prompt: Charles can't remember Erik or use his telepathy anymore because of Erik driving the coin through his head. Up to you if he is still in wheelchair or not.
How does Erik deal with it? Does he know? Does he come back to Charles when he finds out?
i.
He will smile brightly and say hello but will not address you as my friend, never my friend. You will hear fits of coughing and worried voices of family, barely muffled on the other side of green curtains, and for the first time be thankful he cannot see into the minds of others, sick and dying around him. You will wonder if he feels utterly cut off from half of his world, unable to feel the soft flutter of minds touching his. You will wonder if he feels cut off from half of his body, unable to feel useless limbs hidden from sight beneath coarse blankets. You will find you cannot bring yourself to ask.
So you will tell him about a place with windows. Large windows, dozens on each level (there are five, you will try to recall, straining to count them in your mind's eye, if you include the bunker below). Far too many rooms for occupants, but there will be more students soon-you will promise him, taking the curve of his hand into yours. In his room, you will remind him, there is a large bay window that looks out into the yard and beyond that, the soft swell of pine trees dipping into the arched sky. You will ask him if he remembers looking out together when the rain beaded thick on the glass like sweat. The earthy smell of wet soil rose steadily with the drum, the droplets on the stairs and the driveway and the pavement outside a distant patter. He had pressed a hand to the glass, a transient fog of moisture clouding around each finger. He drew back and watched the hand print fade. "What would it be like?" he had asked, turning his gaze onto you, "If we had never met?"
ii.
You will bring it with you this time. It will sit leaden in your pocket and will be a heavier burden now, cold metal against your thigh as you hesitate- it used to burn as if inside you, urging you forward, onwards, driving you like madness. It was an invisible hand guiding, and invisible mouth whispering, a Siren's promise, almost there. Now the voice is your own, ugly and inglorious-you Erik, you did this. You will spend the better half of a week, gathering any modica of courage or propriety to show it to him. Your struggle with yourself will be all the confirmation you need, though you will push the thought violently from your mind in anguish, of your cowardice. The only comfort you will take is that you didn't run away. Perhaps it will be a weakness that you stayed.
You will put it in his hands. He will look at it curiously, turning it, eyebrows drawn together like they used to in his study or over the chess board. You will tell him to feel it, to run his fingers round the ridges, to feel the relief of the eagle in the metal. This was supposed to be freedom, you will say. His silence will be worse than blame. You will crush his fingers around it so that he can feel its imprint like you have felt it branded on your skin, like the numbers on your arm. He will jerk back in surprise and you will be afraid perhaps you've hurt him. Then, a secondary fear in the form of hope and you will wonder if he remembers.
He won't.
"It is just a coin," he will tell you as if you don't already know.
iii.
You will bury your head in his lap and tell yourself he can't possibly feel the weight of your head (or your heavy heart) on his legs. The silence will be unbearable. Slowly, he will put his hand on your head and your breath will catch. His skin will be warm on yours and you will think you shouldn't, but you can't stop yourself. You will lean in to kiss him and he will turn his head. Your lips will graze the side of his face and you will pull back feeling foolish. His cheeks will flush, his chest rising and falling rapidly in the still air. You will want to put your hand there to slow it by force.
"I'm terribly sorry," he will say softly, "I'm not-"
You will put a hand to his chest but do nothing more than feel his heart real and close under your palm. A small part of you that will never die will hope it still beats for you.
"Please," you will hear yourself say.
He will swallow and eventually nod. You won't be sure if it is curiosity or pity.
You will press your lips to his to find out and when he opens his mouth under yours, you know that it must be alright. You will tell yourself that it is alright.
iv.
"Do you love me?" he will ask you one day.
"No," you will say. You lost that right on sandy beaches under Cuban sun.
He will smile at you faintly and there will be a sadness in his eyes that you will imagine to be something like forgiveness. You will go home and cry for the first time since you dug her grave with dirt caked nails and your hand will always be stained.
You will dream about the night you half-wanted to drown, capsized in inky waves in the darkness, cold under the surface, a dampened roar enveloping everything until there was nothing. There was a calmness there that washed over you. His voice in your head was bright. You are not alone. Delirious, you prayed to a God you've forsaken for him to never leave.
v.
The next time, you will know it is your last.
His eyes will be too blue. The metal of the wheelchair will shake under your fingers over the carpet and you will roll him to a hallway window smudged with faceprints of children, overlooking the courtyard. There will be a barren tree beside the wooden benches, limbs twisted into the pavement, raising it in places where soft moss has taken root at the crumbled soil beneath. The sky will be overcast with the last drips of sun flowing over the clouds like an egg's yolk. He will squint under a raised hand with the other pressed to the glass and suddenly he will see himself and you in the reflection in the gathering dusk.
He will fall still.
He will turn to you and your throat will close and he will tell you he's sorry he has kept you for so long, he didn't realize how late it was. And the autumn leaves will be ugly on the ground and in the wind, nothing for you here but the turn of time and the decay of something beautiful.
He will tell you goodnight and you will tell him goodbye.
You might look back.
vi.
You know, even as you drive the coin through Shaw's head.
The peace doesn't come.
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