c r u m p l e d

Crumpled
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG - implied slash

Summary: "He should have seen it coming."

Notes: Thanks Dot, Meg, Jen, and Pete'n'Melissa. This is a response to Khaki's first line challenge. It just showed up, thereby showing the second crack in my writer's block.

Date: February 25, 2002

He should have seen it coming.

It was icy, but he'd driven the Taconic since he was sixteen, never worrying about the hairpin turns or the weather.

~I should have seen it coming,~ he thought, grasping Eric's hand tightly.

"You're a telepath, not a clairvoyant," Eric snapped, and he knew Eric was angry with himself, though there was no reason for him to be.

"Still..."

"I should have been there," Eric said. "I could have gotten you out of there sooner, and with more finesse than their jaws of life." His voice was harsh, sandpaper against Charles's pounding headache, but comforting for all that, because it was familiar, loved.

"You couldn't have put me back together again," Charles replied, strength ebbing as the morphine wore off and the pain in his ribs made itself known.

He'd have given everything he owned to feel the pain of his broken legs, but his spinal cord had been severed when the Bentley had collided head-on with a driver who'd lost control on the ice.

His was the most powerful mind the human race had ever produced, and yet he lay helpless, like an infant, in the hospital bed.

Later, when they had time to process it, both men would realize this was the beginning of the long and miserable end of their love. Each blamed himself, and, when that became unbearable, each blamed the other for not knowing, not seeing, not being there.

But at the moment, they were simply two lovers who could not reveal their love in public, dealing with a shock that would eventually break them apart.

"If only you'd come with me earlier," Eric whispered, stroking Charles's forehead with a gentle hand.

"If only I had seen it coming," Charles muttered, then drifted off to sleep.

~fin~

~*~

Disclaimer: All X-Men characters belong to Marvel and Fox; this piece of fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights.

~*~

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