Hello all! This is again largely a plot chapter—they seem to be following an every-other sort of pattern—but things are finally moving in the story and I'm excited for what comes next!
I also wanted to take a moment to mention that, for this chapter, I wrote about "X-gal" only to realize several hours later that it totally sounds like the name of an X-Men character. It's not—it's a molecule used as an indicator in gene cloning—but it is a rather hilarious coincidence that I will totally laugh about if I ever get to clone any genes.
Once again, beta'd by the LJ's lovely idioticonion!
.
.
.
.
.
lv.
"Professor! Yes; yes, excellent. Come this way. I'll show you where you'll be working," Beast said, beckoning. All around, lab workers rushed to and fro with the careful precision of people who were used to carrying delicate and often spillable objects.
"Hello to you as well, Beast," Charles replied wryly.
The leonine scientist stopped, blinking in dazed confusion. "Oh. Oh, yes; hello, Charles. It's good to see you." Beast began walking again, but he half-turned to address Charles as he wheeled along behind.
"I can't say how useful it will be to have you here," Beast stated, but within his head he offered a boundless, earnest gratitude; Charles smiled and wove a corner of his surface thoughts into the other scientist's mind, allowing Beast to see, for a moment, his happiness at simply being there.
Aloud, Charles joked, "Well, at the very least I could coordinate centrifuge use. I was always adept at that."
Beast nodded. "I'm sure; that would certainly help increase efficiency. Anything helps."
"All right then," Charles agreed, mostly because he hadn't really expected to be taken seriously. Absently, he noticed one of the younger lab assistants struggling to focus on a conversion, and decided he might as well start then; don't forget to convert back to milliliters, Charles whispered into the boy's mind, and the assistant shifted the decimal place three places to the left without even knowing he'd been about to make a mistake. It wouldn't have been a very costly mistake, exactly, but… It felt nice to do.
They reached a door and Beast pushed through it quickly before suddenly halting. "This isn't the cloning lab," he declared, bewildered. "This is my office."
"So it seems," Charles said aloud, then silently urged Beast to let him in and to close the door behind them.
"Is there something you needed?" the blue man asked warily, his claws closing automatically around a pen on his desk.
"Yes, in fact; just a moment," Charles requested, and placed his fingers to his temple. He skimmed through Beast's thoughts until he reached a landmark: the image of a chipped floor tile, the smell of bleach and nutrient agar, the sound of ventilation fans humming. Charles tugged lightly, snaring the single line of association he had left there to draw Beast's memories of their conspiring back to the surface.
Beast slumped against his desk, leaning heavily on one hand. "Jesus," he breathed. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."
"It's probably best if you don't," Charles speculated wryly.
"Of course," Beast agreed, still sounding a little out of sorts. "We should probably get to it then. I keep most of the biology department's rare and expensive compounds in this cabinet; everything else is in a locked box in the negative twenty and… You knew that already, didn't you?"
"Yes," Charles began, and then to make that sound a little less unsettling added, "Anyway, I assumed that you wouldn't need help remembering anything you used often enough to keep on the shelves out there,"
"Of course," the leonine scientist repeated, his fur smoothing down fractionally. He pulled out a ring of keys and bent down to unlock the stout gray cabinet, which he otherwise seemed to be using to support either two or three stacks of books, depending on how they were counted.
Rather than sort through all the little plastic and glass bottles, Beast unhooked a clipboard and ran his claw down a list of sharp black typewritten words, a frown creasing his black lips as he reached the end of the first page and turned the paper over to another, and then another. After several minutes of this, Beast growled softly and tossed the clipboard carelessly onto his desk.
"No luck?" Charles asked, breaking the brooding silence.
"We won't find what we're looking for here," Beast declared, combing his fingers through his mane. "We would never have found what we need here; we need to look in Medical."
"That's a problem, I gather," Charles remarked. There was no way this could go smoothly, was there? If only narcotic lipstick actually existed, he mused, then quickly amended, or at least, narcotic lip balm.
"Well, I have access to medical storage; I can request any drug or sample I want, actually, but of course it's all inventoried and I can't just submit paperwork asking for a full list of all fast-acting poisons without inviting a lot of suspicion and another round of that Frost woman rummaging through my head," Beast explained. He turned to pace, but with Charles and his chair in the room there wasn't enough space for him to do more than simply circle on the spot, eyeing the books and project binders on his crowded shelves.
"She wouldn't find anything," Charles mused out loud, his eyebrows drawing tight in thought. He tried to ignore the part about "fast-acting poison," reasoning that it ought to be simplicity itself to find a strong sedative in a medical storage. "But that would raise the question as to why you didn't remember ordering the list."
"Exactly," Beast confirmed, coming to a halt. "I need to work out what to ask for, how to word it so that nobody thinks it's unusual. Rrrrgh, what I need is time."
Charles felt his heart skip a beat. "You have time now," he stated, but it was more plea than fact.
"I don't," the other scientist replied, meeting Charles' eyes regretfully. "I have a meeting with several of the project leaders in Engineering in ten minutes, and there are other places I'm expected to be between now and when you have to leave for Magneto's publicity stunt."
Charles held his breath; he wanted to shout, to tear his hair out, to seize Beast by his lab coat and explain no, you don't understand, I need this to be done now, but he did no such thing; after all, they both had their roles to fulfill. Instead, Charles exhaled to agree, "All right. Well. We'll be seeing quite a lot of each other now that I'm in the lab as well, won't we? You'll have to arrange a date to work near me so that you can think about it without worrying about Ms. Frost surprising us."
Beast nodded. "It will be soon; don't worry. I'll be able to work with you soon. It won't take me all that long to compose a letter once I get started."
"Of course," Charles agreed, trying not to show his disappointment. "Now, as you need to leave, you ought to show me where I'll be working before you make yourself late."
"Certainly," the leonine scientist concurred, and then wavered, uncertain. Charles gave him a little tired smile.
"You'll get all of these memories back some day," the telepath told him, touching Beast's thoughts with assurances of warmth and compassion. "We won't need to hide for much longer, if all goes well."
If all goes well. They both knew that this was the key phrase; if it didn't go to plan, well, they wouldn't have to hide their plans then either, but neither Charles nor Beast particularly cared to contemplate that option. As men of science, they were resolved to be solution-orientated.
.
.
.
lvi.
"All right, Professor, meet your new teacher: Hannah," Beast proclaimed, gesturing broadly around to the single other occupant of the tiny culture room.
The young woman who had greeted Charles the first time he visited the labs peered over at him owlishly, perched neatly on top of a tall stool and curled over a small glass tray. After a moment wherein the two scientists stared at each other, she re-covered the tray with its lid, set down the long tool she held in her hand, and disposed of her gloves.
"Hello," Hannah mumbled, reaching down to shake Charles' hand.
Charles clasped it firmly and gave her his best, friendliest smile. "I'm Charles Xavier; how do you do?"
"Fine," she squeaked, then cleared her throat a little and said, louder, "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but are you the Charles Xavier?"
Grinning, the telepath replied brightly, "As far as I know, yes. What do you think, will you be able to instruct a lost cause like me?"
Hannah looked him over, taking his question at face value. Her eyes fled from his and drifted down to his chair, then quickly away to his hands and the material of his suit. "You're a bit well dressed for it," she observed, a cautious smile twitching at her lips.
Charles grimaced theatrically. "Ah, well, I'll have to come better-prepared next time; in rags perhaps. If you'd show me around? I believe Beast has somewhere to be."
Beast, who had been squinting over his spectacles at Hannah's notes, looked up sharply. "What? Oh, I'm sure I still have at least fifteen minutes before I have to be at my meeting; I can stay and talk a little."
Feeling a twinge of chagrin, Charles sent Beast a discreet urge to check the time. The blue scientist glanced at his watch and bristled. "Oh! I'm running late, actually; you two get to know each other, and Charles, I know I've wrecked your labs before but I would consider it a great kindness if you did not destroy mine. See you tomorrow!"
With that, Beast ducked out the door, leaving the two biologists alone with each other.
Hannah coughed softly across the back of her hand. "So, you're a telepath, aren't you?" she asked. Charles had to lean forward slightly to make out the words over the hum of the ventilation, but in her head she whispered, don't read my mind, please, and he could hear it just fine.
Charles winced in an apologetic sort of way and tried not to look hurt, because he wasn't, really; it was perfectly understandable that other people didn't like when strangers rummaged around in their heads, and it would likely be a while before the world adjusted to the existence of telepaths. Instead, he raised his eyebrow and smiled rather suggestively, because he'd often found that a little innocent flirtation went a lot farther to reassure some people than did promises. "I'll keep my hands to myself. Now, I must say I'm not sure what the etiquette is for it these days, but what about you? What sets you apart?"
"Thank you," Hannah replied, relaxing enough to reach for another pair of gloves. "It's not rude to ask—I'm an empath, but don't go thinking that means you can sell me on how your life would be so much better if I'd do all the cleaning up."
"I'd never dream of it," Charles protested, affecting shock. "Why, cleaning up is my favorite part. I can't get enough of the smell of ethanol."
She peered at him as if trying to decide whether the geneticist was mocking her, but finally she smiled and slid off from the stool, snatching up a pile of Petri dishes. "Well then we'd best make a mess, hadn't we? That table there is yours; if you'd spray it down and get a flame going, you can spread some E. coli on these plates and I'll tell you about a little about X-gal and beta-galactosidase. That is, depending on whether you've… When was the last time you worked in a lab?"
"Four and a half… Maybe five years ago," Charles estimated, maneuvering himself in front of the table—much lower than the chest-high benches around the rest of the room—and picking out a spray bottle filled with seventy percent ethanol. The table hadn't yet had any projects strewn across it, so it was a simple matter of dousing it with the alcohol and allowing it to evaporate.
"Hm," Hannah grunted, and he didn't need to read her mind to know that she was mentally calculating all the changes that had gone on in their field since that time. From the length of her silence, there were rather a lot of them. "Tell me, what do you know about restriction enzymes?"
Charles smiled to himself, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. "In practice, very little. Why don't you explain it to me?"
.
.
.
lvii.
When Charles arrived at the studio—he would never not be surprised by the fact that Erik's mansion had its own television studio—the man himself was still nowhere to be found and Charles' escort excused himself to go do something that was anywhere else but there.
But that was all right; Charles simply parked himself in the shadows alongside some towering electronics and folded his hands in his lap to watch industrious technicians and electrical engineers scurry through wires and around the hulking silhouettes of film cameras, their minds full of the buzz of their work. A woman dressed all in black with hastily-tied blonde hair fussed with the navy blue curtains behind what was clearly the stage, adjusting and re-adjusting the folds so that they all hung evenly.
These were all just normal people, who had likely never held a gun or killed anyone or had to take any kind of oath of allegiance. They weren't soldiers; they were professionals—they were, in some way, Charles' people, rather than Erik's. He wondered whether Erik could ever sit back and simply observe as Charles did now, without needing any special interest in the proceedings. Somehow, he rather doubted it.
Charles felt a dark amusement at that thought, but it wasn't his own; he glanced over to see that Emma Frost stood next to him, scantily clad as usual despite the ever-present chill and appearing absolutely bored.
"Well, look who it is," she drawled. "Charles Xavier, the secret conscience of the new regime, here to make sure we don't swat any flies."
Charles pulled his lips taut. "Emma. Bitter that I've taken over your job on the council, I take it?"
"Hardly," Emma scoffed. "You can play court jester all you want; it gives me time for more entertaining work, like convincing your friends that they chose the wrong side. Gently, of course." She offered him an image of just how gently she meant, and Charles took it politely, keeping his face impassive at the memory—yesterday before lunch, the geneticist understood—of a resistance fighter, a mutant, eyes blankly unseeing as Emma tore into his mind and overpowered his will in the course of bending him to the Brotherhood's cause.
"That's exactly the sort of thing that will make the rest of the mutant population fear us, once this initial turmoil is resolved," Charles cautioned the other telepath, his tone mild.
"As well they should," Emma remarked coolly. "Although they won't remember it, of course. I make sure of that." She tilted her head and glanced up at the ceiling as if she'd just been struck by an idea. "You know, you could see if Magneto will let you come down and try your hand at it. I'm sure it'd be a great comfort to these people to know that their savior is still alive and well—right before you wipe their minds."
Before Charles could retort, her eyes darted to the side and that was all the warning Charles had before Erik joined them. "Emma," he greeted simply, and then the two of them exchanged a long look; finally, Emma nodded and left the geneticist to Erik's company.
The Brotherhood leader turned to Charles and glanced over him; likewise, Charles scrutinized Erik. It appeared that someone had given his face a quick pass with makeup; mostly, probably, to cover up the healing cuts and bruises that lingered on Erik's skin since his encounter out in the Atlantic. The effect was disconcerting, not in the least because Charles couldn't imagine that Erik would ever consent to anything so superficial, despite the evidence standing before him. Still, it was tantalizing to think that, up until moments ago, the man might have been sitting somewhere nearby with his helmet off, thoughts bare save for whatever it was that reinforced the walls against telepaths.
"How do I look?" Erik asked, a tentative smile fidgeting at the edges of his mouth.
"About the same as usual," Charles commented, and Erik seemed disappointed, as if that hadn't been the answer he'd wanted. It was true, however; he really didn't look much different. Less tired, perhaps, and a little younger for it, but the tattered remains of fatigue still hung across Erik's face, visible because Charles knew where to find them. Still, he was making a good effort to hide it.
Erik glanced around, then stepped into the shadows with Charles, blending in all the more for his black cape. His body shielded them from sight as he leaned down to settle his hand over Charles', the smooth material of the glove oddly like and unlike human skin in its warmth and even texture.
"Is this a good idea, Charles?" Erik's voice was soft and confidential, his eyes urgent and searching. "You said it wasn't something you'd really thought about before suggesting. Are you still sure it's a good idea? I could make a very different announcement today; no one outside knows about this yet."
Charles hesitated; he had his doubts, but Erik wasn't asking for doubts; he wanted platitudes, no matter how empty they were. In any event, they needed to do something if there was to be any hope of reconciling things between the anti-extinctionists and the Brotherhood before the situation erupted into violence. "As far as I can tell, this is our best option."
Pushing forward, Erik kept hold of both Charles' gaze and his hand, his grasp on both becoming more insistent. "You didn't really answer my question," he observed, a note of worry creeping into his tone.
Charles exhaled and tore his eyes away from Erik's to look down at their hands; Erik, too, glanced down in apprehension as the geneticist twisted his fingers around and then cradled the Brotherhood leader's hand in both of his own, lifting it off from the arm of the chair. Erik allowed him, wearing a small, tight frown.
Bringing Erik's hand up to his face, Charles pressed his lips to the backs of Erik's fingers. They twitched absently, nervously against his chin; the glove was either leather or vinyl but either way almost entirely unlike kissing something human.
Erik's expression was perhaps the barest Charles had ever seen on him since returning from British Columbia; his mouth was still a calm line of composure but the tips of his eyebrows slanted up beneath the curve of the helmet and his eyes were wide and beseeching, uneasy and doubtful. They were not the eyes of someone about to stride out and confidently commit to doing the right thing, so Charles turned Erik's hand over in his own and kissed into his palm.
"I'm sure it's a good idea," Charles lied, glancing up again.
Erik swallowed, the shadows in the hollows of his cheeks fluttering, and his face slowly relaxed as he nodded. "Then consider it done," he murmured, extricating his hand from Charles' to slide it up the telepath's jaw—Charles thought he could feel the chill smudge of his own saliva from Erik's glove—before ducking down to touch their lips together; for just a moment the tip of Erik's tongue brushed his and then Erik was standing again, stepping away.
It was well-timed; at that very moment one of the technicians came around the corner and froze upon seeing the pair, but they were no longer doing anything suspicious and Charles wondered if Erik could sense the metal in everyone's clothing as they moved around. It would certainly be a useful ability to have, especially if Erik had any further plans to corner him in public.
Erik stared back at the tech until the woman stammered a greeting and an apology and went to do something else, then looked back down at the telepath. "Enjoy the speech, Charles. I'll see you later." With that, he swept away and went to stand in the bright lights near the open part of the floor that made the stage; almost immediately, a small flock of assistants alighted around him, checking the lay of his cape and the tilt of his helmet and offering water in case his throat felt dry.
Charles scrubbed at the side of his face absently, remaining in the shadows. Around him, electricians scurried amongst the maze of technology, checking all the wires and knobs and dials one last time before the cameras were turned on. The geneticist kept one hand on the rim of a wheel in case they asked him to move, but they all rather neatly avoided him and ducked sightlessly around him until Charles felt a bit like he was surrounded by a school of cleaner wrasses, the parasite-eating fish of the ocean reef, attending to their larger electronic clients.
Finally, however, activity slowed and voices grew hushed; Erik stood poised at the midst of all that attention, looking pensively down at the floor and Charles wondered how this had become his life, and when had a doctorate in genetics become qualification enough to dictate politics to a genocidal tyrant?
Except that it was becoming abundantly clear that the genetics didn't matter, had never mattered except that DNA, that sugar-spined molecule, had tangled him into this mess and acted as the catalyst in binding Charles to Erik. Genetics didn't matter, molecules didn't matter, and none of the big fancy words he'd spent so many nights reciting could come close to touching on the reason Erik trusted him in exchange for a kiss into the palm of his hand.
Charles felt very tired, suddenly, as the cameras hummed to life, ready to broadcast in Technicolor to a world full of black-and-white televisions, and the shape of a man who called himself Magneto began, in a voice that was both like and unlike Erik's, to speak as if he hadn't just minutes before doubted his own words.
"For the first time, I stand before you to address not only my fellow mutants, but all peoples of this Earth, not with an edict but with a suggestion—that rather than look to the past to inspire ourselves to anger and violence, we look toward the future, to preserve that most unique of Earth's resources: intelligent civilization…"
Charles closed his eyes and leaned over to rest his head against the machine next to him; it was warm like an animal and sent a deep hum through the base of his skull. It didn't matter if Erik truly believed his own speech, or why he did; all that mattered was that the rest of the world believed it, and that maybe they could find a peaceful solution for all this nonsense.
.
.
.
.
.