[fic] Their Mouths Always Lie 6/9

[keire_ke]

CHAPTER SIX - lights out

Raven was woken by a curse so inventively filthy she was shocked to feel no heavenly rain of soapy water. She opened her eyes to an unfamiliar white ceiling, sans soapy clouds of retribution, one that was both far too high above her head and reached far too far along the walls, to melt into a vivid, fluctuating purple. What the hell was the decorator thinking, she thought, before the story behind it downloaded.

“Didn’t mean to wake you.” Erik was rising from his blanket muttering curses under his breath. Seeing that at least on in five was aimed in Raven’s general direction, yeah, she wasn’t buying the denials. “I’m buying a couch tonight.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said honestly. “I really didn’t mean to kick you out of your own bed.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He stood up straight and stretched upwards into a beanpole of a man with way too many angles to comprehend. Raven didn’t bother to look away. Even in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, with his hair mussed from sleep and blanket lines etched into the ginger stubble on his cheek, he was a sight to behold when he went through a routine of warm-up exercises, some of which included delightful bending.

“So… You really don’t want to have sex with me?” she asked, just in case.

“Yes.”

Raven fluttered her eyelashes. “Is that a yes or a no to sex?”

“It’s a no, Raven,” he said, frowning as though his family line has been gravelly offended.

Sheesh, dude, get laid, she thought. I know a good gay bar. Out loud, however, she said, “I know, I know. I had to double check.” Maybe when she got to know him better, she’d suggest it. Boys got so touchy when you implied that maybe dicks were an option, too.

“Do you normally run from Charles and proposition strange men when you get in a tiff?” Erik bent his elbow and pulled at it with his other hand, trying to tuck it in behind his head. “As kinks go, it’s an interesting one. Does he get horribly upset and spank you when he finds out?”

“He’s my brother, you sick freak,” Raven shrieked, because even if the words were tame, the lascivious smirk he directed her way was about as domesticated as a pack of Twilight fans on their way to see the unveiling of Robert Pattison’s new glitter collection. Not that Raven knew anything about the franchise. She gleaned some information, here and there, while at college. Complete accident. She would have chucked a pillow, or something heavier, at Erik’s important bits if she had one at hand.

Erik merely threw his head back and laughed.

Raven huffed. “And no, I don’t, not that’s any of your business.”

“I’m sure you can sell the concept to Charles.” Again with the grin: one part grizzly, one part shark, one part Jack the Ripper - Erik Lehnsherr, everybody. “Either way you might want to curb the impulse when you become an officer. It doubles the risks.”

“You’re not exactly a stranger.” Raven wondered whether it really would be that easy to talk Charles into incest. If she made it sound all logical and important. “You sick fuck,” she added appreciatively.

“We’ve met once before and I’m fairly sure I gave you a heart attack. Plus, you are aware that I am a sick fuck.” He bundled up the fleece blanket, cursed it, and shoved it into the back of the closet, far enough to imply he never wanted to see it again.

“Ah, details.” Raven shook out her hair and threw it back. She would miss the luxurious bundle of curls any Disney princess would die for, but if she was going to be running after perps on a regular basis, it had to go. Maybe she’d dye it red, for good measure. Ginger power and all that. “Charles trusts you. That makes you okay.”

“Charles also suspects me of being our serial killer,” Erik said, like it was a ringing endorsement.

“Yeah, but you are our serial killer now, which means you’re okay.” She couldn’t resist fluttering her eyelashes again, which garnered the dubious result of Erik raising a brow and escaping into the bathroom, the coward. Charles wouldn’t gut him, not really - for all his crazy Raven was twenty-three, thus way past the age of consent and legal majority. She had long since discovered that the secret to getting laid lay in not bringing guys home, where Charles could nitpick them until they weren’t quite so hot anymore.

Yeah, fuck smart-ass older brothers, she thought, fiddling with her phone. She took a deep breath and his speed-dial.

“Charles?” she said when he picked up (second ring, damn it. He must have been sleeping with the damn thing). “Hey.”

“Hi,” he said.

“You sound horrible.” He probably looked horrible, too, all floppy, unwashed hair and dark circles on his face.

“I was worried about you,” he said softly, in the gentle scolding tone.

Raven bit her lip to squash the anger. She might say something she only partially meant, then, and that wouldn’t end well for either of them. “Erik said he let you know I was fine.”

“He did.”

“Then you shouldn’t have worried.” The cotton sheets were warm and soft under her fingertips, retaining the creases after she pinched them into shape. If she knew Charles, he was pinching something papery too, right at this very minute. She was proven right when, after another moment silence, she heard the rustle of paper. “Charles, get some sleep. I’m sure the station will survive without you for another day.”

“I’ll catch a nap. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Raven closed her eyes. She hated it when he asked. Hated it even more than when he stated. It was a never ending circle of hate that came back to hate its own butt. Not her butt, naturally - her butt was amazing and Charles’ wasn’t bad either, insofar as a blood-relation can have an opinion about these things - but a butt nonetheless. “Yes. I’ll cook.”

“Until then.” Charles tried to say something more, but didn’t. Raven disconnected and propped her forehead on her wrist.

When she looked up Erik was watching her from the bathroom door, looking even more fuckable wet and half-clothed. “Something you wanted to say, Dr. Phil?”

Erik, sans the ginger stubble, rubbed his chin with something clearly meant to be the towel, if only because he was using it to wipe moisture off his skin. “I hope you brought your own towels,” was all he had to contribute.

“I didn’t exactly plan this.” She didn’t have a change of clothes, either. Or her makeup kit. Or shoes, because sneakers weren’t shoes. The leggings didn’t match the skirt, now that she was rational and got a proper look. She might as well have come around naked!

“Your problem, then.”

This was why Raven returned home that morning, in late fall, with wet hair wrapped in a black T-shirt. “What kind of a moron only has one towel,” she groused to herself as she opened the door to her and Charles’ apartment and made a beeline for the bathroom for an actual towel, because they were people who owned more than one towel. Towels were like contingency plans: it made sense to have more than one. Unless you were Charles and Plan A was the only plan you devised, needed or implemented. Goddamned Charles. Goddamned Erik, too, for causing himself backache for the rest of the day. It made sense to own a goddamned couch! Raven fixed herself a bowl of ice cream and collapsed onto theirs with a huff. Asshole.

It wasn’t like he didn’t earn enough, she thought, even if couches weren’t dirt-cheap. The mattress he slept on was expensive, if she was any judge, and the beer he stuffed his fridge with wasn’t exactly cheap, either. One could argue that he spared expenses to make way for the odd luxury item, but he didn’t seem like the type.

No, Erik was all or nothing and that was intense, that was intoxicating.

No wonder Charles liked him so much.

Hello, Satan, granddaddy of all evil ideas, she thought, grinning at the TV like it was her job to frighten the neighbors through the brick walls while making no sound. Now here’s a power to be utilized for evil… by which she meant good, of course, if good meant breaking Charles’ heart and doing the one thing he didn’t want her to do. Except maybe becoming a crack whore, he wouldn’t be all that happy about that, either. The facts were that Charles liked Erik, the first person to not act like he was the devil, and thus would likely be malleable to suggestions made by said batshit crazy supersoldier.

If there was one thing Charles taught her, it was that facts combined, correlated and beget new facts, and all of them formed a landscape, and the landscape could be navigated. With that in mind Raven picked up her phone and thumbed through the contact list until she found Erik.

*****

It was a boring day, filled with more paperwork that Erik had hoped to see in his lifetime, but was nonetheless assured this was a typical Thursday. The only irregularity was Charles’ haggard appearance, which fortunately managed to blur out at the edges throughout the day and disappear altogether before the following morning, likely as a result of a night’s sleep. Charles managed to keep a firm hand on himself, nonetheless, and a combination of his willpower and other officer’s unwillingness to be in close proximity assured that Erik was the only one who knew everything was not well. He would have known even if he wasn’t sitting directly across from Charles all day, because he kept getting increasingly aggressive texts from Raven, who’d taken to begging, cajoling and pleading for him to change Charles’ mind.

“Don’t let her bully you into bullying me,” Charles told him around ten in the morning, when his phone buzzed for the third time that day.

“Why do you assume it’s Raven?” Erik asked picking up the phone and finding that for once it wasn’t Raven, but the cellphone company, promising a better deal and coverage for the low cost of $12.99 a month.

The news of having to tell Charles he was wrong was somewhat lost when the phone buzzed again, this time delivering a promise of cake and pie and muffins and a bottle of Jack Daniels, if Charles’ mind was changed.

Charles was smiling over the edge of his report, with his gaze fixed on the cell. “The expression on your face told me as much.”

“What about it?”

“You’re fond of her. Your eyes go soft.” Charles spoke quietly and with enough distance and neutrality to grant himself a temporary citizenship of Switzerland. Erik’s eyes narrowed automatically and he leaned across the desk.

“I’ve no interest in Raven,” he said slowly, taking care to add an extra helping of “you dolt” into the tone.

“I know.” It was faint, but Charles’ finger twitched against the paper. He looked up at Erik’s face and added, “She’s interested in you, though.”

“Did you lose your supreme mind-reading ability overnight?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why are we having this conversation?”

Charles shrugged, and for such a limited movement, mostly concealed by the thick fabric of a tailored jacket, the shrug was very eloquent. It implied, among others, that this wouldn’t have been the first time the dubious charms of being involved with Westchester’s freakshow detective had turned out to be less of an incentive than his sister’s allures of relative normalcy, at least as far as the mental faculties were concerned. Raven had plenty of quirks to scare away men all on her own, insane brother notwithstanding, if the stunts of the night they fought was any indication. More importantly, Erik found himself wondering about the last time Charles had been in an actual relationship and how it ended. Going by Raven’s delighted reaction to the news of Charles liking him, liking anyone and being liked back, even if she thought it was platonic, it had to be both a long time ago and unpleasant.

“How come you can call the chief and get her application blocked, anyway?” he asked. “You aren’t that important to the force. You can’t tell me a flawless solve rate is the way to ruling the goddamned city.”

Charles flushed an attractive shade of pink and made a valiant effort to scratch the freckles off his nose. “You didn’t look at my file,” he said. “Why?”

“I like surprises.”

“I’m… There’s more than one reason to keep me on the force. I don’t think they would have bothered with my skills if it wasn’t for the fact I’m the heir to the Xavier estate. That way they have little compulsion about asking for donations whenever necessary and I’m shall we say under control. My family has owned half of Westchester at one point. It’s not quite so bad now, of course, but the influence the name still has is unfortunate.”

Erik hadn’t known, which was, in retrospect, idiotic. He should have suspected. Suddenly, a lot of the weirdness around Charles made sense: the designer jacket, the expensive shoes, the fact that he got a desk all to himself in the crowded bullpen, the fact the commissioner was treating him, and Erik by extension, with kid gloves (honestly, a week’s suspension for knowingly endangering a civilian’s life for no reason at all?). When you don’t know what the problem is, always assume money.

“Well, you can pick up the next crate of beer, then,” Erik said. “I have it on good authority the purple is an eyesore and light turquoise would be a lot better. She also said something about electric blue, but how is that even a color I have no idea.”

Charles smiled at him, no doubt equally confused about the fact that electromagnetic properties could now be assigned to colors. “It might be the kind of blue that makes your eyes hurt,” he said. “Raven loves blue. You should have seen her childhood room. If you weren’t careful, you got bowled over by vertigo and altophobia - it was like walking through the sky.”

Erik had no personal experience with vertigo or altophobia, as his long career of jumping out of high places with the flimsiest of securities could attest. Still, there was something disturbing about the notion of a room so blue it made people reel. “She grew out of it, I trust?”

“Her room is still blue. So are the bathrooms. The kitchen and the living room aren’t, but both have plenty of accessories in every shade between green and blue. She exchanges them frequently. I think there might be a whole closet dedicated to cushions.”

“You have closets dedicated to cushions,” Erik said. “In Westchester, which is the most crowded city in the - well, in five hundred mile radius. Where the hell do you live?”

Charles fidgeted, before throwing him an apologetic glance and muttering, “We share an apartment close to the center.” Another frantic glance, a transparent plea to change the subject, followed by even more fidgeting, and all of sudden Erik really wanted to get out of the station and find them a horizontal surface that wasn’t a floor, rid the of clothes altogether and see how the situation develops.

Still, an apartment in the city center… Erik feared to imagine the rent and he always thought his financial situation was more than comfortable. “I will Google you later.” If it came out low and suggestive, well, he couldn’t be held responsible. In fact, he would happily accept the blame, because Charles smiled at him in genuine amusement, and it was the brightest thing he’d seen in a long time. He hated to ruin it, but there was the plea for a subject change.

“I think you’re being unfair to Raven,” Erik said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I don’t plan to bully you.” Erik held his hands up and cursed the phone for signaling yet another text. “My opinion on the subject is that she is a grown woman and she should be allowed to make her own choices. She told me you specifically went to work for the WPD so that she wouldn’t have to, and I’m sure she appreciates the gesture. Don’t ruin that by forcing her to pick a future that would make you happy.”

“I don’t want that!” Charles dropped the files onto the desk, half-angry, half-furious, a whole lot of fuckable. Erik might have found his mouth dry, all of sudden. “I want her to be happy. I just want her to be safe more.”

“If you wanted her to be safe you’d have her move out of Westchester a long time ago.”

“People are the same everywhere.” Charles glared down at the offensive paperwork, gripping the fragile edges a lot tighter than necessary.

“But the crime rates aren’t.” Erik pulled the files away from Charles’ hand. “You need to take a step back and let her figure out what she wants, even if it isn’t something you planned, or wanted, for her. Kids don’t always grow up to be what you bring them up to do.” Don’t I know it, he thought, thinking of his mother and her views on the military.

“I’m her brother, not her father.”

“You’re significantly older than her and I’m not sure either of you is aware of the distinction between the two.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. She’s-”

“She’s a grown woman, Charles. Let her try. If she doesn’t like it, then you can save her by calling whoever it is you call, Noah, Moses, whatever. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to wait until she asks for help before supplying it.”

Charles didn’t look convinced.

“Look at it this way,” Erik said, leaning forward far enough to dig the edge of the desk into his ribs. He was thinking of his mother’s face when he told her he was joining the army, how she wore the same resigned, even defeated, expression then as Charles was wearing now. In a way she had a point - she’d lost her husband to war effort and now her only child was following in his footsteps, taking care to join the unit with the most ridiculously hazardous mission statement. The irony, not wholly lost on Erik, was that her life ended violently before he was even seriously injured. He would find it hilarious, if her death wasn’t a raw would in his chest even now. He stamped down on the memory, her face when he’d seen her last, across the airport terminal. Anya had been standing on a plastic chair, with her Hello Kitty carry-on clutched close to her chest, as they both waved him goodbye.

Erik gritted his teeth and continued talking, forcing the ghosts back into the dark fringes of his mind. “You’ve single-handedly managed to turn around her outlook on a profession she despised by association.”

Charles was, if anything, less amenable to this particular revelation. “You’re saying I managed to fail utterly at something that was my life’s goal.”

“You need to sort out your priorities, if that’s the case.”

“My priorities are in perfect working order.”

“Clearly,” Erik drawled, giving the statement all the respect it deserved.

Charles glared at him, but since his glare at the best of times carried the very same threat than that of a wet, hungry kitten, Erik would sooner gather him to his chest and coo than be intimidated. Admittedly, this might at some point get him killed, because one needed only to see Charles infuriated to know antagonizing him was not a sane course of action. So few people ever got to see Charles angry; it was probably for the best. Erik managed it once and couldn’t get the sight out of his mind ever since.

Strange, how everyone in the station got the right idea for the wrong reasons. Everyone feared Charles, because he knew much more than he should, understood more than all other people did, and didn’t seem to grasp that it was not acceptable in society, when they should have feared him because he would destroy them with the same ease he told them their preference for hand-knitted mittens, when pushed far enough. Erik wasn’t an idiot. He made a career out of hanging around dangerous people and Charles could easily run laps around most of the monsters Erik put down, should he get in a mood.

“Thank you, Erik,” Charles said, meanwhile, letting out a long breath and camouflaging the roaring Cthulu with the air of an absent-minded professor. “However you will note that I, too, am a grown man and I am capable of making my own choices.”

“None so blind as those who won’t see,” Erik said with a fake cheer, because if they kept it up a little longer insults would be hurled.

“Your proverb for the day?”

“You could say that. Did you find anything?” Erik indicated the files, slightly creased in places, and fired off an explicit text to Raven, suggesting sexual congress with an American president and cessation of text messages.

“No, everything is coming up clean. It’s really frustrating.”

A return message indicated Raven would happily fuck said president, if Erik hopped to it and changed Charles’ mind.

“Detective Xavier?”

Both Charles and Erik looked up. Angel was standing over the desk, her lower lip trembling. “I’m sorry, I just got a call. Marvin is dead.”

Charles dropped the papers he was holding and stared at her in shock. “He was murdered by our serial killer.”

Angel started. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth and for a split second Erik could swear she was panicking as she looked at Charles and though something along the lines of “you know, you knew, you did it.” The moment passed, however, and when she spoke again she was almost calm. “Yes, I mean, I don’t know - the doorman just called. Housekeeping found him in his bed. They are calling you to the scene.”

Erik couldn’t quite get his throat to work properly. Marvin. Marvin couldn’t be dead. Could he?

“We’re on our way,” Charles said.

*****

Marvin was, unquestionably, murdered by the serial killer they were after. The complete lack of evidence was more than enough proof of that. Charles had Hank take samples of everything that looked like it might have been touched in the past two weeks, then he stood at the center of the bedroom and stared, letting the interior soak into his mind and assemble into a coherent picture. Crime scenes were like handwritten letters and this one was written by a meticulous man with clear ideas of what he wanted in life and how he wanted it.

It was also, unfortunately, written on a typewriter.

“Detective?” There was a hand on Charles’ shoulder, barely touching, wary of coming in contact, wary of what could be revealed through the contact.

“I’m sorry. Yes?”

“We may have a witness,” Alex Summers said. “I asked the lady next door if she’d seen something, and it turns out she might have. I dunno if it’s going to be worth a damn, she is a cat lady. I figure you best speak with her.”

Charles smiled. “Cat ladies can be quite observant. Good thinking, Alex.”

“Did we finally get a lead?” Erik asked, underlining something on a piece of paper he pilfered from the bottom of the printing paper pile. Charles made a mental note to buy him a proper notebook later, if only so that his crime scenes would stop being tampered with. Thankfully Erik had the forethought to come armed with latex gloves, blue for some reason, and Charles spent a long minute watching the slender, blue fingers dance across the serrated marks on the wooden desk. “These look old, months or years even. No help there. Looks like someone didn’t know how to use a screwdriver.”

Charles caught himself staring and shook his head. No time. Not now. This was a crime scene, his crime scene. “The lady in the apartment next door might have seen something. I’ll go talk to her now,” he said and walked out of the apartment.

There was an officer occupying the staircase and an elderly lady with a calico kitten in her arms, reddish indentations on the sides of her nose, a touch of rosy powder on her cheeks and in her curled white hair. A cat lady indeed. Charles smiled. “Ma’am? Officer Summers tells me you might have seen something.”

The lady was wringing her hands, displacing the kitten with each move. Eventually the critter climbed her dress to perch on her shoulder and hiss at the world in general. “I’m not sure if it’s important.”

“Anything you might have seen might be. Would you tell me what happened?”

“I was up at four, to get a glass of water, then I thought I might as well change the water in the bowls, cat’s love fresh water, you see, and as I was rinsing them I heard the door opposite open. My kitchen is really close to the door, and I thought to myself, that’s odd, Marvin never has guests that late. He sleeps from ten to six, every day, bless the poor boy, he is very accurate.” A tearful smile took over her wrinkled face. “He brings me chocolates every year on my birthday, like clockwork, every single year, seven fifty he’s there. So I went to look and there was a man walking out. He had something black, like a bag, but it was mostly empty, hanging from his shoulder.”

A witness! An actual witness, however unreliable, to have seen the murderer walk out of the apartment of the victim! “Can you describe him?” Charles asked, and behind him Alex ceased breathing, for fear of missing a crucial word.

The lady pursed her lips, feigning remembrance, when everything she’d seen throughout the day, up to and including the schedules of her neighbors, was written down in her diary. “He was tall, from what I could see. Darkish hair. Not a big man, though, no. Slender. I couldn’t see his face very well, but it seemed sharp. He wore a leather jacket, though, that stuck in my mind, and black shirt underneath. A sweater, I think. His hands were blue. I mean, he wore gloves, of course. They were blue.”

They should find a sketch artist, Charles thought, already reaching for his phone. 962 108 120, Rogers, Steven. Best portrait artist in the city, unfortunately on holiday this week.

“Charles,” Erik said coming out of Marvin’s apartment. “Miss Frost wants to take him away. Are you done?”

“Oh, he looked just like him.” The lady beamed as she pointed at Erik, overjoyed at being able to help, a little apprehensive at the resemblance, but too proud of having made the connection to withdraw. She didn’t notice half the corridor had frozen in shock and continued to babble on, unconcerned. “Not you, of course, detective, but you know what it looks like, through the peep hole, everyone is the same if they dress alike. That man wore a very similar jacket.”

Alex was watching Erik with his eyes as wide as saucers. “Dude,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“She just pointed at you and said you’re the suspect!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wickham. We will contact you if we have any further questions.” Charles offered her a tight smile and made sure her door was locked. “Inside,” he told the rest of them and indicated Marvin’s apartment. “Thank your lucky stars she is too old to properly appreciate the blogosphere, otherwise this would have been all over the internet in ten minutes. Alex, what on Earth were you thinking?”

“She said it, didn’t she?” The man pointed straight at Erik and glared at Charles, as though some great sweeping up was being committed here. “She looked at Lehnsherr and said hey, here you go, here is your suspect!”

“Mrs. Wickham did no such thing,” Charles told him with patience he didn’t have at the moment. There will be hell to pay for this later, when he was alone, but for now he would remain in control. “She said the man exiting Marvin’s apartment matched Erik’s general appearance.”

“Well, what more do you need? I read his file, he was in Special Forces, and they get trained for that kind of shit.” Alex clenched his fists and for a second Charles was intensely proud - the boy would make a fine detective one day, when he already knew to read the files of coworkers and connect facts on the fly. “He’s working with the police now and it’s not like the procedures are that complicated, right? If you remember to clean up after yourself and not leave obvious clues in stupid places, we can do jack shit, especially if you’re around to clean up stuff you’ve forgotten later.”

Leaping to conclusions would need to be eradicated, but they could work with what they had and then they would be up one more detective with great prospects.

“No offense, Officer Summers,” Erik drawled, unexpectedly tense, “but she didn’t point at me and didn’t say ‘here’s your killer.’ She said he was tall and vaguely dressed like me, which in this case means like me and half the city this time of the year. I don’t exactly stand out.”

Charles begged to differ. Erik stood out in a crowd the way a tiger stood out in a field of wheat. He might have worn stripes and he might have crouched among the grass, but he was still vehemently a tiger and not a space of unevenly growing straws and shiny pebbles. Everything about him attracted attention. The fact was that Erik moved like a man accustomed to danger; he moved through the city like the tiger moved through the grass, confident that the illusion will keep him safe, but aware that every move set him apart as a predator nonetheless. As far as the visuals went, however, Charles had to agree with Erik. The clothing he wore was generic. The jacket was of good quality, but not beyond the scope of the average citizen. He could have bought the gloves in every pharmacy and that was what most likely happened.

The question was, to what degree was the first obvious to everyone other than Charles? Would an old lady pick up on the aura of danger and find likeness there? Or was she merely reacting to the generic ensemble and similar body type, an association all the more dubious for her habit of wandering around the apartment without her heavy glasses?

“You did jump Marvin off a roof,” Alex said slowly. Charles was somewhat gratified to realize that there was no overt accusation in his voice anymore. Alex was controlled now, and aware that he was speculating. “That gives you a motive.”

“Onto a perfectly safe landing spot,” Erik shot back. “Besides, I jumped with him. How the fuck does it give me a motive? I never wanted the guy dead, why would I? He brings me expensive coffee.”

“You almost killed him once, isn’t that enough?”

“Alex, enough,” Charles said sharply.

“But detective-”

“I said enough. We don’t have nearly enough to even suggest Erik was involved.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Erik relax, if only a fraction. “Unfortunately, we do have something. Erik… where were you last night?”

Erik rolled his eyes. “Home. No, no one saw me. I live alone.”

“Then, Mr. Lehnsherr, I’m going to ask you to leave the scene.”

Erik froze and turned to Charles with a cold snarl, not at all unlike the tiger Charles just likened him to. “What the hell, Charles?” he growled through clenched teeth.

“Officer Summers has a point. You have the skills and the capability to perpetrate such a crime. In the case of Marvin we can connect you to the victim, and Marvin said he knew at least one of the others. Mrs. Wickham tells us that what almost certainly is our killer matches your general appearance. It is in the best interest of this investigation that you are removed from the scene for the time being.”

Erik stared at him like he couldn’t quite believe his ears. To be fair, Alex sported the exact same look. “Are you insane?”

“You have no alibi for any of the murders,” Charles pointed out reasonably.

“And you have nothing whatsoever tying me to this place.” Erik’s fists clenched. “I was never here, not once.”

“The video would have been edited or destroyed. It has been in all the other cases.”

“You can’t do this.”

Charles swallowed. “I must remain impartial.”

“Look at me,” Erik said stepping so close Charles felt his breath on his face. “I was never here. I didn’t kill Marvin, or the others. Look at me and tell me I’m lying.”

Charles was aware that everyone in the room was staring at him. He knew that, perhaps for the first time, Alex was thinking that Detective Xavier wasn’t that short either, especially to a short-sighted old lady who used cats for comparison, and that he, too, wore a brown jacket which could pass for leather in bad light, or through a peephole, that his hair could have been slicked back, and was in fact darker than Erik’s; he was thinking that of all the people he knew, of all the people he met through his work, Detective Xavier was the one who scared him the most.

“People always lie,” Charles said quietly, gazing into Erik’s narrowed eyes. “Their mouths always lie.”

“You can look me in the eye and accuse me of lying?”

“I’m not. I’m saying I don’t have enough facts to conclude that you are outside the pool of suspects. Since Officer Summers,” Alex jumped at being referred to, “noted you are likely to be considered a suspect…”

But Erik only had eyes for Charles. “Not enough facts? Charles, you know me.”

“I know that you are a soldier and this is the work of a highly organized man, whose business is killing, but who doesn’t derive much pleasure from it. I know that you fill these requirements better than any other soldier I have met. I know you are physically capable of doing what needed to be done here. I know you are capable of planning it in such a way as to not leave any traces. I know that there is not a shred of evidence that it was you. You say that this is the first time you’ve set foot in this room, but Erik, you’ve been to so many places, you are never surprised by your surroundings. It shows in the way you move. I’ve seen you walk into the station for the first time and you didn’t look like you were there for the first time, either. I can’t say for sure that you have never been here.” Charles hesitated. “I’m sorry. I never wanted it to be you.”

“It’s not me. You know it’s not me!”

“I don’t. I think it’s not you, but I don’t know, and it’s not enough.” Charles met Erik’s gaze. “I’m so sorry.”

“We’re not done,” Erik said, before he turned on his heel and walked away from the scene.

“Well, that was cold.” Miss Frost slipped the rubber gloves from her manicured fingers. “I never figured you capable of such coldness, Mr. Xavier. I am very impressed.”

“He is capable of killing. He knew Marvin; they exchanged friendly emails. The Polo building business is a strong indication he likes taking things too far. He has no alibi. I am, technically, his superior, since he is still on probation. I have the right to remove him from the investigation if I decide his presence is detrimental.”

Charles took a deep breath and looked around, at the carefully blank visage of Miss Frost and the twin apprehensive expression on Alex’s and Hank’s. “I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings,” he said firmly. “Erik Lehnsherr is not a suspect in this investigation. I am removing him from the scene because I cannot rule out the possibility, and I worry for my objectivity. Furthermore, he and the victim had a casually friendly relationship, which could in turn compromise his objectivity. Lastly, I don’t want this to get out of this room. Is this clear for you all?”

Emma shrugged. “Honey, you’re in charge here. You want to remove tall, ginger and mysterious, it’s your call. I’m here to carve the bodies.”

Alex nodded, though there was a hint of doubt in his gaze, one broad enough to sweep across everyone present, but focusing mainly on Charles. “Sure. From what I hear he’s a newbie, anyway, he doesn’t do enough parking tickets.”

Hank’s only response was a tight nod.

“Thank you.” With that, Charles turned on his heel and hurried downstairs and out of the building.

True to his word, Erik was circling on the pavement, acutely aware of the bars of the cage that were the busy street and brick walls. Any more imagination and Charles would have been able to see the striped tail following his angry turns a fraction of a second too late, casting a flare on each turn. “What the fuck was that supposed to be?” Erik asked by way of greeting, this close to grabbing Charles by the lapels of his shirt and shaking.

“I had every right to remove you from the investigation.”

“On the basis that I have the skill?” Erik snarled. “There’s ten million people in this city, at least a thousand has the very same skill set. Last I checked you also need motive and opportunity to make accusation.”

“You knew Marvin.” Charles said, aware that his idea of soothing wasn’t everybody’s and furthermore that Erik wasn’t everybody. “You exchanged personal information with him on a regular basis. That alone is grounds enough to send you away.”

“I replied to his emails from time to time. They weren’t exactly full of confidential information. Marvin treated me like a diary.”

“You were fond of him. It’s never a good idea to investigate a death to which you have emotional connections.” A fire-engine thundered past, yowling at the top of its voice, temporarily drowning all other sounds. The flickering light colored the edges of Erik’s set jaw, dragging them out of the background and onto the flimsy patina which coated the reality. Charles wished he could reach through it and touch the angry curve of Erik’s mouth, take the edges away, but this was a busy street and Erik was angry at him.

“Oh, like most of you didn’t like Marvin,” Erik growled, “with the amount of coffee he bought for you all. I can remain objective even in the face of Starbucks.”

“Liking a person doesn’t imply emotional attachment,” Charles said a shade above toneless.

“You honestly suspect me,” Erik said. His voice was equally as flat.

Charles avoided his gaze. “Suspect is too strong a word.”

“You didn’t remove me from the investigation because I might have liked Marvin. You removed me because you consider the possibility I might have killed him.”

“Of course. You make sense as his murderer. You don’t make sense as the murderer of the other two, but Marvin, certainly.”

“Why would I kill Marvin? To what end? What would I have to gain?” That was true - even if the suspicion was stronger, it still fell apart in the face of motive, or lack thereof. It couldn’t have been Erik, but at the same time, it might have been. Charles couldn’t afford taking chances.

“You’ve killed before,” he said, garnering a scoff in reply.

“Of course I killed, I was a soldier.”

“No. Not as a soldier.”

Erik’s eyes narrowed. “You draw some far-reaching conclusions.”

Charles found in him enough courage to stare the man in the eye and say, “You are a killer, Erik. You have reasons for what you do, but you are a killer and you can’t get around that.”

“I’ve killed people the government has told me to kill. End of story. Some of them might not have deserved death, and I still killed them, because they were in the way of my orders getting fulfilled.” A deep breathed passed through his nose, and the act had a calming effect. Charles watched him do it two more times, until finally he was calm enough to speak. “Yes, Charles, I am a killer. What I’m not, however, is a murderer.”

“There’s no difference between the two.”

Erik visibly disagreed, with every twitching muscle, but let it slide for the time being. “I did not kill Marvin,” Erik said again, forcing the syllables through clenched teeth, but Charles was shaking his head before he even finished speaking.

“It’s not good enough.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the human lie detector?”

“Lie detectors are fallible. I have taken the polygraph at least five times and lied every time. None has shown the slightest hitch.” All of those times were wasted on Charles, whose physiological responses were outside the polygraph’s spectrum of competence. It was very hard to tell if he was lying, when the machine had no way of knowing what his brain reacted like when he lied.

Erik, naturally, would have realized that. “You are better than polygraphs, though. Tell me, am I lying to you?”

“I have been wrong before.”

“Like fuck you were.”

He was, but that wasn’t the issue at hand. “I can’t know. I can’t tell. Not with you.”

“Why the hell not?” Erik yelled, causing a few of the passers-by to shoot him disapproving looks, which he dismissed with a raised middle finger.

“Because you are different. To me.” Charles found that his hands were shaking. It was unexpected, but he hadn’t fully realized the truth of it until he had to put it into words. “Because I don’t want it to be you. I’m emotional. Biased. I look for details that might not be there, I don’t pay attention to what is before me, just because you’re here.” He forced himself to breathe in and quell the trembling. “Because I think I know it’s not you and I can’t trace the factual support.”

“It’s called trust. How is that news to you?” Erik was thinking of the sex they had and the sex they were going to have, and how it should have bearings on trust, whereas in Charles’ opinion very little skewed trust as sex did.

“It’s impairing my judgment,” he said firmly, clenching his hands and shoving them into his pockets.

“I’m impairing your judgment, you mean. You look at me and you suddenly lose the ability to tell what’s real and what’s not?” Erik gave him a nasty grin. “I should be touched, if the idea didn’t terrify me. Do let me know if you lose your grip on sanity, I would so love to see you out of control.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then what are you saying? That you don’t believe me?”

“I’m saying I want to believe you. But I can’t.”

Erik didn’t speak for a long while. “That’s how it is with you, isn’t it. You don’t trust me, that’s fair enough - I’m not trustworthy. You don’t know me all that well, for all your tricks, but it’s not just me, is it? You don’t trust anybody, even Raven. She’s just a puppet to you, isn’t she, a doll you need to shape and point the right way, or else she might hurt herself.

“How is it that you would let me take you to bed and do anything to you, anything at all,” Erik spoke softly, caressing the words as he would throwing knives, “But you won’t believe me when I look you in the eye and I say I did not kill Marvin?”

“I need to go,” Charles said to that, taking a step back, away from Erik’s pervasive heat back into the cold city fall, when Hank walked out the front door of the apartment building. “Do you need a ride?”

“I’ll walk, thank you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll take you back to the station, there’s more than enough work, you won’t be bored until I’m done with this case.” Hope was another thing that did not come naturally to him, but Charles still found himself hoping that Erik would stay after this, even though he knew he wouldn’t, not long term, not ever. That way maybe he would get the chance to fix it.

Erik stopped, turned and stared at him. His face reflected the surprise, then something very much like shock, a flash of anger directed primarily at Charles, then something which might have been grief. “You are a fucking idiot,” he said and started walking.

“The station is that way,” Charles called.

“I can find my own way,” was all Erik verbalized, but the haunch of his shoulders told a more elaborate story and none of it was flattering where Charles was concerned.

Charles didn’t see him for more than a minute at a time for the rest of the week.

*****

Raven started the Friday evening with a very relaxing lavender bath, which was a good thing, because then Charles got back home with shaking hands, which clearly indicated Erik hadn’t forgive him yet for being called a potential serial killer by the mindreader in front of his peers. The nerve of the bastard, Raven thought with an expressive roll of her eyes as she went to give Charles a hug. “You have to give it time,” she said. “You were kind of a dick to the guy, no wonder he’s pissed.”

Charles scoffed, but otherwise remained safely ensconced in her embrace. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Seriously? You publicly stated you think he might be a murderer, that’s right up there with ‘don’t fuck his girlfriend’ in bro code.” Raven marched them both to the couch, so that she only needed a small push to land Charles on it while she went to make them tea.

“I said no such thing,” he protested from the couch.

“Do refresh my memory, what was it that you said?” The cup of tea steamed pleasantly on the table before them and Raven tucked her feet underneath her butt.

Charles looked at her askance. “Raven.”

“I mean it. What did you say?” That part never got old, in a good horror movie kind of way - good in that it brought honest to god chills to Raven’s spine, crawling up and down like she was having a ghostly massage done. She offered him a guileless smile and waited until the tell-tale sigh of defeat.

“I said I can’t rule the possibility out, unlikely as it may seem,” Charles said, playing with the cup.

“There you go, then. Who wouldn’t walk out on you?”

“But it’s true.” Charles looked up at her and stared, and fuck him, he looked genuinely puzzled that this was even called into question. “Raven, he could have done it. We have found nothing that might be the motive, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. His file holds virtually no information on what he did the previous year, only that he was traveling, and all three men traveled for pleasure. I’m not saying he did, I’m not even saying it’s likely, but it is a possibility.”

“You’re a terrible human being, Charles.”

She wasn’t prepared for the vulnerable look that crossed his face.

“I know,” he breathed into the collar of his shirt, transfixed by the steam raising from the teacup. “I know.”

God damn him, she thought, when she was already reaching out to hold him. God damn his puppy-dog face and earnest eyes. He is a terrible person, really. He’s a tough, competent, know-it-all maniac, who can handle a little adversity. She held him tighter and stroked her fingers through his hair. “One day you will finally grasp that truth isn’t absolute,” she whispered. “People aren’t more complicated than truth and lies. Honesty is not enough.”

“What else is there? Am I supposed to lie? How will that improve matters?”

“No one’s telling you to lie, but would it kill you to take something at face value once in a while?” Raven hesitated, but hell, strike the iron while it’s hot and all. “I want the police job, Charles, I can do it, you know I can, because you taught me how to do it well. Besides, you need me there. You need me at that station with you, because you can’t look after yourself well enough.”

She should have expected him to stiffed and break free out of her hold. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Not that again.” She threw her hands in the air. “I swear to god, if you keep blocking me, I will turn to stripping. I will. And maybe I’ll become a call girl, too.”

“Yes, that again. It’s not even the danger,” he forced out through clenched teeth. “I know-I know it can be bad, but it’s not the worst thing.” He frowned. He licked his lips, gathering up the courage. She was weirdly reminded how he went about telling her Mother had died. “It does things to your head, the things you see.” Another pause, another bout of trembles. “Raven, I killed people.”

That made sense, except not. “What? That’s nonsense, you never fired once. I would know.”

“I never fired at people, but still I killed them. I got people killed, on purpose.” Charles closed his eyes and turned away. “I killed Cain.”

“Cain committed suicide,” Raven said, trying to reason as much as she tried to fill the emptiness opening in her gut.

“He put his own gun to his own head, yes.” Charles suddenly looked like gravity decided to flattened him to the Earth’s surface, starting with the top of his head, which bowed so low she could no longer see his eyes. “Raven… I’m-I’m a murderer. I’ve never fired a gun, I’ve never directly taken a life, but the fact is that seven people are dead because I decided they can - they should - die, and the feeling it horrible.

“You want to be an officer to look after me, I know that. Don’t you think I know that? But Raven - I’m not worth protecting. I’m not… I’m a killer. I’d like to blame the job - it wouldn’t be wholly true, but something happens to your head when you are handed a gun and a badge and sent into the city to judge people. The things you learn change you and I can’t bear to have that happen to you.”

Raven sat stock-still staring ahead, away from their cozy living room, away from Charles. But he hated guns, she told herself. He hated shooting. He hated the thought of being able to cause so much damage with such a little thing. Finally, a single word slipped her lips. “Why?”

Charles looked up and though his eyes were dry, they were also framed in red. “I’m sorry?”

“You said you killed people. I want to know why.”

“Like it matters?”

“Of course it matters! Jesus, Charles!” She slid to the carpet to kneel in front of him, gripped his hands and leaned forward, until they were nose-to-nose. “I want to know. Why did you kill those people?” Who was it, she wanted to ask, too, but what could it matter? It didn’t sound like a recent thing, Cain especially, so the likelihood of anyone being able to connect the deaths to Charles was dubious.

“Because they were a threat. Cain… you know about Cain.” Charles closed his eyes and breathed. Finally he spoke, barreling through anger and pain it caused. “He wouldn’t listen to reason; he wasn’t capable of reason beyond ensuring I’m not even sure what. He was a menace with a butcher’s knife and he was allowed a gun. So I went to him and I told him I had a file on him. I had evidence about his drug abuse, about him selling drugs, about the psychological problems, about the obvious violent streak and uncontrollable temper, about the tampering with his personal file. I lied.”

Raven closed her eyes and considered. The evidence was real, it must have been. Just because Charles didn’t keep it in a file, somewhere, it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. That the accusations were true she didn’t doubt - Cain was enough of a bastard. She’d known about the drugs, at least in the recreational sense and she was absolutely willing to believe that selling was also on the agenda. She’d grown up with the man, unfortunately, so she could attest to his bipolar moods and violent streaks, no matter how Charles tried to protect her from the latter.

She remembered Charles in the hospital bed, with half a dozen stab wounds to the torso and how Cain got away with it scot-free.

“Cain wasn’t your fault,” she said in the end. “He tried to murder you, Charles.”

“I got his father killed.”

“It was an accident and you won’t convince me otherwise. You weren’t to blame.”

This time when he met her eyes they were wet. “Kurt could have gotten out if it wasn’t for me.”

“He chose to save your life,” Raven said firmly, gripping his hands tighter. That and only that was the reason she went to see him in his final moments. It was the only reason she’d forgiven him, in the end. “I love him for it, regardless how much I hated him otherwise. His death was not your fault. Cain was unhinged. The city is better off with him dead.”

“He was your brother.”

“You’re my brother. Cain was a monster.”

“He loved his father and he loved his life. I went to him and I told him exactly what he needed to hear to end it. How does that not make me a murderer? How am I not every inch the monster her was?”

“You didn’t know,” she said, fully aware that where Charles was concerned she might have been trying to convince him gravity was caused by fairies and he knew it, if his bitter laugh was any indication.

“What didn’t I know? That he valued his freedom, his independence, his ability to flaunt the law more than he valued his own life? That he would rather be dead than go to jail, to go down in infamy? That he’s had suicidal thoughts previously? That he was high, drunk and suggestible when I spoke to him, or that he was prone to depression?”

Charles was pale and frightening; ugly pink splotches decorated his face, his eyes shone with a feverish blue, and his fingers gripped hers so tightly she feared they might break bones. “Five years ago there was the case with the body in the fridge, do you remember? The murderer looked innocuous, barely even a man, he was so frightened of what he’d done, and so desperately high on it, he was ready to walk out and do the same thing to the first girl he came across. The adrenaline, you see, got him off. We had very little evidence connecting him to the scene, almost none. The fridge had been in the water before we recovered it. I had backup. I goaded him into attacking me. It didn’t take much. The other officers saw and shot him dead on the spot.” That wasn’t the end of it, either. There were five others, over the years, three men and two women, driven to the end of their lives in a Charles-shaped taxi, murderers and worse, the lot of them.

She could have chosen disbelief and denial, but Charles held himself too straight for lies and half-truths and try as she might she couldn’t blame him for a single thing. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. If it were her, she was certain it would have been a lot worse, with a lot more gunshots, because some people do not deserve the light of day, or the quiet endlessness of the night, either.

“How much worse would it be,” he added after a long while of silence, “if I had someone to protect? Tell me, Raven,” he begged tiredly, staring at his forearms and the ugly scars there. “Look at me and tell me I’m not a murderer.”

It was no hardship, kneeling as she was, to reach up, hold his face in her hands until he was looking into her eyes (there might have been tears, she wasn’t ashamed to admit, but her voice was steady and strong), and say, “You are not a murderer, Charles.”

He smiled, a bright and empty smile, barely a curve of the lips below glassy eyes. “You’re lying.” Then, so softly she barely even felt the air move, he added, “Thank you.”