Mutatis Mutandis
"This is what they wanted, for us to turn against each other. I tried to warn you. Moira- you did this!"
"No Erik, you did."
"I want you by my side, Charles. We're brothers, you and I. All of us. We want the same thing."
"Oh my friend, I am sorry. But we do not."
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Black rain poured down blacker windowpanes, drowning the gardens of the newly minted 'Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters' until only the barest hint of light from the gates glimmered through the dark. The large entrance hall was swathed in shadow, the freshly installed dormitories in the floors above silent and still. Even from the ground floor sitting room there was a sharp lingering smell of polish, paint and cleaning fluid. Everything felt poised and yet unsettled, too big for itself, the house waiting for the new September term to bring it finally, fully to life.
Xavier House's owner, headmaster and namesake sat tucked into the swathe of one of the great bay windows of the sitting room, a cup of sweet tea in one hand and a half-played chess set across his knees. When they were younger, Raven had always laughed at him for playing alone like this- where was the fun in winning against yourself? – but Charles had played many solo games recently, his brows furrowed, his blue eyes clear, cool and unreadable as they fixed on the pieces. It helped him to think. Or not to think. Whichever he needed at the time. Tonight, however, they were drawn again and again to the window, as though seeing more than endless black rivulets and the occasional wash of silver as the moon crested a cloud.
His mind wandered too. Not to the school, as it should have done- not to the new intake of twenty due to arrive in just over a week's time. Not to their lessons, their discipline nor the parts his current students were to play (Banshee, Havok and the rest, after twenty months of intense tuition, were more suited now to teaching roles and independent study than his personal care). They would be a great help to him, especially now that, two years on, his legs still showed no signs of-
A surge of pain shoved up between his ribs and squeezed. He blinked, hard. Enough about that.
... Two years, now. Had it really gone so fast? There were still mornings when he woke up with the last echoes of Raven's voice sounding in his ears, as though she had just passed on the stairwell outside, or was clattering down to breakfast, complaining about his inability to rise early. Moira's ghost was at his shoulder when he picked up a newspaper, making some one-line comment about the headlines with her abrupt, but not unpleasant, American humour. He had also caught himself searching for her more than once, within those pages- but a CIA operative could never show her face, and one that remembered little more than his name would hardly try to send him a coded message.
With a sigh, Charles set the chess set aside and took a sip of rapidly cooling tea. He was far too distracted to play tonight, though he couldn't fully work out why. The others had gone to bed hours ago, he had little to do tomorrow save for some unimportant admin work and there was nothing outside but dark and rain and wet and –
And a light.
A yellowish tinge too faint to be the bright globes on the entrance gates.
And it was moving.
Drunkenly, swinging right then left like the pendulum of a clock, stopping and starting unevenly as it passed between the entrance lights, as it drew nearer and nearer up the wet, winding path.
Charles wheeled his chair slowly back from the window. What was this creature? His mind had picked up nothing in the grounds- he thought briefly of Emma Frost, yet even a fellow telepath would have shown up at this distance, particularly one with that distinctly crystalline mental signature. No animal would hold a light like that. No human could pass undetected.
Unless...
Another surge of pain welled up within him, but this one was harder to crush. It stoppered his throat, burned his eyes, wound fiery fingers around his heart...
It couldn't be. He knew that. He knew that.
But what if...
Charles wheeled back further into the house, retreating from the golden light of the sitting room into the colder shadows of the entrance hall. Once there, he positioned himself in front of the door, raising every exterior mental wall he could muster whilst his pulse hammered hard in his ears and tiny flicks of electricity zapped from temple to fingertip. He swallowed hard to calm himself, schooling his face into smoothness.
Why did hope always hurt most of all?
The light on the path was ten paces from the door now, then eight, then five...it paused barely a metre from the door's glass panel, wavering. From the other side, Charles could hear short, tight breaths. Then came a huffed curse and the black shadow of a fist rapped hard on the door.
Charles raised his own hand in reply.
He shouldn't do this. He was the only one awake, it was the middle of the night, this visitor could be anyone and...
And those breaths, that tread, that brief, breathy curse...
He never had a choice. Every nerve in his body acted before his mind could tell them no. The lock in the door clicked, slid open, and a dark, rain-slicked figure staggered into the room. A sputtering torch toppled from his hand and rolled out between them. Charles looked at the figure in that guttering light and felt something pull tight inside him.
The man was a wreck; a torn leather jacket hung in shreds from his back, exposing skin streaked red with blood. Mud splattered up lean legs, mingling with the gashes criss-crossing his broad chest. Something metal covered his head from crown to chin, a helmet in an almost Nordic style, somewhere between red and silver. It caught the light, bent it, hiding the face beneath. But Charles knew, with every single fibre of his being.
"E-Erik?" He could barely speak. "Erik...is that you?"
Two hands, only one gloved, reached up and pulled the helmet away, letting the torchlight fall across a savaged, filthy, achingly familiar face. White teeth grinned through the blood-darkened skin, eyes that perfect shade between blue and grey locked with his own.
"Hello Charles."
xxxXXXxxx
Hello lovelies! I'm baaaaaacccckkkk! First ever X-Men Fic, so I hope you like it. Could be a 2-parter or multi-parter, depending on reception and how life panns out, I suppose! : )
Let me know?
Psssst- the review button is actually a cookie dispenser...! Extra cookies for those who know where my title's from- no Wiki-ing it, that's cheating!