.
Erik walks to the football pitch after his morning classes on Friday. He's a bit late because the teacher ended his lesson five minutes after the bell had rung, causing a massive displeasured noise from the students, but Erik takes his time, smoking a cigarette in between.
When he arrives, he joins the group sitting on the bleachers as one student is talking in front of Shaw and the others. Erik knows that guy. Red-skinned, with a strong Russian accent. Not really the kind to blend in. His name is Azazel, or something like that. A mutant, obviously. He's holding a stack of colourful papers between his left arm and his chest, as the other arm is wildly moving around. Shaw is at the bottom of the stairs, smiling contentedly as he watches Erik approach. The teacher waves at him and shows him a seat on the front row. Erik takes it and turns his head to the left and right to observe the other team members. Some he knows by sight, like the blonde girl sitting at the top, who's always wearing white clothes; some he doesn't. Some with obvious physical mutations, some without. But he soon understands that they all are mutants, as the other student continues his speech.
"I'm counting on you, brothers and sisters, to put them everywhere. We need to spread the word. Mutants exist for a reason, and we need to show the world what it is. Hellfire will rise and clean the planet we live on. Come on."
As Azazel finishes, he approaches the group and starts giving a bundle of tracts to each student sitting on front, including Erik.
As soon as his eyes land on the slogan, he freezes, earning some throat scraping from behind him. On autopilot, he keeps one sheet and extends his arm behind him for the girl to take the others.
Death to the baselines, screams the bold font on a blood-red ink stain. The text beneath it doesn't hold better words, preaching the whole superiority of the Mutant Race.
But he's interrupted in his reading by Shaw clapping in his hands while standing up.
"Thank you very much, Azazel," he says as he takes the boy's place in front of everyone.
Erik feels his insides tighten a little bit more as unease stiffens his spine. Shaw had talked about a sports team. Not an assembly of pro-separatist mutants. What the fuck is he doing here?
"As you may have noticed, we just have acquired a new member today. You certainly have seen him, and if you haven't, you have heard the terrible rumours that spread about him. He came to us in September, and has shown a great power." Shaw looks directly at him as he continues, "Erik, I'm sure we will be able to do great things together. Because you, more than anyone else, know what the baselines are capable of. Lying, using your power to make people fear and hate you, trying to make you take the blame for what happened in your last school…" he tuts, shaking his head as if scolding a child. "Help us rise, Erik, and you will never fear any baseline ever again."
But Erik's mother is a baseline. His father was a baseline. The Davids are baselines.
Erik slowly rises to his feet, his hand opening to let the sheet of propaganda fall. He feels like the world has slowed down around him, despite the hammering of his heart. He faces Shaw, who looks expectant and delighted at the same time. Erik starts to walk to him, moving away from the students in the bleachers. When he reaches his side, he turns to them.
"I have been wronged, lied to, taken advantage of, but not only by humans. By mutants, too. And I came here today because you told me you wanted me in your sports team, not to join some supremacist bullshit sect. I have done enough in my life already to cause pain to the few people I love, and all I want now is to be left alone. Yes, I ended up in juvie and am still on probation, no, it wasn't my fault, and the humans that accused me feared me because of what I could do, of what I had already done. But I'm not here to take revenge of any kind. I won't join you in your fucking plans of destroying the better part of the population. I don't care. I've seen enough."
He turns his back to them and starts walking back to the entry of the field, ignoring the shouts rising from the affronted assembly.
Charles was right, it would seem.
oOo
Erik joins Raven inside the cafeteria without feeling like he has been followed by any of the people that were at the Hellfire's meeting. Just to be sure, he has kept track of all of their metal accessories for the whole walk, and it's with sweat on his brow that he seats opposite her.
She rises a surprised gaze when she hears him pulling the chair.
"I thought you had a meeting." She doesn't really ask, but he can see the question in her eyes.
"I had. Left early." He grabs his sandwich and starts peeling away the plastic wrap.
"That bad, huh? What was it, anyway? You haven't even told me. They wanted you to join the ballet class or what?"
Erik suppresses a laugh that isn't really in order, seeing what he has to tell her.
"Hellfire."
Raven stops chewing, and he has the occasion to see the inside of her mouth—not really something he wanted to. She hastily puts her food down.
"Don't tell me you went there!"
When he says nothing more, she continues, disbelieving. "Oh my god, Erik! What the hell?"
"What?" he bites out. "He told me it was about a sports team."
"And you believed him?"
Erik sits back in his chair, pensive. "No. But Charles told me not to go, so I wanted to."
"Are you serious? My dear brother tried to stop you, and you went just out of spite?" she bursts out, laughing so hard that her fists slam on her tray. "Erik, for fuck's sake, what were you thinking? Shaw's a mad man! He tried to approach me after Charles said no to him. And believe me, he was disappointed."
Erik perks up. "What do you mean?"
"I may want to be a proud mutant and to stop hiding who I truly am, but that doesn't mean I want the world to be destroyed! Have you seen his manic gaze? Thank you, but no, thank you!"
She picks her sandwich back up and nibbles at it, as if she's wary of what he could say next and doesn't want to choke on a mouthful.
"I saw your friend, too. The blond, icy girl. She was there."
"Emma?" she says while chewing. "Yeah, I know. I wouldn't say she's my friend, but she's the chief cheerleader, and we get on well, because we don't discuss politics. Or any important topic, for that matter."
Erik hums, not particularly convinced.
"I swear, Erik - people can be nice even if you don't agree with them on every subject. That's what diversity stands for."
He actually throws a bread crumb at her for that statement.
oOo
Shaw leaves him alone after that, and that's a blessing. The weekend, at least, has allowed Erik to put some barriers between him and the recent events. It happens that he crosses path with one or another of the members in the halls, but they usually just glare daggers at him as they pursue their path. It isn't really a change from all the other students that just do that daily since the second bout of rumours.
He's gonna get used to it. He doesn't need any of them, and as long as they don't bother him about any of those stories, he'll continue to ignore them just as well.
Charles looks directly at him when he enters the classroom on Monday morning. Erik holds his gaze, defying the I-told-you-so look that clouds clear-blue eyes with one of his own, daring Charles to say anything about it.
Charles doesn't look as manic as he was the other day, but there's still dark circles carved under his eyes. Erik watches him hold the strap of his bag with one hand and clutch his cardigan with the other, as if hiding a non-existent cleavage from his prying gaze, as if Erik scared him. Maybe he does. Maybe that's what he wants.
To ruffle Charles' good looks and always perfect clothes, to shake his superior behaviour and the smile that seems to be glued to his face anytime he's not looking at Erik, to make him fall from his fucking pedestal, hard. Erik scowls, and Charles hurriedly turns around and sits at his desk. Erik's almost tempted to mess with Charles' chair, but the consequences of such a display in class wouldn't be worth the effort, right now.
oOo
He's setting himself for lunch in a sunlit corner in front of the school on Thursday, seizing the remnant of the summer's heat to spend some time outside of those four walls that seem to come closer and closer around him each passing minute, when he receives a call from Raven.
It's weird, because she's at her cheerleading training, like every Thursday at noon, and she had no need to call him to know where to join him.
He's tempted not to answer. She surely hasn't locked her screen correctly, and the movements in her pocket made her phone call her last contact.
But it has never happened with her, and he knows she unlocks the screen with her fingerprint. He slides his thumb over the phone to accept the call and brings it to his ear.
"Raven?"
He first hears some ruffling, and looks at the screen to make sure that the connection has been made correctly, but it seems to be fine.
"Raven?" he says again after bringing the phone back against his skull.
He hears voices; Raven's, but she's not talking to him. And, farther, Shaw's. What is he doing at a cheerleading practice? There's also another female one that Erik thinks belongs to Emma Frost. He hasn't heard her speak much, but the clipped tone is easily recognizable. "Shouldn't have been there so soon, sweetie. Shouldn't have seen that. That's too bad, because I needed you in the team. But you won't ever shut up if I don't make you learn the lesson now. Azazel!" There's a loud noise, like an explosion, and Erik can now hear the Russian asking what he needs to do. "Take care of her," Emma's voice filters through Erik's phone again. "She needs to stay silent." He doesn't hear much after that, and then—-
Then Raven screams.
Erik drops his phone, leaves everything behind as he barrels inside the hall.
Crossing to the gym takes no time as he rushes through the corridors and follows the pitches, but it also takes too long. Too fucking long.
Something's happening to Raven, something bad, and he needs to do something. He's not fast enough—he wills his legs to take wider strides, puts all his weight on his toes—
He barely slows down when he reaches the first entry, opening the metal door without any thought to it, and enters the gym, but it's empty, completely empty-he reaches with his powers, tries to feel a watch or a necklace or anything that would tell him that there's someone here, that he wasn't mistaken.
And there—-to his left, in the storeroom, he feels them. He propels his body in that direction, opens the door with a neglected movement of his right hand, and enters the room as it crashes against the wall.
Here they are—-Shaw and Emma leaning leisurely against the back wall, chatting as if they were somewhere entirely, like a terrace or something—-and between them and Erik, stand Azazel and Raven, that has switched back to her natural blue form. His brain barely registers that the blue and the red of their skin joined where Azazel is currently tightening his hand around her frail neck clash beautifully. She's standing on the tip of her toes, both hands trying to get Azazel to let her go, scratching with her nails and pushing against his extended arm and landing a fist against the inside of his elbow, with no success. But they all turn their head in his direction, and he sees Emma distinctly rolling her eyes.
"You kept me too occupied, Sebastian, I didn't even notice he was coming."
"Well, that's how I like you, darling. Occupied." Shaw smirks to her, as if they were friends or worse, lovers. "But I'm sure you can do something about him."
"Yes, sweetie."
Erik barely has the time to latch on the door, wrenching it from its hinges and hurling it in their direction before he feels a freezing spear splitting his brain.
He's blind for a moment, and the next he's on the floor, clutching at his head with both his hands, and he notices that he's screaming just as the pain recedes.
He pants as he rises to his knees and elbows, but soon loses any air he would have contained in his lungs when Azazel hits him in the ribs, sending him back to the ground.
There's a flash of blue in front of his eyes and a loud crack before the explosion sound that he heard on the phone earlier resonates, and there's a sulfuric smell that makes him gag.
It takes him a few seconds to concentrate on Raven's hands on his shoulders before he can rise to his feet again. Azazel is now standing near the two others, his hand on his nose, and Shaw is casually holding the door Erik had thrown at them with all the strength he could muster, as if it weighed nothing.
"I have another way of doing that, Sebastian." Emma says as Erik tries to gain his breathing back-because even if Raven is free now, they tried to attack her, and—-
"Bring me to the front of the director's office, Azazel."
And just like that, all three of them are gone.
oOo
"Shit." Raven says as they run back to the school's entrance so that Erik can grab his bag and his phone-—still there, but the glass screen is smashed-—before climbing the stairs that Erik took on his first day here to enter the principal's office. The door is closed, but they can hear voices inside. Emma's, mostly.
Erik opens the door without even knocking and they barge in to witness Emma seated across the desk from Johnson, who's intently listening to her story. Her voice wavers and she sniffles and when she turns her head to look at them, her face is smeared with tears and black lines of makeup and her bottom lip is trembling.
"It's him, Mister Johnson!" she says accusingly as she points a finger to Erik. "I saw him, he tried to force Raven to do some horrible, horrible things… Adult things…" She breaks in another bout of sobs.
"That's bullshit!" Raven intervenes, taking another step inside the room. "Don't listen to her, that's not what happened!"
"Miss Darkholme, that's not a language I will tolerate in my office!" the Principal snaps, stopping her at once. "I'll listen to you afterwards. Miss Frost came here first, with severe accusations. Mister Lehnsherr, I'll ask you to wait outside, you're disturbing the poor girl."
"No, no, you can't—" Erik starts.
"Of course I can, who do you think I am? Out. Now."
Erik shares a glance with Raven as his heart stammers. He can't, he can't—-he's panicking, right now, but Raven brings her hand on his arm and squeezes lightly. "Go. I'll tell him my version of the story, it will be fine. Go."
With a last murdering look at Emma, he turns and passes the threshold. He leaves the door open and stands against the wood panel, to be sure to stay inside earshot.
"Please, do continue, Miss Frost," Johnson says.
"I… I was going to the storeroom to get the stuff for cheerleading practice, and, and…" Another loud sniff, followed by a disrupted intake of breath. "And he was here, on top of her on one of the gym mattresses and he was tugging at her clothes and she was struggling but he used his powers to immobilize her… And I screamed, screamed at him to let her go, that he was a monster, that poor Raven didn't want to do anything like that and he threw a door at me! I swear, Mister Johnson, I've never been so scared in my life, he looked like a beast!"
"That's all lies!" Raven shouts, but Erik is mortified. What if the Principal believes her? What if he doesn't let him or Raven speak, what if-—?
"Miss Darkholme!" Johnson roars. "I'm not going to ask you a third time to remain silent! You'll have some explaining to do when I say it's your turn. Stop interrupting!"
It all falls silent for a while, before the Principal speaks again.
"Do you have anything more to say, Miss Frost?" and his voice is all sweet.
"No, Mister Johnson, but please, please, do something, I'm so scared of him! I can't… I can't look at him, what if he tries to do the same to me-—"
"Don't worry, Miss Frost. I'll do whatever is necessary to make sure you, and the other students, are safe." His tone of voice audibly changes when he speaks again. "You can speak now, Miss Darkholme. Make it quick, I have work to do, and this whole mess is going to be a lot of extra work. Is it what happened?"
"No, absolutely not!" Raven answers.
"So what was it, if I may ask?"
"I came in early for practice and I heard noises in the storeroom. I found Emma here and Mister Shaw together, and she was giving him head-—"
Johnson scoffs. "You're saying, now, that one of our renowned teacher is involved with a student? Please."
"Yes, I am." Raven's voice is tighter now, coiled. "And when Emma spotted me, she asked Azazel to hit me so I wouldn't speak."
"I'm not sure to follow you… You're saying that there was another student in the storeroom with Mister Shaw and Miss Frost?"
"No-—not at first. She called him."
"And all the while she supposedly called him, you didn't run away?"
"He's a teleporter," she deadpans.
"Right. And when did Mister Lehnsherr come?"
"A few minutes later."
"And did he throw that door at Miss Frost?"
"Yes but-—"
"But that seems like deterioration added to aggravated intent to harm someone to me. I can assure you, Miss Darkholme, that you don't need to defend your assailant. You don't have to fear anything, you are safe here. I will protect you."
"Am I under questioning or something? Why are you so prone to think she is saying the truth? I—-"
"That's enough, Miss Darkholme!" Erik hears a chair scraping the floor, followed by a loud "Mister Lehnsherr! Come here right now!"
oOo
When Erik enters the office once again, Emma is not crying anymore. Actually, she's wearing a satisfied smirk that Erik would gladly rip with his nails, as she stands, arms crossed under her breasts.
Johnson is up too, while Raven is still seated, her head down.
"I will now speak alone to Mister Lehnsherr, if you don't mind, Ladies."
Frost deliberately brushes past him, resplendent in her all-white outfit, all the more obnoxious to Erik. She leaves a trail of freezing goose bumps on his bare arms that lessens only when he hears her heels on the stairs.
Raven takes more time to exit, looking directly at Erik, her yellow eyes shining with unshed tears of disgust. At least, she manages to keep her body disguise as usual—-
"I need to talk to you," she says when she comes near him, as she seizes his wrist.
But Johnson clears his throat, making her jump, and the next second she's gone.
oOo
"Please, have a seat," Johnson commands, showing the now empty seats in front of him with a hand. "Well, Mister Lehnsherr. I don't really know what to do." He joins his hands together, his elbows resting on the leather blotter. "I'm just so disappointed in you. I allowed you to come in this school after what happened in you previous one, choosing to trust you. And what do you do? You relapse, barely three months after the year starts. I think there is something seriously wrong with you, doing that kind of thing to girls."
"I have never touched someone that didn't want me to." Erik can't stop from interrupting. But Johnson doesn't take the bait.
"Let me doubt that. You've showed me that I can't trust you, right now. Don't think I heard of when you let your anger loose, or when you attacked that boy after the Thanksgiving recess? There will be an investigation about what happened today, and we will determine if your friend is telling the truth or not."
"You don't even seem to take her word for what it is. You have made your mind up, haven't you? I'm the juvie, the criminal, so I must be wrong, that's it?"
Erik is gripping his armrests so hard his fingers have blanched, and the muscles in his forearms are quivering. It's happening once again, baselines not believing him when he truly hasn't done anything, and that fucking Emma Frost setting him up like that—-
"Are you even aware, Mister Johnson, of what the Hellfire club does during their practice time? Have you seen their tracts? Of what Shaw is up to?"
But the principal dismisses him with a wave of his hand.
"I will ask you to respect the professors working here. It is Mister Shaw. And yes, I know. They practice."
If Erik didn't already think he was totally screwed, he would have now. The man doesn't make sense, and it's so frustrating.
Erik has known enough injustice in his—-rather short—-life. He came here to start again, to finish school. To avoid troubles.
And yet here he is.
In this clusterfuck.
That might just mean that he shouldn't have bothered with the effort. He's a broken product that won't bring anything decent to the world.
"You will understand that I have to call your probation worker. You will be suspended from school as long as the investigation lasts. You are to stay here until he comes to pick you up, and I don't want to see any damage to my office, or it will only aggravate your case, do you hear me?"
Erik doesn't bother answering.
Johnson leaves him alone to place that call, closing the door and all of Erik's hopes behind him.
.