atthemercyof | but that's how we like it, and that's all we want

Thank you. [ If he keeps complimenting Charles like this he's never going to be able to deflate his ego. Setting the tome back in its place, fingers trailing over the spine before they drift to another, the cover slightly darker and less well worn. Charles doesn't particularly enjoy looking at this one, but a thread is connecting Charles' past to Erik, and showing him the less bright corners is just as acceptable as the reverse, especially if it helps Erik to know his history, his power awakening wasn't the only one fraught with trouble. And he's already been told what it was that happened, but looking at it is different.

Coming down with it, Charles is smiling faintly and responding in his uniquely academic way. ] Like anything, it took practice. At a certain point, I realized that keeping my own memories separated from others' was going to be necessary, so I needed a system of organization that I not only understood, but made it simple to weed out the right things when they got mixed in. Otherwise, I'd have a scrambled head, you see.

Ah. Because as a telepath you picked up thoughts, you would store someone else's too? And learning to keep them apart became important?

[ The look he gives him is curious, the little pieces of the puzzle coming together, beginning to understand what Charles is doing with this in his mind. He's intrigued, allowed in where he shouldn't. ]

How did you even know to do that?

[ Standing before him, stance a bit broader than his shoulders and the new book securely tucked under his arm. ] It's just something I had to do. You know how empathetic I get. In the beginning, if I didn't learn to distinguish what my feelings were and what belonged to someone else, I'd never know the difference. The same applies to memories in some aspects. I'm not saying I can recall the memories I've pulled from others with perfect clarity, nor can I keep them from decaying any more than I can with my own, but they do need to be set apart. I can think better that way.

[ Quirking a smile, inordinately pleased that Erik has taken a keen interest in the workings of Charles' mind. ] I can show you that room, too, if you'd like to see it.

I want to see everything. [ His grin is an innocent kind of mischevious. He does want to know everything, he wants to make as much of this as he can. But he ducks his head anyway. ] Or as much as you'll let me, It's - I like it.

[ Regarding him fondly, if curious as well, he ambles closer, strangely enjoying having height on Erik like this after these months. Softly. ] What if I let you see everything? Would we ever find our way back outside again?

Everything is so captivating, Charles. [ His entire life is locked away in here, and Erik is allowed within the sanctum, must be trusted enough because Charles hasn't forced him out directly. ] I can't quite help myself.

People would start to miss us, dear. [ Charles can't help himself either, chuckling warm and low not unlike his father's own laughter, his knee sliding to the edge of the cushion. Crooking his finger beneath the point his chin comes to, angling to look at the elegant lines of Erik's face. ] Did I tell you? You have one as well.

[ It's strange to have to look up, a smile curling across his face. ] I do?

Mhm. [ Then, quickly. ] And no, it's not shelves and shelves of naughty things.

[ He laughs, amused for a moment before his voice turns dry. ] Such a shame.

[ Clearly delighted, he winks coyly. ] Shh, I've saved that for the back room.

[ Erik's poker face crumbles even at that, breathes slowly and tips his gaze to Charles. ] Well, let's hope we sleep in, mm? More time to explore.

[ Laughing brightly, his thumb does run gently over him bottom lip, bending out the shape before it returns again. ] You are naughty. Lucky me, hm?

[ Tipping his weight on his knee, he rather gracelessly shifts back onto the couch, keeping the book balanced where he fails to do so with the rest of himself, body mellow and loose. ] You're making me not want to show you this, darling. It's not what I'd call pleasant.

[ Leaning into him immediately, the quirk of his expression turning down into the slightest of frowns, concerned for Charles, but ultimately willing. It must be important, and Erik will listen to what he has to say, take this memory on board for him. ]

If you need to show it to me while I'm here, Charles, then please do.

I don't - hmm. It's more for you, actually. [ Turning to him with a fair amount of levity injected into his demeanor, playfulness giving way to serenity. ] I know you don't like talking about the camps. I've been circumspect enough in our time knowing each other to never look into the specifics; even with no psychic training, it was as though you'd built walls around all of it, or scar tissue healed over, something similar. And I thought, as long as you're here...

[ Charles lowers his eyes to the cover, unsure of how best to gauge Erik's reaction. ] Maybe, it'd be okay to show you mine. My experiences trying to handle my abilities in the beginning. That, if I did, your childhood - [ he stops, frustrated with the reluctant way the words come. ] You could feel less alone, seeing that yours isn't the only ability that pain unlocked.

[ A long time ago and Erik would have shied away immediately, would have said no, simply because any stray thought could have killed him, brought damage with it. He wouldn't have wanted to see what it did to Charles, because if he is right, if there are similarities, it would have cracked something.

Now Erik is more agreeable to change, to dealing. He may not like it, but Charles is offering this and he can see why, can understand the reasons, and he wants to heal Charles as much as himself. So after a moment of silence, Erik lets the breath he was holding go. ] All right.

[ Worriedly peering at him, searching for signs that he might change his mind and finding none, Charles sighs mostly at himself, fingers picking the book open.

The first is pain. Thankfully, Charles is strong enough now not to let it convey to Erik, but the echo of it is there, sheer bloody things sharpened to deadly points, howls of the soon to be dead jabbing into his head with laser precision, and why wouldn't it, because he's right there, Father's light slowly snuffing out on the bed adjacent to Charles' uncomfortable chair. He could hardly forget the way he spilled onto the floor, not even able to smell the antiseptic for the screams, hands fisted in his hair and he can't see Father's body from down here, not when there are nurses surrounding the writhing boy with their voices and bodies.

Long before his throat gets a chance to go raw, there's a slight prick and he's under, weighed down to the bottom of the sea for eons or minutes, he could never tell. Every time he woke up in that horrid place presumably to answer their confusing questions, but he hears them all again, their pity, poor little boy he's lost his dad and can't handle the mourning, poor little boy he'll never be the same.

He hates hospitals. Hospitals killed his father and took away his legs. Charles knows there's more in the memory to come, but he can't face it, turning away to pillow his cheek on Erik's shoulder, eyes squeezed shut at what's coming. ]

[ He knows the story, but to witness it is a different thing entirely, to watch Charles' power consume him and the agony it brings. He's lost a parent, and his mutation is a scary, agonizing thing, and Erik knows what that feels like, how it never leaves, sits like a torch in somebody's chest.

When Charles turns away from it, Erik wants to close the book to protect him. But he doesn't, because it's important for him to see it, or why would they try. All he does is tighten his grip, fingers curling in the fabric of his sleeve to keep him anchored. ]

[ Charles mumbles something soft, fingers finding Erik's side and winding into the fabric there.

All he does is cause accidents. Hazy with the effects of sedation wearing him down, he doesn't know that he's doing it, exerting his influence across the hospital in his despair. Later, the stories come to him: orderlies found crouched in stairwells with their memories missing, nurses with their identities confused and going back to their families at the end of the day in the wrong body. All the while Charles sits in his bed, feeling like his head is swollen, a festering wound, slowly coming to the horrifying realization that he's listening to the hospital's sick and dying, spending the waking hours that he can handle turned into his tear soaked pillow, thoughts thick on painkillers and the gaping hole in his life where his father should be.

Learning to control it comes slowly, fraught with pain and bloody noses, so much blood that the doctors were baffled every visit that followed Mum casting off her mourning clothing and forced to pull him from school, collapsed from so many minds trying to speak to him, shouting.

She didn't deserve his inexperience, his hacking away at her mind. She didn't deserve the shock of losing Father, either, but Charles should have known better than to think that when he got better at blocking people out, that didn't mean he could use his ability for good deeds. His attempt at making the loss better ended up destroying her in the end, and what Charles never did for Erik was finish the story. He didn't just fail at reconstructing her memory around her husband: he didn't wire everything back correctly.

Another change of scene, this time Charles is older with little Raven, dear sweet Raven standing behind a young telepath on his way to puberty and already losing his other parent, this time to the mad house. It was their stepfather's decision, Mum having elected to remarry while some of her original personality still existed, and he was inoffensive enough but he was never Charles' father. And now Mum's mind had disintegrated that last bit and left her son a cold household and an inheritance for when he turned eighteen to go along with his guilty heart.

The memories fading out, there's a grave silence until Charles speaks, voice hoarse with unshed tears. ] I... I'd never change someone's mind until the most dire circumstances. Moira. I understand that now that I have the power and finesse to. I could never change the wills of the people I disagree with over mutants and humans, over war, anything, I just keep remembering.

[ He hadn't realised. All this time spent getting Charles to do what he wants with his power, to use it and harness it, and all this while there's been scars running beneath it all.

He shifts, presses his lips to his temple. ] You couldn't have known how it would end.

[ Waiting a beat before answering. ] I know that now. Sometimes I'm almost glad there's no way for me to train like the rest of you, though. And a the same time, relieved that this kind of power didn't fall into the lap of someone who would use it to make himself a god amongst ants.

[ Pulling himself together, he abruptly stands and stalks back to the ladder, happy for the weight to be off his chest for now. ] It's a heavy price but I prefer it this way in the grand scheme.

[ He watches him quietly, letting this new information process through his own thoughts. He's been unkind to Charles, forcing him to do things he shouldn't have to. ]

You're responsible, you can guarantee others wouldn't be.

Without serious misgivings, something holding one back, yes. I made sure I never made the same mistake. The memories I've had to reconstruct since haven't got a brick out of place, and no one but another powerful telepath could find out the places I've cut and stitched.

[ Resting on the rungs for a moment, Charles frowns at the shelves, disliking how carefully disaffected he's come to sound about his own power when Erik was just marveling at it. It may be a projection of Erik's consciousness, but he can read the emotion all the same, the restrained quiet emanating from him from the second the book closed.

Stepping down without a new selection, concern carves out hard lines in his face, approaching his friend again. ] Are you all right?

Yes, of course. [ He angles his face towards Charles again, expression clear, he's concerned, of course he is, but he doesn't regret seeing into that part of Charles' past. ] I'm sorry, for when I've pushed you in the past, if I'd have known how it had affected you, I would never have.

I've already forgiven you, Erik. [ There's no way he could have known, either. Hindsight is a menace to their lives, trying to be together, but he can no more hold Erik accountable than he could believe Erik meant malice when he pushed Charles. ] And before you think I'm feeling too sorry for myself, I would not give up my abilities for anything. It wouldn't bring my parents back. I'd have never met you.

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