So, this fic is based (rather loosely) off of the idea of Shrodinger's Cat. For those of you who don't know, Shrodinger was a physicist who worked on a theory about superposition. I don't know the entirety of it (I'm a writer, not a quantum mechanics person), but I do know there's the idea that Shrodinger put a cat in a box and closed the lid. He left it like that, in the box. No one knows if the cat is dead or alive, and the point is, at that moment in time, it is neither and it is both, and you won't know for certain until you open the box. If you want to know more about it, feel free to Google it. It's rather interesting.
Anyway. I took that concept and applied it rather loosely to this story. It's mostly an angsty story of Charles missing Erik and drinking a lot (there are a couple of warnings for this fic that I'll get to in a moment.) Hopefully, it all makes sense.
Warnings: Spoilers for Days of Future Past, lots of alcoholism and mentions to it, brief mentions of suicidal thoughts, and some use of language.
Shrodinger's Letters
Snow was falling softly outside, perfectly white against the almost black night sky. The world outside Charles' library window seemed to glow.
Charles was sprawled in the window seat with a bottle of scotch in one hand and a coin in the other. He took a swig of the former while threading the latter absently through his fingers, all the while staring hungrily at the snowy darkness.
The coin was none other than the very one Erik had held onto his entire life, the one he had driven through Shaw's skull. The one he had so vey carelessly left behind in the shattered remains of the mirrored room on the submarine that Moira later found when she was obliterating all evidence of the mutants ever being there.
Charles honestly didn't know why he kept it. It was a symbol of everything that had gone drastically wrong in his life. He hated the very sight of it, longed to just throw it away, but something stopped him. Maybe it was the only tangible thing he had left of Erik's. Maybe he needed the physical reminder of how badly he had screwed up his life.
As if he didn't have enough already, he thought darkly. He glared down at his legs. Though Hank's cure had worked, sort of, it didn't erase the ugly scar across Charles' back, nor did it fully ease the pain. No matter what Charles did, his back always ached and his legs always felt like they were almost asleep.
Charles wasn't sure how much of that was physical and how much of that was psychological. He was well versed in the idea of phantom pain and pain caused by emotional turmoil.
He swore softly and took another long pull from the bottle of scotch. It had been mostly full when he had sat down—it was nearing empty, now.
The library behind him had utterly transformed in the years since Cuba. It no longer held any of its former elegance, with the stiff backed leather chairs, the roaring fire, or the chess table. Hell, it really didn't have any books anymore, either. At least, none that were on the shelves. Instead, the entire room was now a wreck of torn pages, destroyed spines, and broken chess pieces. There were layers upon layers of paperwork that littered most flat surfaces, and empty bottles of alcohol were thrown haphazardly into the mix.
Of course, the man in the windowsill wasn't in much better condition. Charles was dressed in the same ratty pajamas and stained t-shirt that he had been wearing for the better part of six weeks straight now, and he had hardly showered in any of that time. He knew he was starting to smell, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
Nothing mattered anymore. Everything he had ever cared about had been systematically ripped away from him. His legs, which he had never really thought that much about before Cuba, but definitely realized after. His ability to teach, destroyed by the war in Vietnam that took Alex and Sean and all of the younger mutants that Charles had tried so desperately to save. His family.
The last one, Charles tried very hard not to think about, but was the very reason for the decrepit state of himself and his surroundings. Even though it had been years since Cuba, every single fucking time he closed his eyes, he could still see Erik appearing out of the submarine—floating on a magnetic force field, which Charles had at the time been so proud of—with Shaw's dead body, the missiles flying toward them, Erik's betrayal, and then, perhaps worst of all, Raven and Erik disappearing into a puff of red smoke, never to be seen or heard from again.
A tear found its way down Charles' scruff covered face, but he made no move to wipe it away. Instead, he swallowed another mouthful of bitter scotch—he had gone through the good stuff years ago—and let out a weary sigh.
It had been almost a decade since Cuba, and not a day went by that he wasn't haunted by it. He had built up quite a bit of anger toward Erik during that time, and he knew that if he ever had the ill fortune to meet the man again, blood would be spilled. It was easy, Charles thought, to be mad at Erik. The man was such an easy target. He killed the President. He had plotted the murder of millions of human beings. He had taken Charles' life away and that was something that Charles would never be able to forgive him for.
There was a knock on the library door. Even without his powers, Charles knew that it was Hank.
There was no one else.
"What is it, Hank?" he asked wearily.
If his voice was rough and harsh, he didn't care.
Hank shuffled his feet awkwardly. "I was just going to go to bed. Do you need anything?"
"I'm all right," Charles lied.
Silence fell awkwardly between them. Clearly, Hank had something he wanted to say, but didn't want to spit it out for fear of what Charles would do.
The former telepath sighed internally. Part of him knew that he would forever be indebted to Hank for all that the scientist had done for him, that he should treat the young man better than all of this, but Charles really honestly couldn't bring himself to care. Hank would eventually tire of him and leave. Everyone always did.
"Is there anything else?" Charles questioned.
"A letter came for you today," Hank said quietly.
This wasn't exactly a new development. Letters came for Charles every day. But they were never from the people he wanted them to be from. Needed them to be from.
"Just leave it on the desk with the others," Charles said dully, already turning back to the window.
"This one's different, Professor," Hank said carefully. "You'll actually want to read this."
It was on the rare times like this that Charles still wished he had his powers so he wouldn't have to put up with Hank's reluctance to say what was on his mind.
"Well? Go on then," Charles said none too gently. "Tell me who it's from."
Hank swallowed audibly. "Magneto."
Charles froze.
A million thoughts raced through his mind, all slamming to a complete halt at the ludicrous idea that Erik had written him.
"Give it to me," he ordered, his voice strangled.
Erik was locked away, one hundred floors underneath one of the most secure buildings in the entire world. How the hell had he managed to write a letter?
Hank carefully picked his way across the room and handed the letter to Charles. The former telepath snatched it away quickly, before remembering his manners.
"Thank you, Hank," he said softly, though he wasn't entirely sure if he meant it or not.
The scientist nodded once and then hesitated. "Do you want me to stay?"
Charles shook his head. "No. That'll be all. I'll see you in the morning."
The younger man stood there for a moment longer, before sighing softly.
"Good night, Professor," he murmured.
Charles barely heard him leave, his attention absorbed completely by the letter. His name, written in the near perfect calligraphy that was Erik's handwriting, was enough to push the former telepath to the brink of anguish.
I'm going to need another drink, he thought grimly, knowing that it was just an excuse to put off opening the letter.
He climbed off his window seat and stumbled ungracefully over to the liquor cabinet. There was a bottle of tequila that was still mostly full—a remnant of when Raven used to stock Charles' liquor cabinet and swear she didn't know how it ended up there. While Charles wasn't the biggest fan of tequila, it was really the only thing left, save for a couple of cans of Budweiser that Hank had thrown in there earlier that week.
Charles wasn't the only one suffering from alcoholism nowadays.
He picked up the liquor bottle, trying not to think of the last time he had seen his sister drunk, let alone the last time he had seen her, and picked his way back to the window seat.
The letter never once left his hands, though he was careful not to crinkle it.
Charles sat back down and pulled the stopper off the bottle. He leaned his head back against the window sill and took a long plug, staring at the letter with heart weary eyes. He winced a little at the taste, wishing that he had some salt or limes to cut it with.
It struck Charles then that even though he had been longing to hear from Erik—a deep, unconscious longing that he would never admit to while sober—he really wasn't sure what he wanted from the man. An apology would never be enough to even begin to repair the damage that had been wrought between them, and Charles knew that he wouldn't be able to stand any sort of arrogance or smugness after everything Erik had done.
He glared at the letter.
"You're a right bastard," he hissed.
Another thought occurred to Charles: he didn't have to read the letter. After all, he didn't owe Erik jack shit, and quite frankly, if he ever saw the man again in his lifetime, it would be entirely too soon.
Charles drank a bit more tequila and whispered profanities at the envelope.
Even though he didn't have to read it, part of him wanted to. Needed to, if he was being honest with himself. He needed some sense of closure for everything, even if there really was none to be had.
The minutes slipped by, turning into hours. The bottle of tequila slowly emptied itself—a small part of Charles that still cared whether he lived or died fretted about the state of his liver after all of this alcohol—and the letter remained unopened.
It was stupid, Charles knew, to be this emotionally distraught over a simple letter. It had been ten years, damn it, and he should have been able to handle this better.
But the fact that it had been ten years, and this was the first time he had been hearing from Erik at all since that shitty day in Cuba….
Charles went to take another sip of the tequila and found the bottle was empty. He swore, knowing that if he tried to get up to find more alcohol he would probably fall over. And that would bring Hank running, which would lead to an awkward discussion on Charles' self-destructive habits, and the scientist would also notice the still unopened letter in Charles' hands.
You have to take everything from me, don't you Erik? First my sister, then my legs, and now my ability to drink myself to sleep at night. You selfish bastard.
His hands were shaking and his eyes couldn't focus. How much of it was the alcohol and how much of it was the sheer emotion of what seeing Erik's handwriting brought out in Charles, he wasn't sure.
Tears slid down his face, staining the envelope. Charles didn't care.
He took a few, deep, ragged breaths to attempt to get himself under control. He had had far too many outbursts over the past decade over much bigger things than this.
His hand tightened on the envelope, crinkling the pristine white edges.
Again, Charles wondered what Erik could possibly have to say now, after all this time.
A small tidbit from a physics class he had been forced to take many years ago wormed its way into his mind. How he even managed to remember something like quantum mechanics at a time like this, Charles didn't know.
But there had been a man named Shrodinger. Charles didn't remember all the specifics of his experiment—something involving superposition (whatever the hell that was) and cats. But he did remember his physics professor at Oxford waxing poetically on the idea that so long as the box was never opened, one could believe that the cat was either dead or alive. At that moment in time, it was neither, but also both, until the box was opened and proven one way or another.
For some reason, this logic seemed to apply to the letter Erik had sent. Left unopened, Charles could continue hating the man for all that he had done. For never once reaching out to Charles over the past ten years, for destroying everything that the telepath had believed in, for taking everything from him. He could believe Erik to be the monster under the bed that parents warned their children about.
Even if he didn't really believe any of it was true, if Charles didn't open the letter, he could pretend to believe it for a little while longer.
And he also wouldn't have to deal with the disappointment that the letter didn't do the justice that Charles so desperately needed.
But at the same time, if Charles left the letter unopened, he could also begin to entertain the possibility of the idea that maybe, just maybe, Erik was trying to be a better person.
Before that thought could take root, Charles shut it down firmly, but it still existed in the far, darkened corners of his mind.
Charles closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the sun was shining brightly through the window, reflecting painfully off the dazzling white of the snow. His head throbbed in agony from having drank so much the night before.
The letter lay unopened in his hands.
Charles glanced at it briefly before looking away again.
It later found its way into the piles of unopened, unanswered letters that were accumulating on Charles' desk. If Hank ever saw it, he never questioned it.
Charles didn't really move on with his life after that. Each evening found him in the same position in the window seat, with the unopened letter in one hand and a rapidly emptying bottle of alcohol in the other. But he always made the same decision not to read the letter.
About six months after the letter was delivered, there was a knock on the door. The person didn't go away.
It was Logan.
And after that, well, Charles' life changed completely. He lost Erik all over again in DC, watching him float away in a magnetic force field that no longer stirred the same feelings of pride it once had. But it was different this time. Charles was different this time.
One night, about three months after the events in Washington, Charles was once more found sitting in the window seat in his study. Only this time, instead of alcohol and an unopened letter, he was kept company by the sleeping form of a small six-year-old girl with white hair and dark eyes and a copy of Good Night, Moon. The library/office was no longer in a complete state of disarray, but instead neat and orderly. The books were back on the bookshelves, the papers were placed into organized files into filing cabinets, and all but one of the letters on his desk had been read and answered.
Charles, too, looked considerably better. Though he still had a long way to go before he was fully recovered from what all he had done to himself, his hair was cut, he was clean shaven, and while he was dressed in dark sweatpants and a light blue t-shirt, at least this time it was clean.
There was a knock on the door. Charles reached out with his powers, surprised to find Hank standing on the other side.
Since Alex and Raven had returned home a month ago, the three had been inseparable. Last Charles had heard, they had gone on a recruiting mission to California and weren't supposed to be back until the morning.
The girl, Oro, stirred slightly, but only managed to bury her face deeper into Charles' chest. He smiled fondly at the sight.
"Come in, Hank," he called softly.
Hank was still struggling with the battle between being blue and being human. He was human tonight.
Charles' smile broadened. "What can I do for you?" he asked.
"You've got another letter," Hank said.
Who it was from was plain in the scientist's mind.
The telepath sighed softly. "Put it with the other one," he said gently. "I'll read it eventually."
He no longer outright hated Erik, but the dislike he held for the man was still powerful enough that he didn't want to read the letters.
They were never going to be enough for Charles, anyway.
Hank did as he was told. He paused awkwardly in the doorway.
"Do you want me to take her?" he asked.
Charles shook his head. "I'll get her," he murmured, looking down at the fragile, sleeping face.
She had been the one to completely save him after DC. Her mother had dumped her on his doorstep, with a note explaining the girl's powers to manipulate the weather, and vanished into thin air about three weeks after everything. Charles had still been reeling from the events, not quite sure of how to handle himself, but suddenly, he was forced to grow the hell up, because he had a child to raise.
Two and a half months later, things seemed to be doing okay. Oro was a lovely girl, intelligent and sweet, and innocent enough not to understand all of the horrors in the world.
She was exactly what Charles had needed.
"Professor," Hank began and then stopped.
Charles looked up. "What is it, Hank?"
"Why don't you read his letters?"
The older man closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He held it for a moment before exhaling deeply.
"Have you ever heard of Shrodinger's experiment, Hank?" he asked.
The younger man nodded, looking confused. "Of course."
"Those letters are my cat," Charles said.
It was a shitty explanation, and one he really didn't understand himself having been drunk off his ass at the time of his epiphany.
But Hank seemed to derive something from it, for he nodded.
He turned to leave.
Charles called him back. "But Hank?"
"Yes, Professor?"
The telepath smiled slightly. "I think the cat is still alive."