Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.
They bury Alex far from the road. They have no shovels so Hank and Erik dig the hole with bare hands, scrabbling at the dirt until their fingers bleed. The earth is hard and unforgiving, so the grave is shallow, barely deep enough to cover the teenager's broken body, but it's the best they can do in the circumstances. Erik doesn't want to linger.
Still, they stand by the grave for a long time once Alex has disappeared from view. Sean sings something in Gaelic; haunting and beautiful and entirely fitting. His voice is soft, like a sigh, and Erik is glad because they're exposed out here and the last thing they need is for someone to hear them.
"I don't think -" Charles stops, choking on his words. He's standing close enough to Erik that the metal-bender can feel him shaking, and his voice is barely audible. He turns to Erik and presses his face to his chest. Erik can feel him shuddering in his bones. "I don't think I can do this anymore."
Erik tenses and his hands grip Charles tight enough to bruise. Pain is radiating from the telepath - projecting grief too immense to contain. 'No, no, no,' Erik thinks selfishly, because his own grief is too much and Raven is crying and Hank is dazed and bewildered and Sean is singing so quietly now that it's only a breath. He can't protect them by himself, can't save them from the horrors of this broken world. The children need Charles. He needs Charles.
Delicately, he tilts the telepath's chin up until he's staring into those sapphire eyes; a bright splash of colour in an endless world of grey. There are tears trembling on Charles' cheeks and his lashes are thick and wet. Erik brushes the crystal drops gently aside with the pad of his thumb. Charles shivers and Erik presses his lips to the telepath's scarlet mouth, pouring his grief and anger and pain into the kiss.
When they finally pull apart, dazed and desperate and panting for air, the world is silent. Sean is no longer singing.
He never sings again.
X - X - X
The children are scared and silent now. Charles is overly cheerful, chattering incessantly as they walk but only Hank manages half-hearted replies. They barely have the energy to speak anymore and Raven and Sean are silent. Raven clings to Charles as she walks, crying weakly. She has no tears left but she sobs dryly, her chest heaving. Charles cries too - in the silence of the night when only Erik can hear him.
Erik holds him then. He lets his friend cry ashy tears into his chest, his arms a comforting barrier around the telepath. In those cold, silent nights Charles' grief is overwhelming, burning through Erik's veins like poison. He wakes the next morning more restless than the night before, urgent to move on, terrified of what will happen if they're discovered.
Erik refuses to stay still long enough to find out.
X - X - X
Their isolation doesn't last. Erik strains his ears against the silence, listening for the intruders. Sean is panting beside him, his eyes wide with fear and Erik can practically see the boy's pulse thumping beneath the smooth curve of his jaw. He lays a steadying hand on the teenager's shoulder, feels the bones jutting sharply through the skin, and violently pushes down the nausea that's rising in him like a wave. He keeps his face schooled into a blank mask.
He hears the footsteps again, pounding ominously on the barren earth like a heart-beat. Charles tenses beside him. Hank growls. Erik curses under his breath because the footsteps are silent now and he knows they've been spotted.
"Someone's in there," a female voice says, sounding faint and far away. "I can hear them breathing." Erik's breath hitches and he presses his hand tight against his own mouth to muffle the sound.
'Charles' he thinks desperately. He can feel the panic in the telepath's mind and he knows something is wrong.
'I can't-' Charles thinks, confused. 'I think - I think they have a telepath. I can feel him in my mind.' Erik's chest clenches. The few times they had been discovered before Charles had easily redirected them. With a telepath he won't be able to send them away.
Erik reaches out tentatively, searching for the familiar pulse of metal to protect himself with, but there's only Sean's broken wristwatch dangling pathetically from his wrist. He pulls it towards him anyway and it slips off of the teenager's arm like a living thing, twisting under the metal-bender's ministrations until it's sharp enough to bite.
Earth tumbles away from their makeshift shelter and shafts of weak sunlight pierce through the darkness. Raven's breath falters and her chest shudder's as she chokes on the dust.
"Look what we have here," the same voice says triumphantly. Large amber eyes peer through the rubble, enormous in the woman's gaunt face. Erik tightens his grip on his makeshift weapon and his hand slips on the sweat-slick metal. "It looks like we found ourselves five little rats hiding in a whole." There's laughter behind her and Erik's head jerks towards the sound like a dog.
The girl clambers through the gaping hole in Erik's hiding spot and the metal-bender catches sight of the hulking shadows behind her.
"Get out," Erik growls, "and I won't have to hurt you." He's pleased by how confident he sounds, even as Sean shakes beside him. There's an oppressive presence pulsing at the edges of his mind and Erik shudders with fear and revulsion. Charles is sweating in the darkness and Erik suspects that there is a mental battle occurring.
The woman laughs cruelly and the mutants behind her shoulder their way into the confined space. Erik tenses and his knuckles crack loudly in the strained silence.
"Delicious," she whispers, soft and deadly. A bright sliver of fear trembles down Erik's spine. A tail flickers at her shoulder, slick like a snake, and the metal in Erik's palm twitches eagerly.
"You should leave," Raven snaps in the silence. Erik feels pride swell in his chest at the steady confidence in her voice. There's more laughter from the mutants hunkered at the entrance of their hiding spot and the metal-bender can feel Hank inflate with rage behind him. The woman tuts condescendingly and her tail twitches like a cat's.
"Careful now darlings," she purrs, long fingers curling in the tense air, "we're awful hungry." She grins and her teeth are sharp and dangerous.
Charles steps forward, tense and angry at Sean's shoulder. He raises trembling fingers to his temple and Erik grins in the shadows. For a long moment there is utter silence.
Pain lances through Erik's head. His skull splits open and white hot agony sears through his body. He cries out and, vaguely, through his distress, he can hear the tortured, choking sobs of his family. Erik blinks away the burning tears in his eyes, swiping angrily at his cheeks with trembling hands. His vision clears and the triumphant forms of the other mutants materialise through the darkness.
The woman steps forward, the hulking mass of one of the other mutants shadowing her footsteps. Erik suspects that it's the telepath because his eyes are locked onto Charles'. She crouches low in front of Sean but her amber eyes are trained on Erik's face. She grins, her sharp teeth drawing crimson drops of blood from her lips. Erik tries to control the trembling agony in his body.
"I told you," she murmurs, so quiet that Erik can barely hear her. Her body tenses and she strikes out, catching Sean's cheek with the hard heel of her hand. Sean collapses to the side with a cry, blood on his lips. Erik jerks, snarling in anger. Hank is growling behind him, tense like an arrow ready to fly and Erik is sure that if the telepath weren't an oppressive presence in his mind he would have attacked. The woman laughs low and curls long, tapering fingers around Sean's chin, talon-sharp nails digging into his pale skin. Blood wells around her nails and trickles down her slim hands to her wrists. The boy makes a desperate choking sound.
"Looks good enough to eat," one of the mutants growls, and Erik can hear the desire in his voice. His stomach rolls and he clenches his jaw tight to quench the nausea. The woman licks a delicate, shimmering trail up Sean's cheek and the teenager whimpers, jerking in her grip. Erik's mind flashes to the mutilated corpses strewn across the barren wasteland they had passed through, chunks of hot flesh eaten away by desperate, starving survivors. Erik had never let his family get desperate enough to justify that savage, dangerous behaviour, but he can see that these strangers have no such reservations. Erik shudders. He needs to get his family out of here.
The woman sinks her bright, dangerous teeth into Sean's shoulder and the boy screams in agony. Blood wells at the corner of her mouth. Erik jerks and the metal dagger sings through the air, sinking its vicious point into the woman's delicate neck. Her body jolts like she's been shocked and she falls away from Sean with a gurgling cry. Crimson blood spurts from her wound, hot and bright and vivid. It splashes across Sean's face and chest, a striking stain on his pale skin. Hank roars behind Erik, lunges past Sean and connects with the telepath with a sickening crunch. Erik is on his feet in a second, the metal flowing back into his hand like a living thing. He flings it out of his hand, slashing at the other mutants, catching their chests and faces, carving bright scars into their bodies. Raven darts past Sean, who's lying motionless on the earth, to deliver a swift blow to the telepath's back as he grapples with Hank. For a moment Erik lets himself believe they have the upper hand.
Hank's agonised roar brings him crashing back to earth. The boy staggers away from his opponent, a bright splash of scarlet staining his broad chest. Raven screams, lunges for Hank, but the telepath catches her easily by the back of her neck and slams her bodily into the ground. One of the other mutants is standing behind Hank, his limb a shard of crystal sharp enough to slice through flesh, buried in the teenager's back. The gleaming point, slick with blood, winks in the dim light as it protrudes from Hank's chest. Erik howls, thrusts the metal forward like a sword and the mutant falls away, his throat gaping open in a grotesque parody of a smile. Charles springs to his feet from where he was kneeling beside Sean and flings out his arms, his face twisted with horror.
The world slows down. Time moves sluggishly by and Hank falls in slow motion to the earth. Erik watches him collapse, ignoring the other mutants as their eyes go blank and their faces slack. Charles tears they're minds apart, his anger hot and tangible in the air, until only the other telepath is left, standing above Hank's shuddering body. Erik flicks his wrist and the metal dances through the air, buries itself in the mutant's face and tears his triumphant grin from his head. It's too late to save Hank though.
Raven crawls towards her friend, already sobbing in the deafening silence that follows. She grasps at his blue fur, tears damp on her cheeks, and buries her face in his neck. Hank stares blankly up at her, his eyes no longer seeing the broken world they still inhabit. Erik clutches at his chest, as if he can feel the crystal shard piercing through his ribs and tearing the life from his body and he can feel his own tears dripping down his face. 'This wasn't supposed to happen,' he thinks desperately, 'I was supposed to protect them.' He's failed and he knows it. These children, Charles, they're his family, and he's losing them one by one. Hopelessness crushes him until he can't breathe anymore.
Charles doesn't cry. He wraps Sean's bloodied shoulder in a strip of cloth he tore from the boy's t-shirt and doesn't look at his sister or at Hank's broken body lying amongst the corpses of the mutants that they murdered. Erik lifts Raven gently away from the body of her friend and they leave the cave behind.
X - X - X
They don't bury Hank. Erik covers his body carefully with a blood-stained blanket before carrying Raven out of their hiding-spot, leaving their friend behind in the darkness. It's a waste of precious supplies and Erik's chest hurts at the thought that Hank isn't getting a decent burial, but none of them have the energy to dig a hole big enough to cover Hank's body. Charles supports Sean as they walk, the teenager's arm slung over his shoulders, because the boy is too worn with grief and pain to walk properly. Erik carries Raven gently in his arms because he doesn't trust her to support herself and eyes Charles and Sean with concern. His friend's face is stern and emotionless and Erik feels something writhe uncomfortably in his stomach because Charles isn't supposed to look like that. Sean is pale beneath the blood splashed over his face and chest and his shoulder wound is still bleeding sluggishly.
Erik prays that the wound doesn't get infected because he can't bear to lose anyone else.