Disclaimer: Realized I totally forgot this part last time. Would such if I forgot to put it in here again... what was I doing? Oh well, fic time!
TABULA RASA
Chapter II: Paved With Good Intentions
III.
Raven had accused him, on more than one occasion, of not thinking before he acted. He couldn't blame her, given his track record.
It was fairly routine for him to start debates of a slightly incendiary nature between the faculty at Oxford. A lot of the times it worked out just fine, sometimes (usually with the added bonus of some kind of amber liquid) it very much didn't. He'd sparked a three year long feud between engineering and biology branches in just such a manner, much to his embarrassment. He felt legitimately bad for that and had made a dedicated effort to cull his urge to give impromptu lectures to drunken faculty members that might or might not seem like an insult to their mother.
That incident aside, the problem wasn't lack of forethought, not at all. He tended to think about things far too much. The problem more lied in the fact that when he came to a solution, that truth at the end of a problem, he very much wanted to tell people about it... and a lot of the time, the truth was a dangerous thing to know.
Now seemed like the best example he'd had in a long while. Here he was, standing in the same compartment as a man who had essentially taken him hostage. He owed this man no favors, if any, the man owed Charles one or two by now. Yet here he was, aiding and abetting, even if the other man didn't realize it yet. Charles had every intention of helping this man, and he had a very good reason too. The trouble was, if he just up and told the man, "I took a quick peek inside your brain to make sure you weren't a loose psychopath and now probably know as much about you as you do." he'd sound very, very crazy. Or worse. So instead, Charles opted on the side of looking like a brainless fool as it seemed marginally more flattering.
Charles watched him from his spot next to the window, grounding himself with the ice cold of the glass against his back. He was prowling back and forth across the compartment, plans made and rejected behind his eyes. Prowling really was the only word for it too. The man was a sleek example of muscle and grace. Every step was deliberately placed, never awkward, never sacrificing balance. That, more than anything else, was what made him intimidating, that told you this is a person who knew how to survive and wasn't afraid to step through other people to do it... and Charles had just told him the ugly truth and given him targets.
"What are you going to do?" Charles asked with the first show of real hesitation.
The man stopped and looked at him with that same calculating look he'd been giving Charles since moment one. "I'm going to get off before the next station." He said shortly, assuredly.
"They won't let you." Charles frowned.
The man didn't shrug, he was clearly above such a common action, but his lack of response somehow communicated it entirely.
"They will kill you," Charles emphasized, "do you understand that? Do you even have a weapon?" Never a question he'd asked before...
The man paused, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a plain butter knife, the edge so blunt it was really more like a flat spoon. Charles felt no reservations in looking at him like an idiot... so he did. Loudly.
The expression was ignored, "Stay inside, stay low." He said before moving to pull the door open.
"Wait!" Charles ducked in front of him and slammed his hand on the door, keeping it from opening. The man didn't seem pleased by this. "I can't just let you walk out there and get yourself killed."
It seemed Charles had hit some kind of threshold of annoyance with the man. It was a subtle shift, a simple turn to face Charles straight on, a slight lean in to his space. "This isn't suicide." He spoke in clipped tones forced between sharp teeth, "I have fifteen minutes between here and the next stop where they will likely have more of their friends waiting for me. This train is going too fast to jump off and it won't slow down at any point between here and there. This is my only option, stop them before they stop me, then put on the breaks and leave. That's it."
As threatening as that butter knife suddenly was, Charles didn't allow himself to be cowed, "Then let me clear the way for you. The fewer people you have to 'stop' the higher the likelihood of success, yes?"
Either the logic of the suggestion or the sheer force of Charles's brashness seemed to box the man into a corner, head titling subtly as his mouth pulled down. Charles waited impatiently on the balls of his feet, out of his element.
"Why are you helping me?" The man asked gravely, gray eyes bright with something Charles couldn't define.
"Because I know you won't hurt me. I couldn't say the same for them." Charles answered strongly even though it was a half-truth.
The man remained in silence for far too long and it seemed like he sharpened. Every line in his body tensed, jaw clenched, fingers gripping around that laughable knife like he could bend it with will alone. There was a breath and then he took a step closer to the Charles, forcing him to tilt his head up to keep eye contact.
"...and how do you know I won't hurt you?" His voice was so low, so tense, that Charles swore he could feel it in his bones. He stared back up, refusing to even blink.
"I know."
...and then the taller man backed off, looking profoundly torn between exasperation, confusion, and something close to amusement. "You trust too easily." He informed Charles frankly.
"So I'll be your distraction then?"
"I doubt I could stop you even if I wanted to."
Charles couldn't help the brilliant smile that jumped to his face, "Well at least now we understand each other."
IV
Charles was gone for only a few minutes but those few minutes were absolute torture.
What could have possibly possessed him to let a man he just met, openly threatened, and very likely bruised at the very least (He seemed the type to bruise easily) go and wrangle five men with guns on his behalf? Why had it seemed a good idea, on his word and a pair of honest-seeming eyes, that he should let Charles just run off.
The man paced back and forth in the compartment, keeping far away from the section of glass even as his mind was occupied with visions of the smaller man running up to the first official looking person he could find and regaling them with a tale of how he'd just been temporarily kidnapped by the dumbest man in all existence. How Charles had very neatly made him confess he wasn't armed in any way besides cutlery, gotten him to trust him, and he'd just been allowed to walk out.
Or worse yet, the fool could have given himself away to these men with guns and twitchy demeanors. He was obviously the honest type, after all, how in the hell could he be a good liar? At this very moment, he could be bleeding out in some lonely corner of the train while the gunmen headed straight this way.
He flipped that omnipresent butter knife over in a graceful silver flash along the back of his knuckles and glared at an offensive patch on the wall. Five seconds, five was all he could give this situation.
Five, four... the click of the door opening made him spin on a heel, arcing the knife around...
"Apologies," Charles said tensely, eyes looking down at the knife hovering a few inches in front of his face, "I probably should have knocked."
"Might have been a good consideration," He returned with smooth sarcasm.
Charles let out a breathy laugh at that and left him no choice but to petulantly drop the knife back to his side.
"So?" He prodded and Charles jumped, remembering that he did have something to say. He looked positively flushed and more than a little keyed up, but he seemed to be taking to it well if the smile on his face was any indication.
"Right, yes," Charles said with a nod, "It's all set. You likely have five or six minutes to work with, though there is still one wandering around, so be careful." He said all this like he hadn't just inexplicably apprehended four armed men.
"...How?" He couldn't keep the abject disbelief from his voice.
"Hm? Oh," Charles shrugged, "I might have lead them to believe there was a shady looking character in the storage compartment a few cars back. Then the door might have accidentally locked behind them. You owe me a pen by the way."
Of all the things he had come across these past few weeks including waking up not knowing who or where he was... Charles Xavier was the most confusing thing so far. The most he could do was stare, eyebrows drawn together, then resolutely turn on a heel and walk past him out the door.
To his credit, Charles politely stepped out of his way and held the door open... and then he opened his mouth to speak again.
"It was nice to meet you, Erik."
He froze.
"What did you say?" His voice came out gruff and abused, but he couldn't make himself turn around to look. He didn't know exactly what he'd do when he did.
"Is that not your name?" Charles said in confusion just out of his line of sight. The sound of paper came shortly after, forcing him to look back. The smaller man was unfolding a squared piece of paper out into its original form, words printed in heavy enough type that it was visible from the reverse side. "There are some others on here I can try but I thought Erik suited you best. You don't really look like a Magnus to me."
Charles turned the paper over and offered it over, that shade of sympathy bleeding back into his eyes even though there was no reason for it to be there.
"One of your 'friends' may or may not have dropped that." Charles explained with a laugh in his eyes.
He snatched the paper out of Charles's hands impatiently and skimmed it. The majority of it was nonsensical bureaucratic gibberish saying who approved what to be read by whom and until when. However, blocked a the top was a short physical description that sounded achingly familiar and a short list of possible aliases.
Erik Lehnsherr. Erik Lehnsherr.
He folded the paper up, tucked it into his jacket pocket, and looked up at the man who had given it to him. He was standing patiently, calm, and oddly supportive. It made him wonder if the bumbling humor he'd been displaying earlier wasn't completely intentional to lighten the mood.
"Charles," He said, the name feeling weird to say but saying Xavier would have been even worse.
Charles smile edged on a grin, "You have four minutes, Erik."
For the first time that he could remember, he found himself smiling back.
"Goodbye, Charles."
V.
Charles fell back into his original seat with little grace and cupped his hands over his mouth to as if it could somehow regulate his breathing in any way. He felt out of place in the now empty compartment, the remaining adrenaline in his veins left with nothing to do and nowhere to go. The book he'd been reading prior to... everything, had tumbled to the floor, bending the pages awkwardly where it fell open. The accompanying notes were still on the seat though the heavy metal pen he'd been writing them with was now conspicuously missing.
He let his hands drop clumsily and took in a breath.
He would get off at the next stop and find some other mode of transportation to Geneva. The way he'd arranged it, those mercenaries (That's what they were, he found out when he'd allowed himself to look deep enough) wouldn't come looking for him. He hoped. He hadn't used his ability this much, well, at all in years and while he could claim telepathy was like riding a bike it was probably closer to riding a unicycle across a greased tightrope. Similar in theory but in practice...
It was quite by coincidence that Charles turned to look out the window as a person passed by the glass. It would have seemed like a rather pedestrian sort of silhouette if it weren't for the subtle shape of a gun in one hand.
"Damn." Charles pushed himself up from his seat and towards the door pulling open as fast as he could manage without making too much of a sound. Any plan he'd actually intended however, fell to the wayside as he remembered how utterly crap he was at sneaking up on people.
The mercenary spun around on him, gun pointed directly at a part of Charles's torso that he'd very much like to remain un-vented. Charles froze in his spot, puting his hands up in demonstration of peace, mouth opening to try to find something to say. Instead he found himself utterly distracted by the state of the mercenary's face. He looked very much like someone had kicked him straight in the face, nose bleeding and bent completely crooked, two rapidly blacking eyes, and a wet sort of breathing that didn't bode well for his continued health.
He was also rather tall which was probably why Charles didn't see Erik coming up behind the man until the mercenary's face had been swung straight into the wall, the sound of his cheekbone impacting made Charles jump despite himself. Neither of them said a word until the man had finished sliding his way down the wall into an unconscious pile of boneless limbs on the floor.
Erik leaned down to relieve the man of his gun, dismantling it in a flash before dropping the bullets in his pocket and the rest of the useless parts into a conveniently placed trash can.
"You just can't go anywhere without being taken hostage, can you?" He said in such deadpan that it took Charles a moment to detect the humor underneath it.
Charles took the joking challenge proudly, "How else could I make new friends?"
Yet again, Erik had one of those torn looks. Like he couldn't decide if Charles was crazy or something else that might possibly be more terrifying. In the end, it didn't seem like he minded as he just sighed and gestured for Charles to step over the unconscious mercenary.
"Let's go then, I think you've made enough 'friends' for one day and we have a train to stop."
… and that was how Charles Xavier, Professor of Genetics, with two doctorates and a reputation for his sister getting into far more bar fights in the last year than he has in his entire career, came to be dragging an unconscious man down a train's hallway.
It wasn't too far up to the main engine and the trip from A to B was blessedly uneventful. There was an intimidating iron door leading from one of the employee cars up into the lead, the organized wooden and rubber floor coverings missing in the gap between the two cars. The only thing keeping them and the rapidly passing railway tracks from turning into a gooey mess was a heavy, sectioned metal grate. The grate, however, did nothing to keep the cold air out of the car, shooting ice specked air swirling around the room.
Erik dropped the unconscious man's other arm as soon as they passed the grates, motioning for Charles to do the same. That was all the explanation he got before Erik continued on up the short flight of steps into the front cabin.
"Wait!" Charles said in his lowest voice, "What are you going to do?"
Erik stopped on the second step to consider the question before answering as if it were the only obvious conclusion to come to, "I am going to ask him nicely to stop the train."
Charles found himself amazed at Erik's ability to be so obviously sarcastic while being completely deadpan and it didn't inspire him to further his questioning. There wouldn't be much of a point anyway as Erik was already gone, leaving him alone with the dead weight. Charles looked down at the mercenary pityingly. His face was now more of a purple mess of blotches than anything recognizable and when he breathed through his misshapen nose he snored. Loudly. Charles knelt down next to him to check his pulse, hesitating just before he pressed two fingers to his wrist.
The skin contact brought forth the same tense feeling in the back of his mind it always did, like something desperately wanting to get out. He ignored it for the moment in favor of making sure the man wasn't about to drop dead but that delaying tactic didn't last very long.
Minds are constantly working Gordian knots of complexity and what you get out of them depends quite a lot in how and more importantly when you approach them. A person at ease will be less likely to notice the intrusion but if you touched on any alarming memories it make them instantly alarmed at the sudden change of thinking. Someone already riled can be harder to break into initially but once you're in, their plans are usually easily accessible on the edges of their mind and any further investigation is easily rationalized away.
Of all the frame of minds, the sleeping one is the most wild, and the one type of mind Charles least liked invading. Waking minds have a certain order. Thoughts of the short term are on the outside edges of the mind, easily accessible, while deeper, more personal thoughts get pulled close to the inside, wrapped tight around the part of the mind that controls all the rest. The part that makes you, you. Some minds even go so far as to create physical landscapes to organize them further.
But a sleeping mind those rules don't necessarily apply. When you're asleep, the mind opens all the metaphorical cabinets you store your memories in and lets even the darkest memories breathe while it attempts to file away the new memories of the day. Though, that isn't even remotely close to an accurate metaphor. In reality yes, the mind was open, easily readable while asleep but it was about as easy to do as trying to read loose sheets of paper in a windstorm with no hands. It was nigh impossible.
Charles didn't do it often, he didn't like to, but something had been bothering him about this since he'd first read that fake Interpol man. These mercenaries were immensely set on catching, no- he couldn't lie even to himself, killing Erik though Charles had yet to find a solid reason why. Sure, money was a good enough reason for most hired guns but the fervor and the abject hate they had for a man they had never met... it didn't ring right. Then there were the occasional snatches of... something that shot a shiver down his spine. It was an indescribable wisp he found scattered around the men's minds and Charles thought he knew what it meant.
Something was missing. Well, not missing. Buried... and if there was any place Charles could dig it up it was in a sleeping mind.
Charles looked over his shoulder to make sure Erik was still politely inquiring about making an unscheduled stop, then he took a breath, latched his fingers a little tighter around the unconscious man's wrist, and dove in.
He almost instantly regretted it. The added bonus of a unconscious mind instead of a normal sleeping one seemed to be that the outside pain carried along with it. Charles did his best to block it out, only succeeding in pushing it into a dull ache. Then the true barrage began. Snips of memories shot by at unimaginable speeds, laced through with the chaos of unreality, the brain filling in the gaps with could haves and would haves. He pushed past them, untangling himself from any memories as soon as they hit him.
He slid through a halfway constructed memory of dark concrete floors and ratty plywood walls into another whose only memorable quality was the smell of burnt pine... then he caught it. It was that same indescribably something fogging everything around it and inspiring anxiety in anyone daring to look at it straight on.
Charles pushed. Bits of conversation loosened first, still tangled. Talks of compensation, descriptions read from a piece of paper pushed across a folding card table. The paper Charles recognized as the one he'd pulled off of one of the mercenaries, but it was pulled off a thick stack of others. The mercenary leaned over to look at the stack innocently before a pale feminine hand slapped on top of it, closing the top of the folder. She hadn't covered it well enough though...
At the corner in words that had a very militaristic tint: mutant identified and capture or eliminate.
Charles backed out of the mercenary's mind faster than was probably safe and didn't stop there. He stood up and put as much distance between between them as the car would allow, the connotations already swirling around in half formed thoughts in his mind. He leaned heavily against the bare iron wall and sighed, face grim, and only then did he allow himself to fully accept certain truths.
1. Erik was a mutant.
2. Someone was collecting them.
He couldn't be here. He'd gotten too close already. He should have known even if Erik didn't, he should have seen that characteristic brightness mutant minds had, but he was out of practice and out of his depth. A million reasons why he should just bolt back to his compartment were readily available but Charles found himself thinking only one thing.
"Not again."
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Note: Thank you to all the watchers and commenters. Hearts to you. Word, stop telling me commenters isn't a word. Stop it.