The Parting of the Seas
Title: The Parting of the Seas
Rating: PG
Words: 1,272
Summary: People are dying, and Charles has to do something. Erik makes a rather serious error of judgment. Title from Coldplay's Low.
It’s been three months. Three and a half, actually; one hundred and six days, a number which Erik has tried in vain to stop counting.
And here they are: Charles in his chair, Erik in his helmet. There’s symbolism there, if Erik stopped his resolute attempts to ignore it, ugly and blatant: him, and what he did. To Charles, and to himself, and to all of them.
The helmet is far too heavy to wear comfortably. After more than a few hours, pain starts to shoot, sharp and electric, through his neck and shoulders. He can feel it beginning now, and he lifts the helmet a few millimetres, taking the weight off.
Charles is staring at Erik with a discomfiting intensity, refusing to look away. The eye contact has gone on too long, now, an intimacy which is no longer comfortable. It doesn’t fit any more in this jagged, damaged space between them.
‘Erik,’ he says, voice curving around the name in a way Erik hadn’t realised until now that he missed. ‘It’s so good to see you.’
Erik nods, stiffly.
‘Sit down,’ Charles says.
Erik sits, laces his fingers together on the table, and says nothing.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Charles says frankly. ‘I wasn’t at all sure you would.’
‘Nor was I,’ Erik says, and after a pause he steels himself to add, ‘I wanted to see you,’ which is true, and no less difficult to say for that.
Charles’ smile is as bright and disarming as it ever was, though it’s hard to believe that he’s still so happy. ‘I miss you too,’ he says. His eyes alight briefly on the curve of Erik’s helmet, and then drop downward.
‘How are the children?’ Erik says evenly.
‘Oh, they’re…We’re managing. Hank especially is…having trouble. Adjusting.’
‘That boy is an idiot,’ Erik says bluntly. ‘He’s utterly incapable of understanding what he is.’
Charles smiles, wry. ‘He’s a genius, Erik, and you shouldn’t look at it in such black-and-white terms. I’m as firm as you on the point that Hank should embrace his mutation, but it’s easy for you and me. You do realise that Hank can no longer go out in public? Surely you’re aware of how difficult that is?’
‘That,’ Erik says with a certain pleasure, ‘will change.’
Charles’ eyes flick back to the helmet, for no longer than half a second, and he drags them away again. ‘Erik,’ he says quietly.
‘Are we going to have this discussion again, Charles? Is that why we’re here?’
‘No,’ Charles says quickly, ‘certainly not. How’s my sister?’
‘Raven’s doing well,’ says Erik, with the image of the woman Raven is becoming glowing vividly in his mind. He almost wishes he could show it to Charles. ‘She misses you too.’
‘Tell her I’d love to see her.’
Erik stretches out his fingers and reentwines them. ‘Do you ever hate me?’ he asks, his voice quiet and tense, stretched wire-thin. The question has, for a while now, been consuming him.
Charles tilts his head and considers his answer, avoiding Erik’s eyes. ‘Sometimes I’m angry,’ he says distantly. ‘With you, and with other people, and…the way things turned out. The way things have to be between us now.’ He looks up. His eyes are the colour of the ocean in Cuba. ‘I don’t hate you,’ he says, very seriously. ‘Ever.’
Erik contains himself to a small nod.
‘I miss you,’ Charles says, again.
‘I know,’ Erik says, which is the closest he’s prepared to go to yes, I missed you too.
‘You don’t,’ Charles says softly. ‘You don’t understand. Not like this.’
Erik raises an eyebrow, and then he gets it. ‘No, Charles.’
Charles closes his eyes for a moment. ‘You said it wasn’t that you didn’t trust me,’ he says quietly.
‘Of course I trust you,’ Erik says. ‘But you would have stopped me.’
‘I would have asked you to stop,’ Charles stresses. ‘Not…Nothing else. But you cut yourself off.’
‘I had to be certain.’
Charles’ eyes move to the helmet, again, and this time they stay there; Erik can see them tracing the curves of the metal. ‘Nothing’s ever certain,’ he murmurs.
‘Some things,’ Erik says.
The corner of Charles’ mouth lifts slightly, in something that isn’t quite a smile, and says, clearly, that he hasn’t the energy to further disagree. ‘Please, Erik,’ he says. ‘Just…a minute. A few minutes. I’ve missed it so much.’ He looks down at his hands and says, very quietly, ‘I thought you trusted me.’
Erik remembers Charles’ voice, winding through his thoughts, and the memories that Charles lifted and illuminated for him. The way that, together, they were so much more than he could ever have been alone.
He will be able to pinpoint, later, the instant at which his decision is made; it is exactly four seconds before the world goes black.
***
Erik has spent two weeks entirely alone in this plastic hellhole, except for a harsh conversation with one of the wardens on the third day after he broke the right arm, collarbone and three ribs of the guard bringing him food; and then Charles arrives.
His wheelchair is a duplicate of the old one, with all the metal components removed. Charles has taken off his tie-pin, cufflinks, jacket and shoes. He looks pale, and resolute, and inordinately miserable.
Erik meets his eyes, silently, and doesn’t look away. They took his helmet, of course, the protection he was stupid enough to abandon. He is defenceless.
Charles breaks the silence with a stiff British cough, and then it comes: ‘Erik, I’m so sorry - ’
‘Leave, Charles.’
Charles stops and takes a breath, a rough catching sound. ‘I had to, Erik. I’m so, so sorry.’
Erik stares unwaveringly at the wall.
‘Say something.’
‘You asked me to trust you,’ Erik says, icily, ‘and I did.’
‘I had to do it,’ Charles says. ‘I couldn’t let you - Those people in Austin, Erik, and then - I had to stop you. I was the only person who could. Please, Erik, don’t think I wanted to do it.’
‘Is that an order you plan to enforce?’
The words snap easily out into the air - spite comes easily to Erik, now, in this place - and Charles flinches slightly. There are dark circles under his eyes. Erik wonders how long he has been waiting to come here.
‘I had to do it,’ Charles says again, more quietly, and he only sounds half-convinced himself.
There is a short silence.
‘I’m going to get out,’ Erik says. ‘Unless you’re willing to tear my mind apart enough to stop me, I’m going to get out of this place. Raven’s coming.’
Charles blinks a few times. ‘She’s not coming, Erik,’ he says, and there’s no emotion, no insinuation in the words, but guilt is scrawled over his face in sharp letters, and Erik knows.
He feels his breath catch in his chest for a moment. ‘Your own sister, Charles,’ he spits. ‘What the hell are you turning into?’
‘You were killing people,’ Charles says, his voice wavering slightly. ‘I did what I had to.’
‘The abyss is gazing back, is it?’ Erik says. ‘Wonderful. What’s next?’
Charles’ hands drop to the wheels of his chair, and he shifts backwards, a few inches. ‘I’m sorry, Erik,’ he says firmly, for the third time, and then he’s moving away further. And then he’s gone, and Erik - in the cage he has feared in the back of his mind since the second he walked into that CIA base, but that he never dreamed that he would end up in like this - is alone.