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X-Men Days Of Future Past: How Professor X Got His Groove Back
Charles Xavier lays in his bed thinking about everything; his mind is a mess of emotions and his heart is raw, freshly ripped apart by the mind-numbing events stemming from the desperate appearance of Wolverine, who has come to the mansion bearing horrific news for him and Beast about the future; and the fact just a few mere hours before he had been holding Raven in his very arms.
Raven; his Raven...no, not his Raven—Erik's Raven; Erik's Mystique...well, no, actually, not Erik's Mystique, either, but her own woman: murderous; hell-bent; determined to seek justice for her exterminated comrades—her friends; determined to exact her revenge upon Bolivar Trask—a task that, if successfully realized, would set the whole world on an apocalyptic path to its imminent destruction; for Trask, in the future that Logan is trying to prevent, will capture Raven, experiment on and weaponize her DNA...will kill her. From her Trask will create the Sentinels, able to adapt any and every mutant ability; unbeatable, according to Logan, in a war that mutants and peace-loving humans have never experienced before—and would be absolutely no match for.
Charles looks at the syringe on the night table and reaches for it, but he stops suddenly and just stares at his hand. I touched her...I held her...in these arms...Raven...always my Raven, fuck Erik...how I have missed her. In my arms, she was; tasered; convulsing; in all of her blue, scaly, naked glory... Charles lowers his hand, smiles and shakes his head at the memory, and of how she came, finally, to accept herself with pride all those years ago. His smile fades to a grimace then, as he begins to drown again in that vast ocean of his painful memories—and the physical pain that is traveling from his spine to the nerves in his legs, which are fast losing feeling. If only my brain could do the same...
"Gah!" he cries out, as his ability comes crashing back into his brain in starts and sputters; God, he wants the serum...but he wants to find Raven and save her, more; try to, anyway; he must try—for her. Fuck Erik, he grits his teeth and leans back into the pillows, his eyes rolling hard in his head from the nausea roiling in his gut. Fuck Erik, that handsome bastard. He tried to kill her! Fucking asshole! And we end up together in the future? After all of this? As what? They all left me! And then the fucking War came...and me, left here only with Hank...he's a good kid, but Jesus he's vapid sometimes...so I'm depressed...heartbroken—not once he has ever thought call a service...go out and get a hooker or two—hell, throw a party! Fire up some Three Dog Night, some Dr. John...a little Marvin Gaye for good measure, for God's sake! Break out some Boone's Farm, some Dom Perignon, a bucket or twelve of KFC, whatever, man, he's got the key to the safety deposit box...that'd get me off my ass for a minute—or happily on someone else's...Charles leers through his delirium. What the fuck is wrong with me? What am I saying? He made me this...Charles looks over at the nightstand again but is caught up in another spasm of pain, feeling then as if he will surely pass out. Oh, go easy on him, old boy, he's still a virgin, after all...
Charles' mind is just too full; of memories and conflicts; regarding Erik, and the love and hate he feels for him equally—God it had felt good to deck his ass at the Pentagon, an impulse that had been impossible to control—or quell; but he'd wanted to kiss the bastard, as well, and if he'd had even the hint of a private moment alone with him...well, he wouldn't have been able to quell that impulse, either; regarding Raven, the innocent scared little girl who had come to him on a dark night, alone and needing a friend—now the warrior, leading her brothers and sisters from the clutches of evil humans, so unaware of what hangs in the balance should she actually kill Trask; and then there were the voices...so many voices...coming back to him in a blazing cacophony of electric indictment against his unwillingness to really hear them, but more for his inability to help them. Coward! You insufferable coward! Charles rails at himself silently, Erik is right: you've been hiding—no more hiding.
He calls out for Hank to come help him to his wheelchair.
"Are you sure, Charles?" Hank asks him before they head to the sub-basement; Charles only nods; firmly seated in his wheelchair he leads them away to retrieve Logan.
Moments later Charles is rolling down the magnificent and brightly-lit steel corridor that leads to Cerebro, as Hank and Logan follow him solemnly; he is afraid; afraid that he will fail them all: Mystique; all the other mutants that need help—and himself; his face belies that fear and only registers his stern determination.
"When's the last time you guys were down here?" Logan asks Charles.
"The last time we went looking for students..." Hank answers.
"A lifetime ago—goddammit, Hank—just because I'm back in this chair doesn't mean that I've also lost the ability to speak for myself, " Charles snaps at him as he stops before the vaulted door.
"And you've been putting up with his shit for how long, now?" Logan quietly asks the dejected young man out of the side of his mouth.
"Yeah, well...he's always worse when he gets in the chair, but when he's on the serum and is up walking around?'
"Yeah?" Logan asks him cautiously.
"Oh my God..." Hank begins a swoon, "that sexy slouch-thing he does in his bathrobe when he leans against the table? More than makes up for it." Hank assures him.
"Hank! I am still in the fucking room."
"Sorry, Professor."
"Must get that virgin situation rectified—yesterday," Charles mutters disgustedly to himself as Hank, above him, goes red-faced; Logan shakes his damn head at the pair of them, and the palpable tension in the air indicating that both men are suffering from a horrific case of blue balls.
"Anyway, check out the cool laser effect on the new retinal scanner..." Hank manages at them both as he tries to work past his embarrassment.
Blue laser light issues forth and marks Charles' face with an "X" effect as Cerebro scans the Professor's irises. "Welcome, Professor," Cerebro coos at him.
The three men enter the chamber; Charles rolls up to the machine, he takes the detector in hand
and blows a great deal of dust from upon it in a manner so seductive that Hank shoots Logan an uncomfortable look., which Logan ignores.
"These are muscles that I haven't stretched in a long time," Charles smirks to himself as he thinks then of other muscles he used to stretch, almost forgetting then that the other two men are in the room behind him; this time Logan returns Hank's awkward look with one of his own; but Charles has braced himself and put the detector on his head and the attention of the two men is diverted back to their troubled mentor, immediately overwhelmed by the mutant flood that assaults his brain, even though it is invisible to their eyes.
"Gah! Gah!" Charles moans his mounting, almost orgasmic distress; Cerebro's controls go crazy and then blow, along with Charles. "Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!"
Hank and Logan are caught up in a shower of broken glass from the wrecked controls but manage to shield themselves. Logan turns back to the Professor, who is spent and still struggling to catch his breath, and has the very sudden urge to smoke a cigarette.
"Charles? Charles..." Hank goes to the depleted man; he remembers, suddenly, reading about vibrators in the Playboy magazines that Charles once gave him and Havoc to read when they were having trouble with training years ago, and he thought how lucky women were to have such a device at their disposal; he looks at Cerebro with new eyes, even as he administers to the still broken man before him. "Are you alright, Charles?"
Charles struggles to pull himself together and manages a nod.
"I'll go check the generator..." Hank tells him then.
Charles notices nothing out of the ordinary, but the spring in Hank's steps and the gleam in the boy's eyes as he leaves them to see what must be done to restore Cerebro are not lost on Logan; he hopes that, if Hank can get it going again, it will take at least twenty minutes.
"It's not the machinery, is it?" Logan asks Charles then and it's more of a statement than a question.
Like a guy finishing up a one night stand who has no tact at all, Charles assaults Logan with all of his recriminations. "This was a bloody mistake; all of this...is bullshit! Coming down here...freeing Erik...all of it—a bloody mistake!"
"Charles..."
"I can't do it, Logan; I'm like one of my own students...helpless..." Charles continues, more than disgusted at his failure. "I'm sorry, Logan—they sent back the wrong man—they sent you back to the wrong man..." He rolls away to the exit.
But Logan refuses to be kicked out of bed. "You're right, Charles; I am the wrong man—" Logan's words stop Charles in his tracks. "It was supposed to be you—but I was the only one strong enough to make the physical trip..." he saunters over to the forlorn man, his sexy stride a little off-putting to Charles...and a touch exciting. "I don't know how much time we have, but I do know that there was a time when you came to me...well, a long time from now, anyway—I was your most helpless student, Charles..." Logan leans down and takes the wheelchair arms in his hands, hemming Charles in with his truth—and his brute animal magnetism, which Charles tries, unsuccessfully to resist. "You got in my head, Charles; you helped me to unlock the worst horror of my life; you showed me a way past all of that pain, and toward all that I could be—you. Now, I can't do that for you—but I know someone who can..."
"You saw what I did to Cerebro..."
Logan gives Charles a knowing smile and then checks himself. "Trust me—I can take it."
"I can't, Logan..."
"You can—you're just a little rusty..." Logan counters.
"It's not a matter of being rusty..."
"Sure it is—it's like riding a bicycle—just get back on that bitch and ride it..."
"Are we...are we talking about the same thing here?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about getting into your head..."
"So am I..."
"Yes, well, strangely, it sounds a bit to me like you're talking about—"
"Head, Charles, yes..."
"Wh...what?"
"Just getting into my head, Charles, that's all..."
"Well, you are dangerously too close to me right now, and I...I haven't done this in so long; Cerebro was a bust and I'm— "
"Put your hands on me, Charles..."
"What?"
Logan leans in closer and offers Charles a temple. "Put your hands on me...just do it..."
"My mind can't take it, you don't understand..."
"Practice makes perfect...c'mon, already..."
"I can't, Logan! My power...comes from here," Charles points at his head, then gestures next at his heart, "and it's broken..." he says of it.
"I know all about a broken heart—take a look already, would ya?"
Charles is caught up in the sexy Canadian's sway and finds himself unable not to obey his gruff command; he reaches out a hand and puts it to Logan's temple. "Gah! I don't want that shit! That's your General Hospital shit! What a mess..."
"Is that what you've been doing with yourself all this time, watching soaps?"
"Look, whatever works, you know?"
"There's more, Charles—plus you cut out before the commercials were over—try it again."
"But..."
"I said try it again." Logan's tone is a menacing, sexy, totally mesmerizing threat and a call to action that Charles obeys.
All of a sudden Charles hears music...the swell of strings and the glissando of a piano that heralds the background strains of Barry White's 'I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More, Baby'. Surely it is just a strange figment of his overloaded imagination, but it doesn't matter; he ignores everything else as he looks deeply into Logan's eyes, then beyond—and finds himself; finds his future self, old, and full of his own power, but wounded and besieged by impending annihilation under attack of the Sentinels; he sees Erik, old as well, still devastatingly handsome—and realizes that his own General Hospital shit has a better ending than he could have ever imagined, for he sees that there is life after Erik—and Raven—and that his heart will surely mend; that his school will be the bomb again; and that he's got plenty of other muscles to exercise before his life is over.
Old Charles gives his 1973 self a much needed pep talk and instills hope in him that has been sorely lacking. "Make it so, Number One," Old Charles commands Young Charles.
"Wrong show, man..."
"Well, to be fair, I am dying...wires sometimes get crossed in such situations, hmm?" Old Charles frowns at his young self and sends the horny lad back to task.
Charles comes out of his future and is confronted by Logan, still dangerously too close, yet a very welcomed sight.
"Find what you were looking for?" Logan asks him softly, with the full force of his imposing swagger; Charles is left speechless as Logan slowly withdraws from him. At the moment he becomes aware that power is restored as the corridor lights up...and also that the music he hears is not his imagination playing trick on him.
"The power's back on," Hank announces as he comes into the corridor.
"Yes, Hank, it is..." Charles and Logan exchange knowing looks that totally baffle Hank. "By the way—where's that music coming from?"
"Oh...just setting the mood for when I hook up to Cer...I mean, uh, just turned on the radio while I was fixing the generator..." Hank answers nervously.
"Yes, well, we're done down here now; c'mon, then, we must go..."
"Now? But I need to, uh, clean up all that broken glass and everything..."
"I'll take care of Cerebro later, Hank." Charles and Logan make to leave.
But I wanted to take care of Cerebro, damn it! Hank grouses silently; Charles whips around in his chair and gives Hank a warning look, and he realizes that Charles has his power back. Fuck!
"Yes, Hank, you need one of those badly—let's see about rounding one up for you tonight before we leave for Washington, hmm?"
"Really, Professor?"
"Really, but as far as Cerebro goes?"
"Yes sir?"
His warning at Hank then comes through his stern voice and the lift of a reprimanding eyebrow. "Don't even think about it. Let's go."