A/N: Wow, where did this come from? I watched the movie a few times, enjoyed a few fics and, BAM, this story fell right out of my face. Completely unplanned, but I would still appreciate some feedback, if you are so inclined. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not the X-Men franchise or any of the characters therein. I'm just borrowing them.

Charles Xavier adored the rain.

Despite his mother's insistence that he would catch his death and his step father's prattling about the horrific state of his clothing, he had spent many a stolen afternoon splashing in the puddles and watching the rain drops strike the water reserves in the fountains scattered about the garden.

Of course, as he grew older, these instances grew few and far between. Especially after he met Raven, who rather hated the rain, mewing pathetically about the feeling of wet socks and the absence of sunlight and, though she hadn't said it out loud, very nearly buckling beneath the weight of painful memories of cold, wet, lonely nights in dark, dangerous, far-away cities.

And then, as the years began to fly by – the sand was pouring through the hourglass at an alarming rate, in Charles' opinion – he more or less forgot his fascination. Driven by his attention to detail and his belief that a prim and proper appearance bolstered respectability, he kept his shoes shined and his clothing pressed and, most of all, perfectly dry. As he dallied about the streets of Oxford on some such rainy morning or another, he carried his umbrella in his right hand and kept his left hand resting lightly in his pocket, thumb folded beneath his fingers. As he lounged in the library during especially raucous thunderstorms, he kept the windows shut tight and the fire roaring hot. He found that he enjoyed the order, the propriety, and worked to embrace it.

But still. The water droplets would pelt the thin fabric suspended above his head or patter against the window or beat against the roof and Charles would catch himself leaning back and curling his toes, recalling the pleasant sensation of cool, thin, almost ticklish rivulets of water travelling over the arch of his brow, down the jut of his nose and between the curve of his lips. And he would smile, 'inadvertently' dropping his umbrella ("Butterfingers," Raven would say, snatching the umbrella from the ground) or 'absent-mindedly' leaving the kitchen window open ("You're letting all the heat out!" Raven would shout, running to slam the poor thing shut). Rushing to enjoy the otherwise gloomy weather without pretense would seem decidedly out of character, and for some reason, Charles felt his love of the rain to be an intensely private matter. So he let it go, instead secretly delighting in those accidental drops and the smell of the moisture in the air as it drifted through the open window.

Then he met Erik. The flurry of activity during weeks prior – his thesis and newly acquired professorship, then his rather fortuitous meeting with the lovely Miss Moira MacTaggerte – didn't allow him much time to dwell on his love affair with the rain and the water, not that he would have anyhow. But once the men on the rescue motorboats had yanked him and his companion out of the water, and the both of them sat dripping on a sort of a bench behind the driver, Charles was once more struck by it. It wasn't raining, no, but his clothes hung heavily, limply, off of his shoulders, water trailing down his face, dripping off of his ears, his chin, the sleeves of his shirt, the tips of his fingers. The waves of nostalgia and comfort pouring from memories lost to the many years behind him began to resurface, and he found himself nearly drowning in it, for lack of a better word. He remembered the sodden cuffs of his trousers. He remembered the squelch, squelch of his shoes. He remembered the relief the droplets brought to his latest wound…

…except that he certainly did not recall that, as it wasn't his to recall in the first place. Charles knew that the man beside him, this Erik Lehnsherr, was incredibly suspicious of the lot of them. It rolled of off him in near-tangible waves as he looked askance at every object nearby, living or no, especially at Charles himself, whose ability had first intrigued him and that now threw his exhausted mind into a tizzy (What else can he do, what does he know, where the hell is my knife? Don't look at him, don't look at him, think of something else, focusfocusfocus.). In a laughable attempt at keeping Charles' mind at bay ( in fact, both Charles and Erik would laugh about it later, and wonder as to how Erik had thought that tactic might work in the first place), Erik had taken to concentrating on the feel of his wetsuit against his skin, on the trickling sensation on the back of his neck, and on how, once upon a time, the pouring rain had brought glimpses of relief. As he reveled in how…how decidedly pleasant it all felt, Charles felt it was as if their minds were cut from the same cloth, melding together at the seams of their unlikely parallels. He nearly chuckled aloud at the thought. Mere minutes later, however, the situation caught up with him as Moira and Raven went raving about his stupidity and the other agents accosted him for information about the tall, brooding man that loomed nearby. And he didn't think about the rain or the water or such for weeks.

Then the children came. Well, not children per se, but juveniles nonetheless. And they were loud, and they were destructive, they were argumentative and foolhardy. Strangely enough, though, Charles loved every moment of it and, with a bit of mental prodding, he knew that Erik didn't exactly loathe it either. Yet, as the days passed, and more and more of Charles' mansion found itself crumbling or shattered or sliced miraculously in two, he thought he could use a holiday, however brief. And so it was, the very next morning, a particularly nasty rain storm blew through and Charles told them to take the morning off, to roam the halls or watch the television or raid the kitchen or whatever suited their fancy. For nearly half an hour, Charles enjoyed the stillness of the library as he gazed out the open window, relishing the distant sound of laughter and trying not to wince at the thudthudthud that followed his charges about as they raced up and down the stairs. In days past, Charles may have enjoyed it for hours, occasionally meandering about to flip through a book or two. But in the wake of the events of the past month or so, he found himself sore for some companionship, especially as he turned his stare on a chess board in the corner, pieces still scattered in a remnant of the last match it had played witness to.

And he found it just outside the kitchen door, wondering the edge of the garden, unabashedly turning its face into the wind, into the water. Erik, he thought, and the man in question turned at the sound of his own name. Just as before, their minds began to mingle, though both men were hyper-cognizant of it this time around. Memories, some as painful as others were joyful, flowed between them. Though Charles thought it a bit too melodramatic for his tastes, he was wont to compare it to the flow of water as thought and conversation was freely given and taken. He had recognized Erik as a friend weeks before, but as past became present, and their sensibility began to overtake their responsibility for a few easy moments, Charles felt it was something more, something he couldn't describe. Brothers, he thought. And as he caught the eyes of his ally, cerulean on cobalt, he knew that Erik thought the same.

Then the crisis came. Though each moment stood distinct in his mind – the white hot feel of the coin as it passed through bone and flesh as a stone through water, the sting of Erik's fist as it connected with his jaw, the fiery eruption at the base of his spine followed closely by the terrifying feeling of nothingness that crawled down his legs – it still managed somehow to blur together as he spent days withering away in a hospital bed and even more so after he graduated to his current wheelchair. That the sharpest memory was of the smell of the sea and the feel of the salty breeze was not lost on him and it made him want to scream or laugh or cry or some sort of strange amalgamation of the three. Nevermind that he was lonely and empty and, despite the growing number of students at his school, that the atmosphere seemed to grow more still, more hopeless. Of course, ever the optimist, Charles knew it would pass, intended on leaving his doubts and fears behind one of these days, or over the course of many, as the case may be.

But it was not this day. For as a storm hung over the mansion once more, pelting the roof with rain and shaking the skies with thunder, Charles gazed once more out an open window with a frown tugging at the corners of his lips and pulling at the skin of his brow. A few minutes later, Hank came lumbering through the door as he always did this time of day, a few biscuits, a steaming cup of tea and a miniscule plastic cup filled with his daily round of medication all crowded on a tiny tray. Charles fixed a smile on his face before turning and making his way towards his desk, where he complimented Hank's tea-brewing and biscuit-making as was his habit.

"Thank you, professor," Hank said meekly, before turning to the other side of the room, a look of mild surprise on his face. "Would you like me to close the window? It's an awful storm out there."

Charles, who had been prodding at his medication, a sour look on his face, froze at the inquiry. After all this time. After all he had gone through since that day on the beach, he had not thought to shed any tears. But with that simple question, he could feel a tremor in his bottom his bottom lip, a warm mist gathering in the corners of his eyes.

"Professor?" Hank said hesitantly. "Are you – "

"Yes," Charles interrupted, his voice muffled. At Hank's curious look, Charles cleared his throat and added, softly, "Yes, Hank. Close the window, if you don't mind."

And he did. And the room was the better for it.

After all, Charles Xavier detested the rain.