FIC: laydown [off balance part two]
Fandom: X-Men
Characters: Charles, Erik, Raven, Moira, Hank, Alex, Sean (& Gambit)
Rating: R
Warnings: Deals with the aftermath of rape and traumatic events.
Summary: If he keeps running, maybe he can leave it all behind.
My thanks to everyone who reviewed. Castling is a real chess move, in which the aim is to protect the king.
You'll want to read this story in order.
part one: wheelspin
laydown [off balance part two]
the spasm of good sense is making my eyes twitch
i’ve had enough of all your consolations…
- Biffy Clyro, ‘Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies’
This is the first time Charles kills somebody. It will not be the last.
detonation +
Charles reaches out with a trembling hand, his breath hitched, and grips onto Remy’s wrist. Words cannot come from his screaming mouth, and so they come in the only way he has ever really know how to speak - flowing from his mind into Remy’s, which is sparking and fresh and dangerous.
Time seems to stop altogether, and Remy’s eyes open wide.
you wanted this, didn’t you, you bastard
you wanted to feel alive
Charles knows Remy can hear the voice, even if it hurts too much to hear the words.
feel this
Charles screws his eyes up, squeezes with the remnants of nails bitten half to the wrist, and thinks die.
+ 2 minutes.
“I killed him, Erik,” says Charles, in an eerie, high pitched voice that isn’t his. “I made him feel everything, and I turned him inside out. I could do that to everyone I know. I could kill anyone in a twenty mile radius.”
Erik is trying not to notice the blood on the floor, the blood on Charles’ hands and in his hair and on his lips as he says “You didn‘t mean to.”
“Oh, but I did.” Charles chuckles. “I wanted him to die. I am in control here, Erik.”
“He deserved it.”
“Did he?” Charles looks up at Erik. “Does anyone deserve that?”
“Yes,” says Erik in absolute certainty, but Charles doesn’t pick up on the hint.
+ 17 minutes.
“I want to go to the police,” says Charles, far too calmly. The anger seems to have faded, to be replaced by a terrible stillness. Erik looks at him, and wonders where he gets his strength.
“Okay,” he says, after a pause, “that’s good. We’ll head back to the house and-”
“No. Not the house. The police. The nearest police station to here.”
“Charles,” says Erik, trying to be reasonable, “they’ll want to know what you were doing here.”
Charles’ hands tighten on the belt buckle of the pants Erik found in the trunk - too terrible to contemplate stealing from the shack, not when the whole world seemed to smell like fear - and he laughs a little shaking laugh as he says “I don’t care, Erik. I don’t actually care. You can deal with that, if you like, but I believe I was just raped, actually, so can we please go to the police?”
Erik breathes out heavily through his nostrils, and turns the car around with a squeal of tires. They drive flat-out to the nearest town, six miles away. It takes them three minutes.
+35 minutes.
“Alright, then, Mr ‘Savier,” says the detective with a grease stain on his tie and nicotine stained teeth, “tell me ag’in what happened.”
Charles has been sat in the room for ten minutes, his hands twitching on the mug of coffee, Erik sat by his side with his fingers resting on the table. After a while, he shifts in his seat.
“I’m in,” he says, quietly, “rather a lot of pain.”
“Where did he attack you?”
“You mean the place, or where on my person?”
The detective smiles a very grim smile. “Either’s a good starting point.”
Charles pulls the blanket draped round his shoulders closer to him like a shield.
“His name was Remy Le Beau,” he says. “It was at his home.”
The detective leans back in his chair, raises an eyebrow, and then actually snorts. “Le Beau? Gambit Le Beau? What in Jesus’ name were you doin’ up there with that piece o’ Cajun shit?”
Charles says nothing, but Erik taps a tense finger on the table. His lips tighten.
The detective makes a note on a piece of paper, and then says, disbelieving, “you’re telling me Gambit assaulted you? Why?”
“I - I think he was angry.”
“D’you do somethin’ to make him angry?”
“Are you saying this is Charles’ fault?” Erik begins, outrage in his voice, but Charles cuts him off with an “Erik, for goodness’ sake, shut up.”
Erik looks hurt, but Charles looks at him with eyes that are blazing, and his voice dies in his throat. It is odd, how he can make that sound like the filthiest, angriest curse word in that strangled and bruised tone. Charles turns his attention back to the detective.
“I’m here on behalf of the CIA,” he says. “I think he took against that.”
“We-yull,” says the older man, pronouncing it as two syllables, “we have ways o’ verifying that. And what exac’ly happened?”
“He assaulted me,” says Charles, closing his eyes. “I’ve told you this. He got angry and he shouted and then he attacked me.”
“So why didn’t you just leave?” he asked.
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t - I panicked, alright?” Charles is defensive now, drawing his arms closer to his body, leaving the cold and untouched coffee on the table.
“And what did he d-”
“Look,” Charles shouts, “he grabbed me and threw me down on his stinking bed and he shoved his cock inside me and I didn’t know what to do, okay? And it hurt too much to think. So I didn’t do anything. I let him.”
The detective turns white, looks ill. “You’re saying he - sodomised you?”
“I am saying,” says Charles, and then he doesn’t say any more, because he bites down so hard on his lip that it draws blood.
+ 1 hour, 6 minutes.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Erik yells, red in the face. “Your doctor just said -”
“That he was sodomised, sir, I know that, but the fact is the law doesn’t count that as rape. You’d know that,” says the detective, somewhat primly, “if you was an American.”
“This is ridiculous,” says Erik, gesturing wildly to the room which Charles has just left, “he spends a fucking lifetime in there getting tested and violated -”
“- I understand that you’re angry, sir, I surely do, but calm down - ”
“ - and you’re not even going to prosecute?”
The detective rubs his eyes. “We could probably git him on an assault charge, but we’d need consent for that.”
“Well, he’s giving his consent.” Erik looks to Charles, who has been given a shirt, and is sitting quietly on a bench. “You’re giving your consent, right?”
Charles doesn’t make eye contact, but slowly shakes his head.
“You - what?” Erik comes over to Charles, squats down in front of him and looks into his eyes. “Why not?”
“I don’t think he’ll be doing it again somehow. I think,” and he laughs, ever so slightly - half a giggle, really - “he’ll leave me alone now.” He laughs again, and it turns into a gasp. “Erik,” he moans.
“I’m here, Charles,” says Erik, grabbing for his hand without thinking. Charles rips it away, and pulls himself to his feet.
“Don’t you - don’t - ” he whispers angrily, “you don’t get to…”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Erik manages, holding up his hands in submission and backing away.
“Erik,” says Charles, quietly, “I’ve changed my mind. I can’t do this.”
“That’s okay. It’s okay. Come on.”
+16 hours, 43 minutes.
They travel in silence; Erik drives by some unspoken agreement, and Charles stares out of the window. Every so often they drive the wrong way and Erik swears under his breath as he has to find a turn-out.
“Charles,” Erik says, eventually, his voice slightly hoarse from the long dry quiet.
“Yes?”
“Are you - I’m not judging, but are you ignoring me on purpose?”
Charles looks at him. “You didn’t say anything.”
“You haven’t responded to a single one of my thoughts.”
Charles feels the panic rise and ebb in a single second, too tired to care overmuch. He rests his head on the back of the seat. “Were you thinking?” he asks, simply. “I hadn’t noticed.”
+ 1 day, 8 hours.
Erik pulls up to the house and lets Charles get out before he parks; gives him a moment to stand in the breeze. The heat is not so unbearable here, further north, and he can feel the need to retch backing away, bit by bit. Erik joins him a few moments later, carrying the case they shared.
“If we hadn’t made that stupid bet,” Charles says, almost to himself.
“It’s going to be okay,” Erik says, blindly, “I’m here. I will always be here.”
Charles is not listening, already halfway up the stairs into the mansion, crossing the hall in swift strides. Moira sees them as they walk in, runs up to them smiling.
“Any luck?” she grins.
“No,” Charles says, already moving up the stairs.
Behind him, he hears Erik start to say “there was an incident,” and he flushes red with embarassment and rage. That Erik needs to induce pity, needs to apologise for him brings the mist over his eyes, and he stumbles down the corridor with his hands on his head.
And from downstairs, with clarity, he hears Moira think Oh god, the poor man.
This is when he decides no more thoughts. No more thoughts in this crowded, stifling mind.
The rest can be silence.
+2 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes.
Charles is woken up on the first day back by Raven, who is sitting silently at the foot of his bed like she used to do when they were children, watching him with unblinking blue eyes.
“Thank god you’re okay,” she says, as he comes into consciousness. “Just - god. I’m so sorry, Charles.”
“Everyone knows, then,” Charles says, sitting upright.
Raven looks horrified, and starts to speak, but Charles cuts her off.
“Right.”
She looks uncomfortable, and Charles remembers the scarlet stripe across his face where Remy hit him, vivid and graphic and hateful. “How are you feeling?” she asks, awkwardly. Charles smiles, but it isn’t kind. Raven claps a hand over her mouth, and a tiny, hysterical noise escapes. “Right,” she says, “sorry, stupid fucking ridiculous question.”
“It’s alright,” says Charles, even though it isn‘t. She pulls a grateful expression, and then there is a silence that there hasn’t been between them since they were children. She coughs.
“Can you - do you think you could go away, please?” Charles asks, hesitantly. Raven looks shocked, but nods.
“Okay,” she says, “sure.” She pulls herself off the bed. “Charles - it wasn’t your fault.”
Charles looks into her gentle, pitying eyes, and suddenly the fury is there again, white hot and blistering. “How the fuck would you know that?” he asks, big brother all but gone. “Were you there?”
+2 days, 4 hours, 27 minutes.
He comes down to breakfast as everyone else is milling around the kitchen making lunch. Hank sees him first; walks up to him and hugs him. Charles tenses in the embrace, but manages not to lash out.
Hank pulls away a moment later, looking extremely embarassed, and he goes to polish his glasses automatically. Charles knows that he should and normally would say something reassuring, something to convince him he hasn’t fucked up too badly, but - well - he has, so Charles says nothing, just brushes past him and goes to make a cup of tea.
Until now, Charles had not known that there was such an emotion as concealed pity. He has never been one for naming feelings anyway, understanding them instinctively in colours and light and smell. But here it is, written on each of their faces in shameful blushes like red ink. They avoid eye contact, avoid loud noises, and when Sean enters in a ball of energy to ask Alex something he suddenly hushes, tells Charles in a voice not quite quiet enough to be a whisper that he looks “good - uh - really good”, tugs at Alex’s arm like a child and pulls him from the room.
Part of Charles wants to climb inside each of their simple, unaffected little minds and tell them to stop this nonsense.
Part of him never wants to do that again in case he kills them. Or worse, in case he hears their thoughts.
(And part of him has been unlocked, and wants to end their pity for good.)
+ 3 days, 8 hours, 8 minutes.
He wakes up in a pool of blood and a burst of noise, and the fire is rising telling him to rip kill pull him apart make him pay. All that he is, all that he is become, is a need to hear someone screaming.
Then he realises that Remy Le Beau will never smile or kiss or breathe again, and he has to grip his legs until bruises show until he is calm enough to breathe.
+ 3 days, 9 hours.
Charles goes out to the track by habit more than anything; pulls on his sweatpants and laces up his sneakers in some shameful and pathetic pantomime of normality. Like there’s nothing ruined about him.
They’ve made a space for Hank’s running, marked out on the slabs with chalk, and Charles feels the hairs stand up on the back of his neck as he stands outside, exposed, visible to what feels like the entire world. It is still silent in his head, a painful static, because he can’t seem to pick out the words from the noise anymore. So he’s cut it off, broadcast a blankness, a do-not-disturb sign for anyone with the ability to see it, and tried to fill his head with emptiness.
Running he find to help. One foot, second foot, one foot, second foot. Repeat until you’re drenched with sweat and shaking and the blisters are covering every inch of your skin. Drink water. Repeat.
Think of nothing else but the run.
sweat step sweat step
+ 4 days, 18 hours, 11 minutes.
“Charles,” Moira tries, as they pull the pie out of the oven, “it’s okay, if you’re upset - we can - we can talk about it.”
Charles drops the plate he was carrying, unused to statements coming unexpectedly. It scares him, and it feels wrong. Moira is at his side in seconds.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he says, bending down to pick up the shards.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs, joining him, “it’s alright.” Her fingers brush his as they reach for the same piece of plate.
“You - think-” he spits out “-you think I - want your sympathy?”
Moira is hurt by the coldness in his voice, he can tell. “No,” she says, a sob half caught in her throat.
“I have no need of your fucking pity,” Charles says, all ice and wind as he turns on her, “and if you value anyone here you will tell them they can fuck off with it as well. This is ridiculous. I am recovered. I am fine.”
+ 5 days, 17 hours, 39 minutes.
Someone has swapped the black rook and the white king around in the untouched, unfinished, unmarred chess game in the study.
Charles doesn't notice, but Moira does, and wonders why it makes her feel sad.
+ 6 days, 5 minutes.
sweat
step
sweat
step
sweat
step
breathe
+ 1 week, 2 hours, 47 minutes.
Erik brings it up when Raven finds Charles sat on the steps up to the mansion and shaking after a three hour running session. He comes outside with a glass of water in his hand, and passes it without a word to Charles, who gratefully downs it in one gulp.
“Have you taken a day off from this since you got back?” Erik asks, gesturing in a vague manner to the track. Charles shakes his head, and wishes there was more water. “If you don’t take a breather, you’ll strain something,” Erik continues. “You don’t want to hurt yourself more than you have to.”
“Imagine what that would be like,” Charles laughs shortly.
“Charles,” Erik says, and he looks like he wants to hit him, “I am here. To talk. Or not to talk. To hurl abuse at. Or to ignore. But I have been through this, and I am here.”
“This?” Charles stands up then, and looks Erik right in the eyes. “Have you been through this?” he asks again, no accusation in his voice.
“No,” Erik sighs, “not this. But I’ve been through some fairly unpleasant experiences. And I know why you’re doing this-”
“If there is one thing I have learnt, Erik, it’s that pain is different for every one, so don’t you dare try and presume you know how I’m feeling.”
“And if there is one thing I have learnt,” Erik half shouts, “then it is that pain hurts for every one.”
“Erik - just - stop-” Charles shouts, and then, out of nowhere, his fist collides with Erik’s jaw.
There is a cracking sound, and Erik staggers backwards. In a fair fight Charles knows Erik would annihilate him, but he wasn’t expecting this, so he rubs his jaw and looks at Charles in surprise without anger.
“Doesn’t that make you want to hit me back?” Charles demands.
Erik raises both eyebrows as high as he can whilst still holding his cheek.
“Rage and serenity,” he says, almost sounding amused - but there is something else in his voice - something that might be sympathy, or might be pity, or might be betrayal. Charles cannot stand to find out, so he sprints off down the track and doesn’t look back. By the time he comes round again, Erik and the water glass are gone.
+2 weeks, 5 days, 3 hours, 39 minutes.
Erik finds Charles stood in the study, just standing, staring at the chess set like it might burst into flame.
“Charles,” he says, quietly.
Charles doesn’t turn round, doesn’t do a thing. There is a full glass of scotch on the table beside him. Then he draws a shaking, single breath, and lets it out.
“I can’t - hear - anyone,” he says. “I don’t want to hear them anymore.”
“Nobody’s saying you have to.”
“What good am I if I don’t?” He shivers, and sinks down into his chair by the fire, eyes still fixed on the chess set. Erik moves round to sit in the other chair - in his usual seat, where they haven’t sat for days - and says nothing.
“I don’t know,” Charles whimpers, and here comes the hitched voice that he has held back, “what they want to hear. I can’t give it to them, Erik, not without being in their heads and it hurts, it hurts to go there. I don’t want to do that. But I’m hurting them and I’m hurting you and I’m not doing this any more. I can’t win this. I want to make someone pay for this fucking terrible circumstance and it wasn’t enough to kill him.” He sobs, just once, before drawing it back inside himself. “I want to put him back together just to rip him apart,” he whispers. “Is that wrong?”
“I’m probably the wrong person to ask that question to,” Erik says calmly.
Charles tries to laugh, but it comes out as a cry.
“Why - didn’t I- why did I let him - god, it makes me want to-”
Erik presses a finger to his own lips, and Charles quiets. Then he reaches across to where Charles’ hand are resting on the table. Charles flinches, and Erik smiles - and with one finger reaches out and touches the black rook.
Charles looks at the board - for the first time, really looks at it, with eyes that show some living feeling, and breaks into a smile.
“That isn’t how to castle, Erik,” he says, through smiling tears.
“It’s how I castle,” Erik says.
+3 weeks.
sweat
step
sweat
step
panic
help me please
fuck
i can't do this
help
-
part three: backraise
Characters: Charles, Erik, Raven, Moira, Hank, Alex, Sean (& Gambit)
Rating: R
Warnings: Deals with the aftermath of rape and traumatic events.
Summary: If he keeps running, maybe he can leave it all behind.
My thanks to everyone who reviewed. Castling is a real chess move, in which the aim is to protect the king.
You'll want to read this story in order.
part one: wheelspin
laydown [off balance part two]
the spasm of good sense is making my eyes twitch
i’ve had enough of all your consolations…
- Biffy Clyro, ‘Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies’
This is the first time Charles kills somebody. It will not be the last.
detonation +
Charles reaches out with a trembling hand, his breath hitched, and grips onto Remy’s wrist. Words cannot come from his screaming mouth, and so they come in the only way he has ever really know how to speak - flowing from his mind into Remy’s, which is sparking and fresh and dangerous.
Time seems to stop altogether, and Remy’s eyes open wide.
you wanted this, didn’t you, you bastard
you wanted to feel alive
Charles knows Remy can hear the voice, even if it hurts too much to hear the words.
feel this
Charles screws his eyes up, squeezes with the remnants of nails bitten half to the wrist, and thinks die.
+ 2 minutes.
“I killed him, Erik,” says Charles, in an eerie, high pitched voice that isn’t his. “I made him feel everything, and I turned him inside out. I could do that to everyone I know. I could kill anyone in a twenty mile radius.”
Erik is trying not to notice the blood on the floor, the blood on Charles’ hands and in his hair and on his lips as he says “You didn‘t mean to.”
“Oh, but I did.” Charles chuckles. “I wanted him to die. I am in control here, Erik.”
“He deserved it.”
“Did he?” Charles looks up at Erik. “Does anyone deserve that?”
“Yes,” says Erik in absolute certainty, but Charles doesn’t pick up on the hint.
+ 17 minutes.
“I want to go to the police,” says Charles, far too calmly. The anger seems to have faded, to be replaced by a terrible stillness. Erik looks at him, and wonders where he gets his strength.
“Okay,” he says, after a pause, “that’s good. We’ll head back to the house and-”
“No. Not the house. The police. The nearest police station to here.”
“Charles,” says Erik, trying to be reasonable, “they’ll want to know what you were doing here.”
Charles’ hands tighten on the belt buckle of the pants Erik found in the trunk - too terrible to contemplate stealing from the shack, not when the whole world seemed to smell like fear - and he laughs a little shaking laugh as he says “I don’t care, Erik. I don’t actually care. You can deal with that, if you like, but I believe I was just raped, actually, so can we please go to the police?”
Erik breathes out heavily through his nostrils, and turns the car around with a squeal of tires. They drive flat-out to the nearest town, six miles away. It takes them three minutes.
+35 minutes.
“Alright, then, Mr ‘Savier,” says the detective with a grease stain on his tie and nicotine stained teeth, “tell me ag’in what happened.”
Charles has been sat in the room for ten minutes, his hands twitching on the mug of coffee, Erik sat by his side with his fingers resting on the table. After a while, he shifts in his seat.
“I’m in,” he says, quietly, “rather a lot of pain.”
“Where did he attack you?”
“You mean the place, or where on my person?”
The detective smiles a very grim smile. “Either’s a good starting point.”
Charles pulls the blanket draped round his shoulders closer to him like a shield.
“His name was Remy Le Beau,” he says. “It was at his home.”
The detective leans back in his chair, raises an eyebrow, and then actually snorts. “Le Beau? Gambit Le Beau? What in Jesus’ name were you doin’ up there with that piece o’ Cajun shit?”
Charles says nothing, but Erik taps a tense finger on the table. His lips tighten.
The detective makes a note on a piece of paper, and then says, disbelieving, “you’re telling me Gambit assaulted you? Why?”
“I - I think he was angry.”
“D’you do somethin’ to make him angry?”
“Are you saying this is Charles’ fault?” Erik begins, outrage in his voice, but Charles cuts him off with an “Erik, for goodness’ sake, shut up.”
Erik looks hurt, but Charles looks at him with eyes that are blazing, and his voice dies in his throat. It is odd, how he can make that sound like the filthiest, angriest curse word in that strangled and bruised tone. Charles turns his attention back to the detective.
“I’m here on behalf of the CIA,” he says. “I think he took against that.”
“We-yull,” says the older man, pronouncing it as two syllables, “we have ways o’ verifying that. And what exac’ly happened?”
“He assaulted me,” says Charles, closing his eyes. “I’ve told you this. He got angry and he shouted and then he attacked me.”
“So why didn’t you just leave?” he asked.
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t - I panicked, alright?” Charles is defensive now, drawing his arms closer to his body, leaving the cold and untouched coffee on the table.
“And what did he d-”
“Look,” Charles shouts, “he grabbed me and threw me down on his stinking bed and he shoved his cock inside me and I didn’t know what to do, okay? And it hurt too much to think. So I didn’t do anything. I let him.”
The detective turns white, looks ill. “You’re saying he - sodomised you?”
“I am saying,” says Charles, and then he doesn’t say any more, because he bites down so hard on his lip that it draws blood.
+ 1 hour, 6 minutes.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Erik yells, red in the face. “Your doctor just said -”
“That he was sodomised, sir, I know that, but the fact is the law doesn’t count that as rape. You’d know that,” says the detective, somewhat primly, “if you was an American.”
“This is ridiculous,” says Erik, gesturing wildly to the room which Charles has just left, “he spends a fucking lifetime in there getting tested and violated -”
“- I understand that you’re angry, sir, I surely do, but calm down - ”
“ - and you’re not even going to prosecute?”
The detective rubs his eyes. “We could probably git him on an assault charge, but we’d need consent for that.”
“Well, he’s giving his consent.” Erik looks to Charles, who has been given a shirt, and is sitting quietly on a bench. “You’re giving your consent, right?”
Charles doesn’t make eye contact, but slowly shakes his head.
“You - what?” Erik comes over to Charles, squats down in front of him and looks into his eyes. “Why not?”
“I don’t think he’ll be doing it again somehow. I think,” and he laughs, ever so slightly - half a giggle, really - “he’ll leave me alone now.” He laughs again, and it turns into a gasp. “Erik,” he moans.
“I’m here, Charles,” says Erik, grabbing for his hand without thinking. Charles rips it away, and pulls himself to his feet.
“Don’t you - don’t - ” he whispers angrily, “you don’t get to…”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Erik manages, holding up his hands in submission and backing away.
“Erik,” says Charles, quietly, “I’ve changed my mind. I can’t do this.”
“That’s okay. It’s okay. Come on.”
+16 hours, 43 minutes.
They travel in silence; Erik drives by some unspoken agreement, and Charles stares out of the window. Every so often they drive the wrong way and Erik swears under his breath as he has to find a turn-out.
“Charles,” Erik says, eventually, his voice slightly hoarse from the long dry quiet.
“Yes?”
“Are you - I’m not judging, but are you ignoring me on purpose?”
Charles looks at him. “You didn’t say anything.”
“You haven’t responded to a single one of my thoughts.”
Charles feels the panic rise and ebb in a single second, too tired to care overmuch. He rests his head on the back of the seat. “Were you thinking?” he asks, simply. “I hadn’t noticed.”
+ 1 day, 8 hours.
Erik pulls up to the house and lets Charles get out before he parks; gives him a moment to stand in the breeze. The heat is not so unbearable here, further north, and he can feel the need to retch backing away, bit by bit. Erik joins him a few moments later, carrying the case they shared.
“If we hadn’t made that stupid bet,” Charles says, almost to himself.
“It’s going to be okay,” Erik says, blindly, “I’m here. I will always be here.”
Charles is not listening, already halfway up the stairs into the mansion, crossing the hall in swift strides. Moira sees them as they walk in, runs up to them smiling.
“Any luck?” she grins.
“No,” Charles says, already moving up the stairs.
Behind him, he hears Erik start to say “there was an incident,” and he flushes red with embarassment and rage. That Erik needs to induce pity, needs to apologise for him brings the mist over his eyes, and he stumbles down the corridor with his hands on his head.
And from downstairs, with clarity, he hears Moira think Oh god, the poor man.
This is when he decides no more thoughts. No more thoughts in this crowded, stifling mind.
The rest can be silence.
+2 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes.
Charles is woken up on the first day back by Raven, who is sitting silently at the foot of his bed like she used to do when they were children, watching him with unblinking blue eyes.
“Thank god you’re okay,” she says, as he comes into consciousness. “Just - god. I’m so sorry, Charles.”
“Everyone knows, then,” Charles says, sitting upright.
Raven looks horrified, and starts to speak, but Charles cuts her off.
“Right.”
She looks uncomfortable, and Charles remembers the scarlet stripe across his face where Remy hit him, vivid and graphic and hateful. “How are you feeling?” she asks, awkwardly. Charles smiles, but it isn’t kind. Raven claps a hand over her mouth, and a tiny, hysterical noise escapes. “Right,” she says, “sorry, stupid fucking ridiculous question.”
“It’s alright,” says Charles, even though it isn‘t. She pulls a grateful expression, and then there is a silence that there hasn’t been between them since they were children. She coughs.
“Can you - do you think you could go away, please?” Charles asks, hesitantly. Raven looks shocked, but nods.
“Okay,” she says, “sure.” She pulls herself off the bed. “Charles - it wasn’t your fault.”
Charles looks into her gentle, pitying eyes, and suddenly the fury is there again, white hot and blistering. “How the fuck would you know that?” he asks, big brother all but gone. “Were you there?”
+2 days, 4 hours, 27 minutes.
He comes down to breakfast as everyone else is milling around the kitchen making lunch. Hank sees him first; walks up to him and hugs him. Charles tenses in the embrace, but manages not to lash out.
Hank pulls away a moment later, looking extremely embarassed, and he goes to polish his glasses automatically. Charles knows that he should and normally would say something reassuring, something to convince him he hasn’t fucked up too badly, but - well - he has, so Charles says nothing, just brushes past him and goes to make a cup of tea.
Until now, Charles had not known that there was such an emotion as concealed pity. He has never been one for naming feelings anyway, understanding them instinctively in colours and light and smell. But here it is, written on each of their faces in shameful blushes like red ink. They avoid eye contact, avoid loud noises, and when Sean enters in a ball of energy to ask Alex something he suddenly hushes, tells Charles in a voice not quite quiet enough to be a whisper that he looks “good - uh - really good”, tugs at Alex’s arm like a child and pulls him from the room.
Part of Charles wants to climb inside each of their simple, unaffected little minds and tell them to stop this nonsense.
Part of him never wants to do that again in case he kills them. Or worse, in case he hears their thoughts.
(And part of him has been unlocked, and wants to end their pity for good.)
+ 3 days, 8 hours, 8 minutes.
He wakes up in a pool of blood and a burst of noise, and the fire is rising telling him to rip kill pull him apart make him pay. All that he is, all that he is become, is a need to hear someone screaming.
Then he realises that Remy Le Beau will never smile or kiss or breathe again, and he has to grip his legs until bruises show until he is calm enough to breathe.
+ 3 days, 9 hours.
Charles goes out to the track by habit more than anything; pulls on his sweatpants and laces up his sneakers in some shameful and pathetic pantomime of normality. Like there’s nothing ruined about him.
They’ve made a space for Hank’s running, marked out on the slabs with chalk, and Charles feels the hairs stand up on the back of his neck as he stands outside, exposed, visible to what feels like the entire world. It is still silent in his head, a painful static, because he can’t seem to pick out the words from the noise anymore. So he’s cut it off, broadcast a blankness, a do-not-disturb sign for anyone with the ability to see it, and tried to fill his head with emptiness.
Running he find to help. One foot, second foot, one foot, second foot. Repeat until you’re drenched with sweat and shaking and the blisters are covering every inch of your skin. Drink water. Repeat.
Think of nothing else but the run.
sweat step sweat step
+ 4 days, 18 hours, 11 minutes.
“Charles,” Moira tries, as they pull the pie out of the oven, “it’s okay, if you’re upset - we can - we can talk about it.”
Charles drops the plate he was carrying, unused to statements coming unexpectedly. It scares him, and it feels wrong. Moira is at his side in seconds.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he says, bending down to pick up the shards.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs, joining him, “it’s alright.” Her fingers brush his as they reach for the same piece of plate.
“You - think-” he spits out “-you think I - want your sympathy?”
Moira is hurt by the coldness in his voice, he can tell. “No,” she says, a sob half caught in her throat.
“I have no need of your fucking pity,” Charles says, all ice and wind as he turns on her, “and if you value anyone here you will tell them they can fuck off with it as well. This is ridiculous. I am recovered. I am fine.”
+ 5 days, 17 hours, 39 minutes.
Someone has swapped the black rook and the white king around in the untouched, unfinished, unmarred chess game in the study.
Charles doesn't notice, but Moira does, and wonders why it makes her feel sad.
+ 6 days, 5 minutes.
sweat
step
sweat
step
sweat
step
breathe
+ 1 week, 2 hours, 47 minutes.
Erik brings it up when Raven finds Charles sat on the steps up to the mansion and shaking after a three hour running session. He comes outside with a glass of water in his hand, and passes it without a word to Charles, who gratefully downs it in one gulp.
“Have you taken a day off from this since you got back?” Erik asks, gesturing in a vague manner to the track. Charles shakes his head, and wishes there was more water. “If you don’t take a breather, you’ll strain something,” Erik continues. “You don’t want to hurt yourself more than you have to.”
“Imagine what that would be like,” Charles laughs shortly.
“Charles,” Erik says, and he looks like he wants to hit him, “I am here. To talk. Or not to talk. To hurl abuse at. Or to ignore. But I have been through this, and I am here.”
“This?” Charles stands up then, and looks Erik right in the eyes. “Have you been through this?” he asks again, no accusation in his voice.
“No,” Erik sighs, “not this. But I’ve been through some fairly unpleasant experiences. And I know why you’re doing this-”
“If there is one thing I have learnt, Erik, it’s that pain is different for every one, so don’t you dare try and presume you know how I’m feeling.”
“And if there is one thing I have learnt,” Erik half shouts, “then it is that pain hurts for every one.”
“Erik - just - stop-” Charles shouts, and then, out of nowhere, his fist collides with Erik’s jaw.
There is a cracking sound, and Erik staggers backwards. In a fair fight Charles knows Erik would annihilate him, but he wasn’t expecting this, so he rubs his jaw and looks at Charles in surprise without anger.
“Doesn’t that make you want to hit me back?” Charles demands.
Erik raises both eyebrows as high as he can whilst still holding his cheek.
“Rage and serenity,” he says, almost sounding amused - but there is something else in his voice - something that might be sympathy, or might be pity, or might be betrayal. Charles cannot stand to find out, so he sprints off down the track and doesn’t look back. By the time he comes round again, Erik and the water glass are gone.
+2 weeks, 5 days, 3 hours, 39 minutes.
Erik finds Charles stood in the study, just standing, staring at the chess set like it might burst into flame.
“Charles,” he says, quietly.
Charles doesn’t turn round, doesn’t do a thing. There is a full glass of scotch on the table beside him. Then he draws a shaking, single breath, and lets it out.
“I can’t - hear - anyone,” he says. “I don’t want to hear them anymore.”
“Nobody’s saying you have to.”
“What good am I if I don’t?” He shivers, and sinks down into his chair by the fire, eyes still fixed on the chess set. Erik moves round to sit in the other chair - in his usual seat, where they haven’t sat for days - and says nothing.
“I don’t know,” Charles whimpers, and here comes the hitched voice that he has held back, “what they want to hear. I can’t give it to them, Erik, not without being in their heads and it hurts, it hurts to go there. I don’t want to do that. But I’m hurting them and I’m hurting you and I’m not doing this any more. I can’t win this. I want to make someone pay for this fucking terrible circumstance and it wasn’t enough to kill him.” He sobs, just once, before drawing it back inside himself. “I want to put him back together just to rip him apart,” he whispers. “Is that wrong?”
“I’m probably the wrong person to ask that question to,” Erik says calmly.
Charles tries to laugh, but it comes out as a cry.
“Why - didn’t I- why did I let him - god, it makes me want to-”
Erik presses a finger to his own lips, and Charles quiets. Then he reaches across to where Charles’ hand are resting on the table. Charles flinches, and Erik smiles - and with one finger reaches out and touches the black rook.
Charles looks at the board - for the first time, really looks at it, with eyes that show some living feeling, and breaks into a smile.
“That isn’t how to castle, Erik,” he says, through smiling tears.
“It’s how I castle,” Erik says.
+3 weeks.
sweat
step
sweat
step
panic
help me please
fuck
i can't do this
help
-
part three: backraise