Author'sNote: Well here we go, chapter twenty!We are so very close to finding out what Charles has been up to.:)Thank you very much for reading guys!

ChapterTwenty: They Don't Know the Half of It

WordCount:2724

The students were standing on the pavement, dressed in their best, by the time the black cab arrived in front of the flat, with Charles and Erik arriving moments later, parking the jag in the flat's shared garage. Erik was sure the neighbours were going to get a shock when they came out to get their cars in the morning, maybe they would think he'd finally hit the big bucks? Or maybe they'd just think he'd stolen it and report its arrival to the police? The students eyed Charles and himself somewhat fearfully; as if they expected Charles to start demanding some answers from them immediately, or Erik to start shouting about the state they had left his carpet and upholstery in.

It was Angel that finally broke the weird silence they youngsters had imposed upon themselves, as Charles and Erik approached them.

"Why Professor you are looking very nice this evening," she said, her eyes moving appreciatively over Charles' tight red jeans. Maybe she thought some compliments would smooth away any tellings-off they might be still be due. "And Erik, you're as dapper as always. The boys were trying to out do each other with their tight trousers tonight, but I think Xavier wins," Angel added looping her arm around Charles'. "Nice."

"I don't think I can compete with those," Charles replied looking at Sean's outrageously skintight silver trousers. Sean grinned, obviously this was something he was very proud of, which made Erik roll his eyes. He certainly wouldn't be trying to cut off the circulation to his legs any time soon, give him a nice suit any day.

"Yes well, the less said about Sean the better," Angel replied before giving Sean one of her more flirtatious smiles, which subsequently won the argument. It seemed Angel was pretty used to getting her way around this crowd, and everyone pretty happy to oblige. Especially when letting her climb into the taxi first gave them all a satisfactory view. It seemed even Charles was distracted for a while. "Come on!" Angel said looking back at everyone she'd left on the pavement.

The restaurant Charles directed the driver to was a tapas bar, which appeared to be the last place anyone was expected to be eating at tonight.

"Professor you have good taste!" Alex said as they walked into the faux Spanish interior of the restaurant. "It's like being on holiday."

Erik made sure he watched Hank walk in front of him, although the tall young man had obviously been included in everything, his quiet demeanour could mean he was easily forgotten in the loudness of the others. Hank gave Charles a shy smile as Charles held the door open for him, and followed Alex, Angel and Sean inside. Charles felt Erik take the door's weight from him, his hands suddenly found themselves without a purpose, and so they wrapped themselves around Erik's waist instead. His fingers ghosted across Erik's side and stomach, before he let go.

"Are you alright?" Charles asked.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" Erik replied suspiciously. He watched Charles shrug.

"I don't know, I just have a bad feeling about tonight. I'm worried about Raven, she'll be with Shaw now, and… I don't know, I'm worried about you too," Charles said in a low voice, they were nearing their table now, but the chatter of the students drowned out their more private conversation.

"You don't have to be worried about me, I'm not going anywhere," Erik reassured him. "Charles, I thought you were OK with this? But you don't have to go to Hellfire tonight if you don't want to, we can just drop the kids off and go home."

"No, Raven…"

Erik sighed. There was no getting away from the fact that Raven was indeed in some kind of trouble, of which she was now willingly making herself a part of. If Charles went home, then Erik didn't like to think what might happen to Raven tonight. Shaw was hardly going to just go home on his own, and there was no way Raven was going to be willing to play her part that far.

"I know," Erik agreed. "But whatever happens tonight, it wont change anything between us, I promise."

Charles looked up at him with wide nervous eyes, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. Erik was tempted to kiss him to push that pale frightened expression away, and bring some colour into his cheeks, but Alex interrupted the moment. The room which had temporality melted away, suddenly returned with its full force of colour and sound.

"Hey, you guys going to join in, or are you going to have eye-sex all night?" he joked, slamming his hand on the table, making everyone jump.

"I'm sorry to have ignored you Alex, I am sure you desperately want me to contribute to your conversation," Erik replied sarcastically, allowing Charles to use the distraction to pull himself together. "What were you talking about?"

"Our super powers," Alex replied, enjoying the silence that engulfed the table.

"No we weren't," Hank argued.

"Yeah, well we should have been," Alex replied, folding his arms. "We talked about it most of the day, except for the most important stuff, so why stop now? Besides, I reckon the professor has some secrets to tell us too."

They all looked at Charles as if he did indeed know the secrets of the universe and were waiting for him to reveal them. Erik thought it would be easy to assume Charles knew what he was doing in life, that he knew more than most. He gave the appearance of being in control, and it was probably one of his downfalls, because as Erik knew, Charles was as lost as the rest of them, maybe even more so.

"Shall we order something to eat before we forget what we are doing here," Charles suggested, hoping to lighten the sudden nervous mood.

"But you do know something, don't you professor?" Hank asked, looking as if he would probably die if Charles didn't answer with the affirmative. Erik shook his head, Charles seemed to have a way of drawing people into his world and making himself so important to the people he touched.

Erik couldn't imagine life without him, the thought of going home to his flat and trying to live his ordinary life again just made him feel empty. He wondered if his feelings were shared by the others at the table? Certainly in Hank's face Erik could see admiration shining out from his eyes. His life had been slowly exploding for the moment Charles Xavier had walked into his life, every day stepping into something new, and Erik just hadn't noticed until now. The surreal nature of where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing here wasn't lost upon him. How many other people could say that they had sat at a table with people full of this much potential, and finally feel as if they belonged somewhere?

Erik had never seen so much tapas in his entire life, the students had insatiable appetites, which seemed to grow larger when they were told they didn't need to worry about the bill. Apparently they were quite happy to let Charles treat them all, something Erik was quick to protest at. He'd been taking advantage over Charles' wallet for a little too long now. Charging a few beers to roomservice was hardly in the same league as letting him get the bill for dinner. But Charles had been adamant. Apparently Erik could pay him back later, whatever than was meant to mean, although from the smirk on Charles' face Erik had a pretty good idea. It sounded as if Erik was getting the best part of the bargain though. It was a win win.

"So, we came up with an answer for you," Sean said, his mouth still full, and showing no signs of halting, by putting of more food in there. "To why we chose to study genetics. We all kind of have the same answer, well, kind of, Hank really is a genetics nerd too."

Hank frowned.

"Nothing wrong with genetics nerds," Erik chipped in. "I hear they like to pay for dinner."

"Here here!" Angel said toasting Charles, then Hank. "Myself, well, as a non genetics nerd, I kind of had another motive for befriending this lot at the start of the year. I was looking for answers too, for my er, differences."

"Why don't you go first then Angel?" Charles offered.

"Alright," Angel said looking around the room briefly. "Well, the tattoos on my back," she turned slightly in her chair to show everyone the black wings on her skin, which looked like she said, to be tattoos. "Are not really tattoos. They're real wings. It sounds great, I mean, wings… but I'm the only one I know. I thought that hanging out with this lot would give me some answers, but I was never really brave enough to ask."

There was silence for a while, before everyone realised they were staring, and immediately started talking.

"You can fly? Why didn't you tell us before?" Alex demanded.

Charles was already on his feet, the scientist in him couldn't control his curiosity, and he was busy asking Angel's permission to take a closer look. His fingers were tracing the lines on her skin, with a delicacy that almost made Erik feel jealous. Angel took it all in good humour, like she did everything else, and let everyone stare.

"It is hardly fair to accuse Angel of keeping secrets when we have all been guarded with each other," Charles said returning to Erik's side of the table and sitting down. "We should thank Angel for being honest with us."

Erik smirked. Charles had his lecturer voice on, the kind that called everyone's attention and stopped the messing about. Angel was blushing, and Erik wondered whether she might actually not like the spotlight as much as she pretended to. He wished that Charles' sister might have been able to join them here, but it would have seemed odd if she had skipped out on Shaw in order to hang out with Charles, especially since she was supposed to be fighting with him. If anyone enjoyed the spotlight then it was Raven. It would have been interesting to find out more about Raven's powers too, as intriguing as they were. So far he'd only seen her take on Charles' image, could she change into others?

"My mutation," Hank said quietly, surprising everyone by speaking up next. "Is a little more, um… well I have some abilities that make me faster than everyone else on the sports field… There is a reason I have always been wearing socks in the flat."

"Ooh, you have special feet?" Angel said looking under the table as if she might see what he was hiding. "Will you show me later?"

Hank flushed red and began eating once more.

"Who would have thought it huh?" Alex said looking at Hank askance. "Hank, a sports superstar… well, the professor did call it super powers."

"Shut up Alex," Angel chided. "You got something worth talking about then?"

"Sure do! I could smash this place up if I wanted to," he said proudly, before voice suddenly became more serious, as if it wasn't something he was proud of after all. "I can make these, I don't know, this energy come out of me, it destroys everything. It's why I went to Oxford, I wanted to know I wasn't a freak. Well, at least find other freaks, like you guys." He slapped his hand on Hank's upper arm in a friendly way, before giving him an understanding nod.

"Can you control this energy?" Erik asked, the idea if being about to rip an entire building apart rather fascinating.

"Not really, hence the destroying aspect of my power."

"Maybe you just need some training?" Charles suggested looking as if he would very much like to devise this said training. Alex looked at him with a confused expression, but Erik had not missed that slight look of fear behind his eyes, as if this prospect wasn't exactly what he had been expecting.

"No one has ever suggested I practice, everyone has always been frightened of me…" Alex said looking away, his usual jokester act dropped. "I guess they should be."

"Well, I can scream so loudly I can break windows," Sean suddenly piped up. "But I kind of try and keep the screaming down these days." He smiled somewhat nervously.

For a moment no one spoke, until suddenly the knives and forks on table suddenly started doing a little dance of their own, bending and twisting. It was a credit to the students that they didn't draw any attention to the table, by reacting to the sight with anything other than mild surprise. They looked up at Charles for an answer, but it was Erik that spoke.

"I have always believed that I was not the only one of my kind, that there were other mutants in the world. How could there not be? If it could happen to me, then it could happen to anyone. What I didn't expect was for mutants to be so very hidden. I do not understand why, but I think, the world is about the change." The metal kept twisting as Erik spoke, tying itself into knots and then back into straight lines. "You are looking to Charles to tell you why this happened to us, but I do not think that is the right question. And we certainly should not be hiding."

"What are the right questions then Erik?" Charles asked, but Erik didn't answer him. Charles sensed that this was much darker and deeper conversation than Erik was prepared to discuss tonight.

"Why don't you show them what you are capable of Charles? Call it, practice…" Erik said, his smile a little dark. Collectively there was a nervous intake of breath from the students as they prepared themselves for whatever was about to come. They watched Charles place a finger against his temple and suddenly they erupted with laughter.

"Your power is fancy dress?" Sean choked out, tears streaming from his eyes, and hardly able to breathe through laughing.

Erik looked around the table; it was the last thing he had been expecting Charles to come up with, as a demonstration of his gift. Across from him, was Angel who was now dressed as bumblebee, Sean a pirate, Hank was a medieval knight and Alex a giant fried egg continued to laugh at each other. Erik looked down at himself and discovered that he was a 1920's gangster. But what was causing the hysterics was that Charles had decided to be Austin Powers. The sight was bizarre.

"None of this is real. You are seeing what I want you to see. I have control over all of your minds, I could make you do whatever I liked, with a mere suggestion," Charles explained, there was a pause, when the alarming nature of what he was saying caught up with them all. "Frightening, is it not?"

The laughter died as Charles' words sunk in.

"I have never felt comfortable with what I can do to my fellow man, it scares me. But I know now that I cannot hide from what has been given to me. I must find a way to makes amends with the world and give back more than I take."

There was silence again, and the illusion faded away.

"Cool costumes though man, we should have done fancy dress for real," Sean said, the smile back on his face. And the tension broke. They all looked at one another as if nothing could ever now take away what they had shared here. They were outsiders, but they were one team. Whatever that might now mean.

"To professor X! Most weirdest professor there ever was, and his equally weird boyfriend, and his even weirder students!" Alex said holding up his glass.

"I'll drink to that!" Angel said knocking her drink back.

Erik rolled his eyes. Weird? They didn't know the half of it. The night hadn't even begun.