For a long time, there was nothing.
If Charles had been able to think at all, he would have been certain he had died—that he'd moved on to whatever place came after death, the one he'd never thought of before as anything other than an end. He'd been expelled from his own body, after all; he'd been expelled from his own mind, or assumed as much in those final, screaming moments, as he was pushed farther and farther back. It would have been a reasonable enough conclusion.
Eventually, though, he emerged, as if from some deep, dark water.
At first he could do nothing but watch. He could not choose what he saw, at least not at first, and so it came in flashes: The blond-haired boy, kneeling before En Sabah Nur; strangers, dragged screaming before him to be executed in terrible ways; other strangers, come in supplication. Sometimes, blessedly, he'd focus on objects, instead: a chest full of jewels, the glint at the point of the guards' spears; a gold coin that had fallen from someone's hand, and drawn En Sabah Nur's and thus Charles' eye to the corner into which it had rolled.
At first, he didn't understand the difference between the first group of strangers and the second; much later, it occurred to him that the first group had been human, while the second group had been...
Time passed, and Charles began to see more, and to be able to choose when to see or not to see. He had no ability to change any of it, not at first, but he saw enough to be able to put together the pieces. He saw enough to learn that En Sabah Nur had used his stolen ability to unite the world—all of mutantkind beneath his banner, all of humanity beneath the ground. He saw enough to see there was no resistance. There could be no resistance, not when En Sabah Nur held all the world in thrall.
At first, Charles considered despair. There was no alcohol available to him, and no serum, but it didn't matter. To give up when you didn't have a body felt as if it would be incredibly easy. All he'd have to do would be to...let go...
It was only when he thought of it that Charles realized how easy it would be. It was only then that he saw the thread, such a thin, fragile thing, the only thing that connected him to the body that now belonged to another. All he'd have to do would be to decide that darkness would be better than this. That nothingness was preferable to bearing witness.
He contemplated it for a good long while. Severing the connection, so he wouldn't have to see. He might have done it if it hadn't been for the thing that happened between En Sabar Nur and the boy.
***
Charles was watching with a passive despair when it happened, and that was why it took him a moment to realize that this was something different. By now, he'd discovered that he could hear En Sabah Nur's thoughts; he'd discovered, too, that they were as tedious as to be expected from someone whose greatest ambition had been to make all the world his slaves.
At that moment, En Sabah Nur was thinking how tedious it was to have to listen to others' thoughts—but then something in the boy's mind caught his interest.
"Come closer, my Angel," he said.
The boy did, trembling inside and out. "Can I do something for you?" he asked, and knelt at En Sabah Nur's feet. He reached out, not touching, only imploring. "Please, let me. Please"
"Very well. Kiss me, my Angel."
Angel lay his hands on En Sabah Nur's hips—worshipful, as if touching him was something he could not believe he had been given permission to do—and leaned forward, and kissed him.
Before that moment, En Sabah Nur's interest had been a distant, dusty thing—but at the touch of Angel's lips, he let out a low grown, and grabbed for the boy's golden curls. Evidently not one for foreplay, he caused both their armor to dissipate, so that the boy was naked before him, and the way clear.
"Can I?" Angel asked, and it was hard to say where his lust ended and En Sabah Nur's began. They were the same.
"Kiss me again, my Angel," said En Sabah Nur, and the boy kissed and nuzzled him, and then eagerly began the next thing, the natural conclusion of their positions.
En Sabah Nur's lust was sickening, and Charles nearly turned away—
But then uneasiness sounded in En Sabah Nur, threading through the sensation of Angel's warm mouth on his damnable cock, Even as he grunted and thrust in and out of Angel's throat, even as he relished the boy's desire for him, his eagerness to serve his master, his metal wings shining and gleaming, proof of En Sabah Nur's work and regard...through all that, there was something new, something that alarmed him.
It took Charles a few long hours afterward to be certain. Long enough for En Sabah Nur to come down Angel's throat, to order him to take his hand and pleasure himself, spilling his own seed into the dirt; long enough for En Sabah Nur, in his uneasiness, to take the entirety of the memory from the boy, lest anyone else ever learn of his weakness.
For weakness was what it was, Charles realized. He'd wanted telepathy, but he hadn't realized you couldn't share in the feelings of others without responding to them yourself. He fancied himself a dispassionate god, above human emotions such as lust, sorrow, love. En Sabah Nur couldn't remember the last time he'd allowed another to touch him like this, and so he wasn't at all prepared to navigate those feelings.
***
Navigate this, Charles thought, the next time it happened.
Because of course there was a next time. En Sabah Nur hadn't thought it would happen. He hadn't so much as considered it might, had put it out of his mind too firmly to bother getting around to deciding it wouldn't. But the next time Angel stood before him, trembling with need to touch him and be touched, to serve his master in the best way he knew, the only way that seemed to remain...
It wasn't long before Angel had climbed into En Sabar Nur's lap and impaled himself upon his cock, the two of them moving together in a way that alarmed En Sabah Nur almost as much as it pleased him.
And that was when Charles took his chance.
There wasn't much he could do. He'd realized already that there was no chance of taking his own body and mind back. En Sabah Nur was entrenched too deeply into his stronghold, Charles' own hold too flimsy to even consider driving the other out.
Charles begun to think of other things he could do, if only there were a window, if only the opportunity came again. Now, he waited until En Sabah Nur was far too distracted to take note of anything that wasn't happening right in front of him, and began to search through all the other threads that connected to their mind. Every mutant in the world, carrying out the old commands or awaiting the new.
Charles would have free them all if he could have. That, though, would have been noticed...and he wasn't at all certain he had the strength for more than one, anyway. Instead, he looked for one particular mutant, one mind En Sabah Nur would not have considered particularly useful. He wasn't certain he'd find it, wasn't certain its owner had survived—didn't really know what had happened to anyone he'd known (except for Erik, who he'd so far done his best not to see), but had only thus far been able to hope some of them had made it.
He found Hank building pyramids with the other mutants with a strength mutation. Beautiful, dear Hank, whose intellectual abilities En Sabah Nur had entirely overlooked. If Charles hadn't already known what a fool he was, it would have been evident now.
Run, my dear, Charles said. Go where they won't find you. Begin planning for the resistance. I'll send others when i can.
Then he snipped the cord, and had just enough time to be certain he'd managed it before En Sabah Nur moaned out his orgasm.
***
The next time, Angel was on his hands and knees, En Sabah Nur grunting as he took him from behind, his uneasiness at these inconvenient human feelings nearly entirely subsumed by the sight of Angel's beautiful back before him, his silver wings were outspread, the way they twitched when En Sabah Nur thrust just so.
Charles freed three more this time. Raven first, despite her status as a mutant of sometimes-interest. He'd have free Jean, as well, but there was no chance that would have gone unnoticed; instead, he went with Kurt, who was low-interest, and Scott, whose inability to control his eye beams on his own was considered beneath contempt.
***
He free seven the time after that, fifteen the fourth time, always the people he'd known when it was possible, and the strangers who were still fighting En Sabah Nur's control when it wasn't. He sent them all to Hank, and though he dared not check in on them at any point, assumed they were doing what he had intended them to do.
Because he dared not check up on them, he remained uncertain of if or even when they were coming until a day Angel was on his knees again—this time in front of En Sabah Nur's other Horsemen. They all looked impassive at the spectacle, though only Psylocke's mind seemed to match the blankness of her expression. Storm, though was filled with guilt beneath the grip of En Sabah Nur's mind; and Erik, oh, Erik...
There was no end to the blackness of Erik's grief, or Erik's guilt, or even Erik's hatred. What Charles hadn't been able to convince him of, time and reality had. En Sabah Nur must not have examined Erik very closely recently. If he'd had any idea of what lay beneath the surface, he would surely have slain Erik, and raised another in his place.
As it was, well, En Sabah Nur had become more and more distracted, of late. He was distracted now, pumping into Angel's mouth, giving into the baseness of the sensation, to the inevitability of the conclusion.
When the first shudder came, En Sabah Nur barely noticed. When the second came, he grabbed onto the edge of his throne with one hand, and curled his fingers in Angel's hair with the other.
When the third shudder came, and with it the smell of smoke, En Sabah Nur looked up at his other Horsemen, and said, "Go."
They left, the three of them, and En Sabah Nur did what Charles had hoped he might, if they were to be lucky enough for Hank's people to come when he and Angel were in the middle of this. Instead of pulling out of Angel's mouth and pulling himself together, as any other person would have in this situation, he kept on with what he was doing.
I can't say I expected better from you, Charles said. You insufferable prick. Not so easy to hold yourself above all these feelings now, is it?
Then he reached out, and severed all the threads but one, as he hadn't dared to do the first time, or any of the other times.
Lost in the heat, En Sabah Nur didn't so much as notice. Nor did he noticed when Charles reached out to a mind he'd dared not touch before.
Erik, he said. Come back in here, if you would.
Laden with guilt and grief, Erik did. For the first time, there was nothing masking it, no filter between him and the world; for the first time, he seemed to be taking in everything before him, understanding it for what it was. The horror of it would have been enough to bring a weaker man to his knees; as it was, the anger that had so long been suppressed in Erik rose up, a living thing, brighter and more terrible than En Sabah Nur's false, painted-over anger could have been.
Erik, Charles said, even as En Sabah Nur grunted and came, and time grew very short. There's something you must do for me. Something you must do to save all of them.
"Charles? Is that you?" Erik said.
You must find Hank. Afterward. The two of you must be the stewards of our people.
"What are you talking about? You'll be there too, once he's gone." Erik's anger, turned on Charles now.
But I won't, Charles said.
The roots, spread through every part of Charles' body, so that En Sabah Nur could not be extracted without destroying the shell around him. The body he'd stolen before this one had crumbled into so much dust once he was out of it; Charles' body would do much the same, if it were to come to that. It didn't really matter how hard you held onto a support beam when the hurricane came with all its strength; even if it still stood in the aftermath, the rest of the house would have been torn down around you.
From outside came the sounds of battle, Hank's people coming ever closer to the false god's throne room, and joined by their newly-freed fellows along the way. But they weren't coming quickly enough, for En Sabah Nur was nearly recovered from his orgasm. In another few seconds he would become aware of everything that was happening, and everything Charles had done, and be able to reverse all of it.
Charles had a single ally in this room, and there was so little time remaining.
The gold coin in the corner, he said, willing Erik to understand through his anger, through the grief and most of all through the guilt. The emotion En Sabah Nur was least likely ever to know was the most treacherous of them all, for only Erik's own part in what had happened could so easily blind him to what needed to happen now. You have to. It's the only chance. Or else he'll take control again, and there will never be another chance.
Erik paused. The world seemed to pause with him.
"Must I?" he asked. "There's no another way?"
None, said Charles, willing Erik to believe it. Erik, please. Do it now. Free them. Free me. Please.
A glitter from the corner of their eye, as Erik moved the coin.
There was pain, muffled. A bellow of rage and distant terror, come far too late.
And then there was nothing.