AN: So, insanely sorry. I didn't mean to take two weeks to update this. I got distracted by my RP blog and was spending all my time writing Cherik feels on there instead of in the fic. Next chapter will not take so long.

Also, note that unlike all my previous chapters where I stay with the POV of either Charles of Erik, this chapter goes back and forth between them.


There was a moment of panic flaring through Erik's mind more intense than anything Charles would usually feel at this distance. The fear that came behind it was entirely Charles' own and he was on his way to Cerebro within moments. He could feel the emotion pouring from Erik, but he was too far away to reach anything else. He squeezed his hand around the controls of his chair, feeling the fingers go numb from the strain. Anxiety beat a steady tempo inside his head as he waited impatiently for Cerebro's doors to scan and recognize his eye.

Then he was inside and diving into Cerebro with speed and a single target of focus. Erik.

He found the man in Dallas, at the edge of a parade. Charles recalled dimly hearing something about a parade in Dallas today but he didn't remember what it was for. It wasn't important right now. All that mattered was what he saw through Erik's eyes and it wasn't pretty. Erik snatched a gun away from a man and without sparing even a moment to attempt a peaceful solution Erik blew the man away.

That was bad enough, but the thrill that Charles felt surge through Erik at the success was almost too much to handle. As Erik shot down a second man Charles couldn't help the flood of horror and shock that bled through from him and into Erik.

He regretted it the second the metal bender registered his presence. With vicious intent, Erik slammed his mind shut and pushed Charles out without warning.

It was similar to the sensation of falling in your dreams. You wake up when you hit the ground but you still feel that shock of panic as if it had all been real. Charles reeled backwards, tearing Cerebro's helmet off in a mad scramble to get away from the sensation of hollow emptiness that was clawing at his insides.

It had been so long. So very, very long since he last had to feel the loss of Erik's mind. There had been times of course that the connection was thin and fragile with distance, but never gone. Not since…

Not since Shaw. Shaw and Cuba and that bloody helmet of his. The helmet Charles had made certain was melted down to slag.

It physically hurt to be shoved so violently away from a mind that Charles had begun to think of as an extension of his own. He felt crippled all over again and losing Erik's mind was far worse than losing his legs had ever been. Tears streamed down his face as he clutched at his head, trying to quell the hollow feeling of emptiness inside it.

He composed himself as quickly as he could, then made his way back upstairs for a cup of tea and the chance to recover. He sat in silence for a few minutes, still struggling to get control of his pounding heart and aching head. When he was focused enough on the real world, he heard the crackling sound of voices coming through the radio in the next room.

It was a news update and it was the first thing to finally inform Charles what had happened.

'Police have detained a man named Erik Lehnsherr for questioning in the death of the president.'

The telepath felt his heart miss a beat as his mind instinctively reached out for Erik's. Unsurprisingly, he met silence; he already knew with a sinking feeling that his lover was not coming home from this mission.

Instead of the fear he had been trying to ignore, Charles now felt a surge of anger. Now that he knew Erik was safe, all he could think of was the utter betrayal of what Erik had done. The stupid man had turned his back on everything that the two of them had been working to build; he had gone back to his old methods of killing without thought and fighting against humanity.

More than that, he had endangered the entire school. By killing the president, Erik had just painted a target on every mutant in the world and if he was tracked back to the mansion the school would be the first place the government shut down.

Fury like Charles had never felt before flooded through his system and it was kind enough to drown out the pain of Erik's loss. The raw wound of betrayal stung dully in the background of rage.

Charles found himself viciously glad that he was no longer in the head of a man who could so easily destroy everything. The telepath grimly shoved a wall up in his own mind, if Erik tried to find his way back in, he would meet nothing but rejection. Charles bitterly hoped that it would hurt Erik as badly as it had hurt him.

The wall wouldn't be permanent. Charles knew he would never be able to stay mad forever. But for now, he wanted nothing to do with Erik's mind. Let Erik suffer through his first few months in prison without the benefit of having Charles to ease the time.


Erik woke to a throbbing head and aching wrists. The head was explained easily enough, he remembered the bullet grazing his skull as it passed him. He had to move to figure out the wrists though. Nausea boiled up in him as his head protested moving at all, but Erik had to know. He lifted his head enough to take in his surroundings and his blood ran cold.

He was laid out on a medical table, wrists cuffed to either side by thick plastic. Fear tore through him stronger than anything else as he flashed back to the last time he had found himself on a table like this. Shaw's ministrations had been years ago, but the memory was no less vivid now as he looked around the sterile room. This was a place he had never wanted to be again.

His mind reached for Charles automatically, wanting to whisper an apology into his lover's head, but he met nothing but silence and the panic finally overwhelmed him completely.

Doors slid open to his left and men trailed in with white lab coats and grim faces. Erik pulled at the cuffs around his wrists, trying desperately to get free as the strangers approached.

"Oh, don't bother with that Mr. Lehnsherr," One of them said in a mockery of friendliness. "We made quite certain they were secure. No metal either."

Another one peered down at him, poking lightly at the crusted blood on his temple as he spoke to the others, "Looks like the bullet hardly even broke the skin. The force of it probably caused a concussion, but no lasting damage. I would have been quite unhappy if they had killed him." The same man then directed his words to Erik as he added, "You have a very remarkable mutation. Probably the most powerful we've seen. I am quite interested in studying it."

There they were. The words Erik had been dreading. Knowing it was futile, he yanked again at the restraints on his wrists, pulling until the plastic dug into the skin and warm blood spilled out freely. He hurled threats at the surrounding scientists as his body thrashed on the table fighting with everything he had to get free.

The group shared a look on concern and then one of them stepped forward brandishing a needle. Erik reached for it with his power, expecting to find metal but sensing nothing at all. As it got closer he realized it was glass, there was nothing he could do as the needle pressed into his arm and a drug entered his bloodstream.

Cold filled him and his struggles grew weaker as the world faded away.

The next time he woke, his entire body was strapped down and he couldn't move at all.

The lack of movement did nothing to hinder the screams that tore out of him as the researchers began their work.


After a day and a half of tense waiting, a cloud of red smoke filled the living room and Raven stepped out with Azazel. She looked furious and Charles understood perfectly why. At least he thought he did. Erik had betrayed them all and that seemed like a perfectly good reason to be furious, but the anger Raven had was not directed where Charles expected it to be.

"I can't believe the nerve of the humans!" She hissed out. "Erik warned us this would happen, he told everyone that the humans wouldn't accept us and now they've taken him away."

"Raven," Charles tried to placate her even as his own emotions still stung with the pain, "They took him away because he murdered the president. It has nothing to do with him being a mutant."

She snarled at him, "Like hell it doesn't. They knew he was there, they had plastic guns. I bet he didn't even kill the president they just framed him for it!"

Again Charles tried to reason with his fuming sister, "I wish you were right, but I was in his head, Raven. I saw him killing those men. He enjoyed it. His arrest is his own fault and we cannot blame the humans for it."

Raven stared at him in mute shock for a few moments, letting his words roll over her. Then her face dropped into the mask that Erik always referred to as Mystique and she turned on her heel to walk back to Azazel. She curled her hand around his arm and said, "You don't understand, Charles. You haven't seen the places Erik and I have been. You haven't seen the mutants we have rescued. I won't just sit back and let them win."

Then with another burst of smoke she was gone. Charles stared at the place she had last stood for a few minutes before the tears started. Then he dropped his head into his hands and wept as he felt his entire world falling apart.

Raven never came back.


Blood bubbled up in a wet cough as Erik struggled to breath around the liquid in his lungs. He didn't know how long he had been down in this plastic prison but he knew he had started wishing for death practically the first moment they had shown up.

He couldn't count all the ways he had been cut into or how many bones they had broken. Once or twice he had tried to reach Charles again, needing that connection to keep him sane, but the wall was still as impenetrable as ever. Then, Erik remembered that the mental connection went both ways. If Charles were to enter his mind the telepath would feel every ounce of pain that Erik did. With that thought in mind Erik built his own mental walls, eager to make certain that even when Charles eventually forgave him he would still never have to feel this pain.

The skin across his back was bleeding and raw from where they had trickled acid just to see what effect it would have on a mutant. Big surprise, the effect was the same as it would be on anyone else. Erik had gone hoarse with screams as the burn ate away at him.

Then he had been tossed back in his cell so viciously that it had broken the ribs which had been cracked a week before. Now every breath was nothing but sharp pain shooting through his chest as he pleaded in his head for relief. Even he didn't know if the relief he sought was medical care or death.

What he received was doctors coming into his cell and hoisting him onto a gurney before rolling him off to surgery.

It made sense; they didn't want to lose their favorite plaything.


The first semester of the school went spectacularly poor. Charles drifted from one class to the next never really paying attention to what was happening. Alex trailed after him some days, pestering him with questions about whether or not he was okay.

Charles often wanted to snap back at the young man that of course he bloody well wasn't okay. His lover had betrayed him, returning to the idea of kill or be killed that he had sworn to leave behind. His sister had followed after, making a few failed attempts to break Erik out before giving up and forming her own team that went around decimating mutant research labs.

The mutants who had once made up the Hellfire club had not shown up at the mansion since the day Raven left, they all seemed to side with her. Sean had left within a month, joining Raven and her team on their missions because he was tired of sitting around with Charles while other mutants died.

If Charles were to name a reason that he never actually did snap at Alex, it would be because the young mutant was one of the few things Charles still had. Hank and Alex.

For a brief moment, he had entertained the thought that Erik might yet be redeemable, and Charles had lowered the walls in his mind so he could seek out Erik. The deafening silence as he found a mind still cut off from his was all the proof Charles needed to let him know Erik truly had abandoned him.

Somehow, something had happened in Dallas that made Erik decide to throw away everything they had for the sake of returning to his old lifestyle. The thought burned at Charles as he kept asking himself why his love hadn't been enough. On repeat through his mind were the questions, Was it really hopeless from the beginning? Was Erik beyond saving all along?

The school was some comfort just because it existed, but ultimately it was a hollow joy. He was never supposed to be running this school alone. Erik belonged beside him and without that he couldn't manage to find the happiness that had once permeated these halls.


After a few months, they had their first mistake. A scientist who had grown a little too lax in his caution.

Erik felt the metal the second it came into his range. He had to struggle not to physically strain for the bright glowing thing at the edge of his power. It felt so good to sense something again but he maintained his reason enough to know that he couldn't risk letting them know that it was there.

As he felt out the foreign piece of metal, Erik let the physical world fade away until the damage being done to him was just a tug of pain in the back of his mind. What did it matter that they were flaying the skin from his shoulder as long as he could focus on this tiny piece of metal.

A paperclip.

It felt amazing at the edges of his mind.

He waited patiently, knowing that the right moment would come eventually. It took nearly an hour of bated breath and choked down screams before the chance came. None of the researchers were focused directly on him and it was all the time Erik needed to flex his power and wrap it around the paperclip. He brought the small metal piece soaring out of the pocket he had found it in and into his hand.

Erik curled his fingers around it, hiding it from view as he shaped the precious material into a small but sharp edge.

With another surge of power, he sent the weapon out. It sliced cleanly through the necks of all three researchers in the room, spraying Erik with warm blood as he called the metal back to him and used it to cut away the straps holding him to the table.

He surged away from the blood soaked area, stumbling briefly as the dizziness from his own blood loss tried to overcome him. Erik pressed on though, shoving out the door to the labs and wandering into the corridor beyond. Blood dripped off him and he didn't know what was his and what belonged to the dead men behind him, but he didn't care. He just cared about the tiny piece of metal that floated along beside him and the taste of freedom somewhere at the end of this hall.

Something thudded into his neck and with a startled cry Erik's hand flew to the point of impact. A plastic dart pierced into him and his legs gave out as darkness flooded in. The last thing he felt was the small piece of metal being grabbed by someone who swiftly carried it as far away as it could go.

Erik sobbed out a broken cry as he felt that small sensation of power cut off again.


The draft orders came on a lonely Saturday afternoon. Alex's name printed on a stark white envelope. There were others too, some of the teachers Charles had hired but never grown attached to. It was Alex's name that broke him though.

The school announced within the day that it was shutting down. Charles couldn't handle it anymore. He sent all the kids away along with all the teachers except Hank and Alex. They spent one last week together, trying to pretend that none of this was real, and then they said their goodbyes.

The day Alex left for boot camp Charles spent immersed in a bottle of scotch.


Erik strained against the table, trying in vain to get away from the glass scalpel slowly sliding through the flesh between his ribs. His hands clenched into fists, nails digging into the skin of his palms, and his lips bled from the teeth marks he had made in an effort not to scream.

He was so tired of screaming.

This time they were testing how long a mutant could remain conscious with a punctured lung. The glass blade bit down further, tearing through the organ and Erik convulsed on the table as he felt the blood starting to stream into his air supply.

His chest grew tighter with the need to pull in a full breath but the single working lung couldn't manage to mitigate the damage to its partner and Erik felt the blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth as his hands clawed against the table. Darkness crept into his vision and he cursed everything that had brought him to this point.

He cursed humanity, he cursed himself, he cursed the researcher standing off with his clipboard taking notes, he cursed Shaw, he cursed the desire to save the president, and most of all he cursed the fact that he was still alive when for years now all he wanted was for the pain to end.


Charles' head pounded as he took another drink of scotch. There was no glass anymore; he just pulled swallows straight from the bottle. His hand clenched against a knee that couldn't feel the pressure of his fingers and the telepath wanted to scream.

Then Hank came in, loyal and wonderful Hank with a syringe in his hand and a smile on his face.

"I've gotten it perfect, Professor. This should work for everything you asked."

Charles allowed a bittersweet smile to crawl up his face as he took the drug into his hand. It glinted orange through the glass and he held it gently, almost reverently as he thanked Hank for his help.

Everything he had asked for. Charles hoped Hank was right because Charles had asked for quite a bit. He wanted something to turn off all the God-forsaken screaming in his head. The scotch could only drown out so much and lately all Charles could hear with his telepathy was the pain of those around him. Once his gift had shown him the beautiful parts of those around him. Charles didn't know when that had changed, but he was sick of hearing nothing but agony.

Hank's voice broke through again and Charles looked at him with gratitude he couldn't express as the words came out, "I added something extra too. I think that the serum can help you walk again as well. Of course, the primary function is combating the mutation, but it should be capable of both."

Without a second thought, Charles pressed the needle into his arm and pushed the plunger down, curling his hand into a fist as he felt the rush of cool liquid entering his blood stream.

For a moment nothing happened, then slowly the voices and the screaming faded into the darkness of his mind.

"Thank you, Hank." Charles murmured as he took another swallow of scotch.


The second time Erik got a hold of metal he made it farther than the first. Some idiot had been in a hurry and skipped the metal detector, confident in his own ability to make sure there was no metal on him, but the metal screws of his glasses were more than enough for Erik. He pulled them out with ease, not even taking time to revel in the feel of metal. He drove the screws straight through the man's skull and then swept through the room drilling holes in everyone present.

This time he didn't have to worry about undoing his own restraints. The man had come in at the tail end of one of Erik's sessions and he was already off the table and being walked back to his cell. Blood dripped freely from the gouges in his side, but this was a chance Erik probably wouldn't get again so he didn't dare wait.

He pushed away the pain, compartmentalizing it to the back of his mind for later, and he ran down the hallway being careful not to slip in his own blood. He could feel it the moment he reached the edge of the no metal zone and the flood of power he felt nearly brought him to his knees.

It was everywhere, in the walls, on the desks, in buttons and belts and pocket knives. Erik grabbed on to everything he could possibly reach and he pulled it to his will, driving metal through bodies with no regard for who the people were or what part they played in his torments.

The thud of bodies falling sounded from every direction, mingled with the screams of those still trying to get away. Then from the corner of his eye Erik saw a woman reach for a button and before he had the chance to stop her she slammed her hand down on it. Moments later there was a metal pipe through her chest but it was too late.

Gas filled the air and Erik roared in frustration as he limped to the exit. It was so close, he could see daylight for the first time in nine and a half years but as he got closer the light outside grew dimmer.

When he woke up he was in a new cell, this one had a glass ceiling with a small hole over to the side which Erik soon discovered was for the delivery of meals.

His wounds had been treated with the usual minimum amount of care, but as the days passed and he slowly healed he realized that they had not come to cause him more pain.

Clearly he had been deemed more trouble than he was worth and had been left to rot away in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. Erik felt the closest thing to joy that he had experienced since the morning he left Charles.

Charles.

He hadn't thought about Charles in years. It had seemed wrong to bring memories of someone so pure and radiant into a place as dark as the hell Erik lived in. Now he let the past flow over him and the tears leak out as he thought about everything he had once had.


Hank had stopped trying to get Charles to recover. Charles was amazed frankly that the man even stayed with him. Everyone else had left; it seemed Hank should have abandoned him too. Instead Hank did the shopping and the cooking, Hank prepared more serum for Charles whenever it was asked of him. Hank never complained about the startling rate that they went through scotch and he never commented on the hours Charles spent sitting in front of a half-finished chess game.

In fact Hank was the perfect person to share a house with. It was because of this that Charles was quite surprised to hear a loud commotion coming from the hallway. It wasn't like Hank to make so much noise when he knew that Charles was prone to such bad headaches.

Curiosity stirred Charles to his feet and he traipsed out of his room to find Hank hanging from the chandelier as he growled at a stranger collapsed on a table below.


AN: Finally at the point where DOFP storyline will start to take over. Who is looking forward to the prison break? I know I am.