Read My Mind ↳ charles xavier

7. Mind Tricks

After helping Alex out, it was not as late as I thought it was, so I took it upon myself to go venture down to the kitchen and fix myself some dinner. I eat quick, and then I go back upstairs to find Charles so we can get started on my training.

However, my inability to control my powers makes me hear a conversation from down the hall, one between Charles and Raven to be particular.

"I think she likes you," I hear Raven speak, and I freeze in my place at the top of the stairs, hoping that the siblings are not talking about me. I almost feel guilty for overhearing this, but it's pretty much out of my control.

"I'm just trying to help her," Charles replies, the echoing of his voice bouncing around in my head. The guy does not sound so sure of himself, despite what he is saying.

"Okay," Raven says, her tone disbelieving. "But you're lying." Charles scoffs. "She likes you. And you obviously like her, too." My heart jumps up into my throat and I blush. "It's okay, I won't say anything."

"There's nothing to say," Charles says and then I hear a door open and close, so I gather that their conversation has come to an end. My heart hammers in my chest as I ponder over many questions about their conversation.

I contemplate whether or not to turn around and bail on this training, but decide against it. I already told him that I would let him help me and it wouldn't be right to turn back now.

So, I find his room and go inside, closing the door behind me. Charles is sitting on his bed already, with a book open. Upon my arrival, he closes the book and gets up, offering me a small smile.

"Hello," he murmurs, pulling a couple chairs to the end of the bed, "would you like to sit?" I nod and take a seat, while Charles takes the one across from me. After we get comfortable, we get started.

"Have you ever read somebody else's mind?" He keeps asking questions like that. I laugh a little.

"Unintentionally," I reply nervously, "but I never really tried to get into anyone else's head."

"Would you like to practice on me?" I don't say anything for a minute, as I don't really know what to say. Do I really want to go crawling around inside his head?

"I— I don't know," I say, "you actually trust me to go snooping around inside your head?" He smiles and tilts his head to the side a little.

"Of course, I trust you, Blake," he says, and that's all the confirmation I need. Reluctantly, I bring my fingers to rest at the sides of his head, all the while keeping my eyes glued to his. I try to ignore how intense the moment is and instead venture into his head.

I get nothing at first; there must be a some sort of barrier in his mind. He's trying to keep me out. Fortunately, the barrier is breakable. After a few moments, I close my eyes and see into his head.

I see him, as a child, meeting Raven for the first time in his kitchen. I feel the joy he felt when he first met another mutant, as he discovered that he wasn't the only one in the world.

I feel the pain that he felt at his absent parents, and I wish I could replace all of his bad memories with happy ones. Of course, with some training, I probably could, but it's not my place to do something like that.

Somewhere in that over-crowded head, I see something that I didn't expect to find in there. Me. I see him watching me speaking to Raven; I feel the nervousness he felt at the thought of approaching me.

The intensity is too much.

I snap back into my own head and take my hands away from Charles, looking away as I flush in embarrassment. He thinks about me, like the way I think about him. This is quite a surprise.

"You're quite good at that," the telepath says after a while, as if I didn't just see the thoughts in his head that concern me. He has feelings for me, at least some, or else all those thoughts of me that fill up his head would not be there. I don't say anything about it.

"So, your turn?" I say, returning my attention back to what we are doing. He nods, and instead of moving his hands up to my head, like I did with him, he presses his fingers to his own head and looks at me in concentration.

The force of someone else in my head is not easy to fight. The wall inside my mind suddenly wants to cripple from the pressure of Charles'. In a valiant effort, I shut my eyes and concentrate, attempting to hold the wall steady with every amount of strength I have.

Eventually, the pressure builds too much and it actually starts to hurt. I get distracted and then he manages to get through, which I am not prepared for. I was not expecting him to read my mind.

I feel him shuffling through my thoughts and they resurface as he goes through my head. It's almost as if I am reliving the pain I felt when my brother Aaron died and when my mom died, and the strong strange feeling I experienced the first time I went to that pub with Raven and saw Charles.

Then he's pulling away, breaking the connection he has with my mind. When I open my eyes and see his expression, something of sadness, confusion, and sympathy all rolled into one, I immediately regret doing this. I look at the floor and wait for Charles to say something.

"I'm so sorry," he says quietly, placing his hand over mine in a comforting gesture. "You deserve so much better." I shrug a little, doubtful of his words.

"I don't know."

"No, really," he argues, "you do. No one should be treated that way, it's terrible." When I finally meet his gaze, he is closer to me than I remembered. He cannot think of anything else to say, so we sit quietly for a minute.

My eyes flicker down to his lips for a second, before going back to his eyes. Real quick, I slip back into his mind to see if he wants the same thing, and sure enough, he does.

So, I lean forward, closing the distance between us.

And we were kissing.