Pairings: Lot's of friendships
Notes: Not much to say this time around, just be sure to let me know what y'all think :)
Chapter III
"I have to say I resent being confined to quarters, Charles." Erik said archly as he stiffly accepted the proffered drink, "I didn't escape the grasps of one prison just to accept another. No matter how fine the drink."
"I know, and you're hardly imprisoned here." Charles replied as he manoeuvred his chair around the table to sit opposite Erik, across the chessboard. He looked down into his own glass briefly trying to arrange his thoughts and the words to express them. The last thing he wanted was Erik getting defensive.
They had spent too many years at odds with each other. Old arguments had built great walls and chasms between them, but here they were at some semblance of truce that might so easily be snatched away by some hasty remark upon either part. Suddenly the warm confines of his office seemed suffocating. The walls pressing in on him and the drink overly bitter on his palate.
~I won't bite~ Erik's voice softly cut through all preparation.
"Pardon?" Charles asked, as he looked up startled by the sudden intrusion into his thoughts from such an unexpected quarter.
"I said I won't bite." Erik explained with a benign smile as he sipped his scotch. "Say what you have to say, Charles. I won't bite. I understand that I'm a guest here, at your discretion only. I also know that as much as I loathe the damn fool, you consider him a part of your 'team' now."
Following this revelation both men sat in tense, terse silence surprised by this abrupt middle ground that they found themselves standing upon after so many years. Charles was afraid to say anything in case the illusion vanished. In case he found himself waking from this sweet delusion he'd spun out from long hours of sitting alone in the dark and rerunning old arguments. Erik sat stiffly in the chair, not quite believing he'd spoken the words he'd rehearsed since the incident this morning. Unfortunately they sounded as insincere in the open air as he'd feared they would in his head.
"I know that you didn't start anything this morning." Charles said in an unthreatening tone. He looked down abruptly, toying slightly with the label of his tie. Staring Erik frowned slightly wondering exactly what was going on. Then suddenly a thought struck him.
"You were spying!" Erik breathed out in indignant shock, suddenly tapping his temple, "You were eavesdropping the whole time. What? Have you been sitting in there all day, just to make sure I didn't hurt one of your precious little xmen?"
"You know me better than that Erik." Charles said reprovingly as he shook his head, "You were angry. I worried. I only caught the tail end of it, but it was enough to let me know that you're right and you weren't looking for a fight."
"You were spying!" Erik growled snapping to his feet and putting distance between them by crossing to the drinks cabinet and refilling his glass. His every movement, his every action bristled with righteous fury.
Charles paused sometime, "I did not intrude Erik. In your anger your guard was down."
"Oh." Erik said as he drained his scotch and sat back in his chair derisively, "and that makes it all so much better does it?"
~Erik...~
"No. Charles, don't." Erik snapped, then collapsing back down into his chair he spoke with all the weariness of the world, "This can't go on. Not like this."
She moved about the infirmary with such ease, using her powers so that it but seemed an extension of her self. She spoke seemingly to herself as well, though it was all directed at the prone figure splayed out upon the bed before her. Unconscious for the day Logan snoozed quietly oblivious to what was going on around him. Jean too carried on oblivious to the two watchers that stood in the hall, staring as she worked.
"Looks like that thick skull of his has saved his life yet again." Scott commented lightly. He flashed a quick smile to the lady at his side, but glanced away quickly when he found it was not returned.
"He was lucky." 'Ro said softly, "but I can't help but feel that Magneto knew what he was doing."
"You mean when he threw the wolverine through a wall?" Scott asked dryly, folding his arms across his chest, his expression darkening slightly as Jean leant over Logan.
'Ro watched her companion for a moment and nodded, "Yes."
Turning away from the infirmary Scott began to walk away, 'Ro keeping pace at his side. "But he tossed a grown man through a wall and that's not an easy thing to do, especially with one of these walls"
"But it is an easy thing to do. Think about it Scott, to Magneto tossing a lump of metal around isn't exactly difficult. And as we found out before, he can play Logan like a puppet."
"And yet Logan keeps going back for more."
"He's stubborn." 'Ro said with a slight smile as she thought of another man not too far from her equally as wilful.
"Or perhaps he just likes being hurt." Scott said darkly as he looked straight ahead.
"I see things haven't improved between the two of you." 'Ro commented dryly as she cast Scott a quick sideways glance. "You're not so different from each other you know."
"Please don't start. I don't need some sort of lecture right now, all right?" Scott said with an angry shake of his head. "I just think that anyone with two brain cells would have worked out that he couldn't sneak up on the 'master of magnetism' with a metal skeleton. I mean come on! Talk about thick as two planks...the man's as dense as a bank vault."
'Ro couldn't help but laugh at Scott's little rant, the sound echoing slightly in the absurdly clean halls beneath the mansion. She wondered fleetingly if Jean could hear her from the infirmary. For some reason she hoped so. When she saw Scott break into one of his wonderfully carefree grins all of a sudden she knew things were going to be fine.
"Come on, let's go see if we can't get this school back under control." she said as they approached the lift, "Before the kids bring down the roof altogether."
"What the hell is going on?" Marie snapped as they both strolled rather sheepishly into their shared bedroom. She stood in the middle of the floor with her hands planted firmly on her hips demanding to know what had happened and what was going on in tones that sounded oddly reminiscent of Miss Grey.
Kitty was the first to come up with an answer as she smiled thinly and said, "You know, it's been a long day and we've made all the explanations we care to, to the professor. So, if you don't mind I'd really like to just sit down and do some homework."
"What?" asked Jubes in shock as she gawped at Kitty before recovering her senses and nodded in agreement.
"You've got a hell of a lot more explaining to do before you do anything." Marie insisted as she stared coldly at them both. "What possessed you to go snooping around in Mr. Lensherr's room?"
Her tone was short and sharp, brooking no argument. An icy shiver ran up her spine as she realised that it was his tone, his diction. Once more his words crept through her mind, 'we're more alike, you and I, than either of us may ever know'.
"We were curious." Jubes said as she dropped down onto her bed with a sigh, "You can't tell me that you're not in the slightest bit curious. That there isn't a tiny part of you that doesn't want to ask?"
Marie shook her head firmly and sat down on the edge of her own bed, her arms folding stiffly across her chest. "I already know. Remember?"
"You know stuff like that?" Kitty asked with shock, "Like what he keeps next to his bed?"
"A copy of Plato." Marie said as her anger seeped out of her and she hung her head, "The Republic. He wants a perfect society too. He doesn't go anywhere without a copy."
"Jesus, total weirdo huh?" Jubes with a grimace, turning to look up at Kitty who was watching Marie with concern.
"Shut up, Jubes." she said with a sigh walking across the room to sit down next to Rogue, she slipped her arm around the other girls covered shoulders. At first Rogue tensed at the sudden unfamiliar closeness, but the she gradually relaxed beneath her friends comforting touch. "We're sorry, okay? We didn't mean to cause trouble we just wanted to have a look..."
"At what a monster keeps in his bedroom?" Marie finished raggedly.
"We're sorry." Jubes said as she sat down on Marie's other side, slipping her arm around her waist so that all three girls were linked. "We were worried about you. You've been acting weird since he arrived and we thought maybe we'd find something that might help. Some explanation. We were curious."
They didn't say anything after that, not for a long time. Just sat in comfortable silence, each lost in their own thoughts as they rested their heads against each other. Jubes wondered if perhaps they'd done the right thing after all. They hadn't talked like this for a long time. Kitty sat pondering the point of lemon smelling shirts. All the while Marie wondered where it would all end. But then again perhaps that was a question she didn't really want the answer to.