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Erik is consumed by his dread.
There's no break from the horrors around him, no past, present, or future. There is only now, and now is everywhere and always. Forever.
This has all happened before, some part of Erik knows this intrinsically. He knows everything that will happen. He knows every way Schmidt is going to make his life even more of a living hell than it already was.
He can't stop it happening right in front of his eyes. Over and over and over again. Frozen still and helpless.
Suddenly Erik is four years old again, and he hears a lullaby that he thought he'd forgotten. Erik is safe. Everything is going to be okay.
It is the last time he feels that way.
Then he's older. Eleven, twelve, thirteen.
This anger is new to him. It is bright and burning and rips through him. Longs to rip through the rest of the world for what it's done to him. This anger is brand new, and yet it's the most familiar feeling in the world. His rage burns him from the inside out until there's nothing left of him—until he's just a hollowed out shell of a person. Someone who might have been a child once.
That's gone now.
All that's left is the destruction and what it leaves in its wake.
It starts again. Again, again, and again. There is nothing but this. Erik screams and he's silent but he's never stopped screaming. The world shatters and puts itself back together too quickly for Erik to feel the satisfaction of breaking it.
Fragments of memory come and go too vividly for Erik to understand what's real.
Erik doesn't know whether he's dying or not.
He doesn't think it would be such a bad thing if he was.
Charles got to Erik as soon as he could, pushing his chair by Erik's side and lowering himself to the ground next to him. It had been easy to find him—even if Charles hadn't been so familiar with Erik's mind that he could find him anywhere, the waves of emotion rolling off of it made it practically light up like a beacon for him in a sea of other minds.
The distress was present in everyone around them, but in Erik it was so potent it almost stopped Charles in his tracks.
The mutant that had caused this—just a child, really—is asleep for now, something that was easy for Charles to make happen once he'd figured out who caused it. He's got a more pressing concern now. Erik isn't waking up.
The effects of her powers must still be affecting him.
It's hard for most people to see what her powers do—if they get close enough to her, they seem to just drop unconscious.
Charles isn't most people.
He can resist it easily himself, but Erik and the others can't say the same. Her powers trap them in loops of their worst memories, or perhaps just the most potent ones, over and over again like a nightmare that never ends.
It's not the girl's fault: she doesn't have control over her powers, and has probably only recently developed them. However, they've already had devastating effects within a small radius.
Erik isn't the only one affected here, but he's the only one Charles can think about at the moment. Waves of pain and confusion, distress and turmoil push against him from all directions; Charles shoves it all away, feeling only a little bit of remorse as he does.
He blocks out everything and everyone except Erik's mind.
Erik is older, now. He's older except he isn't. He's a child and he's all alone in the world, nothing to keep him tethered and no purpose other than his own anger. Except he's older, now, and he isn't alone. He's not alone event though that can't be right because he is and he always has been.
But he isn't.
There is ice cold water in his nose in his lungs in his heart. There are bright blue eyes for a moment, but then they're gone and they had never really been there, had they? Couldn't have been.
Not when Erik isn't really here, isn't anywhere because he isn't anything anymore. A shell, a weapon, maybe. Nothing more.
Something is wrong, though. Something is wrong and there's another flash of blue eyes but he can't quite place them, can't begin to decipher what they mean. They shouldn't be here. There is something wrong here.
It's the first time he's thought it, but he knows it with a certainty. Something is wrong.
Erik
He shouldn't recognize this voice but he does and everything feels more wrong.
Erik, it's me.
He knows this person. He knows and he knows and he knows and he just can't—
Erik, focus. I need you to come back.
Come back? Erik is right here and there is nothing but this and never will be except—whoever this is. They don't belong here, and if this person doesn't belong here, that means there's somewhere else.
The wrongness of this place holds him. Traps him.
I can't do this on my own, Erik. Please.
Charles—Charles needs him. Charles has never left Erik alone, and Erik isn't going to let him be alone either.
Oh. Of course it's Charles. It's always been Charles. How could he ever forget?
When he wakes, Erik gasps in his breaths like a drowning man.
His head moves sharply from side to side: he's trying to take in the room, but isn't quite able to focus on just one thing.
"Erik, Erik, I'm here." Charles keeps his voice low, but firm. Insistent. Erik's head snaps to his and they lock eyes.
"What…" is the first word out of his mouth, but he doesn't seem to be able to follow it up with anything. Charles hasn't removed his hand from Erik's head, and now he moves it further down, so he's lightly gripping his hair from the back.
"You're alright. You're safe." Charles can't tell exactly how much of what he's saying is actually being taken in, but he decides to keep talking to him, hoping the sound of his voice might help.
He repeats vague assurances and eventually he finds his hand moving through Erik's hair. It's something Erik has done to comfort Charles a few times, on some particularly bad days, but it's never something Charles has been on this side of. He finds he likes it.
"Charles" Erik murmurs, and Charles lets out a breath of relief.
"Yes, Erik. I'm here." His voice is dangerously close to breaking.
"Charles—are you real?" Charles' breath catches in his throat. There goes his chance at avoiding tears.
"Yes, my love. I'm here. I'm real."
Erik nods like he understands.
"I'm not sure I am."
"Not sure you're what?" Charles asks.
"Real." He responds.
Charles is speechless for a moment. All he can think of to do is pull Erik close to his chest and hold on as tight as he can.
You're real. You're here with me. He says the words directly into Erik's mind in hopes that they'll find a home there.
Erik comes back to himself slowly.
He doesn't know how much time has passed, but he feels the flow of time now, he thinks. He didn't before.
He's warmer than he thought he'd be. He remembers he was alone and cold, with ice in his lungs and veins and now—right. He's in Charles' arms. That's why he's not so cold anymore, even though he's still shivering a little.
Erik can't remember the last time he's been held like this.
Charles stopped speaking a while ago, but as Erik twitches and moves to lift himself back up, he shifts and looks back down at Erik's face with a concerned look in his eyes. He wonders what Charles is seeing in his face and his thoughts. He doesn't ask.
"Are you alright?" Charles' words are gentle, treating Erik like he's something fragile. Erik hasn't been something fragile in a long long time, though he currently remembers it more clearly than he ever has.
He doesn't know how he feels about it.
He does know this bubble of theirs is going to have to burst soon, now that Erik's remembering where he is and the events that have just unfolded around them. Charles will have to help the others.
"I am." It's not a lie. For the most part, he's just exhausted. Drained. Though, not without a small amount of worry about the nightmares this ordeal is likely going to bring back into play for him.
Selfishly, he wants to tell Charles to stay with him just a little longer. He won't, however much he may want to. He knows it will hurt Charles to stay still when he can do something to help people.
Besides, it won't be long. Erik will be right here waiting for him when he comes back.