Work Text:
“N O W, Charles!!”
He saw the mind, a jagged maze of sharp colours, and plunged inside it without hesitation, searching for the controls that would bend it to his will. The labyrinthine consciousness was filled with mirrors, as broken as the mirrors he’d seen through Erik’s eyes, and they contained a myriad of visions that tried to pull him in. It felt as a fabricated line of defense, possibly engineered by Emma Frost to protect Shaw from just such an attack.
It was almost impossible to ignore the fragmentary images. Some contained memories, some contained ideas and plans, some contained dreams of a violence and destruction they seemed like nightmares to Charles, and all the while the lights kept flickering and the noise, there was so much noise, so many voices, too many people. There was Erik, much younger, so afraid and he could not look away and suddenly all went quiet, and he heard only the sweet, ragged sobs of the young man who was kneeling before him, smudges of his blood painting the tiled floor. He knew Erik, he loved Erik, but now he was also Shaw and Shaw loved Erik too, prided himself on his artfully broken tool. The sense of accomplishment when he cupped Eriks chin, lifted his head, the battered soul exposed so beautifully, was it his, was it Shaws? It made Charles sick to his stomach and terrified he fled the memory, scrambling backwards, away from this disgusting creature, back into the disorienting maze. He examined the edges, desperate now, and found a loose thread in Emma’s tapestry of horror and with one quick pulse he destroyed the barrier and beyond it took control of Shaw. Stopped him.
And after that he could do nothing but watch, and wait, and through Shaws’ eyes he witnessed Eriks fall.
And later, when Erik cradled him in his arms and everything in the world was wrong he could only see the monster Shaw had created and in his death set loose upon the world.