Disclaimer: I own nothing. I own my mouse that exploded a month ago and the pencil next to me but the characters belong to Marvel Comics.
WARNINGS! PLEASE READ BEFORE READING!: The following contains mentions of child abuse, neglect and molestation. There's nothing explicit but there are some hints indicated. PLEASE DON'T READ THIS IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THAT KIND OF THING! PLEASE!
My grammar is horrible and since English isn't my first language...Please forgive me. I am so sorry in advance that this sucks.
It was quite startling, really.
In all my life, I would have never considered the possibility of it ever happening. It was just too bizarre to wrap my mind around, literally. Being a telepath, sensing 'anomalies' in other people was quite easy; it was almost like a sixth sense to me. But when it came to sensing those same 'anomalies' in myself… Now that was a very different story.
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. No matter how many times I re-read it, the words were always the same. Even though I had already known that the sheet of paper was going to contain things about me that even I didn't know about, I was still very stunned when I read it. Pretty much everything on the list was dead-on accurate.
It was odd. The story of my life, all recorded on a single sheet of paper.
And every single question I had was answered by just three simple words…
There were many things that I questioned in life. Being a professor, questioning everything was like a second nature to me. But there were always a handful of questions that were constantly there; puzzling me to no end.
One of the most popular ones was, "Why can't I reciprocate any feelings of love."
Now, I loved Raven with all my heart but I only loved her as a sibling. That kind of love was easy to give, especially to sister like her. When it came to stronger feelings of love, I got stuck. Ever since I was little, I've always had this intense craving for love and affection, but no matter what I did, I could never meet my expectations. No matter how many girls I had intercourse with; I never felt any emotional satisfaction with any of them.
For a long period of my life, I deemed my self simply incapable to love someone and incapable to be loved. Even Raven couldn't bring me out of my depression back then.
And why?
I guess it was simply because I realized that I didn't know the first thing about love.
As a child, I never received any affection from my family. I did have a father who loved me very much, but he died when I was very young so my memories of him and his love were hazy. It was almost like he never existed at all. I never had a mother to run to and expect unconditional love and care. Her love was always conditional; usually the only times she showed me anything relatively close to love was during her social parties. She was emotionally devoid and cold towards me. There were no tender hugs, no soft kisses, not even as simple "I love you." It was always neglect, criticism and hollow embraces. I was a ghost in a forgotten town. I was invisible; I simply did not exist in her world.
But it wasn't so bad; I had Raven by my side at least. She was the entire universe to me. She was the one who kept me grounded, who kept me sane.
And then Kurt Marko came into my life.
Marko was one of my father's co-workers. At first he seemed very kind and sympathetic towards my family. I liked him a lot; he was the first person – besides Raven and my father – who actually seemed to care about me. Not even a year after my father died, he married my widowed mother and became my step-father.
After that, everyday became a living hell.
It was beating after beating and after that, even more beatings. At the end of every beating, my body was littered with so many bruises that it became a challenge to find clothes large enough to hide them but still fit me at the same time. But the beatings weren't so bad. At least that way, I knew that someone acknowledged that I existed.
And then one day Marko…I shivered in discomfort at the resurfacing memories.
Marko wasn't always 'after' me. It was Raven at first…
I could still remember those hideous thoughts I accidently heard from Marko. Those thoughts were ones that no man should ever have, especially towards an innocent little girl. Raven was the only good thing in my life back then, I couldn't bear to see her hurt…especially in that way.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I went into Marko's mind – an experience I would rather not re-live – and re-directed those thoughts. Marko's predatory gaze shifted towards me.
Raven was never the wiser.
Neglected, abused, and tormented, it was no surprise that I became desperate for any kind of love.
I began to run around the city doing favours for people, even when they didn't ask. I took care of others before I even thought about taking care of myself. I scavenged for any scraps of good in people and clung onto them to feel something other than the darkness and evil that dwelled inside my soul. I savoured the compliments, the praise, and the recognition I got in return.
It was what kept me going because besides Raven, they were all I had.
But it still wasn't enough.
My craving was so large that I became obsessive and possessive to the point where Raven started to worry about my sanity, not that I could blame her. There was something wrong with me, and that something was me.
I became so frustrated with myself. No matter what I did, I couldn't meet my high standards for love. It was only after my frustrations built up to near breaking point that I began to throw severe emotional fits and tantrums like a child.
I blushed when I thought about my behaviour when I realized my standards could never be met.
I acted so…infantile.
The question of why I was like that of a little child also boggled my mind. I was certainly a young man who was nearing his thirties and I surely had the intelligence and appearance of one but why in the world did I act like a toddler all those times?
Once again, the sheet answered my question perfectly.
I already knew that something in my childhood had something to do with the way I was acting but I would have never had guessed that such a simple thing triggered my condition.
It was all because I never received any love from my own family.
Raven might've given me her entire heart but in a sense, her love was conditional. If I hadn't met her in my kitchen that one fateful night, I would have never known what it truly meant to be noticed and cared for.
I wanted so badly to just be held in my mother's embrace. I wanted an embrace that wasn't hollow or cold or forced. And most of all, I just wanted hear her say, "I love you."
Was that really so much to ask?
I guess it was.
And I hated it. I hated it. I hated it! I hated it!
I absolutely hated…me.
I was a freak. That was why my mother didn't love me. That was why Kurt Marko did all those things to me. That was why Cain, my step-brother, harassed me at home. That was why I was bullied so many times at school.
It was all because of me.
Why was I even born? I didn't belong in the world; I wasn't human. I didn't even know why I was even alive…I didn't need to exist because what was the point? No one would have cared…
And that was the truth.
But at the same time, it was also a lie.
Raven would have cared.
I knew that in the same that was she was my anchor, I was her anchor. I couldn't just up and leave her just because I felt like I had no reason to live. It would have destroyed her and that was the last thing I could have ever wanted. Even if I didn't want to move, I had too because I was the only thing left in Raven's world and she shouldn't suffer just because of me.
I had a sister to take care of. I had to go out into the world and meet people without letting them know I wanted to crawl into a hole a die. I had to be able to keep it together until my tears ran dry. I built a mask for myself to conceal my true emotions and carved a smile into my face because people aren't allowed to crack under the pressure in modern society.
Everything I did, it was all for Raven.
It was always for her. Always.
Raven, a perfectly normal and stable girl despite her past, was the only thing that got me up in the morning.
But that didn't mean my self loath stopped, it just worsened and worsened. It got to the point where I couldn't go one day without having thoughts that swirl around in my head pointing out all my faults and mistakes, telling me how worthless I am and reminding me that I was a monster. I just kept descending further and further into depression. Sometimes my depression was so overwhelming that I felt like hiding away from everyone and never coming out so that I could rot away in peace.
But I couldn't do that because I couldn't afford to.
Completely and utterly frustrated with myself, I pushed down the broken hearted child I once was deep inside me and I locked it up tightly. Once I cut away my ties to my past, I began to construct a new me. I 'became' the kind of person I always dreamed to be.
I 'became' a man that was confident, suave and easily likable.
Life was easy for the next couple of years.
And then the year of 1962 came by.
So many things happened just like that. I became a professor, got hired by the CIA, and met so many mutants that were just like me.
There was Sean, Alex, Hank, Darwin, Angel…Erik
It wasn't just Raven depending on me anymore; I had a whole group of people depending on me. And oddly enough, I didn't find that fact the least bit bothersome. It was actually quite reassuring to know I wasn't that bad. At least I was good enough to take care of them.
They accepted who I was and took me into their hearts.
I smiled.
My heart wasn't as empty as it once was; it was filled to the brim with the one thing that I've been looking for all my life.
Love.
Though there was always a small voice in the back of my head telling me that they didn't love me for me. They didn't love the real me, they loved the fake me. They loved the me who was comforting and always smiling.
Well…They all did except for one person.
Erik Lehnsherr.
He looked past the mask I built for myself and found the me who I locked up so long ago. He barged into my soul and dragged my past self from its prison and brought it out into the world.
Just like I knew he would.
Right from the moment we met – which wasn't one of the greatest meetings in history – I knew that he was different. Something just…clicked.
Our views about the human race, the world, were universes apart that our friendship seemed almost unfathomable. He saw the bad in people and I saw the good. We were like night and day; too different to co-exist with each other, yet without the other, our lives would have been so empty.
If I had to describe our friendship with one word, I would have used 'admiration.'
Erik once confided in me that he admired people who could look so dignified and composed in the worst of situations. In return, I told him, "I am going to tell you something no one has ever heard before…Thank-you…"
His face was priceless.
I could remember seeing the utter confusion in his face before I felt something wet run down my cheeks. I dragged the back of my hand across my face and when I saw it, I stared at the wet marks. It took a second or two before it really sunk in…
I was crying.
I was crying for the first time in years.
My shoulders trembled and I started to laugh. I laughed, of all things. I fell to my knees and I furiously wiped my tears away while laughing like a maniac. All the emotional walls I built up to shelter my past self began to crumble. Wall after wall, they broke down. Guess what I saw after that? Another wall!
And then Erik did something so unpredictable…
He hugged me.
My laughter turned into sobs as I buried myself into his embrace. For the first time in my life, I felt a warm embrace. My deep craving for love just suddenly disappeared because I was finally receiving what I needed most…unconditional love.
We were like two puzzle pieces; we fitted together despite out many differences.
But I still couldn't help but feel a little suspicious.
I chuckled humourlessly at the thought; now that was pathetic. Even after all we've been through, I was still suspicious of my own best friend. I was still afraid to look Erik in the eye for fear that I would see disapproval shining in them.
How could anyone possibly like me if the woman who gave birth to me hated me?
I just couldn't see it as being possible.
I knew there was something wrong with me and I finally found out what it was. Now I knew why I always felt detached from everyone else; like I was on the outside looking in. Now I knew why I acted like a toddler when things became too much. Now I knew why I broke down crying when I felt someone's unconditional love.
The cause wasn't me. I wasn't a freak or an alien and there was nothing wrong with me.
It wasn't my fault that I was so messed up. Everything that went wrong in my life was caused by just three simple words.
Emotional deprivation disorder.
My name was Charles Xavier and I had emotional deprivation disorder.
Author's Notes: I cannot say for sure that Charles actually has the disorder I mentioned. Though I can say with confidence that this disorder does exist. It really does. And it hurts. A lot. I don't have it but I know some people that do and it breaks my heart every time I see them like that.
This was actually my English homework...I was supposed to pick a character and ...how you Americans say, 'put myself in their shoes.' I picked Charles and I really wanted to do an in-depth character study and considering his past...Yeah.
Is it normal for a 14 year old girl to have such vivid perceptions about the human mind?