AN: I wrote a prequel to this series which follows some of Erik's early life. It's just a 3,000 word one-shot about Nazi Germany but you all should check it out. It's called Waking Nightmare. (Heed the trigger warnings)
On the note of trigger warnings, this chapter has a trigger warning for drug use.
"Hank, what's going on here?" Charles' gaze was confused as he took in the scene, not really comprehending what he was looking at. For once even the glass in his hand – which, Charles noted in annoyance, was empty again – didn't help the scene make sense. Hank was never blue anymore, yet blue was indisputably his color now, and the man sprawled on the table was looking more familiar the longer Charles stared at him, but he couldn't quite place him.
Then the stranger – if he actually was a stranger – called him by a title he hadn't heard in years. "Professor?"
Charles would have flinched away from the word if there wasn't so much alcohol running through his system. The peaceful numbness was enough to quell the pain that term would otherwise bring. So instead of flinching, Charles merely replied with a tired sounding, "Please don't call me that," as he drew closer to the unusual scene.
Hank, still inexplicably hanging by his feet from the chandelier, asked in confusion, "You know this guy?"
Stopping briefly on the landing, still trying to get his wits about him, Charles replied, "Yeah, he looks… slightly familiar." It was the truth, though a name continued to elude him. Charles was certain now that he had at least met the man before. As his rather dulled mind tried to dredge up memories of the past – something he often avoided doing at all costs – Charles added, "Get off the bloody chandelier, Hank."
With a single fluid movement the blue mutant was back on his feet and staring up at Charles as he continued moving down the stairs.
"You can walk."
The confused statement, nearly a question, drifted off the stranger's lips and Charles felt a slight tug of annoyance at the words. He wasn't fond of remembering the times he had spent in his wheelchair. There was far too much pain down that road. He pushed against the urge to let the past reclaim his mind and instead he answered with acidic sarcasm, "You're a perceptive one."
"I thought in Cuba-"
"Which makes it slightly perplexing," Charles continued as if the man hadn't mentioned the past again, "that you managed to miss our sign on the way in." He found his energy flagging already despite how little he had moved. It was likely the exhaustion that always came when the past tried to creep back up on him. Charles sat heavily down on the stairs, still half a flight between him and the other two men. He let his anger and annoyance start to filter into his voice more thoroughly as he continued speaking, "This is private property, my friend, I'm going to have to ask…" he paused, realizing that he wasn't in any shape to be able to force this man to leave. Instead he gestured to Hank with the hand still grasping the empty scotch glass, "…him to ask you to leave."
Charles' hand came up to rub lightly at his temple as he tried to erase the last few minutes from his head. It had called too many thoughts to mind that he liked to avoid and his skull pounded with the need for more alcohol and possibly another dose of serum. Just to be safe.
"Well," the man said in a tone that Charles very much didn't like. The kind of tone that implied the man had no intention of leaving. "I'm afraid I can't do that because, uh," he paused, stretching slightly to work out whatever muscles he had likely hurt by being thrown onto the table, but the suspicion was confirmed already. Clearly the man wasn't going to make it easy to get rid of him. "Because I was sent here for you," he concluded at last.
Sent here. The words almost made Charles want to laugh. There was nothing he could offer anyone, no reason anyone would want him. It was ridiculous that someone would send for him. Annoyance was still the dominant emotion though, so instead of allowing the bitter laugh to escape his lips Charles, replied, "Well tell whoever it was that I'm… busy."
It seemed a good excuse. He was busy. He had a large supply of scotch to drink. If he didn't do it, who would? It was a sacrifice Charles was willing to make.
"That's going to be a little tricky," was the answer he got back. The man seemed to be picking his words carefully, thinking them over and deciding on each one long before it came out. "Because the person who sent me, was you."
"What?" The question popped out of him before he could help it. Charles sat up a little straighter and his eyes narrowed some in confusion. He wouldn't claim that any of this exchange had made sense, but this last sentence certainly took the prize for the oddest thing he had heard in years.
At least until the stranger added, "About fifty years from now."
That was without doubt, the most insane claim anyone had ever tried to convince him of. That touch of humor he had felt before swelled up again, still as bitter as it had been the last time. "Fifty years from now? Like, in the future fifty years from now?" The man gave an affirmative answer as Charles kept talking, "I sent you? From the future?"
It would be far less disconcerting if it weren't for how completely serious the stranger seemed. Even without his telepathy, Charles considered himself a good judge of when someone was lying. This man wasn't. Or at least he didn't believe he was. Charles turned to Hank, half to see his reaction and half to try convincing himself that this was all a hallucination. If Hank was gone, or not reacting to the words, Charles could convince himself the stranger was just a product of his mind. This entire day, just a dream.
However, Hank was there and looking just as perplexed as Charles.
"Piss off," Charles muttered to the man. The stranger was delusional. It was the only explanation for the entire story. For some reason, the man truly believed what he was saying despite it, obviously, not being true.
Then, in a voice that made it quite clear that he thought the next words were going to be the winning argument, the stranger said, "If you had your powers you would know I was telling the truth."
Charles' heart faltered in his chest as the truth did its best to slam against his skull. "How do you know I don't have my-" his words stopped as Charles finally felt the last vestiges of sarcastic humor drop from his attitude. This wasn't a stupid joke anymore, not a prank or simply the confused ramblings of an insane man. Charles' brows drew together as he clung to the small hope of denial that still remained. "Who are you? Are you CIA?" It made sense in a convoluted way. If they had found him, kept tabs on him, the CIA could easily know about his loss of powers.
"I told you-"
"Are you watching me?" he asked, ignoring the other man's words.
"-I know you, Charles." The stranger continued, ignoring Charles' words just as easily as his own were avoided. "We've been friends for years." The man started walking around the table, coming closer to Charles. The words kept spilling out of his mouth and Charles sat frozen on his stairs while his mind screamed at him to stop listening. "I know your powers came when you were nine. You thought you were going crazy when it started, all the voices in your head. It wasn't until you were twelve you realized all the voices were in everyone else's head. Do you want me to go on?"
No. No he really didn't. It was too late though, the words had been spoken and the damage was done. "I never told anyone that," Charles stated dully. It was a rather pointless thing to say because clearly this man knew about it regardless.
"Not yet no, but you will," He spoke with such confidence and talked of things that he had no way of knowing.
The haze of scotch had long worn off and Charles finally assented, "Alright you've peaked my interest, what do you want?"
"We have to stop Raven. I need your help." Another pause filled the room before the man amended, "We need your help."
The years without walking, Cuba, telepathy, Raven… There were so many strings to his past all being tugged at once and Charles wanted to slam that door shut again. It was too much. It couldn't be real, none of this was real.
A dream. That made sense. His subconscious mind tormenting him again. That was why this man knew things he shouldn't. "I think I'd like to wake up now," Charles spoke aloud as a broken smile tugged at his lips. This couldn't really be happening. That made it no less painful to hear the words, but it at least made it more tolerable.
It wasn't real.
It wasn't…
But it was. Everything inside Charles insisted he was awake no matter how badly he wished it wasn't true.
He dragged himself off the stairs at last and welcomed the stunned silence that followed in his wake as he wandered into the study. He liked the study. There was plenty of scotch stored here.
It only took a moment for the blessed quiet to end as the man trailed after him and started speaking again. Charles noted dimly that he acted like he had won, so whoever the man was he seemed to know Charles well enough to realize when he had given in. "My name it Logan, and in the future I come from, mutants are nearly extinct, I'm sure within a year we'll be gone completely. They sent me back to stop it, and that requires stopping Raven."
Charles didn't answer but he didn't reject the words this time either. Instead he turned to face the stranger, named Logan apparently, and waited for more.
"At the Paris Peace Conference, Raven is going to kill a man named Bolivar Trask and that will result in her capture. Through her DNA, they create machines, Sentinels, that can change to combat any mutation. They target us and wipe us out."
It was a lot of information, and now that Charles had somewhat agreed to take this visit seriously he was finding it difficult to wrap his mind around. He turned his back on the man again, reaching for the scotch and pouring himself a generous amount. "So, you're saying, that they took Raven's power and what? They weaponized it?" The nod from Logan was accented by Hank reminding Charles that Raven was unique. "She is, Hank," he said with the same tone of fondness that he had never quite gotten rid of even ten years after her abandonment.
"In the beginning they were just targeting mutants. Then they began to identify the genetics of non-mutants who would eventually have mutant children." Logan kept talking; painting a terrifying future that sounded far too similar to one Erik had warned him of once. Charles made his way to the couch, falling upon it and studiously not letting his eyes linger on the chess set sitting in front of him. There were enough reminders of his past today.
As the somber story finished, Charles took a long drag of alcohol before responding. "Let's just say for the sake of… the sake, that I choose to believe you…" It was already far too late for that so he amended, "that I choose to help you. Raven won't listen to me." The final words came out with a bubble of laughter which failed to hide the pain the sentence caused him.
He remembered well the moment she decided to chase after some foolish thought that Erik was innocent. How she had walked out on him to continue the war on humanity that Erik had once wanted. The war Erik had started in Dallas without a second thought for the man waiting for him at home. Raven had left him for the same cause Erik had left him for and in the end Charles had been abandoned by everyone except Hank.
War was apparently a better companion than Charles.
"No, her heart, and soul, belong to someone else now," He tacked on bitterly to the end of his sad claim. Erik's war had taken her. Erik had taken her.
"I know," Logan said as he walked closer. "That's why we're going to need Magneto too."
It was like being doused in ice water in the same breath that he was burned alive. That name tore at him like no other and Charles couldn't stop the way he flinched away from it. He had tried so many times to reach Erik back when he still had his telepathy. The pain of meeting that wall time and time again was still fresh in his mind even years later.
Charles could easily have torn it down, flooded into the man's mind regardless of his welcome, but he refused. If Erik wanted nothing to do with him then that was exactly what he would have. Charles made that decision a long time ago.
"Erik?" Hank asked, confusion in every inch of his posture, "You do know where he is?"
Hysterical laughter sounded through the room and it took Charles a moment to realize it was coming from him. He got to his feet, still unable to stop the laugh, and rounded on Logan. As suddenly as it had arrived, the laughter stalled and Charles' voice filled with anger as he insisted, "He's where he belongs."
Prison. That was where Erik deserved to be. He had assassinated the president, then killed more men in his attempts to evade capture. Erik was serving his time like any other person would for committing that crime.
It was justice.
"That's it? You're just gonna walk out?" Logan's voice challenged him as he left the room.
Charles graced him with a slight turn and the raised glass of scotch in salute as he stated, "Oh, top marks. Like I said, you are perceptive."
"The professor I know would never turn his back on someone who had lost their path." Logan argued as Charles neared the stairs. Another sip of scotch burned down Charles' throat and he didn't even pause in his stride. That is, until Logan spoke again. "Especially someone he loved."
He rocked backward a step, reeling mentally to recover from the stark reminder of what he once had with Erik. Charles took a deep breath, willing away the ache in his chest, and then he rounded angrily on Logan.
How dare this man come into his house and ask this of him.
Something in the anger and the smell of scotch finally got the memory of who this man was to resurface in Charles' mind. He remembered a bar, thick with smoke and pounding with music. He remembered Erik, beside him. His partner.
And he remembered a man sitting at the bar, rejecting them before they even spoke their offer.
"You know," Charles said as he strode back towards Logan. "I think I do remember you now." He kept his tone conversational at first and made every effort to conceal the way his entire body hurt from the mention of loving Erik. "Yeah, we came to you a long time ago seeking your help." A smile grew on his lips as his voice grew colder. "I'm going to say to you, what you said to us then. Fuck off."
As he bit the last words out, losing the smile completely, Logan reached forward and grabbed the collar of his robe with anger flickering in his eyes.
"Listen here, you little shit," Logan growled out as he dragged Charles closer. "I've come a long way, and I've watched a lot of people die, good people, my friends. If you want to wallow in self-pity, and do nothing, then you're going to watch the same thing you understand?"
Throughout the impassioned speech Charles maintained his sarcastic smile, only letting it fade towards the end as he was released from the man's hold. With a sauntering step back, he replied, "We all have to die sometime."
He turned again, this time retreating up the stairs unhindered and hoping that Hank would toss the intruder through a window.
His footsteps grew slower as he neared his room. Charles could feel the weight of the day's events pressing against him and he wanted to collapse rather than deal with the pain. He longed for something he wouldn't allow himself to name, but the sight of the room which he had once shared with Erik was more than enough to remind him that what he really wanted was to go back to those happier times.
It had been less than six months after Erik's betrayal that Charles moved into a guest room rather than stay in the master bedroom. He couldn't face looking at Erik's side of the room every morning, so now the entire thing sat collecting dust. Untouched for nearly a decade.
That didn't stop the door from mocking him whenever he walked past it. A sharp and agonizing reminder at all times of what he once had.
Charles finally did make it to his own room, pushing the door open weakly as he clung with the other hand to the now empty scotch glass. He would need to pour more. He couldn't quite remember if it would be his second glass of the day or his third. Either way, it was nearly three in the afternoon so he was actually doing better than normal. Usually he would be on his fourth by now.
He didn't make the conscious decision to grab the case holding the serum and the elastic band, but Charles found his hands closing around it regardless as he made his way to the chair by his bed. With confident, practiced movements Charles tugged his robe off and wrapped the band around his arm. He pulled it tight with his teeth, filled the syringe with the marvelous orange liquid, and lightly palpated the vein in the crook of his arm to enlarge it. One quick movement later and he felt the warm rush of the drugs within his system, numbing out his mind as he took a deep breath and let the relaxation flow through him.
Charles pulled the elastic band from his arm, placing it carefully back in the case with the rest of the supplies, and then he let the entire thing fall from his hands to land gently on the floor. He reveled in the fog filling up his head, chasing away the past and all the demons that came with it. Charles leaned back in his chair as his gaze drifted lazily around the room.
He regretted that decision the moment his eyes fell on the small table on the opposite side of his bed.
Raven.
The already dredged up past flooded through him again, taking him farther back than he usually went. He remembered finding her in the kitchen, he remembered deciding to protect her.
Charles' head tipped against the back of the chair as his eyes drifted shut in one last futile attempt at fighting the decision he had already made.
This wasn't about Erik. It wasn't about the hurt and the betrayal constantly surging under Charles' skin. It was about Raven.
It was about the fact that if he didn't help, Raven would be captured.
Charles stood up reluctantly, shooting one final glance at the smiling blonde in the picture by his bed. For her, he would do anything. Even if it meant facing the man who had willingly thrown away everything they had.
It was easier to move now that the choice was made, his feet didn't resist the steps he took and Charles steadily walked down the stairs again. Hank was still standing in the study with Logan, and Charles found himself glad the other mutant hadn't been thrown out yet.
"I'll help you get her," he stated with more conviction than he had felt in years. "Not for your future, but for her."
"Fair enough."
"But I'll tell you this, you don't know Erik." Charles informed Logan. He had thought once that he knew Erik, until the moment he felt the sick and twisted pleasure Magneto felt as he shot down men in the street. Men who were simply doing their job as they fought to take down the president's killer. Charles would remember that feeling for the rest of his life and it would never fail to bring bile to his throat. It was a revolting emotion to have as you took someone's life, and it was the emotion he would forever attribute to Erik. "That man is a monster, a murderer. You think you can convince Raven to change, to come home? That's splendid. But what makes you think you can change him?" The vitriol dripped from his words and Charles just let the anger fester beneath his surface. He nursed the rage as he had for a decade because the fury was easier to handle than the pain.
The answer Charles got to his, actually mostly hypothetical, question was the last one he expected.
"Because you and Erik sent me back here together."
AN: This chapter got longer than I expected, and I didn't want to cut things out because I don't want it to be rushed. So, the prison break won't be starting til next chapter.