I.
It's the swinging sixties, as they say, and Sean is no stranger to anything with the word "experimental" in the title, so long as it doesn't have anything to do with him pelting out of windows or, at the fervent and drunken insistence of some of the new recruits one very fun and very long night, sucking Professor Xavier off while he's sleeping. It's called "cannibis", and his friend on the inside said that the Man used it as some sort of truth serum in the 40's and 50's. "Even that guy you like, Dylan, takes it to write songs," he said, and fuck all if that isn't enough to convince Sean. Sean's no psychic, but from the moment he picks up The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, he knows the guy's going somewhere. So he takes the plastic bag, holds the dried moss ("Not moss, you ass, it's a fucking flower") to his eye level and slaps him a five.
Two hours later, Sean lies down on the carpet and tries to expertly blow out smoke, the joint burning away at his fingers. He coughs so hard he thinks he's going to vomit, but then Alex falls down on his belly so suddenly all the air blows out and he's fine again. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks he should turn down the turntable, because it's a race to sing louder than Bob that Alex gladly joins in, and he can imagine Prof. X racing just as fast down the corridor to bang on their door.
Sean swears he can feel his pupils dilating, and Alex says exactly what he's thinking before he does.
Bob asks the boys "How many years must one man have?" when Alex takes the blunt and inhales hard. "He's a fucking genius," he says in the exhale, and Sean agrees so much he thinks that he's reached fucking Nirvana.
II.
They've almost become experts at it now, the pair of them, and they do it so often they've moved into the same room to save time. Sometimes Hank'll walk into the room when they've forgotten to open the windows after a while like they're supposed to, and he'll partake too, but it's nothing compared to the two of them.
With Hank, Alex and Sean'll laugh and dance and sing Hippie Hippie Shake because it's the only time they can listen to the song without fucking life up, and Hank will get the courage to sneak some beers in. On those days they'll run outside in their pajamas and watch the stars swirl and comment on how they're getting way too out of shape ("Technically, it's just the smoke in your lungs, because your heart needs just as much oxygen as it always does and when you smoke you don't get enough of it," Hank explains, but Alex and Sean always tell him to shut the fuck up) and maybe lie in the grass and pee in the bushes if one of them really has to. On those days they're less Alex and Sean and Hank and more Havok and Banshee and Beast. It's fun but it's never more than fun, and Hank always gets nostalgic by the time it starts to wear off so it always ends with them thinking about all the people who aren't there.
With just the two of them, Alex and Sean, it's intimate, like the world has ended and there's nothing else, just two boys getting high as kites. They always put on Bob Dylan and listen to the record, both sides, over and over and over again. They've gotten Hank to make them a record player that flips the record over automatically after the third time, because Alex was being a bastardass and wouldn't change it on his turn even though he had promised three passes back. They lie in bed, side by side, sometimes on their back. By the end of the night they're always on their side facing each other, because how is Alex supposed to listen to Sean's theories on life and government and love without looking at him? Plus, when Alex really looks at Sean, like seriously looks at him, he can count all the freckles on his face, and sometimes, that's all he really wants.
"Fucking seventh level, man," Sean says wisely.
"Fucking seventh level," Alex agrees.
III.
Charles gives up trying to stop the boys from smoking marijuana, though he's a little bit smarter about the whole thing. He tells them to buy from the source, because there's a lot of nasty shit going around nowadays, and will even take some, late late late at night in his room. Alex and Sean see him once, lying in bed with his eyes closed. The room is hazy and a glass of scotch is on the bedside table, untouched. They don't say anything, because scotch is Erik's favourite drink, and because Charles tries to cry as quietly as possible so nobody can hear him, so they figure he doesn't want anyone to know.
In the end they walk back to their room, get high, and hold hands so tight that sometimes they think they're the same person.
IV.
One time, Alex sits up and says, "Let's write down all of our thoughts for prosperity," and Sean thinks he's a fucking genius.
They listen to this new band, the Beatles, who just came to America all the way from Britain. When they ask Charles about it, he crinkles up his nose. "Liverpool? Only scouses live in Liverpool. I went to Oxford, for chrissakes." It's the most pretentious thing Sean has ever heard.
("I bet there are tons of people who went to Oxford who never amounted to anything," he says, and six years later, Monty Python hits television everywhere.)
The next morning they read their thoughts back to each other and laugh harder than they ever have in their lives.
"Two hundred cosmoses underneath the ocean or on the Swiss Alps," Alex says.
"I fucking need it, you know he was talking about how fat he was," Sean says. "Fucking genius."
V.
It's the new age, as they say, and Sean hears about this new drug that is all the rage in San Francisco, which he regards as the best fucking place on earth. "Women without shirts on all the fucking time, man," he tells Alex, but Alex isn't that interested in naked breasts. He's much more interested in ginger hair and apricot colored freckles, but because Sean looks like a kid in a candy store while talking about it, he nods.
Sean's friend from the inside tells him the government used it as a psych drug on POWs, even their own men, just to try it out. "Man, even last month, John Lennon took some," he marvels, and Sean is fucking sold.
The next day, Sean flails as he wakes up. The window is broken and there's body paint on his chest but the handprints aren't his own, and Alex is naked underneath the tangled sheets. There's the smell of burnt hair and a chunk of his own is missing, and when he wakes up Alex, he's just as freaked out.
"Fucking never again, Sean. I saw into the fucking fourth dimension last night," Alex says, "and you told me my neck tasted like paisley."
Sean smacks his lips and tastes his tongue and decides that paisley tastes like honey soap and ash. "I bet it's better if Bob Dylan's on."