Charles had discovered early on that jerking awake when one was paralyzed from the waist down was not quite as simple as it was otherwise.
Instinctually, he shot out of bed, top half of his body ready to fight and defend, but his legs remained where they were, tangled in his bed sheets. It caused him to pitch forward, unable to compensate for the momentum, and he ended up folded over his knees, blinking into the darkness.
He immediately began searching for whatever it was that woke him, pushing himself up with the power of his arms alone. His thoughts honed instantly on David, seeking the little boy out and wrapping him in a cocoon of concern and love. Charles allowed himself a moment in the cotton candy sweet dreams of his son, assuring himself that he was safe and where he belonged before pulling away.
Gabrielle was in her room too, in a sleep too deep for dreams. Her mind shivered as he slipped in, subconsciously recognizing the intrusion. He stuck around long enough to make sure everything was as it should be, then withdrew.
Back in his room Charles groped for the light and then tugged his chair closer. They should have been the only three people on the property, as he had dismissed all live in help as soon as he'd regained enough mobility to function independently. Something had pulled Charles abruptly from his sleep, and it wasn't any of his family. He heaved himself into the chair and grabbed his robe to wrap around his shoulders.
Scanning the house for intruders he located the disturbance at once. There was a person passed out on the floor of his front hall.
It had the quality of a mind with a significant head wound, likely a concussion but possibly something more serious. The thoughts of such a person were always fractured and hazy and it generally hurt to look too closely so Charles stuck to the outer edges, picking up the dominant emotions, searching for violent intent.
Pain, fear, desperation and rage, a lot of rage. But the anger wasn't directed at anyone in the house so Charles let it slide. There was relief as well, humming around this mind, a sense of having reached something that he'd been chasing. Whoever it was was completely blacked out, and Charles felt moderately certain that the person meant no harm, so he wheeled as fast as he could to assess the situation.
The man was bleeding on the priceless Turkish carpet that had lain in the foyer since before Charles was born. Sharon would be furious, he couldn't quite bring himself to care.
The front door was open, and it was windy outside so Charles moved to shut it before examining the stranger. He recoiled at once when he got a good look at the door handle. Burnished iron, once finely styled into vines and abstract art deco swirls, it was now a warped knot. It looked as if the metal had been melted and then cooled again, frozen in drooping loops and bubbling lumps.
Charles ran his fingers lightly over the mess. Astounding, he marveled. The damage extended to the hinges, and when Charles tried to swing the door closed, he found that it was fused open. That wouldn't due, but there didn't appear to be anything he could do to fix it, whatever the stranger had done seemed to be something that only he could remedy. So Charles set a thread of his thoughts to spin, in the form of a mental spider web, across the opening to alert him of anything else tried to get through.
Security taken care of he turned back to the man on the floor. He was dressed entirely in shades of grey, a black turtleneck under an ash coloured jacket with dark trousers. His hair in the half-light of the front hall appeared to be brown, and blood glinted darkly from behind his ear and trickled onto the rug.
His clothes were of decent quality, or had been when they were made. Now they were absolutely filthy, torn and stained with what looked like a mixture of mud and blood, in places where skin showed through, raw and cut. Twigs and leaves were tangled in the folds of fabric, and in the man's matted hair. His face was shiny with sweat and his breaths came shallow and harsh.
What to do with him. Charles wheeled as close to his head as he could and reached down to shake one broad shoulder. "Excuse me my good fellow," he said to the unconscious man. Talking to someone who obviously couldn't hear him made him feel a bit like a prat though, so he reached out a tendril of awareness and gave the man a small mental shove.
Wake up, he prompted, come back to the world of the aware.
The man's mud streaked face twisted against the carpet and a low raspy moan escaped his chapped lips. Charles felt the throb of his mind trying to orient itself, taking in information piece by piece. The head wound was hindering his progress badly, and his confusion whirled around the room.
Charles pressed his knuckles to the man's temple and tried to send calming thoughts to him. "Calm your mind," he murmured, "You are safe here my friend, but you need to wake up."
Grey eyes opened, cloudy and only half aware.
Charles held out his hand and the stranger took it shakily. "My name is Charles Xavier," Charles said, helping the man to turn over into a slouched sitting position against the wheel of his chair, "This is my home," Charles continued, "And you seem to have battled the forest to get here. You have an injury to your head of as of yet unknown severity, and numerous other smaller wounds to your body. I'd like to get you to a bed and get a better look at them but I'm afraid I'm something of an invalid, and can't carry you there. Can you find the strength to walk?"
The man seemed to register at least some of that, and despite the fact that he looked like he was about to slip back into oblivion, he somehow managed to heave himself upright. Charles took hold of his arm and laid it along the back of the chair, giving permission to lean on it if needed.
Together they made their awkward way back down the hall towards the library. Charles briefly considered the chaise before guiding the man into his own bedroom. At the sight of the four-poster in the middle of the room, a grunt escaped the stranger's lungs and he extracted himself from Charles to stumble forward and fall onto the rucked up duvet.
Smiling wryly Charles glanced at the glowing 2:48 on the clock beside the bed and resigned himself to a long day. He left the man to fetch a bowl of warm water with some rags from the kitchen, as well as the first aid kit.
Surprisingly the man was still awake when Charles returned. He stared from the pillows with sharp, distrustful eyes. Charles smiled in an attempt to put him at ease. "Good to see you a little more awake!" he chirped, setting the kit on the bed by the man's boot-clad feet and depositing the bowl onto the table clumsily, a little bit of water sloshing out.
"Where am I?" the man rasped, and Charles was pleasantly surprised to here an echo of an accent there, although he could quite place it.
"My house," Charles answered kindly, not quite sure how specific the man wanted him to be "Greymalkin lane, Westchester county, New York, the United States of America."
"You live all the way out here...alone?"
"Oh no." Charles hummed, reluctant to talk about his family with this mysterious man, "The others are upstairs. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to take a look at that bump on your head."
The man started, and raised his hand to his skull looking mildly surprised when it came away with blood on it. "Oh, right." he said weakly and then leaned forward.
Charles braced one hand against the man's firm chest to keep him from tumbling to the floor. "Careful." Charles said gently, then raise one of the rags and parted the greasy hair as tenderly as possible, "This will probably sting a bit I'm afraid, I do apologize."
"Just do it." the stranger grunted, "I can handle it."
Charles was certain that he could. Everything about this man screamed that he'd been through hell over and over and come out each time harder and rougher than before. Nodding, he pressed the cloth against the grape-sized knot behind the man's ear.
An intake of breath was the only reaction that prompted, so Charles set about cleaning the wound as quickly as he could. The man sat still under his hands, only making a noise of discomfort when Charles broke out the antiseptic.
After Charles felt comfortable with the state of the man's head, he turned his attention to the rest of he long body currently dirtying his bedclothes. "If you'll allow me-" he asked hesitantly, trying to feel out the man's emotional state, how he'd react to being stripped by a stranger.
The man waved him on drowsily, his mind one tired ache. So Charles set to work removing the filthy wool jacket, unbuttoning the ripped shirt and stripping off the rumpled pants. He decided to leave the man in his knickers, preserving as much propriety as possible when one had a strange man in one's bed. Then he went to work disinfecting the various cuts along the man's long limbs and slim torso.
"What's your name?" he asked as he worked.
"Erik."
No last name then. No matter, things didn't stay hidden from a telepath for long. "Well Erik," he said as cheerfully as he could manage, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm technically a doctor."
To his surprise, Erik started laughing. His shoulders shook under Charles' hands and when Charles looked up at him questioningly, he was graced with the widest, toothiest smile he'd ever seen. "Of course," the man chuckled, and his thoughts were a contradiction, a storm of fear and disgust and loathing that made Charles' mind recoil in horror, "Thank you very much, Herr Doktor."