A/N: The world needs more Phoenix!Charles, I think there's only two fics about him. And I am aware that he has some sort of super powerful psychic thingy called Onslaught, but that would require research other than typing "Phoenix Force" into wikipedia and reading the first paragraph of the first article. I refuse to do more research than that because Marvel is enormous and complicated and there was a ridiculous amount of information. So if the Phoenix is ooc…sue me. My only knowledge of Kurt Marko is that he was Charles's stepfather and some kind of scientist (again, first paragraph of first wikipedia article). In my defense, I started this during finals week, and was absolutely sick of doing research.
Warnings for: Slash, Child Abuse, Rape, Blood,
Disclaimer: You think I own MARVEL? Heh. If I owned Marvel, Charles and Erik would be together frolicking in fields with unicorns.
Charles Xavier could always read minds. Before he could talk. Before he could walk. Before he could even understand what he was hearing, there were images floating through his mind, feelings that weren't his own.
It was a neverending struggle just to keep his own thoughts in his head, separate from the constant noise, the thoughts that rang in his brain even when he was alone. And he was alone more often than naught.
He knew who to trust. He knew how much his Mother really loved him. He knew that the maids thought he was odd, that the butler hated his job, that everyone had their pockets of light and dreams and hopes and hate.
Charles knew the moment his mother brought home her new husband that Kurt Marko was a bad man. That did not stop his mother from leaving her son alone with his new Stepfather.
The sound of the slap echoed through the foyer. Charles backed up, his eyes wide, as the thoughts streamed at him
I'll teach this little fuck who rules this house right now, I can already tell he's going to be a little pansy, not worthy of this place at all, no wonder Sharon doesn't have high hopes for him, ugly little brat too, and look at those eyes, so fucking ridiculous you'd think he was born to be on his knees with eyes that big, I'll teach him exactly what it means to live in my house
"Stop, stop." Charles's voice came out as a whimper. "Please, stop, I'm sorry, I can change-"
"Shut up." This time, his new stepfather's hand connected with his chest, and sent him to the floor. The man grinned down at him. "Well you're a little coward, aren't you?"
Coward, can't even stand up to fight himself, he deserves this just for those tears, can't believe he's crying already that faggot, begging just like he should, we'll see if he can beg when I'm done
"I won't beg, I'll stop, I'll do anything just please stop." Charles clutched his head. This man's thoughts were strong, thundering through his head and drowning out his mother's blurred moaning from upstairs, the maid who was stealing, the maid whose father was sick, just making it all into one roar of rage that was somehow all his fault.
Pathetic, I'll be doing him a favor toughening him up, though nothing is going to make this boy into anything but a piece of shit, spoiled and rich with nothing to show for all that wealth but a pretty face
Charles pressed his hands to his ears. "Shut up, please just shut up!"
"I hadn't spoken. You little freak." Fucking crazy to boot, but what else can you expect from a bitch like Sharon
"Don't call my mother a bitch!" Charles snapped. The fear was replaced for a second by childish indignation. "She's the only reason you've got anything, and you know it! You were just a failing scientist before she found you!"
What's that little fuck done, the bitch wouldn't talk to him she hardly notices he exists and with good reason, who'd want to remember that they were barren now and their only son was this worthless boy
"Stop it, stop it, stop it." Charles slid to the floor, clutching his head. It was so loud, so hateful, not even as horrible as his mother when she was angry or the maids when they didn't want him around, no one else's thoughts burned in his mind like oil on fire, because this mind was twisted and hateful and hated him.
Must be crazy, makes sense with his upbringing, think I'll slap him silly then start on his mother
No! Don't you dare touch her! Stepfather's eyes widened. Charles realized that he hadn't said that out loud, hadn't said anything out loud at all, that he'd yelled those words in his thoughts and somehow put them into Stepfather's mind.
How did you do that? It was like having a sledgehammer thrown into his skull. Rage. Hate. He didn't even see his Stepfather stepping closer, fist clenched. He did feel the pain when a blow connected with his shoulder, then another with his head.
Unconsciousness was a blessing.
"I am Charles Xavier, and I am sane. I am Charles Xavier, and I am sane. I am Charles Xavier, and I am sane." He was afraid to stop repeating the chant. If he did, he might forget.
He'd forgotten a lot. Charles wasn't quite sure where he was. He knew that it was a very small room, a dark room with no windows. There was a big door locking him in. He knew that he was lying on a cot with a mattress that might have been made of stone, on top of a thin sheet. He knew that his Stepfather had somehow put him here, though the details were fuzzy.
Other than that, he couldn't remember, because he couldn't think. There was too much noise. The attendants who came in daily and injected something into his arm with a needle, who would hurt him without remorse if he struggled and Charles knew that, knew everything because he couldn't block any of it out.
Here of all places, he needed to be able to make the voices stop. Everyone was screaming. Even the ones who couldn't use words were screaming. Charles clutched his knees tighter to his chest and tried not to hear the wails.
But he couldn't.
It was as if something had turned his precise mental control soft, and now everything came in bits and pieces, all disjointed, all blurry. Whenever the tiniest bit of clarity came to his mind, it was time for the people in white to come and put another needle in his arm. Then he was sinking back into the oceans of voices.
It didn't take long for Charles to stop floating in the minds of the insane, and start drowning.
"He's just lying there, isn't there some way to wake the kid up?" A physical voice. Charles saw the person standing in front of the bed, but did not process the image. His brain was devoted to the massive task of keeping the voices from crushing him.
"God knows. You should hear the list of drugs he's on. Little kid has a fucked up mind." Rough hands on his shoulders. "Hey, get up."
A light shined on his pupils. A disgusted noise.
"His pupils aren't responding. We'll just have to leave him here, don't take him out in the yard." A snicker. "Probably better for him. We've got enough of that sort already without giving them a new plaything."
The heavy iron door shut. Charles remained unmoving, staring into nothing and unable to do anything but let the voices run through him, and repeat that one phrase inside his mind.
I am Charles Xavier. I am Charles Xavier. I am Charles Xavier. I am Charles Xavier
"We're putting him on another drug? Jesus Christ, he must have no mind left."
"Pentylenetetrazol. We got a call about it-the guy even specified the dosage." Charles barely felt the needle in his arm.
"Any reason?"
"How the hell should I know? The higher ups tell me nothing. I think his relative might have called." Charles only heard two words of the man's thought, the rest were all lost in the cacophony.
Kurt Marko The name stood out through all the screams. Charles's eyes snapped fully open, and he began to shake.
"Shit! He's going into a seizure!"
Stepfather. Stepfather. Stepfather. Terror entirely his own gripped Charles. He tried to scream-what, he had no idea. But the sound caught in his throat, which suddenly seemed so full of liquid or vomit or perhaps it was just his tongue?
Whatever it was, Charles was not in any kind of control. Muscles used to inertia were suddenly contracting, relaxing for moments only to seize up again.
Stepfather. Stepfather. Stepfather.
Hands holding him down, while Charles coughed out chunks of food he hadn't known he'd eaten and convulsed on the cot. An attendant holding up his head and stopping him from smashing it against the wall.
In retrospect, that call had saved his sanity. Details formerly lost in the haze of drugs and voicing came flooding back to him. The Xavier mansion. That there was such a thing as sunlight, the feeling of how it warmed one's cheeks. The vague affection his mother felt for him.
I want to go home! cried Charles's mind. He frantically tried to struggle. Neither of these men were going to let him go! The bits of disconnected mind in him battered against each other, all broken.
"That little fucker just bit me! Come on, we've got better things to do." A rough hand shoving him back into his corner, so hard that his head cracked on the wall. Charles whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut.
There had to be some way to not be here, to stop the voices from screaming so close to him, stop them from deafening his own mind.
Charles opened his eyes.
It was all gone. No more prison cell.
He was under his favorite tree on the grounds, where he could lean against the bark of the trunk and not be seen because the branches hung so low. The grassy field that the staff so carefully trimmed stretched before him, leading up to the castle that was Xavier manor.
"I am Charles Xavier, and I am sane." Charles whispered.
The only difference between his home and this illusion was the burning. Thousands of slips of paper falling from the sky, all of them on fire. Thoughts were scribbled onto them, the innermost screams of his fellow inmates all turning to ash before they hit the ground. Charles leaned against the tree.
It still felt like the filthy wall of his cell.
His forehead wrinkled. In an instant there was crinkly bark brushing against his thin cotton shirt.
No. No inmates uniform. He was dressed in slacks and a cardigan. He was clean. There was soft sunlight warming his cheeks. Charles simply closed his eyes and repeated himself.
"I am Charles Xavier, and I am sane." He corrected details whenever they appeared. The grass had to be kept perfectly trimmed. The leaves on the tree had to be that perfect midsummers green they always were at this time of year. Every window on the manor should have the correct curtains.
It took a long time for him to realize that there was an absolutely foul smell in the air. Charles frowned and tried to correct it. The faint aroma of dinner, a chicken maybe, being roasted in the kitchens was wafting across the lawn.
He could not quite change the scent. Charles angrily clenched his fists. Something was intruding on his sanctuary. Something was wrong in the tiny world he'd made. He flinched, and blinked.
The cell around him made Charles want to cry. There was filth on the walls again, no light but what came through the slit in his door. He was dirty and smell rather than clean and well groomed.
But the foulest odor wasn't coming from him. There were plates of food heaped around him, most of it rotting. The attendants must have simply left the meals there when they administered the drugs, hoping that he would notice the food and eat.
There was an awful lot of food there. Charles looked at his arm. In addition to being horribly pale, it was nothing but skin and bone. He shivered and leaned forward to pick up one of the bowls.
His arms shook when he picked it up. Somehow, he had become terribly weak. Charles choked down half the bowl. He would have at least attempted the full thing, but his hands trembled when he lifted the spoon to his lips. He spilled half the slop down his front.
Charles could not summon the energy to pick up another plate.
"I am Charles Xavier, and I am sane." He retreated into the illusion. Now he could see a few tendrils of cloud drifting over the sky, and frowned at them. If they rained, the thoughts might stop burning, and then all this relative peace would be gone.
"Get out!" The clouds turned dark. Charles clutched his temples, digging in with nails grown long. The pain did nothing to help his control. "This place is mine!"
The clouds turned to thunderheads. Charles whimpered and scrabbled at his head, where thoughts were breaking through. All the screams were going from a muted haze to full on wails.
"I am Charles Xavier, and I am sane." He frantically whispered. "Stop it, shut up, you have to shut up, you have to stop, I don't want to hear, please shut up! I am Charles Xavier and I am sane…"
"I know that, you don't need to repeat it." said a rich voice. Charles looked up. "I know everything about you."
His illusion had changed. The thunderheads were gone, and so were the burning scraps of paper. Everything was dominated instead by a massive blue and white form above him, one that was hotter than the sun and gazing down at him without eyes.
"Who are you?" Whispered Charles. The force seemed to peer down at him. It was as tall as the manor, with a white hot center and two wings covering the sky, shielding Charles.
"I am the Phoenix." The voice rolled from somewhere in the center of the force. "You want to go home?"
"Yes." Charles wanted that more than anything. To be in his own safe and comfortable bed, to be able to focus his thoughts again. To get out of this miniature hell.
"I can help you." The wings stretched out, circling around him. "The humans have pumped you full of medication to slow your mind. I will purge it from you." Charles gagged and the illusion seeped away. He was back in his cell, kneeling on the edge of his cot, vomiting.
It was like a light being opened. There was his cell, but it wasn't blurred around the edges. There were the screams, but with effort he could push them away, make them into background noise.
"I can do better." The Phoenix was with him. It was behind him, spreading it's wings over him.
Silence. True, blessed, silence. Charles had never experienced such peace before. He turned to the Phoenix, nothing short of adoration in his eyes.
"The human is coming. The attendant who has fogged your mind for nearly a year now."
"I've been here a whole year?" Charles turned to the door with angry eyes. Tiny blue flames flickered in their depths. The orderly entered the cell to find an awake and aware child, with fury in his mind.
"It is time for me to leave. You will release me." The Phoenix and Charles spoke in the same instant. The man's mind snapped.
"Of course. We just did a mental assessment of you, and you're more than fit to be released." He said, with the voice of a dullard. Charles followed him down the corridors, where on either side of him cells echoed with the screams of the insane.
He ignored them. These pitiful beings had done nothing for him. Why should he heed their cries? Charles marched past them, and those with the remnants of sanity still within them flinched away.
"I will be leaving today. The limo is coming now."
"Of course." The staff member in the office waved him past with hazy eyes. His mind had buckled when the Phoenix touched it. "Take anything you want."
"Thank you." I should hope so. There was a sudden dissonance.
Charles frowned at the Phoenix behind him. There was no reason to exclude common courtesy. Don't waste words on them. Would they lift a finger to help you?
"I suppose not…" Charles said hesitantly. He raised a hand, assembling a plate of food from what was in the staff rooms. It floated to him, the best bits of homemade lunches and delicacies from faculty dinners.
I didn't think I could make things move like that.
"I have greater power than you can imagine." and it is all yours. Charles flexed his fingers. The Phoenix wrapped itself around him, and blue flames sprung from his fingertips. Charles lifted his hand higher.
The orderly who had brought him to the front office let out a gurgling cry. Charles's eyes widened as the human rose into the air, hacking up blood. Charles yanked his hand back, releasing the man.
What are you doing? Kill him!
"No! I can't do that to someone!" Charles didn't care that he was speaking out loud and someone might hear him. He could make any of these humans forget.
He is your enemy, and he lies on the floor helpless. Take vengeance.
"I don't want vengeance." Blue flames roared around them. "I want to go home."
You should go home with a trail of blood. The Phonix flared brighter. Charles shook his head, trying to stop the heat from pressing in. Take the power. Slay him.
"No!" Charles glared, and flung out a hand. "Shut up!"
You are not yet ready.
"And I'll stay so! Get out of my mind!" There was a low chuckle, and a sound like fluttering feathers. Then the world filled up with noise.
When Charles stepped back through the door to the manor, it seemed impossible that a year had gone by. The overly ornate woodwork was the same. The way nothing looked touchable was the same.
"Charles." His mother was wearing her same red dress.
Happy to see him back, but it was clear that much had passed. There was the slowness of constant drinking, a broken apathy. Sharon Xavier's eyes darted behind her when a heavy step sounded.
"Why, Charles." Charles flinched at the same instant his mother did. "So wonderful to have you home."
"S-stepfather." His voice shook. Kurt Marko smiled at him coldly.
Fucking child I can still kill you, read my mind and see that I can, see those whips in my lab and the chains and the weapons lying all around you and the muscles on my arms, see how easy it would be for me to snap one of your brittle little bones.
Charles's fear shone in his eyes. His mother looked away. Stepfather's lips twitched up.
In a dark corner of his mind, Charles was sure that the Phoenix would know exactly how to deal with Stepfather
There was silence in the West Wing.
No maids went in to dust. No inquiring butlers went in to clean up whatever mess the Master had left. None of the construction workers constantly renovating the lower levels entered to ask their employer about just how he wanted the newest bomb shelter.
Even if a servant had entered, it was doubtful Charles would respond. He was curled up with his back to a wall, his knees locked to his chest. He'd been there for an hour now.
The young boy from the asylum had grown into a startlingly good looking young man, with pale skin and icy blue eyes. But he sat in the same pose, as if in his mind's effort to cope his body had frozen.
Of course, there were changes. He wasn't in a prison cell, just a remote corner of the manor. In the Asylum he hadn't been sitting in a pool of various fluids, with his pants around his ankles.
He should never have let himself go to this remote little corner. He should have known from the change in his Stepfather's hate that the man had come up with something worse than a beating for him.
Idiot. Charles pressed his forehead to his knees. Everything hurt. You have to get up. What if he goes after Raven? You need to move before she comes looking for you and finds you like this.
But he couldn't bring himself to rise. His head pounded with the glee his Stepfather had felt to see him realize just what was about to happen, and see his terror. It hurt enough just to put weight on his backside, let alone try to move it.
Charles, Charles, Charles. Don't you see? He didn't have to move to know who was speaking. There was only one thing in the world that had a voice like that. You need me.
"N-no, I don't. I have plenty of power." The Phoenix sighed It sent warm tingles down Charles's spine.
And yet here you sit, helpless yet again. I can help you. Warmth brushed his cheek, like the caress of super-heated feathers. I can make the pain go away. I can keep Kurt Marko from ever hurting you again.
Charles slowly looked up. He could still remember the way the guard had been lifted off the floor, the way everything in the world moved under his command. The feeling of flames between his fingers.
Are you even capable of imagining what we could do to him? Charles could. He could see his stepfather's face twisting in agony. It was reflected in the white center of the Phoenix, each of the thousand ways he could destroy that man.
"But…"
And there will be silence in your mind. I will protect you from every thought the mortals throw at you, let your mind stop bending under the pressure of keeping them out. I can free you. Charles stretched out a hand. In an instant, it was enveloped by hissing flame that sent sparks trailing over his arm and sinking into his skin. Let me in, poor wounded child.
And the pain was gone. The Phoenix flames trailed down his body, erasing the scars that Kurt had branded into his flesh, every mark that showed the mortal's dominance. Charles lifted himself to his feet in one movement. He clenched a fist, and the nearest vase shattered.
He could do that to his stepfather's toes, one by one.
Toes? Was that the length of his ambition? He could do that to Stepfather's internal organs, roast his eyeballs in his skull, shred his skin and turn his blood to fire.
"He is in the lab." The Phoenix crooned. It was with a predator's smile that Charles stalked from the wing to the lower levels, where Kurt Marko was cheerfully working on a weapon to kill thousands.
Kurt whirled and raised a gun when he heard the door open. His work was hardly legal, and in a manor this large, it was easy to hide bodies.
"Who's there?" Charles closed the door.
"Only me, dear stepfather." Kurt's lip twisted up.
"Back for more? I always knew you were a little faggot at heart." Charles kept smiling. He didn't have to listen to the tide of hate that came from Kurt's thoughts, not with the Phoenix on his side. And the mere words meant nothing.
"No. I've come to murder you." Under normal circumstances, Kurt would have laughed in his stepson's face. But the eerie calm of the boy made him uneasy. It did not look like the same person he had abused for so many years.
"You fucking wish." Kurt fired the gun. Charles chuckled-in a voice that was not his own-and waved a hand. The bullet stopped in midair. Kurt blanched.
"No, I don't think that will work." The gun was ripped from Kurt's hands, as everything in the lab except the man was flung against the back wall. It left Kurt standing alone and uncovered. "Why don't we do this man to man?"
"Man to man?" Whatever else could be said about Kurt, he was not one to bow easily. "Man to freak."
"Freak?" Flames pulsed in Charles's eyes, spreading to cover the whites and the pupils. "I am no freak, Kurt Marko. I am creation itself." A ring of fire sprung up around Kurt. He choked as every molecule in his body was forced down, until he was eagle spread on the floor. "And I have come for vengeance."
Charles stalked forward, dragging the floorboards up with him. Gas jets started to hiss. Charles paid them no mind. They would only feed his flame, and he was above the effect of any mortal gas.
Kurt's face began to turn purple. Charles put his hands in his pockets and let the man's throat close, his air supply cut off. But such an easy death? After everything this man had done?
"No. Your death will not be as easy that." Charles glared, and the circling flames leapt higher. "How long do you think I can keep you alive?"
Kurt's eyes were wide, revealing yellowed scleras. The scientist within him knew that the boy-that the god-who stood before him could not possibly keep his brain functioning without oxygen. But his human side knew better, knew that the power standing before him was not bound by the laws of mankind.
"Your fear is good to taste, Kurt Marko. But it is not enough." Charles stopped smiling, rage twisting his face. "Years! Years of my life, spent in terror of you, fear that you'd hurt me or Raven or my mother!"
"Mercy, please." Kurt croaked out.
"You plead like the coward I always thought to be me." Hate filled Charles. All the fear. Every word Kurt Mark had hurled into his brain. Every time he'd flinched at the breakfast table because Kurt's eyes were on him. Every time he had felt terror surface because Kurt was coming home. Every time he had spent the night in too much pain to fall asleep. Every nightmare. Every sob.
And then he dove into Kurt's mind, and let them burn.
Kurt didn't scream. He couldn't, not with Charles flicking the neurons that controlled pain to their highest levels, overloading every sensor in his brain until the pink mass had gone black. By all rights Kurt should have been dead, but the Phoenix kept his heart pumping and blood moving through him. It ripped flesh off bone and muscle off fat. Internal organs became external, hanging in the air above Kurt with veins still connecting them to the heart.
Kurt no longer had a mind. It broke when Charles entered him, and it was obliterated entirely when his stepson began to dissect him. A shimmering cloud of blood hung round both in the air.
VENGEANCE IS MINE, SAITH THE GOD echoed inside Kurt's mind, louder than any human mind could bear. His brain simply imploded, turning to a pile of charred gristle that very few doctors could even identify as human.
Charles idly looked at the bits of human hanging in the air, then let the flames consume them. He turned from the lab with a smile on his face.
Good, isn't it?
Very. Charles snapped his fingers, and an explosion ripped through the lab. There was no evidence left.
Charles breathed deeply and checked himself. No blood, or gore, or flames clinging to his sleeves.
KnockKnock "Raven?"
"Yeah?" Came from within. Charles pushed open the door. Raven lay on her stomach with her feet waving in the air, reading a book. "What's up?"
"Kurt's dead. There was an accident in the lab." Shock flashed over Raven's face, then relief. She jumped to her feet and embraced him.
"That's, oh wow Charles, I…" Raven pressed her face against his shoulder. "I'm glad."
Kill her.
"What?" Charles said sharply. Raven drew back, looking confused and a little bit guilty.
"I thought you wouldn't be mourning either."
She has been here all these years, living under your roof, and has she lifted a finger to help you? Even once used her powers for your benefit? She has stood by for so long, done nothing. She deserves death.
"It's not that. Trust me, I'm as relieved as you are." Charles pressed a kiss to Raven's forehead. "I was just having a telepathic creeper moment." Later, Raven would remember that kiss as hot and almost feverish. "I'm going to my room, I'll need a bit of time to absorb this."
"Well, okay…" Uncertainty flickered over Raven's face. They had lain curled up in each other's beds for years under Kurt's reign, each with their own nightmares for the other to comfort. "If you're sure."
LET HER BURN
"Goodnight." Charles stumbled back to his room, trying to think through the chant of burnburnburnburnburn. He slammed the door shut behind him. "No! She's my sister!"
She is useless.
It's not Raven's job to take on people like Kurt! Automatically the conversation had shifted into Charles's mind, the place where both were most communicative.
As I said, useless. You are a Phoenix, god amongst men and mutants. Let everyone in this house taste your wrath
Stop it! No! Charles collapsed onto his bed. Stop acting like I'm more different than I already am!
You are different. You are the power of the universe. Bat the mortals down like the flies they are, and start with the blue harlot
Don't call her that!
You think it matters to her? She will honor you as is your due. She is nothing.
She's my little sister, she isn't nothing to me! Shut up about her, about killing, or I'll make you!
…make me? You talk as if I am not part of you.
You want me to murder people!
Hypocrisy.
Stepfather deserved it. Raven is innocent.
One piece of flesh is the same as any other.
No they're not, they're not the same! They are very much not the same!
But they are Charles. All of them. You were born to put them out of their misery before they can in their madness move against you
You're insane
I am all the power you could unleash
Stop it! Charles could feel heat rising in his blood. Get out of my mind!
I belong here, with you. We are the same. Charles shoved the Phoenix as hard as he could, and was rewarded by a shocked screech. You cannot drive me out!
I will! Charles struggled against the sudden feeling of talons in his flesh, constricting his breath. I can!
His eyes flew open. Charles was crouching on a barren spot of land with a glowing light at his feet, one fed by blue flame that had long since scorched the ground of nourishment. In the darkness around him whorls of light spun round, thundering past pinpricks of pink and blue.
In the center of it all, the Phoenix blazed.
Do not make this a battle. Your mind could not handle the backlash.
No. Charles got to his feet, and held out his hands. This is my mind, and you are not wanted here. I can cast you out.
You will not seek to banish me!
Charles's hands flew to his temples. The Phoenix's voice had gone hard, and spikes through his ears could not have caused greater pain.
You want me to do awful things! You want me to hurt Raven! Dimly he could see her-Raven's eyes lighting up with laughter, Raven curled up in bed with her hair messy, Raven pleading for him to wake up, come back.
Your deeds are your own doing.
And killing Raven will not be one of them. Charles slowly took his hands from his temples. Leave now, or I will make you.
You need me Charles. There are things to come which will break every part of you. Without me you cannot face them.
I would rather Ice began to creep over the barren floor face the future The air crackled with tension with my sister Charles hurled the wave of cold at the Phoenix And as myself
The Phoenix screeched when it's wings turned to ice crystals that spread, breaking off chunks of blue that fell away into darkness. The ice kept moving, killing the fire until every part of the Phoenix was a creaking statue. Charles closed his eyes, and that statue shattered. The shards blew back into the darkness.
Lights came hurtling down on him, and Charles's true eyes flew open. He sat up with a hoarse gasp, aware only that voices were crashing through his head as they always had. The silence was gone.
"Charles!" Raven wrapped her arms around him. On reflex, Charles hugged back. The embrace tightened when he realized that she was here, not burned, not murdered. "What happened?"
"Ah." One of the primordial forces was tampering in my head. "Not quite sure. Just a bit of telepathic headache, I think."
"A bit?" Raven drew back, though her hands still clutched him. "You've been feverish for hours Charles, God, I came in here because I had a nightmare and I found you curled up screaming under your breath, and the blood-"
"Blood?"
"From your ears at first. Then it started trickling from your nose, and then your eyes. I tried to wipe it or staunch it or something, but my cloth soaked through I couldn't just leave you to find another." Raven hugged him again. Charles rested his chin against her shoulder. "It's all over your face."
Charles touched his cheek. His fingers came away bloody. "Oh. So it is."
"Yes!" Raven shuddered. "I didn't know if you would wake up."
"I'm all right. I promise, I'm alright." He rocked her and made soft shushing sounds, ignoring the fact that they were both trembling.
When Charles took his mother's life because a disease was ravaging her mind, he thought he heard the Phoenix laugh. He spent that night holding Raven, praying that nothing was remaking itself inside him.
Charles. Charles, you have to listen. Charles, you need me, Charles there will be things in the future, you must have my protection Charles you cannot do this alone, Charles let me back take me back feel me again let the power come again do not trust him Charles you know this in yourself
Charles awoke muffling a scream with his arm. His heart pounded. The hissing was gone, but he'd heard it. He'd heard it as a conscious entity that knew itself again, that was coming back.
Strong arms wrapped around his chest.
"Charles?" He pressed his head to Erik's chest. "Nightmare?"
"I didn't project, did I?" Charles could feel the hint of amusement that peeped through the worry in Erik's mind for a moment.
"You're the only person I've ever met who wakes up from a nightmare that looked as fearsome as any of mine, and immediately asks about the safety of your bedmate." Charles was silent. "No, you did not."
"Oh, good." Charles relaxed a bit. "I get those sometimes, bits and piece of other people in my dreams. They can manifest badly, I'm afraid."
"But you're okay?" Charles chuckled and gently separated himself from Erik.
"Don't worry Erik. I just need to clear my head a bit." Charles walked into the bathroom, locked the door, and vomited into the toilet. He stood for a minute, shaking. It can't come back. I banished it. It can't come back.
Charles looked in the mirror. He was only him. No flames in his eyes. For just a second he stared at a brush, not focusing on anything in particular.
The brush jerked. Charles stepped back and slammed his hands against his ears out of reflex, flinging up every defense he could think to use. The mirror cracked. Charles stifled a shriek, and screamed into his mind Get out!
When Charles looked at the mirror again, there was no crack. The brush lay still on the counter. There were no murmurs in his mind. Just the vague feeling of the other mutants in the manor sleeping, and Erik's wakeful concern, and farther from that the constant background noise of the rest of the world.
Charles ran a hand through his hair. God. He had to be going insane.
"Charles, are you all right in there?" He shook his head rapidly, then opened the door. Erik was frowning. "You've been there awhile."
"Have I?" Charles fought back a sense of panic. Time always did pass oddly when he was in his own mind. "Well, it took quite a bit of water."
"Are you sure you're alright?" Charles chuckled and pushed past Erik, into the bedroom.
"And you claim to be coldhearted." Erik let out a growly noise and yanked on Charles's hips. Charles tipped his head back and let his eyes sparkle, let himself ignore what may or may not have happened. "Though certainly not cold blooded."
Erik shook his head. "Not until you tell me what you were dreaming about."
"It wasn't that bad."
"You're still shaking." Erik rubbed Charles's hip with his hand. "Don't you trust me?"
"To the end." Charles sighed and rested his head against Erik's chest. "I sometimes get fragments from other people's dreams. They tend to be…rather disturbing. Please don't ask anything more."
"As you wish." Erik nuzzled Charles's shoulder. "That's a good enough answer for me."
"Excellent." Charles turned and kissed Erik, pushing away any thoughts of darkness.
Erik's breathing had evened out. Charles was curled against Erik with his head on the other man's chest, eyes wide open. There was nothing there. Nothing in his mind. Nothing. And if there was, Erik was here, and Erik cared, Erik would help him.
Charles lay on his back in a hospital bed, doing his best not to cry. He couldn't turn over. It hurt just to lie there and breathe, and it would never stop hurting. When the pain faded, so would any other sensation.
My poor Charles. He flinched and closed his eyes. They've all left you, haven't they?
They had. Erik whom he loved. Raven that he'd sworn to protect.
I told you, so long ago, that this would leave you broken. Hot feathers brushed his cheek. Let me help you. No one else will, you know that. Let me heal your battered body, make you stand tall once more. Let me give you the power you need to fight the traitors. Let me give you silence.
Charles closed his eyes. He was tired. So tired of the nurses flicking through with their pity, of the doctors who tried to gloss over their knowledge that he would never walk again. Tired of struggling only for the two people he loved most in the world to abandon him.
You know that I would never leave you The Phoenix crooned. Have I not always come when you were in need? Can anyone else say the same?
Charles was back on that barren little bit of land. Except now the lights pressed around him so hot they burned him, burned like the center of his mind where that damned coin had penetrated. He stepped to the edge, where the abyss revealed thousands more globes, all minds pressing in on him, all minds that didn't care. And yet Erik was not among them.
Come to me. With a rush of sensation the Phoenix soared up, it's wings spreading around Charles and shielding him. He felt the warmth in him, the absence of pain, the absence of noise, as the Phoenix landed and wrapped itself round him.
We are one. Bones shattered beyond repair knitting back together, nerves gone cold tingling and readying themselves. A caress, and the scars of the coin were healed. They will not destroy you again Charles.
"No." Charles spoke aloud as he sat up. "They will not."
A/N: I think that losing one's lover and beloved sister would certainly drive a man to desperate measures. Plus paraplegia and the trauma of having a coin shoved through your head. Also, Charles's ages are six or sevenish when he goes into the mental asylum, sixteenish when he's raped, and whatever age he is in First Class during the rest, since those were set during the movie.
Review for the second part?