Guilt
A short story by:
Phobia
Disclaimer: The X-Men and all related characters belong to Marvel Comics. I'm just playing in their backyard. I don't mean any disrespect. I'm just using existing characters to tell a story that I felt would exist best in the X- Men universe.
**
It was night in New York. The full moon hung in the sky over Xavier's School for
Gifted Youngsters as a cool night breeze blew across the lawn, caressing the brick walls of the base of operations of the world's premiere mutant heroes. The eerie and dark world outside fit the mood of the leader of the X-Men, who sat in his office alone.
The office of Professor Charles Xavier had always been his refuge. The dark wood furniture and volumes of old books was a soothing and a comforting break from the steel and chaos below him, in the depths of the mansion where the mutant team of heroes prepared for what they did. They saved their world.
But that work was far from the mind of Xavier tonight. Tonight, well after the rest of the mansion had fallen asleep, Xavier sat in his office alone, scared but resolute. The office was far from hot during the chilly fall nights, but sweat had formed on his bald head and over much of his body. His body trembled and his face twisted in pain. Tonight, Xavier was unconcerned with the plight of mutant kind. Tonight he was dealing with his own personal disaster.
"Cerebro," Xavier said after hours of sitting at his desk. In response a screen rose from the wooden desk, the blue glow adding another source of light besides the full moon in the window.
"Take a letter," Xavier said, resting his head on the desk as he said it, fighting off more pain.
"To whom?" the mechanized voice of Cerebro's vocal interface asked.
"Set letter to be sent to all of the active X-Men once it is finished," he replied.
"Acknowledged," Cerebro answered. "Set to record."
"Begin," Xavier ordered. It was time to set his affairs in order.
"I do not know how to begin," Xavier said, drawing his head up from the desk, looking into Cerebro's screen as though it was the people he was writing to. "How do you confess your sins to your own children?"
"Children? That seems like the correct place to start. You all came to me and my institute as children. You had barely taken your first steps into adolescence when your developing powers made you a threat to those around you and you came to me to help you, to help you define your role in this world. I became like a father to many of you, especially those that had no family outside these walls. "
Xavier paused and began to cry. The weight of his emotions were overwhelming him as his confession began to spill out. Quickly he composed himself. The time for emotions was over.
"I betrayed your trust. I betrayed all of your trusts. I am."
Again Xavier broke down into tears. This was the hardest part, at least he hoped it was. He choked on the words again briefly and then tried to control himself.
"I am," he took a deep breath and then exhaled, roughly and painfully. "I am an addict."
The weight of what Xavier had just revealed caused him to stop breathing briefly. It was as though his sins were weighing down his already half-crippled body. How had he come to this?
"My body is crippled," he continued, still starring into the computer screen, searching for forgiveness. "My mind is the most powerful tool any human being has ever had. I am surrounded by the most advanced technology, both human and extraterrestrial, that has ever been conceived. And yet, I am still crippled.
"I command the most powerful team of heroes on the planet. The very fate of the world has been decided numerous times by my words alone and it is not enough to satisfy the pain that I live with and somehow, despite all my wisdom I do not have the strength to say no.
"It started with Scott and Jean, my closest advisors and friends within your numbers. Ironic isn't it? The two that trust me the most and the two that I trusted the most are the two that I began this with? It was a summer many years ago. They were seventeen and had spent the summer constantly at each other's sides, their love growing. That August fifteenth was their first time together.
"I didn't mean to be there. I had actually reached out to contact Scott to ask if he wanted to go into the city with me the next morning. Instead, I ended up watching something that no one was meant to see. They were so young and passionate, giving their love to one another without holding anything back. It was. intoxicating."
Xavier took a deep breath, for a telepath of his caliber to describe that situation, a situation that he had lived and relived in his head, it was hard to maintain his concentration. He had to recover. That addiction had to be over.
"Scott, Jean, I am sorry. I. just hadn't been able to live that in so long. I experienced the entire thing through your bodies. I violated my own children, my own dear children.
"I kept that one experience to myself for nearly a year, limiting my psychic contact to the two of you, trying hard to forget what I had done. Most telepaths struggle with similar events and most overcome them. I thought that I could as well. I am, after all, the most powerful telepath on the planet. As it turns out, aptitude has nothing to do with fortitude.
"The next time it was Ororo. She was fantasizing in the shower and I happened to mentally contact her midstream. At first we were both embarrassed, as she realized that I had heard her thoughts. But then, I entered the fantasy and made her want me and we shared each other's bodies mentally for long hours. When it was over I was so terrified that I wiped her memory of the experience but that same fear did not stop me.
"Rogue, Jubilee, and every other woman that passed through these walls shared my bed, at least mentally. Each time I did it I felt alive and when it wasn't happening it was like I was dying. Of course there were times when my conscious would grip me and I could go weeks without, but each time my body and mind would fight me and eventually, I would succumb. For years I continued to both visit the women here telepathically and share in the real sexual encounters around me. I have counseled addicts before but I never knew how gripping addictions were, not until I experienced one myself.
"Eventually, mental adventures were not enough, no matter how real I could make them. Eventually, I started bringing the women to me. They would perform as though I could and I would will in the blanks telepathically. It was the most vile thing I had ever down. I was raping my own daughters and then wiping their memories to protect myself.
"All the while, I have been living like I was the perfect man that you all believed me to be. While I was held aloft as a saint and while my students became the people that I had always hoped, I dove deeper and deeper into my perversion.
"I cannot believe that I have hurt my children so deeply. I have long said when counseling that confession is good for the soul, but right now I am only finding that it will scar you deeper. Again, I am hurting you for my own satisfaction. None of you know how deeply I have hurt you, how sorely I have abused you. I am so sorry."
Finally Xavier broke down and cried again. This time, to full moon passed through the sky and dipped below the trees that surrounded the beautiful, pristine grounds of the mansion. Once the corner of the east sky began to light, dawn still nearly an hour away, Xavier looked up from his desk and into the blue screen before him, forgiveness still elusive. His lip curled, his face contorted as the sweat continued to roll from his head. He screamed in rage at the unforgiving machine before him and slammed his fist down into the desk, causing his knuckles to burst into blood.
"I regret! Please! Forgive me!" Xavier screamed at Cerebro, who merely responded by typing his words of the screen. "For-give me!"
Again Xavier punched the desk and then smashed the computer screen with his undamaged hand. He screamed again and again while punching everything he could reach from his chair, turning his hands into bloody masses. The pain however did not bring any relief. It seemed nothing could stop the agony in his soul. He could not find forgiveness.
"Cerebro," Xavier said into the cracked and broken computer screen, finding enough control to seem calm briefly. "Delete letter, do not send."
Cerebro chimed in agreement, but Charles Xavier did not hear it.
**
Scott awoke early that morning, leaving Jean in bed and wondering into the kitchen for coffee. No one was awake yet so he took his coffee and sat by the window, admiring the sunrise and thinking about what this coming winter would bring. Would they face Magneto again? Or would it be Apocalypse? What dark foe awaited them?
After his coffee the man known to the world as Cyclops wondered out towards Xavier's office. It was customary for the two of them to meet in the mornings and talk, especially those mornings that Jean and the others slept in. So Scott wondered down the Oak corridors until he came to his mentor's door.
"Professor?" Scott knocked on the door. "Good morning."
There was no answer from the office. Curious. Scott never knew the Professor to not be in his office in the morning.
"Professor?" he asked again as he pushed the door open. What he saw startled him. There was broken glass and cracked wood on the desk and blood was everywhere.
"Charles!" Scott screamed and ran around the desk. The next time he said he surrogate father's name it was a whisper. He found him lying on the floor, his fists bloodied like he'd been in a battle. Scott lifted him up and embraced him, hoping against hope that Charles was still alive. He found however, that he was dead despite the fact that there were no injuries to be found on him except those on his hands.
Later, despite extensive autopsies and searching Cerebro's databases the X-Men were unable to discover a cause of death for their leader Professor Charles Xavier. He took his guilt to the grave.
**
AUTHORS NOTES:
In no way do I commend suicide as a way to deal with your problems, not even if you have sinned so deeply and kept secrets so dark that you see no way you could ever be forgiven. Suicide is not the way out. Not only because there are ways to deal with your problems, not only because every life is valuable despite the pain in your life, but also because suicide is selfish. You are taking your life from this planet because of how you feel and you have no right to rob the world of that life, no matter what your crime.
This story was written to explore the consequences of amazing telepathic powers. There are reasons, I believe that sinful man should not have powers like that and this story explained one of them. It would be too dark and controlling a temptation for man to endure. Xavier just became my vehicle for the story. Like I said in the story: Aptitude has nothing to do with fortitude. The world's most powerful telepath would be most susceptible to failure in this area. Hope the story was compelling and thought provoking.
Disclaimer: The X-Men and all related characters belong to Marvel Comics. I'm just playing in their backyard. I don't mean any disrespect. I'm just using existing characters to tell a story that I felt would exist best in the X- Men universe.
**
It was night in New York. The full moon hung in the sky over Xavier's School for
Gifted Youngsters as a cool night breeze blew across the lawn, caressing the brick walls of the base of operations of the world's premiere mutant heroes. The eerie and dark world outside fit the mood of the leader of the X-Men, who sat in his office alone.
The office of Professor Charles Xavier had always been his refuge. The dark wood furniture and volumes of old books was a soothing and a comforting break from the steel and chaos below him, in the depths of the mansion where the mutant team of heroes prepared for what they did. They saved their world.
But that work was far from the mind of Xavier tonight. Tonight, well after the rest of the mansion had fallen asleep, Xavier sat in his office alone, scared but resolute. The office was far from hot during the chilly fall nights, but sweat had formed on his bald head and over much of his body. His body trembled and his face twisted in pain. Tonight, Xavier was unconcerned with the plight of mutant kind. Tonight he was dealing with his own personal disaster.
"Cerebro," Xavier said after hours of sitting at his desk. In response a screen rose from the wooden desk, the blue glow adding another source of light besides the full moon in the window.
"Take a letter," Xavier said, resting his head on the desk as he said it, fighting off more pain.
"To whom?" the mechanized voice of Cerebro's vocal interface asked.
"Set letter to be sent to all of the active X-Men once it is finished," he replied.
"Acknowledged," Cerebro answered. "Set to record."
"Begin," Xavier ordered. It was time to set his affairs in order.
"I do not know how to begin," Xavier said, drawing his head up from the desk, looking into Cerebro's screen as though it was the people he was writing to. "How do you confess your sins to your own children?"
"Children? That seems like the correct place to start. You all came to me and my institute as children. You had barely taken your first steps into adolescence when your developing powers made you a threat to those around you and you came to me to help you, to help you define your role in this world. I became like a father to many of you, especially those that had no family outside these walls. "
Xavier paused and began to cry. The weight of his emotions were overwhelming him as his confession began to spill out. Quickly he composed himself. The time for emotions was over.
"I betrayed your trust. I betrayed all of your trusts. I am."
Again Xavier broke down into tears. This was the hardest part, at least he hoped it was. He choked on the words again briefly and then tried to control himself.
"I am," he took a deep breath and then exhaled, roughly and painfully. "I am an addict."
The weight of what Xavier had just revealed caused him to stop breathing briefly. It was as though his sins were weighing down his already half-crippled body. How had he come to this?
"My body is crippled," he continued, still starring into the computer screen, searching for forgiveness. "My mind is the most powerful tool any human being has ever had. I am surrounded by the most advanced technology, both human and extraterrestrial, that has ever been conceived. And yet, I am still crippled.
"I command the most powerful team of heroes on the planet. The very fate of the world has been decided numerous times by my words alone and it is not enough to satisfy the pain that I live with and somehow, despite all my wisdom I do not have the strength to say no.
"It started with Scott and Jean, my closest advisors and friends within your numbers. Ironic isn't it? The two that trust me the most and the two that I trusted the most are the two that I began this with? It was a summer many years ago. They were seventeen and had spent the summer constantly at each other's sides, their love growing. That August fifteenth was their first time together.
"I didn't mean to be there. I had actually reached out to contact Scott to ask if he wanted to go into the city with me the next morning. Instead, I ended up watching something that no one was meant to see. They were so young and passionate, giving their love to one another without holding anything back. It was. intoxicating."
Xavier took a deep breath, for a telepath of his caliber to describe that situation, a situation that he had lived and relived in his head, it was hard to maintain his concentration. He had to recover. That addiction had to be over.
"Scott, Jean, I am sorry. I. just hadn't been able to live that in so long. I experienced the entire thing through your bodies. I violated my own children, my own dear children.
"I kept that one experience to myself for nearly a year, limiting my psychic contact to the two of you, trying hard to forget what I had done. Most telepaths struggle with similar events and most overcome them. I thought that I could as well. I am, after all, the most powerful telepath on the planet. As it turns out, aptitude has nothing to do with fortitude.
"The next time it was Ororo. She was fantasizing in the shower and I happened to mentally contact her midstream. At first we were both embarrassed, as she realized that I had heard her thoughts. But then, I entered the fantasy and made her want me and we shared each other's bodies mentally for long hours. When it was over I was so terrified that I wiped her memory of the experience but that same fear did not stop me.
"Rogue, Jubilee, and every other woman that passed through these walls shared my bed, at least mentally. Each time I did it I felt alive and when it wasn't happening it was like I was dying. Of course there were times when my conscious would grip me and I could go weeks without, but each time my body and mind would fight me and eventually, I would succumb. For years I continued to both visit the women here telepathically and share in the real sexual encounters around me. I have counseled addicts before but I never knew how gripping addictions were, not until I experienced one myself.
"Eventually, mental adventures were not enough, no matter how real I could make them. Eventually, I started bringing the women to me. They would perform as though I could and I would will in the blanks telepathically. It was the most vile thing I had ever down. I was raping my own daughters and then wiping their memories to protect myself.
"All the while, I have been living like I was the perfect man that you all believed me to be. While I was held aloft as a saint and while my students became the people that I had always hoped, I dove deeper and deeper into my perversion.
"I cannot believe that I have hurt my children so deeply. I have long said when counseling that confession is good for the soul, but right now I am only finding that it will scar you deeper. Again, I am hurting you for my own satisfaction. None of you know how deeply I have hurt you, how sorely I have abused you. I am so sorry."
Finally Xavier broke down and cried again. This time, to full moon passed through the sky and dipped below the trees that surrounded the beautiful, pristine grounds of the mansion. Once the corner of the east sky began to light, dawn still nearly an hour away, Xavier looked up from his desk and into the blue screen before him, forgiveness still elusive. His lip curled, his face contorted as the sweat continued to roll from his head. He screamed in rage at the unforgiving machine before him and slammed his fist down into the desk, causing his knuckles to burst into blood.
"I regret! Please! Forgive me!" Xavier screamed at Cerebro, who merely responded by typing his words of the screen. "For-give me!"
Again Xavier punched the desk and then smashed the computer screen with his undamaged hand. He screamed again and again while punching everything he could reach from his chair, turning his hands into bloody masses. The pain however did not bring any relief. It seemed nothing could stop the agony in his soul. He could not find forgiveness.
"Cerebro," Xavier said into the cracked and broken computer screen, finding enough control to seem calm briefly. "Delete letter, do not send."
Cerebro chimed in agreement, but Charles Xavier did not hear it.
**
Scott awoke early that morning, leaving Jean in bed and wondering into the kitchen for coffee. No one was awake yet so he took his coffee and sat by the window, admiring the sunrise and thinking about what this coming winter would bring. Would they face Magneto again? Or would it be Apocalypse? What dark foe awaited them?
After his coffee the man known to the world as Cyclops wondered out towards Xavier's office. It was customary for the two of them to meet in the mornings and talk, especially those mornings that Jean and the others slept in. So Scott wondered down the Oak corridors until he came to his mentor's door.
"Professor?" Scott knocked on the door. "Good morning."
There was no answer from the office. Curious. Scott never knew the Professor to not be in his office in the morning.
"Professor?" he asked again as he pushed the door open. What he saw startled him. There was broken glass and cracked wood on the desk and blood was everywhere.
"Charles!" Scott screamed and ran around the desk. The next time he said he surrogate father's name it was a whisper. He found him lying on the floor, his fists bloodied like he'd been in a battle. Scott lifted him up and embraced him, hoping against hope that Charles was still alive. He found however, that he was dead despite the fact that there were no injuries to be found on him except those on his hands.
Later, despite extensive autopsies and searching Cerebro's databases the X-Men were unable to discover a cause of death for their leader Professor Charles Xavier. He took his guilt to the grave.
**
AUTHORS NOTES:
In no way do I commend suicide as a way to deal with your problems, not even if you have sinned so deeply and kept secrets so dark that you see no way you could ever be forgiven. Suicide is not the way out. Not only because there are ways to deal with your problems, not only because every life is valuable despite the pain in your life, but also because suicide is selfish. You are taking your life from this planet because of how you feel and you have no right to rob the world of that life, no matter what your crime.
This story was written to explore the consequences of amazing telepathic powers. There are reasons, I believe that sinful man should not have powers like that and this story explained one of them. It would be too dark and controlling a temptation for man to endure. Xavier just became my vehicle for the story. Like I said in the story: Aptitude has nothing to do with fortitude. The world's most powerful telepath would be most susceptible to failure in this area. Hope the story was compelling and thought provoking.