They sit across from one another in complete silence, brooding over morning coffee, or at least Erik seems to brood. Charles watches the metal-bender over the rim of his steaming cup, fascinated by the small twitches that would seem obsolete to anyone other than himself. Erik doesn't seem to notice him – not at first, at least; Charles blinks when those steely-blue eyes suddenly lift and meet his, unguarded and bright with sudden surprise, as though he's forgotten the telepath is there, less than three feet away. Charles sips his coffee, partly wishing for a cup of Earl Grey, and swallows slowly.
"You were dreaming," Charles ventures, entertaining the ground that neither of them has yet made to tread upon. A slight narrowing of his eyes and the fleeting approval in his mind tells Charles that he is right, as he often is. "Do you want to talk about it…?"
"Nein," Erik says hoarsely, but his quick smile softens the brittleness of his denial. "But for you, I will."
Charles leans back, wrapping his hands around his cup, and Erik sighs, his gaze growing distantly bleak.
"It was… shortly after my mother died," he begins softly. "Schmidt… Shaw… he was to perform a new series of tests that day." Charles nods encouragingly for Erik to continue when he hesitates, although a thin tendril of disturb seems to have turned the coffee in his stomach sour. Clearly, it had not been a good dream but considering the melted metal lumps floating around his bedroom earlier…
"Shaw strapped me into a chair and bound my hands and feet. He put some sort of instrument around my head, to monitor my mind or maybe so I couldn't move. He… I had to lay my hands flat so his assistant could insert needles under my nails." Erik stops but Charles can see the memory in his own mind. He is looking up at Shaw's smiling face circa 1940s. The room is sterile, tinged with a ghastly green light. "I couldn't feel the needles at first. They'd numbed the pain, but it would only last so long." Charles hears the words echoed by Shaw in his own ears, and a frightened chill runs up the length of his spine; the fear is not his own, but Charles cannot say he himself is not afraid.
"My task was to push the needles out before the drugs wore off," Erik finishes meekly. "I… it took several attempts before I did it right."
Charles believes him. He can feel the boy's pain and hear screams in a distant but all too present memory. He aches for the child and all the horrific suffering he's endured, but he fights to not let the pity show on his face or echo too strongly in his mind.
"I woke up just as the pain was reaching its worst," Erik adds, gaze flicking up to find Charles. "I could see you, in the room with me."
"I was in the dream?" Charles can't pretend to not be surprised.
"Yes," he nods. "I saw another boy, younger than me, with the same procedure being done to him. I didn't know who he was… that is, until he opened his eyes." Erik takes a swallow of coffee and gestures with the hand holding the mug. "He had the same eyes that I see right now, in front of me."
"Oh."
"I knew that if he was there and I didn't close my eyes, it wouldn't hurt as much as before. I could be brave, if we endured the pain together. He understood what I was facing, and I wasn't alone." Erik shakes his head and the glimpse of Charles' boyish face, pale with fright and running tears, vanishes as suddenly as it has appeared. "And then you were there, standing over me, and the nightmare ended."
"It was an awful dream," Charles comments distantly, trying to forget seeing himself in a situation he's never been. The image has rubbed off on him, leaving him feeling slightly haunted. "Do you have ones like that frequently?" He means to ask if Erik dreamed of him often, but he can't quite bring himself to ask. A flush heats his face and he bends his head to hide his uneasiness.
"Yes. Every night," Erik answers softly. "Sometimes they aren't so bad. Other nights…" he breaks off, letting the silence speak for him. Charles stops himself from shuddering; it isn't often that he suffers nightmares or restless nights, and he can't imagine lying down to bed every night, alone in the dark with only his memories to keep him company.
"Shaw is a terrible person," Charles says with a hint of passion tempering his words. He reaches out a hand, a bridge of empathy. "But if you've ever thought you are, you're wrong."
"Charles, I know what I am," Erik bristles with disagreement. "I'm a monster. Shaw made me into this... this twisted creation that I am. I was never…." He breaks off and the spoon resting on the saucer suddenly bends, curling in on itself. Charles' eyes widen slightly at the display of his power; it has forever astonished him, but the display has provided clarity to Erik's reasoning. He sees his powers as a curse, one that Shaw and the war had evoked. In another lifetime, Charles assumes ruefully, Erik might have developed his powers under different circumstances, one that could have been used for good and never with evil intention or for foul purpose. "Shaw took so much away and left this behind."
"Your hunger for vengeance I can understand," Charles reasons lightly. "But your powers… you are a mutant. You have these brilliant, beautiful powers and they are part of you. You are capable of that," he gestures to the deformed spoon. "It's who you are, Erik. You aren't a monster."
"Die Dinge, die ich getan habe," he speaks in German, but the rough sorrow of his tone holds enough resent and regret that Charles can understand. "Die Dinge, die ich tun will… Charles, you wouldn't understand."
"No, quite frankly I don't." He doesn't mean for the dash of humour to sneak into his voice, and Erik blinks, a spot of colour coming to his cheeks.
"I often forget you don't know German. Forgive me," Erik smiles, and the tension in the air eases some. "I thought that because you are a telepath you might…"
"You forewarned me to keep out of your head. I've respected your request as best as possible," Charles points out. "But unless you wouldn't mind…" he gestures to his temple with a wiggle of his fingers. Erik shrugs.
"Whether you want to wander around in there or not is your choice," he relents with a sigh. "But as I was saying before, you wouldn't understand why I've done the things I've done. I doubt you would, at least."
"Oh?" There is a challenge in the undercurrent, and Erik detects it easily and he stiffens.
"No, you don't know what it's like to be in my position. You don't know what it means to be tortured and have everything stripped away – your clothes, your skin… your will to live." His voice deepens to a rasp and he blinks hastily, fighting back angry tears. "You've been sheltered all of your life. I've done nothing but hunt or be hunted since the war ended, and try to find that man and salvage whatever there is left of me."
Charles doesn't know what to say. Frankly, he is too afraid to speak. Erik is trembling, soul laid bare, mind blurry with images so dark and gruesome and so on display that Charles can do little more than clutch the cup between his palms, relying on the delicate porcelain to keep him steady.
Yet, Erik has never been so poignantly alive and earnest… so vulnerable. It breaks his heart to see it.
He must have forgotten to shield his thoughts because Erik makes a sudden sound and stands, scraping the chair back and beginning to storm away. Charles is on his feet in seconds, rushing after the metal-bender, throat tight with frustrated worry. "Wait," he says, following the stiff set of shoulders ahead of him. "Erik, wait."
"Why?" Erik snaps, rounding on Charles. He towers over the telepath and, somewhere in the mansion, Charles hears metal groan. His skin prickles but he doesn't shrink away and he refuses to back down. Not now, not when he finally can see past the carefully-maintained walls.
"I don't see a monster, Erik," Charles says urgently, grabbing his sleeve, hoping to make him understand. Erik closes his eyes, features tightening as though he is in pain. "I just see you."
"You might see me, Charles," Erik whispers brokenly, eyes still shut. "But all I see in the mirror is Shaw's creation."
~X~
Erik does his best to keep a distance between himself and Charles. He isn't sure if he can look the telepath in the eye after what had been said between them. Following the path around the exterior of the mansion, he finds himself repeating pieces of their conversation over and over, scolding himself for not saying differently, or for speaking altogether.
The terrifying memory of the nightmare still lingers in the back of his mind. His fingers twitch, remembering the unbearable pain of the needles and his fervent effort to force the metal free from delicate tissues. Again and again, he had failed; his success was found through hatred for Schmidt, hatred for the war and not being able to save his mother. That was how he succeeded, all those years ago strapped into the chair. The relief he had felt, when the needles dropped to the floor and his hands tingled with pain he couldn't yet feel, his heart racing a mile a minute – Erik recalls it now.
Unfortunately, it had not been the last test. No… it had been one of the first.
But then the boy with the blue eyes had been there in the dream, in a room mirroring his own, separated by a pane of glass. They had screamed together, cried together, suffered in sheer agony together. Erik hadn't known who the boy was until he'd seen his face clearer and heard his accent. Charles.
Erik had been horrified by the revelation, every part of him denying what he was seeing. Charles couldn't be there, he shouldn't be there. His screams rang with bloodcurdling fury then, his agony forgotten, and he had startled awake to find Charles himself leaning worriedly over his bed, eyes glowing and hair caught with pale umber streaks.
Reaching the front of the mansion again, he is reluctant to enter, leaving the deepening light of dusk behind for the warm blush of indoors. Making his way to his room, he passes Charles' door. Pausing in step, he turns and heads back, using his powers to flick the door handle ahead of him and lets the door swing open as he enters.
It is dark, the fire unlit and the furniture unoccupied. Their unfinished game sits on the board, too soon to have collected a layer of dust but each piece is cold and still. Erik leans against the doorframe for a moment, feeling as though he is intruding. A smaller part of him wishes Charles had been here, perhaps sitting with a book, as he often was come this time of evening.
Casting aside his wishes, Erik wanders into Charles' room, kicks off his shoes and falls face first onto the bed. It smells like Charles. He breathes deeply, feeling the weight of the day loosen from his muscles and he rolls onto his side. The tired fog in his head expands and thickens, lifting him away.
~X~
Charles never expected to find Erik fast asleep on his bed when he finally left Raven and the others playing cards downstairs to recline with a glass of scotch and book before bed.
At first, he isn't sure what to think. He watches the metal-bender slumber, chest rising and falling in idle, his breaths slow with a faint whistle. He looks so genuinely peaceful that Charles cannot bear to disturb him.
Relaxing into his chair and snapping on the small light next to it, he pours a small nip into a glass and resumes reading where he left off. The words begin to blur after a time, the ink running to grey and then not at all. Setting his glass aside before he drifts off, Charles lets his head fall back and his mind blanks as sleep closes his mind.
He is immediately elsewhere, standing in a dirt yard surrounded by chain link fences, their tops stretching high and covered with barbed wire. Charles glimpses bits of bloodstained cloth and flesh clinging to the rusted metal and looks away. The day is saturated so slightly, sepia-tinted and dim with the heavy cloud cover. In the distance, across the dirt yards where hundreds of slaving labourers are seen digging, lying on the ground unmoving, or running laps naked as men shout in German, striking those who are too slow with the crack of a whip, tower two enormous chimneys. Smoke drifts thick and black across the concentration camp. Charles shudders, disturbed.
"Charles." He turns to find Erik on the other side of the fence, in another yard separate from his. He's the age he is now, but he's emaciated and hunched over a little, his immaculate sense of style replaced by torn, filthy rags and crude trousers. His feet are bare and caked with mud. He raises his hands and loops his fingers through the fence, making it clink softly. His eyes are enormous orbs set in the stark lines of his face, unshaven, the outline of his skull jutting along the edges. Charles goes to him.
"Erik, this is a dream," Charles begins gently. "Everything you see, it's not real."
"It was real," Erik murmurs, looking past Charles at the labourers and the chimneys. "I worked with them, stacking the bodies into the ovens, sending them to the gas chambers. If I didn't work they'd torture me. Charles… Charles, I helped the Nazis. I was scared and I helped them kill people."
"It wasn't your choice. Erik, look at me," he raises his voice slightly. "You are not a monster, do you hear me? This isn't real. The past doesn't have to define your future."
"But it does." He sounds so weak, so hollow. Charles yearns to make him understand and help him believe, but there is no more time for words. A siren goes up and Erik shudders. "I have to go now. I have to collect the bodies…" Charles grabs for his hands in the fence, skinning his knuckles from carelessness, and clings to him.
"No, please," Charles begs. "Erik. For me. Do it for me, if not for yourself."
Erik's eyes well up with tears, horrified tears. They run down his cheeks, leaving trails in the layer of dirt and ash that made a thin mask over his rough skin. Charles refuses to let go of his hands, although his fingers are burning with pain, clinging to hope. Erik looks at his hands, the flayed bits of skin, and squeezes his eyes shut.
"How much pain will you endure for my sake?" he whispers, resting his forehead against the fence. "Why do you sacrifice yourself for my sanity, Charles?"
"Without hope, there is only pain," he answers. "Please, Erik. I need you to have hope in your heart. For me. For me." He presses his forehead to Erik's, repeating his wish in a mantra over and over in his head. The siren grows louder and the air grows thicker, black with smoke and the smell of burning skin.
"Hold onto me," Charles urges desperately. "Don't give up, please, Erik. Don't give up."
A bone chilling scream rips through Charles, echoing in his ears and his mind both. He opens his eyes and finds that Erik has vanished; his hands hold to the fence still but are sticky with blood, and smoke chokes him. "Erik!" he cries. "Erik!"
"Charles!"
Charles awakens abruptly and hears a contorted groan of suffering nearby. Recognizing it as Erik's, he claws his way out of his chair and staggers to the bed; crawling up its length, he collapses on the soft, uneven surface beside the writhing metal-bender and grabs him, shaking him urgently. "Erik, I'm here. Wake up. Do you hear me? Wake up!" Around him, he can hear the groaning of metal. An ornate vase on the table shudders and flies across the room, shattering something glass and exploding into pieces. Every metal object clamours, ready to either be flung or melt into a crumpled orb.
Horrified, Charles pushes into Erik's mind and, ignoring the images of corpses and fire, cries as loud as he can: WAKE UP! ERIK!
Erik heaves awake, gasping like a drowning man. He flails in a panic, his hand striking off of Charles face, before he notices him looming over him with wide eyes. "Ach, Charles. Ach, es war schrecklich."
"It's alright," Charles soothes, ignoring the blossom of pain on his mouth where Erik's accidentally hit him. "I'm here, it's alright." He wraps his arms around Erik, pressing his forehead down against his, eerily mirroring the dream. He can feel Erik's heart hammering where his hand rests against his neck. "Calm your mind," he whispers. "Calm your mind."
Erik's breathing eases and gradually, Charles feels the throbbing fear of his mind temper to tranquility.
"I couldn't see you anymore," Erik whispers after a time. "All I could see was the bodies and the smoke and the oven door…"
"Shh," Charles silences him. "Don't think about it. It was only a dream."
But Erik can't. "And you were one of them. I begged them not to put you into the fire, but they threatened to bring me to Shaw, and I had to obey them. I had to. Charles, es tut mir so leid. Ich wollte es nicht. "
Charles knows it is apologies. He can hear the aching remorse ringing so clearly that is couldn't not be heard. He doesn't let go of Erik; how can he? He doesn't want to move for fear Erik will lose all control of himself. And, as much as he cannot admit it aloud, he's too scared to be alone either.
Instead, he shifts and makes himself more comfortable, lying down behind Erik and pulling him into his arms. He feels a note of surprise in Erik's mind but it's quickly dissolved by much-needed comfort. Blindly, their fingers interlock together and Charles, exhausted and too afraid to do much more, closes the layers of Erik's mind and draws him down into sleep before slipping under its heavy curtain himself.