The devils tears…

Taste the devils cup.

Drink from his cup.

Offer me the universe/

Some call love a curse

some call love a thief-Angus and Julia stone

telepathy is italics.

He was lying on his side, arm stretched out underneath his head. His fingers and nails caked with a dusty pale kind of dirt. The dirt of ruined cities and broken promises. The fingers flexed, as if trying to reach out for something. Just as the dirt coats his fingers, it also covers his whole body, it mats his brown hair, and turns his once stylish dinner jacket grey. Blue eyes squint in the full sunlight of an equally blue cloudless sky. He bends his fingers again. Tiny pebbles of dirt run through them.

He can't walk. He can't move the debris that covers his legs. The useless legs that will not serve him now trap him in this city of the dead.

He gathers his strength and reaches out.

Alex? Hank? Sean? Nothing reaches his mind. His thoughts circle like rapid fire, rising out the ruins

anyone?

Silence.

Then.

Charles? Cold ice touches his mind. He laughs. Coughs on dust. Emma? He hears light bubbling laughter.

"The one and only sugar." She is standing over him, her blond hair, turning white in the brilliant sunlight that beams down. He laughs dryly. She frowns as she takes in the beam covering his legs.

"If I can lift it, could you wriggle out?"

He nods. "Where is he?" she knows who 'he' means, someone who could lift the steel beam without a second thought.

She changes into her bright diamond form and tries to move the beam. She pulls away some the debris and uses a bar as a fulcrum to lift up the beam. "Go." Using his arms he hauls himself free. Emma lets the rubble fall and resettle. Charles pushes himself against a wall. "I can't find him."

"Neither can I." Emma replies flatly. Pity lights her dark eyes.

"Why did you come?"

She dusts off her white pant suit. "You're a telepath, you're a mutant and you were buried in rubble."

"Pure altruism them." He is softly sarcastic, waiting for the kicker, waiting for Emma to reveal the catch to his rescue.

"We don't harm our own." Her eyes narrow.

She quotes Shaw, she quotes Magneto, but it has been her statement all along Xavier realizes.

She gives a small smile. "Well one does what one can. So what shall we do now?" She would like to pull him to his feet, but she knows that is not possible. He is skinnier than he used to be, she observes casually, noting that he still went in for the sweater vests. Fashion sense unchanged..

They need to get out of the city. The city was poison.

He hadn't really thought beyond the rubble.

"The others?" He inquiries anxiously.

"You were the only mutant mind I could hear. But you're normally…?" she does not like to admit to his greater range. "Could you find them?"

He looks down at his legs, they are scratched and bleeding through the torn material, they look okay , unbroken. He still finds it odd that he can't feel them at all. Closing his eyes he reaches out to the others he has not tried yet, Jean first, then Logan, then small young Rogue, and finally him. A mind he would always know. Nothing, bloody nothing at all. Just his own thoughts; hopes bouncing back.

"No." He looks down into his hands in shock. A little lost. Can't be dead, not every mutant in the entire city.

"Fuck." He had never really cared for hash language, but Emma was normally more eloquent than a curse too.

"Fuck indeed." He smiles and she returns it. "On to plan b, perhaps." Frost smiles, she had always found the little professor, impressive in his own way. He had of course always been on the wrong end of things, as he was this time as well. "And what might that be Professor?"

"Warmth, shelter, relative safety. In the morning I want to go down to that island," determination flaring in his eyes.

"Let's start with getting you out of here…" Emma changes into her diamond form and hoists Xavier into her arms like a new bride. He laughs as he catches her thought.

You're not my 'type 'she replies to his mind placing emphasis on the word type. He chuckles out loud.

Raven will be so delighted to hear that.

Another light bubbling mind chuckle from Emma, Dear professor, your little sister already knows. And had he been carrying something he surely would have dropped it. Emma looked down at him. He wore a mischievous grin as he looked up at her, pleased no end, by Emma's little revelation. That was it! Emma's motive, love. No evil genius at work behind her efforts then.

They had both grown quiet. Emma had to concentrate as she held him and her diamond form while navigating the rubble. Charles felt a tired a haze creep over him. Emma carried him inside a half collapsed doorway; the building might have been a bank in its former state. The upper floors were demolished, but the ground floor was mostly intact. More importantly empty. No minds or bodies, this building must have been unoccupied. She put him down inside what would have been a manager's office, in an old fashioned leather chair with small brass swivel wheels.

Darkness was falling over the skyscrapers. Night was coming to the damaged, broken, deathly silent city of New York.

X

/

So I should have said if it wasn't obvious this is set, sort of after the event with Mag's machine on the island the premise being that this time the xmen failed, and everyone is post first class, with a few extra team members.

/- Comments /reviews are a kindness.-/

X

Charles slept through the night; his body badly needing rest despite the situation, Emma sat near the door listening to the night, the broken door letting in a crack of darkness, where crept cold and sound into their sanctuary. For despite the complete lack of human activity, the city was not completely silent. The scratching of rats, the howl of dogs, the creak and crack of unstable buildings and somewhere the persistent steady ticking of a clock. She shivered and sent her mind questing out into the darkness. There had to be someone. Emma shivered again, the utter silence was terrifying. She did not sleep.

X

He'd been at a conference, speaking about mutations. Erik was sitting in the audience, clad in his favourite brown leather jacket, a pleased smirk plastered across his face, as he ever so politely asked, "but professor if you hold true to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, won't one species eventually wipe the other out?" he watched Charles' little red lips form a hard line of displeasure. Erik's mouth widened just enough to display tooth. The audience murmured. "You oversimplify that theory , Mr..I am so sorry what was your name.." Charles replies, but to the helmet-less head, he speaks Hello Erik.

"Magnus."

"And your area of scientific expertise?"

Erik what are you doing here?

"Oh I have some knowledge of mutation."

You wouldn't believe catching up with an old friend would you?

Charles catches images of a machine

Charles gives his most patient most condescending expression while raising one eyebrow, "Truly. Where did you train…"

"Germany."

"Well then perhaps it has been a while since you reviewed the latest journals, for example some of Darwin's theories, while they do provide the foundational basis for the field of genetics, his theories have been added to by…" Charles goes on to explain the advances and additions to Darwin's evolutionary theories and their application to genetics to the wider audience as his mind zeros in on Erik.

Now Charles. don't get pushy, just because I am not wearing the helmet does not mean I want to share all of my secrets with you.

Xavier eases off. Emma's been teaching you to guard your mind.

Do you like it?

He doesn't like it at all, not one one bit. What do you want?

Erik's face is impassive, his eyes clear and green.

You should get your people out of New York.

Xavier sees the machine again. What are you planning Erik? Xavier pushed a little harder against Erik's flimsy defenses and sees William Stryker. Erik coughs loudly and ostentatiously interrupting the lecture. He pushes through the rows of people holding a handkerchief to his face.

One time offer Charles.

"Terrible cold I am afraid, visited Africa last week." Erik says excusing himself. He has of course upstaged the lecture. The scientists are aware of the latest strain of Ebola, recently discovered. Xavier watches him leave with a growing sense of disquiet. Erik!

Don't you think it's time you woke up? Don't you think it's time you faced the truth.. Erik replies with his own brand of condescension.