Fic: Beneath the Surface - (4/?) Charles/Erik
Title: Beneath the Surface (4/?), Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
Fandom: X-Men: First Class, Charles/Erik
Genre: AU; Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter, possibly up to NC-17 later.
Word Count: 3566
Summary: Charles is a young marine biologist and activist that, one day, makes the find of his lifetime. Inspired by this fanart
Author's Note: Still un-beta'ed. Again, somewhat slow with the next update, sorry. I also had another story to finish with deadline today ^^ This chapter is a little shorter than the previous ones. Hope you enjoy it.
Charles realized he had been asleep when the first thing he felt was an uncomfortable pressure on his forehead, the bones of his hand not offering the softest kind of cushion he could imagine. His mind was still drowsy as he slowly came to, and the next thing he realized was that he must have fallen asleep at his desk, the blueish light of his laptop computer penetrating the otherwise darkness and streaming directly into his blinking eyes. But there was something else, something… odd that made the back of his neck prickle, the fine hairs standing to end as his clouded mind tried to grasp what it was.
And then Charles knew it. The smell of smoke, of singeing plastic, fabric and wood streamed unmistakably toward him, and warmth, much greater than usual for this time of night, approached his back. It had been this that had made him dream of lying in the sun, he thought with the last remains of sleepy sluggishness before he sat bolt upright, stone sober and awake.
Sure enough, there were flames dancing around the kitchen, licking at the walls and ceiling with crackling ferocity, and a thick cloud of dark smoke crept toward him and slowly up the stairs to the second floor. Even though wild awake again, Charles didn't know what to do first as he stood, his mind reeling around his options: fetch the fire extinguisher, run upstairs and get Raven and Erik, or call the fire department. In the end, his instinct seemed to take over because he did not think anymore, and later Charles would not know why he had acted the way he had or even how exactly.
Taking two steps at once, he ran upstairs, slammed open the door of first Raven's and then Erik's room and shouted at them as loudly as he could: "Fire, there's fire in the house. You need to get out!"
It seemed to take Raven a second to fully wake up, to grasp what was going on before she hurried into the hallway, gasping in fear and shock but alert enough to react. Her reaction prepared him in no way for Erik's, though. He, too, had gotten up upon Charles' call and moved to the door, but there was sheer panic in his gaze as Charles had not yet seen. The smoke had quickly extended throughout the house and now, with the draft from the open windows of the bedrooms flew up and toward them even stronger, making it difficult to see despite the hallway light (when had he turned that on?).
"Come on, we need to get out of here!" Charles shouted as he grabbed Erik's hand and only then noticed that the noise in the house had increased as well; crackling flames and breaking furniture. He vaguely saw Raven lift the hem of her pajama top and hold it in front of nose and mouth, bowing her head as she made her way down the stairs, and Charles did the same with his t-shirt, yanking at Erik's arm without waiting for protest or reaction and pulling him downstairs along. The flames had spread through the dining area now, and the first thing Charles spotted among the chaos of smoke and flames was the large family portrait above the fireplace, going up in flames and being eaten by fire.
"Oh my God, what do we do?" Raven cried as Charles briefly considered trying to put the fire out, but it had progressed too far, decades old wood in the walls, completely dry with the summer's long lasting heat, being consumed rapidly with no chance of repair. Something very near to them creaked and burst threateningly, and just a second later debris fell from the ceiling, blocking the way to the front-door exit, burning wood chips and ash hurtling up and making them cough.
There was just one exit now, and Charles already felt Raven pull into that direction, hardly able to see as the smoke stung in his eyes. He shoved Erik towards the patio door as he started coughing even more when a big gust of smoke filled his lungs, burning and scratching in them so violently that he felt sick. There was nothing to safe anymore, nothing to do to limit the damage, not enough time for any action to be taken but get away, get out and watch the house that had been one of his favorite places from early childhood on burn down to ashes. Just two things were within reach, barely so, on their way towards the patio, and he almost jumped to extend his hand and snatch both his cellphone and laptop computer off the desk, the computer with all his research, the footage of Shaw and everything he had worked on. How egoistic of him, how stupid, he thought. That one split-second it had taken him to grab the items and let go off Raven and Erik could have made all the difference, horribly so. Horribly, because in the very second he had exited the house last of the three the ceiling creaked with such thunderous noise, a large beam of wood coming down, torn apart by the merciless fire to smash onto the desk, inches away from where he had just been.
Then, everything else passing in a haze, he felt sand beneath his naked feet, felt a hand around his wrist pulling him further and further away as he still coughed and fought the stinging in his eyes, and he was on his hands and knees, fighting for fresh air and against the dizziness in his head, until he could finally take a long, deep and clear breath.
"Oh my God, it's all gone. Oh my God!" Raven's tear-strained voice made his head spin around to face her, and he was relieved to see her unscathed and still standing, right next to Erik who had also collapsed onto his knees, breathing hard but otherwise seeming okay. Charles almost didn't dare look back, physically hurting at the thought of what he would see, the heat of the fire radiating towards his back enough to remind him.
"Are you alright?" he asked Erik, still having to shout over the noise in the background. The other man's eyes were wide beneath his furrowed brow, but he nodded slowly and turned around to sit in the sand, still gasping faintly for breath.
A split-second later, Raven was next to Charles on the ground and wrapped her arms around him in a tight, desperate embrace as she started to sob with loss and fear and shock. She had functioned in immediate danger, even better than him, quicker and more considerate, but now, as they were all safe, she could allow herself to break down while Charles still felt numb. Shocked. Disbelieving.
As he turned his head nevertheless to watch the house slowly but surely burn to pieces - even the attached garage with his car in it not having been spared - the adrenaline of the moment seemed to fade and his mind circled around one question, one and possibly the only conclusion: this could not have been an accident.
~*~
"Do you think it was… him?" Raven barely more than whispered as she stood next to him, her body covered with a thick woolen blanket that had be given to each of them by the fire fighters. They were still on the beach, watching as the last remaining fire sources were put out with large sprays of water. Of their lovely and idyllic beach house there was only a charred skeleton left.
"Yes, I think it was Shaw. Or one of his men, at least." Anger and disgust mixed with the deep sadness the sight evoked in Charles, and he turned around to look at Erik who was sitting further down the beach, water coming up to swirl around his feet with each wave. Charles barely dared letting him out of sight for more than half a minute.
He was convinced, although he was also sure there'd be no traceable evidence, that Shaw had set fire to the house with the purpose of driving Erik out, catching him somewhere near. He had probably not accounted for the neighbors that had come running - awoken from the noise and smell - or the fact that Charles had once more convinced Erik not to run away and straight into the arms of his hunter. But Charles had also been certain to have spotted a boat in the distance, no lights on, just a vague silhouette against the black water. It was gone now, of course, and nobody else had seen it.
"What do we do now?" Raven asked, and her voice was still thick with unshed tears as she leaned against Charles' side, letting herself be hugged to his body. "The car's gone too and we don't even have any clothes."
"We'll figure something out," Charles replied instantly though it started to sound like an empty phrase to him, had he said those very same words several times now over the past few days. "Worst comes to worse, you'll just have to sit in a rental or cab with your pajamas and that blanket."
She tried to smile a little, but the expression didn't reach her eyes. "Just good you fell asleep fully clothed and with your wallet on you. I'm just so… Gosh I know this is so fucking shallow of me, but all our things are gone. My favorite summer dress, the plush dolphin you gave me for my eighth birthday… the necklace I got from Irene."
"I know," Charles said gently and hugged her a little tighter. "It's not shallow, Raven. it's absolutely understandable." He, too, already mourned everything they had lost today, all the little things that reminded him of his childhood, and yes, silly and small possessions such as clothing and pictures and figurines. How much worse would it feel if this had been their primary home?
"Think we should go to Erik?" Raven asked then after a moment of silence. The fire fighters seemed to be wrapping up, and the police that had arrived at the site some time before would start their investigations soon. Just good that Charles had already gotten the questioning over with. There had not been much to say anyway other than that he had awoken from the smoke in the kitchen, that yes, he was certain they had not left the stove on, and no, nobody had smoked inside the house. He had not mentioned Shaw's visit or his suspicions, knowing that there was probably no way to trace it back to the man. Someone like Shaw didn't make stupid mistakes like that, and if there turned out to be an indicator for arson after all they would get back to him anyway. But putting the police on him might be even more dangerous than simply ignoring the fact that the three of them had escaped attempted murder. As for now, it was suspected that maybe a passer-by threw a burning cigarette into the flower bed beneath the open kitchen window, or a piece of glass had ignited dry leafs which had started singeing unnoticed during the evening.
Raven's question, however, remained unanswered. In that moment, they saw a car approaching what was left of the house and then steering onto the beach, as far as it would get, and Charles recognized it as Alex' old Ford. Alex, a young fisherman around Raven's age, with blond hair and a friendly face, got out of the car and sped towards them, concern and sympathy written all over his features.
"Holy shit, are you guys okay?"
"Alex, what are you doing here?" Raven asked in surprise but then shrugged in answer to his question.
"I was still up with a few buddies. One of them got called in. He texted me later that it was your place they were going to."
It had been around 3 a.m. when Charles had made the call - no unusual time for a group of young men to still hang out on a Friday evening - and around here almost everybody knew each other aside from the people further East that mostly stayed among themselves and the expensive golf clubs.
"Do you guys need anything?" he said kindly, looking a little lost himself, and Charles could imagine why: what kinds of words did you offer someone in sympathy after watching their house burn down?
Raven shook her head. "Thanks though. They gave us water and these blankets."
"There's actually one thing you could do, Alex, if that's okay," Charles started then. "You could give us a ride to Hertz in the morning. Do you know when they open?"
"I think at 9 or 9:30. That's still more than four hours. You don't wanna sit around here all that time, do you?"
Charles chuckled humorlessly. "It's not that we have another choice is it?"
"Well, um… giving me the money for the gas might actually cost you less than renting." Alex had put his hands in the back pocket of his jeans, looking a little embarrassed about asking for money in the first place, but Charles understood perfectly that the man didn't make much, let alone enough to make a hundred-something miles drive there and back just to drop them off at home. Yet, Charles felt a little bad about wasting the man's time like that.
"It's okay, but thank you very much for the generous offer," Charles replied and, to his surprise, saw the guy's shoulders slump a little.
"Yeah, okay. You're right. It was a silly idea anyway," he said quickly. When he looked back from Charles to Raven, his eyes seemed to spot something in the distance, and it didn't take Charles long enough to guess what, or rather who.
"Is he with you guys?" Alex asked, nodding his chin in Erik's direction who still sat there, unmoving and staring out at the ocean.
"He's a friend of mine and wanted to stay with us for the week," Charles replied, feeling that was only stretching the truth a little.
"I'll just…" Raven had started to say, waving her hand in Erik's direction before, without another word, she turned and walked over to him, sitting next to him with her feet drawn up so, unlike his, they wouldn't get wet.
Charles sighed. This was really not as he had pictured everything to do.
"Um, listen, about my offer," Alex started again, the words coming over his lips quite quickly. "Actually I'd feel kinda bad for you guys if you had to wait that long. I bet you're dying to get home, and this early we could avoid the traffic."
"Alex, thank you, but don't you usually work on Saturdays as well. You'd barely make it back in time."
"Err… well…" Alex let out a little shy laugh, his eyes averted as he started into the sand. "Yeah about that… I got fired."
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. What happened?"
Alex made a waving gesture with his hand as if this was no issue of bigger concern while Charles knew very well that it was. "Steve said he couldn't pay three men anymore. So one had to go, and that was me. The other two guys have been in the business longer than me."
Charles felt a deep wave of sympathy towards the young man even though they weren't very closely acquainted. It had always been Raven and him back in their teen years. "Then by all means, Alex, if you want to drive us up to Westchester I'd gladly take you up on your offer. And of course I'll cover all your expenses."
The younger man smiled then with unmistakably gratitude and relief. "Awesome. So, I'll just have to get something from home and I could be back here in about thirty minutes. And I'll try to find some jogging pants and a sweatshirt or something for Raven. She looks cold."
Charles felt another sign rise up his throat, but tonight he simply didn't find the energy to also worry about unrequited crushes, especially not when Alex knew very well that Raven was taken. Though he was probably reading more into it than there was.
"Thank you so much Alex. We'll wait here," Charles replied and then, after watching Alex leave turned around to join his sister and Erik, glad to be able to turn his back on the smoking, disfigured remains of a place he had called home.
He decided to sit down on Raven's other side but glanced over at Erik whose face looked rather somber. “Are you alright, my friend.”
The hard expression faded somewhat, and Erik's eyebrows rose as he released a snorted breath. “I wish you two would stop asking me that.”
“I'm sorry,” Charles replied with a faint smile that he knew barely reached his eyes.
“Do you two believe me now that Shaw is dangerous? That he needs to be stopped,” Erik added, his voice low but with unmistakable venom in it, his eyes narrowing as he looked back out on the ocean.
Raven let out a bitter chuckle. “Yeah. I'll say it again: I wish he could just be eaten my sharks.”
“That hardly worked out, did it?” Erik replied, and there was some dark kind of amusement, an understanding, between the two of them that astonished Charles a little.
“We're not here to plot revenge and murder, are we?” Charles asked, slightly worried that Raven put even further ideas in Erik's head. Though he had to fight hard with himself not to wish death upon that despicable person too.
Erik's gaze darkened a little, but Raven sighed. “Well no. Like you said,” she turned to Erik then, “Shaw's a dangerous man. Even if we wanted to we could not simply walk up to his house or boat or wherever we'd find him and kill him. He'd kill us first, I'm sure, and we would all end up in prison. So no, that's really not a good idea.” It was a much more pragmatic approach then what Charles would have said, that do as had been done by them and worse was simply wrong, in itself, but it seemed to work and caused Erik to nod, if only reluctantly so.
“I don't know what to do,” he admitted, and Charles only halfway realized the helplessness expressed in those words, that it meant that Erik saw no possible options for himself at all, not only to escape and survive but how to continue living. It tore at Charles heart to put himself in the other man's shoes.
“Well, first, we are going home. I'm not going to lie, there's a possibility Shaw also knows where our other house is, but it's much better protected. We have a security system with cameras, motion sensors and smoke detectors, all of them connected to the local police station,” he explained, hoping that Erik even understood what those words meant.
“The mansion's a real fortress,” Raven added with a faint laugh. “So, no, nobody could get in there or even onto the grounds without being seen.”
Erik nodded, though his face hardly lit up, and Charles could guess that he only took the offer because he had no other option. For now.
“Alex is driving us after all,” Charles said. “Have you ever sat inside a car, Erik?”
The man's eyebrows rose, his brow slightly furrowed in a skeptical frown. “No. But I know what they are.”
“One of those days you'll have to tell me how you know all these things, my friend,” Charles replied in an attempt to sound lighthearted.
He was relieved to see that it had worked. In a way at least. “You didn't ask many questions,” Erik replied dryly, the faintest trace of a smirk on his lips.
“Oh Charles!” Raven laughed and shook her head, and although the sound, after all the agitation of the night, warmed and relieved his heart, Charles looked at her in mild confusion. “What?”
“That's so typical. I can practically see you all tip-toeing around Erik. 'Oh, my friend, do not think me rude, no you don't have to speak. I beg your pardon for my being so forward',” she said in an exaggerated imitation of his accent and speech mannerism, and the most extraordinary thing happened then: Erik laughed. A genuine, if not very loud or long, but clearly amused laugh, teeth white and shining in the dim light of the approaching morning.
“I do not talk like that,” Charles complained, pouting against the twitching around his own lips.
“Oh, you do, too,” Raven replied, still mocking his British pronunciation as she exchanged a glance with Erik, who shrugged. “A little bit.”
He knew the amusement was more or less superficial - none of them would be able to forget what had happened tonight oh so quickly - but Charles was glad for every second it lasted. And so he leaned in when Raven bumped her shoulder against his, still smiling but shivering slightly as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her close.
Erik remained beside them, but to Charles he seemed lost now, excluded. For a second he felt the urge to reach out and pull him into their hug as well. He did not do it.
~ TBC ~
Chapter 5
Fandom: X-Men: First Class, Charles/Erik
Genre: AU; Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter, possibly up to NC-17 later.
Word Count: 3566
Summary: Charles is a young marine biologist and activist that, one day, makes the find of his lifetime. Inspired by this fanart
Author's Note: Still un-beta'ed. Again, somewhat slow with the next update, sorry. I also had another story to finish with deadline today ^^ This chapter is a little shorter than the previous ones. Hope you enjoy it.
Charles realized he had been asleep when the first thing he felt was an uncomfortable pressure on his forehead, the bones of his hand not offering the softest kind of cushion he could imagine. His mind was still drowsy as he slowly came to, and the next thing he realized was that he must have fallen asleep at his desk, the blueish light of his laptop computer penetrating the otherwise darkness and streaming directly into his blinking eyes. But there was something else, something… odd that made the back of his neck prickle, the fine hairs standing to end as his clouded mind tried to grasp what it was.
And then Charles knew it. The smell of smoke, of singeing plastic, fabric and wood streamed unmistakably toward him, and warmth, much greater than usual for this time of night, approached his back. It had been this that had made him dream of lying in the sun, he thought with the last remains of sleepy sluggishness before he sat bolt upright, stone sober and awake.
Sure enough, there were flames dancing around the kitchen, licking at the walls and ceiling with crackling ferocity, and a thick cloud of dark smoke crept toward him and slowly up the stairs to the second floor. Even though wild awake again, Charles didn't know what to do first as he stood, his mind reeling around his options: fetch the fire extinguisher, run upstairs and get Raven and Erik, or call the fire department. In the end, his instinct seemed to take over because he did not think anymore, and later Charles would not know why he had acted the way he had or even how exactly.
Taking two steps at once, he ran upstairs, slammed open the door of first Raven's and then Erik's room and shouted at them as loudly as he could: "Fire, there's fire in the house. You need to get out!"
It seemed to take Raven a second to fully wake up, to grasp what was going on before she hurried into the hallway, gasping in fear and shock but alert enough to react. Her reaction prepared him in no way for Erik's, though. He, too, had gotten up upon Charles' call and moved to the door, but there was sheer panic in his gaze as Charles had not yet seen. The smoke had quickly extended throughout the house and now, with the draft from the open windows of the bedrooms flew up and toward them even stronger, making it difficult to see despite the hallway light (when had he turned that on?).
"Come on, we need to get out of here!" Charles shouted as he grabbed Erik's hand and only then noticed that the noise in the house had increased as well; crackling flames and breaking furniture. He vaguely saw Raven lift the hem of her pajama top and hold it in front of nose and mouth, bowing her head as she made her way down the stairs, and Charles did the same with his t-shirt, yanking at Erik's arm without waiting for protest or reaction and pulling him downstairs along. The flames had spread through the dining area now, and the first thing Charles spotted among the chaos of smoke and flames was the large family portrait above the fireplace, going up in flames and being eaten by fire.
"Oh my God, what do we do?" Raven cried as Charles briefly considered trying to put the fire out, but it had progressed too far, decades old wood in the walls, completely dry with the summer's long lasting heat, being consumed rapidly with no chance of repair. Something very near to them creaked and burst threateningly, and just a second later debris fell from the ceiling, blocking the way to the front-door exit, burning wood chips and ash hurtling up and making them cough.
There was just one exit now, and Charles already felt Raven pull into that direction, hardly able to see as the smoke stung in his eyes. He shoved Erik towards the patio door as he started coughing even more when a big gust of smoke filled his lungs, burning and scratching in them so violently that he felt sick. There was nothing to safe anymore, nothing to do to limit the damage, not enough time for any action to be taken but get away, get out and watch the house that had been one of his favorite places from early childhood on burn down to ashes. Just two things were within reach, barely so, on their way towards the patio, and he almost jumped to extend his hand and snatch both his cellphone and laptop computer off the desk, the computer with all his research, the footage of Shaw and everything he had worked on. How egoistic of him, how stupid, he thought. That one split-second it had taken him to grab the items and let go off Raven and Erik could have made all the difference, horribly so. Horribly, because in the very second he had exited the house last of the three the ceiling creaked with such thunderous noise, a large beam of wood coming down, torn apart by the merciless fire to smash onto the desk, inches away from where he had just been.
Then, everything else passing in a haze, he felt sand beneath his naked feet, felt a hand around his wrist pulling him further and further away as he still coughed and fought the stinging in his eyes, and he was on his hands and knees, fighting for fresh air and against the dizziness in his head, until he could finally take a long, deep and clear breath.
"Oh my God, it's all gone. Oh my God!" Raven's tear-strained voice made his head spin around to face her, and he was relieved to see her unscathed and still standing, right next to Erik who had also collapsed onto his knees, breathing hard but otherwise seeming okay. Charles almost didn't dare look back, physically hurting at the thought of what he would see, the heat of the fire radiating towards his back enough to remind him.
"Are you alright?" he asked Erik, still having to shout over the noise in the background. The other man's eyes were wide beneath his furrowed brow, but he nodded slowly and turned around to sit in the sand, still gasping faintly for breath.
A split-second later, Raven was next to Charles on the ground and wrapped her arms around him in a tight, desperate embrace as she started to sob with loss and fear and shock. She had functioned in immediate danger, even better than him, quicker and more considerate, but now, as they were all safe, she could allow herself to break down while Charles still felt numb. Shocked. Disbelieving.
As he turned his head nevertheless to watch the house slowly but surely burn to pieces - even the attached garage with his car in it not having been spared - the adrenaline of the moment seemed to fade and his mind circled around one question, one and possibly the only conclusion: this could not have been an accident.
~*~
"Do you think it was… him?" Raven barely more than whispered as she stood next to him, her body covered with a thick woolen blanket that had be given to each of them by the fire fighters. They were still on the beach, watching as the last remaining fire sources were put out with large sprays of water. Of their lovely and idyllic beach house there was only a charred skeleton left.
"Yes, I think it was Shaw. Or one of his men, at least." Anger and disgust mixed with the deep sadness the sight evoked in Charles, and he turned around to look at Erik who was sitting further down the beach, water coming up to swirl around his feet with each wave. Charles barely dared letting him out of sight for more than half a minute.
He was convinced, although he was also sure there'd be no traceable evidence, that Shaw had set fire to the house with the purpose of driving Erik out, catching him somewhere near. He had probably not accounted for the neighbors that had come running - awoken from the noise and smell - or the fact that Charles had once more convinced Erik not to run away and straight into the arms of his hunter. But Charles had also been certain to have spotted a boat in the distance, no lights on, just a vague silhouette against the black water. It was gone now, of course, and nobody else had seen it.
"What do we do now?" Raven asked, and her voice was still thick with unshed tears as she leaned against Charles' side, letting herself be hugged to his body. "The car's gone too and we don't even have any clothes."
"We'll figure something out," Charles replied instantly though it started to sound like an empty phrase to him, had he said those very same words several times now over the past few days. "Worst comes to worse, you'll just have to sit in a rental or cab with your pajamas and that blanket."
She tried to smile a little, but the expression didn't reach her eyes. "Just good you fell asleep fully clothed and with your wallet on you. I'm just so… Gosh I know this is so fucking shallow of me, but all our things are gone. My favorite summer dress, the plush dolphin you gave me for my eighth birthday… the necklace I got from Irene."
"I know," Charles said gently and hugged her a little tighter. "It's not shallow, Raven. it's absolutely understandable." He, too, already mourned everything they had lost today, all the little things that reminded him of his childhood, and yes, silly and small possessions such as clothing and pictures and figurines. How much worse would it feel if this had been their primary home?
"Think we should go to Erik?" Raven asked then after a moment of silence. The fire fighters seemed to be wrapping up, and the police that had arrived at the site some time before would start their investigations soon. Just good that Charles had already gotten the questioning over with. There had not been much to say anyway other than that he had awoken from the smoke in the kitchen, that yes, he was certain they had not left the stove on, and no, nobody had smoked inside the house. He had not mentioned Shaw's visit or his suspicions, knowing that there was probably no way to trace it back to the man. Someone like Shaw didn't make stupid mistakes like that, and if there turned out to be an indicator for arson after all they would get back to him anyway. But putting the police on him might be even more dangerous than simply ignoring the fact that the three of them had escaped attempted murder. As for now, it was suspected that maybe a passer-by threw a burning cigarette into the flower bed beneath the open kitchen window, or a piece of glass had ignited dry leafs which had started singeing unnoticed during the evening.
Raven's question, however, remained unanswered. In that moment, they saw a car approaching what was left of the house and then steering onto the beach, as far as it would get, and Charles recognized it as Alex' old Ford. Alex, a young fisherman around Raven's age, with blond hair and a friendly face, got out of the car and sped towards them, concern and sympathy written all over his features.
"Holy shit, are you guys okay?"
"Alex, what are you doing here?" Raven asked in surprise but then shrugged in answer to his question.
"I was still up with a few buddies. One of them got called in. He texted me later that it was your place they were going to."
It had been around 3 a.m. when Charles had made the call - no unusual time for a group of young men to still hang out on a Friday evening - and around here almost everybody knew each other aside from the people further East that mostly stayed among themselves and the expensive golf clubs.
"Do you guys need anything?" he said kindly, looking a little lost himself, and Charles could imagine why: what kinds of words did you offer someone in sympathy after watching their house burn down?
Raven shook her head. "Thanks though. They gave us water and these blankets."
"There's actually one thing you could do, Alex, if that's okay," Charles started then. "You could give us a ride to Hertz in the morning. Do you know when they open?"
"I think at 9 or 9:30. That's still more than four hours. You don't wanna sit around here all that time, do you?"
Charles chuckled humorlessly. "It's not that we have another choice is it?"
"Well, um… giving me the money for the gas might actually cost you less than renting." Alex had put his hands in the back pocket of his jeans, looking a little embarrassed about asking for money in the first place, but Charles understood perfectly that the man didn't make much, let alone enough to make a hundred-something miles drive there and back just to drop them off at home. Yet, Charles felt a little bad about wasting the man's time like that.
"It's okay, but thank you very much for the generous offer," Charles replied and, to his surprise, saw the guy's shoulders slump a little.
"Yeah, okay. You're right. It was a silly idea anyway," he said quickly. When he looked back from Charles to Raven, his eyes seemed to spot something in the distance, and it didn't take Charles long enough to guess what, or rather who.
"Is he with you guys?" Alex asked, nodding his chin in Erik's direction who still sat there, unmoving and staring out at the ocean.
"He's a friend of mine and wanted to stay with us for the week," Charles replied, feeling that was only stretching the truth a little.
"I'll just…" Raven had started to say, waving her hand in Erik's direction before, without another word, she turned and walked over to him, sitting next to him with her feet drawn up so, unlike his, they wouldn't get wet.
Charles sighed. This was really not as he had pictured everything to do.
"Um, listen, about my offer," Alex started again, the words coming over his lips quite quickly. "Actually I'd feel kinda bad for you guys if you had to wait that long. I bet you're dying to get home, and this early we could avoid the traffic."
"Alex, thank you, but don't you usually work on Saturdays as well. You'd barely make it back in time."
"Err… well…" Alex let out a little shy laugh, his eyes averted as he started into the sand. "Yeah about that… I got fired."
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. What happened?"
Alex made a waving gesture with his hand as if this was no issue of bigger concern while Charles knew very well that it was. "Steve said he couldn't pay three men anymore. So one had to go, and that was me. The other two guys have been in the business longer than me."
Charles felt a deep wave of sympathy towards the young man even though they weren't very closely acquainted. It had always been Raven and him back in their teen years. "Then by all means, Alex, if you want to drive us up to Westchester I'd gladly take you up on your offer. And of course I'll cover all your expenses."
The younger man smiled then with unmistakably gratitude and relief. "Awesome. So, I'll just have to get something from home and I could be back here in about thirty minutes. And I'll try to find some jogging pants and a sweatshirt or something for Raven. She looks cold."
Charles felt another sign rise up his throat, but tonight he simply didn't find the energy to also worry about unrequited crushes, especially not when Alex knew very well that Raven was taken. Though he was probably reading more into it than there was.
"Thank you so much Alex. We'll wait here," Charles replied and then, after watching Alex leave turned around to join his sister and Erik, glad to be able to turn his back on the smoking, disfigured remains of a place he had called home.
He decided to sit down on Raven's other side but glanced over at Erik whose face looked rather somber. “Are you alright, my friend.”
The hard expression faded somewhat, and Erik's eyebrows rose as he released a snorted breath. “I wish you two would stop asking me that.”
“I'm sorry,” Charles replied with a faint smile that he knew barely reached his eyes.
“Do you two believe me now that Shaw is dangerous? That he needs to be stopped,” Erik added, his voice low but with unmistakable venom in it, his eyes narrowing as he looked back out on the ocean.
Raven let out a bitter chuckle. “Yeah. I'll say it again: I wish he could just be eaten my sharks.”
“That hardly worked out, did it?” Erik replied, and there was some dark kind of amusement, an understanding, between the two of them that astonished Charles a little.
“We're not here to plot revenge and murder, are we?” Charles asked, slightly worried that Raven put even further ideas in Erik's head. Though he had to fight hard with himself not to wish death upon that despicable person too.
Erik's gaze darkened a little, but Raven sighed. “Well no. Like you said,” she turned to Erik then, “Shaw's a dangerous man. Even if we wanted to we could not simply walk up to his house or boat or wherever we'd find him and kill him. He'd kill us first, I'm sure, and we would all end up in prison. So no, that's really not a good idea.” It was a much more pragmatic approach then what Charles would have said, that do as had been done by them and worse was simply wrong, in itself, but it seemed to work and caused Erik to nod, if only reluctantly so.
“I don't know what to do,” he admitted, and Charles only halfway realized the helplessness expressed in those words, that it meant that Erik saw no possible options for himself at all, not only to escape and survive but how to continue living. It tore at Charles heart to put himself in the other man's shoes.
“Well, first, we are going home. I'm not going to lie, there's a possibility Shaw also knows where our other house is, but it's much better protected. We have a security system with cameras, motion sensors and smoke detectors, all of them connected to the local police station,” he explained, hoping that Erik even understood what those words meant.
“The mansion's a real fortress,” Raven added with a faint laugh. “So, no, nobody could get in there or even onto the grounds without being seen.”
Erik nodded, though his face hardly lit up, and Charles could guess that he only took the offer because he had no other option. For now.
“Alex is driving us after all,” Charles said. “Have you ever sat inside a car, Erik?”
The man's eyebrows rose, his brow slightly furrowed in a skeptical frown. “No. But I know what they are.”
“One of those days you'll have to tell me how you know all these things, my friend,” Charles replied in an attempt to sound lighthearted.
He was relieved to see that it had worked. In a way at least. “You didn't ask many questions,” Erik replied dryly, the faintest trace of a smirk on his lips.
“Oh Charles!” Raven laughed and shook her head, and although the sound, after all the agitation of the night, warmed and relieved his heart, Charles looked at her in mild confusion. “What?”
“That's so typical. I can practically see you all tip-toeing around Erik. 'Oh, my friend, do not think me rude, no you don't have to speak. I beg your pardon for my being so forward',” she said in an exaggerated imitation of his accent and speech mannerism, and the most extraordinary thing happened then: Erik laughed. A genuine, if not very loud or long, but clearly amused laugh, teeth white and shining in the dim light of the approaching morning.
“I do not talk like that,” Charles complained, pouting against the twitching around his own lips.
“Oh, you do, too,” Raven replied, still mocking his British pronunciation as she exchanged a glance with Erik, who shrugged. “A little bit.”
He knew the amusement was more or less superficial - none of them would be able to forget what had happened tonight oh so quickly - but Charles was glad for every second it lasted. And so he leaned in when Raven bumped her shoulder against his, still smiling but shivering slightly as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her close.
Erik remained beside them, but to Charles he seemed lost now, excluded. For a second he felt the urge to reach out and pull him into their hug as well. He did not do it.
~ TBC ~
Chapter 5