“Welcome! Will you be joining us for dinner this evening or did you call for pickup?” a cheery woman in her mid thirties greeted Charles with a warm smile as he entered the small family restaurant.
He gave her his most charming grin in return and replied in the affirmative, “I seem to have been the first to arrive, I can wait here until he shows up.” He assured her, knowing that many restaurants refused to seat incomplete parties.
She brightened up at his words, “Oh! Do you know Kenny?”
Charles blinked at the odd non sequitur and skimmed her mind for an image of a handsome young man with floppy brown hair and bright blue eyes. If it hadn’t been for his height Charles could have been looking in the mirror as a teenager.
“No, sorry. I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure,” he asked, bemused. He could see the embarrassment light the woman’s mind at his words.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just thought…Well, I can seat you, as you can see we’re not busy this evening, no use leaving you standing in the cold.” She gestured to the door just behind him where a light draft of late autumn wind was cooling the foyer.” I’ll seat you in Kenny’s section. I’m sure you’ll hit it off right away,” she said brightly. Her mind shone in delight at the thought of the handsome young man who seemed to have a small crush on her. She soaked up his attraction like a flower did water; her husband had recently left her for a younger woman and her self esteem had taken a massive hit.
Charles’ heart went out to her. He followed her through the twist of tables to a small booth in one corner after she ascertained the number of people he was expecting. “Do let me know if you need anything else, your server will be with you shortly.” She said brightly before stopping off at the waiter’s station to speak to the young man Charles had seen in her mind. She made her way back to the hosts stand to wipe down menus and greet customers as they came in.
Charles relaxed into his seat with a sigh. It was nice to take a night off to himself every once in a while. Hopefully the school would still be standing when he returned he thought wryly before pushing thoughts of his personal life aside and coasting lightly on the skimmed emotions of his fellow patrons and the members of staff.
It was a pleasant start to the evening and he wondered idly why the hostess had thought he knew this young man, other than their similar appearance of course. It was something deeper than that, but he liked a bit of mystery and didn’t want to pry.
“Good evening sir, my name’s Kenny and I’ll be serving you this evening,” said a warm voice, radiating kindness and a bit of anxiety.
Charles perked up at the sound of his precise British accent, happy to have discovered the reason behind their supposed connection, “Hello, young man. It’s nice to meet a fellow country man around here!” he said with a bright smile.
Kenny looked startled as well, his fair cheeks flushed a dull red as he fidgeted his apron, and Charles hid a smile at the uncertain mannerisms teenagers possessed. He found them endearing after so many years of rearing youngsters that age.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you too sir,” he offered a shy grin before asking Charles if he was ready to order. Charles declined, and told him he was waiting on the rest of his party to arrive. The spent a moment chatting about what had brought them to upstate New York. Charles told him about his school, but didn’t mention that he was one of the mutants who had brought down Apocalypse. He blurred the impression of himself in the minds of others. He now understood why Raven hid in the face of her celebrity.
It was exhausting to have people rush to him all the time, wanting to express their gratitude and thanks. He wondered how Erik dealt with it, though the helmet had undoubtedly lessened the recognition factor for his recalcitrant friend.
Kenny had recently moved to the area for his mother’s job. He and his younger sister were enrolled in a nearby school. He was nearly sixteen and was excited to have gotten his learners permit a few weeks before.
Charles listened to him with a soft smile, encouraging the shy young man to speak at length. He could see in his mind that he had no friends and hadn’t left any behind in England either. He’d been happy for the move if only because his crush on their neighbor had started to become a problem.
He was deeply private and held a self loathing that surprised Charles with its vehemence. Kenny held a dark secret close to his heart, and it was destroying him from within. Charles frowned internally, something wasn’t adding up here.
“Oh, looks like drinks are getting low, I’ll bring you some water to tide you over and I’ll be back in a moment,” he said warmly before rushing off to refresh the drinks and clear a few plates at nearby tables.
Charles grimaced to himself. His run in with Apocalypse had resulted in more than the (thankfully temporary) loss of his hair, and his reclaimed ability to walk. His powers were greatly enhanced and with focus he no longer needed Cerebro to see a hundred miles in any direction. The greatest difference had come from his ability to see glimpses of the future of those he came into direct contact with. He got around this by projecting an image of himself for others to shake hands with, and with cold weather coming up he’d be able to wear gloves nearly all the time and avoid the issue all together.
He hesitated for a moment, wondering if his meddling would be welcome, what if he discovered the young man’s secret and saw a dark future for him that Charles couldn’t prevent? What if his meddling only made matters worse?
He glanced across the restaurant as Kenny stopped by a table to admire the drawing a young child had completed. The feeling of self loathing swelled, intermingled with a glimmer of something that the young man suppressed too quickly for him to be certain of. But a suspicion was raised, and it was enough for Charles to make a decision.
When Kenny came back to his table with a class of ice water, he ordered a whiskey, neat and teased the young man about not remembering to card alcohol purchases when he returned with it from the bar. The young man blushed again and chuckled along, but the self hatred had dimmed his mood and clung to the surface of his mind like viscous tar.
Charles took the glass from him and allowed their fingers to brush lightly as he did. In a flash he saw Kenny and the girl next door, his crush back home. He saw her and understood. He understood the glimmer present in his mind when he served families with young children, a glimmer that hid a deep attraction that the young man reviled himself for even as he struggled to come to terms with it.
He felt so alone, so trapped, he had nowhere to turn and no one to tell. He was overwhelmed with guilt and doubt. He wanted more than anything to be normal.
Charles saw him go through the years of his life, lonely and alone. Never dating, never making close friends, and collecting a small stash of highly illegal images on his computer as his only comfort. Then the urges would grow, would grow too strong and consume him, but he was a good kid and he’d become a good man. He’d never hurt a child, and when he felt he couldn’t resist anymore, he’d hang himself in his single bedroom apartment at 23, just a few years out of college and just making headway in the tech industry.
Charles washed the bitter taste of Kenny’s life out of his mouth with a deep swig of his whiskey. He took note of the look of defeat already growing in those familiar blue eyes and nodded his thanks as Kenny returned to his duties.
He finished his drink as he watched the family get up to leave, the little girl that had caught his eye earlier had dropped her toy. He rushed to hand it to her mother and spent a moment in conversation with her where the young woman graced him with a sweet smile and told him he was great with kids. The glimmer of attraction shimmered for a long moment, bright a pure, even as the self loathing encompassed his heart and soul like an impenetrable shadow.
Why couldn’t he feel that for her mother, only a few years older than himself? Or for his manager, who flirted with him lightly all the time? Why did he have to be made this way? Sick this way? He waived his goodbyes and returned to his duties with a downcast gaze.
“Charles?” he glanced up, startled out of his miserable reverie of the poor young man.
“Erik,” he said warmly, standing to shake the other man’s hand before they reclaimed their seats.
“Did I actually sneak up on you? Without the helmet?” he asked with a worried frown painted on his strikingly handsome features.
“Yes, I was occupied with other things,” he said sadly.
Erik tensed, mind whirring with all the possible reasons for Charles’ low mood, “Are your kids alright? The X-men doing fine?” he asked sharply.
Charles hid a chuckle in his drink and shook his head slowly, “I’m afraid I’ve simply made a strangers troubles my own again,” he nodded towards their waiter as he made his way to their table with his smile pinned back in place.
Erik relaxed at his words and perked up at the sight of the handsome young man, “Why Charles is there something you need to tell me?” he teased with a grin.
Charles rolled his eyes at his friend’s idea of a joke ~You can stop thinking it, he’s not my son. We just happen to look alike~ he thought as Kenny came into hearing distance.
Erik raised both hands in a playful gesture of surrender; he greeted the young man, mind flaring with amusement when he heard his familiar accent. But he wisely chose not to tease his friend any further about it. He ordered a glass of scotch and waited a moment after he had left the table to raise an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Well? Is he a distant relative? A mutant? Is going to manifest soon and you want him to attend your school?” he asked casually.
Charles hesitated, reluctant to tell him, knowing how pedophiles were viewed, especially by parents of young children. And Erik would always remember Nina as she had been, his sweet innocent baby. Charles shared his disgust but it was tempered with sincere compassion for those afflicted.
He knew the struggle of sexuality all too well, he remembered being bisexual in the sixties and seventies. Remembered the fear of being attracted to men. How much worse would that have been without the protection of his telepathy? How much worse would it have been to have a physical mutation before they were widely accepted?
He knew all too well the pain and frustration of suffering under a burden he didn’t choose and couldn’t change.
“He’s sick. I think I can help,” he said softly, leaning over the table into Erik’s personal space.
His features softened in understanding, “Mentally sick?”
Charles gave a shaky nod, “Just manifesting.”
Erik placed a hand over his for a long moment before sitting back in his seat, mind whirring through the help Charles had provided him over the long months of their joint recovery. They’d met in various locations every few weeks. He’d allowed Charles to soften the grief of the loss of his family and cope with his newly heightened powers. He’d brought him back from the brink of suicide and from the depths of depression. Charles had undeniably saved his life.
“Do what you can,” he said, glancing at the telepath from beneath his long eyelashes in a way that made his heart race.
Charles nodded and gave him a gratefully smile. Kenny returned to their table ready to take their dinner order, which he did with kindness and alacrity. They talked softly while they waited for their food to arrive. Discussing the weeks they’d spent apart and simply enjoying one another’s company.
It was odd, Charles thought, being with Erik this way when he once thought they would never be apart. They’d been separated for far longer than they’d ever been together, but the marks they’d left on one another, good and bad, had stood the test of time.
He thought of the scar over his now healed spine, he remembered Erik’s joy, the feeling of absolution that came over him as he watched Charles take his first steps in twenty years after their battle with En Sabah Nur. He was happy sitting here with his friend. He wanted the same for Kenny, and he’d help him achieve it if he could.
When Kenny returned with their food, Erik tucked in with a small smile, sending Charles a subtle wink. Charles smiled and grasped the waiter by the arm as he told them to enjoy their meal and turned to go.
He looked back, surprised, “Yes, sir, was their anything else I can help you with?”
“Actually I think there might be something I can help you with,” he said softly. ~I’m a telepath. Do you know what that means?~
Kenny paled and swallowed convulsively, glancing between him and Erik with a look of blank terror printed on his face.
“You can read my thoughts?” he asked, panicked. He remembered the little girl and her family, his neighbor in England, the guilty internet searches late at night, trying not to feel this way but unable to help it. Tears filled his wide blue eyes as he chewed his lower lip, “Please don’t tell. I’m-”
~I know~ Charles hushed him before he could say anything incriminating about himself. ~I can do more than read minds, I can break them too. Or fix them if they are broken~ he waited for understanding to come over the young man’s features.
A reluctant light of hope lit within his bright eyes, he didn’t dare hope that Charles could reset his attraction.
He glanced at Erik once more before leaning forwards and simply saying, “Please. If you can help me. Fix me.”
Charles nodded and pressed two fingers to his temple, he hadn’t needed the gesture for years, but it had made a comeback as he struggled to control his new, more advanced powers.
The young man tensed as Charles took a breath and slid into his mind. With bit of very careful rewiring of the hardware of Kenny’s mind he was done. As a last act, he blurred the images and imaginings the young man had formerly held as they would disgust him now in a way he couldn’t possibly have imagined just moments before.
He pulled back with ease, soothing the young man’s self loathing and wiping his misery away with a gentle wave.
He opened his eyes and dropped his hand, Erik wasn’t even pretending to eat anymore, he watched as Kenny took a deep breath.
He glanced anxiously between them and paused for a long moment, running through his thoughts and attractions. He was all of fifteen so most of his thoughts centered around sex anyway. But now the girls were of an appropriate age, an age that would increase with him.
It amazed Charles how such a small deviation in the psyche could wreak such terrible harm in the lives of so many.
Kenny gasped and pulled Charles up into a tight embrace, he’d channeled it very clearly so Charles was expecting it and simply wrapped his arms around the slender teen and held him for a long while. He pressed his damp face into the curve of Charles’ neck and breathed through the tears.
It was the work of the moment to make sure no one noticed this breakdown, he was sure Erik had handled the security cameras as well. There was no need for this to anything more than a memory shared by the three of them.
Charles saw the surge of his future in that moment, a charming young man, quiet but friendly. Getting his first girlfriend within a few months, with more to come after that, making new friends- some that would last a lifetime, growing up, having a career, getting married and having a family of his own. Dying of old age surrounded by his loved ones, barely realizing the warped course his life could have taken had he not met a kind telepath one day when he was fifteen.
“Thank you, thank you, Thank you!” he gasped shakily, finally pulling back with a feeling of such joy and relief that Charles felt weak in the knees.
“You’re welcome, Kenny.” Charles smiled as he reclaimed his seat. He pressed his contact information into the young man’s mind. “If you ever need anything else, feel free to ask.”
Kenny nodded gratefully before stumbling off to have another cry, Charles knew. And likely to engage in a lurid sexual fantasy about an adult woman. The first of his life, but certainly not the last.
“It seems you’ve saved another soul, Charles.” Erik said dryly. But when he looked up, Erik was giving him a warm look as a soft smile played about his lips.
“Seems so,” Charles said thickly, swallowing his tears. It was true, and it was worth it every time. Erik took his hand once more, but this time he didn’t let go.
~~
In the coming months he thought of Kenny every once in a while and was grateful to see that he was doing very well when he ghosted over him while using Cerebro or practicing his long distance control. The boy lived barely twenty miles away, now well within his range.
Charles was out walking the grounds one day after classes had been let out, enjoying the brisk winter air and weak sunlight as he traipsed through the snow when he felt a panicked mind approaching, it was lit with fear, rage, and embarrassment.
It was Kenny, driving without a licensed chaperone. Charles rolled his eyes, wondering if all teenage rebellion took on the same form.
He informed Peter that they had guests and asked that they be greeted and let in as he made his way back to the house as quickly as possible.
By the time he’d made his way back to the mansion, Kenny and a young woman that he introduced as his sister, Katherine were waiting in the foyer.
“Hello, Kenny, how are things?” Charles asked warmly, greeting him with a warm handshake before turning to do the same to his sister. He was grateful for the layers of winter wear they were all still swathed in that prevented information overload.
The young man glanced nervously at his little sister, “Things are fine, thank you.” He blushed rosily as he spoke, still unspeakably grateful for the help Charles had provided.
“What brings you here unaccompanied?” he asked, with a slight frown. He glanced into Kenny’s mind and saw that all was well. His brain was functioning perfectly and had accepted his new neural networks with ease. But the kids were both on edge, and Katherine had clearly been crying.
“You said if I needed help, I could come to you. I didn’t know where else to go,” he began shakily.
“Come with me,” Charles instructed sharply, having caught a glimpse of what was running through their minds. They followed him into his study where they shed their winter things and warmed themselves by the fire as Charles made them all tea with his electric kettle.
“Now," he said firmly, "start from the beginning.”
He listened to their story with slowly mounting rage. Months ago, Katherine had downloaded an app to her laptop to watch movies. Well, Kenny’s laptop really, she’d messed up on hers and had borrowed his until he got home from work and took it back with a great deal of irritation.
He’d run malware checks on both machines and they’d gone about their lives as usual, but apparently they’d been hacked. An anonymous group had contacted Katherine informing her that she had been being watched for months, they had shown her a video of her sexual exploration with her boyfriend as it had been captured through her webcam. Up to and including the loss of her virginity. It had been edited to look like a sex tape. It was graphic, explicit, and a total violation.
They had threatened to post it online, to share it with all of her contacts unless she did their bidding. She had been petrified and had gone to her brother in tears, not knowing what to do. Only Charles was aware of the relief Kenny felt at not having been the one caught, and certainly not with the pictures he would have been perusing just a few weeks prior.
“I think they were just waiting for one of us to do something ‘wrong’ and then they’d start the blackmail,” he concluded their story anxiously.
“I’m glad you came to me. I’ll take care of this,” he said shortly. Katherine’s phone chimed just as he finished speaking. She unlocked the screen with shaking hands.
“It’s my first instruction,” she said fearfully.
Charles grit his teeth and calmed his mind, he sent his power out into the surrounding area. He didn’t have to go far. He found them in a small apartment in New York City. They were a group of three friends who pulled ‘pranks’ like this for fun. They were cruel, brilliant, bullies. Charles’ least favorite kind of people, so much wasted potential.
He made them delete their hundreds of files on dozens of people. They had been planning to force them all into some sick game of challenges to see how far they could push people to keep their secrets out of the public eye. They were going to make these people debase themselves and commit all kinds of crimes and humiliations for their pleasure.
Then they’d planned to release the information anyway.
Charles felt sick to his stomach reading their minds. They were vile, disgusting creatures who wanted to torture other human beings for their personal viewing pleasure. He hated to do it but he reshaped their minds and ended their friendship with one another.
They were no longer the clever bunch that they had been, only depressingly ordinary in the face of the true genius they had once possessed. They would never be able to pull anything like this again; they wouldn’t have the inclination or the ability.
Within a few moments Katherine’s phone chimed again, she glanced at the screen in shock. “It says it was all a joke, please forgive them, the files have been deleted.” She looked blissfully happy and frankly disbelieving.
“All’s well that ends well,” Charles opened his eyes with a smile. “Now, let’s see about getting you two back home, legally this time.” Kenny had the grace to blush at the shallow admonishment. Charles couldn’t help but smile at the bright future that stretched out ahead of them.
~~
His brief episode in the life of Kenny shaped Charles in the coming months and years. He put the word out that he could counsel those dealing with inappropriate urges that they needed help with. Thousands came forwards and he helped all those that he could, eventually teaching Jean and other telepaths to be able to practice the same technique.
“You’re a real hero, Charles,” Erik said softly to him one night as they played chess in the study. Erik had finally agreed to join them for good and had moved back into the mansion for good measure a few years before.
Charles felt the sincerity of his words to the core of his being and he grinned to his best friend and other half in the flickering firelight. “I’m glad you finally see it that way,” he teased before hesitating, eyes distant for a split second before he came back into himself with a bright smile. He loved a happy ending, especially one that he'd helped facilitate. He did the math in his head. It had been ten years, it was about that time.
Kenny had proposed. She’d said yes.