XMFC: Point of Intersection (PG-13), Charles/Erik.

[laytoncolt]

His dreams since he has met Erik have always had the same theme. His dreams of that beach had him trying to save Erik's soul, and in this one he just wants to save Erik, even if it costs him his own.



(many many thanks to forcryinoutloud, for all of the encouragement and the beta help. as usual, could not have done it without her.)

He's had this dream a number of times of before. He's never been quite sure, however, whether or not it was his to begin with. He and Erik often fear the very same things-themselves, of course, as well as each other.

It always starts on the beach, and never with the trip there. He crawls out of that downed ship like he'd always been there, pushing himself into the sun to see Erik across from him, so much farther away than he appears.

He remembers that speech like it's burned into his soul and he disagrees with none of the words. It's the tone beneath them that's worrying; Erik's vibrating fury that he can feel like a second pulse even through that damn helmet. It's not the words that scare him but the intentions behind them.

He feels the same fear he felt then even though he knows this is not real. He has the storyline memorized and never can change it. Erik always gives in and lets those missiles blow like fireworks a mile above the water-and he still leaves anyway, every time.

So Charles is understandably confused when this time, Erik does not walk to the edge of the sand, his beautiful terrifying speech spilling from his lips. Instead he walks straight to Charles, with his helmet in his hands.

"I'm dying," he tells Charles, smiling sadly and not meeting his eyes.

"That's not what you say," Charles tells him. "You've forgotten your lines."

"I always told myself I would never be in this position again," Erik continues, dropping the helmet and stepping away. There is blood sneaking past his hairline like a tiny thread, leaking down past his eye and disappearing behind his ear. "But they got in a lucky blow."

Charles can feel the sand disappearing beneath his feet, rushing towards some sinkhole like they are standing in the top half of an hourglass. Sudden fear grips him and causes his heart to skip a beat-somewhere, time is running out. "This isn't right," Charles says. "Something's wrong. Erik, what's wrong?"

All of the color is bleeding from Erik's jumpsuit, leaving it stark white. That little thread of blood reaches the collar, and starts traveling down, red stretching out across the expanse of white like some kind of Rorschach. "I told you," he says. "I'm dying. I thought I should I say goodbye."

"That isn't possible," Charles protests. "I'm sure you're perfectly fine. I never have to worry about you."

Erik grins slightly. "I think we both know that isn't true."

"Okay, I worry," Charles agrees, stepping closer with a frown. "Are you really here?"

Erik shakes his head and points behind Charles. "No, I'm there."

Charles turns around and he is in a white hallway. He looks at the ground and sees that there is the slightest bit of sand scattered outwards across the floor-all that's left of his beach. He looks up again when he hears the screaming.

He knows that scream. "Erik?" he shouts. He presses his eyes shut and searches him out, homing in on that mind that he hasn't touched in so long. He starts running as soon as he finds it, turning a corner too fast and nearly slipping on a puddle of blood leaking out from under a closed door. He pushes against it and throws himself inside.

Erik is tied to the bed on the far corner of the room, that's the first thing he notices. The second thing he notices is that everything in the room is made of plastic or ceramic. Erik is screaming and it doesn't stop even when they inject him with something from a needle made of glass.

Erik is screaming his name.

* * * * *

Charles comes awake with Erik's scream still echoing in his mind. He sucks in air as he scrambles off the bed, feeling like he's coming out of his skin. He grabs onto the wall when he stumbles and then closes his eyes, reaching out for Erik as he hasn't done for months.

He's no longer there, but it's a different kind of absence than the one he's used to. That helmet was a very powerful thing, and Charles could always feel it when it was worn, if not the mind it hid. Now there was nothing.

He pulls on a pair of black pants and running shoes, before grabbing a white button up shirt and putting it on while already moving out the doors. He can feel the others in the house stirring, likely pulled awake along with him. He doesn't have time to explain it to them or even know the right words to do it properly, so he moves past their rooms and heads to the basement. He takes the stairs two at a time before throwing himself into the room that houses Hank's Cerebo 2.0.

Charles has never operated it on his own, but he has watched Hank do it often enough. He hits the switches as he moves by them from memory, setting the power slightly higher than Hank would approve of, and then unceremoniously lifts it down on his head.

He feels a jolt as everything connects, and grips tightly onto the armrest. The world opens around him and he is flying above it, searching for a single voice-it isn't hard to find. Erik is still screaming and he shines brighter than them all.

He cannot see structures in this place, no buildings or roads or doors. He sees only people, and to some extent he can see what they can see, but he does not have time to look through their eyes. Erik he thinks.

Outside of his head he can hear people screaming for him, but inside his mind Erik says nothing. Charles pushes into the mind of the nearest human, and the fear and hate hits him like a sucker punch. He cries out and feels electricity trickle down his throat. It's much too late to do anything about it now but he knows increasing the power was a mistake.

Still, it has accomplished what he wanted. Charles can feel it all. He can see it all. He can hear it all. But it is burning out fast. He doesn't have much time.

"It's overloading," he hears Hank yelling. He feels the power decrease but it doesn't matter. By this point Charles is practically powering the machine himself.

The CIA has never forgiven Erik for turning those missiles around, never mind that he'd let them all burst open harmlessly in the sky. Never mind that such mercy was not visited on them. They fear what Erik can do. They fear Charles too, but much too much to approach him quite yet. They've figured out a way around Erik's power, but they have yet to figure a way around his.

They don't want to go up against Charles yet. He laughs out loud at the realization, and he can hear Sean's frantic voice, asking what the hell is going on.

They don't want to go up against him so they take Erik-like that isn't the exact same thing.

"Professor," Hank is yelling. "Professor, if you can hear me you have to stop! I don't know what you've done, but Cerebro's overloading. Do you understand? It's going to short-circuit."

Charles knows he's right. He's never going to be able to keep this up. He can latch on to every mind in a mile radius from Erik and freeze them in place, but he won't be able to keep them there long and then he'll have to choose. Either stop them for good or let them go, and neither option is an option at all.

He's going to have to do this without Cerebro, and he thinks it's better this way in any case. Erik needs him there, all of him there, so that's where he's going to be. Charles stays in that single human mind, pushing him forward to pull loose Erik's restraints with the last of his strength. "I'm coming," he says in the man's voice. "Erik. I'm coming."

"Professor!" he hears Hank yell again. "You have to stop!"

Charles holds on, watching Erik's eyes widen slightly before slipping shut as some sedative takes hold. Leaving Erik is hard but he does it, he knows he doesn't have the time. So he searches out another mind-laying in instructions just as he feels the circuits fry.

Sean and Alex grab him by the arms as Hank lifts off Cerebro, and Charles cries out at the loss of it. It's like losing one of his senses. For a moment he thinks he's gone blind.

"Professor," Alex yells. "Professor, you have to tell us what's happened."

"Erik," Charles gasps out. "Erik's in trouble."

Alex looks puzzled. "Erik? Erik isn't here," he says. "He hasn't been for a while now. You know that."

Charles stares blearily at Alex as he remembers what it is to see through his own eyes. He does not know how to explain he never let Erik go. "He's captured," he says. "It's okay. I've got a plan."

"No offence, Professor X, but your plan isn't going great," Sean says, looking shaken where he stands behind Alex.

"It's a work in progress," Charles says, pushing himself to his feet. Hank is behind him at once, supporting him as he tilts to the side.

"We need to check you out," Hank says firmly. "What were you thinking? Cerebro hasn't been tested at that level of power. I only built it a few weeks ago. There's no telling-"

Hank cuts off as Azazel appears beside Charles in a puff of smoke. Charles smiles sadly at his students, the only apology he knows how to make.

"My ride is here," he says pulling away from Hank, and then Azazel reaches out and grabs his arm and they're gone.

* * * * *

"I wasn't sure you'd come," Charles says, as they appear in the middle of a street. Charles isn't sure exactly how Azazel's power works, but he'd shown him where he needed to go and here they are.

Azazel doesn't look at him. There is something wrong about this place they've come. The teleporter can feel it in his bones. "I did it for Magneto," he says. "You could have made me, could you not?"

Charles looks up at the building, eyes burning like blue flames. "Cerebro was failing, I didn't have enough time to make you," he tells him honestly. "I only had enough time to ask."

Azazel finally looks over at him. "Magneto says you're powerful, and I know what you did to Shaw," he says. "But how do you expect to get him out of there all by yourself?"

"Shaw was powerful," Charles agrees. "It took quite a bit of concentration to hold him place. It's a bit like the difference between lions and kittens."

"I don't know what you mean," Azazel says.

Charles glances up at him. "Just look around you," he says.

Azazel glances down the street and that's when he notices what's wrong with this place. Cars have stopped in the middle of the street, their drivers held in place like insects in amber. People crossing the street are stopped mid step. A man holding a cell phone is staring vacantly ahead as the tinny voice on the other end prattles on and on.

"You can wait here," Charles says, as he heads straight for the front door.

Azazel decides to do as he's told and stays where he is. He has a feeling if he doesn't it will be done for him.

* * * * *

Charles walks through the lobby. It looks more like an office building than a military installation, so even if he didn't already have his suspicions, this would have confirmed them. The CIA was behind this, and Charles is too angry to even feel betrayed.

A young woman sits behind the counter with a headset on, smile plastered on her face and frozen along with the rest of her. Charles scans her thoughts briefly but she knows nothing of Erik. He searches deeper and finds that she does not have access to the tenth floor.

He can hear Erik screaming as he hits the call button for the elevator. The doors slide open and there is a soldier inside wearing a suit.

"The tenth floor please," Charles tells him.

Charles slips into his mind as he steps inside and the man steps forward, turning his key to access the tenth floor and hitting the button. Charles holds him back in place and goes deeper into his mind. It doesn't take him long to realize that this man knows where Erik is. He knows what's being done to him and it bothers him no more than it would to call an exterminator to take care of some household pest.

Charles is unraveling the man's mind almost before he realizes he's doing it. He's stripping away the hatred and fear and the duty and the knowledge of how to use that gun strapped to his side and once he's taken it all away he's afraid there's precious little left.

He doesn't look at him again as the elevator opens out on to the tenth floor. He follows the screams down to the room Erik is being held, following the map he's taken from the soldier's mind.

He tries the door but it is locked. He shouts in frustration, mind stretching out like a net, to capture someone with a key. He latches on to one of the doctors standing down the hall and the doctor comes to life like a wind-up doll. He approaches and steps beside Charles, reaching out to open the door.

Charles pushes him to go faster, because Erik's screams are breaking something inside of him that he's not sure can be fixed. They are constant and he has to be careful to keep his attention divided. It doesn't take as much effort as he thought to hold still this entire block, but it would be very easy to let his entire focus shift to Erik and it wouldn't do to let them go just yet.

The door opens slowly with a mechanical kind of hiss. It's not metal and not quite plastic but something else entirely, some substance that is hard and impregnable and probably keeping Erik from grasping any metal from outside of it. The moment there is a crack in the room it is like a seal has been broken-he can feel a crackle around him as Erik's power is let free. The elevator behind him has started to shake. He hears a few guns go off but pays them no attention.

He's staring at Erik, who is lying there still and silent. Charles can hear him screaming but he is only screaming in his mind, he makes not a single sound.

He won't want to give them the satisfaction, he realizes. He won't let them see his pain, so he keeps it all inside. Somehow this is much, much worse and Charles feels sick as he steps into the room.

Erik is deathly still where he is strapped down. His restraints are leather and plastic and have obviously been latched again since Charles had them undone. He has sensors placed around his temples. Erik can control electromagnetic fields and they are trying to cure him by electroshock.

The machines have been carefully crafted in this not-metal, this accomplishment discovered just for Erik. Charles can feel the glee radiating from the doctor standing above Erik. And it is actual glee, Charles can find no other word for it-such happiness and pride at his accomplishments, his genius. He had been approached by the CIA only days after Charles had first pulled Erik out of that water.

They hadn't even waited for Erik to leave to try and find a way to break him. They'd wanted a way to do it from the start.

The man's name is Matthew Farmer. He has two brothers he never sees and worships his father, who was far smarter but long dead. He wants nothing more than to be seen for the genius he is, and this is going to do it. His crowning glory.

Charles doesn't even mean to do it. He's not sure he would have consciously known how, but soon Matthew is screaming. He is not strong like Erik and his screams are there for anyone to hear.

"You're a monster," Charles tells him quietly, but stops what he's doing.

Matthew gasps and lands on his knees. He looks around them in disbelief. His technicians are frozen at the controls on the other side of the room. Through the doorway the doctor that opened the door is still standing there blankly, with his keycard raised.

"What---what are you?" Matthew asks.

"Release him," Charles says. He could make him do it, but that would be too easy for him. He needs to know what he's done.

Matthew scrambles to his feet and undoes the straps. Charles searches through his mind frantically looking for remorse. He knows it must be there somewhere.

"You're doing this? All this?" Matthew asks shakily. Charles can hear him plotting. He's thinking about the small plastic gun he has in his coat pocket. Charles simply makes him forget that it's there.

"No, you've done this," Charles says. "I need to know exactly what you've done to him."

Matthew raises himself to his full height and stares at Charles. It's the closest to courage he's probably ever come, but it's all in the wrong cause. "I'm not going to tell you anything," he says.

"I don't need you to tell me," Charles says. Behind him he brings the technicians into motion, and instructs them to destroy their research, destroy all of their equipment.

Matthew glances at them in disbelief. "Craft! Evans! Stop it at once!"

"They can't hear you," Charles says, tilting his head as he rifles through Matthew's mind. It is a very unpleasant place to be and he does not do it as carefully as he could. They had lured Erik here. They let the secret out that they were running experiments on mutants and then all they had to do was wait. Erik came to them.

They had plastic tranquilizer guns and wore no metal. Erik hadn't been expecting that. Matthew thought himself so clever.

"Erik," Charles says, turning his attention to his friend. The memories are right there on the surface of Erik's mind, left out for Charles to find. He can still feel Erik screaming though the sound has stopped. It wasn't being here causing Erik's screams, it was being held down. Erik didn't like to be helpless; he'd been helpless before.

Matthew has been slowly making his way to the door as though he believes that Charles has not noticed. Charles turns to face him, and he feels hate rise in him, half Erik's, half his own.

"You don't understand what you've done," Charles says.

Matthew sneers at him. "I'm a hero," he says, and honestly believes it.

"You need to understand what you've done," Charles insists, and then he shows him. He borrows Erik's memories and his pain and gives it all to Matthew.

Matthew starts screaming again, grabbing onto the counter as his legs give out beneath him.

"That's what he felt," Charles tells him, rage coiled so tightly within him it's become some kind of center of calm. "That's what you've done."

Erik is very strong, and he is a born survivor, but Matthew knew only how to give pain and did not understand true strength. Charles understands that he will not be able to withstand this but cannot stop. The doctor stares at him in disbelief as red lines crawl through his eyes like fault lines, and then he drops silent to the floor.

Charles feels a snap of pressure as Matthew disappears from his mind, and nearly laughs in relief. He was like a disease, infecting Erik, infecting him. There are so many people here that are culpable. Charles turns to the technicians, watching them with mild interest as they drop to their knees, wakened suddenly only to be feed Erik's pain.

"Charles."

Charles watches them collapse in on themselves. One is screaming and the other is strangely silent. He half-heartedly searches their minds for remorse, but doesn't find nearly enough of it to give him second thoughts.

"Charles!"

Charles feels someone grip his arm and spins around, nearly losing his concentration and letting everyone free. Erik has found his way unsteadily to his feet and is staring at him in concern.

Charles grins widely. "Erik," he breathes, and lets the technicians go.

He pushes Erik back to sit on the bed, before kneeling in front of him. "Are you alright?" he asks. "I came as soon as I heard you."

"I had a dream," Erik says. "I was saying goodbye."

"I'm tired of saying goodbye," Charles tells him. "You were right, Erik. Right about everything. Look what they've done to you. I should have been here. I would have stopped them."

"What have you done?" Erik asks, looking past him at Matthew.

"I only meant to show him," Charles says. "He doesn't understand what he's done. None of them do. They don't see us as human."

"We're not," Erik says. He reaches out to Charles with trembling hands. "We're not, Charles."

"I'm not going to argue this now," Charles says, especially when he's no longer sure he can disagree. "I need to take care of them, and then I'll get you out of here."

"What do you mean to do?" Erik demands, grabbing Charles' arm in a surprisingly firm grip.

"I'm going to do to them what they've done to you," Charles said. "I've been lying to myself, thinking I can reason with them. I look in their minds and there is only fear and hate and I cannot-I cannot-"

"So take it away, wipe their minds," Erik whispers, reaching out to frame his face. "You'll hate yourself if you kill them. You know you will. On that beach, you stopped me using those missiles. Let me stop you now."

Charles only hesitates a moment before reaching out to all of the minds that knew of this facility at once. He carefully tugs the memory away, pulling the hate and fear and drive to destroy away along with it, and leaving them all sleeping on the floor like nearly blank slates. "It's done," he says.

Erik pulls Charles up and wraps his arms around him. "How did you get here?" he asks.

"Azazel," Charles says, and the teleporter appears behind them as if summoned. Erik wonders if he actually was.

Erik looks at Azazel in disbelief. He was not exactly the backup he had expected Charles to have.

"I didn't tell the others," Charles says, in answer to the question he couldn't ask. "I didn't want them to see what I might do."

Erik looks around him at all the bodies laid out without a single wound on one of them. It is terrifying what Charles can do, and it is more terrifying how much Erik loves him. He knows now he's been running from the wrong thing.

Erik reaches out and kisses him, pulling back after only a moment and pressing their foreheads together instead. He can't do more than that with Azazel standing there solemn above them.

"How long can you hold them?" Azazel asks, looking at Charles warily.

Erik is still shaking off the sedatives himself but Charles almost looks worse. He's not even wearing a jacket, and his hair looks like he's just stumbled out of bed. He looks incredibly young and vulnerable, and absolutely nothing like what he's capable of.

"As long as I want," Charles says distractedly.

"I think we can leave them now, don't you?" Erik asks quietly.

Charles looks up at him with broken eyes; every fleck of color held together like some divinely created mosaic. The windows to the soul, and Charles' are as opaque as stained glass.

Erik does not doubt his power, but knows that Charles' has far too many people in his head. His eyes look more black than blue, and he know he has to get him away from here.

"But where to?" Charles asks. "I don't want to leave you."

"So come with me," Erik says, brushing Charles' hair back out of his eyes. "Charles, come with me. We want the same things."

Charles' eyes go distant and he pushes himself away and onto his feet in a quick but graceless move, turning to stare at the men on the floor. He remembers being on that beach after Shaw died, remembers Erik standing there with his hand in the air, ready to send those missiles all flying back.

Erik lifts himself off the bed to follow him. "Charles," he starts, losing his balance as he tries to stay on his feet. There is no metal here for him to grab hold of, only Charles, suddenly back in front of him, trying to take his weight. "I know you can never condone what I've done," Erik says. "Maybe it's best if we go our separate ways."

Charles laughs breathlessly, controlling Erik's fall until he's sitting back on the bed. Charles drops to his knees in front of him again, sliding between Erik's legs, and rests the palms of his hands on his thighs as he stares up at him. Azazel turns away and says nothing. Erik isn't sure if he's being discreet or if Charles has diverted his attention for him.

"It's not that easy anymore," Charles says. "I'm not scared anymore because I think we want different things. I'm scared because I think you're right, and I don't know what that makes us."

Erik threads his hands through Charles' hair, tilting his head up. "You are amazing," he says. "Never doubt that."

"But am I human?" he whispers. "Because I don't think I am anymore."

"I don't think you ever were," Erik says. "Come with me."

"Okay," Charles says, breathing out as he lets go all at once. Car horns start screaming in the streets below them as people come back to themselves, and Azazel blinks and steps towards them. "But where will we go?"

"Everywhere," Erik tells him, and behind them Azazel places a hand on Charles' shoulder to take them all away.

* * * * *

He never dreams of the beach anymore. He closes his eyes now and steps out into one of those white hallways, though they're longer and whiter than he remembers. Charles knows far too much about how the mind works to ever believe a dream is real-but he also knows too much about the mind not to have learned he should play along.

His dreams since he has met Erik have always had the same theme. His dreams of that beach had him trying to save Erik's soul, and in this one he just wants to save Erik, even if it costs him his own.

Charles does not show mercy in his own mind, and as he walks through the halls searching for Erik he sends soldiers, doctors, and technicians alike falling dead to the floor with no more than a brief flutter of their eyes.

Erik is in the same room he's always in, strapped down on the bed. That thin red line of blood has trailed down his eyelid and chin along his arm, collecting at the leather restraint around his wrist. Charles drops down beside him, unlatching the cuff and unmindful of the blood that covers his hands.

"Erik?" he calls. "Erik, you need to wake up. We have to get out of here. I can't find Azazel, we'll have to walk."

Erik's eyes are open but unseeing and Charles reaches out to frame his face. "Erik?" he asks, feeling a thread of fury wrapping around his heart, clenching tightly and leaving him breathless. He knows it's only a dream. He knows, but he still falls across Erik's chest, crying out and sending a shockwave of anger and pain so brutal and raw he doesn't imagine anyone in a ten-mile radius will be left alive.

Charles works desperately to unlatch the restraint around Erik's other wrist, but his body is already cold, he knows he can do nothing. Charles can feel none of that magnetic field that should be surrounding him, even in his dreams it's always been there.

"He said your name, did you hear it?"

Charles freezes at the voice, spinning around and rising to his feet. Matthew is always waiting in this dream to greet him, with his blood-soaked eyes and a wide white smile. Matthew was never this brave in life, but being dead has left him with nothing to lose. He has no fear of Charles now.

"Yes," Charles breathes. He's glad he doesn't believe in ghosts. There's nothing left of the real Matthew Farmer; no one knows that better than Charles. He'd felt him disappear.

"You realize, of course, that you're entirely too dangerous to live?" Matthew asks him calmly, and his red eyes are turning madly in their sockets, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Erik was right, you know that. You've always known it. It's you or it's us."

"You don't get to call him that," Charles says, stepping forward. There's no threat he can make that he hasn't already tried, but here in this dream Matthew is immune to his power. Charles has found he can't wish him away a second time.

"Should I call him Magneto then? I thought you didn't like it," Matthew says. "But I suppose that's who he is. I wonder, who are you?"

"I'm just Charles," he says. "That's all."

"You're not human," Matthew protests. "What you've done is proof of that."

"If anything, this is proof I am," Charles says. "Someone I loved was in danger and I reacted. That's a very human thing to do."

Matthew reaches out and grabs Charles by the neck, tilting his face up and holding tight. "It's too much power for one man. It's the equivalent of giving a toddler a semi-automatic," he sneers. "Not even you could control yourself, and you're supposed to be the voice of reason. What about those that aren't as discerning as you? Azazel? Emma? Riptide and Angel?" Matthew grins tightly. "Erik."

"Erik just wants to protect us," Charles gasps, and Matthew steps closer, pinning him against the wall. Erik is still laying dead on the bed to his right, but Charles feels his presence again, a faint humming beneath his skin.

"You've been lying to yourself for too long," Matthew tells him, almost kindly. "There's a war coming and if you're on their side now it's already won. You could take them all out in one fell swoop."

"I wouldn't do that," Charles protests. "I don't want that."

"Not even for Erik?" Matthew asks. "Because I don't think there's anything you wouldn't do for him. You're supposed to be enemies, that's the only way this works. Against each other it's a stalemate, with neither side willing to make the killing blow; but both of you together, that's a massacre waiting to happen."

"That's not what it's like," Charles says.

"You think letting the Brotherhood into the mansion has changed them?" Matthew asks. "You've changed yourself. Hank and Alex and Sean, they can see it even if you can't. Did you see that terror in their eyes when you came in through the doors? You were still covered in my blood. Figuratively, of course. We both know you don't like to make a mess."

"They understand," he insists, but he doesn't believe it's true. He doesn't want the children involved in any of this, but none of them have any other place to go. "We should be together. We should all be together."

"All together," Matthew repeats snidely. "And to hell with the rest of us."

Charles closes his eyes for a moment, trying to suck in breath around Matthew's hand. He wants to protest but he's not sure he can. "It's not a perfect solution, but it's the best I can do for now," he says after a moment, grasping at Matthew's fingers to pull them loose. He feels them finally give and opens his eyes.

Matthew is staring at him in shock, and his hand falls from his throat. Charles catches himself against the wall, off balance from his sudden freedom. Matthew blinks and the blood washes from his eyes, leaving behind bewildered green irises. He looks down and Charles follows his gaze to find a large metal pipe run straight through Matthew's chest.

"Wha-" Charles fights his instinct to reach out and watches Matthew drop to the ground. He turns his head and sees Erik sitting up, one hand outstretched. "Erik?"

Erik looks up at him and Charles feels light-headed. He pushes off the wall and steps forward and Erik grabs his wrists to pull him down beside him. "I'm here," Erik says. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Charles is trying to understand the question, but he can't stop watching Erik's eyes. He's never found him alive in this dream, and the only time Charles' dreams broke pattern was when someone else stepped into them. "Did I bring you here?" he asks.

"Yes," Erik says, reaching out to brush Charles' hair out of his eyes. "But I don't think you meant to. The danger of sleeping beside a telepath, I suppose."

"Maybe we should go back for your helmet," Charles says guiltily, ignoring the way even the words hurt, never mind the thought of having Erik cut off from him again-that first time Erik had slipped it on, he'd felt like he'd lost a limb.

"It's okay, I don't mind," Erik says. "It looks like I was needed."

"I'm fine," Charles says, shaking his head. "I don't regret what I've done."

"No, I don't think you do," Erik says. "I bet that's the part that scares you."

Charles pulls away from him restlessly, and walks a few feet away, putting Matthew between them. "If I pulled you into my dream, what about before? You weren't sleeping beside me then," he says.

"Before?" Erik asks. "This is the first time I've ever been inside your head."

"It didn't look like this the last time," Charles tells him. "And you weren't yourself."

Erik nods in realization. "The beach," he says. "I thought it was just a dream. It was real then?"

"No, it was still a dream," Charles says. "It's just we were having the same one."

"How do we wake up?" Erik asks uncertainly.

"Do you want to?" Charles asks.

"I'm not sure," Erik says. "Something isn't right here. It doesn't feel like last time. You're hiding something from me."

"I have no secrets left," Charles says. "Not even from myself."

Erik gets to his feet and he no longer looks the littlest bit dead. The blood has all but dried. "You've done nothing wrong," he says quietly. "I need you to know that."

"I know exactly what I've done," Charles says. "I would do it all again."

"That's not really the same thing," Erik says wryly.

"One of us had to change," Charles tells him quietly. "It was always going to be me. I know now that I will kill for you, but I don't think I will survive you asking me to."

"What do you think I'm going to ask you to do?" Erik demands, stepping forward with a frown.

Charles steps away from him, shaking his head. "I don't know, that's what worries me," he says. "Because I don't think I can say no to you anymore."

"Are you-" Erik pauses for a moment, sick to have to ask. "Are you scared of me?"

Charles laughs. "I'm scared of myself," he says.

Erik steps closer, and this time Charles' holds his ground, staring up at him with something between love and defiance. "I wouldn't ask you," Erik says quietly. "I know that I won't have to. You'll always do the right thing."

"You don't know what I would have-" Charles presses his eyes shut. "I don't even know if I would have meant to, but if you had died, I don't think I could have stopped myself."

"What are you talking about, Charles?" Erik asked gently.

"I would have killed them all," Charles says, eyes shining brightly. "It would have just taken a second, faster than Matthew, faster than Shaw. Easy as blowing out the candles on a birthday cake."

"But you didn't," Erik says. "Just like I didn't turn those missiles around, Charles. That's the part that matters. Not what passing petty thought you had when you were afraid or worried-who knows better than you the horrible things people let pass through their minds? It's meaningless if not acted upon."

"It's pure chance that it wasn't," Charles says. "I'm too dangerous, Erik. All that time the CIA spent worrying about what you might do and it was me they should have been worried about. I can't be trusted. Erik, I can't. I need to go."

"We're not finished here, Charles," Erik says firmly.

Charles gives a sly grin. "Yes we are," he says, and the world around them dissolves.

* * * * *

Charles pushes himself awake and up to his knees, scrambling to escape. Erik's arm instantly catches him around the waist, pulling him back against him and grabbing one of Charles' wrists in his other hand to still him. "Charles," he says firmly. "Calm down."

Charles lets himself fall back against Erik, but does not stop tugging restlessly at his grip. "I have to get out of here," he gasps.

"You're not going anywhere," Erik tells him.

"I could make you let me go," Charles says, tone almost petulant.

"You could, but you won't," Erik says.

Charles goes limp against Erik, admitting defeat. He lets his head fall back against Erik's shoulder and glances around the room. They are lying on the four-poster bed in Charles' old room. It's strange to be back here, and stranger still for Erik to be with him. For a moment in that lab, kneeling in front of Erik, he'd been sure he wouldn't ever make it back here.

"What are you thinking of?" Erik asks in frustration.

"You kissed me when I found you," Charles says, staring at Erik's fingers, where they still held his wrist. "Why was that?"

"I think you know," Erik says.

"But you left anyway," Charles says. "You're the one that left first. I didn't try to stop you. I let you go."

Erik tightens his grip when Charles pulls away. "Well, we've always known you're the better man," he says. "If you try to leave I'm going to stop you."

Charles doesn't know how Erik is so strong, but he cannot move an inch in his iron grip. He blocks out the questions he can feel building in Erik's mind and closes his eyes.

They had spent the first week after Charles found him at the Brotherhood quarters, and Erik had slept for almost two days. Charles had been horribly out of place and crawling out of his skin, sitting in that room, skimming the surface of Erik's dreams. But he never ever went in.

Azazel and Raven had been the only ones to speak to him. When he first saw Raven she walked right into the room and pulled him into her arms and they sat together for he doesn't know how long-it was such a strange reversal to the way he used to hold her, but he suspects Raven does it much better than him.

She had thanked him and told how happy she was to have him back and Charles had choked over his responses. He wasn't back anywhere, he wanted to explain. He's never been here before.

Erik had woken up on day three and pushed himself until he could cross the room without faltering, stubbornly insistent that he was fine. Charles had wanted to believe him and was very careful not to read his mind.

"Charles, are you here with me?" Erik whispers, his grip loosening slightly.

It had been Erik's idea to come back to the mansion, to bring everyone together here. There was enough space, certainly, but it was going to take more than putting them all in different wings to make them a team.

"Charles, if you don't answer me I'm going to take you to McCoy to be prodded at until you tell me what's wrong," Erik says, giving Charles a slight shake.

Charles lets out a shaky laugh. "You can let me go," he says. "I'm not going to run."

"Are you sure about that?" Erik asks softly. "What are you thinking?"

Charles twists out of his grip and pushes himself a few feet away, leaning back against the headboard and not meeting Erik's eyes. "I'm thinking I'm dangerous," Charles says. "How am I supposed to help any of them learn control if I cannot control myself?"

Erik sighs and slides over to sit in front of Charles. "Charles, I just held you against your will. I grabbed you and held you until you calmed down."

Charles glances up at him warily. "I know," he says. "You're very bossy."

Erik smiles slightly. "My point is, I've seen what you can do. You could have anything you want at any time. You could make people give you everything they have. You could have easily made me let you go. I can't imagine the kind of control you must have, to not use your power more than you do. I bet you've only ever used it to help someone else."

"I used my power to get me and Raven into a Beatles concert once," Charles admits. "They were sold out."

"I think you can be forgiven that," Erik says.

"And mass murder?" Charles asks. "Will you forgive me that?"

"You've done nothing of the kind," Erik says shortly.

"But it's what you want," Charles says.

"What I want is you," Erik says. "I'm not the same man you first found. Maybe I've changed you, but you've changed me too, and that's why this is going to work."

Erik raises himself to his knees, reaching out to cup Charles' face and turn it up to meet his eyes. "I wasn't right and you were wrong, we were both wrong. We were both too set on one extreme. Shaw was a fanatic and I was falling right into the same trap, and so were you. We were both too inflexible, unwilling to accept any compromise."

"What compromise is there?" Charles asks softly. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Fight for our cause, but kill only to survive," Erik says. "Maybe someday there really will be peace."

"You don't believe that," Charles said.

"I never used to," Erik says. "But that was before I knew you."

Charles shakes his head. "There will never be peace," he says. "We will always find something new to fight against. Even if there were no humans left we'd only turn on each other."

Erik sighs again, pushing closer, until they're only inches apart. "Do you remember what you said to me when you first found me in the water?"

"I told you that you had to let go," Charles says quietly.

"You told me that I wasn't alone," Eriks says. "You don't trust yourself right now. I don't think it's necessary, but I understand your caution. But you can trust me. I'll stop you if you get out of control. Not for them, but for you."

"When did you become the reasonable one?" Charles asks, looking disconcerted.

"I'm still plenty unreasonable," Erik says. "That's why it's your job to stop me."

Erik leans down and kisses Charles' gently, wrapping his hands around that beautiful mind before pulling back only to catch his breath. "You're not stopping me," he says.

"I've learned to choose my battles," Charles says, wrapping his arms around Erik to pull him back. Erik has a field around him that makes it hard to get close, but as they kiss Charles can feel it spreading around him, letting him in. Goosebumps rise all over his skin.

"This isn't a battle between us," Erik says softly.

"Oh, my love, it is," Charles tells him, breathless from the kiss. "And I know when I've lost."