Chapter 3
CHARLES
The city seems to awaken as the night goes on, as if the city was a nocturnal creature finally stretching its legs after its day long slumber. People drinking and clubbing fill the streets, young adults shriek as they swagger through the streets with friends. The atmosphere brings back memories of the night I finished my dissertation.
“So, what made you come find me?” I ask hesitantly, finally putting words to the question that has been nagging at me all night.
“I was tired of being alone… and you’re the only person I’ve ever met that seems to understand how that feels. You understood me when no else did, and I… just… I needed a friend, and I missed you.” Erik’s mind opens up to me relaying the dark loneliness that has plagued him for so many years, a loneliness that I too have felt. I see Erik on the run, in dark houses that had become his temporary sanctuaries, his only places of respite. I feel his years of isolation locked in the pentagon. The jagged knife of time has pierced Erik filling the wound with years of emptiness. I remember when we first met, and I could see in his eyes and feel in his heart that he just needed someone to understand him and as desperately then as I do now I want to fill that hole. When I look at him now his eyes burn bright in the starlight and I no longer see a man tormented with years of being an outcast, I see a man who just like me is no longer alone, I see a friend.
I can tell that this whole day has been a lot for Erik a man who seldom shares his feelings with others, let alone me, I can tell by the way he’s hunching his shoulders he is curling back in on himself.
“What about you? Why did you leave.” I can tell he’s trying to change the subject, to take the pressure off himself. I know that I have to be honest with him.
“I messed up Erik. What I did to Jean, I can never forgive myself for that, for what happened to Raven… I just feel I’ve forgotten everything I stood for. I got so wrapped up in everything, I got wrapped up in being a ‘superhero’ that I forgot what this was all for, what the school was for, and it- it was best for me to step down.” I take a shaky breath trying to calm the whirl of thoughts in my brain, I haven’t told anyone this before, I haven’t told anyone about the dark splotch that will forever tarnish my soul. It takes me a moment to realize Erik has stopped walking and I have to turn my chair around to face him.
“Charles, you are the bravest kindest man I know, and while we didn’t see eye to eye, I know more than anyone that your intentions were only for good. You cannot blame yourself for what happened to Jean.” I can tell Erik is trying to protect, me from whatever I’m going through. Is this why he came back, to give me a home because he thinks I need to be taken care of? Well this isn’t something that I can just run from, I can’t excuse my actions.
“That doesn’t make my actions right, I can never make what happened to Jean right, I must face what I have done, Erik.”
“Charles-.” I hold up a hand cutting him off, I felt something. I hear whispers in my mind from something nearby. We are in a rougher part of town, the shops are crooked with roofs that sag inward, we are far past the streets full of light and laughter. The skin on the back of my neck prickles, we are not alone. The darkness of the street and the allies make me far too much aware of how vulnerable to attack Erik and I are; while we are both class A mutants, it is still an unsettling feeling. Sensing my uneasiness Erik raises his hands preparing for whatever fight comes our way. Something shifts in the darkness of the alley, a movement of darkness swirling churning, I can sense a heartbeat, a mind closed off to me. Erik still looks around bewildered unable to see or sense the dark mass. A white hand reaches out of darkness and points a skeletal finger towards me. A white light flares across my brain, images flash rapidly in my vision, I see a small girl, a girl that seems so familiar. The girl raises her hand and rests it on my chest and I feel my heart tighten, as if her boney fingertips where tightening a noose around it, I see her lips forming my name, my name.
“Charles! Charles.” Erik shakes me his hands set firmly on my shoulders; my neck drops forward as if the person in the dark has sapped all my energy. I bring up my hand and grasp Erik’s elbow for support.
“Charles, what the hell happened?” he can’t disguise the panic and fear in his voice. Before I have time to tell him what I saw, wh-what I felt a bang causes both of us to jolt. A group of young boys appears around the corner they have metal baseball bats—the source of the clang. We watch as they swing the bats hitting a mail box and sending it towards us, it lands at Erik’s feet with a thud. He pushes it with his toe the metal bending as if he’s doing it out of habit rather than out of the need to. Erik’s eyes meet mine. This is a fight we could easily win but I would rather avoid it all together, but I don’t know if that’s an option. I can already see the all too familiar glint in Erik’s eye whenever he’s presented with a challenge, and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop this stubborn bastard. The group of boys start towards us just now realizing we are here. They run towards us bats swinging, speaking in rapid French, what I can only assume were taunts and jeers.
*Do we run?* I think to Erik.
*No, I think these punks need to learn a lesson.* I roll my eyes, god this man is going to be the death of me.
The boys surround us, swinging their bats trying to look threatening. They begin yelling some more in French but when neither Erik or I respond one of the bigger boys begins talking in English.
“Look what we have here boys? Tu voit le petite homme et se petit copain, ils est laid.” he croons.
“A man with wheels and his chauffeur.” Another boy jeers in broken English.
I can feel anger radiating off of Erik it curls off him like smoke. I can easily have blinked and knocked them all out but maybe Erik was right, maybe they do need to be taught a lesson. Oh god what am I becoming? Despite the anger fuming from Erik’s interior his demeanor couldn’t be more then opposite.
“Oh, darlings you’re going to have come up with something better then that.” His words cause a stir in the young juveniles.
“Fuck you too chatte!” the teen grabs a bat from one of the other boys’ lunges at Erik. The club swings towards Erik. Erik closes his eyes causing the bat to stop in midair, sending the boy stumbling forward falling onto the cobble stones at Erik’s feet. The other boys freeze staring with their mouths open at the bat that floats revolving slowly in the air “c’est magie!” one of the boys screams.
“Erik!” I say giving a warning to the man. I close my eyes and open my mind to Erik stopping time as I see a play by play of a possible course of actions that could occur if I let Erik continue his madness. In Erik’s mind he doesn’t stop the bat, it continues to advance on the boys. The other boys’ bats fly out of their hands and circle them slowly advancing on each boy. A trash can begins to rattle the lid flying up and spinning rapidly faster and faster until it shoots into a wall behind one of the boys. I snap my eyes open the vison gone the single bat still revolving in the air harmless.
“Erik!” I reach out with my mind towards Erik desperately hoping to bight any violent action in the bud. He lets me in, and our minds are linked, and I try to send pulses of calmness,
The bat stops and falls like a comet hitting the cobble stones with a thud that echoes against the ally walls. The boys shout flinching away from the sound.
“Get out of here, leave! get out of here!” Erik screams I can see his cheeks flushing in the dim light of a streetlight, and just like that they all scamper off without even bothering to pick up their bats.
*Erick?* I reach out to him in my mind afraid of what state he’s in, afraid of which Erik I was talking to.
“I’m fine,” Erik let’s out a stifling breath.
I can’t help myself but send images of times before when his actions have gone too far, where his actions had caused suffering. The images send a jolt through his whole body and he turns on me.
“Charles, I had it under control!” he struggles to keep his voice steady, “I know what I’ve done! I don’t need a constant reminder of all the times I’ve fucked up!”
I push my chair forwards, passing Erik, I remember now how difficult it is to live with Erik, for one goddamn second I thought he was past this and yet here he is.
“Charles, listen to me.” Erik has caught up to me and grabs my shoulder, I push it off.
“Every time Erik! Why, why can’t you just—why can’t you just” I don’t know what I want him to 'just' be, but not this, because I know that this isn’t who he’s meant to be.
ERIK
Anger burns red at the edge of my vison, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, why the anger fills me up so quickly, but it does it swallows me whole and it makes it hard for me to keep control. I take a deep breath and look at Charles.
“Charles. I had the situation under control.” I say calmly as if talking to a startled animal, “I know you hate when you’re not in control, but you have to trust me. You can’t just use your power to take over my mind when you don’t like my actions. And you cannot use past memories as a weapon.” Charles still refuses to look at me.
“I saw it, I looked into your mind, you were going to hurt them, you were going to take it too far like you always do!” I’m hurt by his words, Charles always believed in me, he always gave me the benefit of the doubt. While he always tried to control my actions (most of the time I begrudgingly admit have been justifiable) I’ve never seen him lose hope with me the way he seems to be right now.
“Charles…” I hate myself for sounding hurt, for sounding weak, “you cannot persecute me and my actions before they even happen.” I walk over to the man, he looks so small in his chair, he runs is fingers over his bald scalp—a nervous habit that he’s picked up, I know that he’s still not used to the absence of hair.
“Erik, I’m sorry. I’m doing it again, the same thing I did to Jean. I couldn’t stand the idea of not being in control, of not being able to protect her from herself. In the process of trying to save her I destroyed her, I did the same to Raven, now to you.” He buries his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. “Why does every time I try to do something good it crumbles in my hands.”
“Because you’re a flawed, broken man, just like me. We match Charles. Perhaps we were destined for each other, in a sick twisted way, and together we’ll make something beautiful. Something that doesn’t fall apart.”
“Shit we’re a pathetic pair, old friend.”
“That we are, now come on we’ve got to get to bed.”
---
When we finally get to where Charles is staying, we’re both exhausted. I lean against the door happy to finally be able to get a much needed sleep.
“Do you have the key?”
“Yeah, here.” Charles pivots his wheelchair to face me. He misjudges how close I am to him and in the darkness his wheelchair crunches over my toe as he turns.
“Fuck! Charles.” I pull my foot out from underneath the wheel and rub the outside of my shoe in a futile attempt of easing the pain.
“Oh! I’m so sorry Erik!” Charles rolls his chair back away from me to avoid inflicting any more accidental injuries. “Are you alright?” he reaches a helping hand to me, giving me support as I stand on one foot trying to take pressure off the injured foot.
“I think it’s ok,” I lie. Charles gives me a concerned look, “honestly Charles, I’m fine. It’s just a little bruised is all.” I say with a halfhearted chuckle. Relief floods his face; he shakes his head with an exasperated, yet amused, huff.
“Shit tonight has been a little too eventful for my liking. Let’s just get some sleep and we can figure everything out in the morning, it’s been a long day.” I nod in agreement. Charles fishes around for the key from a bag, when he finally finds it, he inserts it into the door. When the door opens the first thing that hits me is the smell, I wrinkle my noise, the stench of blue cheese and cheap wine that hangs like a fog in the room. The room is small there’s only one queen size bed facing a small 12-inch tv. Charles rolls over to the bed where his suitcase sits open, he pulls out sleep wear and begins undressing.
“I can sleep on the floor.” I say, opening the single closet looking for spare sheets that I could use to create a makeshift bed, fighting the impulse to watch him change.
“It’s fine, we can share the bed.” I turn to face him, needing to know if this is a serious offer.
“Are you sure?” I ask hesitantly, despite any of the events today the single bed seems too intimate.
“Yes, it’s fine.” I turn from the closet seeing that Charles wearing a matching shirt and pajama bottoms.
“Do you need help?” I ask him, unsure if he needed assistance getting on the bed. He only glares at me as if I just asked the stupidest question in the world. Pulling back the bed sheets he heaves himself onto the bed. I don’t make any effort to join him as he makes himself comfortable adjusting his legs, so they lie flat, he notices my hesitation and sighs heavily.
“For Christ sake! Come over here and get some sleep old man.”