Good Intentions

You make your choices and then spend the rest of you life paying for them. dark!Charles AU drabble

fic a day 16

Charles tells Raven that she is beautiful in her natural form, beautiful in red and blue and gold. He tells her this, every morning and every night, every moment in between and hopes that one of these days what he is saying will be more then words, because as he says it, he can feel her doubt. Every time she thinks he's lying.

She drags up old memories of freak, monster, alone and she's projecting so loud it's a slap to the face. He gives her warmth, love and whispers not alone, curling his hand around hers. He gives her the image of sunlight illuminating her skin so it glimmers, dazzling and promises her soon.

He'll make her a world where she can walk in her own skin. A world where she'll be safe and loved for who she is. Not for hiding. It what she want more then anything. He swore.

Children do stupid things sometimes.

Charles promises Raven a world, unafraid, when he's twelve and he is terrified of the world without her. Because she is brilliant and blue and a freak like him. A mutant. He plucks the word out of his stepfather's mind, from the never ending spew he mentally directs at Charles (sometimes it makes him flinch. He's growing more immune) and nudges his science teachers mind to the subject in class for a definition.

He wears the word like a badge of honor because he is the future. Him and Raven, they're special. The rest of the world? He knows them. The shape of their minds, their hopes and fears. He has seen suicides and saints and the only difference is a tweak in their minds.

He can create that without a second thought.