Fear the Rest
Chapter 6: Love and War
The meeting room was cramped, loud, and filled with cigarette smoke. Erik leaned
back in his chair and was stabbed in the back by a stack of pamphlets for his
pains. He warped the metal folding chair to make it bearable to sit in, and then
as an afterthought did the same for Brendan.
Brendan raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh, that's dangerous," he said, very dryly. "I might want to stay here forever."
Angry voices blurred into background noise, with a few shrill voices rising high enough to stand out.
"You're the one who doesn't understand the experience of oppression!" snapped a young man with a very fashionable haircut, wearing a shirt with a little alligator on the chest.
"Oh, for God's sake," Erik said, but apparently not loudly enough for his voice to carry. Brendan was methodically shredding a styrofoam cup and making the pieces do a little dance on the table.
"Why the fuck did we print all these posters if we're not going to use them?" a black girl in a jeans jacket asked, pointing at a teetering stack of photocopies.
Pierre Devries turned out of the knot of people huddling in a corner and said, "There's an ordinance about postering. You have to get a permit. This came up at our last coalition meeting --"
"Fuck permits! Everybody does it."
"Individual groups may have different philosophies about direct action, but we don't want to use the coalition's name for activities that are technically illegal --"
"Whatever our name is today," Olivia muttered. She slid into the chair on Erik's other side, which he modified obligingly for her. She leaned back and stretched out. "I could use you in faculty meetings."
"I think I attend enough of those already."
"Can this meeting come to order?" Pierre asked, raising his voice to no apparent effect.
"You have to say it like you have the courage of your convictions, honey," Olivia said. She smacked her open hand down on the table. "This meeting will come to order now." The buzz of voices dropped appreciably in volume. "Thank you."
"We've added a couple of new groups to the coalition," Pierre said, reaching for a hand-written list.
"As we've said on many other occasions, my group objects to having names on a list," Jacob said from across the room. He was wearing all black, and he'd shaved his red hair close, which did nothing to hide his skeletal thinness.
"We've been over this ground before," Pierre said. "If we're going to have a coalition that speaks for its members, we have to have some record of who those members are."
"You don't speak for us," the young black girl said, scowling. "We can speak for ourselves."
"You don't say," Olivia muttered.
The first half hour of the meeting was the usual nonsense. Erik did look up, frowning, when the list of member groups was finally read. He'd expected at least one name that wasn't there, and he found himself searching the crowd when they broke for coffee. He finally spotted the man he was looking for slipping out into the hall.
"I think I could use some air," Erik said to no one in particular, as he went out after him.
The man stopped halfway down the hall and turned. "Erik. I thought that was you."
"Father Cassidy." It was odd, seeing someone who'd known him when he was teaching in Westchester. It felt a bit like slipping into outworn clothes. "I heard you were joining us."
"I came to listen," Cassidy said. "I'm afraid that's all I can do, the way things are."
"I thought you had more sense."
Cassidy sighed. "Always blunt. Would you like me to be blunt? I'm concerned about some of the people who are taking leadership roles in this coalition."
"Pierre is a compromiser," Erik said, pronouncing the word with distaste. "He tells people what they want to hear, which is the only reason there is a coalition."
"I'm not talking about Pierre. I'm talking about Jacob Weiss, and Brendan Shaw, and Anthony Campanelli."
"Too many mutant activists happen to be gay?"
"You know me better than that," Cassidy said, looking annoyed. "This isn't about people being gay. This is about the overlap between this group and radical groups that--"
"Brendan Shaw is not an anarchist."
"ACT UP desecrated St. Patrick's --"
"That was an isolated incident--"
"This is about isolated incidents! I'm talking about the behavior of a few people that gives movements a bad name and prevents moderate voices from being heard. My church has no official position on mutants. Yet. At worst, I'm hoping we'll stay silent. At best, I'm hoping we can eventually take the position that mutation is an act of God--"
"I have no interest in whether a church I don't belong to thinks a God I don't believe in is responsible for my mutation."
"You should," Cassidy said. "Because it affects you, like it or not." He gave Erik a searching look. "What happened in Florida last weekend, Erik?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I know that's not true."
"Don't you have ethics about prying into people's heads?" Erik said, feeling himself tense. Telepaths made him uneasy.
"Yes, actually, but I also read the newspaper. If you'll tell me your side of the story, it could help --"
"You're not my confessor."
"I wish I were," Cassidy said wearily. "I suspect you need one." He turned and started toward the stairs.
"They're going to keep talking," Erik said.
Cassidy shrugged without turning. "There's no point in people talking when no one's listening."
There were footsteps in the hall behind him. Erik turned to see Brendan watching Cassidy leave, frowning. "It was stupid," he said.
"I didn't know you were there."
"At St. Patrick's in '89?" Brendan shrugged. "I'd just tested positive, I was mad as hell, and you know I've never much liked the church. There was a protest, and someone threw a communion wafer on the floor, and you would have thought we'd --" He shrugged. "It was stupid anyway. And it didn't do any good."
"None of this is doing any good," Erik said hopelessly. "Not talk, and not pamphlets, and not political theater. This is the road to hell."
"Well you'd know, wouldn't you?" Brendan said. He slipped his arm through Erik's, forcing Erik to relax at least enough to let him. "The papers didn't say anything about you being involved in the riot, did they?"
"I believe the Brotherhood of Mutants was mentioned," Erik said.
"Oh, Christ," Brendan said. "Olivia will have kittens." Erik had stopped to stare out the window at the cars crawling down the street below. From a distance, they looked like insects, with nothing to distinguish them from one another.
"Erik?" Brendan drummed his fingers on Erik's shoulder. "Hello?"
"This was pointless," Erik said. "If I stood up in that room and told them what is happening, they would tell me I am not on their agenda." He took a long, shuddering breath. "I am too old for the children in provocative T-shirts and not wholesome enough for the pillars of the community."
"What's happening scares people, Erik. They're afraid you'll make them believe you're right."
"I want them to open their eyes."
"Lots of people don't want their eyes open," Brendan said. "They don't want to hear that it's going to get worse, because if they thought they were about to lose their whole world, they wouldn't have any reason to get out of bed in the morning."
"Why should I not? How would that help?"
"That's why you're not dead yet, you know. You're just too stubborn to lie down."
"And too old to be of any use here." He felt old, old and tired, as if his bones were too heavy.
"You're not old," Brendan said with a tired smile. "You're just distinguished. I'm sure half your students have crushes on their teacher."
"If you're in the mood to provide some reassurance ..."
"Frankly, I'm more in the mood to sleep," Brendan said. "You can work out your insecurities this weekend."
"Are we on for this weekend?"
"Of course."
"You cancelled last time."
"I had that rehearsal, and I hadn't--I just couldn't get to sleep the night before."
"You look tired."
"You know I hate these drugs. They're a damned expensive way to feel like shit."
"What does your doctor--"
Brendan spread out his hands as if to ward him off. "Let it go, Erik."
"Brendan."
"You're a difficult man, do you know that?" Brendan sighed. "You can come sleep at my place if you want. I can promise nothing else."
Erik lay awake watching Brendan toss and turn restlessly for a long time, and pretended to be asleep when Brendan got up and stripped off his sweat-soaked bathrobe. Erik closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the shower running. After a while, the bed creaked under Brendan's returning weight.
"I know you're awake, Erik. I can hear you breathing."
"I breathe when I'm asleep," Erik said.
"You don't talk when you're asleep."
"You woke me up to accuse me of being awake?"
"I'm scared," Brendan said.
Erik wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in Brendan's wet hair. "It will be all right," he said.
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm an excellent liar," Erik said, and was proud of the fact that his voice was only the slightest bit uneven.
"You were probably right to start with. It will all look brighter if we fuck."
"I thought you were too tired."
"What the hell?" Brendan said. "Life is short."
It was three days before the department head called. Erik had been expecting the call each day, bracing himself for it as he stood in front of his classroom talking in dry tones about tensile strength. When the phone rang, he was sitting grading papers at the old wooden desk in the classroom; it teetered on one short leg, but the windows could be opened to let the warm wind in to mix with the scent of chalk dust.
"You rang?" Erik said, leaning into Dr. McNeil's office with what he hoped was a casual expression. Dr. McNeil looked at Erik over the rim of his glasses.
"Yes, Dr. Lehnsherr. Please, come in and shut the door."
"Never in the history of academia has 'please, come in and shut the door' been followed by good news," Erik said. "And it was 'Erik' yesterday." He stepped in and shut the door. He let the awkward pause that followed drag out for a moment, although he knew he was expected to sit.
"Please," Dr. McNeil said, gesturing at the chair.
Erik sat, back straight, trying to bite back most of the racing words that wanted to follow. Age had taught him how to be still, if not calm.
"We -- the department, that is, and I've spoken to the dean as well -- we feel that you're not reflecting well on the university. It's not easy for me to have to tell you this. We've always been satisfied with your work."
"I am sorry to hear it is difficult for you to persecute me," Erik said, enunciating the words very clearly.
"For God's sake, Erik." Dr. McNeil took his glasses off and set them down on the table. "You're not going to be able to paint this as some kind of witch-hunt. Your ... condition ... hasn't ever interfered with your work, and as far as I'm concerned, it's nobody's business. It's your political activities that are the problem."
"I see. It's fine with the department if I'm a member of an oppressed group, as long as I don't protest my treatment. I didn't believe that in accepting employment here I was also agreeing to be rendered mute."
"You were absent from work to take part in a violent demonstration," Dr. McNeil said flatly. "You're active in a radical group that's under investigation by the authorities, and this morning I had a phone call from the FBI."
"What did you tell them?"
"I don't think it would be appropriate for me to--"
"You have always given me reason to consider you a friend," Erik said
Dr. McNeil sighed. "I told them your research was harmless, and that I don't know anything about your activities outside work. Except that--" He faltered. "They said they wanted to get a full picture of--"
"That I was a queer."
"That you were gay," Dr. McNeil said. He sounded mildly offended.
"Bisexual, actually," Erik said, feeling his patience for the charade diminishing. "You met my friend Raven at the faculty picnic, you remember? She played softball with you, because she is a good sport."
"I'm really not interested in your private--"
"And how is your lovely wife?" Erik asked, nodding toward the picture on McNeil's desk. "And little Timmy?"
"Tommy," McNeil said. "And you're trying to change the subject."
"Not really, no," Erik said.
"We just don't feel--"
"Must you hide behind 'we'? Or am I to understand that you came to my defense in this meeting? That you spoke of the need for tolerance, and understanding--" Erik heard his own voice break on the last word, and fell furiously silent.
"I don't feel that this is working out, Erik," McNeil said quietly. "I wanted to tell you now that your contract won't be renewed in the fall, rather than making you wait for this to go through channels. That will give you as much time as possible to look for something more suitable."
"And what do you think would suit me, Theodore?"
"I really don't know," McNeil said. "I think you need to take a hard look at your priorities, Erik."
"I most certainly will," Erik said, feeling an icy sense of calm descending. It came as a relief.
"Why don't you take some vacation time?" McNeil said. "I'll check with Human Resources, but I think there's no need for you to actually teach any more classes this semester. It might be less awkward that way."
"It might."
"There's no hurry to clean out your office," McNeil said. "We will be wanting to get a visiting lecturer in there over the summer, though, so if you could be out by the fifth of June--"
"Of course," Erik said. "I wouldn't dream of inconveniencing you further."
"Don't forget to leave a forwarding address with Finance for your last paycheck," McNeil said. "Or if you want to leave it with me, I'll--"
"The departmental secretary still has it," Erik said. "I'll let her know if I find someplace more suitable to my station."
"Don't make this harder than it has to be," McNeil said. "I'll happily give you a good reference."
"'A credit to his species,'" Erik said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Modern history," Erik said. "Perhaps you should sit in on a class sometime." That seemed like a good exit line. He stepped out the door and shut it carefully, nodding to the secretary. He was halfway down the hall to his office before doors began to rattle in their frames. "Ridiculous," he snapped, both at the doors and at his trembling hands.
"Afternoon, Dr. Lehnsherr," one of the cleaning ladies said as he passed her pushing a mop and bucket down the hall.
"Good afternoon, Gloria," Erik said, and made himself smile. "I wonder if you know where I might get some cardboard boxes?"
"I think there's some back of the loading dock," she said. "You packing up for the summer?"
"For the season," Erik said. "Yes."
He carried the first of the boxes in from the car when he got home, the front door of the apartment swinging obligingly open for him. He set the box on the table and tossed his coat and hat on a chair beside it.
His father had come home with a cardboard box in the middle of the day, and had thrown his coat over a chair. Erik remembered that, although he'd been too young to understand most of what his father told his mother. He remembered that she'd looked like she wanted to cry, but she hadn't cried.
That had been before the ghetto, before his father went to work in a mill. Erik had liked going to meet him there at the end of the day and getting a glimpse of the long steel beams his father helped make. He hadn't understood why his father hadn't lifted his head until they were out of the shadow of the mill and heading back toward the cramped apartment they shared with his uncle and aunt. Why his father had pulled away when Erik ran his thumb curiously over the new calluses on his hands.
He thought he understood, now. He had never thought he scorned the cleaning ladies' work, but the thought of pushing a broom of his own closed his throat.
"Erik?" Raven came out of the kitchen and looked at the box. "What's all this?"
He couldn't find the words. Instead he ripped the tape off the box and took out the topmost thing in it, the steel nameplate he'd made for his desk that read DR. ERIK LEHNSHERR in crisp block letters. He waved a hand across its face and watched the letters slowly erase themselves, sinking back into the steel without a trace.
Raven brought him a drink and sat on the sofa while he drank it and paced. He told the story in what he knew was heavily-accented English; he thought he would have managed it with more grace in German, but he couldn't stand to listen to himself speak German at the moment.
Raven had changed to her own form, blue and golden-eyed and very still. It was always hardest to tell what she was thinking when she wasn't wearing anyone else's face.
Erik stopped pacing eventually and stared at the slowly melting ice in his glass. "It does no good to complain."
"Erik," Raven said, sounding a little shocked.
"It never does any good," Erik said. "It is only a way to keep your pride while they take your life from you little by little, until finally they come to your door and say 'pack your things in a suitcase, you will want them where you are going' --"
"Erik--"
"I will not calm down. I will not go quietly."
"I'm not telling you to calm down," she said, standing up and slipping her arms around his waist. "I want to fight, too."
"I can't fight with pamphlets."
"Of course you can't. I can't do it by sitting at a desk in a junior Congressman's office taking telephone messages and making his coffee, either."
"I thought you believed in the Brotherhood."
"I do," Raven said. "But you never asked me what I thought the Brotherhood was going to have to be."
Erik rested his head on her shoulder for a while. "What do we do?" he asked, straightening.
"I think we need a headquarters that's not our dining room. A lair." She smiled a little. "In James Bond movies they always have secret lairs. It's very convenient."
"In James Bond movies, they always have a lot of money," Erik pointed out. "That's also very convenient."
"We have some savings."
"Which we will now be living on until I get another job."
"What if you just didn't?" Her jaw was set, and Erik thought she was finally getting angry. "What if we didn't play that game anymore? You're amazingly powerful. I can look like anyone. We could rob a bank."
"Raven, be serious."
"I am serious," she said, although her lips were twitching. "We could be sophisticated international thieves. Like in Die Hard."
"They get caught in Die Hard."
"Yes, but we're smarter than they were. And they're humans."
"We would get caught," Erik said. "This is not like stealing apples from a cart or a pair of gloves from a shop."
"Yes, it is."
Erik ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know."
"There are things we could do," Raven said. "Let me talk to some people."
"'Some people'?"
"Not everyone who comes into Avalon is as respectable as you."
Erik kissed her hard, tangling one hand in her hair. "I'm hardly respectable. I have it on the best authority that I'm a menace to society."
"We could be menaces to society," she said, curling her hand around the back of his thigh. "Come here and show me how respectable you aren't."
"Gladly," Erik said, and when she ripped at his shirt front instead of unbuttoning it he didn't protest. He'd have to sew the buttons on later, he thought, but that was a small enough price to pay.
******
"Please explain why you did this," Charles said. He gazed sternly at the four of them from across his desk. Jean wished exasperatedly that Scott would stop looking down at his hands as if he felt guilty about not turning in his homework on time.
"It was my idea," Warren said.
"No, it wasn't," Jean said. She'd learned long ago that there wasn't much point in beating around the bush with a telepath. She wished Warren would remember that himself. "It was Mystique's idea."
"Mystique."
"Raven Darkholme," Hank said helpfully. "We met her --"
Charles turned his gaze on Hank. "In a bar in New York City."
"We're old enough to go to bars, you know," Jean pointed out.
"That's hardly the point," Charles said.
"Isn't it?" Warren asked. "We're not your responsibility any more."
"I agree," Charles said, rather to Jean's surprise. "And I do not expect you to ask my permission to exercise your own consciences. What I cannot understand is why you did not take the simple precaution of telling me that you were going to be risking arrest."
"We didn't think we were," Scott said.
"This is not safe," Charles said. "Nor do I think it is the wisest way to fight the against fear and ignorance."
"Fear and ignorance don't throw rocks," Hank said. "They also don't let injured girls bleed to death on rooftops."
"That's not what happened," Jean said.
"Isn't it?" Scott looked up at her, his face grim. She wished she could see his eyes. "We blew it. We should have had a plan."
"We were with Dr. Lehnsherr," Jean said. "It's just that we got separated --"
"Erik can hardly be relied on in a crisis," Charles said. "Recent history should be enough to make you remember that."
Jean felt her last remaining thread of patience snap. "That is possibly the most unfair thing I have ever heard you say."
"Jean," Hank murmured. He made small repressing gestures with his fingers under the level of the desk, which she ignored.
"Do any of you have a sense of priorities here?" Scott snapped. "A girl is dead because we screwed up. I don't care who we should or shouldn't have trusted. It doesn't matter if we can't trust ourselves."
"We tried," Warren said. "Kicking ourselves isn't going to help."
Scott shook his head tightly. "Trying isn't good enough."
"It's better than passivity," Hank said. "The majority of the people at the march failed even to defend themselves, let alone to make meaningful efforts to help other people."
"The whole mess started when people tried to defend themselves," Warren said.
"No, the whole mess started when people attacked each other," Scott said. "That's not defense. We lost as soon as it turned into a fight."
"Which is why you have to pick your battles," Charles said. "I'd prefer you didn't pick ones --"
"That involve Erik Lehnsherr?" Jean found herself asking.
Is there something you want to say to me in private? Charles asked her.
Yes, and I think you want me to say it in private.
"I think we might want to take a break," Hank said. "It's been a long day, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's hungry."
"I'll order pizza," Warren said, standing up and looking grateful to do so.
"We're going to be fighting for it with high school kids," Scott said.
"A lot of pizza."
"There will be dinner," Charles said.
"Let us get pizza," Jean said. "It'll make us feel better." She felt she should try to explain adolescent comfort food, but was too irritated to bother. "Just trust me."
The door to the office closed behind the boys, and silence followed.
"You're angry because I went to Florida with Dr. Lehnsherr and his girlfriend," Jean said at last.
"Jean," Charles said, with a smile that didn't even reach his eyes, let alone his thoughts. "This is not a suburban divorce."
"No, you're above all that, aren't you?"
"Why are you so angry?"
"Why are you asking me that? You're a telepath."
"I'm not the only one who Erik walked away from," Charles said. "And I'm hardly the only one he hurt by doing so."
Jean stared at him. "Is that the way you remember it?"
"He hasn't even called in years --"
"You wouldn't pick up the phone. Not for months. Sometimes I'd answer and I'd hear him hang up because he didn't want to talk to anyone but you."
"I don't think that would have stopped him if he'd really --"
"You told him you didn't want him anywhere near us," Jean said. "And he did what you told him you wanted. And we got hurt. Yes."
"I don't remember saying anything quite like that."
"I guess maybe you wouldn't," Jean said slowly. "You were on some pretty heavy narcotics, I think. That's probably why --"
Charles looked suddenly very weary. "Why what? What else did I say that I don't remember?"
"Why you threatened him," Jean said. She knew she was hurting him, but it was a relief to finally let the words spill out. "You controlled him to prove that you could do it. You told him that if he didn't leave you'd make him so that he didn't care about you anymore --"
"If I said those -- those terrible things -- surely Erik has known me for too long to ever believe --"
"You made me feel it," Jean whispered. "You made me feel the accident and how you wanted to have died and how you couldn't stand for him to touch you. I was seventeen, and you put it all in my head."
She took a ragged breath. "And I still love you, and I still trust you, and I know that you would never hurt me on purpose. But I don't know what would have happened if you'd lost control with him."
Charles was silent for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds. When he spoke, it was very softly. "If this is true ... how can you trust me now?"
"I'm a medical student, remember? You were in shock, and on strong painkillers. You were not functioning normally. I understand that now. At the time, I was just -- trying to hold things together."
"You know I'm grateful to you for that."
"I was the one who called Dr. Lehnsherr," Jean said. "I was seventeen. I could teach classes, but I couldn't sign checks. I knew you didn't want him to make decisions about your treatment, but I couldn't, so it's a good thing you never got around to having that medical power of attorney revoked."
"Well, I have now."
"They didn't want to accept it, you know."
"No, I didn't know," Charles said. "Although I should have guessed."
"He made them," Jean said. "And he made them let me in, by swearing you were my legal guardian."
"Not much of a guardian," Charles said.
"You've kept us safe. You've taught us everything."
Charles reached out one hand toward her across the desktop. "I wish I could keep you safe now."
"I do, too," Jean said. "It's getting scary out there."
"If you want to save the world, it's going to get scarier."
"It's going to get scarier no matter what," Jean said. "I'd rather not sit here and wait."
"And now you sound like Erik."
"Is that always a bad thing?"
"No. Not always," Charles said. He looked out the window at the green lawn stretching out toward the distant trees. "If I had swallowed my pride --" The implied question hung in the air. It wasn't a question Jean thought he really ought to be asking her, but he didn't really have anyone else to ask.
"I think it was over," Jean said. "But at least maybe you'd still be able to talk. At least you would have known where he was and what he was doing."
"At least we could have worked together instead of at cross-purposes."
"I'm not sure you're at cross-purposes," Jean said. That seemed obvious to her, but she was beginning to suspect it wasn't obvious to Charles. She told herself not to hope for too much. She was too old to believe this was a simple misunderstanding.
"I think I should find out."
"We could go see if the pizza's here first."
"We could," Charles said. "And then we should all have a talk about the politics of protest and the tactics of riot control."
"It's all one big classroom?"
"And it's not any easier for the teachers."
"Pizza will help," Jean said, and smiled at Charles's dubious expression.
******
Erik found himself at a loss for what to do, alone in the apartment with no papers to grade and no stack of journal articles to dutifully review. Raven was out, probably talking to her mutant contacts, possibly just drinking in front of a television set somewhere away from the weight of his anger.
He had turned on the television set himself for a while and flipped channels restlessly. Old movies brought back too many memories, and the new programs were a pointless mishmash of infantile humor and violence. He had made himself watch the news impassively and then flicked the set off. He picked up a book from the shelf and then put it down.
The phone shrilled, and Erik brought it floating to his hand, welcoming the distraction. "Yes?"
"Hello, Erik," Charles said.
All he could think for a moment was that he was dreaming, which would have been a relief. He looked down at the sofa, letting the scattered books and Raven's discarded sweater convince him this was reality.
"What do you want?" Erik asked.
"I want to talk," Charles said. "I think we're working at cross-purposes, and I don't think we have to be." His voice grew a bit more uncertain. "I know it's been a long time, and I wasn't ... very fair to you the last time we talked."
"The last time we talked." Erik rested his hands on the bookshelf in front of him, trying not to see them resting on the cold rail of a hospital bed.
"Erik, please. Hear me out."
"Fine." Erik reached for his coat. It seemed better to have something to do, anything, even something he knew was a bad idea. "Meet me tonight."
"It's not an emergency," Charles said.
"Meet me --" Erik paused, suddenly aware that Raven could come home at any time. "Meet me at Elysium. It's near MIT. A bar." It was familiar ground, but a place where he was unlikely to run into his former colleagues. Any of his former students would probably be flustered enough by finding their professor in a gay bar to let him alone.
"You want me to come to Boston tonight."
"It's not another continent." It occurred to him as he said it that he didn't know if Charles could still drive, or how exactly he managed to get around if he couldn't. That was clearly an unaskable question, though.
"No, it's not," Charles said. "It'll be there at eight. If you'll be so kind as to give me directions."
A few hours later Erik sat at a table in a corner of the bar, turning his lukewarm drink around in his hands. It was ten minutes past eight. It wasn't like Charles to be late.
No, that wasn't true. It wasn't like Raven to be late. Charles had always been easily sidetracked from anything he was truly reluctant to do.
He looked up when he felt metal moving toward him. He'd never actually seen Charles in the wheelchair before. He frowned. It wasn't as if it came as a surprise.
"Erik," Charles said. He rolled the chair up to the side of the table. Erik would have felt better facing him across the table, but that would have meant moving the other chair and possibly the table, and Charles would have had to move for him to do it.
"Charles," Erik said, voice tight.
"You've been drinking."
"This is a bar."
"And it's loud," Charles said. "Are you sure we can't go somewhere private?"
"It's loud enough that no one will hear us talking," Erik said. "Worried about your reputation?"
"Do we have to start off this way?"
"This is the way we finished."
Charles took a deep breath and spread his hands on the table. "I think we would achieve more if we worked together."
"I see," Erik said, looking at him levelly across the table. "You came here to join the Brotherhood of Mutants?"
"I came to ask you to join us."
"You don't want to work together, Charles. You want me to work for you. I'm not willing to be your hired help."
"Erik," Charles said, sounding a bit shocked. "That's not --"
"Or did you have some other arrangement in mind? I'm not available at a price."
"For God's sake, Erik," Charles said, and then looked at him more intently. "What's really --"
"Stay out of my head, Charles," Erik said, starting to rise.
"As you like."
"How very gracious of you."
"Why are you so angry?"
"Because they mean to destroy us, and you sit by and do nothing."
"I am not sitting by doing nothing," Charles said. "And I will be able to do more if you help me than if you walk away again."
"How far do I have to go for you to stop coming after me?"
"I have no idea," Charles said, the hard lines of his face softening.
Someone pushed his way through the crowd, and Erik was dismayed to see that it was Brendan. Probably coming over to offer his sympathies about the job. Erik appreciated the sentiment and wished him temporarily on another continent.
"Christ, Erik, I thought that rehearsal would never end. They're horrible. I might as well drown them all and --" Brendan broke off abruptly. "You have company."
"Brendan Shaw, Charles Xavier," Erik said with leaden reluctance. "Charles, Brendan."
"It's a pleasure," Brendan said.
"Likewise," Charles said flatly.
"Such a shame I can't stay to chat. Say hello to Raven for me, Erik," Brendan said, just a little pointedly, and made a hasty retreat in the direction of the bar.
"I thought you and Raven Darkholme ..." Charles began. He let the rest of the sentence trail in midair.
"We live together."
"Not platonically, I gather."
"And how is your sex life?" Erik regretted the question the moment it was out of his mouth. He wanted a cigarette badly.
"At least I'm not having promiscuous sex with ..."
"Do feel free to finish that sentence in whatever way you see fit."
"... the sort of people who will."
"In case you have failed to notice, we have left the 1950s," Erik said. "Did you know they have color television now?"
"It's not like you, Erik. This can't make you happy."
"A subject on which I am sure you are an expert."
"I don't like to see you engage in self-destructive behavior."
"I'm sure you could fix that," Erik said, and tapped his temple. "Instill a proper love of white picket fences."
"Erik --"
"Spare me the protestations of your virtue, Charles. I'm tired of hearing it."
"I wasn't going to claim to be virtuous."
" I will not work with you if you're going to insist that we play by your rules. The Brotherhood isn't a debating society."
"Just what do you mean?"
"Things I suspect you don't want to hear."
"Erik, tell me."
"No, I think I should not." Charles's eyes unfocused slightly, and Erik wasn't at all surprised to feel the familiar brush of Charles's mental fingers inside his skull. "You won't like what you see."
Charles's eyes snapped back into focus. He looked appalled. "What do you think you've been doing?"
"Evening the score," Erik said.
"Erik," Charles said, an unbearable weight of gentleness in his voice. "This isn't the real you. I know you. You're not a violent person."
"These are violent times."
"You need help."
"You're the one who needs help to see the truth. But I'm beginning to doubt you will until it's too late." Erik stood up and edged past Charles's chair, trying not to brush against his shoulder.
"I should call the police," Charles said.
Erik stopped. "But you won't."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because Jean was with us in Fayetteville," Erik said, and walked away into the crowd. He felt the angry pressure of Charles's mind on his until he was outside and halfway down the block, and then the terrible lightness as it lifted and was gone.
******
Jean sat in the kitchen nursing a cup of cocoa and telling herself there was no point in waiting up. It was a long drive from New York to Boston, and they would probably sit up late talking. Dr. Lehnsherr would probably offer to drive him back to Westchester, but Jean wasn't sure how Charles would take that, or for that matter how Dr. Lehnsherr would mean it. In any case, there was no need for her to sit up waiting like the anxious mother of a teenager out on a date.
She jumped a little at the noise of the door from the garage opening down the hall, and put the cocoa down a little guiltily. She suppressed the urge to retreat upstairs; it wasn't as if waiting up for Charles was such a terrible thing.
She heard the sound of the chair in the hall, and then Charles pushed the door to the kitchen open. He came in and shut the door behind him without saying a word. This did not go well, Jean thought.
Charles looked at Jean across the table with an expression she'd never seen directed at her before. "What happened in Fayetteville, Jean?"
For a moment, all Jean could think of was her tangled conversation with Hank. Then she swallowed hard and tried to figure out what to say.
"I see," Charles said.
"I don't know for sure that anything happened," Jean said. "I saw in the news that the officers were attacked outside the bar we were in. That's all I know for sure."
"Is it?"
Jean looked up at Charles, startled. "You don't believe me?"
"I want to believe you."
"I can't very well lie to you."
"But you don't always tell me all the truth."
"I don't always tell anyone all the truth," Jean said.
She expected Charles to have something to say about that, but instead all he said was, "Tell me all the truth now. It's important, Jean."
"There were cops in the bar running a sting. One of them hit on Warren, and then tried to pick up another man. I tried to warn him, but I don't know -- I'm not that good at communicating with people I don't know."
"And you told Erik."
"I thought he'd want to know."
"And later Erik and Raven Darkholme attacked the two police officers in an alley and beat them badly enough to put them in the hospital."
"I ... yes. I think so."
"And when you learned this ..."
"I wasn't sure," Jean said. "I wasn't. And ..." They deserved it. She wasn't sure if she wanted Charles to hear the thought or not.
"Violence is not the answer," Charles said.
"They can't have meant for it to go that far," Jean said. "They were probably just trying to make sure they didn't arrest anybody that night."
"They've gone much farther."
Jean reached reflexively for her mug of cocoa, wrapping her hands around its comforting warmth. "What do you mean?"
"Erik has --" Charles stopped and took a deep breath. "Erik has hunted down people who committed violent crimes against mutants and killed them."
"That's not possible," Jean said flatly. It couldn't be possible.
"It's the truth," Charles said. "I saw it in his mind, and he didn't deny it. He called it evening the score."
"He wouldn't do that."
"He would attack police officers, but not do this?"
"Would you have just let them arrest people?" She knew she was changing the subject back to what she had done wrong, but any subject was better than the idea that Dr. Lehnsherr was killing people.
"Of course not," Charles said. "I would have let them spend a very boring evening being soundly ignored by everyone."
"That's not a permanent solution."
"The only permanent solution is to change the laws that allow them to persecute people who are different. And I certainly support efforts to do so, to the extent that my position as a teacher allows."
"I don't think I could have made everyone ignore them."
"What else could you have done?"
Jean tried to think about this like a classroom problem. "Created a distraction to get them out of the bar, maybe," she said slowly. "At worst, tried to incapacitate them in a way that wouldn't have hurt them."
"I think that's something we need to talk about," Charles said. "All of you need ways of dealing with dangerous situations that don't cause them to escalate into violent confrontation."
"It wasn't a dangerous situation."
"It was for the men who would have been arrested. And, as it turned out, for the police officers trying to arrest them."
Jean sighed. "You're right."
"Things are getting worse right now," Charles said softly. "That's dangerous for mutants and for humans. On the large scale, the best thing we can do is provide education about what mutants really are and work to prevent prejudice from becoming legal discrimination."
"And on a small scale?"
"We'll talk about that in the morning."
Jean looked down at her cup. The cocoa was going cold, and she wasn't sure she wanted it any more. "Who were they? The people he ... killed?"
"I don't know anything about them. I don't think he did, either."
"What are you going to do about it?"
Charles looked at her wearily. "What can I do? I have no proof."
"That doesn't mean you can't do anything."
"It means I can't think of anything I'm willing to do yet." He rubbed at his temple. Jean could feel the headache starting behind his eyes.
"It's late," Jean said gently.
"Go to bed," Charles said. "It will all still be here in the morning."
"You should get some rest, too."
"Good night, Jean," Charles said, acting as if he hadn't heard her.
Jean started to offer to make him a cup of tea, but his expression didn't encourage her. "Good night, Professor."
Sleep well.
Jean nodded, although she didn't see how she could.
******
"You," Olivia said, "are a fucking idiot."
"Olivia --" Brendan began, but Olivia ignored him, glaring at Erik across Brendan's coffee table.
"You know he's a telepath. You know he's got it in for you. And you still thought it was a good idea to sit down for a little chat with him? Jesus fucking Christ, Erik, this is murder we're talking about."
"You didn't mind when we did it," Kevin said. He'd come by after his night shift doing tech support, and was clutching a cup of Mountain Dew like a talisman.
"I'm not talking about doing it," Olivia snarled at Erik. "I'm talking about not being able to keep your mouth shut about it. This is not just about you."
"I know it's not," Erik said.
"Do you? Do you really? Because if you do, what in hell made you throw away all our lives and jobs just to score points off your ex?"
"We don't know yet what's going to happen," Raven said. She had taken Erik's account of his conversation with Charles very quietly. He suspected that was a bad sign. "He's unlikely to risk his students being part of an investigation."
"Except that there are plenty of things they can investigate that his students weren't anywhere near," Olivia said.
"Yes," Erik said. "Charles will talk to Jean and find out that her involvement was minimal. That was simply playing for time."
"Do you really think he'll call the police?" Brendan asked. "Try to be objective about the man for once in your life."
"I don't know," Erik said. "If it happens again, I think he will."
"It's going to happen again," Olivia said. "Even if we let ourselves be blackmailed into sitting on our hands, we're not the only ones trying to get a little justice. Sooner or later, some mutant-bashing creep is going to turn up missing, and then the cops will come knocking round our doors."
"Well, what's he going to do about it now?" Kevin asked.
"I know what I want," Olivia said. "I want out, Erik. It's not just this. I've been thinking about it all year. I can't live here anymore. I was going to save up some money and look for a job over in Europe." She shrugged. "Parlez-vous francais, and all that crap."
"If you want to leave, go," Erik said. "I won't ask you to stay here."
"I need money," Olivia said. "Without a job, I'm going to need a lot of money."
Erik shook his head slowly. "If I had it, I would give it to you. I don't."
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Erik?"
"I wouldn't, and I don't have it either," Raven said. "And Erik just lost his job."
"You what?" Olivia asked, brought up short. "Jesus."
Raven shrugged. "He's a mutant activist."
Olivia turned up her hands. "It's going to be me next, Erik. Even if the cops don't start breathing down our necks. I've got to go while I still have a career."
"We're going to need some money ourselves," Raven said. "I think we should get out of town for a little while."
"What about your job?" Kevin asked.
Raven shrugged again. "What about it?"
"None of us has vast sums of money lying around," Brendan said. "Embezzlement from the company might be an option if it weren't deeply in debt."
Olivia's lips twitched. "There's such a thing as a dance company that's not deeply in debt?"
"I hear rumors."
"So we need some money," Kevin said. He looked at Raven, who was waiting relatively patiently for attention to return to her.
"I think I know where we can get it," she said when enough people were looking at her. "I've been talking to Victor Creed."
"Oh, please," Brendan said. "The pathological liar with fangs?"
"He says he knows where there's a cache of military supplies," Raven said. "Arms and expensive equipment. It would set us up very nicely if we could sell it."
"If it exists," Erik said. "Which is doubtful."
"I listened to him talk about this for six hours once. I believe it exists, and I believe he's been there. He just can't get back in."
"The man is practically illiterate," Erik said.
"For someone who grew up in a ghetto, you're a hell of a snob," Olivia said.
Erik looked at Raven. She met his eyes without blinking. "All right," he said finally. "What's the plan?"
"You're willing to talk to him?"
Erik shrugged. "Talk is cheap."
Raven went to fetch him in her car; apparently he didn't have one of his own. It was after midnight when they got back to the apartment. Erik sat up drinking coffee and staring out the window at the moving lights outside.
He stood with Raven in the kitchen after she arrived and regarded the hulking man on the sofa critically. "This is the answer to our problems?" he murmured to Raven under his breath.
"Yes," she said firmly. She took him by the arm and steered him firmly across the room. "Erik, meet Victor Creed. Victor, this is Erik Lehnsherr."
Erik extended a hand, a bit stiffly. He wasn't sure he liked the way the man's eyes stayed glued to Raven. "I'm pleased to meet you."
Victor grasped it far too hard, sharp nails stinging Erik's palm. "Sure."
Erik brought a chair scooting over to him and sat down in it. "What's this all about? Raven and I have some business to take care of tonight."
"Let Victor tell you what he told me, first," Raven said. She sat down on the other end of the sofa, letting her skin go back to shining blue scales under her tank top and short skirt. She tucked her feet up under her like a child.
Was she deliberately trying to look unthreatening? He looked at Victor more closely. The man was glancing around out of the corners of his eyes, taking in the books and the stark metal sculpture. Out of his element and out of his league, Erik thought. It was a feeling he remembered well enough himself.
He turned up his hands. "We're all mutants here," he said.
Victor gave him a hard look. "So? Doesn't make us friends."
"I'm your friend," Raven said. "And Erik is my friend. And we're both trying to stay out of the way of the government, so we're hardly going to sell you out to them."
Erik's eyebrows rose. "What do they want you for?"
"Tell him what you told me," Raven said. "Tell him about Weapons X."
Victor told the story haltingly, as if he wasn't used to speaking at any length. He'd tried to enlist in the Army to get out of a backwater town, and wound up jailed for taking a swipe at the first soldier who'd called him a freak. The man had nearly bled to death. Victor didn't seem displeased.
"That's where he found me. Told me he had work for me. In Vietnam. That's where I'd figured on going anyway." Erik filed that away and mentally adjusted his estimate of the man's age up by several decades. Victor smiled, or at least Erik thought it was a smile. "He did, all right. All kinds of dirty work."
"And when the war was over?" Erik asked.
"Plenty of places to do dirty work," Victor said. "He had a whole bunch of freaks working for him. Only then he got religion or something when his kid died, and he told us he was done working with us animals. We got in the plane thinking it would take us back to the States."
"Where did it take you?"
"Hell." Victor stared unseeing at Erik for a moment, then glanced over at Raven and grinned at her, showing his teeth. "You squeamish?"
"Terribly," Raven said. Erik stared at her. She smiled as if daring him to call her a liar. He gave her a you haven't heard the end of this look.
"Then I won't tell you about all their little games. They broke my arms a lot. Wanted to watch the bones grow back together. Then they had us fight. Wanted to see who was the best dog. Who was worth keeping around. One time they let us fight outside."
"And you seized the chance to escape?"
Victor shook his head. "I was following some little cu -- some chick into the woods. She tried to escape. I got lost going after her. They chased her, not me. Heard them saying 'good dogs always come back to where they're fed.'"
"But you didn't."
Victor looked at Erik like Erik was stupid. "It's not like I forgot about them breaking my arms."
"Very wise," Erik said. Victor stared at him, apparently trying to figure out if Erik was making fun of him or not. "And you didn't tell anyone what was happening?"
"Who'd believe me?" Victor smiled crookedly. "I got no scars."
"Erik believes you," Raven said. "That's why he's being such a bastard."
"Anyway, Stryker had stuff on all of us," Victor went on. "Enough to prove we were just nuts if we tried to talk."
"... Stryker?"
"William Stryker. He's not in the phone book, I bet."
Erik couldn't find any words to reply to that, or at least not any words other than his son's name was Jason.
The metal girders of the apartment began to creak and moan ominously. Victor looked at the walls.
Erik made drinks in the kitchen, where it didn't matter if his hands shook and set the ice rattling in the glasses. He set them on a metal tray along with the bottle and an extra glass of ice and sent it floating ahead of him into the living room, following it once he felt confident that his body was once again schooled into neutral lines.
Raven took hers neatly off the tray. "Victor says this 'Weapons X' program had private caches of supplies stashed here and there. Guns, some nice military equipment, and plenty of hard cash stashed away for a rainy day."
"Found one after I got out," Victor said. "Couldn't get through the doors, though."
"You've seen what Erik can do with metal," Raven said. "And we have a friend who's a telekinetic. You know, moving things with your mind. Things that aren't metal."
"If I show you, what do I get out of it?"
"A share of whatever's inside," Raven said.
"Half," Victor said.
Raven shook her head. "Not if we do all the work."
"It's my ass if anything goes wrong."
"Nothing will go wrong," Raven said. She smiled. "Trust us. We're professionals."
Professional whats? Erik wondered, but he reached for the gin bottle and refilled Victor's glass. "Welcome to the Brotherhood," he said.
*****
The five of them and Charles were the only ones left at the breakfast table. Ororo had arrived near dawn, and didn't seem curious about why they were all there; Jean assumed one of the boys had called her overnight, although none of them admitted to it. The students had finished their breakfasts and were roaming the house as they apparently usually did on Saturdays.
Scott got up and shut the door to the dining room. "All right," he said. "Professor?"
Charles shook his head. "You have ideas," he said. "I'd like to hear them."
Scott took a deep breath. "Okay. There's more and more violence against mutants going on. We've all seen that."
Ororo nodded. "A girl in one of the dorms got beat up," she said. "She wouldn't go to the police because she didn't want her parents to find out she was a mutant."
"I think we should do something about it," Scott said. "Something that's not the equivalent of throwing rocks."
"We try," Ororo said, a little defiantly.
"We've all been trying," Hank said. "But we're at a great disadvantage when we're working in isolation and are unprepared for many situations that may arise."
Warren frowned. "I'm all for political protest. But we're not the police."
"Then who is?" Ororo asked.
"How about the police?"
"Not when they think of mutants as enemies," Jean said. "We can't rely on the police to prevent violence when they're the ones provoking it."
Ororo frowned. "Sometimes you have to fight."
"Sometimes," Charles said. "But there are ways to avoid fighting, and ways to fight without injuring your opponents."
"I think we need to train together," Scott said. "To practice what we're going to do if something like this happens again and we're there."
Charles nodded. "Or if by being somewhere you can prevent something like this from happening."
"We are not the police," Warren said. "I mean, who are we to set ourselves up as responsible for all mutants everywhere?"
Jean shrugged. "We're adults who know how our abilities work and how to use them. We understand how mutation works. We know a little bit about politics. That puts us in a better position to do something than almost anybody."
"We're all responsible for each other," Scott said. "We're the ones who see that."
"Is there any way to stay out of the papers?" Jean asked. "This is not going to look good to my advisor."
Hank and Scott looked at each other and started to smile. There was an alarming gleam in Hank's eyes. "We need aliases," he said.
"Code names," Scott said.
"And clever disguises."
"It's very hard to disguise an eight-foot wingspan," Warren said.
"The point isn't to hide that you're a mutant," Hank said. "That would really defeat the purpose. The point is to hide that you're you."
"I'm not sold on the clever disguises," Ororo said.
Scott shrugged. "We can work out the details."
Afterwards in the hall Jean shook her head at Scott. "Just as long as you stay clear on the fact that we are not really the Jedi Knights."
Scott smiled sideways. "That's not what you said when you were thirteen."
"I was thirteen when I was thirteen."
"You told me we were going to grow up to save the world," Scott said, not smiling now. "When did you stop believing it?"
"You know when," Jean said.
Scott caught her arm and brought her to a stop. "That's the last lesson the Professor would want you to take away from what happened to him."
"Maybe so," Jean said. "But I can't go into being a doctor believing that I'm going to be able to help every patient. I can't go into ... whatever it is we're talking about doing here ... believing we're always going to win. I know that's not true. And every time I forget it, bad things happen."
"That's not why bad things happen," Scott said.
Jean put her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her. "It feels like it."
"I love you," Scott said.
Jean smiled against his shoulder. "I know."
*****
Erik had spent half an hour in the shower, and was sure the faint itch of blood on his hands was now purely psychological. Raven seemed unbothered by the night's activities, and stretched out gratefully between the sheets.
"I'm tired," she said.
"Fighting bad guys will do that," Erik said, and she smiled.
"You're just like James Bond," she said, spreading out her hand on his chest. "Only with fewer toys." Her nails were glossy red. "You have to admit that Victor did well," she said more seriously after a while.
"He's very good at being destructive."
"You don't like him."
"I don't like soldiers."
"I know," Raven said. She curled up on him, her head on his shoulder. "But if he's telling the truth --"
"If he's telling the truth."
"Think of all that money."
"It would be useful," Erik said. He wasn't prepared to admit more than that. He could feel a black mood dragging him down again after the momentary adrenaline high that fighting always brought. His hands were cold.
"Not just for the cause," Raven said. "Brendan tells me he's had to cash in his life insurance policy to pay for his medications."
Erik had to take a deep breath before he answered to keep from saying something he would regret. "That's not very fair of you," he said finally.
"This isn't about fair, Erik," she said. "This is about doing what's right."
"It's not a matter of what's right. It's a matter of what's possible."
"It's possible for us to stop what's happening."
"It's possible," Erik said, although he wasn't sure whether that was true. For a moment he could see the other possibility clearly -- that there was no hope, and no future but prison walls with smoke curling to the sky. "Yes. It's possible." Not believing would be giving up, and he had made a promise as an angry child never to give up. He would not let them kill him, not then and not now. He would find a way to fight.
"I know I'm not being fair," Raven said. He heard her words as if from a long distance away, in some foreign country of warmth and light. "But I can only work with what I've got. And that includes you."
"All's fair in love and war," Erik heard himself say, and told himself he believed that, too.