Terri's Peep Hut ~~ Fiction Archive

Title: Asserting Control

Authors: Deejay and Terri

E-mail: 8dc8@qlink.queensu.ca and xgrrl26@yahoo.com

Rating: NC-17, and we really mean it.

Disclaimer: We don't own anyone. Darn.

Archive: Ask, and ye shall receive.

Feedback: Please! Pretty please? Good, bad, and ugly-and please direct the really ugly ones to Terri.

Warnings: Dark sexual themes, slash themes, non-consensual sexual activity.

Summary: Magneto can't stop trying to get to Xavier and Rogue gets caught in the crossfire.

Comments: Did you read the warnings? Go back and read them again, because I mean them. Really. This story was born out of a deejay-tossed plot bunny and deejay wrote part of the opening section you see here. The bunny sunk it's little (but sharp!) bunny-teeth into my butt and wouldn't let go until I'd written the rest of this. Anything you see herein that makes you think-what a sick bastard!, what awful writing! or I can't believe she wrote about that! belongs to me. And as always, I do not necessarily advocate or condone the views and behavior depicted in the story. There. Now that that's out of the way-this is really more of a Erik/Charles fic than a Logan/Rogue one, but there are substantial L/R parts therein. The reason deejay's bunny gripped me so much was that I wondered a lot about what the back story for these two were, and the final scenes of Charles visiting Erik in prison stood out for me in the movie-here's someone who's tried pretty hard to kill Charles' protégés and a lot of innocent people, but Charles not only visits him in person, he also sits down for a dandy game of chess. I started thinking-there's *got* to be a big honkin' back story there.

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It all happened in the dead of night. She screamed in the instant before her sudden transformation, but the scream that would have echoed through the mansion was muffled in her goose-down pillow. The steel bed frame began to vibrate as she stood and made her way into the empty hallway, but there were no other outward signs that she had changed.

She turned and headed down the stairs, moving like a sleepwalker, her own consciousness driven deep beneath the force that had overtaken her. She descended three flights, paused outside the kitchen doorway and made a brief flick of her wrist. A small smile flashed across her lips as she tucked her prize into the waistband of her pajamas. She continued down the hall, turning left at the Kandinsky painting and beginning her ascent of the back stairs.

Finding the room that held her target easily, she paused outside the door for a moment in mock consideration. Then, with the ease of a skilled locksmith yet free from pick and torque wrench, she turned the deadbolt and stepped inside, the door clicking quietly shut behind her.

He looked so peaceful with his eyes closed and his slow, rhythmic breathing. Her eyes raked over his bare chest, amused at the once dark, now white hair. A stab of affection and another of lust shot through her eyes, but they were immediately replaced by anger and resolve. Creeping silently toward the bed, she delicately crawled onto the firm mattress and straddled his sleeping form, careful not to brush his flesh with her own. Not yet. Focusing on the steel knife in the waistband of her flannel pajamas, she felt the blade slide against her back then watched as it emerged and hovered in front of her.

She maneuvered to brace his arms to the bed with her muscular legs, and brought the knife to rest against him. Applying only a slight amount of pressure, she made the first cut as a howl escaped the lips of her victim. His body convulsed in an attempt to free his arms but her superior strength had him pinned, and his room was far enough removed from the rest of the inhabitants that his protests were not heard. Soon, he was fully awake and could look into the eyes of his attacker. They did not belong to the lovely young brunette of whom he had grown so fond. They were grey, cold and piercing. A moment of confusion gave way to grave understanding.

"Rogue?" Xavier whispered.

"No," the girl answered, cutting into his chest more deeply this time. Xavier twitched and suppressed a cry of pain at that, and the girl's lips curved in a familiar smile. "Come now Charles, I know you like it. I know you."

"Erik?" Xavier's question was answered only by another cut, this time to his stomach, and a soft, slow grind of the girl's hips against his own. "Stop this."

"Oh, Charles," she purred, "that's what you always say." She raised the knife again, grey eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

Logan slept fitfully, in the throes of a nightmare. This time it wasn't the lab or any half-remembered torture that plagued his sleep. This time, he was atop the Statue of Liberty, holding Marie in his arms.

Just as he had in real life, he strips his gloves and presses a bare hand to her face. Nothing. His heart drops and he cradles her to him, his rough cheek brushing her soft one. His joy at being able to touch her skin is out of place for the moment and he knows it, but can't suppress it. That feeling wars with panicked worry that he *can* touch her, that her gift isn't taking effect. He flashes back to the night he woke to her impaled on his claws. He prays for her skin to begin the pull and he wonders if this time she might kill him in the process. A few long seconds pass and still nothing happens. Dread begins to set in. Logan kisses her forcefully on the mouth, willing his life into her, bargaining with whatever higher power might be observing to make that trade her for him. Somehow he knows that she's the better bargain, that if there is a God in heaven, he must surely want her over him. Still nothing happens, and, finally, he slowly stops kissing her. He doesn't let her go, though, even though he knows now that she is gone.

<Help!> At first, Logan thought the mental distress call was from the Marie in his dream her ghost or her apparition, crying out to him even though he could no longer help her. <Anyone - > But then he realized that this voice was male. Something about it shook him just enough to emerge from the dream and trek toward consciousness. < - please, I need help!>

<Logan! Come to my room immediately!> Xavier's mental voice, for the only time in Logan's life, was not cool and measured. It was afraid, and Logan was out of his bed and halfway down the hall in mere seconds. As he neared Xavier's room, the scent of blood permeated his nostrils. He was prepared by the time he reached the door and opened it, to witness Xavier under attack. The scene he found though, was nothing he could ever have expected nor for which he could ever have been prepared.

Marie, in blood-stained pajamas, knelt atop Xavier, a red-stained knife in one gloved hand and Xavier's exposed penis in the other. Her head whipped around to see Logan, and he knew in that instant that it was not Marie. His hazel eyes locked onto her grey ones as his claws extended. His nose and Xavier's panic told him that this was an enemy, even if it was wearing Marie's body at the moment. Before he could threaten it with the claws, though, they were turned back towards him and he was frozen. With a wave of the hand holding the knife her other hand refused to stop stroking Xavier she stabbed both sets of claws deep into Logan's chest.

He gasped in surprise not at the injury, because from the instant he was frozen he recognized his foe but because some part of him was insistent that, even though it was not really Marie before him, she could never do this to him. A second later he was proven correct as Marie's body wrenched itself from Xavier's and fell off the bed, convulsing and writhing. Logan removed the claws, but the injury was grievous and he could only slide to the floor and watch her helplessly. Xavier rolled to his side to peer down at Marie, but could do no more either. Both men watched her body slow then still, then go limp and lifeless. Logan could still hear her heartbeat and Xavier could still sense that she was alive, so neither abandoned hope. Logan waited the few more seconds needed to repair his wounds, then began to force himself to crawl over to Marie's fallen form.

Her eyes stared at the ceiling and she was unresponsive. Xavier said, "I cannot reach her." Logan looked at him, then at Marie. "Take her to Jean, Logan, take her to the medlab. Send Hank to me."

"What the hell is goin' on? It looked like it looked like Magneto in there. Did he take over her head or something?"

"No," Xavier answered, "Erik did."

Erik collapsed and began convulsions of his own. He was not alone, Mystique stood watch over him. As he fell, the machine he had strapped himself into tipped and threatened to fall on top of him. Mystique stayed it's progress and righted it, then began to slowly and methodically unstrap Erik from the machine's wires and tubes. "Stupid," she said. "You and your stupid machines."

She laid him out on the floor and waited for his convulsions to slow. When they did, she knelt over him and peered into unseeing grey eyes. "Well," she remarked, "I guess we have to wait and see now." She hefted his body over her shoulder, and carried him to his room. As she placed him in the bed, she repeated, "Stupid."

"What the hell is wrong with her, Jeannie?" Logan paced back and forth next to Marie's bed as Jean looked over a long sheet of paper.

"If I had to make a guess, I'd say Magneto tried to take over her mind and failed. She broke the connection somehow, and now neither one of them can surface in her consciousness."

"But what does that mean? How do you fix it?"

Jean sighed. "First, we have to determine how Magneto was able to do this. We know he doesn't have telepathic powers. Once we find out how, then we will know how to help her. Hopefully. Magneto must really be holding a grudge against the Professor. We probably should have seen something coming. After all, he has been out of jail for almost a month now."

A soft growl escaped Logan's lips. "Jeannie - Chuck said it wasn't Magneto, it was 'Erik.' Rogue was she was touchin' him when I got there."

"Touching him? What do you mean, with her skin?"

"No. She was she was " Logan gave up explanation in favor of a pantomimed demonstration on himself. Jean's eyes widened at that. "She was cuttin' him up while she was doin' that. Somethin's up."

"I know well, we all know that the Professor and Magneto were friends, a long time ago. But this..."

"When's Hank gonna be done patchin' him up?"

"In a few minutes. Now, actually. Logan don't go ballistic. It's whatever happened between them, it's not the Professor's fault that this happened to Rogue. And it's his private life. It's his business." She didn't look entirely convinced of the words even as they left her mouth.

"Not when she's in a coma it ain't. Not any more." Logan stomped out of the lab angrily and headed upstairs.

"Chuck?" Logan didn't knock before opening the door. Hank was clearing off the dresser, packing back up his medical supplies. Xavier sat upright in bed, still bare-chested, but now criss-crossed by gauze and thick bandages. The wounds inflicted had been painful but not life-threatening, and Logan suspected that that was by design.

"Yes, Logan, please come in." The invitation was superfluous, given that Logan already stood at his bedside, but Xavier was a man who maintained the appearance of propriety and civility at all times. "I have asked Scott to join me. He should be here momentarily. I am sending him and the team to find Erik and figure out how he managed to assert himself in Rogue's consciousness. I am convinced that he must have been doing this with outside assistance of some sort. He is not a strong enough presence in Rogue's mind, normally speaking, to cause her to behave in that fashion. As soon as Scott arrives, we will begin the mission. I have been able to pick up traces of Erik's consciousness he must be in a weakened state to allow me to detect him - and I believe I know where he is located."

Logan let the man talk, but pinned him with hazel eyes at the end of his monologue. "Rogue's holdin' her own. Thanks for askin'." Logan's gaze narrowed.

"My apologies. It has been a very stressful evening. I am glad to hear that her condition is not worsening. I believe she will remain in a semi-catatonic state. When she broke free of Erik's control, she must have affected the mechanism by which he asserted himself. Unless I miss my guess, he is in a similar state at the moment. I do not believe he would leave himself completely vulnerable or unguarded, though. It is likely that he has associates with him. Logan, we must find him and find a way to reverse the damage he has done to Rogue."

"Why'd he make her do that? Cut you like that and put her hands on you like that? You two were more than just friends, weren't ya?" Logan leaned forward. Anyone less powerful or assured than Xavier would've found it quite intimidating.

"Yes, we were, but that was a long time ago and "

"Nah. It was tonight. He took Rogue over and did that stuff to you *tonight*. Whatever's happenin' between you two is still goin' on, at least to him it is. And I don't like Rogue bein' put in the middle of it."

"Nor do I. But there are things, Logan, that must remain private. I am sure you understand that." Xavier's expression hardened and Logan leaned back a little, shrugging.

"Stops bein' private when you drag other people into it, if ya ask me. Magneto fucked with Rogue. It ain't private no more." Xavier simply scowled at Logan and said nothing. "Frankly, I don't care what was goin' on between the two of you all those years ago, except for whatever parts of it made all this happen. That I give a shit about for two reasons. One it's hurting Rogue. Two I never like goin' into somethin' blind. Somethin's makin' Magneto do this and I wanna know what. This ain't the time to be delicate, Chuck. 'Sides, I could smell ya pretty good. You were gettin' off on what she was doin' even though you were scared too." Now it was Xavier's turn to lean back and effect nonchalance.

"Certain matters are private," he reasserted. "What sort of peccadilloes do you suppose I would find if I took a look about in your mind, Logan? Hmm?"

Logan didn't bother to hide his growl. "That a threat, bub?" Xavier said nothing. "'Cause if you wanna fry my brain, go ahead, you won't be the first. And nothin's gonna get Rogue outta my head, not now, no way. That's what this is all about, Chuck. She's hurtin' 'cause of what went down between you two, 'cause of personal shit between you two. This ain't about you and your goddamn privacy. You wanna see how close I can get to clawin' ya before you wipe my brain clean, you give it a try. I ain't lettin' it go until I get some answers or until Rogue's fixed."

Xavier knew the man was right. He needed to focus on helping Rogue now and not on protecting his past. He heaved a sigh and ran a hand over his bald head. Logan merely sat, coiled as tightly as a tiger ready to pounce, and waited. The tension was broken by Scott, who politely knocked, then entered.

"Professor? I'm ready to prepare a plan. Storm is in the lower levels, firing up the Blackbird." Scott looked back and forth between Xavier and Logan as he spoke, sensing the edginess in the room. Xavier looked tiredly to him and frowned a little.

"Thank you, Scott. I have narrowed Magneto's location. He is in Newark, in a warehouse. I am sending instructions to Jean telepathically now. I believe that Mystique is with him, no one else. Please formulate a plan and approach Magneto. Bring him here if possible. Any questions?"

"You you want me to formulate a plan?"

"Yes, and quickly. I have confidence in you, Scott. Bring Magneto back to us. Rogue needs our help." Scott basked in Xavier's words for a moment before nodding dutifully and departing. It occurred to Logan that Xavier had a talent for that for hitting just the right notes with people to get them to perform as he liked.

"I ain't goin', am I?" Logan knew he'd be useless against Magneto if he did wake up, but ordinarily he'd be chomping at the bit to kick the ass of someone who'd hurt Rogue. However, he sensed that Xavier, and Rogue, needed him for something else.

"No. Logan, I'm going to try to enter Rogue's mind. If they can't find Magneto or can't bring him back for study, it may still be possible to help her. She's closed her mind down, though, very tightly. Perhaps it was the only way to stop Erik, I don't know. And I don't think she trusts me enough to open it back up. I could not reach her at all before. But Logan, she would trust you."

"I will need to link with your mind, then push you to the forefront of our shared consciousness to try to reach Rogue. I will share with you what happened between Erik and myself as much as is pertinent to what occurred here tonight." Logan nodded, conveying without words that he would keep that knowledge to himself. "If they can retrieve Magneto, we will be in a better position to reach her and help her, but I feel that we must try now. Jean will be able to convey to me any information they can obtain from Erik while we are all linked." Logan gave him another nod, indicating that he understood. "Logan this is dangerous. You may end up in the same state as Rogue, or worse. I will try to maintain my link to you no matter what occurs, but if I have to fight Erik in her mind, things could turn unpredictable." Logan assessed that for a moment, then set the concern aside. He knew that Xavier would try to help Rogue no matter what happened, and that he was right about the trust she had in Logan.

"I gotcha. I'll do it."

"Very well," Xavier said solemnly. "Just relax. You'll feel me in a moment."

Logan feels himself mesh with Charles and for a moment he cannot tell where he leaves off and Charles begins. Then Xavier reasserts control and Logan is an observer no longer the same as the awkward boy/frightened mutant teen/intellectual young man/father figure but watching him and feeling him. He feels a prick of something akin to shame from Xavier, and then he falls into the memories and emotions scurrying through Xavier's mind.

His first flash of power, the first mind that he can read. He makes the old shopkeeper give him a magazine and some mints for free. He cries afterward and returns them.

His second flash of power, controlling his mother, making her stop smoking. He implants the suggestion and she obeys. He feels scared, elated, and justified. He's full of the urge to do good, to help people do what they cannot do for themselves.

His first day with Erik. He feels attracted and he feels pity. Erik is broken, and I can fix him, he thinks. After class, I will approach him.

His first night with Erik. Watching Erik fumble through kisses and caresses, wanting to make him feel more comfortable, more in control. He lays back on the bed, submissive. He's reeling with passion and love for Erik, but he feels something new too something good. He is not in control. He doesn't have to be in control now. It is the biggest of reliefs, and wholly unexpected.

The first time Erik strikes him. A smack to the face that draws blood. Instinctively, he reaches out for Erik's mind, to stop him, to protect himself. But before he can do it, Erik leans toward him, licking and tasting the blood, affecting gentleness. He lets Erik do it, lets him soothe the wound he inflicted. It feels good too, feels satisfying. He is punished and healed, all by the same lover. And he can see in Erik's eyes how much he relishes the power, the reversal of outward roles. Now Erik is no longer the awkward foreigner to Charles' well-bred sophisticate. Now, Erik is the dominant of the pair. Charles wants to give this to him too power, security, worth.

Erik holding him face down on the bed. By now the feel of metal moving against his skin while both of Erik's hands pin his hips down is familiar. Erik coordinates cuts and thrusts in a sensual rhythm. 'Shh, Charles,' Erik pacifies. 'I shan't really hurt you. Shh.' Charles trusts the truth of those words and his arousal deepens. He makes his mind and body feel really feel all of the sensations and relish in the pleasure and pain equally. They are all sensations, he thinks, they are all valid and worthy just as all people are. Just as mutants are. Erik moves faster and the knife falls to the floor. Charles feels his mouth drawing out blood from the cuts and his semen flowing into his body. When Erik is spent, he whispers, 'I will drink you out and fill you back up with me.'

The first time Erik goes too far a cut that was too deep and is bleeding too much. Charles asks him to stop, but he doesn't, and Charles panics. He uses his mind against Erik for the first time, finally getting him to move. By the time Charles returns from the hospital with thirty stitches in his thigh Erik is gone.

Two years later in Prague, at a graduate student's conference, he spies Erik across the room. They drink and talk together and make love once more. For three days, it is bliss. On the fourth day, Erik brings a knife to bed.

Xavier's mind shuts Logan out then and he can only wait, trying to process what Xavier has shown him. Erik's words stick with Logan 'I will drink you out and fill you back up with me.' All these years later, Logan thinks, that's what he tried to do with Rogue. He still wants Charles. He still wants to make Charles over into him. He found some way to use Rogue to do it.

"Yes, Scott. Be careful. Mystique is dangerous."

"Right." Scott blasted the door and rushed into the room. Storm flied in behind him, guarding the exit as he approached Mystique. Magneto laid unmoving on the small cot. "We're here for Magneto. He attacked one of the X-men."

Mystique sighed and flicked at her nails. "Oh, please, no," she droned in a flat tone. "Don't take him. Anything but that." She uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them.

"Uh..." Scott didn't take well to the unexpected. "We're taking him back to Westchester." He said it with more confidence than he felt and moved cautiously toward Magneto while Storm increased her vigilance. She was certain it was some kind of trick.

"Whatever." Mystique rose from her chair and crossed her arms over her chest with a hint of impatience. "If he wakes up, he'll know where to find me." In the briefest of instants, she transformed into a bird and flew past Storm.

"Leave her. I I don't know what's going on here, but we got what we came for. Let's go. Let's get out of here." The clock was still ticking, Scott thought, Rogue needs us. Maybe they had a falling out, maybe she's sick of him, maybe she's got PMS, who knows. We've got what we came for. We have to help Rogue.

Scott and Storm hustled Magneto's limp form and his broken machine out of the warehouse and into the Blackbird. Beneath them, Mystique watched the plane ascend. "You'll get your beloved Charles now," she muttered. "Stupid man." She turned into the night and disappeared. If he survived, she thought, perhaps he would finally learn his lesson.

Logan feels a sudden rush and for a moment, he thinks Charles has gone. But then he feels a whisper of Xavier's presence, the barest of hints. He finds himself in a sparse landscape, one he does not recognize. In the far distance, he sees a hunched, weeping form that he instinctively knows is Marie. Charles drops a suggestion into Logan's mind, asks him to call Rogue to him so that he may slip into her mind to fight Erik.

"Rogue," he shouts. Even after all that Charles has shown him, Logan is reluctant to use the name for her that only he knows. "Rogue, come here."

She straightens but does not turn to face him. Her hair is wild and unkempt and she looks smaller and more fragile than Logan can remember ever seeing her. And even though some part of him knows that this image is only a mental projection, only a mirage, her disheveled appearance strikes at his heart. "Rogue," he tries again, "please come here."

"I hurt you." She *is* crying, almost enough to make her hyperventilate. She stays where she is.

"It's all right, baby." Baby is what he calls her in his mind, in his heart. It is what she is to him a small, pure, incredibly precious thing, a thing for which it is his charge to care. "Come on over here to me."

"I can't. I I have to keep him out." Her body turns toward Logan slightly despite her words. "I'm so sorry I hurt you, Logan. I never meant it, I never, ever meant to."

"I know. It's OK. Please, Marie " The use of that name turns her head toward him. Her face looks as bad as the rest of her drawn, thin, haggard. "Please come here." Logan stretches out his arms to her. "It'll be OK, I promise. Trust me. Come here."

She looks at him uncertainly, but takes a tentative step toward him. He smiles and moves to take a step toward her, but Charles stops him. This is as far as he can safely go. "Logan?"

"It's OK," he soothes. "It's OK. Come here. Please, baby, come on. It's important."

"I'm scared." She stops halfway. She hugs herself tightly and sniffles a little. "I don't want him to take over again. I'm scared."

"I won't let that happen. I'll protect you, baby, always. Come here." Logan feels some anxiety seep over from Xavier and fights to keep it out of his expression.

A familiar, soft smile graces her mouth. "Promise?" she asks in an echo of their long-ago conversation. Suddenly, she is much closer to him, almost within arm's reach.

Logan fights the urge to grab her, to press her to him, and answers, "Promise."

She is next to him then, in his embrace, and Xavier's relief sparkles through him for a moment, magnifying his own. He hugs her tightly to him. "I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm so sorry." She's still crying, and Logan tilts her face up so that she can see the truth in his eyes.

"There's nothin' for you to worry about, baby. I understand what happened." Absurdly, Logan wonders if Charles ever uttered those words to Erik. "And I'm not really hurt, I'm just fine."

"But I'm the only one that can hurt you," she sobs.

"Yeah, I agreed to that," he answers. "You're the only one who can. You're the only one inside me and close enough to do it. But I know you're not gonna. Baby, it's all right." He strokes her cheek and fleetingly wonders when his heart stopped consulting with his brain. It's all feeling, all emotion, raw thought and sensation passing between them.

"You're inside me too. You're close enough to hurt me too. Logan, please don't hurt me back for what I did. I know I'd deserve it, but, please don't." He looks into her eyes and notices that she looks a little better now. Less pale, less worn. Some color has come back into her cheeks. Logan answers her concern with a kiss. When they part, she looks exactly as he remembers her on the day he left the mansion. Safe, healthy, glowing. They share a smile, and Logan draws her head down to rest against his chest.

"Everything's gonna be OK." He sees the distant horizon of this unreal landscape turn red with fire and blood, and he prays that he hasn't lied to her.

"His heart rate's dropping."

"What about Rogue, Jean?"

"Hang on. Hang on. She's she's stable. She's stable. Give me that syringe, Scott. I'm going to try to dammit! That was an arrhythmia his heart beat's going irregular."

"Go ahead. I'll keep an eye on Rogue. Go ahead, take care of Magneto."

"This isn't good his vitals are tanking. This isn't good."

Logan keeps Marie's head turned away from the fluctuating landscape. Monstrous and horrific images rise and fall, colors flash bright then fade, and finally, there is a zenith of fire, then nothing. Somehow Logan knows that Xavier has won and that there are only seconds left for him in this world. He takes Marie's face in his and kisses her passionately, trying to convey the hurricane of feeling inside him, trying to make her feel his love.

"Logan?" Jean's voice pulled him out of the connection. He groggily opened his eyes and sat up. Spying Marie in the adjacent bed awake and with a hint of a smile on her lips he exhaled in relief.

"Chuck?" he asked. Jean nodded to a cot where he was resting, seemingly asleep. "He OK?"

"Physically, yes. He's exhausted, but he's OK."

"What? Somethin's mentally wrong with him or somethin'?"

"No, not exactly, but but Magneto suffered a heart attack while you were...He's in bad shape. And the Professor is worried." Logan didn't quite know how to feel about that. Consuming hatred warred with leftover threads of compassion for the man. Feeling somebody else's feelings was a bitch, he thought. Made things fuckin' complicated.

"I'm going to go check on him now. Take care of Rogue, will you?"

Logan smirked at that, and moved to Rogue's bedside even before Jean was quite gone. "How ya feelin', kid?" Out here, it was 'kid', not 'baby.' At least not yet.

"Still pretty crappy about stabbing you within an inch of your life." She looked peaceful, though, contented.

"Ah, that? That was nothin'. Don't you worry." He took her gloved hand in his, gently kissing the back of it before laying it back against her side.

"I love you." Those simple words seized his heart. He knew the truth of them he had felt the truth of them.

"Yeah. Same here." He hoped that was enough, hoped that she could remember the wealth and depth of feeling that laid behind those scant words. If her smile was any indication, she did. "You get some rest. I'll be right here." For the first time in almost 24 hours, Logan eased. Marie was safe, he was with her, and there was nothing else he wanted or could ask for at this moment.

"Hello Charles." Erik was drained but not beyond keeping up appearances. He had suffered a moderate to severe coronary attack but was recovering well. He was scheduled to be transferred to a special prison medical ward later that day.

"Hello. How are you feeling?" Charles had visited him every day. Neither spoke about what occurred in Rogue's mind.

"Well, I'm not dead." He arched an urbane eyebrow upward. Charles reflected that his mannerisms hadn't changed over the decades.

"Erik," Charles began, "I want you to know that we have studied the machine you used. It will not be successful in the future." Erik said nothing, just turned his head away from Charles. "What you did to Rogue was unconscionable. She has, however, elected not to attempt to press charges against you. Given that you've already been sentenced to a term of years longer than you are likely to live for the Statue of Liberty incident, it seemed unnecessary."

"I think she should do it. It might give the poor, wretched girl some closure. And it would cast an interesting light upon you, Charles, to have all those nasty little secrets out in the open, to be made to confess the true nature of our relationship."

"I've never been ashamed that we were lovers, Erik."

"Ah, that's why you hide it so obsessively. Out of pride." Charles sighed at that. "Well, some of them know your secrets now. Why, given the way teenage girls tend to gossip, everyone in your home must know by now. And that brute that you brought in with you to watch over the girl I can hardly imagine that he's thrilled to know his leader is a what's the term they use now? ah, yes fag."

"What happened in Rogue's mind is private." In fact, Charles knew that the girl would be the last person to disclose any of his secrets. She understood the value of keeping some things to yourself, and, moreover, she had had Erik in her head all along. She must have known, or suspected, and had never said a word. As for Logan things that didn't directly affect him or Rogue tended to fly beneath his radar. If anything, the fact that he'd played a role in causing injury to Rogue would be what stuck with Logan. "I wish that you could stop being so angry, Erik."

"Not angry, Charles, realistic." Charles wheeled closer to the edge of Erik's bed and took his hand. "Stop that." Erik turned his head away again but did not move his hand.

"Whatever I tried to give you was never enough. I'm sorry that it wasn't. I don't know what you want from me now."

"What I've always wanted, Charles. Respect. Trust." Erik was being honest now, and Charles did not need to read his mind to know it.

"Those things are not the same as power. Power won't give them to you, old friend," Charles gently instructed. "They can't be taken, they must be given."

"Really? And are you inclined to give them to me? Would you have whispered sweet words to me if I hadn't been " Erik cut himself off, angry with letting himself be drawn into this conversation.

"I gave you those things in spite of how you were with me, not because of it. I wanted to show you that I accepted you as you were, that there was nothing I wouldn't give. You broke that trust, Erik, over and over again. You always went too far. Every time we tried over the years, it always ended the same."

"You're just as much to blame for that as I."

"Perhaps," Charles agreed, ending the discussion. He released Erik's hand and gently ran his slender fingers down Erik's chest. "I shall miss you, old friend." He leaned forward and laid a tender kiss on Erik's forehead. Pausing to look at him one last time, he turned and wheeled out of the medlab. He was already making plans in his mind to visit with Erik in prison, already thinking of purchasing a new chess set for them, already thinking of how to reach him, to finally get through to him. Even now, Charles loved him. He doubted that would ever change. He entered the elevator, watched the doors close him in, and considered for the first time in a long time whether that was a blessing or a curse.