Dialogue Fic: The Sound of Silence

Summary: A Few months after Cuba, Charles receives an unexpected phone call. Man pain ensues.
Written for the lovely speak_me_fair in response to a prompt curiosity she had, in dialogue mostly, because now that I've found their voices, I can't let them goooo! Do let me know what you think, all. ^^

Its beyond late, and he is beyond tired, and it's so dark even the moon has gone to bed.

But Charles doesn't sleep like he used to.

He is up, a living ghost patrolling the too-large house of memories, keeping his weary eyes and weary mind fixed upon his precious charges...his children.

His reason.

His reason to stay awake even when there is no other reason-

The phone rings.

Not a phone, but thephone.

The one in the physics classroom that never rang...

Charles almost lets it go to voicemail.

Charles never thought for a moment he was capable of that.

"Hello? ….Hello? Listen I can hear you breathing, whoever you are, so you may as well speak your peace because I am in no mood-"

"Can you really? Heh."

"...Who is this?"

"I thought you could hear me."

"Erik."

"Charles."

"...I...well. What did you...want, then?"

"Do I have to want something?"

"You don't want me to answer that."

"Maybe I do. Maybe that's why I called you. Maybe people do exactly what they mean sometimes."

"Erik...are you drunk?"

"You don't want me to answer that."

"This is absurd. I'm h-hanging up."

"No you're not."

"Don't you bloody tell me what I will and will not do, Erik. You have no right-"

"You erased Moira's memory."

"...Excuse me?"

"Moira. Fucking Moira,Charles. Auburn fucking hair. You remember, even if she barely does. You zapped her."

"I...how do you know that?"

"The same way I know you can't walk. You can't walk, Charles..."

"..."

"You can't walk. You can't-"

"Are you really going to say it again?"

"You didn't tell me..."

"You never asked. You never said my name."

"Charles."

"What. What?"

"Why did you erase her memory?"

"...Ohhhh. Oh are those tears, Erik? Tears from across the state, or the country, or the ocean, or wherever the sodding Brotherhood has decided to live in their mud huts these days? God you're so transparently wounded I don't even need to use my X gene. He thinks I did it for him, all for him ladies and gentleman, and isn't that a good joke."

"I'm sorry."

"Fuck off. Fuck you and fuck Raven and this telephone and what do you suppose, that I just sit in this goddamned chair all day and think of ways to make it easy for you? "

"Don't cry...Charles-"

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO. I hate you...D-did you hear that, Erik? I said that I h-h-..."

"Go on. Say it again."

"..."

"Goodbye, Charles."

The next day, class is held outside under a mild April sky, Charles's lecturing baritone marred only by the sound of stomping feet and power drills across the green as the construction crew does it's work with the efficiency of the Very Expensive.

"But Professor, aren't you worried that whatever broke the window is prowling around somewhere?"

"Yeah, and what about the land line! How the heck did it get in the tree?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Ororo. Of course we can't be sure of specifics, but the phone and the glass it shattered were both the unfortunate subjects of a rather violent application of kinetic energy. Now who can tell me the definition of kinetic?"

"Oooh! Ooh! I know! Professor, I know!"

END