Charles quietly opened the door to his own bedroom and tiredly made his way to the bed and flopped on it. Completely exhausted. He had spent the whole day bouncing back and forth between his guests, his new team mates, strengthening them and helping control their powers further. They had been training for a month now, and could definitely start seeing results. Alex's aim was getting better and better by the day, and even though Sean hadn't screamed as he jumped out of the window, at least the technology was sorted.

The hardest moment was with his best friend Eric, who had insisted on getting Charles to shoot him in the head with his gun, determined he was going to stop it. Charles had really tried to do it, but the more he thought about what if it were to go wrong, and all that blood... he licked his lips unknowingly, he may not need a source for many years unless he was injured from what he had found, but the desire was still there. Like chocolate.

He bought his hands to his face and sighed, calming his thoughts, Calm yourself Charles, he let his mind wander, he could feel all the surface thoughts of those in the mansion. He let Alex's thoughts about girls and Sean's studying of his new set of wings brush over him, like the tide coming in on the beach. Eric's thoughts were quiet as usual, he found that his good friend had some slight shield over his mind, and surface thoughts were like quiet whispers. The other two sets of thoughts though that he constantly worried over was his sister Raven and Hanks, they seem to constantly worry about their appearance, thinking themselves freaks and monsters.

Charles let out a quiet humourless chuckle, If only they knew. His sister thought he didn't understand about having to hide his appearance, and what it felt like. But as he stretched out his hand above him, feeling his skin stretch and hand disfigure and turn colour, he knew that he understood more than they knew, except they could share that side of themselves with others around them, relieve the burden of being alone. He let let his usual peaceful and happy personality be over-run by his darker side for a moment. Just staring at the sickly looking claw that had replaced his hand.

As soon as those thoughts arrived, they were gone. Charles quickly relaxed himself, letting the peace flow back over him again, thinking of moments of growing up with his step sister. Closing his eyes momentarily he thought of happy memories he had gained, pushing aside the darker side to him and replacing it with calm.

Opening his eyes his hand was back to his usual human self, Apart from the fact I'm no longer human, or even mutant. He rolled his head to the side, staring at his chess board which sat a few feet away from the bed. The pieces still set out from where Charles had won his last game against Eric. Charles queen sat in the middle, with the knight near by. Eric had noted the night before as they played that he never let the queen get taken, even if he had to sacrifice a few other pieces to protect it. Charles had just brushed the comment of in his usual way, saying it was the most powerful piece. Though he had felt Eric hadn't believed his but said nothing and just carried on playing.

"Even with her fast asleep and her hold over me gone, I still subconsciously protect her." He muttered to himself.

His thoughts were dragged back again to the events of today, as he tried to convince his team that they weren't freaks, but something amazing and special.

"They think themselves monsters. But the only one I see here is me now."

He felt his friend Eric start to make his way out of his own room and towards Charles, for their usual evening of alcohol and chess. Dragging his body up he quickly got changed out of that grey tracksuit he had worn while running with Hank and into something more comfortable.

Enough brooding. I have things I need to do, train everyone, save the world and create peace between mutants and humans. He laughed quietly at the thought of his huge tasklist, but was positive and had belief that the human race was capable of this. I have 40years till anything problems from that appear again, for now I want to continue with my dream.

As Eric knocked politely on the door and entered, Charles firmly hung onto his dream that he always strived towards.

Peaceful co-existence between Humans and Mutant. Even if he wasn't either anymore.

A small oneshot, that has been jumping around in my head for the past few days, since watching the new X-Men film and listening to some Blood+ music :P

Sorry if I made Charles OOC, or anything isn't right.