for his life and well wishes for his health, and though Charles appreciates it objectively, it all feels exhausting and hollow.

After a week, he’s wanting to bust out of his skin. Everything is a chore, from eating to bathing to taking a piss. By some stroke of dumb luck, a bundle of nerves that should be completely dead is still flickering, which allows him some control over his arms. Most of the doctors are encouraged by this and insist that it’s a “positive indicator,” that with the right therapy and routines, he’ll one day be able to use his arms and hands with “moderate-to-full control.” But the one side effect that no one could have foreseen is the impact on his telepathy.

Where he had so laboriously instilled control, there’s now chaos, and Charles swears that his sensitivity has ratcheted up to the point where he can hear people in Europe. Asia. Mars. It’s so immense and overwhelming that he finds himself asking his nurses for sedatives, and they start to notice. “I don’t think I can do it, Erik,” he finally breaks down one evening, when he and Erik are alone in his hospital room. A nurse has just insisted that he wait a while longer before he’s drugged up and knocked out. “It’s too much.”

Erik doesn't falter again, after that first time. If he doesn't sleep as often, or eat as much, it's attributed to his intense focus on Charles's recovery and nothing more. He's tending to the flowers on the window-sill when the other man speaks, and he turns, eyebrows raising before pinching together in the center of his forehead. "-Charles?" he murmurs a request for clarification, soft.

“I—I can’t control it,” he breathes, eyes scrunching. In a strange way, he’s growing used to the ratcheting static in his body, but the screeching noise bouncing off of the inside of his skull is something that only seems to grow. “My telepathy,” he offers, pressing his head back into his pillow as hard as his body will allow. “I hear it—I feel it all. And I can’t bloody stop it.”

“It’s been too long,” Charles protests, aware that he’s being petulant. “I just want to shut the damn thing off. Bum some of Hank’s serum, mm?” He opens his eyes, gazing back up at Erik with hollow eyes. “Would be nice.”

It causes Erik's eyes to flutter shut, his composure as serene and careful as ever. Only Charles can tell how it pains him to hear, and also his resolution not to be selfish about it. "--Is that what you want? To turn it off?"

Charles ignores Erik’s obvious pain, even resents it. He’s grown agitated over the past several days. Hell, it almost brings him satisfaction, in a sick way. He feels so powerless, is all. Anything to make an effect. “Lord knows I don’t need it now,” he says, cruel humor in his voice. “Coulda used stronger telepathy a bit ago, mm? Maybe coulda taken Schmidt on properly. Avoided this whole mess.” It’s low, to bring that up, but Charles says it anyway.