Warning: I'm extremely talkative tonight. Skip over the italics if you are not interested in reading my blathering on.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to the New Year! Hopefully, it's as awesome as you want it to be. I know it will be for me—I got accepted into the college of my dreams, so I'm super excited about that. : ).
Sorry that this is later than normal! I got an iPad for Christmas and have been completely hooked on using it… so much, that I neglected my own laptop, which has been having faulty charger issues. I took care of it (who knew that unplugging the thing and replugging it into the same outlet cures everything?) and realized that it was almost the end of Friday… and I still had yet to update. Again, I'm sorry!
As for the Christmas story that didn't happen… erm, I blame it all on my parents. Yes. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. They decided that me being a complete and total antisocial bookworm that loved to write wasn't acceptable for Christmas and thus didn't let me write anything. Apologies abound for those who were really looking forward to that (cough, ohfercryingoutloud, cough). However, the badass Charles in a black t-shirt thing is still on. More information coming in my profile so I don't endlessly annoy you guys with it.
And last, but not least, to Random Under the Sun—I'm too lazy to go find your penname on FanFiction, so I'm publicly thanking you for your review. Kudos to figuring out the foreshadowing (that's going to come into play here very, very shortly). I'm glad you're enjoying the story.
On with the show!
The Perks of Being a Telepath
Chapter 22: Shocked
Raven led the way out of the CIA complex, still wearing Stryker's form. Erik followed, carrying a barely conscious Charles. Hank followed, supporting Sean, who had been knocked hard in the head. He was bleeding from his temple, but was alert enough to be able to walk with help. Moira brought up the rear, still shaking violently from her memory overload.
Their hope was that if anyone did send reinforcements despite Raven's orders not to, they would look enough like guards escorting the mutants to a more secure base that they would go unnoticed.
Somehow, Hank doubted anyone would contradict Raven's orders. Stryker was too imposing of a figure to even consider disobeying. Hank knew that from experience.
Erik seemed lost in thought, barely saying two words to anyone, though Hank wasn't fooled. While he was strongly against Charles' use of telepathy at the moment, he was glad that someone was keeping Erik's darker tendencies at bay.
"Stop."
Moira's shaking voice brought their slow moving procession to a halt. Everyone turned to look at her, Erik with thinly veiled contempt in his eyes, and Raven, with confusion and fear. Sean merely looked glazed and Charles' eyes weren't open any more.
Hank didn't think that was a good sign.
"What?"
Hank hated it when he had to be the voice of reason amongst people vastly older than himself. But somehow, he didn't think that Raven or Erik were going to be polite to Moira any time soon.
"Where's Stryker?"
Erik's face shifted into an indifferent mask that usually foretold coins being driven through skulls or missiles being launched at innocent men.
"Taken care of."
Moira adapted a look that made Hank realize this woman truly belonged at the CIA. At least, she had, before it had been corrupted by law breaking terrorists intent on rounding up and murdering mutants.
"I wasn't asking because I want to save his life."
"Is now really the time for this?"
Raven came back to herself long enough to be her true self—haughty and terrified for her brother.
Moira ignored her.
"Is he dead?"
Even Erik looked taken aback by the question. He gave glance to the unconscious Charles in his arms and shook his head.
"No."
It sounded as though it physically hurt him to say that one word.
Moira nodded once.
"Don't wait for me."
Before anyone could ask what she meant, she disappeared back the way they came.
"Why are we still standing here?"
Sean's words were slurred so bad that Hank, even after years of practice with dealing with stoned Sean, could barely make out what he said.
Erik looked at the hallway Moira had vanished down, and for once, he didn't look as though he was on the verge of killing everyone in sight.
"She said to leave her here."
He sounded as though he was having an argument with himself, though Hank knew better. He was trying to justify to Charles—and to everyone else—that what they were about to do was the right thing.
Hank doubted the metal wielder realized that none of them—with the exception of maybe Charles, though he didn't count at the moment—were keen on waiting for Moira.
She had betrayed them. Even if she remembered everything, the fact was, she had still shot Charles and had caused him to be put through this hell.
That was completely unforgivable. Even by Hank's standards. And he forgave a lot of things, including Erik.
"Let's go."
Raven sounded as though she was as torn as Erik was about leaving Moira behind.
"Come on."
Hank really hated it when everyone needed him to be the leader. But he would, if that's what it took to save Charles.
Silence met Charles' admission. The telepath could honestly say that he wasn't surprised—what was Erik supposed to say?
"You asked me why I didn't trust myself. This is why."
It had been raining. Charles remembered that much. That, and Raven had been away at boarding school, at Charles' insistence. She had been reluctant to go, especially after the incident with the vase, where Charles had lost control of his telepathy and accidently showed her all that had happened.
Charles had refused to even entertain the mere thought of something bad happening to Raven, had Kurt ever found out that Raven knew the truth. Or, parts of the truth.
"You don't have to tell me, Charles."
Charles closed his eyes. It would be too easy to stop. Too easy to just shove everything to the back of his mind, where it had sat for the past decade since its occurrence.
It wouldn't be fair to Erik. He deserved to know why Charles' abilities frightened the telepath so much. Why Charles held fast to the idea of peace for all.
It was penance for what he had done.
"I had gotten home late from a track meet. Kurt was angry. Cain was harboring resentment toward me, something he had been doing a lot, ever since his father started spending more time with me. I could hardly blame him for his assumptions—I was the golden child, with the good grades and an air of confidence I didn't feel."
Charles felt Erik's faint twinge of amusement. He allowed himself a faint smile before pressing on.
"Cain was never handsome, nor was he ugly. He was rather like Hank, before he… changed. He wasn't popular, nor was he athletic or a brain. Before Kurt married my mother, he was all Cain had."
"He resented you for being imprisoned by his father?"
Charles opened his eyes to throw Erik a sharp look. Erik raised an eyebrow.
"It doesn't make sense."
"And driving a coin through somebody's skull does?"
Charles regretted his harsh words the instant they left his mouth, but the damage had already been done. Erik fell silent with a glare.
"Erik…"
"Forget it, Charles. It's over and done with."
Charles sighed heavily.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"Forget it."
They both sat there in a stony silence, glaring at each other. Charles looked away first, unwilling to pursue the matter. That, and Erik was right—Charles had never understood Cain's obsession for Kurt. The man had been cold, cruel, and callous toward Cain for the entire time Charles had known them.
"It was pouring down rain and close to eleven thirty at night."
"You were quite the party animal."
It was a sad attempt at humor, as well as Erik's peace offering.
"We had won our track meet and went out celebrating. I will admit to drinking more than my fair share of booze that evening, which, in hindsight, probably was the reason why I lost control."
Erik swallowed noticeably and his face twisted. Charles continued, speaking faster and softer.
"Kurt met me at the door and demanded to know where I had been."
It had went downhill fast after that. Charles had responded with some smartass teenager remark, Kurt had gone on the defensive, Cain had tried to get in between them, and one thing led to another. Before Charles was aware of what he was doing, he was telling them to stop. Just stop.
And they did. They had frozen completely. Their bodies, their hearts, their brain function… all of it.
By the time Charles was sober enough to realize what he had done, they were already dead.
Three weeks later, he graduated from high school and ran away to England.
He kept running until the events with Shaw forced him back here.
The American government really needed to upgrade their military trucks to something more secure, especially if the mutants were going to keep hijacking them and using them to make their grand escape in.
Raven drove, with Hank riding shotgun. Sean lay sprawled across one uncomfortable bench in the bed of the truck, trying his hardest to stay awake with his obvious concussion, while Erik sat on the wooden floor using the other bench as a headrest. Charles was unconscious beside the metal wielder on the floor, where Erik had decided would be safer than the bench.
"What do you think happened? With Charles, I mean, and Cerebro."
Raven's soft voice barely carried over the roar of the truck's engine, but Erik heard her anyway. He focused his attention away from Charles for the moment, wanting to hear the answer.
Hank was quiet for a minute.
"I don't know what Stryker did to the machine when I wasn't there. But from what I could tell, he amplified the powers somehow, to make it extremely dangerous."
"How dangerous?"
"Dangerous enough to kill hundreds of mutants if Charles focused his power on so much as one of us."
Raven's gasp was covered up by Sean's own jumbled swear. Erik cast him a swift glance to make sure he was still alive before looking down at Charles.
Who knew that someone so young and so innocent looking could have the power to kill hundreds, if not thousands of people?
"Do you think he succeeded?"
"No."
Erik blinked in surprise, looking once more to the cab of the truck.
"Why not?"
Hank was quiet again.
"Because if he was, then I don't think we'd be here."
While Erik wasn't going to verbally disagree with Hank, not in front of Raven and Sean, and definitely not when their hope was so low in the first place, he didn't believe that Hank was right. The mental screaming he had heard coming from Charles' telepathic link were proof enough to that.
But Hank didn't have the constant insight into Charles' mind that Erik did. Nor did Raven, who merely raised an eyebrow at Hank as if she disagreed.
Erik wondered when Charles decided that he and he alone was worth the telepath's trust.
A lone tear escaped Charles' eyes as Erik struggled to figure out what he could say to that admission.
"Does Raven know?"
Raven. Suddenly everything that she had said their first day at the mansion made perfect sense.
A hardship softened by me.
This mansion isn't as nice as it seems.
There are some rooms you can't go in. Just don't.
Charles' life isn't what you think it is, Erik.
"She knows some of it. Not all of it. Not what happened after… not what happened to them. She thinks they just up and left. I was never inclined to tell her differently."
"I think she knows more than you think."
"She probably does. Raven has never been an idiot. Sometimes, I think she's smarter than I am."
Erik almost smiled.
"She probably is."
Charles let out a snort of sorrowful laughter.
"Thanks for that, my friend."
"Any time."
They were almost to a safe house when trouble hit. Without Charles' telepathy skills, Raven, Sean, Hank, and Erik never knew about the fifteen guards in armored jeeps waiting just outside the compound to pursue the mutants, in the event a rescue took place and Stryker and his team inside the building weren't able to handle them.
Erik swore in nine different languages when he noticed them.
"Mystique, pull over."
They were driving through the middle of a forest. Huge trees—Erik really didn't bother with knowing the names of them—lined the road in an almost impenetrable manner.
"Magneto-."
They were using code names in case someone in the jeeps behind them was listening in on their conversation.
"I don't care how you do it, just pull over!"
He barely got the words out before Charles let out a gasp of pain and his face contorted in pain. Then, his entire body was wracked with frantic seizures.
"Beast?"
Erik couldn't keep the fear out of his voice.
"Damn it. Hold him still. He's going into shock. We need to warm him up."
Gunfire erupted behind them. Erik mindlessly deflected the bullets as he struggled to keep Charles still. It was proving to be more difficult than it should have been—despite Charles' weakened state, Erik still had to contend with the constant swerving of the truck throwing him off balance.
"Mystique, straighten the damn truck!"
Hank, level the bloody plane!
He forced the thoughts and the images out of his mind, distantly wishing that the floorboard of the truck was metal so he could easily hold Charles still.
Erik's concentration snapped as Charles suddenly went completely still.
A stray bullet collided with one of the tires of the truck.