A second chance...

[ihearyouthink]

Charles was spending some time in Cerebro, doing his daily search for new mutants. As his mind flicked over the thousands within his reach, he found himself wondering about the man he met a few days ago. Such a tortured soul, Charles couldn't help but wonder how he was doing.

He searches for his mind, just to check up on him. Nothing more. He won't even know he's there...

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[eidetikerwill.livejournal.com]

"Then you know who the Tooth Fairy is, the man who's been killing all of these innocent people," Will said slowly. That dull anger still lurked there below the surface. It hurt in a way. People had died while Charles could have known, could have stopped it. Couldn't he?

He shook his head slowly. All the times he had been accused of being psychic, Will had wished he was. If he had been, he could have stopped deaths, couldn't he?

"Charles. I don't understand."

[ihearyouthink.livejournal.com]

Charles frowns in confusion. "...No, I'm afraid I don't." He had not been prying into Will's case. It was possible Will was trying to put himself onto Charles without realizing.

He had better clarify this. "Will, what you do, I can't do that. I can only read existing minds and thoughts. You are a step further than that. Complete empathy with someone without them even being present...it's quite amazing.

No, what I can do is listen to thoughts and memories. Rather like a telephone, you could say." He's trying to reassure him. No need to get into his other abilities of changing the thoughts of others just yet.

[eidetikerwill.livejournal.com]

"Ah."

There had been stupid hope born, no matter how briefly with anger chasing along behind him. To him, raised on the generic sci-fi idea, a telepath knew everything. It was relieving in a way that it wasn't true. Otherwise, he would have found himself in the unenviable position of blaming Charles for everything that had gone wrong. It wasn't fair, but being 'fair' wasn't something Will was good at.

"It's not amazing."

No. Never that. Everyone looked at Will as if he were some sort of monster, a thing they could never understand. Those who needed Will's help shunned him, stared at him as if he were some profane creature in their midst.

In Will's mind, a crimson light beam moved over targets, trying to threaten and pry. Any second, a shot could be fired.

"It's a horrible thing, Professor Xavier. You're better off."

While Will might not be a mutant (although the specific configuration that gave Will his strange mind might have skated along the edge given that a true one was less than one percent... what was that but a genetic mutation?) he knew their disapproval. He was all too willing to embrace his next drink, fingers running along the edge as if to feel for something. The brief mental picture rose and fell of Will losing himself in a drugged sludge.

"Yours is more useful."

[ihearyouthink.livejournal.com]

"I have a limited range, depending on environment and how hard I concentrate. Even then, I don't think I would want to hear everyone's thoughts all the time." That would be enough to drive anyone nuts.

Charles looks at him, "I think you're wrong, Mr. Graham. It does seem horrible due to the use it's been put to. My own could be used to hurt other people but that doesn't make it a bad ability. It's the person using it that makes the difference." You've gotten him into teacher mode again, Will.

"I know you drink to dull your ability, so you won't have to think about it."

[eidetikerwill.livejournal.com]

"If you could, hear everyone I mean, wouldn't that be a lot like drowning in a sea of voices? Could you lose yourself in there?"

Interest went to war with his personal desire to push the entire conversation away from himself.  There were enough people at the FBI that thought he was a freak of nature.  He didn't want more.

And he recognized the voice of a lecturer.  Will had few qualms about keeping Charles in that stream by diverting him off of his mind and back onto Charles' telepathy.  A fingertip slid around the rim of his glass before he lifted it to his lips.

"How do you stay sane?"

[ihearyouthink.livejournal.com]

"Much like a crowded room? If you stick to surface thoughts...but I don't believe that's quite what you're going for." One mind at a time was plenty, two or more was tricky, depending on what Charles was doing. But as he got older, he improved at his ability. Leave it to Will to voice how Cerebro worked, even then it was still one mind at a time when listening.

It was a serious question. Charles wasn't entirely sure of the answer but he tried to give one. He considers the question, thinking back to when he first learned he couldn't walk again. That day had not exactly been a sane one, neither at the beach or at the hospital afterward. Since then, it had been better. "Practice at concentration, an overabundance of optimism...." He could say, a few friends like himself, but he was protecting them.

Another faint smile. "I'm very fond of chess, though it is hard to find a good opponent." Not since Erik and he parted ways.

[eidetikerwill.livejournal.com]

Something like Cerebro wasn't a thing that Will had considered, didn't even think existed in the world. To him, telepathy was some new and puzzling thing. It took a little time for him to asorb that this was real, that there was a man sitting before him that might understand him as much as Lecter did and not think him a monster.

"It is, sort of. I guess I think of minds like an ocean, you drowning in them until... well, they're you."

That was a concept Will understood, even if it was unconsciously. He picked up aspects of people around him, imprinting them over himself until the primal 'he' was lost under others.

The subject of optimism brought a smile that was more of a skeleton's grin than anything human. There was a softening to it at the mention of chess.

"I can play. I used to long ago. I haven't played for years."

He didn't have to say since Hannibal's time. No one had really mattered since then.

"I don't know if I would be on your level."

[ihearyouthink.livejournal.com]

"Mmmmmm emotions, perhaps. Reading someone's thoughts aren't quite like that. Though I hesitate to demonstrate as I've already given you quite a lot to process..."

His smile brightens. "If possible, we should have a game sometime." Assuming this meeting ends well.

[eidetikerwill.livejournal.com]

Will nodded slowly. As much as he wanted to press Charles for more, to learn more, to see more, he knew that the night ahead would be horrible. Tonight, he had to slip into a madman's mind and walk around. Then he would have to draw himself out and once more be 'him' instead of someone else.

Then he would have to deal with using the right bait with the right scheme to make Hannibal Lecter leave the damn country or at least the general area. Even if it meant with Clarice Starling. Prices always had to be paid.

The smile he gave Charles was sad and tired but genuine. Maybe that could or would make up for all the other short-comings.

"I would like that, Professor Xavier. It has been a long time since I did."

He could remember the last time he had played chess.

"I should be going. I'm sorry. I have to before the moonlight changes too far."

It was Graham-ese for 'I need it to be as close as I can get to what he saw that night'.

[ihearyouthink.livejournal.com]

It hardly seemed like time had passed while they were sitting here talking. Charles straightens a bit in his chair. Will is thinking so fully on what he has to do tonight, he can't help but overhear it.

"Understood." He pauses. "Would you want my help? If it was offered?" While he could not do what Will could, at the very least he could be there for moral support if Will had no objections. Charles knew he didn't have many, if any, people to support him as a friend.

[eidetikerwill.livejournal.com]

Time was something that Will was all too aware of. It moved like a river, slow at places and racing at others. Either way, he always aware of its passage.

"I-"

Never before had someone asked to go with him, to see what it was he did. With Charles who could see how his mind worked in its ugly way did he want that? Everything in him shied away from the possibility.

"You don't want to do that. No one has. It would be horrible for someone, especially you."

He shook his head, rising from hsi chair. It would be nice to see someone on the outside, but not while he was walking around in the Tooth Fairy's head. What would a telepath think of that? What else could you think of someone who lived in the minds of the worst of society?

"Tomorrow maybe?"

[ihearyouthink.livejournal.com]

Charles looked right back at him. "The mutant we were chasing, Shaw. I held onto his mind while he was being killed." He had begged Erik not to take his revenge in that way. But he would not listen. And Charles screamed while that evil man died without a sound.

"Believe me when I say I am more than willing to help you catch your monster."

He moves his chair out slightly, giving Will a chance should he want to change his mind.

[eidetikerwill.livejournal.com]

Will stopped there, his mind swinging back and forth between yes and no. He wanted to have Charles there in the event something went wrong or - just to have someone there. That warred with the fear of what Charles might see. In Will's thoughts, being in a victim's mind was different from being in a killer's. Being the killer.

"I... I. Yes."

The FBI would scream to the skies about evidence being ruined, but he could swing it somehow with Crawford. Make Charles some sort of title. Something.

"Come on then. If it gets to be too much, give me your word that you'll leave."

Every nerve in Will's body lit up, starting to slide into that keyed up state that signaled everything coming on-line and ready to go. Still, there was that fear of Charles being there. An unknown factor.

[ihearyouthink.livejournal.com]

Charles smiles reassuringly. "Then you have my help. And my word to leave if needed."

He pauses to put his fingers to his temple to concentrate, eyes closed for a moment, letting Hank know where he was planning to go next. "Do you need a ride there or...?" Charles will most likely have his car follow whatever transport Will has, due to his wheelchair needing to come with him.