A/N: I don't even know what I'm doing. :/
Something about Alex, Darwin, Sean, Hank, Angel, and Raven and my babies Charles and Erik. All my X-Men, basically. X3
Friendships/relationships, platonic or not: Alex/Darwin, Alex/Sean, Alex/Hank, Sean/Hank, Charles/Hank, Erik/Charles, Erik/Sean, Erik/Raven, Hank/Raven, Charles/Raven, Darwin/Angel, Raven/Angel. You'll have to see which or which isn't romantic, but I think we all know which one of those, at least, I'll make romantic. ;D
LOL, seriously: what am I doing? XD
Behold his prison, a solitary confinement cell because he's afraid of harming others with – what Sean later calls – his laser hoola-hoops of doom. But he pushes on; he's built for this. He can stick through it.
Behold his prison, a small taxi in New York City, a box meant for driving people around who actually have lives and money, and aren't hiding what he's hiding. But he adapts. He can handle the city, as mundane as it can be.
Behold his prison, a lonely bedroom in his middle-class home with a life attached in which no girl wants his clearly Irish, boyish looks, with freckles and pink lips and strawberry blond (orange; it's orange) hair, he lies down. You would think many singers would be jealous of his talents, able to shatter glass with his voice, but he doesn't find it quite so amazing. So he cries out in frustration, and breaks his window. And his mirror. And his mother doesn't say anything about it, choosing to turn the other cheek.
Behold his prison, a laboratory in a CIA base because no one else could handle his brilliant mind (with odd feet), and he feels like he is another species entirely. So he rubs his cramped (from being in shoes all day) second pair of hands each night and then curls up in a ball and wills himself not to cry before he sleeps.
Behold her prison, a room with mini-rooms around the edges, poles and platforms and tables in the center, music all around. No one would look twice at her dragonfly wing tattoos when she's half- or fully-nude in a man's lap, but if she were to set them free and use them, fluttering in the air, someone would look more than two times at her. They would stare and judge, and if they knew that their paid whore could burn off their precious parts with her mouth instead of what she normally does, they would run screaming. So she continues to dance and hopes that no one questions her.
Behold her prison, her own blue body, flaming red hair unlike any ginger's, her eyes as yellow as a predatory cat's. She is stuck in a world where no one would think she is beautiful, no matter love lovely her features are, because blue skin with barbed scales is blue skin with barbed scales, and how can that every be beautiful? But she is comfortable with herself after a long, long while, and she easily slips into men's arms.
Behold his prison, a house too large to live in alone (aside from Raven and the maids), his mind stretched but his reach limited because he doesn't want to control others (although he could) and he doesn't want to be rude (but is it, when it's a secret that he can hear them without them saying a thing?), but his mind is so comprehensive that it hurts. But he's strong, so he uses what he can for his advantage and the advantage of others (who deserve it).
Behold his prison, a life riddled with holes: missing parents, missing childhood, missing memories. A life full of pain and rage and vengeance and fear. An entire existence that is nothing but negativity, boxing him in worse than a hard prison cell, than a busy taxi cab, than a lonely bedroom, than a cold laboratory, than a body or strip club, and far worse than an empty mansion. But he is Frankenstein's Monster, so he will get his revenge.
0-o-0
It's when they collide, becoming a group of people instead of separate individuals, that they finally understand, and finally begin to break free from their prisons.
0-o-0
Alex. His prison, that cell of an actual correction facility, is opened and he's taken away by two men dressed in their Sunday bests; a vest and coat and button-down, a turtleneck and leather jacket, dress slacks, nice shoes. They don't even say a word. He follows them out, grateful and suspicious.
Darwin (he has another name, Armando, but nearly no one uses it). His prison, that taxi cab, is violated with two new presences, the same two men dressed like they know what they're doing. They talk to him. He doesn't argue that he's always wanted something more than being a chauffeur.
Sean. His prison, that lonely bedroom, is torn away from him (or him from it?) as two men knock on his front door, offering to his mother a chance for Sean to attend a special school. It isn't a school; it's a cover. He's going to work for the government. And Sean would be lying if he said he didn't grin at the thought.
Hank. No one had to find him, necessarily; at age fifteen, he graduated college, and as a scientist no less. People praised him, calling him a "child prodigy." At age nineteen, the government called him in. He never once showed anyone his feet-that-are-hands; that is, until a British-sounding man reads his mind (feeling like the sun-warmed wings of a butterfly grazing his mind) and tells him to share. He does. And he can't say he isn't relieved that, with these people, he doesn't have to hide.
Angel (she likes her stage-name, and sticks with it). She nearly cries when she hears that she can go somewhere she doesn't have to remove her clothes or further soil her innocence in order to feel normal. She doesn't think twice about joining the two men (who are clearly into each other, she thinks) when they proposition her from the strip club bed.
Raven. Her prison, that body she loves and despises, is rescued by one Erik Lensherr, the first person to tell her that she is perfect the way she is, blue skin and red hair and yellow eyes and all. But Charles has always been there for her, and always will be. She will never be alone or hungry again. She has a brother, a friend. She loves him, and he loves her. They are a team, and she knows it. So wherever he goes, she goes. She will never leave his side, she assures herself, because she will never have to choose anything but following in his footsteps. She doesn't think about being wrong; it doesn't even occur to her. Erik somehow doesn't factor into her mind about this.
Charles. His prison, his own home, is slowly broken down by Oxford University and meeting other mutants and scanning more and more minds of the people he sees and meets. He never once thought that everything could become so intimate and delicate and personal, even to himself, a mind-reader, until he met Erik Lehnsherr.
Erik. His prison, a life of regret and so much more, is shattered at the seams and rebuilt in a single moment. At least, it feels like one giant movement between being saved from drowning to walking away and returning, to being in Cerebro as an onlooker, to moving a satellite dish. It all connects and blurs together into a single entity, a single change, all shifted and rewired on account of one person: Charles Xavier. And Erik would be lying if he said it wasn't an oddly addicting feeling, and he would be a traitor if he said he didn't feel something strong for the telepathic man.
0-o-0
Darwin tries to stop her from going with Shaw because he loves her.
Alex tries to protect Darwin, work with him to get Angel back before Shaw leaves, because he cares about him, and Darwin is like Alex's first real friend in a long while.
Angel sleeps in Raven's room at the CIA headquarters because she's never been able to trust another girl before Raven came along. They talk half the night away, and finally fall asleep with their backs to one another, touching.
Hank thinks he might be falling for Raven because she is the first girl to be nice to him, to find him attractive despite how obviously nerdy he is, and seems to understand how he feels about his physical, visible mutation.
Alex teases Hank because he's admittedly a little attracted to him. He admires him plenty, anyhow, and it's just too fun to see how hank reacts to things like 'Bozo' for his clownish-sides feet and little touches here and there. Mostly, Hank gets annoyed or angry, and Alex finds that he likes it.
Sean looks up to Hank. Hank is so smart, and he doesn't even seem to notice. He's always modest and respectable and honest, and Sean wishes he could be more like that. He smiles at Hank, not quite trusting of his wacky ideas and inventions, but willing to try anyhow.
Erik only pushes Sean off the satellite dish because he believes in him. Erik only says goodnight to Sean because he feels responsible for him. He knows that, if he ever had a son, his son would be cheeky and just like Sean.
Charles has never known anyone else who understands his scientific ranks. But then hank came along, and the two are able to drink tea together and chat about genetics and cell composition and helpful ideas for their mutant friends, and in this, they become like long-lost cousins.
Erik cares about Raven. He wants her to feel better about herself, feel empowered, so he kisses her before sending her on her way, nude and "mutant and proud."
But Erik cares more for Charles. Daresay he loves him, and he's sure Charles feels the same, but theirs is an unexplainable love that neither of them wishes to give a definition to.
0-o-0
And in the end, they are freed from their prisons because of one another, and together, they make a sort of family.