Not Without Their Charms - X-men - Charles/Erik

[toestastegood]

Title: Not Without Their Charms
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Word Count: 10,000
Rating: PG-13
A/N: This was written for a prompt from 1stclass_kink: Eric is guilty for murder of his uncle Shaw and sent to Psychiatric ward. Charles is an intern/visitor/interviewing patients for his book etc. They meet and memories and powers of another time/life begin to re-surface.
Summary: For his research into patient well-being, Charles begins regular interviews with the patients of a local psychiatric hospital. As well as reminding him of his own time there, he begins to experience snippets of memories and thoughts that aren't his own.



. Charles

Coming back to this place brought a chill to Charles's skin. Old memories stalked the white-washed walls: voices in his head that he couldn't keep out, his mother's distant eyes, a large collection of pills taken every day. The images of his childhood reared up as he walked down the corridor to the office that he would use as his interview room.

He would be on the opposite side of the desk today, examining rather than being examined.

"I'm afraid we couldn't find anywhere more comfortable for you," the nurse said as she unlocked the door for him. His eyes lingered on the key. It's not for you, he reminded himself. You're not a patient. "The place is fit to bursting these days."

She bumped the stiff door open with a push of her hip and led him inside.

The room was worryingly clinical. There were no windows, and the only light came from a fluorescent strip on the ceiling. Two plastic chairs. A fragile table. There was no other furniture in the room.

The nurse stayed in the doorway, watching him as he placed his things onto the table: his files, his recorder, his pen and his pad of paper. He stashed his satchel, which contained his lunch and very little else, beneath his chair. "Would I be able to bring something in tomorrow? I'll be here for a while - might as well brighten up the place."

The woman shrugged. "Don't think anyone'll care," she answered. "I'll bring the first patient along."

"Mr McCoy, I think?" Charles confirmed, flicking through his list.

When she left, he sat down in the uncomfortable plastic seat and looked around. There was nothing to see. He could remember staring at walls like this for hours at a time, lost in his own thoughts when he was supposed to be engaging with the doctor. It felt like a different lifetime, now.

Hank's head was heavy on his neck when he was brought in, shuffling with his eyes on his feet rather than looking up at Charles. He was a sad sight indeed, broken and scared. Charles bit back the desire to stand up and assure him that everything would be alright. In this place, things were rarely alright, least of all the patients.

He could smile, however, and be as calming a presence as possible.

"I'd like to talk to you about your experiences as a patient here," he said. "I'm writing a book."

Hank looked up at him, intelligent eyes hiding behind layers and layers of broken self-esteem. "What kind of book?"

"It's more of a thesis, actually. I used to be a patient here; I'd like to study ways to improve patient care." More than that, he would like to prove that these places often made the conditions worse. "Could you help me?"

Hank blinked as if he had never been asked something like that before. Charles attempted to convince himself that he had a chance to make a difference with his work; he wanted to help. He wasn't sure if he could.

The day slipped past with a collection of interviews; every patient that he saw made his heart ache all the more. There was so much pain in this building. He didn't know how anyone could stand it.

It was nearing the end of his day when the door opened for a final time. Charles had taken to his feet, stretching his legs out and attempting to recover the feeling in his buttocks after an uncomfortably long time in that damned chair. Craning over his shoulder, he smiled when the nurse led his last patient in.

Tall and defined, the sight of him made (the sand between his back and the lack of sensation in his legs, the pain of betrayal and burn of tears in his eyes) Charles's smile waver for a moment, hit with a strange sense of nostalgia. It was quickly forgotten about as the door closed behind the nurse, leaving the pair of them alone in the room.

"Please, take a seat," Charles said with an inviting gesture of his hand. He made his way back to his own plastic torture device and sat, while Erik continued to watch him down the line of his nose. "Or you can remain on your feet, if you'd prefer."

He could remember Erik Lehnsherr's file, especially the sections about paranoid tendencies. There was little doubt that his questions would be greatly appreciated by him, but he still had to try. He still wanted to help, however little that help might be appreciated.

"Have they told you anything about why I'm here?"

"They don't tell us anything," Erik answered - which was really an overblown interpretation of events, unless the institution had fallen into a complete information black-out since Charles's time here. "You're here to use us as lab rats."

Charles smiled graciously. "Not quite," he said. "I'm writing a book. I was hoping that your experiences might help me with it."

Erik cocked his head to the side. Under his piercing gaze, Charles felt like prey caught by a predator.

He's in front of the door, he thought suddenly, wildly. If something happens...

Foolish. He shut down that line of thinking. The mentally ill were not automatically dangerous.

Yet, as he pursued his first few gentle lines of questioning, he couldn't help but be unnerved by the way that Erik stared at him. It was as if he was imagining all the various, bloody ways that he could rip him to pieces using only the pieces of furniture in the room.

"Do you know why they put me in here, professor?" Erik asked, interrupting Charles's request to hear about his first day in the ward.

Charles frowned and looked down at the files on his desk. He had read them thoroughly. "I'm aware of your diagnosis," he confirmed.

Erik's smile was not a friendly one. "That's not what I asked. I killed people. Did they tell you that?"

Charles swallowed. "They warned me, yes," he answered breezily. "They wanted to know if I wanted you to be restrained."

"And you said no?"

"You had your reasons for killing the people that you did," Charles said. "I don't think I pose a threat to you."

"You think that protects you," Erik said, scorn curling his upper lip."

"Yes." The answer was quite simple. "Despite the body count you left in your wake, you never killed people you thought were innocent."

"Is that how you're going to convince yourself that I deserve your help?"

"With all due respect, Mr Lehnsherr, I've spoken to patients whose crimes and issues far outnumber yours." He allowed himself a smile tinged with smugness. "You aren't quite as frightening as you think you are."

Erik stared at him for a few long, quaking moments, his eyes narrowed. Charles struggled not to fidget under the laser-sharp intensity of his gaze.

"You're an awful idiot for an academic," Erik said eventually, and took his seat.

There was little more that Charles could do but laugh in delighted surprise.

*

at night he dreams of voices with no mouths and of blue skin sparkling under the scorching sun.

"killing will not bring you peace," he says over a chess game that never ends.

the man on the other side of the table is breaking into atoms in front of him, floating further and further away.

"peace was never an option," he says, and a bullet slams into charles's spine.

*

Over the interview table, Erik smiled at him with a crease of rough concern. "Hard night?" he asked.

"You could hardly imagine," Charles answered. He was barely managing to keep his head up and his eyes open; he couldn't sleep at all these days. It was as if his head was always running, as if there was something inside his skull that was too large. Growing, by the second. "You don't look well yourself, my friend."

"Our pillows are like bricks," Erik said. "Put that in your book."

"I'll centre the entire thesis on it," Charles responded.

It was the third time that he had spoken to Erik in as many days. His sessions with the man always seemed too short and too comfortable; they had done ever since Erik had decided that he did in fact like him after all. For a homicidal maniac, he was surprisingly good company.

"I used to sleep out under the stars," Erik mused, leaning back in his chair. Charles had brought a selection of cushions with him from his flat, but he didn't think that the improvement was too noticeable. "There was a time in Germany when I was on the tail of two of my uncle's men. They had men everywhere, even in the police-force. I couldn't risk checking into a hotel."

"Where did you sleep?" Charles asked curiously.

"In a car-park the first night, beneath a truck. After one night of that, I decided to break into an empty office building rather than spend another night with my head on tarmac." Erik smirked. "The manager seemed very alarmed when she came in the next morning to find me asleep on her desk."

Charles grinned. "Your life has been utterly ridiculous," he said. He could never be quite sure how much of what Erik chose to tell him was real and how much of it was nothing more than flights of fancy. "You're still avoiding my question, though."

"Your question is dull," Erik answered. He nudged Charles's ankle with his foot beneath the table, a teasing bump. "I don't want to tell you about my day."

"I need it for my research," Charles insisted. "Please, Erik."

Something about his expression was apparently enough to make Erik relent. With a dramatic sigh, he leaned forward and began to list every detail of what he had done that day, from the very moment he had opened his eyes. The tedium of it all brought back Charles's memories of his own time spent in these walls; very little had changed over the years. It was a wonder that the mind didn't simply dissolve.

"Seeing you is the highlight of my day," Erik said, "as appalling as that is."

"I'm not sure whether I ought to be insulted by that," Charles mused.

"I intend it as a compliment, of sorts. You're far better company than the staff around here. I only wish the setting was a little more suitable."

Charles looked around the room that he had made himself comfortable in. Considering that he intended to monitor the patients' routines and moods over the course of several months, he was going to be spending a ridiculous amount of time here. Unfortunately, a Turner print tacked the wall hadn't done all that much to brighten up the place. "It's rather drab," he agreed.

"I was imagining somewhere with a bed," Erik said.

Charles's gaze snapped back to Erik, eyebrows raised. He could feel his cheeks heating (and he could taste Erik on his tongue: his mouth, his sweat, his spunk) and wavered, unsure what to say. "Erik, you're a patient," he said. Dear god, he sounded like a scandalised school mistress.

Erik leaned back in his chair and raised his hands helplessly. "What can I say? I'm crazy, after all."

Crazy to want him, crazy to say it, crazy to be restrained by damned protocol and morality. Charles remained frozen in his chair, staring at Erik's face, convinced that he knew what it looked like strained and contorted on the edge of orgasm. The image was so clear it might as well have been real.

He was sure that his face had to be as red as a postbox, but he rearranged his files needlessly on the table while Erik watched him with over-fond amusement. They had only known each other for three days, Charles reminded himself. How could they be like this already? It was as if he had known the man for years.

"I think we'd best get on with things," he said. "I'm supposed to fit Alex in before the day is out."

He could barely look Erik in the face for the rest of their session. One would think he was an inexperienced teenager rather than a responsible adult; he felt like a damned fool.

When the nurse came to collect Erik and take him away, the man paused for long enough to reach over the table and place his hand on Charles's shoulder, his tired eyes burning with intensity. Charles's dreams echoed in his mind, along with conversations he couldn't remember ever having.

"Get some rest," Erik instructed, while his hand burned with contact on Charles's shoulder. "You've earned it."

He felt as if he had been running marathons all week.

As he watched Erik leave, he was reminded of a giant satellite turning, metal bending to the will of another. An odd metaphor if ever he'd heard one - but considering the way that Erik was cooperating with him, he thought it might be apt.

. Erik

There were dreams that came to him in the night, horrible, frightful things. Erik would wake up in his bed, sweat-stained and panting, while images of his uncle still clawed at the inside of his mind. Not your uncle at all, something whispered at him.

Maybe, in this place, he really was going insane.

That would be a sweet irony, he thought as he rose from his bed and headed to the toilet in the corner of his cell, pissing while he heard the sound of the guards - nurses, so they said - making their first rounds of the morning. Further down the hallway, doors were knocked and patients were roused. They usually came to him last, as if putting off an unpleasant task.

He headed to the little metal sink and washed his hands before splashing water onto his face. In the mirror before him, he could see that he looked a mess - more than usual, in this place. Before his incarceration, he had taken care with his appearance. To be dishevelled meant to stand out, and it was far easier to get to the places he needed to go with a charming smile and an air of culture.

He could still remember the feel of a gun in his hand, the smooth, powerful metal making him feel like a god. Sometimes, when he thought about the bullets and the blood for too long, he still got hard.

He stared at his reflection and then rubbed mournfully at his eyes.

He had an appointment with dear Professor Xavier today.

It was truly embarrassing how much he was looking forward to that, a pleasant break in the tedium of long, torture-filled days.

His door rattled. "Lehnsherr," the nurse called. "Up and at 'em. Breakfast in ten minutes."

Charming.

Following breakfast, which was a beige slop that claimed to be oatmeal, Erik spent his morning in the rec room. He sat at a table with a Connect-4 board, so that at least the staff wouldn't smile at him and try to force him to engage with the organised fun. He could see through their masks. He knew that, given the chance, they would have him dead and gone rather than a burden on their shoulders.

Lunch came too, and then he was asked to join the reading circle. "They're reading Catch-22 now, Erik. I think you'd like it." He stared at the nurse who asked him while thoughts of blood reddened his vision, until Sean started to scream and scream and scream on the other side of the room - a welcome rescue and an appreciated distraction, as the staff ran to his side to try to stop him from clawing his skin away this time.

He stayed as disconnected as he could for as long as he could, watching as Charles's patients came and went. He had mentally tallied who Charles had been given access to; after years of experience in surveying his uncle's men, it was easy to work out. Hank, Alex, Raven, Emma. Emma always spent longer than the others with him, until Erik wanted to corner her and wrap his hand around her throat, squeezing tighter and tighter until she understood: she had to back off.

This was only the fourth day that he'd known the man. He didn't like to think about what might happen as the weeks dragged on.

Today, Charles looked more dishevelled than usual when Erik's appointment finally came around. His shirt had visible creases and his hair looked as though it was trying to stage a mutiny. The darkening marks beneath his eyes said that he still wasn't sleeping well (he remembered what charles looked like when he slept, powerless and innocent: painfully fragile, terribly human).

"Have you considered the ramifications of what you're doing?" Erik asked, after Charles had asked him what he had thought about breakfast this morning. What a terrible question. He feared for the outcome of Charles's research. Anyone that tried to read it might fall asleep within the first paragraph.

Charles looked up from his notepad, abandoning the doodle that Erik could see on the page. "Of course," he said. "Before any patient contact has been initiated we need to assess the ethical impact. You have no idea of the paper work it took to get me here."

Erik smiled, although there was a black mass in his chest, dark like tar, angry and burning. "You offer us hope, Charles," he said. "That's a dangerous thing."

"Hope is powerful," Charles contradicted. "I think a place like this could do with a lot more of it."

Charles is wrong (charles is always wrong, isn't he?), but the frown on Erik's face was affectionate rather than angry. "And what do you think will happen to us when you leave? Once you've collected your data, we'll never see you again. For a man with Hank's issues, that might be catastrophic: yet another abandonment."

"You're worried about Hank?" Charles asked skeptically.

Erik frowned at the implications of Charles's tone. He was, in fact, perfectly capable of worrying about people other than himself. He usually chose not to.

"Hank is a very fragile man."

"I'm sure your concern has nothing to do with your own feelings on the matter," Charles stated. Erik wanted to slap him for the note of warm amusement in his voice. His hand twitched in his lap, but he managed to hold himself back; his doctors would have been ever so proud. They were continually urging him to gain control of his violent tendencies, always spouting off new techniques that might help. Thinking of a bruise forming on Charles's cheek in this instance was what helped: as much as he wanted to hurt Charles, he didn't want to see Charles hurt.

Erik watched Charles, ready to see him squirm. "I think I care about you already," he confessed. "I'm not quite used to that. It's been intriguing so far."

Just as it had yesterday, a delightfully pink blush easily flooded Charles's pale skin. Erik watched it as if he was observing the scene from a thousand steps away (he's not here, not really, it's all lost in the wind).

"Erik, this is hardly appropriate," Charles murmured. He looked towards the door as if he expected to find someone listening in - Erik wondered if he even realised that no one else in this place cared. He could pull his body to pieces in this place and no one would notice what he had done until the nurse came to fetch him at the end of his appointment. "Perhaps it would be wise to stick to the official questions."

"You won't get any interesting data if you go about it like that," Erik scolded. "Why don't you write about the phenomenon of love-starved patients fixating on the first friendly face they see?"

"That's interesting, Erik. Would you describe yourself as love-starved?"

Erik's mother was shot in front of him when he was a child. He could still remember how red and hot her blood had been as it poured over his hands and onto the carpet. Erik buried that deep and answered, "Hardly. It might be an interesting spin to put on things."

"I'm writing a thesis, not a lurid novel," Charles scolded, but the way that a smile tugged on the corner of his mouth said that he was more amused than he was willing to let on. "I think we were trying to talk about your breakfast."

"Do you remember the beach?" Erik asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he blinked in surprise.

Charles frowned. "The beach?"

"I..." Erik felt his stomach plummet. Words that weren't his own: it sounded like a new symptom. That was what the doctors would say, before they dragged him away for new tests and evaluations, before they poured more pills down his throat as if that might be enough to tame him. He swallowed. "Breakfast was terrible."

Charles wavered as if he wasn't sure whether or not to accept the sudden change, but he nodded reluctantly and went with it. "I'll have to ask for a little more detail than that," he prompted.

The rest of the session was the most routine they'd ever had.

Erik didn't even try to hit on Charles again, making no attempt to flex his long-dormant skills.

When he left at the end of their time together, he could feel the disappointment rising: it felt like a missed opportunity, a wasted chance.

Isn't that the story of our lives? he thought.

A shiver ran down his spine.

To calm himself, he started a fight at dinner by slamming a tray over the back of Alex's head. He ended the night in restraints with a needle in his arm; the storm in his chest raged on.

*

When the sedatives faded and his mind cleared, he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, possessed with the sudden certainty that the universe was wrong. All of it, every single atom, it was all out of place. Erik breathed at a steady pace, forcing himself to remain calm. It was a difficult task: he couldn't feel the metal in the room.

He wet his lips with his tongue and screwed his eyes shut, reaching out with his power. Metal ought to be there to greet him, every door knob, every nail, every screw. The human world was designed with him in mind, but there was nothing. It was like having his eyes gouged out. Worse than that, much worse; his ability was gone. The metal wouldn't talk to him.

The buckles on his restraints were unresponsive. His power was out of his reach, and straining against the straps did nothing.

Erik's jaw clenched; what had the humans done to him? What trickery was it this time?

His hands formed fists and then released into open palms again. Mystique would come for him, he was certain of that. The Brotherhood would be incensed when they realised what had happened; it was an open act of war. It was --

It was wrong.

Erik's thoughts stilled as the memories of how he had come to be in this position came forward. He had been a child. His Uncle Shaw had shot his mother in front of him, had said, "Be a smart boy, Erik; there's another bullet for your dad, if you tell anyone."

Years of silence, years of training, years of murder after murder, years of this place.

It was all wrong; it was all different. The memories of a life he'd never lived lay nestled with the ones from the real world, the world where he had watched a Nazi he had never met shoot his mother in cold blood. The violence was a constant in both strands. Different lives; the same sorry story.

That it was a trick of some sort was painfully clear. Erik jerked against the bonds, harder this time, and grunted with the pain of the effort. They dug into his arms and torso like iron straps, unrelenting.

A knock at the door made him halt. "Now, now, Lehnsherr," came an old and stern voice, "If you don't start behaving you won't get your appointment with the professor. I know how you like them."

They said the words like a parent reasoning with a child, but the reason that Erik flopped back against the bed that was nothing to do with the enticement.

The professor, he thought. It was enough to make a manic smile split across his face. He remembered that now too; the meetings, the earnest look on Charles's face, the ever-present desperation to see the best in people and improve life in meaningless ways.

Yes, this mess had Charles's stamp all over it.

"Charles," he murmured, speaking the name to an unlistening world. "What are you up to?"

No answer came. It didn't matter: he had time. Restrained on his back without his power, Erik imagined that time was literally all he had.

. Charles

Charles tipped another two pills out of the bottle and downed them with a stern drink of water. The throbbing in his head hadn't ceased all night; it was getting to the point that he thought he would quite happily trade his soul, a kingdom, and everything he'd ever earned just for some peace from that insistent throbbing.

Worse than the headache, far worse, were the voices.

He slumped further down onto the couch and covered his eyes with one hand. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.

Fuck, this is taking ages to cook, thought a voice that wasn't his own. Then, another, saying, How long until the commercials? I really need to piss.

He was supposed to be over this; it was supposed to be in the past.

He pulled his hand away and took a deep breath, followed by a glance towards the phone. It was tempting, very tempting, to pick it up and call his psychiatrist. Despite having a clean bill of health, both physical and mental, for years now, he kept in touch for regular check-ups.

Yet the white-washed walls of the institution rose behind his eyes when he thought about it.

He couldn't go back there. He couldn't.

Charles, what are you up to? came a voice that sounded familiar.

With a frustrated groan, Charles placed his fists against his temples. No, no, he wouldn't allow this to happen. He was sane again; he was normal. The voices were nothing. Nothing; he knew that now, he understood it, he could escape it all.

Breathing in fractured gasps, he stood from his couch and made his way through to the bedroom. It was barely 8 o'clock in the evening and it was still light beyond the windows, but he dumped himself onto his bed anyway and wriggled beneath the sheets.

Lying on his front, still fully dressed, he stared at the digital clock on the bedside table. His head pounded and voices nattered in his head, too loud to allow him to go to sleep. He could remember spending full weeks like this as a child and a teenager, clutching his head and sobbing until he eventually passed out from exhaustion.

He wouldn't go back to that: nothing could make him.

He stared at the numbers on the clock until his vision eventually began to blur and he drifted off to an uncomfortable, unhappy sleep

The harsh blare of his alarm woke him up after what felt like a mere five minutes. Charles squinted at it and groaned, throwing his pillow over his head. No, not today. It was a Friday. It might as well have been the weekend.

Eventually, he managed to crawl out of bed and find his cell phone, plugging at the keys until he managed to call the front desk of the mental institution. "Hello? Yes, this is Charles Xavier. I apologise for phoning so early." Despite the groggy headache, he managed to sound as eloquent as was reasonable for this time in the morning. It was, at the very least, a great deal better than the sullen voice on the end of the line, who sounded as if she wanted to quit her job and run off to a foreign country: somewhere with lots of sun and endless heat. "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make it in today. Will you please apologise to the patients for me? I'll be there as scheduled on Monday."

The nurse agreed, but she sounded less than enthusiastic about it: she didn't even ask why he wasn't coming in.

Charles could just tell that he was going to have a ton of issues to deal with on Monday: Hank would have spent the weekend convinced he was in hospital dying, Sean would be convinced that he had abandoned them for good, while Erik would probably have ended up ripping the place apart and getting himself into all kinds of trouble. On the other hand, perhaps he was merely exaggerating his own importance: perhaps this was little more than vanity.

Shit! I overslept, spilled a female voice into his mind.

With a frustrated groan, Charles slumped back into bed, pulled his pillow over his face, and decided to avoid consciousness as much as possible until Monday morning.

*

Monday rolled around far too quickly, and he found himself facing a sullen Alex Summers across the table. "I can see you're terribly cross with me," he observed, after trying to coax some dialogue out of Alex for far too long. For all of the warnings he had been given about Alex's bad attitude, he had never truly encountered it himself.

Alex shrugged, a movement that was more of a slouch with one shoulder than anything else. He met Charles's eyes as if he was issuing a challenge. "Raven said you were in hospital. Said she heard you got hit by a bus."

Charles held his tongue and didn't point out that Raven's file said in black and white that she was a pathological liar. "I'm afraid she was mistaken. I was a little under the weather, that's all. How have you been?"

"Just fine," Alex answered, with a smile that seemed full of fangs. "Lehnsherr decided it'd be fun to attack me. Again."

"Wait - Erik did that?"

Alex shrugged again.

Not like he really cares, Charles heard, but Alex's lips didn't move. "Alex, I care. Of course I care. Please tell me what happened."

"He's a psycho. That's what happened. Got carted off to solitary and then officially flipped out."

Good riddance, Charles heard, and he pressed his knuckles against his temples. He didn't think that; how on earth could he think that? Hopefully he'll slit his wrists while he's there.

He jerked back so quickly that he nearly sent his chair and himself crashing to the ground. What on earth had he just thought? That was a terrible thing to think. It hadn't sounded like him, but in was in his head. This was the kind of thing that he had gotten into so much trouble for as a child. It was happening again; it was all happening over again.

(walking into the kitchen and finding a mother who is not his mother, whose thoughts don't sound like her at all.)

He shook his head to get rid of the random daydream that tried to invade. That had been happening more and more often as well. Taking a deep breath as Alex eyed him with open suspicion, he tried to pull himself together enough to act half-way normal.

He really wasn't sure whether or not he succeeded.

Nonetheless he made a worthy attempt, and succeeded in surviving through the majority of the day. He took a ten minute break at lunch in order to down an apple and two more painkillers, before he pressed onwards, eager to make up the ground he'd lost by taking a day off on Friday.

He managed to get through most of his patients, having to reassure them that he was not dead and that he had no intention of leaving town without at the very least informing them first. It was wearying - but that didn't stop the way his stomach clenched when he saw that the next person on his list was Erik Lehnsherr. Nerves, excitement, fear, he didn't have a clue which of them it was.

He got to his feet while the nurse was away fetching Erik, and stretched his legs by pacing across the very limited floor space that he had. Looking at the poster he'd stuck to the wall didn't help him to feel more serene, but he stared anyway. Left alone the room with its thick concrete walls, it seemed as if the headache and the voices in his mind were starting to fade. It was such a welcome relief.

The door squealed open again before he could truly relish in the peace and quiet of his own mind. Bringing a smile to his face, he turned around and nodded at the nurse. She led Erik inside and left after warning him that if he tried anything he'd been back in solitary for a week.

The door closed and left a deafening silence in its wake.

"The game is over, Charles," Erik said. "I know what you've done."

Interesting. Not at all the opening conversation that he had imagined having.

Charles tucked his hands into his pockets. "Do you? And what is that?" he asked, trying to sound both curious and innocent.

Erik's stare was unwavering. "It's not going to work. I remember everything. Tell me: how did you get past the helmet?"

Charles stared at him in the way that one might stare at an alien. What on earth was he talking about?

"... The helmet?" he repeated cautiously, while wondering whether the doctors were experimenting with a new medication.

"Don't play coy," Erik scolded.

Charles's eyebrows rose. "I'm not, I assure you. I simply haven't a clue what you're talking about, my friend."

Erik's smile was a fond but sharp thing. "You're a terrible liar, you know. You always have been."

"We've known each other for a week. I hardly think that you're in a position to tell me what I've always been like."

"This isn't funny, Charles," Erik said, throwing his name like it was an insult. "I've been trapped in a human body for an entire weekend, with nurses and doctors who treat me like I'm insane. I won't take any more of it, so call it off now."

Until now, Charles had never had to be on the receiving end of Erik's paranoid tendencies. This was far beyond what he had imagined it would be like, based solely upon Erik's case notes.

What is he doing? Does he really think I can't see through the act?

"There is no act," Charles answered. "I honestly don't know what you mean. I'm here to interview you: that's all."

"You heard my thoughts," Erik stated, staring at him as if he had just won a point.

Charles gave a dull, panicked laugh. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "You said it aloud."

Yet, now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember Erik's lips moving. The very suggestion was daft. Of course they had been moving; of course he had said it. The notion of telepathy in general was ridiculous. He would have to be mad to even consider listening to Erik when he had clearly had some kind of mental break.

"If I had my power, I could take that watch around your wrist and pin you down with it." Erik placed his hands palm-down against the table, loud crashes echoing through the room at the contact. Charles failed not to flinch at the sound. He looked towards the door. "I could take the belt around your waist and throttle you with it until you let me out of here."

"I'm only a researcher. I don't have that kind of authority."

"Stop it," Erik snapped. "Stop playing around."

He's lying he's lying he's got to be lying can't be trapped like this we can't be.

"Erik, I am not lying. I'm confused; you're scaring me."

He hated admitting that; at all times, he tried to project an image of serenity. Fear ought to have been in the past for him.

"I need you to listen to me," Erik said. "This isn't real. This place, your life, your memories, none of it is real. You are an idiot and a professor of genetics and the headmaster of a school for mutants and Lord knows what else. Something has happened to us, to both of us. We need to fight it."

Can't trust him, shouldn't trust him, do I really have a choice?

"Erik, have you talked to your doctor about this?"

"Damn those doctors," Erik snapped, slamming his hand against the table. Charles's jaw clenched. He glanced at the door and tried to estimate whether or not he could make it there before Erik tried to stop him. Erik's eyes softened. "I'm not going to hurt you."

His voice was gentle, almost patronising. It made steel harden inside Charles, a stubborn streak that bucked against such presumptions. He didn't want to be treated like he was breakable, like he was nothing more than a child.

"You attacked Alex," he said. "Unprovoked, by all accounts. Why should I have any faith that you won't do the same thing to me?"

"That wasn't me, for a start." Erik sighed. "In the past, I've only hurt you when I had to. Don't you remember?"

(a fist smashing into his cheek, sand beneath his back, helmet on Erik's head keeping him out, keeping him away, pain exploding from the punch.)

"There's nothing to remember," Charles insisted. "On Thursday, you asked me if I'd considered the effect my research might have on my subjects. I don't think I had."

He'd considered whether or not it would be a necessary or acceptable upset to their routine; he hadn't considered the possibility of being sculpted into a patient's fantasy of another life.

"You need to get me out of here so we can work together. You don't - " Erik cut himself off to grunt in frustration, staring at Charles as if he wished he had a laser to destroy him with. "You don't remember anything right now, but you will. If I can, you can too."

What am I supposed to do until then? Sit here and rot?

Charles placed his fingers against his temple, rubbing at the skin and wishing that he could get out of this place. The air was too thick, too stuffy. The pain in his head roared at him.

"Does it hurt? That might be a good sign."

Charles flinched when he felt Erik's hand covering his own. He hadn't even noticed him approaching, too lost in his own mind. That was hardly appropriate, was it? Erik's fingers nudged his own out of the way; his digits were cool against Charles's heated skin, and he automatically leaned into the touch (leaning against Erik following a day with Cerebro, listening to him tut and scold him for wearing himself out: "You shouldn't let them hurt you," Erik says, with a dark mistrust in his words that Charles knows too well.)

He felt the dry press of Erik's lips against his forehead, as though he could kiss the pain away. His lips lingered for a moment. Missed this, missed him, he still smells the same, Erik's voice sounded in his head.

"Erik, please step back," Charles insisted, surprising himself with the sound of his voice: he didn't sound half as unstable as he felt.

Erik didn't move away, but he didn't try to stop Charles when he careened away from him instead. He made his way towards the door and hammered on it, hard, while Erik watched him with purposefully dispassionate frustration.

The nurse unlocked the door and rose an eyebrow. "Something happening? You've still got half an hour with him."

"I think he needs to see his doctor," Charles said, flustered beyond what was reasonable. Good god, he needed to get a grip on himself. He had known before he embarked on this project that dealing with the patients would be difficult. He had never anticipated that dealing with himself would be the hardest part.

Erik's eyes were as cold as steel as he left the room, refusing to allow himself to be sedated or dragged: it was a haughty cooperation, and managed to carry an air of disdain with it for all its supposed compliance.

They can't keep me here forever, sounded in Charles's mind. I'm going to get my mutation back - and when I do, I'm coming for you, Charles.

A cold shiver ran down his spine. The end of the world itself seemed to wait for him in Erik's determined eyes.

. Erik

He stared at the doctor across the desk and willed the metal of his pen to stab him in the eye. He focused on it with every ounce of concentration that he possessed. He could see what he wanted in his mind's eye. It was easy to imagine how the blood would spurt delightfully once the pen was jammed into the socket. All the metal had to do was respond.

"You don't seem to be paying attention to me, Erik," the doctor said. She had an understanding smile and kind eyes. Erik wanted to crush her.

She wasn't real. He still didn't know what was going on or how they had ended up here, and without Charles's help the discovery seemed just out of reach.

"You haven't done anything to earn it," he answered without taking his eyes off of the pen.

"Charles seemed quite worried about you. You unsettled him quite a lot." He didn't need the doctor to tell him that to make him realise the truth of it. The panic and confusion in Charles's eyes had been genuine; in a way, that made it worse. If this was a trick by Charles, another ruse to try to save humanity from its inevitable fate, Erik might have been able to understand. He would have been angry, and he would have had a target for his rage - he could have thrown himself to battle against Charles, both of them striving to defeat the other without causing long-lasting harm.

Yet this way it wasn't nearly so clear-cut.

Whoever had done this to him had also done it to Charles. That was utterly unacceptable.

The others were here too. He had caught glimpses of the children, hidden as other patients or staff members. However it was the threat to Charles that irritated him the most.

"Yes, I suppose I did. Unavoidable, I'm afraid." He could have quite happily lived without seeing that fear in Charles's eyes. When they faced each other, it was usually a mix of compassion and steely determination that stared at him from those blue eyes. To see them widened in alarm had been far from pleasant. "It helped to answer some of my questions."

The doctor pursed her lips at him. Any moment, he knew, she was going to try to get him to delve deeper into his so-called delusions. She would demand that he faced them and tried to come back to this laughable version of reality. He would have felt pity for her, if he remembered how.

Instead, he did nothing more than glare at the pen again, drawing on every ounce of rage that he had ever felt, every bad memory, every speck of frustration. Emotions flowed through him, power in his blood, and he allowed himself just this once to feel it properly: frustration over being trapped here, anger at Charles for failing to help him, fear that he might never make it home. They surged through him, and -

The pen moved.

Just a twitch, just a tiny, insignificant twitch, but it was enough. He could feel it, like a whispered hello. The pen lurched towards the doctor. She caught it before it rolled off of the desk. When she looked up, she frowned at the sight of Erik's smirk - unnerved by it, and rightly so.

Erik could feel the metal again.

It was almost time to rip this place apart.

*

Charles didn't visit the next day, or the day after that. The nurses wouldn't tell any of the unsettled patients what had happened to him.

It didn't matter.

He could sense the battery in the clock on the wall and the locks holding the doors shut; he couldn't make them do much more than tremble, not yet, but he worked. He trained. He would close his eyes and remember every lesson that Charles had taught him during those sun-soaked days at the Xavier mansion.

He remembered what it was like to bend a satellite dish to his will.

He remembered, because his own mind was at war of him. He would think of a moment from his childhood but something different would come to mind - moments from a life he'd never lived. He had tried to think of one of the Nazis he'd taken out during his search for Shaw. All that had appeared was a human employee of an uncle he'd never had, never killed, never known. This world was trying to crush the memories out of him.

He wouldn't let it take him. Not ever.

And he couldn't resist alone.

He needed help, as much as he hated that.

"What would you say if I wanted to call you Mystique?" he asked Raven in the rec room.

She looked at him with startling blue eyes. Beneath the blue skin, beneath the pretence, beneath her mutation, Erik supposed that this must have been her true form: black hair and sharp eyes. It was nowhere near the glory that nature meant for her, but she was frighteningly beautiful all the same.

"Mystique," she repeated, before she pressed her fingers against her lips. "I know that name."

His heart lifted. He couldn't bear to hope, not truly, but with Mystique at his side they would once more be unstoppable. "What do you remember?"

"Mystique lives in the stars. She broke her mind into pieces and sprinkled it into the sky."

Right.

He doubted that he was going to get any help there.

Sean screamed, Hank cringed and Alex left him with a bleeding nose when he asked for each of their help in turn. When he approached Emma, she cackled so hard that he thought she might break a rib. No, Charles was still his best bet.

*

He gave his power another day to grow and take root, but he couldn't wait any longer than that. Raising submarines and stopping bullets was still far out of his reach, but some things were still possible. He could still open doors before him. Locks were feeble opponents.

As it turned out, walking straight out of the doors of such an institution was remarkably easy, especially once a pair of spare scrubs had been acquired from the store cupboard.

He made it onto street-lit streets, where cars rushed by with a whisper of metal. It called to him, a quiet siren, but they wouldn't respond when he willed them to stop for him. He didn't have that kind of power, yet.

He realised, with concrete beneath his feet, that he had no idea where he was going. Charles's address was a mystery to him.

This was not, on reflection, his best laid plan.

He kept walking all the same, putting as much distance between himself and the asylum he had come from as possible. Charles, where are you? he thought as loudly as he could, projecting with every speck of mental energy he could summon. I'm here. I'm waiting.

Nothing came back.

I'm lost. I can't do this without you.

The pair of them, fighting side by side - wasn't that how it was always supposed to be? They were brothers and more beside. They were meant to fight together.

Charles, can you hear me?

In the real world, he would have been able to. Erik had never met a mutant with the kind of power Charles wielded. Emma hardly compared. Only Charles, who positioned himself stubbornly in opposition to all of Erik's ideals. He did it just to irritate him - Erik would swear it.

Charles...

He shivered against the cold, dressed only in scrubs. With far too much concentration, he focused on the loose change that he could sense in the pockets of those that passed him by. The coins left their owners and came to rest in his palm, but it was hardly even enough to buy a coffee. If he wanted to get a hotel room, he was going to have to take a lot of change.

God, make it stop, blasted into his mind.

Charles.

His footsteps faltered and he nearly tripped in surprise. Broken and anguished, it was Charles all the same - reaching out for him, a welcome wraith in his mind. It's me. Where are you?

no no no it's not happening again not happening

Erik winced. Even from a distance Charles's thoughts were mentally deafening. His power didn't seem to be nearly as neutered as Erik's had been. That was good; that was useful. All he had to do was get to him and get him to use it.

I can help you. Tell me where you are.

I'm losing it again. I'm losing it. I can't...

Erik's chest ached as if he'd been stabbed - but a location filtered into his mind, an address. He moved as quickly as was possible.

*

On the street leading to Charles's apartment, he walked past people who were rubbing their temples or clutching their foreheads. A headache pounded for him as well, but it only made him walk faster.

The door opened to his touch, metal sighing at his attention, and he strode up the stairs with determination. All of the lights in Charles's apartment were switched off, but the curtains were open. Moonlight flowed into the large living space.

He could hear heavy breathing from the bedroom, and pushed his way inside. Curled on his side on top of the bed, Charles barely raised his head when he entered.

For all that it hurt to see him so shrivelled and pathetic, it was a relief to see him at all. The apartment was far more comforting than the bland walls of the institutions - it was a long way from Xavier's School for the Gifted, but it nonetheless had the taste of home.

Erik murmured Charles's name and strode forward to sit on the edge of the bed. It took a burst of courage, but he reached out to touch him, carding his fingers through the man's hair.

It's getting worse, it's all getting worse, I can hear everything, Charles thought.

"My friend," Erik said. "You need to remember who you are."

As himself, Charles could control and wield the immense power he possessed. To put that into the hands of an untrained amateur was cruel at best. i know who i am i know i know they can't take that from me.

"Charles," Erik snapped sternly. "Snap out of this. You look ridiculous."

Apparently, not even an appeal to his friend's vanity was enough to get through to him. Things truly were bad.

He took hold of Charles's hand and raised it to his temples, placing two of his fingers there and pressing hard. "Here. Use me. Look."

He thought of all the time they'd spent together, good and bad. Other memories tried to press forward, of short encounters in the asylum and of a long, friendless life before that, but he stamped them down. They weren't real. Charles slammed into him like a sledgehammer, all power and no grace, and Erik grit his teeth together and remembered the soft whisper in his mind underwater; he remembered their sun-soaked road-trip together and the time spent training in Charles's home; the sick battle against Shaw; the horror of seeing Charles injured on the sand. He forced himself to think of what had come after that, staring at each other across invisible battle lines, each imploring the other to cross over. Fighting had followed, and he forced himself to allow Charles to see that too.

Looking down, he watched his friend and hoped. If his mind couldn't offer Charles the identity he needed, he had no other ideas. No more hope.

"Thank you, my friend," Charles murmured. He pulled his hand away from Erik and pushed himself into a sitting position on the bed. "I needed that."

"You remember?" Erik asked. He sounded frantic: desperate. "You had better remember."

"Yes? What do you plan on doing to me if I don't?" It seemed like more of an academic question than anything else. Erik had little plans of hurting him, and Charles seemed to know that. He casually leaned over to take a drink of water from the bedside table and remained clutching the glass even after it was empty. "Don't worry. I remember - I think. It's still a little foggy up here."

They had plans to make; they had to work out a way out of here, a way back home.

They couldn't afford distractions.

Erik couldn't make himself care. He kissed Charles with little preamble or warning, taking hold of his face and devouring his mouth. There was a moan, muffled and shared between lips, and he pushed Charles down against the mattress. Charles's agile legs, functional and undamaged once more, wrapped eagerly around his waist.

The world could wait for one more hour.

*

Lying on his back next to Erik, Charles looked insufferably smug for someone that was stuck in an illusion or alternate reality. Smug might not be the right word - 'well-fucked' might suit that expression better. Erik sat up and reached for his pants, getting dressed already.

"No pillow talk?" Charles asked.

"We need to work out how to get out of here," Erik reminded him sternly. As fun as it sounded, spending all their time in bed simply wasn't an option. "Do you have any ideas?"

The long, thoughtful silence that followed his question was far from encouraging.

"I can't sense anyone interfering with our minds," he said. "There's usually a trace, but if someone's been there... They're quiet, and they're subtle, and they're a damn sight more powerful than me."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Your faith in me is charming." Charles chuckled, and reached out to place his hand against the small of Erik's back. Erik refused to look at him, as if a lack of acknowledgement might be enough to reject what he was saying. "Nonetheless, I can't sense anyone. What if there isn't a way out of here?"

"There is always a way."

Charles licked his lips and paused as if he was considering what to say. "I can walk here, Erik," he said eventually.

The words were like shattered glass in the air.

Erik's shoulders tensed.

"What if I don't want to go back?" Charles asked quietly, as if ashamed of his own words.

Part of Erik thought that that was right: that it was shameful. "You're not a coward. You wouldn't run like this."

"It's not just that. Here... It's a fresh start, isn't it? It's a chance to - " He cut himself off and swallowed as if swallowing the very words he wanted to say. "We can be together here. That's worth something."

"What of the others? They're patients. Their minds are - god, Charles, you've seen them."

"I think I could unlock it. You brought me back, after all."

Erik grunted at him. He still couldn't look at him, not even when Charles sat up to wrap his arms around him, his slim chest pressed against Erik's bare back. He dropped a kiss against the warmth of Erik's neck, and it was so very tempting to simply close his eyes and relax into it.

"There's no war here. It's only us." As Charles talked, Erik became increasingly convinced that he was the devil himself. "Just for a while. A holiday, while we think it over - while we think strategy. We've been fighting for so long."

Too long, in truth. Erik feels like an old man already. He finds Charles's hand and holds onto it. "It would be abandoning the rest of mutant-kind," he scolded - but he wanted Charles to talk him around. He wanted to give in to what he wanted without feeling bad about it.

"Perhaps," Charles admitted, "or perhaps it's building a new world for us. They might not fear us here. We can avoid our past mistakes."

A fresh start; a new slate; a world where mutants stood more of a chance.

Erik's heart hammered in his chest. He knew that he couldn't do this. He knew that there was always a fight to be fought, that life was always a battle for him.

Yet when Charles's fingers turned his head to face him, Erik didn't resist. He gave in to a gentle, offered kiss and closed his eyes to the sweet memories of Charles's lips - because the new world could always keep the best bits of the old.

He wouldn't stop fighting. He would make it home.

But maybe for now (for Charles) he could take a short, timeless break.