what stays and what fades away

by betweenthebliss

Summary:

It's 1967, and Charles's life is a shambles. Everywhere he turns, he's reminded of his losses; the vicious cycle of sleepless nights and oversensitive telepathy has him turning to alcohol just to make it through the day. His only hope lies in helping Hank succeed where he failed four years earlier, in making a serum to suppress abilities. If he can turn off his brain enough to get a full night's sleep, his life won't seem so bleak... will it?

Notes:

• For heyjupiter.

Heyjupiter, your prompts were all awesome, but sad Charles is my kryptonite, so this was the one I wrote. I turned it into rather more of an angstbomb than you perhaps were looking for; I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to C for talking me through this, and for beta reading. The title is from Florence and the Machine.

It's morning, and the sun is warm on Charles's face, light drifting down from the high skylights above as he walks the galleries of the Met, hands in his pockets. He pauses before a painting, something classical depicting a hunting party bringing down a fox. He sits down on the viewing bench and just soaks in the whole cultural experience for a moment.

"Boring," murmurs Erik beside him. Charles turns, half an affronted smile on his face, too charmed by the hum of affection from Erik's mind to be really annoyed, or question whether he’d been there all the time. Of course he had, how could he have forgotten?

"It's traditional, which is not the same thing. The brushwork is really lovely," he says. Erik leans in toward him, close, their elbows barely an inch apart; the coins in Charles's pocket twitch against his fingers like a greeting. There's no one else in the gallery-- and isn't that strange, a part of his mind observes-- and no one to see when he frees his hand and brushes it against Erik's, thrilling at the touch, the daring openness of it.

"I'm glad you came with me," he says. "We never have time for this-- to do something just to enjoy it."

He doesn't say I've missed you, or ask why Erik left. That part is all just a bad dream, from which he’s so relieved to have awoken. That Charles was a broken thing, tortured by the loss of what he held dearest.

"You have no one to blame for that but yourself," says Erik, as if he's become the mind-reader now. Somehow the distance between them has grown; Charles turns and Erik is standing some feet away; he reaches out and Erik disappears altogether. His voice remains, however, cold and clipped inside Charles’s mind. All of this was your choice-- and you want me to feel sorry for you?

He wants to protest, wants to draw Erik close and prove how much he wants him back, but as he starts to run after him, there’s a thud of impact and the sound of gunfire echoes through the cavernous space. Charles startles awake with a shout.

The sheets are damp with sweat and half his pillows are on the floor; he doesn't doubt if he could move his legs, the bedclothes would be tangled around them.

He looks at the clock. Ten past five in the morning-- he managed to sleep almost three full hours that time. The thought of getting out of bed is detestable; he wants nothing more than to throw the blankets back over his head and lie in the dim half-light and try to continue his bittersweet dreaming. But eventually Hank will come to roust him, and the shame of being in this state would only be compounded by someone else seeing it-- even Hank, who doesn't judge, who worries and only wants to help.

Mustn't appear to wallow. Charles knows nothing can help him-- nothing except maybe their experiment, his last chance to do something useful and worthwhile before the will to go on is simply sapped from him.

If he could get a full night's sleep, he could manage, at least better than he has been. But that, too, has been denied him, for so long now that he thinks of it wistfully as a concept, but with no tangible memory of the reality of it.

It's not so strange, then, that when he does sleep, he dreams of Erik.

Charles forces the thought clean out of his head, turning all his focus on the daunting prospect of getting himself to the shower.

---

He wheels into the kitchen and finds Hank pouring another cup of coffee-- his second; Charles gleans the knowledge off the top of Hank's mind as easily as if Hank had told him. His shields are frayed, his nerves along with them, the attrition of his natural defenses worsening with each restless night that passes.

Solitude is killing him-- he's not used to this, the absence of the hubbub that had comfortably filled the house when it was still a school, and in the silence his mind can't seem to stop reaching for something to fill it. The closest minds are nearly a mile away-- he's exhausting himself without even trying. Hank had once brought up moving to the city, but the thought of trying to navigate city life from a wheelchair, of leaving the house behind, of giving it up-- it brings him closer to despair than anything else.

He buttons down those thoughts tightly, packages them away where they won't provoke him to panic. He goes to the cupboard for bread, now kept on the lower shelf, robbing the breadbox of its purpose, puts two slices in the toaster, goes to the refrigerator for jam as Hank stirs sugar into his coffee.

Hank's mind is orderly, unobtrusive, but this morning even the quiet droning of his too familiar thoughts is like sandpaper. It will only get worse with time. Charles thinks sometimes of sending Hank away-- but where could he go, looking as he does? It goes against everything he's ever dreamed of, the haven for mutants he had tried to build-- but already Charles can barely stand to be around him.

It isn't personal. There were only ever two people whose minds fit comfortably against his like they were made for each other. It isn't Hank's fault he isn't one of them, that he’s a right hand reaching into a left glove.

The serum is everything. Charles hasn't always felt that way, but as the months have passed and the emptiness of this life has closed in around him like a shroud, he's come to rely on the promise of it to the exclusion of everything else. If it works, Hank will be able to pass for normal, which is all he's ever wanted. And with the ability to shut off his telepathy, Charles will be able to sleep, to function-- enough, at least, that Hank won't feel guilty for leaving.

"Good morning, Professor." Charles has given up hope that the "Professor" nonsense might stop. Apparently a dearth of company isn't sufficient compulsion to familiarity. Hank still thinks of himself, on some level, as Charles's pupil. He knows he should be flattered, but Hank's long since become a colleague in his mind-- almost, dare he say it, a friend. But he knows, too, that Hank needs his illusions, especially the one that keeps him from acknowledging how low Charles has sunk, how little control he has over himself, his mind, his life.

"Hank," he nods absently. After a few moments of waiting, when it's clear that there isn't going to be any more, Hank coughs and excuses himself to head back to the lab. Charles is grateful when he's gone, and annoyed with himself for being grateful. Some friend.

Charles pours himself a cup of coffee while his bread toasts. His head aches abominably, the veins in his temples actually throbbing. He doesn't allow himself to consider the idea; once it's entered his head, he moves swiftly to take the bottle of whisky out of the lower cabinet, pouring a splash into his coffee, replacing it.

He's not proud of it, but if it enables him to work, to keep making progress on the discovery that will set them both free, what does it matter? It's not as if Hank will notice the difference.

He doesn't let himself count, either, how many mornings in the past week he's needed this sort of relief to start the day. How many in the past month. It doesn't matter, he tells himself. He has to work-- has to keep the tumult in his head at bay-- however he can manage it.

He eats his toast looking out at the empty terrace. He wheels himself down the hall toward the lift, the sound of his breathing the loudest thing in the house. Eight thirty in the morning-- if school was in session, the first class of the day would just have been starting. In that room, Hank would have been starting a biology lesson; outside, Alex would have been taking the students with physical mutations through drills with their powers.

Loneliness washes over him, battering him. He gulps his coffee, trying to swallow his frustration and sorrow along with it. He can't give in to this-- can't let it consume him. If you're going through hell, keep going. His mouth twists in embarrassed memory for his old self, always ready with a quotation or inspirational anecdote to lift his students' spirits.

How little he'd understood of despair. How little he'd understood of so many things until it was far too late to do anyone any good.

He's grateful when the lift doors slide noiselessly shut, blocking the empty hallway from his view. The sterile walls and cool lights of the sub-basements are a comfortably barren alternative; at least the labs were never meant to be anything more. He wheels to his customary spot at the table, finds a spot for his doctored coffee among the papers, and looks up to meet Hank's eyes, hoping his stiff upper lip has at least one of them fooled.

"Let's get started."

---

It's the fifteenth time, or maybe the fiftieth. Each time something's tweaked, something's changed, another slide, another sample, all with the same result.

Another failure.

Charles pushes back from his microscope, pinching the bridge of his nose hard between his thumb and forefinger, suppressing a scream of frustration so it comes out as a sigh instead. He looks up to find Hank is ignoring his own test sample, looking at Charles in apprehension and terrible hope.

Charles pastes a faint smile on, the closest thing he can manage to the supportive reaction he knows Hank wants-- expects-- needs. "Afraid not."

Hank shows all his emotions on his face-- even blue, even furred as he is, Charles doesn't need telepathy to read the cocktail of disappointment and determination stirring inside him. Charles wheels back so Hank can take his place at the microscope, where he spends a minute looking before pushing away, sliding his glasses back onto his face.

"My calculations must have been off-- targeting the wrong genetic marker with the protein blocker." Hank's mind is a whirling blur of thoughts, possibilities, images of molecules and cells and his own face before the transition, of Raven's blue skin giving way to pink and blonde. "Let me recalibrate," he's saying as Charles pulls himself free of the mire, "it'll just take a few--"

"I need a break," Charles says, strained, interrupting him. His heart is in his throat, he's breathless as if he's just run a race; he takes a deep breath, schools his voice to calm. "You keep working on yours-- I'm-- I'll just go upstairs. I need some lunch."

Shame is hot in his throat as he goes to the lift and lets it take him back to the first floor. He can lie to Hank, but not to himself; he doesn't want lunch. He wants a drink.

His head is still pounding; focusing on the experiment had helped push back his awareness of it, but now it's rushed back in. Last night he'd needed a significant quantity of scotch just to get to the point of dropping off to sleep, and his restlessness hadn't helped him metabolize the alcohol much. But numb and desensitized and hungover is infinitely preferable to the alternative, his mind like an exposed nerve, the thoughts and emotions of others rubbing him raw.

He wheels into the library and goes to the desk, pretending to be interested in the day's mail when his attention is entirely on the brass cart and its collection of bottles resting just a few feet away. Don't do this, he encourages himself. You don't need a drink-- just a distraction.

The morning Times is on top of the stack of envelopes, the headline something about a fresh wave of troops being shipped over to Vietnam. Charles turns it over before he can look too closely. Reading about the war isn't likely to keep him from a drink; if anything, it's a sure path to the opposite. It's bad enough seeing the death tolls rise and rise without thinking of his students, his friends, being counted among their number. Bad enough seeing his own life go to hell without knowing the rest of the world is following suit.

The bottom half of the paper is mostly text, but one photo stands out-- a mug shot. It shouldn't shock Charles to see it-- at the beginning, it was everywhere, until he thought he'd been desensitized to it. But it's been weeks, now, since they moved Erik to that glass prison below the Pentagon, and Charles had thought, foolishly, that that would be the last he'd hear of it.

It's taken him this long, nearly three years since the assassination and Erik's imprisonment, to come to terms with the fact that it's real. In the beginning he didn't believe it-- thought there must be a frame job, that Erik's fears about the government doing whatever it took to discredit mutants had manifested. That there was no way Erik could be so blind, so stupid.

As evidence mounted and Erik refused to defend himself, he'd been forced to concede the point: that Erik was, by his own choice, beyond redemption.

Charles draws a breath, hears the shudder in it, and realizes abruptly that his eyes are prickling with unshed tears. His own fault, allowing himself to get maudlin when he most needed to be strong. Not strong enough, again.

His chest is tight as he turns his back abruptly on the desk and wheels to the cart, turning over a clean glass and pouring a generous slosh of scotch into it.

The first swallow goes down hot and Charles closes his eyes, pressing the glass against his cheek. He's unsteady; he's surprised when he looks at his hand that it's not trembling. He finishes the drink in his hand and pours another. Why not? He's been useless this morning; maybe if he catches a nap, he'll be of actual help to Hank this afternoon. He knows a rationalization when he hears one-- maybe he's learning how to lie to himself after all.

He transitions himself to the couch; by now the motion is practiced, almost fluid, even feeling as shaky as he does. He drags a blanket over his lap and lays back, reaching blindly for the glass beside him. Exhaustion weighs on him like a millstone around his neck; closing his eyes, he lets out a breath for what feels like the first time all day.

A few more sips and the glass is empty. He cradles it against his side, his eyelids getting heavy. In the space of one breath to the next, he's asleep.

---

He opens his eyes and Raven is sitting next to him, wearing her favorite face and her favorite dress. The sun is warm overhead, the air full of the smells and sounds of the seaside. A chorus of delighted screams goes up from nearby; he doesn't need to look to know they're at Coney Island.

He knows, this time, that he's dreaming. It doesn't stop the startled leap his heart makes at the sight of her.

"I've missed you," he says, laying a hand over hers. It turns blue under his touch and he looks back up to find her looking at him with her real face, serious and sad.

"How can you miss me?" she asks. "You don't even know me. " Her mouth twists like she's reluctant to go on, but she does. "You never really did. You didn’t even try to."

The lump in Charles's throat makes his voice come out hoarse. "I know." He does, now, he knows how he wronged her, how he drove her away.

"No you don’t," she says with a shake of her head. He can't tell if she's answering his words or his thoughts-- if she, like the Erik in his dreams, has begun to read his mind. "I had to leave," she goes on. "I had to go where I could be myself." She starts to flicker back and forth, blonde to blue, red polka-dotted dress to something white and long and clinging.

"You can be yourself with me," he protests. "You're my sister and I love you--"

"Which me?" She's flickering fast now, almost too fast for his eye to track. "The Raven you loved was just a mask; you could only love me when I was hiding. And I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't be what you wanted."

"I wanted you to be safe," he begs. Tears have begun to track down his face, hot even against his flushed skin. "I didn't want to lose you." How did he go so abominably wrong? How had he missed what she’d been trying to tell him, that Erik had seen so easily? How could she believe he wouldn't have accepted, if he'd known she felt this way?

"But you did lose me, Charles," she says. She gets to her feet, settled now, blue skin and white dress, and now he sees there's a gun strapped to her thigh. It's almost enough to distract him from her hand on his face, tipping his chin up so their eyes meet. "‘Raven’ is gone, and she’s never coming back."

Charles's eyes snap open, the only part of him that moves as he ejects himself from the dream. Struggling upright, struggling for breath, his lungs are clogged and his face hot. He presses his fingertips to his sinuses; they come away wet.

The glass he'd used earlier is still pressed between his hip and the back of the couch. He cradles it in his palms, rolling it back and forth while he fights to keep his mind blank and his breathing even.

No one can match a telepath for aggressively not thinking. He preserves the echo chamber in his head as he swings himself back into the chair. The glass rests in the vee of his thighs as a few quick pushes take him back to the bar. His hand is shaking almost too hard to take the stopper out of the bottle; the neck of it chimes against the rim of the glass as he pours.

He doesn't bother replacing the stopper as he lifts the glass to his lips, salt spilling hot and bitter from beneath his closed and trembling eyelids as he knocks it back. The next breath he takes is steadier; it's all the justification he needs to lift the bottle, and pour again.

---

Charles goes down to the lab and finds Hank sitting in front of the centrifuge, watching it spin.

"I think it's time to talk about what happens wh-- if this doesn't work," he says, barely catching himself. He can't let Hank think he's given up; that will only fire his determination to succeed.

"If this doesn't work, we'll try it again until it does," says Hank absently. "It's not like we've got restraints or limitations.” Or anything else occupying our time. He doesn't sound resentful, and leaves the bitterest sentiments unsaid, but Charles winces.

"Hank, why is this so important to you?" He'd meant to be gentler about asking, but frustration and the memory of Raven in his dream is still keen, sharpening his edges.

"You have to ask?" Hank frowns, gesturing down at himself.

"I don't believe that's all it is," Charles says. He knows it isn't; he's dipped into Hank's mind often enough, accidentally and otherwise, and he knows that's not all that's driving Hank onward.

"You can't go back," he says, calm for all that it tears at him to say it. "You can't undo the past." Hank's emotions swell, battering Charles's shields-- his compulsive need to understand everything, his fascination with Raven, the need to be close to her however he can, to understand her, and the half-articulated belief that by unlocking the secrets of her DNA he might finally understand how he drove her away. Good luck with that, Charles thinks, bitter with grief, barely managing to keep the thought from projecting.

"I know that," Hank growls back. "You think I don't?" That single-minded focus screams through his mind like a gale, Hank's obsession with fixing the past by changing the future, the feeling that if he succeeds at what he promised her years ago it will justify his pursuit of the normalcy he's always craved. The irony of her ultimately embracing her mutation is almost the cruelest part.

It's too much-- Charles squeezes his eyes shut, desperately shoring up his mental walls, his words coming out biting and sharp. "I think you've allowed yourself to become so consumed by the mistakes you made four years ago that you can't see anything beyond what you imagine might correct them. That’s no way to live."

After a moment of incredulous silence -- Hank laughs, shocking Charles's eyes open again, a short intense laugh that bursts straight from his gut. "My God, Charles. Do you even hear yourself?" He shakes his blue-maned head. "It hasn't even occurred to you that the same could be said of you."

Hank gets up and goes to the table, taking a rack of slides and starting to lay them out. He doesn't look at Charles as he says, "Nothing could save Erik, because he didn't want to be saved. If you think I haven't always known why Raven went with him-- they've both made their choices," he says, shrugging. "Who were we to tell them how to live?"

The ones who loved them, Charles thinks, but the argument doesn't hold water. Nor does Hank’s, in light of the maelstrom of his feelings for Raven, no matter what he says. But Charles is too exhausted to argue anymore, and lets him have his delusions. At least he called me Charles that time.

Once he'd have said that love is a gift, important whether it's returned or not. Now, he knows better than to pretend he believes anything so sentimental could be true. Loving Erik and Raven didn't keep them from leaving him. It didn't make them love him back. And in the end all it brought him was pain.

He leaves Hank to his work. There's no point pretending he could concentrate now. He might as well go back to brooding into the bottom of a bottle-- that, at least, he knows he can manage.

---

Hank doesn't emerge for dinner, and Charles doesn't have it in him to bring him a plate as he often does. He's drunk enough by then, anyway, that he worries he wouldn't make it down to the lab without spilling the tray-- and that, like the thought of Hank having to rouse him from bed like an unruly child, is too shameful to consider.

He heats his dinner in the oven and eats it sitting in the kitchen, leaving his dishes for the help, or for Hank. He doesn't much care who cleans up after him at this point, since he's proven incapable of doing it himself.

He takes another drink up to his room, leaving the bottle downstairs and counting it a victory. His mind is thick and clumsy, and he fears what may await him in his dreams-- but the cocktail of exhaustion and alcohol has done its trick, and as soon as he's conquered his pajamas and gotten himself into bed, he's unconscious.

He opens his eyes to bland wallpaper and rough motel linens, a limp pillow under his head and a warm weight around his shoulders; an arm, the smudge of a tattoo barely visible in the shadowy room. He shifts; Erik is already awake and looking at him, amusement softening the line of his mouth.

"What time is it?" he asks. He can't see the clock, but he knows Erik can feel its hands.

"We've got time yet," Erik replies. His hand runs up the bare length of Charles's spine; he shivers, half in pleasure, half in dread. This isn't right. It's not a memory-- this never happened, not while they were on the road, though he knows now they both wished it would-- and he knows, with a clarity that jars the welcoming softness of the scene, that he's not awake.

"I don't want you to leave," he says, turning in Erik's hold, cupping his face in both hands. "I love you, and I want you to stay with me." Will it do any good? It can't-- this isn't Erik he's talking to, it's a facet of his own mind. Maybe he just needs to say it out loud, even to himself. But he can't shake it, now the impulse has come on him-- if he can convince Erik here, now, that he's sincere, maybe it means there's hope.

Erik sighs. "Charles. Always the optimist. A pity you’re just deluding yourself." His hand is on Charles's arm, his neck, his thumb tracing Charles's throat, making him shudder again, arousal pooling low in his belly.

"You have no understanding of the world as it really is-- only how you wish it would be," Erik says. He leans in, his mouth hot and possessive, and Charles melts into him in spite of himself.

He wants-- God, he wants. Mad, foolish as he was to think it would work, more than almost anything he had dared to want before, he had wanted this. It hurts all the worse for having had it, those brief weeks they'd lived at the house together, just long enough to give him hope, just in time for it to be dashed to pieces on the sands of Cuba. He kisses Erik with all the longing and love and loss he's kept pent up these four years, hanging onto him like a drowning man to a mast, willing it to be enough.

But Erik breaks away too soon, his fingers digging into Charles's bicep, holding him close enough to whisper in his ear. "Your world didn’t fit me, Charles. I was never going to stay."

His eyes open, and Hank's face swims before him, pale and smooth and smiling. "What?" he says; his tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth, so all that comes out is an incoherent querying sound. He asks directly into Hank's mind instead. What's happened? He nearly adds, Am I still dreaming? But he's never dreamt of Hank before-- why would he start now?

Hank's grin, if possible, grows. "Professor," he says, his mind radiating with pride and excitement and exultation, and it's that more than anything that makes Charles realize he's awake. "It works."

---

He doesn't expect the serum to feel like anything going in-- even morphine takes half an hour or more to take effect-- but it's almost instantaneous, warmth spreading through him from his elbow to his shoulder and down through his chest, tingling through his fingers and up into his head.

It's another minute or more before he realizes Hank is looking at him anxiously, and he has no idea what Hank is thinking.

Charles lets that sink in. It's the first time since his early childhood that he's been in the same room with someone and not known what was going through their head. He stares at Hank, uncomprehending, and Hank finally can't contain himself any longer. "Did it work?"

There's no accompanying mental clamor, no hint of the eager excitement painted across Hank's expression. The words are a total surprise. Charles's face breaks in a grin, almost as fierce as the one Hank was wearing when he barged into Charles's room at dawn. "Hank, I've said it before, but you're a bloody genius," he says, and as he clasps Hank's hand in a congratulatory shake, they burst out laughing together.

"I know you'll want to catalogue the effects, here--" he reaches for a notebook, spilling his coffee in his haste, and it sloshes over the side of the lab table and onto Charles's thigh, cold and wet.

It's so jarring he doesn't know how to react at first. It's been so long since he had anything beyond vague sensation in his legs; he stares down at his lap, uncomprehending, as the uncomfortable chill seeps through his trousers and into his skin.

"Charles?" He looks up into Hank's worried face.

"I felt that," he says. It comes out surprisingly calm for the shock of possibilities now storming in his mind. He pinches his other thigh as hard as he can, breath hissing in through his nose at the pain. His stomach caves sharply, and this time his voice does tremble. "I can feel my legs."

"That's... that shouldn't be," says Hank cautiously.

"I know," says Charles. "It makes no sense. And yet." His muscles are stiff and thin with long disuse, but when he stretches his feet out in front of him, they obey him. He can barely tear his eyes away as he rolls his ankles, placing his feet gently on the ground. And then he's standing, for the first time in four years he's standing upright on his own legs.

Hank's hanging onto his elbow like he's ready if Charles should fall, but his other hand is braced on the table as if he's not so steady himself. "This is-- unprecedented," he blurts, "absolutely extraordinary-- but you've got to go slowly, Charles, your muscles-- atrophy, I know you haven't kept up your exercises, the strain--"

Charles waves him away, gentle but insistent. He's standing; now he wants to walk. "Walk with me." He takes a step, then another; Hank's beside him, but though Charles is weak and unsteady, he keeps his eyes on the far wall, and doesn't falter.

---

After he's walked upstairs (agonizing, exhilarating, he hurts everywhere and has never felt so good) and put away the biggest lunch he can remember eating in months, he's worn out and asleep on his feet. "I'm going to take a nap," he says, hoping he's not jinxing himself.

Charles lays down in bed and is asleep almost before he knows it. When he wakes, it's the following day. He can't remember the last time he felt like this, whole and satisfied and sane. If he dreamed, he has no memory of it.

Hank has left another dose of the serum beside the bed. One dose = 24 hours, give or take. Didn't want to wake you-- looked like you needed the sleep. Charles looks at the clock; a few hours to go. He puts on his trainers and digs out a ratty pair of grey sweats from the back of his closet; they're a few inches too long in the legs, but they're the only thing approximating workout gear he still owns.

It's cold outside, but he revels in it. Walking-- actually walking-- he still can barely believe it. He crosses the gardens to the hedge maze, reveling in the crunch of frosted grass under his feet. The greenery is sparser, but not bare, even now. Even now, there's still life here. Pragmatically, he reminds himself of the checks he signs to the groundskeepers to keep it tended; he can't help a tendril of sentimentality that wants to see symbolism in it anyway.

Walking through the maze, he remembers reading The Secret Garden to Raven in their childhood, how they'd followed robins around the grounds for months, waiting for one to show them the way to a secret place that could be theirs alone. Even as they got older-- especially with Kurt and Cain's debut into their household-- they'd loved it here. Raven would lie on the edge of the fountain, talking Charles's ear off while he sat on a bench nearby, reading.

We were so happy then, Charles thinks, surprised to realize his cheeks are damp with tears. Weren't we? I was. Raven's face from his dream swims before him, sad and accusing; Erik's whisper echoes in his ear. Maybe I was deluding myself about that too.

Maybe that's what his life has been, all these years-- a delusion, a fantasy. The evidence is stacked against him-- he's been so busy foisting his view of the world onto the people around him that he hasn't bothered to see things for what they are.

That stops now. He doesn't know who he's talking to; for once, no one can hear his thoughts but himself. He wonders if this is what prayer feels like-- pouring out your heart, begging for acknowledgment from a distant figure who only exists because you believe it does. The thought leaves him feeling sick, and empty, unmoored and unbalanced in a way he hasn’t even realised before. He’s alone in his head for the first time in a quarter of a century.

He's on his knees but barely knows it, barely feels the gravel digging into his palms as he cries, chest heaving, inelegant and uncontrolled. His grief has become a beast inside him, howling with rage, a storm of fury that's no longer leashed. He leans back against the bench, knees drawing up to his chest, resting his forehead on his folded arms and sobbing, for Erik, for Raven, but for Alex and Sean, too, for Darwin and Angel-- for all the ones he couldn't save, because he was too blind or too stubborn or too idealistic to do what needed to be done.

No more, Charles thinks, turning to rest his cheek against the back of his hand. I'm nothing special anymore. No more trying to save anyone-- no more failure. Once, giving up would have seemed unthinkable. Now, all he feels is relief-- no, release, like a vise easing from around his heart.

He's drained; tears have blurred his vision, but he knows he needs to get back inside before the serum wears off. Staggering to his feet, he wipes his face with freezing fingers, shoves his hands deep into the pockets of Erik's old sweatshirt, and turns his back on the fountain. He won't be coming out here again.

---

Once he's showered and changed and composed himself, Charles finds himself standing at the window in his library, looking out at the grounds. The world is silent. He should be grateful-- he should be marveling at this miracle that's been granted him. Instead, he's hollow.

Concepts drift formlessly through his head, too inarticulate to be coherent thoughts. Loneliness-- grief-- these things haven't lessened in the absence of his telepathy. It's funny, in a way. Hank wanted the serum so he could live a normal life-- and whether he wanted it or not, that's what it gave Charles as well. Regaining the use of his legs didn't bring Raven home or free Erik from prison. All it did was normalize his misery. Now he's no different than anyone else who's lost a lover or a sister-- just another person carting around their share of sorrow and shame.

A pressing need to have his desk in order seizes Charles; he turns from the window and starts to work. He knows, on some level, that he would dive willingly into any activity that presented itself, that this is as good a task as any that will keep him busy. Old mail, lists, anything addressed to the Xavier Institute, all go flying into the bin, til the mahogany surface is clear except for a stack of tea-stained mugs to go to the kitchen, and yesterday's paper.

The paper, lying where he left it. Erik stares from his mug shot, grim and inscrutable as ever, and Charles returns the stare dumbly for a moment before sweeping the newspaper up in one hand and taking it to the fireplace, where a crackling blaze is warming the room.

The paper goes up in a puff of sparks the moment it touches the fire, Erik's face consumed by the flames in an instant. If only it were as easy-- he thinks, aborting the maudlin thought before finishing it, but he acknowledged the feeling just by beginning to give voice to it.

If four years of silence, his own paralysis and a murder conviction haven't burned Erik from his heart, he's beginning to suspect nothing will.

Charles sits back down at his nearly immaculate desk, as restless as he had been before. His fingers drum on the polished surface as his eyes skate the room, searching for something else to occupy his time. But instead of a renewed sense of purpose, he's overwhelmed with the futility of the situation. The sad fact is that with their project finished, both he and Hank are left with absolutely nothing to do. Dwelling on the past isn’t simply the result of his regrets, it’s been Charles’s only defense against the realisation that his present is barren.

The thought of what it would take to claw himself out of the here and now into a future where he’s productive and happy is excruciating. Charles no longer sees the point in trying that hard.

He lets his head fall back against the upholstery, equally close to more frustrated tears or to a black rage. All their work, this breakthrough the likes of which science has never seen before, and what now?

Slowly, guiltily, his head falls to one side and his eyes come to rest on the bar cart, with its decanters full of numbness, oblivion, peace.

Peace. Definitely an option, Charles thinks, a bitter laugh echoing in his head as he reaches for the bottle.