Southern Wisconsin, US - Early Evening- February 6th, 1958
There was a British man in her kitchen, one she'd never met or seen before in her entire young life. Yet there he was, she had eventually invited him to sit across the table from here where she sat completely on edge feeling like her privacy had been fully violated.
Raven had no idea if it were possible but her feelings might have been getting to this probable hallucination, a guilty look came over his eyes. "I'm sorry to have intruded on you...are you perhaps a black belt?" Charles had no idea why he had asked that or how he knew that but he would blame it on their connection that the four of them were still trying to figure out.
"Yes, Jiu-Jitsu and Karate, when I was younger I also wanted to practice Taekwondo but there weren't any places that taught it near me." Reaching forward Raven took a hold of her empty glass of water and fingered it, spinning it slowly within her grasp. She guessed if anything she should be able to relax more, this was just a hallucination and Charles wasn't a real person really in her kitchen, so her shoulders just slightly started to relax from their stiff state.
"Who knew my mind would create some British guy for me to talk to. This must be my way of coping with the bad news." Though for now, her eyes moved down, looking at the pieces of paper she had read probably one hundred times listed with side effects of the life-saving surgery. "But it also probably means that I'm getting sick faster than I'd hoped...I need to sign this."
Before she could take her pen Charles had reached his long arm across the table and taken it from her reach. "Please don't, at least not yet...I hate to dictate anyone's life but Raven my dear, you aren't sick. I'm very real, as is Hank and Erik, though I don't believe you've met Erik yet have you?" The blond girl shook her head and chewed on her bottom lip briefly.
"This can't be real, the doctor found a problem in my brain that is causing hallucinations. That explains everything I've been seeing and feeling from you guys." It was a bad and convenient problem to pop up. Trying to think of his next words carefully, "Why don't you at least give us a chance to prove ourselves real before you sign anything concrete?"
Charles tried to put on a charming smile and it seemed to warm the girl in front of him who half smiled back. "How would you suggest we do that Charles? Aren't you in the UK somewhere?" she just guessed due to his accent and hoped not to make a fool of herself.
"You're right, and Erik is out of the question since he lives in Germany. Hank, on the other hand, lives in America like you do though I neglected to ask where. By the way what state is this?" Pushing himself up from the table Charles stepped over to the nearest window, which was a small one next to the stove and above the countertops.
"It's snowing here as well..." he commented to himself gently. Raven stood then and stepped over next to Charles with hesitant movements to gaze out the smudged window. "Southern Wisconsin, it's not so bad out right now. Can't be less than 15F out, just gotta bundle up." Out of the four of them, Charles noted that Hank seemed to live in the warmest place, wherever he had been didn't have snow but there was the familiar winter chill in the air.
"Hank wanted me to tell you how sorry he is for freaking you out by the way. He seemed quite saddened that he distraught you, on that same note I hope it won't be too creepy of me to ask you for your address I can give to him so that he can visit you and prove all of this?" Lifting a hand Charles moved it slowly so that Raven could see the motion coming, and she allowed him to touch her wrist softly.
The blond girl thought hard for a moment but nodded and gave in, "Fine. But if he is a creep he was really scrawny so I could take him down in seconds." she warned before grabbing a paper from a notebook and the pen from Charles' hand before scribbling down her address that Charles shoved into his pocket. "Thank you my dear, I don't know if I'll be able to visit you again to warn you when but I'd expect him to visit you soon if all goes well."
Berlin, Germany - Early Evening - February 7th, 1958
Three days, that was how it had been since Erik had seen Charles. The other young man had been plaguing his thoughts as an unwanted attachment, he had just been going about his normal days drinking, lazing, eating, and yet with everything he did Charles would invade his thoughts half of the time. Erik had never been one to be picky between genders, even though same-sex relationships were illegal and looked down upon heavily in pretty much every society nowadays.
No one had ever made such an impact on him before, no man, no woman and especially not someone he hadn't even kissed let alone not had sex with yet. What Charles had told him had felt very accurate, how it felt like there was a strong string attaching his heart to the other man and it kept bringing them back together. Made him wonder if his meetings with the other two people who had been dragged into this awkward connection would feel the same as Charles did to him.
His migraine had finally gone away the previous day completely and Erik had been thankful for that at least. On the seventh day, since all of this had started though, Erik woke up around noon feeling normal and well. Hours later that burning, fire feeling had returned, but this time not to his head, pain radiated started in his fingertips and bled its way up his arms, through his chest and burst through his heart.
It had hit suddenly before he had gone out to go do some errands, while pulling on one of his warm boots Erik felt the pain hit him and immediately fell to his hands and knees on the floor gasping and gagging. Clenching a hand in his shirt over his heart he swore heavily in German cusses, "Wha-What the fuck!? I thought this shit was done with!"
Like before the pain only grew worse than the initial feeling, burning tears prickled at his eyes that Erik refused to let escape as he writhed for what felt like hours unable to move even to grab his phone to call for help. He had quickly thought of Charles, if there had been any time for the small, annoyingly calm and bright-eyed man to visit him then now would have been the time.
His apartment remained quiet as the second hour of pain commenced and Erik had resigned to laying on his side on the floor, still clutching his chest and trying to suck in breathes to make it through this. "Ch-Charles.." he practically begged the air, maybe the man couldn't do anything to help him but at the moment Erik wished for the man's comforting presence more than anything else.
The young man didn't get his wish, another hour of retching agony passed before it numbed just a fraction so that Erik could push himself to sit up, glaring at the ground he slammed a hand down into the wood. "Fuck all of this!" he cried, suddenly all of the doorknobs in the apartment cracked down the middle, all of the drawers in the kitchen with metal knobs flew open and just about everything metal went flying in some direction.
To his slight luck, nothing hit Erik when it happened, leaving him shocked and momentarily forgetting about the blazing heat that was dulling but not gone. Pulling and pushing himself up from the ground the German struggled to get into the nearest room, his kitchen and practically flung himself into a chair and let out a long breath he hadn't realized that he had been holding.
"What's the damn point of having this connection if people don't show up when I want them to?" he angrily spoke out to the empty room, looking around and taking in the mess that was now his home with silverware and objects laying everywhere. "Huh.." wincing through a bit more pain Erik lifted a hand and tried to concentrate.
Several forks, and a single spoon lifted off of the ground and floated in midair as Erik guided them, as the pain was cooling inside of his blood it was being replaced by a new feeling. A sort of feeling and understanding that was hard for Erik to describe, but it was almost like he could feel the metal in the room, as if he were a radar picking it all up and able to feel each individual groove on every object.
Flicking one of his fingers in a direction the forks and spoon flew at high speed into the nearby wall, embedding themselves into the drywall and sticking there in a sturdy fashion. Feeling a surge of pure power run through him like adrenaline Erik turned his eyes on a nearby broom closet that had a circular metal doorknob, putting his hand up the man tried to concentrate and squeezed his hand slowly into a fist.
As he had imagined in his mind, the doorknob slowly crushed as if his hand was squeezing mere paper between the fingers with ease. "Huh." he repeated to himself with much more confidence and ideas racing through his brain.
Southern Wisconsin, US - Evening- February 9th, 1958
After her talk with Charles, she had agreed to wait until the tenth of the month for Hank to visit her or she would be signing the papers and going through with the surgery with no looking back. The doctor had told her taking some time to think would be alright but knowing that she might not be well plagued her mind with worry. Evening though she had forced herself to go to work as normal it had been affecting her work very notably, no one had the heart to mention it since most co-workers knew she'd been to the hospital recently for something serious.
Having worked an early morning shift that day Raven was home and had taken a nice and comforting shower before settling in on the couch. Irene was home and would be for a few hours before she would be heading out herself to make some underwaged hourly and tips at a restaurant. There was a knock at the door and Raven froze before calling, "Irene can you get that please?"
The front door opened and there were a few muffled words exchanged between Irene and whoever was there. "Rave' it's someone for you, says his name is Hank or whatever!" The brunette woman was waiting at the door for an answer to see if Raven wanted her to let this man in, she'd never seen or heard of him in her life despite how close she was with her roommate.
Standing up Raven went to the door and saw the young man standing there a bit awkwardly, he looked much the same as she had first seen him during what she'd thought was a hallucination. Short brown hair, glasses, wearing very proper looking clothing like he had just come from work yet Raven suspected that he always dressed that way.
"Irene, you...you can see him right?" Looking confused Irene nodded, "Course I can, are you alright Raven?" The blond roommate was starting to tear up before she lunged and full on hugged Hank around his thin shoulders. "You're real, you're actually real!"
With a face full of a red blush Hank shot his arms out to the side when he'd been hugged, unsure what to do at first and hesitated before touching Raven's back with one warm hand. "N-Nice to meet you too. Sorry about last time." The girl pulled back from the hug but held her hands tightly onto Hank's shoulders, "Don't be, it's in the past and we were both kind of freaking out in our own ways. Irene!" she said with an ecstatic behavior.
"This is the person I hallucinated that day, that means I'm not crazy! Everything I told you I heard in that dream is real. I'm like a superhero!" Being utterly confused Irene looked between her roommate and this young man, "No way...that is...amazing!"
Taking his hand Raven tugged Hank inside of her apartment, "Come in Hank, I think we have a lot to talk about with this...thing between us all!" Raven said and gestured between their heads for the psychic connection. "So you've met Charles, but I haven't met Erik yet have you?" Pure relief laced Raven's voice and that alone put both Hank and Irene at much more ease than they had moments ago.
Berlin, Germany - Late - February 9th, 1958
It was practically the next day in Germany with how late it was, the clock in Erik's living room ticked away second by second. Currently, he had been packing up a bag with equipment, he had been out of money for several days and living off of what he could scrape together inside of his apartment but reluctantly given in and taken a new job.
It was a cheap job that would keep him fed and drunk for little more than a month but with all that had been going on with him, Charles, the pains, these new powers he'd been working on controlling the last several days with little luck. He had been constantly breaking things, flinging them across the room and waking up because he had moved things loudly in his sleep.
He had also heard whispers from some of his neighbors of things in their apartments moving around without them knowing how, yet there hadn't been any signs of break-ins. So far he had just been relieved that none of this had caused one of his neighbors to get harmed, it was a shitty apartment and the neighbors were either poor or thugs but that didn't mean Erik wanted to throw kitchen utensils into their faces.
Packing up the last of his tools and a bottle of water Erik closed his bag and paused for a moment hearing a soft whistling took from behind him. "Erik!" an excited and very British accent called out to him with vigor. "Charles." he greeted back without looking up and instead set his bag aside, stood and walked into his bedroom to find where he'd tossed his black fabric jacket with a hood.
"Been wondering when I'd get to see you again, you won't believe what's been going on." the voice and accompanied footsteps followed Erik's back. "I've been talking with the other two, Raven and Hank. Raven got really scared, thought she was hallucinating but she and Hank live close together so he went to visit her! Have you met them yet?"
With a small groan and roll of his steely eyes, Erik muttered, "No, I haven't met anyone but you for some reason. And what good is that if you're not here when I actually want you to be." His harsh and cold tone matched Berlin's weather perfectly was the first thought Charles had before feeling slightly offended.
"I'm sorry, did you need something from me?" Putting a hand on one of his hips bones Charles gave a quirk of his lips, "Did you miss me? I bet you missed me and that's it."
Scoffing loudly so that Charles couldn't miss it he continued by saying, "As if. I don't miss people who aren't around when I actually need them." When Erik said that Charles' whimsical happiness dissipated seeing how serious he was, "I actually did something to upset you." the smaller man realized out loud. "Tell me what it was so I may fix it, my friend."
Ignoring the smaller man behind him Erik scooped up his jacket off of the floor and pulled it on tightly. A warm hand touched his upper arm and Erik responded by grabbing its wrist and twisting it painfully as he turned out, seeing Charles holding back a gasp and handling the pain very well for it catching him off guard. "What did you do? Well maybe something was happening to me and I was confused and alone and instead of you being here when I needed someone to talk me through it, you were off talking to the others and probably drinking your life away!"
The last part about drinking, Erik hadn't even known where that had come from. Sure he had seen Charles drunk once so why did he get the sense that Charles got drunk almost as often as Erik did? A shocked expression held in Charles' blue eyes but he didn't pull away, "...You were scared."
Shoving Charles' hand away then like it burned Erik yelled, "I was not! But it was very confusing and annoying to be on my own!" A hand reached up, the same one that now had red imprints from where Erik had pressed in too hard with his nails, came up and touched Erik's stubbled cheek. "Calm down, tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened."
Lowering his voice the taller man scoffed lightly again, "This pain hit me out of nowhere, through my chest and arms and I couldn't get off of the floor for almost four hours. When I did things started to move because of me, but I couldn't really control it all. Just metal things." A frown pulled infinitely at Erik's lips and wasn't relinquishing anytime soon, "Still can't really, things like to move around when I sleep."
Charles' thumb brushed over the short stubble on Erik's chin twice before pulling away but still looking deep into the others' eyes. "I'm getting better at being able to visit when I really concentrate, next time I'll be there when you need me, no matter what it is." He had a sense that Erik and he were very similar in many ways and the one most prominent at the moment was being alone. Charles couldn't remember the last time he'd had anyone there to guide him through something scary and new either.
"Show me." the brunette demanded, but even with a demand, his voice sounded only with kindness in Erik's ears. "What?"
"I said show me! I'd love to see what you can do Erik, perhaps I can help." crossing his arms Charles had that wondrous and confident look back on his face, one that was hard to say no to. Looking around his messy room Erik gestured and headed into the kitchen, equally as messy with utensils and appliances laying around that Erik had gotten sick of cleaning up several times a day only to have it all mess up again when he had one of his jolts of power.
Reaching his hand out the smaller pieces of things like bottle openers, forks, knives and the like started to rattle and a few even floated a few inches in the air but looked like they were dangling with barely a grip on them. Realizing he'd started holding his breath suddenly Erik let it out and suck in new air and all of the pieces clattered to the ground once more.
"When I try I can barely do anything! But when I'm just sitting or jump at stuff or dream things move like they're in a hurricane!" Running both of his calloused hands through his short hair Erik was frustrated to no end. "It's my power, I should be able to use it how I please!" As his anger built up the whole kitchen started to rattle from things being made of metal, most worryingly was the stove.
"Woh woh calm down Erik!" moving in front of his companion Charles tried to block the view of all of the objects that were causing Erik so much defeat. Removing his hands from his hair Erik let out a loud breath again, "Fine, but I don't see how you're going to be able to help me if I can't help myself even a little bit."
Crossing his arms loosely Charles tried to think, and it didn't take too long before an idea sprang into his mind. Snapping his fingers Charles started to grin widely, "I want to try something. Here, sit-" the shorter man pulled one of the wooden chairs out from the kitchen table gesturing for Erik to use it. When Erik refused to with simple disobedience Charles walked behind him and touched his back, guiding him forward and then to sit.
"I do go to Oxford, I'm not as dumb as you'd believe Erik." and under his breath like a child, Charles could swear he heard Erik mutter, "Never said you were stupid."
"Anyways, I want you to close your eyes, Erik." Being refused again a small pout puffed at Charles' cheeks before he reached his left hand forward and covered Erik's eyes until he felt eyelashes tickle his skin and stay closed. "Good. Now I want you to concentrate, don't force it but try to put all of your emotions into moving things how you want."
"I will try." the other man promised and did so, he thought hard and attempted his best as not pushing the feeling and forcing it like Charles had told him. It was hard when he felt things rattle instead of floating and gliding smoothly like he'd wanted everything went crashing to the ground roughly and very loudly. "Different approach maybe, ah keep your eyes closed! Let's try, happy thoughts?"
"You've got to be kidding me Charles-" Erik began to argue and opened a single eye only to be faced with Charles looking like a scolding lover tapping his foot on the kitchen tiles. Closing his eyes again Erik let out one of his famous and childish sighs, "What if I don't have many prominent happy thoughts to use?"
"Just try for me, please?" And try Erik did, he tried thinking about his mother and at first Erik could feel things lifting off of the floor smoothly until his mind turned her image into a bloody one. The one he saw of her in his nightmares and fever dreams, so he switched his thoughts over to his next good memory that he could think of which was having sex with a girl he'd picked up at the bar last month.
The sex had been pretty average but the girl was warm, a cuddler afterward and had talked his ear off about trivial things that took his mind away from his depressing life. Still, the feelings were not enough and Charles seemed able to see this in the way Erik was moving all of the metal. "Maybe you just need a little something more." the Brit suggested.
"I'm trying my best, do you have a better suggestion than happy thoughts? We aren't in fucking Neverland despite all the weird shit happening to us Charles."
Warm lips were against Erik's in a moment and his steely eyes opened to take in the sight of Charles in front of him. The kiss was so soft and too brief for the young mans liking as Charles pulled away, all of the previously rattling and untamed pieces of metal equipment had frozen perfectly in the air without a twitch to them. Erik's mind was focusing on that simple but pure touch and nothing else, so centered in itself and the most controlled he had felt with his powers yet.
Unsure how long it would last Erik lifted his right pointer finger and twirled it in the air, the metal buckle on Charles' belt yanked apart quickly and clattered to the floor, leaving his belt open and a mess. Blue eyes met steel ones and stayed that way for hour-long moments until Charles started to smile even with the blush dusting his freckled cheeks.
"You did it Erik, you have full control right now." The taller man stood up and moved his hand, commanding the mess of a kitchen back into its original state of cleanliness. All of the pieces danced to his hand and moved into their spots, their cupboards, or the garbage if they were broken and left almost no trace behind. Taking one long step forward Erik looped that powerful finger through a single belt loop of Charles' pants. "Come to the bedroom with me, I want you ." with those last small pauses he had given the loop several small pulls of demand.
Dictating the man in front of him as he had the metal just moments ago there was no doubt in Erik's mind that he would be getting everything he wanted tonight. Until his power high was shot down by a mere sweet thing from Oxford, who pushed himself away and said with own command to his tone. "No! I'm very happy to help you figure this out, but that doesn't mean I'm going to sleep with you."
"You kissed me, why are you saying no all of a sudden?" Even with the happy moment passed Erik could still feel his control and metal radar working properly, Charles had shown him in that instant how to focus on one thing intently with want and use that to power his control. "Just because I kissed you doesn't mean I want to sleep with you. It means I felt like kissing you."
"Makes no sense to me." the German moved an arm out to cross over Charles' shoulder and sling around the man's neck, trapping him loosely where they were. "You want to kiss, so let's kiss. I'm sure if we do that enough you'll want to come to bed eventually." He could feel Charles' want for him back almost tenfold yet at almost every flirt and proposition he had been rejected, maybe the young scholar hadn't accepted that he wanted to be bedded by a man yet.
"No one is here to judge us, let's just feel good together tonight." Leaning their foreheads together Erik could feel the ghost of Charles' breath on his lips as he leaned in to try and close the space between their mouths, and then he was alone. Charles had taken his only escape and retreated back to his home in Oxford, or possibly visiting one of the other two for all Erik knew.
It seemed Charles Xavier was much more difficult to tame than metal.
South East England - Very Early Morning - February 10th, 1958
Having just returned from a mental visit with Erik, Charles was pacing his flat and panting, using his hands as makeshift fans as his skin felt warmed by the others mans' touch and close proximity. "I-I almost...and he...he would have-I was going to let him!" The young man panicked to himself that was reminiscent of a teenager worrying over not having studied enough for their finals.
In his want to help Erik with his powers and calm the man mentally, Charles had lost track of why he had actually gone to talk to the man. Hank and Raven had come up with the idea for them all to exchange phone numbers and perhaps after hearing each other's voices they would be able to visit Erik as well and finally meet. Though the long distance call was going to be killer on their phone bills, they had decided it was worth the try.
Charles' feet finally guided him into his bathroom, gazing into the large over mirror his blue eyes looked down. His belt was open and ruined thanks to Erik so he tore it off and tossed it on the ground, noticing now that not only that but Erik had pulled the zipper on his black slacks all of the ways down as well. "Bastard." he grunted but as he unbuttoned his pants to start slipping out so that he could get ready for bed, the brunette paused.
The kiss flashed in front of his eyes, the warmth of Erik's lips on his and the feeling of his rough and short facial hair tickled Charles' cheeks in memory. With a quick flutter of his eyes, Charles started to slip his hand down through the hem of his pants and boxers and taking a hold of himself. It had been awhile since touching himself or being touched by another person so even just his own warm hand brought life to his neglected shaft.
Finishing himself in a few short minutes as he leaned against the bathroom vanity left Charles short on breath and with a sticky hand.
After a very quick shower to refresh himself Charles stepped out of the bathroom in his gray pajamas and heard his phone in the living room jingling with a phone call. Assuming it must have been Raven or Hank since they lived in earlier time zones Charles reached to pick up the phone and answer it politely. "Hello, it's very early here, can I help you with something?"
A gravely and unfamiliar voice spoke through the receiver, "Charles Xavier." a statement and not a question. "My name is Sebastian Shaw, we haven't met formally but I think we need to talk."
Charles couldn't explain why but hearing those words filled him with utter dread.
I had a few days off when I wrote the initial chapters of this but now I have to go back to work tomorrow. Chapters will be steady but may be slower than the one a day I've been posting so far. But yay some Charles and Erik goodness and Shaw has finally popped into the party.