protect those without.

Lorna found herself returning Charles’ smile, though not as brightly perhaps. “Hi Charles,” she replied, stepping into the office and closing the door behind her. She shrugged in answer to his question. “Been worse.” Been better too, but that was why she was here. 

“I need your help.” No point avoiding it, he’d already know she had come to him with a problem before she’d said hello. Besides, even just being at the school, with all the students, she could feel it becoming harder to push away her emotional powers.

“Something happened after I” –almost died. Or did die but Ric brought me back– “woke up. What Malice did, that wasn’t her powers.” Admitting that never seemed to get easier. It felt like admitting guilt. Especially when people believed that the emotional side of the blackout was purely Malice. “I can’t control it.”

.

As soon as she stepped into his office, Charles felt his worry for the girl grow. It was the type of worry that was recognisable simply by the look on her face, rather than any use of his powers. Her outright asking for his help made him smile once more, straightening up in his wheelchair. 

“Of course,” he said, rolling slightly towards her. Though her explanation of the problem did surprise him, he let no trace of that surprise show. Instead, he kept his face carefully neutral. “Well, then, all control takes is practice. And care.” Of which he had plenty. 

“Truly, I’m honoured you’d ask me to help. Thank you, Lorna.”

@psicnic​​

Lorna knew her way around Xavier’s like the back of her hand. The school in Westchester was always changing faces, with students arriving and leaving constantly, but the house stayed the same. And Charles stayed. He was a constant in her life for a long time now, not always a massive presence, but always there. Reliable. Lately, she hadn’t felt like she could rely on herself. These new powers were hard to control, when she wasn’t being possessed. Lorna had only realised afterwards how long Malice had been in her head before the blackout, because suddenly her new found control was gone again.

When Scott suggested the school, Lorna hadn’t wanted to admit that she felt self conscious about it. But he was right. Charles had experience helping people with powers they couldn’t control, powers that could hurt people. And her powers were psionic in nature. It only made sense.

Lorna knocked on Charles’ office door, hoping he wouldn’t be too busy to see her. That he’d actually be here, alone. She knew her father was around here somewhere, but this was something she wanted to discuss with Charles first.

.

Feeling Lorna’s presence in the grounds was not as immediate as her father’s, slipping in like a late guest to a party, an old friend you hadn’t seen in a while, rather than the one person you had been waiting for all night. Welcome, all the same. 

As she got closer to his office, he could feel the relative disturbance in her head, the worry that had settled. So, by the time she knocked on the door, he was ready to call, “It’s open!” He waited for her to enter, smiling. 

“Lorna, my dear, how are you?” 

Erik snorts his amusement before he can stop himself, arching a brow at Charles. “Ah, I see–it’s far more easy to justify a terrorist tending the rosebushes than it is one dusting your chandeliers.” He thinks (hopes) he manages to keep the faint tinge of bitterness out of his voice, because he can read between the lines, thank you. Knows that it’s one thing to let the enemy meet you on your territory and quite another to let him mingle amongst the children–especially having recruited a not inconsiderable number of them away to help lay seige to New York just a year ago. ( A year–has it already been so long? ) 

And then, almost before Erik can finish the thought, Charles is addressing it without acknowledging that he’d heard it at all. A dignity, then–Erik doesn’t feel the familiar intrusion of the man’s mind, so he must have been thinking rather too loudly for the man to ignore.

You’re always welcome here.

He very badly wants, in that moment, to believe it. Coming back to Westchester–back to Charles–always feels like a weight off his shoulders, like a breath of fresh air, like a blanket wrapped around with warm familiarity. There’s moments of it elsewhere, here and there, but nowhere more reliably than the school. And certainly nowhere recently.

He wants to believe it, but Erik’s smile is thin, appreciative yet dubious even as he follows Charles over to where the chessboard has clearly been gathering dust. “I appreciate the offer, old friend, but I fear your students may not agree.” Especially not if they’d caught wind of what had happened on Genosha in that final week before Erik had died–if they’d heard that Erik had come terrifyingly close to crossing a line he’d never crossed in all his fights with the X-Men. 

( He can still see Ric’s face when he’d knocked on the man’s door after his resurrection, the way the blood had drained from his face all at once, the way he lashed out to try and cover the terror that was coming off him in waves. He still doesn’t know how to fix it. If he can fix it. )

Erik reaches out to brush the thin layer of dust off of the chair–only one, he notes, and feels a twist of guilt in the pit of his stomach at the reminder of why–and takes a seat, reaching out to take a king in both hands and switching them back and forth before offering both closed fists to Charles. “Oh, come now. You don’t think I’d show up here planning to lose to you again, do you? Besides–I’m always challenging. It’s a personality trait. Part of my charm.” 

.

Charles manages, somehow, not to roll his eyes at Erik’s description of himself. It isn’t untrue, but it still feels wrong, too specific of a label to be given to so complex of a man. “I have very long brooms to dust the chandeliers with,” he says, instead of addressing the comment. And then, because he has always been the type to think too much or not at all, he says, “I don’t want you to feel as if you have to earn your place back here. You’re not my housekeeper.” 

As soon as he says it, he wheels around so his back is to the man, pretending to rummage through his desk cabinet so he doesn’t have to watch Erik’s reaction. Nobody would ever describe him, Erik least of all, as someone careful with his own feelings, or even somebody that kept them hidden, but- the man opposite him now knows him so well. It’s impossible to not want to keep something under wraps, when Erik doesn’t even have to look at him to know how he’s feeling, even without the trick of telepathy. 

Not that his power is as simple as a ‘trick’, most fairly described as an ‘affliction’, truly, but the mood in the room is tentative, and that isn’t a mood most baselines can feel. Tentative, quiet, something that feels like a bridge from one stage to another. It tingles. 

He must consider his students before all else, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of him that wants to be selfish. It is the part of him that remembers the time before the beach, remembers any time before they all had so much responsibility. Erik has always had something, as long as Charles has known him, but he remembers when he himself was carefree. “I can talk to them.” The words are strong, no room for argument, “I will, if you want to stay here.” It’s an offer, a repeated one, “I want you to stay here.” It’s the most honest he’s been since Erik arrived. 

His eyes are focused on Erik’s face as he switches the kings between his fists, making no effort to try and follow the side he usually plays. “There’s a charm to losing, too, if you do it graciously enough,” he smiles, though he doesn’t expect either of them to be playing to lose. 

It had been a long time since Charles had last seen Alex. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to visit him, but something had kept him from it. A feeling of responsibility, perhaps, or at least a twinge of guilt. He felt it whenever any of them were injured, but this had been particularly bad. 

He could imagine what Alex had been through, which almost made it worse. 

But now, one hand raised to knock on the door to the man’s room, Charles wondered if this would have been easier if he’d visited sooner. The apologies that came with waiting weren’t something he struggled to say; polite sorries rolled off Xavier’s tongue easily. True apologies were perhaps harder to admit. 

Charles is smiling at him even before he turns, and something in Erik’s chest unknots a little bit at the confirmation that no, he hasn’t overstepped by showing up here unannounced and univited. It hadn’t been much of one before, either, sure–but that had been before Erik’s plans had temporarily dragged Charles and his students from his home, threatened the safety of the largest city in the United States (twice), and put Erik himself in a grave for almost two months. 

Yet somehow, it feels like picking up at the best parts of where they left off, every time. A moment or two of friction, perhaps, and then Charles is opening his door and giving that smile and for a few minutes nothing exists outside the office and the chess game and that look on the other man’s face.

( He should’ve come here from the beginning. )

“Oh? You want me traipsing around the house in a little gardener’s hat fixing your bushes for you?” Erik replies with a raised brow, fighting the smile threatening at the corners of his own lips (and failing). “I’m not sure the hat and overalls would be a good look–actually, who am I kidding? It is me we’re talking about. I look good in everything,” he says, grin breaking through properly. 

A week off for an anniversary seems generous, but then, Erik can’t actually imagine Charles telling any of the staff no for a request off, regardless of reason. Looks like he’ll be lingering at least a little longer than expected, then–but he can’t say that feels like a bad thing.

“I suppose I can clear my schedule for later this afternoon, since you asked so nicely.” As if he had much of anything planned at all for the rest of the bloody week, let alone today. The last few months, he’s just been sort of… drifting. Scrabbling for a sense of familiarity–returning to the Brotherhood, returning to tracking people, returning to Atlanta of all places with Lorna, just looking for something to ground him back, figure out where he was supposed to be. 

( As if it wasn’t the same bloody place he’d been modeling every safehouse after for the last twenty years. )

There are a thousand things they probably need to talk about, and no good way to start any of them. Except that Erik’s eyes catch on the chessboard, and his powers are brushing against the pieces almost before he realizes it. “If I’m not interrupting anything, I’ve been dying for a game of a chess,” he says, smiling wryly at the pun that probably isn’t quite as funny as it’s meant to be. 

.

Oh, how he has missed that smile. It doesn’t even register until he sees it once more, a sight that somehow echoes round both the room and Erik’s own mind, and as a result Charles’. It fills him up entirely. The other man deserves to be smiling far more often than he is, but he can’t deny that it feels extra special because Charles himself caused it. 

He feels immature, suddenly, finding such pride in such a minor achievement. It’s the sort of feeling he would encourage in anybody else, but in himself it feels silly. He’s too old for such childish wants, but he wants them nonetheless. It is, simply put, Erik. 

“Not around the house, simply the grounds.” Though, even as he says it, he’s thinking of things that do need to be fixed at the school that he can’t himself. It isn’t as if he’s short for money, but saving on paying somebody by mentioning it to Erik isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He can’t fathom suggesting paying the man, can already picture the offense he’d take to it. 

At the man’s self-assured words, Charles finds himself nodding without a second’s thought. He does look good in anything, that can’t quite be disputed. “Hat and overalls is a classic look,” he says, instead of everything else he wants to. 

“You know..” He begins, unsure of where his sentence is actually going to end when he begins it, “Erik, you’re always welcome here, for as long as you would like.” Charles is careful, always so careful, whenever he hears something that he’s not meant to. Telepathy is not as accepted as other mutations. That isn’t to say, of course, that mutants are wildly accepted ( he is not so naive as to believe that, no matter what the man stood opposite him may think, ) but there is a special place of contempt held for a telepath.

However, that doesn’t mean that he can’t interpret whatever Erik’s broadcasting right now. He’s always so careful to hide his emotions, and he does it so well, that whatever this listlessness is, it is particularly strong. He won’t acknowledge it openly, neither of them will, but he can do his best to help. 

@psicnic 

It was inevitable, really, that he end up here. No matter how the road twisted, no matter how far afield Erik went, there was something about the Institute that always led him back here no matter how he dug his heels in. 

Erik had avoided coming here for months before he’d died, and there were several factors in that decision, not the least of which was his pride. He suspected a similar reason was behind Charles’ stubborn refusal to set foot in Genosha in the aftermath of the seige. 

The creation of Genosha had drawn a clean line in the sand: one was your way and the other was my way. To cross the line to the other side–to the before or the after–would be giving some sort of unspoken concession, to implicitly admit that perhaps the other had been more right than they wanted to admit. Of course, nothing hadn’t been laid out quite so clearly as all that, and the situation certainly would never have been discussed in such terms by either of them. Not explicitly. But now, with some time and perspective, Erik understood the contours of the stalemate they’d quietly laid out for themselves.

Under other circumstances, that was how it would have been left, too–Erik six feet underground, the two of them having avoided each other in the intervening months for the sake of their pride even after a show of unity at Stark Tower.

Foolishness. 

He was aware that this, showing up here, was probably a forfeit of some sort of high ground. Erik had been back for months, and even if it hadn’t been public at first, he very much doubted that Charles hadn’t known immediately. He’d certainly known after the incident with Lorna. And yet, there had been no contact from Charles–through Cerebro or otherwise. Erik wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t see a hint when it was given (or not given, as the case may be). 

But here he was, anyway. He’d come alone–he drove a car rather than have Azazel bring him, in part because it was more polite, and in larger part because he didn’t want to see the look on the other man’s face when Erik said where he wanted to go. 

Where Genosha had felt off, somehow, the familiarity of the Institute settled around Erik’s shoulders. He didn’t bother with the front door, circling round the side of the building and lifting himself up and over the balcony outside Charles’ study–where, if the man was keeping his usual schedule, he should be at his desk. 

Erik let himself in with merely a thought to the doorknob. “Your groundskeeper is slacking off,” he says by way of greeting, because it’s easier to start with that than any of the other words clogged in his throat. “The rosebushes along the drive need a trim desperately.”

.

He had felt the edges of Erik’s mind as soon as he’d stepped onto the property. It was soft at first, the atmosphere settling against his own for a moment before the two combined. That wasn’t to say the man’s mind was soft, rather it was sharp, metallic and smooth. But thoughts refracted from it in soft beams, and they felt almost like a beacon. 

Missing the man was no longer a hurt. It was a part of him. Perhaps one he hadn’t been born with, but one that had become as much of the fabric of Charles that he may as well have been. 

This was, of course, not entirely Erik’s fault, but it was difficult to accept blame for something you had done to yourself. Still, even when they spoke, it was not as if he missed him less. Having him in his physical presence was no match for- he struggled to finish the thought. It wasn’t enough, whatever it was. 

He’d been keeping himself busy the previous weeks, staying steadfastly away from ways he could have contacted the other man. It hadn’t been a show of pride, although it may have looked as such, but he had needed Erik to be the one to make the move towards him again. He needed to be absolutely certain that this was his choice, and he needed Erik to know it, too. Not reaching out to him had been his way of relinquishing control. He only hoped he had seen it as such. 

As soon as he can feel Erik’s presence, it’s all he’s aware of. It hasn’t been so close for so long, and certainly not in such a calm setting. His mind is never quite peaceful, at least it never feels that way, but it is a boat on rough waters with a seasoned captain, someone is in control, now. If struggling. He wonders if that’s why he’s here. Telepathy is not something he can turn off easily, has no access to the off switch, but he doesn’t have to pry any further than surface thoughts. He never does, with Erik. 

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel him as he lands on the balcony. He smiles, turning his wheelchair to face the balcony, away from the cupboard he’d been rifling through. “Good afternoon, Erik.” He rolls to the other side of the room, beside the window, one hand dismissing the notion of the grounds not being up to standard, “I do believe our groundskeeper is celebrating his anniversary this past week. I hadn’t expected so much growth in such a short while.” Turning back to Erik, he adds, voice almost teasing, “If I found you a pair of shears, you could do it for me.”