→ pull out the breaks behind the houses,

[mentis]

Who: Charles Xavier & River. ( C L O S E D )
What: Telepathic friends share everything even when they probably don't want to. AKA Charles is kind of sensing the brain breaking thing.
When: Day 78 ( afternoon )
Where: House 17
Warnings: As usual, emoting.

He's close to River, of course he is. She reminds him of many things, like stained glass in windows building up a picture, and he cares for her deeply. But today is the first real time he's aware of just how close they've become. There is only one other person he feels constantly, the tendrils of his mind entwined around the barbed wire of Erik's, and so to sense him every day is not startling. The thread of dissonance in his thoughts currently today though, that gives him pause. It's like the edges of a headache, a mind that isn't his barraging against the walls. He's not concerned, perhaps he should be, but there are many beings here that don't follow the same rules as those he knows. He goes about his daily business as best he can, to the library and back before he stops to genuinely poke at it a little bit. It takes him too long - far too long - to get the sense of who it is attempting this kind of psychic battery. Then once he realises he strengthens his own defences and deviates from his path.

He doesn't think River is trying to contact him, no. From the whispers of her mind he senses there's something she can't quite control. If she wanted his attention and could not get it, it would be far more likely that she'd go through Erik. So he's curious and a little worried as he picks his way through the town towards her house. He doesn't knock as he rambles up the path, his hands in his cardigan pocket, just brushes against her thoughts with intent.

River. Can you let me in?

Comments

[enchangement]

River is not watching Charles; instead her eyes are fixed upward, staring at the pattern of stars in the sky.

It shifts. She blinks, and it shifts further. Somewhere there are treess blossoming, blooming in those stars as they rotate in strange patterns and just as suddenly, River knows that this is about to go terribly wrong. The police box represents the truth of the matter, huge and terrifying, only the edges of which River can properly articulate and comprehend. The barrier is what remains of the one time she hid a great truth from herself.

The one other time.

So as Charles strengthens this separation of self from permanently damaging truth, the barrier itself summons its own memory. In an instant the landscape changes to the great, hollowing emptiness that was Ariel and in that instance Charles can hear what River heard on that planet - the deafening silence of so many people dying, without suffering, without reason, merely choosing to cease to be.

They felt nothing, and so they died.

It's an oasis of terrifying calm in a sea of horror, because the police box strikes the barrier again and shatters into a million billion pieces that grow limbs and torsos and begin screaming at Charles. The barrier holds the Reavers from reaching them but River can't hold him and herself and them in the same place but never interacting, so she grabs his hands and push/pulls until he is back in his own body and she has managed to vomit up pie and tea without missing the sink.

Several moments and dry heaves pass before River turns on the faucet and cups her hands in water, rinsing her mouth and splashing cool liquid on her face before she remembers that Charles is here, not just in her mind but present in a physical sense, and so she glances at him over her shoulder.

"Thank you."

[mentis]

Inner turmoil of the mind is something he's not a stranger to, but this is different. This is brutal and violent and shows so much of River that he feels his breath catch in his throat. She is such a strong woman, so beautiful and kind and he wonders how she manages to do it without falling to pieces.

So the minute she speaks he's up and gathering her into his arms without a word. River is one of them, that is true, but she's also had a vast and significant impact on Charles' life that he cares for her as he would Raven, or even a daughter of his own. His hand curves around the back of her skull and he holds her close but gently.

"You are so brave," he whispers, mind extending to hers but not pushing through, it's more like warm water against the shore, comfort in the only way he knows, "And we are very lucky to have you, River."