I sit. No, maybe it is more like waiting. Or dangling. The bed is a safe raft in a rickety sea and I am clinging to it. My head is cradled by my sweat-slick hands.

I do not see anything that the colors blackest black cannot render – visions dredged up from a disquiet memory. I see red, yes, so much sick scarlet. There is much red to be found, doused a little by the blackest black.

And then there are shapes moving in the red. Milk eyes. Opaque and staring and unseeing. There is no pupil, nor is there iris, no interruption from the whites of them. And they seem to smile saccharine sweet with every stroke of pain they cannot see, but the ears attached nearby may hear. Perhaps it is not sweet, but sour, bitter to the tongue and the senses, and he is a great pretender.

I recognize my own voice amongst the waves. It is paper thin with screaming. Where am I? Why am I so far away that I cannot reach myself? Am I truly lost amongst the tempest? Only the milk-eyed man may know. I do not wish to ask him. He is the fear in me. He inspired the tyrannical reign of fear over my sovereign serene soul. Please go. Go from me and never return and I shall never dream red again if only you would go and I would stay and there would be no more room for negotiation beyond a parting of ways in between a pendulum sea.

"Come now, I want to teach you to sing."

Hot breath. Acrid and sulfur. Brimstone hot hands around my throat. White skin dying, blood vessels popping open, everything purple and black and blue. Clawing. No nails, just helpless scratching at fingers that are not mine and not supposed to be there at the base of my throat squeezing the breath back down into the depths of me. Choking me from the inside out.

I'm sorry please I will never I swear never talk back again can you not hear me I am shouting I am crying out should I scream would you even know I am screaming?

Apology lost somewhere on the road to being spoken aloud. He will not let it through. Blockade. I wish the air could somehow seep in between the reddish-black cracks in between but his grip is too tight.

"Use that diaphragm. Build it up. Go on, that's a girl. Suck it in real tight."

Claws grow useless. They know it and I know it too. I'm going to die but it's a comfort to know this. Eyelids soften to skin and mush. Lips turned blue and slack. The room begins to close in, oblivion taking everything I've ever known. Leaky pipes gone. Skittering rats abducted by darkness. Orange-gold lights disappear. All that is left is the milky-eyed man. He is tall. He is human. How can I not overpower a human? I am supposed to be the stronger one. The usurper of strength. The supreme being.

Help me, strength. Come to me authority. Help me.

Overthrow him.

He frees me.

But not before the darkness takes him too.

Hanging onto that raft helps me none. I must move, shake the anxiousness out of me before it tears open something important inside. Moving yes. Motions help dilute the thick bruise remembering. It is almost like suffocation again. No breath getting through eyes dilating and walls spinning fast and faster until there is no ground just a dizzy place that I cannot follow quickly enough.

Move, go, just make your feet make steps and forward you will go.

It is a small living space, but much larger than that of which I am accustomed to, and so it feels as if I am a dwarf stealing into a giant's lair. I am the smallest of thieves. Thief, is that the word I wish to press upon my self? No. My legs bend and unbend. My feet make wet slapping noises against the hard floor because they are so drenched in sweat. I tug at my bruising lip. I yank on it. As if that will hurry the musing onward.

There are pictures on the walls. Paintings, I believe. Of shorelines with summer dabbed upon them in strokes of gold and yellow and undertones of white. Blue and tan make up the sand meeting sweeping shore. The wallpaper is floral, I think. I have never seen such wallpaper before. Master had plain wallpaper the color of blood exposed to air. This one is tender almost. As if well meaning in its attempt to calm and pacify.

There are only two lamps – one nearest the bed, on the end table (end table…is that what it is called, yes?). The other is nearest the bookcase and the inviting pale blue armchair. I remember. All I seem to do lately is rely on remembering. It is all I have now, I suppose.

There was a tall-backed armchair in my past and it did not look inviting, no not really, not at all like this one. It was foreboding and looked cold as that feeling you get when you touch raw ice. It had been shiny and reflective in texture and black. Leather? Is that what it had been?

Nothing escapes nervous scrutiny. I even heed the small picture propped up on the third shelf of the six shelved bookcase. It is wreathed in a shimmering gold frame. The face of a man gone thistle-gray with age smiles back at me. I smile back a little, but I am afraid of it faltering to a grimace. I turn away from that kind and thoughtful face. The eyes are too blue. Too much like angel's woven blue. I thought I had decided angels did not exist but perhaps, yes maybe so – they do.

A knock sounds at the door. The gasp bubbles up in me before I can purge it back into safe keeping. Hastily, too hastily, I go into the shadows, where it is nice and safe and blessedly dark and the voice asks very considerate in a way might I come in?

I make no sound. No, no sounds allowed. He comes in anyway despite the lack of invitation. Master would have throttled him, had the milk-eyed man give him a good lashing for his insolence. But it seems that everything this man does, even the most insolent of actions, are done in great kindness and gentle intent.

He walks in, the moonlight spilling down his face and into his faded forest green night robe. There is a moment where the silver just catches on the snagging blue of his eyes and renders me blind from their wide open color. It is a moment before I may recover, a terrifying split second, and I coil up inside to keep myself safe should it come to that.

My stomach ties itself into knots. My gut aches with poison dread. He looks about the room, eyes dulled by no light, but I can still see their roving from my haven behind the rigidly tall wardrobe. He cannot find me here. My sentinel will guard me. He will save me. Yes, I have utter faith in his ability.

"I heard you cry out," he confirms this to the lonely space around him. "I thought perhaps it would be best to make certain you are all right."

Do not reply.

You are a fool if you utter

One word

In reply.

The floors creak and groan and stretch beneath his weight. He is a small statured man, though he towers over my slinking height. He ambles over to the window, which has been replaced in the last two days since I have been here. The glass no longer litters the floor, though now it is pitted with scars from the fall.

Pangs of remembering how close I had been to freedom. I could smell her hair, the sweet ghost scent of jasmine on an unfelt and untouched and unseen spring air of long ago. Do not mourn a premature loss. It will soon come again…the opportunity for escape.

He stands before the window. Again he is made alive by the touch of a winter's moon. Pallor grips him tight to her white chest. The only colors of him are the lingering blue of the eyes and the faded robe draped over his slight form. Behind him, his hands find one another, clasping in a thoughtful fashion. His teeth drag over his lips. Yes, deep gray thought has him in their clutches.

"You know, once -" he laughs a little, amused by emotions the past may render. "Once, when I was a boy, I woke from a most distressing dream. Father was gone, on business you know, and mother was as ever cold and distant in her ways. I have not – that is to say, I am well aware of the potency of dreams. How they can turn on you in but a moment."

Surely our dreams cannot be of the same fabric. Difference must take them to separate worlds. Surely they cannot collide. Where mine are the color of red and black his must be of blue and threadbare green.

What do I know of his mind, what monsters roam the black secrets of it? I know only of my own nocturnal torments. I have never been the confidant of another's. It is strange. Very, yes – very much so. To hear that another being suffers the same demons in the night.

And then, that is when, and it is a when that will forever burn my remembering with the lack of terror that I feel, but only faint discomfiture in the stead of stark blinding fear. Still the reflex carries out the mechanics of its purpose. To salvage what has long since been lost I think. He has looked over at me. A simple motion.

But it is not only that. It is not that he looked at me but that he looked in me. Peered in at the lurching twisting interior and did not withdraw from the repulsion of seeing such empty damage taking place there. He simply peeked in and leaned back from the precipice after a good long study. He is not afraid of me. Not as I am of him. Not as I am of the milk-eyed puppet and his cruel puppeteer.

"You fear me. I can see it in your mind," he says to me, and he nods, affirming his own observations. "Words are but cheap mimics of actions and so I shall prove to you that my intention is not to harm you. Here, you are safe. Here, you need not retreat into the refuge of your head. I wish only to know you."

In my head, there is peace. A place where serenity and sunshine meet and are not afraid. Grass. I can feel it growing under my wiggling toes. It is all imagined. The heat is not there, not like my master has spoken of when he mentions the sun. I have only seen pictures of grass.

What does it feel like I wonder. It must be like velvet. Not crushed but pure and untarnished by humans. Green lush velvet that is born out of the earth's womb. I try not to watch the blue coming toward me. The body that follows it. Green grass and yellow sun and colorless serenity that I can make any shade I wish.

In here I am nowhere near tidal wave fear.

Only lapping softly waves that tickle me and wish to play.

He is here. Before me. There is space enough between us but I want more. More distance, less proximity, and maybe my stomach would not jump up into my ribs so painfully. Look down. Shoulders down. Head down. Hair hides me. A coiled curtained thing.

Look at me, my dear.

It is in my head. My safe place. No. No please you cannot have the only refuge I have. Please let me have it back. I want to cry. I want to rip the tears out of my stubborn head and let them fall and make him see what he has done. Dare I look at him?

Yes. You dare.

Everything is sharper somehow, clearer, as if my eyes are wider. The blue of his are still warm no cold to be found there.

Yes, it is my voice you are hearing. Fret not…I will utilize my ability only when it is required or asked of me. I will not invade what little privacy you may have to your name. As it is late, I shall leave you now – I only came as I heard you cry out. Sleep as well as you can manage, my friend.

He outstretches his hands, palms up and open wide, as if he is to offer something, but I see nothing. Curiously I look at him, questioning, wondering without words. His smile is a string of silent laughter threading through the taut veins.

Go on, take it. Your haven. It is yours. I will not come back to it unless you seek me and ask it of me.

I reclaim it, but I do not touch the hands. They drop and something wilting fills in the empty space his mirth has left behind it. He turns, expression dotted out by gloom, and I feel safe again. Tears are unnecessary now. They are only a tool.

At the door, he seems to flinch. He glances back at me. I can see it out of the sides of my vision.

Oh, and once I leave, you may find that I have left a small peace offering on the end table closest to the door.

With a long finger he taps the wall next to the bleary crack of the door and leaves. The way out and in is all but shut behind him. I look, parasitic curiosity latching onto all resolve in me. There, just where he dictated, is a mug. It seems like the type he used for tea the other night, the first night, and I cannot help but wonder despite the rippling unrest in me.

Caution. Yes, caution is needed here. With every carefulness taken into consideration, I pick my way across the room and stop before I reach the door and its nearby end table completely. There. It is there. Something white and frothing gurgles within the cup, like something alive and moving, but I realize it is heat which makes it move. Not sun heat but man-made heat.

Reflexively, I reach out my hand and let it hover over the fogged up rim. The invisible whorls wrap around my hand and hug it tight to the steamy little bodies.

Hot breath. Milk white eyes. Make you sing. Yes, make you sing. I will.

My insides tilt and off kilter I go and I am falling and nothing will catch me not even ground or air or body and that feeling of letting go without knowing what I am descending into seizes my stomach and squeezes the bile out of it like a sour soupy sponge. I land on the floor. Throat burning. Stomach dancing on stilts it feels like. Stilts. Tall. Milk eyes. I am sick all over the hard wood and I can almost hear myself screaming again.

Oh. Oh –

When I come back, phase into my own body again and stop plummeting down from old stale dreams, I am swimming in my own body's refuse. The stench is tart, but not the kind that I am supposed to like but rather to find unseemly. Repulsion, I think is the term. Yes, that must be what makes me shrink away from the dripping sick.

It has caught in my hair. Wet spidery insides clinging to safe warm tendrils. I wipe it, as hard as I can, as if the smell will catch on my hands and onto the floor. And oh god the floor I remember and it is with a terrible spasm of horror that I realize what I have done and oh god what will they do when they see what I have done will the ruse finally fall will the warm blue turn to frost and ice and the gentleness return to malice and what will I do when they find what I have done God will you find me here before they do?

I am in a panic. Memory is forgotten. Dreams plunge back into deep black sleepy mind. Looking around, I am frantic to find it. Something. Anything. I need to hide the evidence of my crime. My eyes lock on the sheet. Yes. That will have to do. But where to put it where I cannot be blamed for its soiling?

Later. That is another matter. I tear it off the mattress and throw it over the pile of my terror turned to watery sick. It soaks through, the slickness taking to the fabric, and I mop up the rest with as much quickness as my lethargic limbs may allow. All done. All is safe. I hope. I can only hope.

I throw it outside and return to my bed. There, I curl into myself, praying into my belly for forgiveness. Please. Let me be safe. Keep the white eyes out of my head. I will do anything.

Please.

The sun comes up from her white sullen grave behind the mountain peaks and she disappears so suddenly behind a filmy gray sky.

The only thing that may calm me as of late is to pace. Three days now have passed and this is the only remedy I have for the fraying, the wearing down of spring-tight nerves. My feet are so fast they are but a pale blur. Beneath my eyes they travel faster than my own consciousness can fathom. No thinking. There is no room for thinking when I am moving so rapidly. Sweet singing silence. I reach for tranquility. If it is there when I arrive at its threshold I will take it.

Only if it will let me.

The door opens. Eyes drop. Feet still, legs with them. Hands pounce to sides. Body like a livewire, stinging. I can see the spot where the puddle of my own vomit had been the night before. White eyes. No. Go. Go from me and do not come back.

Please do not find it. I promise

I will never do it again.

Two figures. One female, the other familiar. She is beautiful. The sockets that hold her gaze are soft and milky almost in a pleasant way. Lips shine under the natural light. A dip in her cheek when she smiles at me. Why is she smiling? Is it…have they discovered my crime?

I count to ten. Numbers. Comfort. Counting.

I am on five when she starts to speak.

"I ah," the girl starts, and she takes a few steps forward, leveling her voice, "I brought some new clothes for you. Those look like they've pretty much been worn to death. Here."

She tries to take my hand.

1….2…3…4…5678910.

I wrench backward, nearly collapsing from the too-quick yanking back, and she starts at my abruptness. Retreat. This time it is a lighthouse. Slabs of red brick worn away by light and salt sea. Gulls cry. Sun and no clouds to bind her. The sky is the color of his eyes. The vision breaks. She is staring. I look down, dizzy, trying not to lose my stomach to the floor again not in front of them please no 12345678910.

"No, no," she murmurs, afraid of her own voice it seems I can hear it in the trembling timber of it. "It's okay. I won't hurt you. See? Just clothes…and a towel. I thought you um…you know…might wanna get cleaned up a little before you change. I'll show you to the bathroom. Is…is that okay?"

I look at her hands and realize there are bundles of cloth in them. The colors are muted, but the scent is fresh and what clean must smell like if it had a scent to its name.

Is…is it okay? She seeks my approval? I level my gaze with hers and see something in them that I do not recognize. After a short deliberation, in which I find no danger in doing, I nod. My lip nearly cracks beneath the pressure of my teeth closing down on it.

Her tone changes, but this time she is talking to the man, the blue, the warm color. "Charles, beat it. This is a girls only zone."

"I have complete and utter faith in you, dear one." He smiles at her, bows a little, and departs.

Once we are alone and the man is gone from our presence and everything that was once three only a moment ago is now two she holds out her hand. It is thin and delicate and elegant in ways that I have never seen before on a being, especially on one so beautiful. My nail latches onto the bruised lip. It must be a trap. It must be. Why else would she offer something such as her hand so that she may capture me and not let go and I will not be able to overpower her in my weak state no do not take it I must not.

"Go on," she utters gently. "Take it. It won't bite, I promise."

I feel as if there is an order in there somewhere. Even though I am afraid, I cannot disobey an order. My heart thuds, slips and tries to beat evenly again but to no avail. Lungs fight for breath. I am done for. I have been found out. Three days hiding in a generosity mask is too long a wait for restless gnashing monsters to suffer. Here it comes. My entire body tightens for the coming pain. At least I have numbers. At least there are pictures I can escape into in my head.

I am sorry.

The appendage. It is…I can hardly describe it. Melting earth perhaps. The touch of the sun's warmth must be like this, I can only imagine. I find myself melting into the soft heat. Even if it is the last of the kindness I will relish it and I have never felt such a warm and gentle thing before.

Except

Perhaps

In his eyes

Yes those eyes that scrape the bottom of Heaven

And have found a way into their light and stolen some of it and the color and the beauty is his for keeping.

Her voice takes me out of my thoughts. "Come on then. Let's scrape some of that dirt off you, huh?"

She leads me out of the room, the safest place in the whole of the building, and a little way down the very long and gaping hall there are a myriad of doors. All of them are a muted brown color and wood. Apparently they are all portals to very different places than the one I have just come out of. She picks one of them, closest to the banister that leads downstairs, and walks inside, my wound up body shuffling so reluctantly in behind her.

I look around at my new habitat. It is a temporary one I am sure. While she plays with the tap in a strange hollowed out object and lets water flow out of the faucet I try to distract myself from my own terrible damning considerations. Torture by water. Perhaps she shall drown me and be merciful and it will be an honor killing to dispose of the rodent that lives in the room at the end of the hall.

"Do you like a warm bath?" She asks.

I do not answer I cannot and I hardly know how she can expect me to speak in the presence of my own condemnation in a place filled with mirrors that will record the pain I will feel in only moments and god have I ever been so scared before surely I have.

She seems to answer her own question, turning a squeaky knob a few times. I am glad of it. I would not have been able to reply if she had truly wanted me to.

Without knowing it, I have backed myself into the furthest corner away, and when she stands she chuckles a little. It flutters in my head like a black butterfly and its sharp wings pierce my senses and it sends a shiver of cruel anticipation and dread down the hollow places in my back. I swallow against the glass lodged in my throat. It feels like I have swallowed one of the staring mirrors.

"Obviously you can't get clean all the way over there," she scolds. I step out of the corner a little. "Come on I told you I don't bite. I only nibble on Charles and between you and me it's because he likes it."

It is a strange method of torture and I will allow her only that.

And then, after she has smiled upon me again for what feels as it will be the last time anyone will ever smile at me she turns toward the door. My heart lifts a little out of the quagmire. Where is she going? Perhaps to retrieve her tools.

She directs me to the bath, telling me not to forget to remove my clothes, and scrub all the way down to my toes.

I do as I am told and I wait a very long time in the soothing roiling heat and the water and I am relaxed in waiting for the pain for the first time in my life.

Eyes.

They are the cover of heaven.

Celestial blue.

Sunlight upon them.

And they are warm.

Though the color brings to me the thought of cold and ice and winter.

And perhaps this is the most beautiful torture I have ever felt in my life.

Disclaimer - I don't own Charles Xavier. He belongs to Marvel. I am basing his character off the portrayal seen in X-Men: First Class.