Thunder claps around, the room, a seemingly fitting weather type for the events which had passed over the previous day. Needless to say, the team were exceptionally lucky to still be in one piece. Naturally, Scott would need time to adjust to the loss of his brother – Charles had continued to remind himself that he would have to speak to the Summers family tomorrow to inform them of the loss of their son.
Now, those who could were trying to sleep off the events of today, while those currently unable to do so had banded together in the lounge, supporting each other in the small hours of the night.
As the clock changed to quarter past two, Charles began to wrestle as much as he could in his bed. Beads of sweat began to form on his head as he mumbled and groaned. "Get… get… GET OUT!" He cried, before he threw himself up into sitting on the bed and his eyes opened, a crazed and fearful look on his face.
All apparitions or visions in front of him disappeared – Apocalypse, who had tormented his dreams as if still in his mind, may as well have smirked at him as Charles broke down into quiet tears despite realising it was a dream.
Images flashed through his mind, of Peter caught, Raven being strangled, Hank unconscious and Scott held against a wall, and he came to the understandable conclusion that he wouldn't be able to sleep again tonight.
Instead, after the heavy crying had passed, he decided the best thing for his emotional state at that moment would be to check on the students. He made the transfer over into his chair, and began to roll around the school in his slacks, checking each room as he passed them.
What he found was that all of the younger students were fast asleep; he made the pretty sure assumption that they had probably slept solidly through the night.
However, what worried Charles as he moved around the home was that particular students he may have expected to not necessarily be asleep were not even in their rooms. Jean, Scott, Kurt, Peter, then Hank, Raven… Erik? His worry levels spiked, but he managed to retain enough composure to suggest checking the remaining rooms such as the kitchen.
Despite having no success in the kitchen, he then moved around the large mansion and just as he was about to call the alarm reached the lounge. As soon as he rolled into the room, he breathed a massive sigh of relief.
On the three sofas that formed a U-shape in front of the fire he found his missing persons. Scott, Jean and Kurt were nestled together on one of them – Scott was sat leaning against the armrest, head lolling backwards and not snoring so much as breathing deeply and evenly. Jean had taken to his lap, her hands nestled under her head and her knees slightly bent.
Kurt had squeezed himself on the remaining portion of the sofa, which despite the fact that they were quite large, still impressed Charles. His body was pretty much rolled up into a small ball, his head resting on Jean's legs.
The thought of all three comforting each other both physically and, knowing Jean, emotionally, was enough to make Charles feel a wave of pride, which batted away some of the worry in his mind.
He was now in the centre of the three sofas, and so he turned round to his right and saw Hank and Raven – Hank was asleep sat upright, and head back not dissimilar to Scott, while Raven used his head as a pillow… also not too dissimilar to Jean and Scott – and then the girl they had picked up from Cairo after she helped to defeat Apocalypse. God, what was her name?
"Ororo Munroe." Erik said, shocking Charles despite how quietly Erik spoke out of respect for sleeping companions.
"Oh god, Erik, I thought you were asleep when I came in."
"I was. Now I'm not." He was seated on the third sofa, right next to the left armrest, as Peter curled up to the right one asleep.
"I'm sorry." Charles spoke slowly, and softly considering their company. Well, that and the fact that his body may not have had the energy to speak any louder.
"For waking me up? I've gotten used to grabbing a nap when the situation suits. Besides, you should probably worry more about not projecting anything else." Charles was utterly confused by this at first, and then he remembered that Erik had been able to answer his question without him asking it.
"Ah yes, might be a good idea."
"Why are you here?" Erik asked, although already really knowing the answer.
"I had to check on my students. Why I'm here in particular is that I found certain students," he gestured out towards the sleeping bodies, "were not in their rooms. Including you. Bar the student bit, of course." As he corrected himself, he raised his hand to his head and screwed his eyes shut while he rubbed the bridge of his nose – not that Erik needed confirmation of what was so obvious.
"Nightmare?"
"… Yeah." Damn it, Charles thought, being extra cautious not to project – if Erik had seen that, he would have essentially won. Not that he hadn't… oh who was he kidding now? Charles was unable to stop himself from running through all the things he would need to do tomorrow in a feeble attempt to try and restore some sanity and peace after the events of today, and the concept both made his head hurt and question whether he could increase the length of a day in order to get everything done.
"Unfortunately, I think nature might control that one." Erik chirped.
"I hate you. Doing those things, that's my job! I'm just… tired."
Erik adjusted himself slightly on the sofa, before gesturing for Charles to come over. He aided Charles in transferring over to the sofa, and again, not like he needed reminding, but the fact that Charles couldn't hold most of his weight so Erik had to take it showed how tired he was. Not that Erik pointed it out, either – Charles would have just whined at him and got back in his chair.
"What now?" Charles mumbled, feeling the signs of tiredness again and trying to fight them, not sure that he wouldn't wake up and scream, cursing his imaginary depiction of Apocalypse to get out of his mind yet again.
"Lie down. However you like." Erik's back went up against the corner of the sofa, so his thighs lay on the sofa, and Peter really took up little of the space. Initially, Charles didn't want to – the intense feeling that he was putting out his friend and also that he didn't want to succumb to the blackness. But the offer was inviting and familiar. He looked up at Erik, who had a small smile on his face, and knew then that if he woke up in the middle of the night Erik would be there for him.
"Always." Erik spoke, causing a small increase in the smile on Charles' face which also showed a bit of embarrassment. He was too tired to comment on it now though.
"What about you though? Will you be able to sleep?"
"Oh probably. As I said, I can sleep anywhere when I need to. And besides, it's more important that you don't miss a full night's sleep." Charles screwed his face at this and was about to get up before Erik put a hand on his chest and rationalised what he'd said. "You run this place. The students need you to protect them. Right here, you're more important than I'll probably ever be."
"Well you did rebuild the place." Charles smirked as he talked, and it caused a small chuckle from Erik. He ran a hand over the professor's forehead as a gesture of comfort, as Charles continued to stare up into Erik's eyes.
"Now, onto more pressing matters. Try to sleep, professor."
"Alright, mother." Erik was almost shocked by that comment, but he was reassured by the smirk which remained on Charles' face as he looked back down.
Charles seemed not to take too long to drift off – Erik made it about half an hour before his breathing deepened and evened out fully. After this point, Erik made sure to wait up until he reached a deep enough point of sleep that he was unlikely to imminently wake; after that, he might be able to get some sleep himself.
About a quarter of an hour into this, Charles began to grumble and scrunch his cheeks up. Erik registered this immediately and got as close to Charles' head as he could without disturbing him. "It's okay, Charles, it's Erik, I'm here, we're at home now and everyone's okay."
He pretty much repeated this as a mantra for thirty seconds as he stroked the professor's cheek and forehead, moving over his scalp where he had to think twice as to why it was missing it's signature locks. Maybe they'll grow back, he thought for a microsecond, before expelling it as if Charles was looking into his mind at that point and time it wouldn't help anyone.
Charles' tensed body gradually began to relax, and he mumbled "Mmm… home.", much to Erik's amusement which he managed to contain. The rest of the time passed rather uneventfully, but Erik stayed awake and looked over the room, including his sleeping comrades.
Erik sighed openly, but so as to not to wake the sleeping man in his lap. He still had the intention of staying awake all night, but upon deciding that wasn't an option, chose to wake up at regular intervals to check on Charles.
At the start, every twenty minutes like clockwork he would rouse himself, make sure the professor was still asleep and comfortable, which included not falling off the sofa as he appeared to nearly do at some point (Erik dealt with it by shifting Charles' lower back very gradually, and received not much more in response than a snuffle).
Then, every half an hour, and by the coming of four o'clock, he moved to every hour. When he woke, he noticed that the arrangement of people around the room changed minutely – Kurt magically moved next to Ororo at some point, which wasn't particularly unusual Erik supposed, and Peter moved to where Kurt had been.
Scott moved away from Jean, potentially during the night to go to the bathroom as Erik lazily woke at some point to Scott returning to the room, and moved to the now spare spot next to Erik and the professor (and also, asking no questions about his presence on Erik's lap), and later after falling back asleep had a Jean attached to him when Erik re-woke later on.
Point of the matter was, that this group of people, formed under difficult times, and frankly some massive fallings out, would always fall back into each others lives – sometimes whether they liked it or not. They could comfort each other, fight in unison and then comfort each other a little more. While at the school, they were students and teachers under one professor, but when they fought side by side, irrespective of who they were or had been, they were…
The X-Men.