Wake Up Sunshine,
Day Two
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His neck hurts, scratch that All Of Him hurts. And there's a burning on his eyelids. Sun's shining.
He groans and sits up, winces at the cracks his wrists make, and his neck makes.
He curls his legs under him and finally eases his eyes open. Smiles when he sees the still sleeping form of the man who is fast becoming his best friend. Gazes for a while and then...
Oh shit! Kids!
He leaps up as quietly as he can, retrieves the glasses and the book and sets them on the table. He pulls a hand through his mussed up hair and drags a finger to his temple.
Hank saw (oh gosh does I really look like that when I sleep?) and told the others, he can feel them just waiting to snigger when they have breakfast.
He moves toward the other man, loathe to wake him. He rests a hand on Erik's shoulder and presses lightly.
"Morning." he whispers, smiling at the confusion as the azure eyes, like his own, flutter wide.
Erik takes in his surroundings and smiles back. "Good Morning."
"This is already sufficiently awkward but just to let you know, uhm, the kids are going to tease us mercilessly any minute now."
Nod from him and the two men stand up, distance between them noticable as each thinks about what'd happened.
Secretly they both wish it hadn't been just conversation. And both quell the unbidden thought and shuffle further away.
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Raven isn't particularly tactful at the best of times but now Charles just wants to gag her. She flies in with the biggest scowl on her face, glaring at both of them. Erik looks indignant, Charles looks about to cut a bitch.
"Sooo," she coos. "D'you have fun last night?"
"Shut it, Raven." He glances at Erik, embarassed but the other man's grinning wildly, so he relaxes. "Go set the table for breakfast."
"The dining room table?"
"Oh, God, no. The table in the kitchen."
"Will it be big enough for six?" she asks, and he knows she's just stalling now.
"It'll be cosy." he says. Get out.
She smirks at them, a cruel vicious smile, and leaves. Hank pops his head around the door, "Sorry. I - just - She's impossible to control."
Charles smiles at him and nodds. "I know, Hank. I know." When the doctor leaves, he turns to Erik. "Breakfast?"
"Love some. All that conversation was... exhausting."
Charles chuckles and counters: "All that scotch was... enlightening."
They grin and walk out into the corridor, arms brushing with the closeness.
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The kitchen table is, well, snug to say the least and the younger ones gang up and force Charles and Erik to sit unbelievably close. Conversation flows back and forth as they insult and compliment eachother.
Charles watches as Hank slyly spares glances toward Raven. She is very pretty, even though he finds it weird to think of her that way, he has to admit it. Contrary to her belief, he is not repulsed by her blue form, it merely shocks him a little. He is used to the pale blonde girl she has hidden behind for the most of her life.
He kind of wishes that Erik would cut her some slack with it, let her hide. But, he knows that what he says is true. If she concentrates on hiding, her mind is not working fully on whatever else she's doing.
It's just like flicking on a radio, a radio that can play several frequencies at the same time. Normally he tunes it to just one channel, but here he schools his face into calm and passive Charles while his mind feels about to burst with the mile a minute thoughts that fly through his mind.
It takes him a minute but the buzzing stops and he can hear the individual voices clearly.
Hank is thinking about what to do with Raven and about whether or not his serum will work. Charles listens for a second and then loses interest. Which is odd as normally the science would have been immensely engrossing and he'd stop anything to listen. He shuts down the connection to Doctor McCoy.
Raven isn't thinking much, in fact she's thinking what she's saying. Normal conversational thoughts; guessing the next sentence and formulating replies. He shuts down that connection too.
He feels a little guilty but, technically, he didn't actually intrude. It was just surface thoughts. She was saying them anyway... He stops trying to justify himself and moves on.
Sean and Alex are actually not thinking. It's like they aren't using their brains. As if they're dead or something. And then Raven moves slightly and Charles shuts down the connection as fast as he damn well can.
He does NOT want those thoughts in his head. Ever.
Charles shakes his head, from the outside it must look like a shiver.
"You cold?" Erik says it as quietly as he can.
"No," Charles replies. 'There are some thought you just do not want,' he sends 'especially those of hormonal boys in regards to your sister.'
Erik smiles the kind of smile that you expect a vampire to possess and nodds. 'Serves you right for listening to their thoughts, eh? Hope you weren't thinking of rooting around in my mind.'
'Oh, I wouldn't dream of it,' yes. Yes I was. He doesn't broadcast that thought. Or at least he hopes he didn't.
'Any way,' Erik continues, as if there is nothing at all weird about having a conversation in the mind. 'It isn't like I think anything I don't say.'
'No, my friend. I hope that it is not. Okay serious mind talk over.'
'One last thing,' Erik sounds amused 'they're staring at us.'
Charles laughs and turns back to the four eyes staring at them. He looks at them, all stern professor. "It's rude to stare." he says, not a trace of the giggles his mind has collapsed into. Yeah, he's still young. He is still allowed to have fun.
"You've been staring at eachother with out blinking for about five minutes!" Sean is indignant. Raven and Alex nod in agreement. Hank blushes and looks away.
Erik laughs. "Doesn't count, there was a conversation going on there, you just missed it."
Charles smiles and then just as Raven opens her mouth, "No, Raven. Not about that. Shush."
Erik stands up and begins to walk away. "Charles, a word?"
He sees Raven snigger but holds his tongue. "What?"
Erik shushes him, pressing a finger to his lips. 'Just wanted to toy with them.'
'Oh you cruel man. Why do I put up with you?'
'Because you love me.'
'I believe that is what they're working on.'
"Get a room!" Alex shouts.
"It's my house. I own all of the rooms, my friend!" Charles grins back to Erik. 'Want to taunt them some more?'
'It's like you're reading my mind.'
Charles takes Erik's hand and pulls him to the door. "Oh, clean up the table before you leave, kids."
At the four glares they leave, smiling like fools.
"So we are just taunting them, right?"
"Yes, Erik. How about a game of chess?"
"You're serious?"
"I'm deadly serious. As the grave."
"Alright then. Got any metal sets?"
"No, and I won't cheat with the mind tricks. You have my word."
Erik's answering smile is terrifying. "Game on."
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They're surprisingly evenly matched at the game so conversation can continue without consequence.
Charles is careful to steer the topics as far from Shaw and as far from any touchy subjects as he can. But Erik pushes on the subject of his past.
"My mother was every bit the aristocrat, always got the help to do it. I loved her, don't get me wrong. But she wasn't how a mother should be. She wasn't warm. She gave me everything I wanted, but she wasn't kind. Father died when I was very small and then my step-father was only interested in my mother for her money. He built a ,oad of things here, renovated the mansion and then bloody well buggered off." He stops there.
He doesn't want to elaborate on that, ever. "Raven," he continues. "Appeared when I was twelve, she was in the kitchen. She'd stolen my mother's form. It was such a nice feeling. Knowing that I wasn't the only one. She and I have been together ever since, she's my sister."
Erik smiles. "It must've been nice."
Charles feels his heart break a little at the emotion in his friend's tone. "Oh, Erik. I cannot imagine the torment you have been through, but you can't let it rule your life. You have so much good in you! And you're happy here, aren't you?"
"Of course I am, it's just I've been seeking revenge for so long that I'd forgotten what happiness was like."
"Well now you can remember."
Erik moves his queen and puts Charles in check.
"How did you-?"
"You were paying more attention to my problems than your own." Erik gestures to the board. "Every time I moved you didn't stop to think what my motive was. You were to busy trying to make sure I was okay."
"Are you mocking me for it?" Charles tries vainly to stop his voice from breaking.
Erik's hand is suddenly on his. "Never." he says, softly. "I envy you that ability. To care so much about another person that you lose track of what's happening around you." He laughs bitterly. "I guess I lost it somewhere back in Poland."
Charles absentmindedly moves his king out of check, still trying to work out what to say. What do you say to that?
What can you possibly say to that? Thank you seems silly, but anything else would drag the conversation into irretreivable depths of misery and pain.
He settles for something completely truthful. "I don't think you lost it, I think you just shut it out. Because you'd lost everyone you held dear, you stopped letting people in."
"And then you dive in and save me from drowning, give me a home, and people to care for."
"Now you can have that ability again." Charles holds up a hand. 'Open the door for me.'
'Why?'
'We have a spy.'
Raven falls into the room as the door against which she kept her balance is abrubtly taken from her. "Damn, it was just getting good!"
"Your respect for other's privacy is astounding, Raven. How do you do it?" Charles stands, and moves towards her.
Erik catches his wrist. "The game?"
"You would've beaten me in about six moves, or I you in five. Either way, good match, well played. But we have more important things to do."
"Raven, training. Get to it." Erik's voice is sharp.
The girl glares at him, a hint of attraction mixed in with the anger. "Fine." she huffs. "I'll go." She gives a mock salute and stomps away.
Charles blinks. "She likes you." he says, not sarcastically but with a hint of surprise.
"It's my charm." The older mutant shrugs. "Anyway, I'll go and run some laps. You go and do something to help them 'achieve their full potential'"
"Now you're mocking me."
Erik throws him a look of pure mischief. "Me? Never."
"Oh go and run yourself into a tree!"
"Now that isn't very nice."
"Shut up."
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A shower, change of clothes and two hours later...
Alex has somehow managed to light the entire metal frame of the bunker alight, and Charles has tiny scorch marks on his hands from the heat of the flames as he put them out. Obviously Erik notices straight away.
"What the hell happened?"
Charles turns to face him and the smile quickly drops from his face. "Just a little fire, nothing to worry about."
"Nothing to-" Erik growls incredulously. "Are you serious?"
"Again, yes." He places a hand on the furious man's arm. "Look, I'm fine. Thank you for your concern but we're all going to come back from this with a couple of bruises."
Erik makes a sound that can only be described as a growl and stalks away.
"What's up with him?" Alex isn't paying much attention but growling, really? What is that all about?
Charles groans. "I have no idea at the best of times, Alex. No idea."
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Raven is annoyed. Raven is very much annoyed. She's pretty, when she isn't blue. She's relatively smart. Alex, Hank and Sean like her. So why doesn't he? She pushes the weight above her head.
He just always seems angry at her. Angry that she's hiding. Take earlier for instance. With the weights and shit. Who does he think he is?
She doesn't want to acknowledge the looks that pass between her brother and the new object of her interest.
Hank's sweet, but he's very much like she is trying not to be. He wants to look normal; she's beginning to think that she doesn't.
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Charles believes that he has done enough today, he sits against the window of his room. Every so often he sees Erik jogging across his view of the patio. He could count the laps, the man does not seem to get tired.
He sighs and goes back to the book at his side.
He cannot concentrate. His willpower to focus on the intellectual appears stunted these days. He has a couple of ideas why.
He's noticed a double standard here. Erik can do what he likes, can put himself in immediate danger. Can allow any amount of pain to his person to acheive his goals.
But the minute Charles is so much as scratched the world is ending.
It doesn't make any sense. Unless...
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