outside grace (xmfc, hellfire au, r for violence, gen, ~4,000)
Title: Outside Grace
Author: Cesare (almostnever)
Word count: ~4,000
Ratings/Warnings: SFW. Contains potentially triggering content: ( Skip.) A child is threatened with an unnecessary operation and significant injury. An adult comes to serious harm.
Summary: Standalone prequel to the Hellfire AU series by me &
helens78. When he was young, Charles once came closer than he'd like to recall to being caught. Please read the warnings if you have any content concerns.
Outside Grace @ the Archive of Our Own
-
"Do you know why you're here, Charles?"
Charles looks at the Norman Rockwell clock on the wall. It has a doctor holding a stethoscope to the chest of a little girl's doll. "Yes," he says. "The teacher thought I was cheating."
Dr. Monroe nods. He sits back against his desk, rocking on his feet a little. He seems old to Charles, but at thirty-six, he still thinks of himself as young, Charles can feel that from him. He thinks of himself as Craig. He says, "You knew a lot of answers to questions. Sometimes even before the questions were asked."
"I know. I did cheat," says Charles, trying to sound sorry. "I looked at the lesson plans and the teacher's edition of the textbook so I'd know all the answers. And I knew what order they were in as well. Sometimes I answered too soon." It explains everything.
"Why were you cheating?" Dr. Monroe asks, standing up and pacing slowly around the room.
"It used to be easy for me to get good marks, but the class got harder, so I looked at the plans and the book."
"Were you afraid to get bad marks? Trouble at home?"
"No." Charles keeps still in the chair, though he can only see the doctor out of the corner of his eye now, and after another step or two, not even that.
"Wanted to make your mother proud?"
"I guess so." It's hard to stop himself swinging his feet. They don't touch the ground.
"What about other people, was there anyone else you wanted to impress?"
"No..."
«Was anyone else cheating too? Or just you?»
"Just me."
"Has anything been bothering you lately?"
"No." Charles watches the minute hand tick forward. Dr. Monroe's mind is very focused on his questions now. When Charles tries to read him, he only gets the question the doctor is asking, and whatever the doctor is looking at. The spine of a book. The Norman Rockwell clock. The back of Charles's head.
«Any problems at school? Bullies giving you stick?»
"They don't bother me."
"No? You're a little small for your age, no one picks on you?"
"No."
"Your mother thinks you're anxious."
"I'm not." Charles stays very still and calm-looking. He's not anxious. There's nothing wrong with him.
"Does it upset you that she's dating again?"
"No."
"How do you feel about Kurt Marko?"
"He's all right." He's not; he's after the Xavier money, and he'd turn Charles in if he knew Charles is a mutant. But he makes Charles's mother happy, and not much else seems to, anymore.
Dr. Monroe crosses into Charles's view again, and smiles. "I think I understand. You're at that age when you're testing boundaries, that's all. I don't think there's any serious problem here. And getting caught out, having to go speak to the headmaster, being sent home to your mum... must've been tough on a sensitive kid like you. I bet you've learned your lesson. You won't do it again, will you?"
"No. Never." He'll be more careful from now on. He won't speak up in class at all, even when he's called on. He'd rather they thought he was thick than crazy. Or worse.
"Good lad," says the doctor. "Well, long as we've got you here, we're going to do a physical exam, okay?"
"Okay." Charles stands.
The doctor picks up his clipboard and leads him out of the office and into the examination room. There's a cot, but Dr. Monroe directs Charles into a chair like at the dentist's office. Charles climbs into it, his feet almost straight out, the rest of him tilted back a little.
Behind him, the doctor flips some pages. «Charles F. What's the F stand for?»
"Francis," says Charles, and feels a muted sense of regret from Dr. Monroe.
Setting his clipboard aside, the doctor tells Charles to say ahh and stare into a light and tip his head so the doctor can look into his ears.
Dr. Monroe looks at the clipboard. "It says here you're due for a flu jab."
He's very single-minded. Charles tries, but all gets is the sentence the doctor spoke, and what he sees: the first page of the clipboard. It's the top sheet, Charles's name and address and all that. It doesn't say anything about a flu jab.
The doctor rolls up Charles's sleeve and pulls rubber tubing tight around his arm, taps the skin to make the vein stand out, swabs a patch of skin with icy alcohol.
He upends a little glass vial and draws the drug into a syringe. "Now, you're almost ten years old, hm? That's old enough not to fuss over a little shot. It'll be over in a second. It's just a little pinch."
Dr. Monroe still isn't thinking anything that Charles can read. All that's in his head is what he's seeing: right now, Charles's own sick, frightened face.
Charles watches the needle come closer. His heart stutters too fast in his chest.
He hasn't done this very often. It's scary. But if that's not flu vaccine... he can't let himself be drugged. If he fights, the doctor might just call in nurses to help, more people than Charles could cope with. If he's going to do this, he has to do it now.
Charles puts his fingers to his temple. His head usually starts to hurt there if he does this much; touching that spot helps a little.
Aloud, his voice too small, he says, "You did that already."
"What?" Dr. Monroe takes Charles's arm, the needle hovering.
"You did that already," Charles says more loudly. "You already gave me the shot."
Dr. Monroe looks at him, confused, and Charles pushes at his mind, fear making him dare more than he's ever done before. The doctor knows exactly how it will feel to give this injection, the needle slipping in, the rate to depress the plunger and administer the haloperidol. Charles dims the doctor's sense of anticipation and leaves just the rehearsal, giving that back to him, prompting him to move his hand and squeeze the syringe, all the medicine squirting out onto the carpet.
"You gave me the shot," Charles repeats in his best grown-up voice. "You've done it a thousand times, and you just did it, it's done." «Believe it. Believe it, believe it. Gave the shot. Took the needle out. It's empty. That's done. Move on to the next bit.»
The doctor looks down at the empty syringe for a long moment. Finally he sets it aside, and reaches for a wad of gauze, pressing it to the crook of Charles's arm. He tapes it on and has Charles bend his arm up, crushing the gauze against his unmarked skin.
Charles takes a guess, and he lets his head fall back, slides his eyes shut, his arm wavering, going limp, falling to the armrest. It's hard, so hard, to keep his breathing even; his heart is racing like a rabbit's, he feels lightheaded, not enough air, but he just keeps drawing deep steady breaths.
Dr. Monroe relaxes, blowing out a sigh, and the tight focus of his mind breaks. «That's a shame,» he's thinking, looking at Charles, and he shakes himself. He was afraid, that whole time. Afraid of Charles. He's been trained to defend against mindreading, trained to clear his mind and focus with remarkable discipline. But now that Charles is unconscious, he can let down his guard.
Going back to his clipboard, Monroe flips ahead, makes some notes. «Paranoid schizophrenia, immediate committal,» those are the words he writes, but then he adds a number code, and it means something else. «Stryker-Wyngarde Psionic Scale test administered, three unspoken questions answered correctly. Phone for authorization--»
«Did that,» Charles convinces him. «Phoned the number, got authorization.» He can't let the doctor tell anyone about him.
The doctor hesitates. He has misgivings anyway, reluctant to do this next part, the drawer, the orbitoclasts. But it's the next step in the procedure, and he's received authorization.
He returns to Charles and pries his eye open; he expects to see dilated pupils so Charles does the same trick, makes him see the expectation as if it's real. It's a little easier this time.
«Hate this part,» Dr. Monroe's thinking, and Charles is trying so hard to get a sense of what "this part" will be that he misses his chance to stop Monroe from a series of rote preparations: he drapes an apron over Charles, takes hold of Charles's arms and centers them on the armrests, wraps cuffs around his wrists that fasten with Velcro.
Charles can't panic. His mind is his only defense, he has to keep a clear head. He keeps breathing slowly, as if he's asleep.
Dr. Monroe opens a drawer and brings a tray over, placing it next to the empty syringe on the table. Charles sees it through his eyes: two long stainless steel orbitoclasts designed for transorbital leukotomy. Not words Charles knows, and he can't easily get the meaning from Monroe, who thinks of them as fancy icepicks. The orbitoclasts look like little swords to Charles: a long narrow blade like a fencing foil, smooth and sharply pointed, with a slightly thicker hilt and a crescent-shaped pommel. Between them, there's a mallet.
The doctor touches something on the chair, and it tips further back. He peels up Charles's eyelid again-- this time it's almost easy to make him see what he expects-- and he picks up the first orbitoclast.
Monroe is finally thinking about he's planning to do with it, and for long, dangerous, crucial seconds, Charles is too shocked to react.
Lift the eyelid, slide the tip under and up to lodge it against the top of the eyesocket. Tap the base with the mallet to drive through subcutaneous tissue, the thin bone of the superior wall, and the meninges. Penetrate to a depth of five centimeters. Move the instrument forty degrees to the left, and back; apply the mallet to send the orbitoclast a further two centimeters into the brain. Pivot twenty-eight degrees to each side, finishing with the deep frontal cut down the longitudinal cerebral fissure to complete the interruption of the cortical tissue and separate the frontal cortex from the thalamus.
The tip of the orbitoclast enters his sight, huge, so close, and Charles twists his head away and throws his awareness into Monroe's mind-- so afraid and so angry, he projects wildly at the doctor, everything in him silently screaming nonono. Monroe feels the invasion, growing terrified, What are you, unprepared for something so far beyond mindreading, and he seizes Charles by the jaw and forces his head back, the orbitoclast rising again.
Charles is panting with fear and effort, his head is pounding, he has to stop this, now, stop stop stop--
Dr. Monroe drops the orbitoclast, staring down. His mouth opens.
«No, you can't speak. You can't make a sound,» Charles forces into his head.
The doctor's mouth opens and closes noiselessly.
Charles doubles over and uses his teeth to tear open the Velcro strap binding his wrist so that he can bring his fingers to his temple: he sends at Dr. Monroe with all the strength he can bring to bear, «Forget. Forget. Forget all this, forget it all.» He bites and tugs at the other strap til it rips apart, frees himself and throws off the apron.
Just in time to see the doctor stagger, fold to his knees, and fall heavily onto his side.
Staring, Charles slides down out of the chair and squats by the doctor's head, putting his hand to the man's brow.
The doctor's mind is empty, blaring with nothing, like a white room full of light and nothing else at all.
But he's breathing. And someone will come soon. Charles leaves him there for now.
It was an accident, but if anyone knew, they'd never believe that. It's grounds for detention just to be a mutant, let alone to... to do whatever he just did. He has to cover this up, like a criminal in one of those detective novels that his mother likes. Charles read all her Agatha Christie books last summer. He can do this.
He feels like he's moving through mud, trudging across the room to the cabinets and drawers nearby. Charles opens them all up til he finds another apron, and he gathers up the one Monroe put on him and folds it up like the one in the cabinet and stacks it on top. There are more Velcro restraints in a drawer. Charles makes sure he didn't leave any bite marks on the pair he puts back.
There's a red plastic container on the wall for sharps, but if the doctor is hurt, someone might investigate, and look there, and find one more needle than there should be...
Charles freezes. He's cold all over with sweat and he can hear himself making funny wheezing noises, but he can't wait, there's no time. He's moving too slowly as it is.
The little glass vial with the sedative, he has to hide that as well. Someone might count and find one shy... or see that there's less of it...
Charles fills a paper cup with water and puts the syringe in, fills it halfway-- that looks right-- and carefully sticks the needle through the hole in the lid of the haloperidol. His hands tremble, but he presses the plunger and gets the container full again. He finds the shelf with more of the same stuff and hides the vial behind the others, wiping it with a tissue first to take off fingerprints.
He looks in the sharps disposal. There are a dozen needles in there already; one more might not be noticed and he can't think where else to put the needle. He wipes off the syringe as well, and bins it.
It makes him feel ill just to pick up the orbitoclast, holding it gingerly with the tissue. He puts it back on the tray, does the same with the mallet, and covers his hands with his shirt cuffs to pick up the tray and return it to its shallow drawer.
Now the room looks more like it did before they came in. Charles shuts all the drawers and cabinets, and goes back to Dr. Monroe.
The doctor's eyes are fixed and glazed. He hasn't moved. He's drooling a little.
Charles kneels down next to him on the thin nap of the carpet. He rests his fingertips on Dr. Monroe's temples and bends to press his forehead against the doctor's.
There's just... nothing, a howling white nothing. Charles pushes harder, searches more deeply. It can't all just be gone. He's read about this. The brain is an organ, it's tissue and matter and blood, it's a chemical computer of a hundred billion neurons all connecting constantly in a hundred trillion shifting patterns, an enchanted loom weaving a new tapestry every moment. Charles didn't touch that, can't affect that, how could he? It's all still there inside the man's skull.
But Charles can't find it. He can't find Craig Taylor Monroe anymore.
This is why the doctor wanted to cut apart everything in Charles's head that lets him do this. No one should be able to do this, not with an icepick, not with a thought.
Maybe he should let them catch him. From what he read from Monroe's mind right before-- before-- Monroe believed there was a thirty percent chance that the lobotomy wouldn't hurt Charles beyond removing his telepathy. Maybe if Charles submitted to it voluntarily, they'd operate more carefully instead of going in blind and swishing a pick around. Maybe his chances would improve.
He can't imagine life without telepathy. But he... this really is a crime scene. He can't take the chance it might happen again.
Except they probably won't bother operating on Charles to try to make him normal, if he turns himself in. They'll execute him for what he did to Dr. Monroe. Maybe they'll experiment on him first.
Charles sits back on the floor and stares at Monroe's blank face. He can't give himself up. Even though they're right to be scared of him. He shouldn't be able to do the things he can do.
But he's never done anything like this before. He wouldn't have done it today if Monroe hadn't been about to jam a pick through his eyesocket and into his brain. It was self-defense. It was an accident. If he weren't a mutant, if it went to court... self-defense isn't murder. Accidents aren't murder.
His temples are throbbing. Charles rubs them, holds his fingers there. He reads the receptionist, Vera. The appointment was just noted down as an exam, nothing about testing Charles for mutant ability. The nurse, Deirdre, she doesn't know anything about it either. This has all been done very discreetly. The Xaviers are such a well respected family, after all. He might manage to get away.
The code. Charles's stomach lurches, bile tracks up the back of his throat. He almost forgot the diagnosis, and the code Monroe noted down-- and that would give him away faster than anything else. He swallows and swallows til the burn sinks back down a little, and goes to the clipboard.
It's in ink. Charles knows it won't work, but he grabs the pen and scratches out the code and the words Paranoid schizophrenia. Immediate committal. He covers each letter and number meticulously with the ink, drops the pen, puts his hands to his face and feels the wet streaming down, his shoulders tight and heaving because he's going to get caught. He'll be caught and they'll kill him. The ink scribble might as well be blood on the page, it's so obvious. Maybe he could run, but where could he go? He might be able to protect himself while he's awake, but he has to sleep sometime. And if he's threatened he might erase someone else like he did Dr. Monroe. He can't do that again, he can't risk that someone might make him do it again.
Charles sniffs and wipes his face with his shirt cuff, and looks at the page again. It's just the inked-out diagnosis and some ticked boxes. He can still... maybe...
He touches his temple, raids the nurse's mind for where to find the forms. Going back to the office, he opens the deep, heavy bottom drawer, finds a blank duplicate of the page he needs. Takes it back, and ticks off all the same boxes, and clips it in place of the one with the scratched-out diagnosis.
Another mental sweep: Vera, Deidre, Sharon. Receptionist, nurse, his mum in the waiting room. No one between him and the toilet at the end of the hall.
He runs there, crouches over the bowl, and tears up the marked sheet of paper with shaking hands. He flushes the pieces, and checks the floor to make sure he didn't miss any bits of paper, and checks the bowl of the toilet, and the floor again, and flushes it twice more. Deirdre notices the noise; he touches his temple. No, she doesn't.
Even with as badly as his head hurts now, as tired as he is, he can feel where to push more readily, how to change things. It's getting easier.
He'll never do it again, after this. Never.
Charles goes back to the examination room. Dr. Monroe on the floor, sightlessly watching nothing. The chair is still tilted back; Charles prods the controls until it's upright again.
His hands are freezing, he's freezing, so cold all over. Once he calls for help, he can't fix anything else. If he hasn't set everything right, they'll catch him. He can't bear to call them in, he's not ready. But if he waits too long, that'll be suspicious and they'll catch him.
He goes to the doctor and touching his forehead, trying one more time to find him. Some trace of him.
There's nothing. He did that.
He doesn't have to fake the panic or the tears when he runs to the door shouting, "Someone, please! The doctor's sick! Mum!"
And after all that, once he calls them, no one pays him much mind. The nurse runs in and starts to try to revive Dr. Monroe. His mum comes soon after and takes him back with her to the waiting room. The receptionist rings for help. His mum puts her jumper on him and leaves her arm around him while the emergency medics come.
"The doctor asked me some questions and he looked in my mouth and my ears and then he just fell over," Charles says when Deirdre asks him what happened. «Probably a stroke.»
"Probably a stroke," says Deirdre. "It runs in his family."
"Can we go?" Charles asks, turning to press his face against his mother's side. She feathers her fingers through his hair.
"I'm taking my son home," his mum tells Vera and Deirdre.
"Poor duck," Vera says. "Go on then. If they have any questions for him we'll phone you."
In the car, Charles presses his aching head against the cool window glass. He's not done. His teacher and his headmaster must have suspected... that must have been why they recommended that his mum ought to take him to see Dr. Monroe. He has to get to them. He'll have to read them to find out whether they told anyone else, and change everyone who knows.
And then he'll need to convince his mother he needs private tutoring at home instead of boarding school. He can't take the chance something like this might happen again. That won't be easy. She doesn't want him around and underfoot all the time. But he'll persuade her. With words. Once he's taken care of the teacher and the headmaster, he'll only use words, ever again.
Only words, Charles thinks, three weeks later. These are words. «Of course we can hire in tutors. Brian would have wanted it that way.»
"That school, accusing you of cheating. They obviously don't know how to deal with an intelligent child," says his mother. "You take after your father. If he were here, he'd see to it you were getting a proper education. Of course we can hire in tutors. It's what your father would have wanted."
He keeps promising himself and meaning it. Just this one time. Just to get out of this jam. Just once more. And after all, he's only trying to do good. He's chancing this now in order to get himself away from all the kids and teachers at boarding school; it's safer for everyone. A little risk now to reduce a lot of risk later.
Anyway, he took memories from the teacher and the headmaster, and they were fine. What he did to Dr. Monroe... he was scared and he didn't know what he was capable of, or how to use that power.
Charles can't guarantee he'll never be threatened again. That's not in his control. But he can learn what he's capable of, he can learn how to use his abilities without hurting people. That must be safer in the long run than never using it until the next accident happens.
He'll be careful. He'll only use it when he really needs it. Or when it's harmless, to practice. Or maybe sometimes to practice when it's not so harmless, but only on people who deserve it. No one could know that better than him, after all.
"I'll have our solicitor deal with the school," his mother says. "I'm sure we can find suitable tutors to work with you here at home soon-- we'll aim to start after your tenth birthday party. Won't that be nice?"
"Yes, mum," Charles smiles. "Thank you."
http://cesare.dreamwidth.org/134574.html |
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Author: Cesare (almostnever)
Word count: ~4,000
Ratings/Warnings: SFW. Contains potentially triggering content: ( Skip.) A child is threatened with an unnecessary operation and significant injury. An adult comes to serious harm.
Summary: Standalone prequel to the Hellfire AU series by me &
helens78. When he was young, Charles once came closer than he'd like to recall to being caught. Please read the warnings if you have any content concerns.
Outside Grace @ the Archive of Our Own
-
"Do you know why you're here, Charles?"
Charles looks at the Norman Rockwell clock on the wall. It has a doctor holding a stethoscope to the chest of a little girl's doll. "Yes," he says. "The teacher thought I was cheating."
Dr. Monroe nods. He sits back against his desk, rocking on his feet a little. He seems old to Charles, but at thirty-six, he still thinks of himself as young, Charles can feel that from him. He thinks of himself as Craig. He says, "You knew a lot of answers to questions. Sometimes even before the questions were asked."
"I know. I did cheat," says Charles, trying to sound sorry. "I looked at the lesson plans and the teacher's edition of the textbook so I'd know all the answers. And I knew what order they were in as well. Sometimes I answered too soon." It explains everything.
"Why were you cheating?" Dr. Monroe asks, standing up and pacing slowly around the room.
"It used to be easy for me to get good marks, but the class got harder, so I looked at the plans and the book."
"Were you afraid to get bad marks? Trouble at home?"
"No." Charles keeps still in the chair, though he can only see the doctor out of the corner of his eye now, and after another step or two, not even that.
"Wanted to make your mother proud?"
"I guess so." It's hard to stop himself swinging his feet. They don't touch the ground.
"What about other people, was there anyone else you wanted to impress?"
"No..."
«Was anyone else cheating too? Or just you?»
"Just me."
"Has anything been bothering you lately?"
"No." Charles watches the minute hand tick forward. Dr. Monroe's mind is very focused on his questions now. When Charles tries to read him, he only gets the question the doctor is asking, and whatever the doctor is looking at. The spine of a book. The Norman Rockwell clock. The back of Charles's head.
«Any problems at school? Bullies giving you stick?»
"They don't bother me."
"No? You're a little small for your age, no one picks on you?"
"No."
"Your mother thinks you're anxious."
"I'm not." Charles stays very still and calm-looking. He's not anxious. There's nothing wrong with him.
"Does it upset you that she's dating again?"
"No."
"How do you feel about Kurt Marko?"
"He's all right." He's not; he's after the Xavier money, and he'd turn Charles in if he knew Charles is a mutant. But he makes Charles's mother happy, and not much else seems to, anymore.
Dr. Monroe crosses into Charles's view again, and smiles. "I think I understand. You're at that age when you're testing boundaries, that's all. I don't think there's any serious problem here. And getting caught out, having to go speak to the headmaster, being sent home to your mum... must've been tough on a sensitive kid like you. I bet you've learned your lesson. You won't do it again, will you?"
"No. Never." He'll be more careful from now on. He won't speak up in class at all, even when he's called on. He'd rather they thought he was thick than crazy. Or worse.
"Good lad," says the doctor. "Well, long as we've got you here, we're going to do a physical exam, okay?"
"Okay." Charles stands.
The doctor picks up his clipboard and leads him out of the office and into the examination room. There's a cot, but Dr. Monroe directs Charles into a chair like at the dentist's office. Charles climbs into it, his feet almost straight out, the rest of him tilted back a little.
Behind him, the doctor flips some pages. «Charles F. What's the F stand for?»
"Francis," says Charles, and feels a muted sense of regret from Dr. Monroe.
Setting his clipboard aside, the doctor tells Charles to say ahh and stare into a light and tip his head so the doctor can look into his ears.
Dr. Monroe looks at the clipboard. "It says here you're due for a flu jab."
He's very single-minded. Charles tries, but all gets is the sentence the doctor spoke, and what he sees: the first page of the clipboard. It's the top sheet, Charles's name and address and all that. It doesn't say anything about a flu jab.
The doctor rolls up Charles's sleeve and pulls rubber tubing tight around his arm, taps the skin to make the vein stand out, swabs a patch of skin with icy alcohol.
He upends a little glass vial and draws the drug into a syringe. "Now, you're almost ten years old, hm? That's old enough not to fuss over a little shot. It'll be over in a second. It's just a little pinch."
Dr. Monroe still isn't thinking anything that Charles can read. All that's in his head is what he's seeing: right now, Charles's own sick, frightened face.
Charles watches the needle come closer. His heart stutters too fast in his chest.
He hasn't done this very often. It's scary. But if that's not flu vaccine... he can't let himself be drugged. If he fights, the doctor might just call in nurses to help, more people than Charles could cope with. If he's going to do this, he has to do it now.
Charles puts his fingers to his temple. His head usually starts to hurt there if he does this much; touching that spot helps a little.
Aloud, his voice too small, he says, "You did that already."
"What?" Dr. Monroe takes Charles's arm, the needle hovering.
"You did that already," Charles says more loudly. "You already gave me the shot."
Dr. Monroe looks at him, confused, and Charles pushes at his mind, fear making him dare more than he's ever done before. The doctor knows exactly how it will feel to give this injection, the needle slipping in, the rate to depress the plunger and administer the haloperidol. Charles dims the doctor's sense of anticipation and leaves just the rehearsal, giving that back to him, prompting him to move his hand and squeeze the syringe, all the medicine squirting out onto the carpet.
"You gave me the shot," Charles repeats in his best grown-up voice. "You've done it a thousand times, and you just did it, it's done." «Believe it. Believe it, believe it. Gave the shot. Took the needle out. It's empty. That's done. Move on to the next bit.»
The doctor looks down at the empty syringe for a long moment. Finally he sets it aside, and reaches for a wad of gauze, pressing it to the crook of Charles's arm. He tapes it on and has Charles bend his arm up, crushing the gauze against his unmarked skin.
Charles takes a guess, and he lets his head fall back, slides his eyes shut, his arm wavering, going limp, falling to the armrest. It's hard, so hard, to keep his breathing even; his heart is racing like a rabbit's, he feels lightheaded, not enough air, but he just keeps drawing deep steady breaths.
Dr. Monroe relaxes, blowing out a sigh, and the tight focus of his mind breaks. «That's a shame,» he's thinking, looking at Charles, and he shakes himself. He was afraid, that whole time. Afraid of Charles. He's been trained to defend against mindreading, trained to clear his mind and focus with remarkable discipline. But now that Charles is unconscious, he can let down his guard.
Going back to his clipboard, Monroe flips ahead, makes some notes. «Paranoid schizophrenia, immediate committal,» those are the words he writes, but then he adds a number code, and it means something else. «Stryker-Wyngarde Psionic Scale test administered, three unspoken questions answered correctly. Phone for authorization--»
«Did that,» Charles convinces him. «Phoned the number, got authorization.» He can't let the doctor tell anyone about him.
The doctor hesitates. He has misgivings anyway, reluctant to do this next part, the drawer, the orbitoclasts. But it's the next step in the procedure, and he's received authorization.
He returns to Charles and pries his eye open; he expects to see dilated pupils so Charles does the same trick, makes him see the expectation as if it's real. It's a little easier this time.
«Hate this part,» Dr. Monroe's thinking, and Charles is trying so hard to get a sense of what "this part" will be that he misses his chance to stop Monroe from a series of rote preparations: he drapes an apron over Charles, takes hold of Charles's arms and centers them on the armrests, wraps cuffs around his wrists that fasten with Velcro.
Charles can't panic. His mind is his only defense, he has to keep a clear head. He keeps breathing slowly, as if he's asleep.
Dr. Monroe opens a drawer and brings a tray over, placing it next to the empty syringe on the table. Charles sees it through his eyes: two long stainless steel orbitoclasts designed for transorbital leukotomy. Not words Charles knows, and he can't easily get the meaning from Monroe, who thinks of them as fancy icepicks. The orbitoclasts look like little swords to Charles: a long narrow blade like a fencing foil, smooth and sharply pointed, with a slightly thicker hilt and a crescent-shaped pommel. Between them, there's a mallet.
The doctor touches something on the chair, and it tips further back. He peels up Charles's eyelid again-- this time it's almost easy to make him see what he expects-- and he picks up the first orbitoclast.
Monroe is finally thinking about he's planning to do with it, and for long, dangerous, crucial seconds, Charles is too shocked to react.
Lift the eyelid, slide the tip under and up to lodge it against the top of the eyesocket. Tap the base with the mallet to drive through subcutaneous tissue, the thin bone of the superior wall, and the meninges. Penetrate to a depth of five centimeters. Move the instrument forty degrees to the left, and back; apply the mallet to send the orbitoclast a further two centimeters into the brain. Pivot twenty-eight degrees to each side, finishing with the deep frontal cut down the longitudinal cerebral fissure to complete the interruption of the cortical tissue and separate the frontal cortex from the thalamus.
The tip of the orbitoclast enters his sight, huge, so close, and Charles twists his head away and throws his awareness into Monroe's mind-- so afraid and so angry, he projects wildly at the doctor, everything in him silently screaming nonono. Monroe feels the invasion, growing terrified, What are you, unprepared for something so far beyond mindreading, and he seizes Charles by the jaw and forces his head back, the orbitoclast rising again.
Charles is panting with fear and effort, his head is pounding, he has to stop this, now, stop stop stop--
Dr. Monroe drops the orbitoclast, staring down. His mouth opens.
«No, you can't speak. You can't make a sound,» Charles forces into his head.
The doctor's mouth opens and closes noiselessly.
Charles doubles over and uses his teeth to tear open the Velcro strap binding his wrist so that he can bring his fingers to his temple: he sends at Dr. Monroe with all the strength he can bring to bear, «Forget. Forget. Forget all this, forget it all.» He bites and tugs at the other strap til it rips apart, frees himself and throws off the apron.
Just in time to see the doctor stagger, fold to his knees, and fall heavily onto his side.
Staring, Charles slides down out of the chair and squats by the doctor's head, putting his hand to the man's brow.
The doctor's mind is empty, blaring with nothing, like a white room full of light and nothing else at all.
But he's breathing. And someone will come soon. Charles leaves him there for now.
It was an accident, but if anyone knew, they'd never believe that. It's grounds for detention just to be a mutant, let alone to... to do whatever he just did. He has to cover this up, like a criminal in one of those detective novels that his mother likes. Charles read all her Agatha Christie books last summer. He can do this.
He feels like he's moving through mud, trudging across the room to the cabinets and drawers nearby. Charles opens them all up til he finds another apron, and he gathers up the one Monroe put on him and folds it up like the one in the cabinet and stacks it on top. There are more Velcro restraints in a drawer. Charles makes sure he didn't leave any bite marks on the pair he puts back.
There's a red plastic container on the wall for sharps, but if the doctor is hurt, someone might investigate, and look there, and find one more needle than there should be...
Charles freezes. He's cold all over with sweat and he can hear himself making funny wheezing noises, but he can't wait, there's no time. He's moving too slowly as it is.
The little glass vial with the sedative, he has to hide that as well. Someone might count and find one shy... or see that there's less of it...
Charles fills a paper cup with water and puts the syringe in, fills it halfway-- that looks right-- and carefully sticks the needle through the hole in the lid of the haloperidol. His hands tremble, but he presses the plunger and gets the container full again. He finds the shelf with more of the same stuff and hides the vial behind the others, wiping it with a tissue first to take off fingerprints.
He looks in the sharps disposal. There are a dozen needles in there already; one more might not be noticed and he can't think where else to put the needle. He wipes off the syringe as well, and bins it.
It makes him feel ill just to pick up the orbitoclast, holding it gingerly with the tissue. He puts it back on the tray, does the same with the mallet, and covers his hands with his shirt cuffs to pick up the tray and return it to its shallow drawer.
Now the room looks more like it did before they came in. Charles shuts all the drawers and cabinets, and goes back to Dr. Monroe.
The doctor's eyes are fixed and glazed. He hasn't moved. He's drooling a little.
Charles kneels down next to him on the thin nap of the carpet. He rests his fingertips on Dr. Monroe's temples and bends to press his forehead against the doctor's.
There's just... nothing, a howling white nothing. Charles pushes harder, searches more deeply. It can't all just be gone. He's read about this. The brain is an organ, it's tissue and matter and blood, it's a chemical computer of a hundred billion neurons all connecting constantly in a hundred trillion shifting patterns, an enchanted loom weaving a new tapestry every moment. Charles didn't touch that, can't affect that, how could he? It's all still there inside the man's skull.
But Charles can't find it. He can't find Craig Taylor Monroe anymore.
This is why the doctor wanted to cut apart everything in Charles's head that lets him do this. No one should be able to do this, not with an icepick, not with a thought.
Maybe he should let them catch him. From what he read from Monroe's mind right before-- before-- Monroe believed there was a thirty percent chance that the lobotomy wouldn't hurt Charles beyond removing his telepathy. Maybe if Charles submitted to it voluntarily, they'd operate more carefully instead of going in blind and swishing a pick around. Maybe his chances would improve.
He can't imagine life without telepathy. But he... this really is a crime scene. He can't take the chance it might happen again.
Except they probably won't bother operating on Charles to try to make him normal, if he turns himself in. They'll execute him for what he did to Dr. Monroe. Maybe they'll experiment on him first.
Charles sits back on the floor and stares at Monroe's blank face. He can't give himself up. Even though they're right to be scared of him. He shouldn't be able to do the things he can do.
But he's never done anything like this before. He wouldn't have done it today if Monroe hadn't been about to jam a pick through his eyesocket and into his brain. It was self-defense. It was an accident. If he weren't a mutant, if it went to court... self-defense isn't murder. Accidents aren't murder.
His temples are throbbing. Charles rubs them, holds his fingers there. He reads the receptionist, Vera. The appointment was just noted down as an exam, nothing about testing Charles for mutant ability. The nurse, Deirdre, she doesn't know anything about it either. This has all been done very discreetly. The Xaviers are such a well respected family, after all. He might manage to get away.
The code. Charles's stomach lurches, bile tracks up the back of his throat. He almost forgot the diagnosis, and the code Monroe noted down-- and that would give him away faster than anything else. He swallows and swallows til the burn sinks back down a little, and goes to the clipboard.
It's in ink. Charles knows it won't work, but he grabs the pen and scratches out the code and the words Paranoid schizophrenia. Immediate committal. He covers each letter and number meticulously with the ink, drops the pen, puts his hands to his face and feels the wet streaming down, his shoulders tight and heaving because he's going to get caught. He'll be caught and they'll kill him. The ink scribble might as well be blood on the page, it's so obvious. Maybe he could run, but where could he go? He might be able to protect himself while he's awake, but he has to sleep sometime. And if he's threatened he might erase someone else like he did Dr. Monroe. He can't do that again, he can't risk that someone might make him do it again.
Charles sniffs and wipes his face with his shirt cuff, and looks at the page again. It's just the inked-out diagnosis and some ticked boxes. He can still... maybe...
He touches his temple, raids the nurse's mind for where to find the forms. Going back to the office, he opens the deep, heavy bottom drawer, finds a blank duplicate of the page he needs. Takes it back, and ticks off all the same boxes, and clips it in place of the one with the scratched-out diagnosis.
Another mental sweep: Vera, Deidre, Sharon. Receptionist, nurse, his mum in the waiting room. No one between him and the toilet at the end of the hall.
He runs there, crouches over the bowl, and tears up the marked sheet of paper with shaking hands. He flushes the pieces, and checks the floor to make sure he didn't miss any bits of paper, and checks the bowl of the toilet, and the floor again, and flushes it twice more. Deirdre notices the noise; he touches his temple. No, she doesn't.
Even with as badly as his head hurts now, as tired as he is, he can feel where to push more readily, how to change things. It's getting easier.
He'll never do it again, after this. Never.
Charles goes back to the examination room. Dr. Monroe on the floor, sightlessly watching nothing. The chair is still tilted back; Charles prods the controls until it's upright again.
His hands are freezing, he's freezing, so cold all over. Once he calls for help, he can't fix anything else. If he hasn't set everything right, they'll catch him. He can't bear to call them in, he's not ready. But if he waits too long, that'll be suspicious and they'll catch him.
He goes to the doctor and touching his forehead, trying one more time to find him. Some trace of him.
There's nothing. He did that.
He doesn't have to fake the panic or the tears when he runs to the door shouting, "Someone, please! The doctor's sick! Mum!"
And after all that, once he calls them, no one pays him much mind. The nurse runs in and starts to try to revive Dr. Monroe. His mum comes soon after and takes him back with her to the waiting room. The receptionist rings for help. His mum puts her jumper on him and leaves her arm around him while the emergency medics come.
"The doctor asked me some questions and he looked in my mouth and my ears and then he just fell over," Charles says when Deirdre asks him what happened. «Probably a stroke.»
"Probably a stroke," says Deirdre. "It runs in his family."
"Can we go?" Charles asks, turning to press his face against his mother's side. She feathers her fingers through his hair.
"I'm taking my son home," his mum tells Vera and Deirdre.
"Poor duck," Vera says. "Go on then. If they have any questions for him we'll phone you."
In the car, Charles presses his aching head against the cool window glass. He's not done. His teacher and his headmaster must have suspected... that must have been why they recommended that his mum ought to take him to see Dr. Monroe. He has to get to them. He'll have to read them to find out whether they told anyone else, and change everyone who knows.
And then he'll need to convince his mother he needs private tutoring at home instead of boarding school. He can't take the chance something like this might happen again. That won't be easy. She doesn't want him around and underfoot all the time. But he'll persuade her. With words. Once he's taken care of the teacher and the headmaster, he'll only use words, ever again.
Only words, Charles thinks, three weeks later. These are words. «Of course we can hire in tutors. Brian would have wanted it that way.»
"That school, accusing you of cheating. They obviously don't know how to deal with an intelligent child," says his mother. "You take after your father. If he were here, he'd see to it you were getting a proper education. Of course we can hire in tutors. It's what your father would have wanted."
He keeps promising himself and meaning it. Just this one time. Just to get out of this jam. Just once more. And after all, he's only trying to do good. He's chancing this now in order to get himself away from all the kids and teachers at boarding school; it's safer for everyone. A little risk now to reduce a lot of risk later.
Anyway, he took memories from the teacher and the headmaster, and they were fine. What he did to Dr. Monroe... he was scared and he didn't know what he was capable of, or how to use that power.
Charles can't guarantee he'll never be threatened again. That's not in his control. But he can learn what he's capable of, he can learn how to use his abilities without hurting people. That must be safer in the long run than never using it until the next accident happens.
He'll be careful. He'll only use it when he really needs it. Or when it's harmless, to practice. Or maybe sometimes to practice when it's not so harmless, but only on people who deserve it. No one could know that better than him, after all.
"I'll have our solicitor deal with the school," his mother says. "I'm sure we can find suitable tutors to work with you here at home soon-- we'll aim to start after your tenth birthday party. Won't that be nice?"
"Yes, mum," Charles smiles. "Thank you."
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