Chapter Text
X
A smattering of stars splays out across the early evening sky, bright pinpoints of light that grow steadily brighter and more numerous as the light of the setting sun slowly diminishes, the entire galaxy slowly emerging overhead. The breeze is cool, picking up with the onset of night. It makes the solar sail flap in its tethers, and sends a chill through his bones.
Charles adjusts his grip on the sail’s long, thin bar, widening his stance on the narrow board of the surfer and pressing tentatively down on the single pedal with his left heel, revving the small, two cylinder engine attached at the back. With the sunlight quickly fading--it always seems to go faster near the end, he thinks with chagrin—so too is his power source, the solar cells that make up his sail also growing dark.
He has just enough power to make it back. If he takes a shortcut.
The way he’d come to his current vantage point, floating high above the rocky canyon depths below, had been long and winding, skirting through narrow passageways and weaving over and around rock piles and formations had taken him the better part of the afternoon, even with his usual reckless speed and wild abandon that he always surfs with. That had been when the sun was out, high overhead, and providing a continuous and unfailing power supply. The shortcut will take him above the twisting canyon path but also straight through an old construction site that’s still active, machinery slowly clanking away and providing enough obstacle on its own.
On any other day, Charles would love to surf through the construction, testing his skill against close calls and near misses with the huge steelworks. No obstacle is too daunting, not when he feels more at home in the sky than on land. But tonight, already low on power and visibility dropping, it’s a risk. The site is a strict no-fly zone, and Charles has had his fair share of run ins with the authorities over the area—but that just makes it more fun.
Now, though, he doesn’t have a choice, unless he wants to be stranded out in the wasteland for the night without any supplies. He’ll just have to hope the police have better things to be doing than patrolling the area.
He slams his heel down on the small pedal, sparking his engine once more and shooting forward across the sky, his sail catching on the breeze and adding to his speed. His hair whips back wildly in the wind, and the force of air on his face makes it hard to breathe for a moment, pressing back down against his lungs but Charles lets out a laugh of sheer delight at the sensation, throwing back his head in joy as he grips the bar with both hands and leans back until he’s flying nearly horizontal, adrenaline pumping.
The rocky tops of the canyons are smooth and flat, so he makes good time as he blitzes through the air above them. It’s already dark by the time he reaches the construction zone, the sun sunken fully beneath the far-off horizon, so he can only just barely make out the edges of steel girders and infrastructure, and the thick, heavy arms of the building machines.
Charles tightens his grip on his surfer and leans forward into the wind.
He built his first surfer by himself when he was eight. He’s since graduated from his clunky first creation, but Charles took to the sky as easy as breathing and some days his feet hardly touch the ground at all. The direction and motions of his board are part of him, something that he feels rather than steers, so skating past the first few looming obstructions in his path is nothing. He leans into each motion, guiding his surfer in a graceful, arcing path, grinning as his skirts perilous danger by inches. He nearly crashes into a huge, cement pipe held suspended in midair by a crane but pulls up at the last second, turning it into a spiraling somersault as he spins, letting loose a wild, triumphant cry.
After that he forgets about getting home entirely, absorbed by how many tricks he can do without getting himself killed. He flips himself completely upside down and stamps down on the pedal, weaving through towering stacks of girders at breakneck speeds, and the flips himself rightside up again just in time to grind the bottom of his board against a long conveyor belt, flipping his sail closed and sliding down it sideways before kicking off and taking to the air again, sail unfurling again with a loud snap.
He’s having entirely too much of a good time, feeling as light and free as he’s ever felt, which is of course when out of nowhere two sirens start to blare, blue and red flashing lights lighting up the dark behind him, and an emotionless, robotic voice calls out, “Halt!”
Charles lets his surfer glide to a stop, tipping his head forward to smack lightly against the solar sail, leaving a smudge on one of the cells. “Shit.”
X
X
The Marko Inn is a small, homely establishment situated on the edge of cliff overlooking a vast, empty chasm of open air, the ground far below usually covered by clouds that give the impression of an ocean. Also adding to the seaside atmosphere are the long, rickety docks that extend out into midair, where several airships of varying sizes are tied while several larger ships are moored further out, hovering serenely and unmoving in midair, even with the crisp breeze.
Montressor is a small industrial planet, with a lot of mine work and not much else. It’s a traveler’s pitstop, and even then they don’t see too many of them passing through, not with the extremely active and far less desolate Crescentia spaceport orbiting the planet like a moon. Trudging up the long pathway towards the inn between two hulking robocops, Charles can think of hundreds of reasons why hopping on the next shuttle up to the spaceport is a better idea than facing what is sure to follow the moment they step inside.
It’s a full house tonight, especially as the first floor of the inn serves as a small pub, the twin chimneys on the roof puffing out continuous streams of smoke. The police lead him right up to the front door and Charles can’t help but wince a little when they throw it open with a bang.
“Mr. Marko,” one of the robots says, and everyone in the room grows quiet.
Charles has a split second to take in the various guests seated at the tables, their expressions a varying mix of surprise and alarm, but it doesn’t take long for his gaze to cut through the previously warm, cozy atmosphere to land on his stepfather, who straightens from where he’d been leaning against the side of the bar talking to one of his regulars, striding over to them.
“Good evening,” he says, politely enough, but the look he sends Charles could probably boil water.
Charles smiles brightly, falsely cheerful. “Well, thanks so much for the lift, chaps,” he says, stepping further inside and brushing the cold, metal hand on his shoulder away, “I really appreciate the—”
“Not so fast.” The hand closes around his shoulder again and yanks him to a halt, and Charles resists the urge to heave a sigh. “Mr. Marko. We apprehended your son—”
“Stepson,” Charles mutters under his breath.
“—flying a solar vehicle in a restricted area, which is Moving Violation 9-0-4, section 15, paragraph—uh—”
“Six,” Charles says tonelessly.
The robot slowly swivels its tiny pin head to stare at him. “Thank you.”
Charles rolls his eyes. “Don’t mention it.”
“Charles,” Kurt says tightly. He’s only just barely holding back his anger, one fist clenched while his eyes flash dangerously, building up his rage that will eventually erupt like a volcano and cause just about the same amount of damage. Charles merely averts his gaze, looking down at the worn, frayed rug that serves as a doormat for guests to wipe their feet on.
“As you are aware, sir, this constitutes a violation of his probation,” the other robot continues, stiff and straight on Charles’ other side.
“Yes, I am aware,” Kurt says, narrowing his eyes as he stalks forward. “I don’t honestly know what to say, officers. I’ve tried my hand at everything to keep him in line, but I’m afraid I’m at my wit’s end with his misbehavior and—”
Someone clears their throat, and Charles lifts his head in time to see Hank McCoy rising from his table, untucking the napkin on his front carefully as he makes his way over. The glow of the crackling fire in the fireplace turns some of Hank’s blue fur purple, and add shadows to his sharp canines that Charles knows makes the locally-known astrophysicist look more intimidating than his personality actually is.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he says, addressing the officers rather than Kurt, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. My name is Dr. Henry McCoy, noted astrophysicist. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” When all he receives are blank, empty stares, he ruffles the fur on the back of his neck sheepishly. “No? Well, um, anyway, I’m a regular here at the pub for dinner, you see, so I know Charles very well. I’ve offered to take him on as my assistant hundreds of times, you see, but Mr. Marko won’t hear of it, which is rather silly, I think, as it would be a good learning experience and put Charles in a strict, regimented environment where—”
“You have no place butting in to this conversation, doctor,” Kurt snaps, eyes blazing, “you’re not his father—”
“Neither are you,” Charles points out loudly.
“Enough, Charles,” Kurt warns, flipping him a swift glare before turning back to Hank. “I will not allow him to go gallivanting off with the likes of you, as you’ll do nothing more than fill his head with stars and other useless, flighty ideals and allow him to run even more wild—”
“Useless?” Hank sputters, drawing himself up to his full height, which is rather impressively almost even with the robots’ towering frames. “Sir, our entire society is based upon our knowledge of the stars and the means by which we travel between them—”
“And I’ll not have talk of it at this inn,” Kurt snarls, lifting one meaty fist to point a finger in Hank’s face. “So I suggest you butt out of this matter and return to your table, or I’ll have you tossed out and banned.”
Hank huffs out an indignant breath but turns to go, shooting Charles a quick apologetic look. You tried, Charles mouths in return with a small shake of his head. He could’ve told Hank from the start that bringing up space travel is an extremely bad idea in Kurt’s presence.
“Due to repeated violations of statute 15C, we have impounded his vehicle,” one of the officers continues once Kurt has turned back around. “Any more slip ups will result in a one-way ticket to the correctional facility.”
“Thank you, officers,” Kurt says, wrapping one hand around Charles’ biceps tightly when the robot releases him. “It won’t happen again.” He glares at Charles as if to drive the words home.
“We see his type all the time, sir,” the other robot says, shaking its head, and Charles would laugh at being judged by an oversized tin bucket if Kurt didn’t already have such a tight grip on him. “Wrong choices. Dead-enders. Losers.”
Fuck off, Charles thinks fiercely as the two cops bid Kurt goodnight and roll back out the door, you don’t know a thing about me.
“Alright, folks, show’s over,” Kurt announces loudly to his staring patrons, and abruptly the inn goes back to being filled with soft chatter and the clink of silverware against plates as everyone returns to their meals. Kurt keeps his grip on Charles’ arm, dragging him past all the tables and through the swinging double doors of the kitchen, obscuring them safely from view. “Are you trying to get sent to jail, Charles, because the next time you’re caught breaking the law again, I’m not going to stick my neck out for you and stop them from hauling you off.”
“Do it then,” Charles snaps, yanking his arm out of his stepfather’s grip. “Anywhere is better than here, at this point.”
“You’d better not let your mother hear you saying that,” Kurt says, brows pulling together to make his expression thunderous.
At that, Charles has to laugh bitterly. “It’s not like she pays attention anyway.”
Sharon Marko is a shadow of who Lady Sharon Xavier used to be, spending most of her days buried in the bottom of a wine bottle. Charles knows logically in his head—and in his heart—that she mourns for Brian Xavier, her first husband and Charles’ real father, just as much as Charles does, but some days it’s hard not to wonder if she misses the Xavier wealth more, which had dried up altogether after Brian’s passing.
Between his distant mother and his overbearing stepfather, it’s no wonder that Charles takes so often to the skies. Anything to get away. Anything to breathe fresh air unclouded by loss.
“I don’t know why you won’t let me go work for Hank,” Charles says abruptly, his voice flat. Normally he wouldn’t bother provoking Kurt even more than he usually does, but tonight he’s feeling up for an argument, still simmering angrily about the injustice of the violation the cops had slapped him with again, and the confiscation of his solar surfer. “You know it’d get me out of your hair and it’d keep me too busy to get into trouble. Not that I actually try.”
“Absolutely not,” Kurt answers, with a finality that makes Charles grind his teeth. “I’ve already lost one son to the hairbrained notion of traveling the stars—”
“Hank doesn’t travel,” Charles interrupts in exasperation, trying not to let his voice rise to a shout. Angry as he is, they’ve given the people eating at the tables tonight enough of a show already. “He’s an astrophysicist, not a spacer! The closest he ever gets to stars is staring at them through a telescope!”
“One thing can only lead to another,” Kurt says darkly, shaking his head. “No. I won’t allow it. There’s plenty of work to do around here as it is, now that you don’t have a solar surfer to go flying off on and getting yourself into trouble with the authorities over and over again.”
“You keep me here under such tight reign,” Charles says stiffly, his anger bright and hot inside him like a radioactive star, pulsing with each word, “I feel like I’m being smothered. No wonder Cain hopped on a ship the first chance he got. Maybe I will too.”
Kurt’s face goes red with rage, and he takes a threatening step forward. “Like it or not, I am your father now,” he growls, “and what I say goes under this roof, and I don’t want to hear any more talk about stars or space or travel, do I make myself clear?”
Charles wants very badly to point out that Kurt is the one who brought up space travel in the first place, but he figures that he’s pushed his luck enough tonight already. “Transparently,” he says flatly, and then slips past him, heading for the back door of the kitchen that leads out to the docks.
“There’s a whole stack of dishes here that need to be washed,” Kurt calls after him, but Charles pushes his way through the door and out of the warm kitchen and into the cool night.
Montressor is boiling hot by day but freezing at night, a drastic, daily change that the locals have long since grown accustomed to. Charles barely notes the cold as he strides down the worn, sun-bleached planks of the dock, going all the way down to the very end and managing not to trip over any extra line from the ships tied up along the rickety length. Montressor is lonely at night, he thinks distantly as he sinks down to sit on the very edge of the end of the dock, hanging his legs over side to dangle above the dark void below. Its inhabitants are all scattered few and far between, tiny ants on the surface of a barren rock, and the only travelers they get are those too shabby and poor to afford spending the night in Crescentia.
He has to admit, however, that it makes up for it with the view—no light pollution from below means that none of the stars are blocked out, and now with the sun fully gone all of them are out in force, lighting up the sky as they twinkle gently overhead, some near and some far, a beautiful spectrum that leaves Charles nearly breathless with wonder every time. There’s so much out there, waiting to be discovered, but instead here he sits on a tiny planet on the outer edges of the galaxy, stuck with dish duty.
He can hear faint voices back at the inn as people bid each other goodnight, finished with their meals at the pub and beginning to head home. There are sure to be even more dishes now piled up by the sink in the kitchen but Charles can’t bring himself to move just yet, taking refuge in the relative quiet, letting his anger with Kurt and the police slowly cool and dissipate until he feels calm again.
The ships moored further out away from the cliffs have lit up lights of their own, giving off a different kind of shine as they bob slowly up and down on an invisible sea, enchanting in their own way. If Charles still had his solar surfer, he’d coast out to one of them tomorrow and ask if they had need for a new cabin boy. As it is, his solar surfer is gone and it will be months until he can scrounge up enough scrap parts when Kurt isn’t looking to build a new one. He’s officially grounded.
The thought makes his skin crawl, his chest going tight, feeling trapped and claustrophobic. He knows with every fiber of his being that he doesn’t belong on the ground. He doesn’t. He has to take a few deep breaths, kicking his legs restlessly into the empty air before the sensation subsides, leaving him weary as he tilts his head back up to look at the stars again, pretending for a moment that he’s out floating amongst them, light and weightless and bound by nothing.
He catches movement out of the corner of his eye, which makes him turn his head sharply, squinting through the dark. One of the lights in the sky overhead is growing steadily closer, wavering back and forth until he realizes that it’s not a star at all but a ship, and a badly damaged one at that. Charles scrambles to his feet in shock as the ship roars past low overhead with thick, black smoke trailing through the air behind it.
The acrid smell of burning metal fills his nose and he nearly shouts when the ship almost grazes the roof of the inn, missing it by what looks like inches from Charles’ viewpoint but in reality is probably several yards. The ship disappears from view after that, too low to the ground now for him to see past the inn, so he hears rather than watches it come to a crash landing but he’s already running back down the dock by the time the sound reaches his ears.
He skirts around the side of the building, picking his way carefully but quickly across the loose gravel, and then sprints out in front, eyes searching through the dark—there. The ship has crashed at the bottom of the small hill that the inn sits on top of, and without hesitation Charles goes barreling down the short slope, nearly rolling his ankle twice by the time he reaches the bottom.
The crashed ship has an odd design, with a single, bulbous capsule making up its main hull and body, and only a few haphazardly situated masts for sails, the booms flung in all directions. Most of the sails have already burned away, and the tall flames of the fire are licking the side of the hull when Charles stumbles up to the single hatch that serves as a door to the inside, knocking loudly on the thick glass.
“Hello?” he calls loudly, coughing and waving smoke away from his face. “Is anyone still alive in there? Hello?”
He jumps back with a small yelp when a large, clawed hand suddenly smacks against the glass from within the capsule, and backs away further as the hatch pops open with another billow of smoke, deep, rasping coughs echoing from inside. An alien tumbles out of the burning ship, salamander-like with a long, thick tail and a grizzled, squashed face, his nostrils flaring wide as he fumbles around on the ground for the small chest that had spilled out with him.
“Sir, are you alright?” Charles asks, stepping forward with concern, and as soon as the alien sees him his hand darts out from within the folds of his thick, heavy trenchcoat and grabs Charles by the front of his shirt, dragging him closer.
“He’s coming,” he says, his breath a smokey wash across Charles’ face. Now that he’s so close, Charles can see the feverish light in the old alien’s eyes, and the rotting smell of dire injury that has been left too long unattended. “I can hear him—those gears and gyros clicking and whirring like the devil himself!” He breaks off to cough, great shuddering hacks that wrack his entire body, and he releases his hold on Charles to clutch at his ribs.
“Sir, you need a doctor right away,” Charles says a little shakily, taking a step back to put himself out of range in case he tries to grab at him again, “you’re very badly hurt.”
“No, no,” the alien mumbles, crouching down protectively over the chest at his feet, “he’s after me chest. That fiendish cyborg and his band of cutthroats, chasing me across half the galaxy! But he can’t have it. He’ll have to pry it from old Billy Bones’ cold, dead fingers before I—” He coughs again, a deep wet rattle in his lungs as he half-collapses over the chest, wheezing for breath.
Charles swallows, and then steels himself before darting forward. “Here,” he says, grasping at Bones’ left arm and crouching to get it around his shoulders, “let’s get you inside so we can call someone for help. Come this way.”
He heaves Bones up to his feet, staggering a little under the alien’s weight, but together they manage to work out a slow, awkward gait up the slope towards the bright lights of the inn. Kurt’s going to love this, Charles thinks wryly, thinking of the burning ship wreckage that they’re leaving behind. Bones’ other arm hangs limply, claws closed tightly around one of the handles of his chest, dragging its dead weight along behind them.
It takes an age and a half to make it up the hill, and Charles spends most of it panting too hard to make much small talk while Bones rambles off and on about his dreaded cyborg pursuer, head lolling heavily on Charles’ shoulder. The finally make it to the front door, and by that point Charles doesn’t care about avoiding causing another scene and kicks it open so they can duck inside.
The warmth of the fire is almost uncomfortable now that he’s sweating, but fortunately it seems like the pub has mostly emptied out, except for Hank, who looks up from the thick book he has propped open against his empty plate, startled, and Sharon Xavier, who has apparently deemed tonight fit enough to descend from her room above, sitting at the empty bar in one of her old cocktail dresses, sipping slowly at a glass of amber liquid.
“Charles Francis Xavier,” she says without inflection, utterly unruffled as she sets her glass down with a sharp clink on the bartop, “what in the great skies above do you think you’re doing?”
“Mother,” Charles greets her awkwardly, and then nearly tips forward and faceplants on the floorboards when Bones slides down off his shoulder in a full collapse. “His ship just crashed down the hill and he’s hurt very badly.” He looks up at her from where he’s knelt beside Bones’ heaving body. “I couldn’t just leave him.”
Sharon regards him coolly, unblinking even as Kurt bursts out of his office off the side of the common room at the sound of commotion, still holding a stack of dinner receipts. “What’s going on out here?”
“Charles brought home a stray,” Sharon says absently, lifting her glass to take another sip. Her voice suddenly grows sharp, cracking like a whip. “Fetch the medkit, darling, I don’t want to see blood get on the flooring.”
Kurt only gapes like a fish for a moment before hurrying off. Charles gives his mother a small, faint smile, well-versed in Sharon Xavier’s particular brand of caring, before a clawed hand paws at him weakly, drawing his attention back to the alien dying on the floor.
“My chest, lad,” Bones whispers, pointing towards the discarded box that sits innocuously on the floor a few feet away. “Bring it here, bring it here.”
Charles grabs the handle and pulls it closer, scraping across the floorboards in a manner that no doubt has his mother wincing. “It’s here,” he says soothingly, “it’s right here, see?”
Bones props himself up on one elbow, pressing his claws against the buttons of the lock and tapping out a quick passcode. The lock clicks, and the lid springs open, well-oiled hinges soundless as the inside contents of the chest are revealed. Charles leans forward slightly despite himself, curious to see what all the fuss is about.
He’d been expecting something closer to gold or precious jewels, but instead is met with the disappointing sight of a small, clunky-looking sphere with strange, intricate runes carved at random across its bronze surface. Bones picks up the sphere with shaking hands, clutching it close to his chest.
“He’ll be coming soon,” he says, staring down at the metal ball in his hands, “but we can’t let him find this.”
“Who’s coming soon?” Charles asks, brow furrowed, and then jumps when Bones lunges forward suddenly, grabbing him by the front of his shirt again and pulling him in close.
“The cyborg,” he whispers in Charles’ ear, every hair on the back of Charles’ neck standing on end and every nerve in his body alight like a livewire, “beware the cyborg.” His voice fades on a soft hiss, his grip on Charles going slack as the last of his strength drains from his body and he drops down to the floor with one last, quiet sigh.
“Oh my god,” Hank says in distress, just as Kurt rushes back into the room carrying the now obsolete medkit.
Charles stares with wide eyes at the metal sphere that fits perfectly in the palm of his broad, workman’s hands, wondering what exactly it is he holds and if it really is worth a man’s life. Kurt is speaking, saying something about having a dead body in the inn but Charles isn’t listening, all the noise in the room dimmed to a dull roar as he stares at glittering runes and strange, jagged lines.
He looks up sharply when a new noise interrupts, the sound of a huge, low-flying ship coming from directly overhead of the inn, a bright spotlight shining in through the windows and momentarily blinding him.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Kurt demands as the rumble of the engine shakes the building, picture frames and table settings rattling loudly.
“Tell them we’ve closed for the night,” Sharon says with another sip of her drink, “and that we’ve no vacancy left.”
Charles pushes himself to his feet and walks to the closest window. He can hear the ship’s engines sputtering out and by the sound of it, whoever it is has landed right in front of the building. The window’s holosetting is currently set to a sunny field of flowers, but when he risks a peek through the hologram and out into the dark night, he can make out a large group of heavily armed aliens slouching their way towards the inn.
“We have to go,” he says quickly, backing away from the window and hurrying over to his mother to help her up to her feet. “I don’t know who they are, but they’re definitely not friendly.”
Kurt puffs out his chest. “I will not be intimidated by the likes of ruffians in my own establishment, and they have another thing coming if they think—”
A plasma blast shatters the window and Kurt’s speech dissolves into a scream, right as another blast blows a hole the size of a human head in the door. Sharon tucks herself firmly into Charles’ side and allows herself to be led across the room to where Kurt stands gaping.
“Charles!” Hank calls at the foot of the staircase that leads up to the inn rooms. “Come this way!”
“Come on!” Charles shouts at his stepfather, and then leads his mother after Hank, running up the stairs as fast as Sharon’s heels will allow. Kurt scrambles after them, all talk of making a stand completely forgotten.
Another shot of plasma hits the chandelier, knocking it off the ceiling and sending it crashing to the floor with a burst of flames. Charles has just made it to the top of the staircase when the door is kicked open, a tall, lean shadow falling across the floor and stretching out across Bones’ limp body as someone comes to a stop on the threshold. Outside the jeers and shouts of more intruders grow louder and louder, accompanied by the shattering of more glass.
“Where is it?” someone roars as they—pirates, Charles’ mind supplies—pour into the building, ripping open drawers and throwing the contents down to the floor heedless of the damage. Within seconds the entire first floor has been completely ransacked, Bones’ body kicked aside.
“Check upstairs,” orders a cooler, calmer voice, cutting above the noise in a way that only those with total and absolute authority can attain. “I want this place turned upside down.”
Charles takes that as his cue to turn and run down the short hallway, ducking out of sight before any of the pirates can see him. Hank, Kurt, and Sharon are already at the dead end that doesn’t lead into any of the rooms, and instead are gathered at the large, round porthole window that Hank pries open after a moment of desperate fumbling.
“They’re coming!” Charles says breathlessly, skidding to a halt. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Hank leans out the window, dangerously far. “Beast, there you are, boy!” he calls down to his two-legged slug-like creature that he uses to pull his carriage. “Stay right there, don’t move!” He climbs up onto the ledge and offers a hand down to Sharon, pulling her up beside him. “We’re going to have to jump,” he explains, as Charles hears footsteps thundering up the stairs, “but don’t worry, I’m an expert at physical sciences so just—”
“Go now!” Charles shouts, and Hank is startled enough to obey, both the astrophysicist and Sharon dropping down out of sight. Charles and Kurt climb up next and throw themselves down without hesitating, falling down into the cushy seat of Hank’s carriage below.
“Go, Beast, go!” Hank cries, snapping the reigns, and the carriage takes off, jolting and jostling them as they speed away from the burning inn, escaping before the pirates notice.
“That was quite a bit more excitement than I’d ever care to have again,” Sharon says calmly, cool as a cucumber as she settles herself more properly into the seat.
Kurt whirls around to face Charles as he sits up. “What have you brought down on us, boy?” he shouts, spittle flying. “Do you understand what you’ve done?! We’re ruined! I’m ruined!”
“You can stay with me for now until all this gets sorted,” Hank offers quietly, the motions of the carriage smoothing out as they emerge onto the main road. Beast maintains his steady trot, speeding them away from the wreckage of the inn, the glow of the fire growing dimmer and dimmer in the distance. “But now is hardly the time to lay blame.”
Charles slumps back in his seat, too tired to even protest what Kurt has said or thank Hank for his peacemaking intervention. He digs the sphere out of his coat pocket where he’d jammed it earlier, fingers closing around the cool metal as he examines it in the near-dark. It’s strange, but for a second he thinks he imagines it glowing, but when he blinks it’s nothing but dark metal that meets his gaze.
They’ve gone through a lot of trouble for this strange ball that looks like a child’s toy, he thinks as he slides further down in the seat, tossing it idly back and forth between his hands, and he wonders if it’ll really turn out to be worth it.
