If Satellite Dishes Could Talk.
Erik rested his forehead against the window pane, huffing a warm breath onto its surface. This training was hurting more than he had planned. Give him a speeding metal projectile any day.
"Ready?" Charles had remained seated whilst attacking his mental systems, as if he had not a care in the world; after that first day of reaching inside his mind and the explosion of emotion it had caused in his chest, Charles worked hard on his own barriers.
"Is this entirely necessary?" Erik almost growled as he turned to face the Professor. As usual, Erik wore easy fit clothes – ready for combat, whilst Charles insisted on keeping on his tie and jumper.
"We have been through this before; Emma Frost is unlikely to target me now is she? Put. Up. Your. Barriers. Build an impenetrable wall. Come on, I know you have been doing it your whole life – now is the time, and I hate to say it Erik, now is the time to ensure that you let no body into your head, not even me – she's an illusionist remember?"
Letting out a sigh, Erik rolled his neck and closed his eyes, steadying himself for the intrusion Charles was sending his way.
Charles was not as calm as he appeared to be. He hated doing this; searching Erik's mind for deliberately personal memories that Frost could use against him.
Navigating past recent memories, the ones pulsing with a small warm light at the front of his mind, Charles targeted the thoughts hiding at the base of Erik's skull. As before, he started to probe the dark mass, reaching in, slowly extracting visuals that danced across the link back to him.
With a gasp Erik quickly thrust Charles out of his head. His knuckles white against the window sill, feet braced, as he mentally constructed a steel wall around that particular memory. None was to know about that. Not even Charles. Especially not Charles. The metal latches on the door rattled, and the steel runged ladder shuddered against the bookcase. The whole room thrummed with magnetic energy.
As the professor sat breathing heavily, he thought things over. He was determine to analyse the little amount of essence he had managed to extract, to prove to Erik how he had to be so much faster if he wanted to protect himself.
It was a dream; fuzzy around the edges and suffused more with feeling then fact, and an overlying feeling of need. Like a film clip, the weak image zoomed in on a large white object criss-crossed with lines. The camera flickers and the image rotated. It's the satellite dish that sat in the grounds; the same one Erik threw Sean off the top of. Slowly, the curved edge moves around, and the feeling of need is pulsing strong; and a sense of...trepidation ... no... guilt ... surges across Charles' brain. Within the deep dip of the structure were two figures, a short black haired figure was wrestling with the taller. No. They weren't wrestling...
And then came the blinding pain of being forcibly removed from someone's cerebrum .Both men stared across the room at each other, neither willing to admit exactly which intimate aspect of his fellow mutant Xavier had been able to access.
"R..right. I think that's enough for one night, don't you?" Charles raised his blue eyes, hoping he wasn't going to feel the metal of his watch tightening around his wrist, or something equally sinister.
With a gust of air, Erik exited the room. There was a loud crash as he simultaneously slammed the door and the metal tumbler he had been unconsciously levitating met the floor.