[*nodnod* You couldn't have said it better. I couldn't imagine someone like Charles taking easily to the idea, in particular when you see the beginning of DoFP with Logan finding him or even more so, when he's on the plane with Erik. Someone who was such a tom cat before everything happened, giving up Moira, and losing Erik and his ability to walk all in a short time... I just think would have left him curling in on himself when it comes to that sort of subject, protecting himself within and projecting that calm, stable rock he saw his future self to be. Logan and his own-self got him out of it, but he's always been the one in charge, the big brother, the protector... who protects the protector? Also... going off the timelines I can find for exact years...]
Touch, in that moment, might have felt like pity. It might have gotten a backlash, another snap. In his chair, Charles was coiled tight, defensive in unconscious ways to protect himself from the internal pain he had been unable to escape. While Hank had tried, oh and he had tried to help Charles, there was a major difference between Hank and Aurus - Aurus was still trying even when it hurt. Hank had been willing to pull back, not trying to further the pain, but perhaps Aurus' distance from the matter and even the person at its core made him more willing to do the part that would still hurt Charles. Pull the bandage from the wound and tear the scabbing away to expose the skin to healing air and salve.
The silence stretched as Charles gave no reply. He did not so much as move, other than to breathe and blink, staring over the top of his hand with an unbreaking gaze. Just when it seemed like he would not answer, when he would ignore those questions until Aurus gave in first, his voice came in a broken sound, "...ten years." Two words that answered all of those questions with as minimal information as possible, yet it told everything.
Why? Why was he even so much as telling Aurus this information? Hank alone knew the full truth, Raven, wherever she had gone, undoubtedly would have guessed correctly, but that might have been all. Of all of the lives he had touched, helped save, changed forever, those might have been the lone two with any true idea of how his life had been. Aurus didn't know. Yet... for all that he had kept it to himself, he spoke it aloud. Despite himself, really. Despite his anger and the unfair anger towards the one who was pulling those words from him.
Then I hit go before I wanted to >.<
Touch, in that moment, might have felt like pity. It might have gotten a backlash, another snap. In his chair, Charles was coiled tight, defensive in unconscious ways to protect himself from the internal pain he had been unable to escape. While Hank had tried, oh and he had tried to help Charles, there was a major difference between Hank and Aurus - Aurus was still trying even when it hurt. Hank had been willing to pull back, not trying to further the pain, but perhaps Aurus' distance from the matter and even the person at its core made him more willing to do the part that would still hurt Charles. Pull the bandage from the wound and tear the scabbing away to expose the skin to healing air and salve.
The silence stretched as Charles gave no reply. He did not so much as move, other than to breathe and blink, staring over the top of his hand with an unbreaking gaze. Just when it seemed like he would not answer, when he would ignore those questions until Aurus gave in first, his voice came in a broken sound, "...ten years." Two words that answered all of those questions with as minimal information as possible, yet it told everything.
Why? Why was he even so much as telling Aurus this information? Hank alone knew the full truth, Raven, wherever she had gone, undoubtedly would have guessed correctly, but that might have been all. Of all of the lives he had touched, helped save, changed forever, those might have been the lone two with any true idea of how his life had been. Aurus didn't know. Yet... for all that he had kept it to himself, he spoke it aloud. Despite himself, really. Despite his anger and the unfair anger towards the one who was pulling those words from him.