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[oakenshields13]

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FILL: Quiet 1/3

[sasha_b]

Silence. In the crackle of the fire in Charles’ rooms, in the carved wooden pieces of the game Charles seems to love so much. Erik watches him, watches his hair slide slowly from behind his ear, hanging limp in his face, the red lips bitten between his teeth.

Erik takes a sip of his wine and watches as Charles contemplates the board still, the popping of the wood comfortable and warm, his turtleneck almost too hot, but he can’t bring himself to move or do anything save watch his friend - friend? How odd - and blink slowly. He doesn’t want to miss anything.

At last Charles moves his rook and Erik sighs, letting the deeply held breath out, his lungs pained from holding it in. Charles looks at him askance, and are you alright? floats through his mind. Erik nods, imperceptive, closed off, and drinks more wine as he drops his eyes from Charles' intense gaze. The clock strikes eleven.

*

The water is icy cold and he can barely manage to keep his head above it, but his hands raise and fly like crows bringing a death song to Shaw, water droplets flinging around him in an arc as he forces the anchor and chain (so heavy; his brain throbs with the strain) through the yacht.

He can feel the thrum as something beneath him starts up - NO! and turns in horrified stiffness, the water buffeting him, as the sub that’s carrying his mortal enemy away from him gradually comes to life and begins to chug away. Not acceptable.

The metal hulk calls him, and he is attached to it before he realizes what he’s doing. His body is pulled along with it, and as he sinks under the water, he thinks that there is nothing he’d rather die doing.

And then someone - what - lands on his back and is inside, speaking words of strength and calling him by his name, the name he’s not told anyone for years. You have to calm your mind. Let it go. Erik, I know how much this means to you, but you will die. Let it go!

They surface, and Erik gasps and turns to find an ordinary man floating in the water with him - I’m Charles Xavier - and as he bobs and floats he spits out the only question he can think of.

You were in my mind. How did you do that?

I have my gifts, just as you have yours.

Erik bares his teeth but he’s chattering from the water’s temperature, the extreme cold freezing his brain and making things fuzzy and flashy - but he can see this man’s eyes, as though they could bore right through him and lift him bodily out of the water, saving him, making him - calm your mind!

He blinks and spits out more water as his legs and arms stop thrashing. He swims closer to the other man. I thought I was alone.

Alone as he’d always been, alone on that big metal table with hooks in his flesh and torture in Shaw’s eyes, their irises gleaming and huge. Alone in the world with him the only one a circus freak, a Frankenstein’s monster that doesn’t deserve anything but to die with his creator.

You’re not alone, Erik. You’re not alone.

He and Charles stare at each other, and despite the splashing waves and Charles’ frantic shout of “here, we’re here!” Erik feels a tiny something he hasn’t remembered is even possible.

*