Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Charles finds himself caught in the magical explosion, he doesn’t wish he hadn’t taken the job. He doesn’t even feel regretful or shame-faced. Was it wise? If his current, rather sticky situation is anything to go by, no, it was not. But it had been his only option at the time. Caught between and a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes. And Charles’s life is a list of bad, unwise decisions. You don’t go feeling upset when they catch up to you—you just grit your teeth and think of a way to make things work out.

At least he has always been good at that. The thought consoles him somewhat, as he feels himself slip into unconsciousness, slowly losing awareness of the cacophony of noise and light surrounding him, and thinks back to where this all began.

Earlier that day. The Black Dove. Smoke and the pungent smell of alcohol.

Charles sticks out in a place like The Black Dove. He shouldn’t. Living on the streets for as long as he has, he ought to fit into the place like an old shoe. But he’s insufficiently grimy and his teeth are too white. His accent, left-over from childhood, is still posh. If it weren't for his tattered clothes, he could be a highclass rent-boy.

He’s here to meet a contact. This is a fancy term, but it means he’s here to meet someone who is going to give him a job. Probably a job involving stealing something, or if the mystery employer knows anything about Charles’s reputation, sweet talking someone so somebody else can steal from them. He jumps when a barmaid—looking harried and ultimately uninterested in him—pats him on the shoulder.

“There’s a Lady here asking for you?” there is a lot of unexpressed skepticism in her tone. She ends it with a question mark. Don’t know why she’s looking for you, kid.

Charles puts on a smile, and follows the direction of the bar-maid’s pointing hand.

Well. She wasn’t just being polite with the Lady part. The tall woman with long, golden blonde hair deserves every bit of that title. She sticks out even more sorely than Charles, who is beginning to feel his resolve flag somewhat. Sean hadn’t said anything about there being this much money involved. The thought makes him nervous. Last thing someone like Charles needs is to get caught up in the affairs of the gentry.
But then he thinks of Raven. Thinks about Raven, pale, quacking with chills, and pushes his way through the crowd.

The woman looks up when Charles slides into the seat, smiling. It makes her look even more beautiful, but he notices that there is no warmth behind it. Her hands, small, covered in fine moleskin gloves, are folded in her lap. There is a mug of beer in front of her. Charles raises his eyebrows.

“You’re Charles?” she asks, but she doesn’t sound disbelieving, which he appreciates. He knows he is a lot scrawnier and younger than he is expected to be. It’s lucky he is good at what he does, or else he would have been snatched up by the clackers a long time ago. They like smooth young men, especially ones with few options, and at the time, Charles hadn’t had many.

Clackers got their name because of the way their teeth start to clash together when they get high on the insignificant blue powder making its rounds in the dirtiest and most questionable corners of the city. They are notorious for their willingness to do anything to earn a spare coin with which to feed their addiction—even the peddling of human beings. Charles had been very lucky, in the early days, to avoid them.

“Yes.” He says shortly. “I got a rather cryptic message yesterday. Something about a job?”

The woman nods at him. “All business, then. Good, I can do business.” She takes a dainty sip of her beer, sets it on the table with a soft clunk. She doesn’t seem concerned about people overhearing them. But then, he notices, they aren’t attracting nearly as much attention as he thought they would be. “My name is Emma. Emma Frost.”

Charles takes her proffered hand, even though this old pleasantry feels kind of wrong, somehow—the remains of a past life no longer imaginable to him. Her gloves are just as soft as he thought they would be. He wants her to get to the point.

“It’s a pleasure.” he says smoothly, putting on a smile. It’s just as fake as the one she gave earlier. Good. Now they are communicating on the same level. He uses the smile to hide his confusion. Contacts don’t often shake the hands of the urchin thieves they are presumably hiring.

“You’re one of Logan’s, aren’t you, sugar?” Emma says, and Charles lets go of her hand. “He knows good people. We go back a ways, Logan and I.”

“I thought you heard about me through Sean Cassidy,” Charles says carefully, not liking how much the woman apparently knows about him. He wonders if she means ‘we go way back’ in a positive way, but decides this is unlikely. He knows Logan, and he knows what the man would think about a woman like Emma. She is smiling at him again, and Charles doesn’t like it. But he can’t walk away yet, he owes it to Raven to at least give her a chance.

“You’d be surprised at how well known you are in the right circles, Charles. They say you have a knack. Impressive, for one so young.”

They say I’m damned lucky, you mean. That with a few curse-words thrown in.

Shrugging easily, Charles leans back in his chair. He forces the anxiety to stop tensing his shoulders, and makes himself look nonchalant.

“I just do what I can to get by. It’s not honest,” he begins, “but then, you don’t want honest, do you?”

“No.” Emma agrees. She steeples her fingers, looking him in the eye. “Tell me, Charles, what do you think about seeing a magic show?”

A magic show, indeed. After Muggy’s, Charles had found his way to the square in market district. He’d had a lot to think about after his talk with Emma, so he’d been rather more distracted than usual. It doesn’t pay to be distracted on the streets of Westchester, but Charles, as usual, had gotten lucky.

After asking him her rather cryptic question, Emma had given him a flyer. It was printed with large, eye catching black letters. Magneto the Magnificent, it said, and it was advertising a show taking place in the market square that night. Charles had laughed aloud at that, until Emma had told him that she wanted him to break into Magneto the Magnificent’s wagon. Then he had refused.

It wasn’t that he didn’t think he could do it. Far from it. It was just that Charles was smart—has decent survival skills, anyway, to have made it this far—-and even if you can d steal anything or fool anybody, you just don’t mess with magicians. It was one the thievesmaster’s rules.

When Charles and Raven had first met the man known as the “Wolverine of lower Westchester”, he had sat them down, gripping Charles by the shoulders, and told them the rules. The rules were simple, he had said. First of all, you paid your dues. That was a given. A cut of the profits got tucked into Logan’s pockets and you got a roof over your head that only leaked some of the time. You could do your own work on your own time, but keeping a little aside for the group was worth it. After all, it got you got contacts and a name. Powerful things for a young thief in Westchester.

Second, you looked out for your own. Backstabbing was one thing, deceit a must to get by on the streets, but you didn’t backstab your comrades. They were the ones who kept you safe from other gangs, after all.

Finally, you didn’t steal from the Gifted. A magician could easily spell your fingers off, and people with magic had friends in high places. If you stole from one of them, you brought the whole nest to the thieves master’s door.

And here he was, actually considering it. Emma had been patient, but she hadn’t let him walk away. She’d said Magneto, or Lehnsherr, wasn’t a real magician, anyway, just a plain penny illusionist. A fraud. Then she had mentioned the money. It was a ridiculous sum, at least to Charles, who hasn’t been able to get hired for anything decent in months. Who has a sick sister and few friends.

Dammit.

The wagon doesn’t look cheap, fashioned mostly out of a light-weight metal that has been all the rage in carriages this year, but it’s still a wagon. No self-respecting magician peddles tricks out of a wagon like a gypsy.

Safely lost in the crowd of market goers, Charles begins to feel slightly more optimistic. He has a cap jammed down over his shaggy brown hair, and his meager height ensures that he won’t be seen from the stage of the wagon, which is already attracting a group of curious onlookers.

Some seem to be more in the know than others, so clearly this is not the first time Magneto has preformed in market district. “You’ve got to see the trick with the birds,” mutters a rangy youth at Charles’s elbow, nudging his friend eagerly in the ribs. The latter hushes his eager companion, because someone has emerged onto the stage. A tall, dramatic someone.

“Ladies and gentleman,” says the magician, from his great height. “Prepare to be amazed by the display of impossibilities that I present here, for your entertainment.” He smiles around at them all, teeth flashing. Charles thinks the smile is off-putting, but no one else seems to think so.

While the man looks like a magician—tall, check. Handsome? Definitely check. Dark clothing cut in a dramatic style, check—his pitch is as maudlin as his wagon. Yet Charles gets the sense that the man does not believe his own introduction. Beneath the bravado, there is sarcasm.

The first few tricks do everything to confirm Emma’s profile of the man. Something with a disappearing hanky, pulling coins out of the ears of pretty girls. Not Gifted things, just things that anybody with quick hands and a bit of showmanship could pull off.

From what Charles knows, real magic is a lot less interesting to the average townsperson than doves that appear out of thin air. It involves a lot more careful figuring, and not just anybody has the gift.

When the magician reaches the end of his act—bowing to a spattering of applause—Charles feels somewhat satisfied. He drifts away, but not before nicking another flyer off of the rangy adolescent from earlier.

The magician wears a tall, dark hat which shades his eyes, so Charles doesn’t see them catch on his back, just for a moment, before he disappears into the crowd.

Charles watches another cycle of Lehnsherr’s performance before he works up the initiative to carry out his plan. Scoping out the back of the wagon he discovers that the door is locked, but not with anything he hasn’t seen before. He decides that the best thing to do will be to wait until the Magician starts his next performance and then nip into the wagon while the man is occupied on stage. He hates to leave Raven alone for this long, but the memory of gold coins glittering in Emma’s gloved palm keeps him where he is.

His hands are slightly tremulous when he picks the lock of the wagon door. He schools them into steadiness by reminding himself that he’s just looking in the wagon. He isn’t even stealing anything. A curious request. If Charles thinks too deeply about it, he begins to feel uneasy.

Onstage, Lehnsherr is in the midst of his dove trick, which is one of the first ones. Charles has a solid 15 minutes, and he plans to make good use of it.

The lock springs open under Charles’s practiced hand, and he pushes the door quietly open, slipping inside before anybody can see him. The wagon backs on a copse of decorative trees that is planted around the square. This suits him well, since it provides a bit of cover.

The interior of the wagon is just as modern and elegant as its exterior. Charles allows himself a breath in which he admires the fine metalworking curling up the walls. Then he gets to work. He makes his way slowly and carefully into the small space, one ear still on the deep tones of the magician’s voice. His blue eyes dart around, curious, quick.

“We have been keeping tabs on Lehnsherr. Nothing serious, but it would please my employer to know what the man has in that wagon. A simple description will do just find. But sugar—” here she had paused, catching his eyes. “don’t leave any stone unturned. If you have to break a few locks to do that, that’s your business. We’d like to know if there is anything… unusual.”

Emma’s instructions echo in his ears as he picks his way around. The space is small but well-kept, with a fold-up cot tucked into the wall and built in shelves. There is a table in one corner. It’s clean like a military barack, almost obsessively so. Sitting innocently in one corner is a promising looking chest. It’s made of expensive looking polished oak wood, and is locked. Of course it is.

Considering its the only locked item in the room, its a good bet for anything someone like Emma would consider ‘unusual’. Charles kneels beside it, examines it. He can see that this lock is somewhat more formidable than the first, and he assumes that this is where the man keeps most of his important possessions.

He retrieves the lockpicks from the depths of his pocket and gets to work, biting his lip in concentration. Outside, the crowd applauds a particularly audacious trick, the one where Magneto makes a knotted cloth appear straight into the closes fists of a volunteer. His hands feel slightly sweaty.

Come on, he thinks. Frustration curdles in his stomach. The lock is stubborn, and for a moment, Charles worries that it is going to take him too long. But then it snaps open with a satisfying click, and he smiles despite himself, sitting back. Taking a deep breath, he lifts the heavy lid of the chest open and peers inside.

He has time to see that the chest is full of parchment, stacks of it. He cannot make out the text, but there is a lot of it, and diagrams, too. He notes that the diagrams are not mathematical in nature, but something else entirely.

Then there is an explosion. It sends Charles’s small form flying backwards, his head cracking against the opposite wall. All he registers is heat, and pain. Stars burst behind his eyelids. Then darkness. He slips into it like an embrace.

Chapter Text

The doves scatter in a flash of white at the sound from the wagon, and the crowd surrounding the stage of Magneto the Magnificent rock back on their heels. Hands fly up to cover open mouths. Women clutch at their collars.

Later, there will be speculation. Those genuinely taken in by Magento’s illusions will tell their friends, in hushed but excited whispers, how a spell must have gone wrong in the magician’s wagon. Others, who have perhaps had more of an acquaintance with the less glamorous side of magicking in their lifetimes, will enjoy scoffing at the former.

The truth of the matter is, no one is more surprised than the magician himself. He remembers the spell he put on the locked chest. In all the years since he had first cast it, it had never had any reason to go off. Turns out cheap stage magician is a fairly good cover in and of itself, and most people don’t bother to go sniffing around your business if they think all your good for is conjuring hankies. Westchester is different, though. It’s been years since he was last here, but he knows that its not the kind of city that forgets.

He makes a hurried apology to the crowd, and slips behind the curtain. When he emerges inside, he tenses in surprise, eyes widening slightly beneath his hat.

There’s a boy crumpled against the wall of his wagon. He’s so pale and still that for a moment, the magician is afraid he might be dead—but no, there’s just the faintest rise and fall to the narrow chest. The boy looks scrawny and haggard. From the wear on his clothes and the distinct lack of footwear that is not shot through with holes, he is clearly not from the wealthy part of the city.

Petty thief, then.

A petty thief who had picked his way through a rather powerfully charmed lock. Turning out the boys pockets discovers nothing significant. He frowns. There are coins lying out on the bed, a few books on the shelf—surely there are easier bounties to be had here for the common opportunistic thief. A seed of doubt beginning to grow in his mind, he casts another thoughtful look at the boy, who has still not stirred. The magician takes of his hat, setting it carefully on the table. He decides to call a doctor.

When Charles comes to, his head feels all heavy. There is still a ringing sound in his ears. For a moment, he can’t remember where he is. He wonders if maybe he got caught by the city watch again. He’s only been at the end of a police baton a few times in his life, but it always leaves him in bad shape. Then awareness begins to trickle back, and suddenly he doesn’t want to open his eyes yet.

Panic hits like a punch to the gut, stomach clenching. He is aware of a dull throbbing in his head and running down his side, and remembers the explosion. God, he feels stupid and more than a little angry with himself. A real magician, Charles? You should have known better.

He can hear two people conversing in quiet whispers somewhere in front of him, and he makes the decision, for now, to pretend he is still unconscious.

“Well?” says the first voice. Dimly, Charles registers that it belongs to the magician, Lehnsherr, only it is less deep and dramatic then it was when he was on stage.

“From what I can see, I think it’s just a bruise. Knocked him out, though. I could stay and check for a concussion if you’d like, though I’m afraid he’ll have to wake up first.” the second voice sounds gentle but professional. Charles can’t help but tense up a little when he feels a large, warm hand come to rest on his forehead, pushing his sweaty hair aside. “He looks underfed.”

Charles is surprised by the genuine concern he can hear.

“Take a look at the state of his clothes, Hank. Does that surprise you? The boy is obviously an urchin.” Lehnsherr (Erik, Charles’s mind supplies) sounds dismissive. Charles wonders how long until they notice he’s awake and he gets tossed into the eager hands of the watch. Or maybe the man will decide to deal with Charles himself. The thought of what that could mean is not comforting.

The hand is withdrawn from his forehead; he hears someone clear their throat. “Did he steal anything?” asks the man called Hank. From the familiar way they had been talking, they must know each other, this man and the magician.

“No, strangely enough. And he tried to break into the chest. Set that damn incantation off when he picked the lock.” Erik says softly, and Charles hears the second man suck in a quick breath.

“Erik…” there is a good deal of weight behind Hank’s voice. “If it’s—“

“—I know. It wouldn’t be below them to try something.” Erik says sharply, cutting him off. “Wait a minute.”

There is the click of shoes across wooden floor and then a boot is nudging his tender side. Poke, poke. Charles resolutely pretends to be dead to the world, forcing himself not to react. Until, “I know you’re awake.”

It’s Erik, of course. Charles can feel the other looking at him.There is a beat of silence, in which he can hear the two men breathing. The magician does not nudge him with his boot again, at least, but neither does he move away. Charles can sense him standing there, an unavoidable presence, and knows it is useless. He opens his eyes with a wince, because the late afternoon light filtering in through the window is almost too much. He finds himself looking into a pair of light gray eyes.

First thing he notices is the absence of the tall black hat. Without it, the man looks younger, more real. His face is long and sharply cut, with high cheekbones and an unforgiving mouth. His hair is cropped short and has been slightly flattened from the hat. Charles struggles to make out intention in that face, but can find nothing recognizable. He tightens his lips and wonders if he can pretend to be dumb, or perhaps deaf. A little behind Erik stands the other man, the one called Hank. Despite his height he looks as non-threatening as his voice. He steps forward, as if to go to Charles, but then the magician is holding an arm out across his path.

“Erik—“ Hank says, sounding exasperated. “I thought you wanted me here. Christ, I blew off a house call for you. And, he might have a concussion.”

“Momentarily.” says Erik. He kneels down in front of Charles, who can now read something like curiosity in his manner. “Who put you up to this, then?”

Charles sucks in a breath, wonders what’ll happen to him if he doesn’t say anything. He almost wants to, just to see how far he can get. For now the man is all politeness, but Charles is all too aware what so often hides behind the veil of normality. But his head is beginning to pound and Erik is smirking at him as though he can sense Charles’s internal struggle, and he trusts that even less than the politeness.

His voice sounds rusty when it comes out. “It was a job. You can talk to the barmaid at the Black Dove, she’ll remember me. I was just looking around.” he says. The magician nods. Yes, obviously. “Wasn’t—wasn’t stealing anything.” He’s all too aware of how pathetic that sounds, but it might be the first time in his life when he has said those words and it is true.

“I need a name, boy.”

“Charles. It’s Charles.”

“What?” Lehnsherr frowns, tilts his head. Charles should bite his tongue before it’s too late, but he blurts it out anyway: “Not boy, Charles.”

Honestly, he wonders when he got so reckless. Normally he doesn’t let his tongue run away with his sense, but here he is, back talking to the man who currently holds the key to his future status as a living human being. It must be the head trauma. Inconceivably, Erik is chuckling. Charles feels a blush warm his cheeks.

“Fair enough.” the magician holds out his hand, which is long fingered and elegant. “Erik Lehnsherr." he says, even though Charles already knows this, "Now we’re equal. But it’d be most helpful if you could tell me who hired you at the Black Dove, Charles. I’d hate to have to make you talk.”

Charles tries not to shiver at that barest hint of a threat, and lets the man pull him to his feet. They feel wobbly beneath him, and he can’t help but stumble a bit. It’s a good thing the taller man still has a grip on his arm, or he would have fallen. Hank shoots Erik a rather pointed look, as if he wants to scold him, but hold his tongue.

“Emma Frost. She said her name was Emma Frost.” Charles tugs his arm out of Erik’s grasp, rubbing his temple between his fingers. The reality of the situation is beginning to slip past the pain in his head and the initial shock; he resists the urge to simply run off. For one, in his current condition, he wouldn’t make it three steps without complications—two, the good doctor is currently standing in front of the door.

Looking around, he is confused to see that the room appears largely unaffected by whatever he had set off when he had opened that chest (which once again sits unmoved and unopened in the corner, the picture of innocence). If there had been any doubt before, this settles it—that hadn’t been an ordinary explosion, and Erik is not a fraud at all— but is, in fact, genuinely Gifted. Well, Shit.

“Frost…” Erik repeats, and shares a questioning look with Hank, who shrugs. “Hank, you can take a look at his head now. You—“ he snaps to look at Charles, who had been inching, almost imperceptibly, towards the curtain that separates the stage from the interior of the wagon, “—for God’s sake, sit down before you collapse. I need you in working order.”

Charles remains stubbornly on his feet. His hands have balled up at his sides, nails prickling the soft flesh of his palms. He shakes his head, which still feels like it is filled with water, and takes another step toward the curtain.

“Don’t want to—need to get back.” he mutters, shifting from foot to foot. He looks like a mouse ready to scurry away. Concern written all over his bespectacled face, Hank appears at his side, puts a steadying hand on his arm, which Charles promptly shakes off, annoyed at this display of concern. Where was concern when one of the thugs of south street gang had left him purple and bleeding in the alley behind Rosary Gardens? When Raven had started coughing and had never really stopped? No, if he had learned anything in his life, it was that you couldn't count on people to be concerned for you. “I’m not interesting in being in ‘working order’. If you aren’t going to take this to the Watch then let me go. I gave you your name.”

“You’re being foolish,” Erik says darkly, pulling a struggling Charles back by the collar of his frayed and dirty shirt. “I could slap a pair of irons on you right now for theft of personal property.”

Charles scowls, tries to wrest himself free. He manages to twist his shirt around a bit, but the magician’s grip is annoyingly strong.

“Wasn’t stealing,” he says. “I believe I already told you that.”

“Yes,” says Erik, “because the police will certainly take the word of a thieving pickpocket.”

Charles still feels the unbidden frustration, but the words ring unpleasantly true; he can’t quite bring himself to stop struggling, though. Not just yet. He tries desperately, “What do you want? If its a job you need doing, I can do it. Just… let me go, please. ”

A strange expression rolls across the man’s narrow face, one that Charles can’t quite identify. With some care, he drags Charles over to the table, pushes him down into a chair. The wood is cool against Charles’s bruised back, and he leans back against it, curling in on himself. Erik motions Hank over with a jerk of his hand, and the man begins to rummage about in his satchel.

“You want to scurry back into whatever hole you call your own in this slum of a city? Fine.” Erik looks away from Charles, tone becoming ruminative.“But first, you’re going to take me to see Ms. Frost, soon as Hank patches you up. I assume you had some sort of rendezvous set up? Not the Black Dove again—too obvious.” this last part is added almost to himself.

Charles flinches slightly when Hank brings a hand to his head again, but he relaxes a bit when the doctor shoots him a small, reassuring smile.

“Corner of Pine and Wade, noon tomorrow.” Charles mutters reluctantly from over Hank’s shoulder, still stuck in the chair. “She’ll notice if I just bring you along, you know.” Erik waves his hand dismissively, begins to pace the small room like a wound-up automaton. Apparently Erik is not at all concerned that the doctor is still a quiet presence in the room, now intent on examining Charles. He wonders absently about the level of trust this seems to imply, before he realizes the magician is speaking again.

“No, no, she won’t. I’ll follow you at a distance. Give your report. I want to hear what she has to say about it. Excluding you setting off the chest, of course— you can leave that part out. I think that goes without saying.”

“And what if she’s like you?” Charles asks nervously. He is not at all reassured by the short, hard laugh this startles from the austere magician. He fidgets. Worries his lower lip between his teeth.

Erik—the bastard— is grinning. “Like me? That’s vague, Charles.”

“That she can—“ Charles flounders, waving his hands to encompass the entire wagon. “You know. That she’s Gifted.”

“I don’t know quite what you mean,” says Erik, affably. “How do you think magic works, Charles? These things take time, and careful set up, too. She’s not going to sense me if I’m discreet.”

Charles works up a scowl, but doesn't make any attempt at a retort, because his head is still pounding like its been done in with a hammer. He doesn’t like the sound this plan at all. Here he is, sitting on an uncomfortable chair in the wagon of a not-quite-a-fraud magician, his head currently being poked at by a kind but seemingly clueless doctor. Looking up at the man from slitted blue eyes, he decides that he might hate Erik Lehnsherr, just a little.

Leaving Charles to his thoughts, the magician stoops to pick up his gleaming black hat.

Chapter Text

Charles spends the night handcuffed to one of the legs of Erik’s table. It happens like this:

After examining Charles and declaring him “fit enough, if a bit bruised up” the doctor had walked out, clapping Erik on the shoulder and giving the magician a significant look before he was gone.

Charles is left sitting awkwardly on the chair, endeavoring not to move too much. He keeps flicking cautious, calculating looks at the man from under his lashes, trying to determine what Erik intends to do with him now that they are alone. But so far the magician has remained stubbornly oblivious, merely going about the business of washing this face in his basin and hanging his hat on a hook on the wall. Eventually unable to take it anymore, Charles clears his throat.

“Yes?” Erik finally says, looking over at Charles as if he has only just remembered the boy is there. “Need something, do you?”

“Surely you aren’t expecting me to just stay here all night.” Charles says tersely. Underneath runs a current of real anxiety, though. “I could just walk out of here once you fall asleep.”

Erik shoots him a considering look. “I suppose we can't have that.” he walks over to Charles, sighing when he flinches ever so slightly back. “I have a pair of handcuffs around here somewhere. Use them for tricks sometimes.”

Charles glares at him. “You are not—I will not allow—“

“And I won’t allow you to steal anything. Or sneak off. So I’m afraid we are at a bit of an impasse here, Charles.”

The two stare at each other, blue into grey-green. Eventually, deciding it isn’t worth it, Charles looks away, mouth pulling into a flat line. He holds out his wrists. Erik nods, pleased. “Thank you,” he mutters. Charles considers him, a bit nonplussed. Just how exactly does one respond to pleasantries from the man handcuffing you to a table?

The handcuffs are made of smooth, shiny metal, a cold kiss against Charles’s skin. Erik puts the other end around the table leg (which is welded to the floor to prevent things sliding around when the wagon is moving) and, after a slight pause, tosses a pillow in his direction as well.

Charles runs his fingers over the metal cuff. “Your tricks are rubbish, you know.” he says finally, spiteful. Honestly, he’s not sure where he has been finding all this backtalk, these last few minutes. “If you can do real magic, why waste your time with slight-of-hand?” despite the carefully scornful tone, he finds he's actually kind of curious.

The room is silent for a minute, but then comes Erik’s quiet voice from the fold-out cot. “Go to sleep, Charles.”

It might be the fact that he is, to some extent, kind of a prisoner. Or maybe it’s because every moment he's stuck here is another that he leaves his sister alone. Whatever it is, the frustration seems to have built up to a bitter little mountain inside of Charles’s chest, and suddenly he is speaking. “No!” he snaps, voice sharp. “You can’t just—you don’t get to order me about and keep me here then expect me not to want some answers.”

Erik is disconcertedly quiet at this, and Charles freezes, blood turning cold. He looks down at his hands. Suddenly he remembers the position he's in— unknown, friendless urchin that he is, and hurriedly amends: “I mean— I’m sorry it’s just… I am sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“...go to sleep.” When he speaks, there is the slightest warning in the Magician’s voice, and Charles slumps back against the side of the table. His mouth feels dry.

Sleep doesn't come for a long time.

When the morning comes, Charles wakes up before Erik. It strikes him that the man looks different when he's asleep. Less intense and with none of that coiled up energy. He watches the man’s broad chest rise and fall with the steadiness of his breaths for a few minutes, then turns his attention to the handcuffs.

Just his luck, they’re pretty high quality, and since Erik confiscated his lockpicks last night, he won’t make much headway there. Charles groans. He’s all sore and stiff from sleeping on the floor like that, wedged uncomfortably against the table, and his head is still pounding at him. He almost wishes the kind doctor would come back, if only so he could beg some painkillers off the man.

He quickly banishes the thought though—painkillers cost money, after all. And apparently his time today is going to be spent with this ridiculous double agent thing he’s supposed to be playing at. He can only hope that Emma is not as sharp as he thinks, and somehow doesn’t notice anything.

“You’re fidgeting,” Erik remarks, voice gravelly with sleep, and Charles snaps to look at him. The man is sitting up, watching Charles steadily. “Hungry?”

“Er, what?” is all the reply Charles can manage. He realizes with some surprise that he’s actually famished, then tries to remember the last time he’d eaten anything. He’s distressingly unsuccessful. So he nods.

The magician looks oddly pleased when he hands Charles an apple and a bit of cheese that he digs up from one of the cabinets—even more so when the boy tucks into them with the enthusiasm of the not often fed.
When Charles is done, Erik stands up, shrugs into a plainclothes jacket and significantly more drab hat than his shiny top hat. Clearly, Erik is a man of many costumes, and their errand today requires less conspicuous attire than what he wears onstage. Charles still feels shabby in his worn out shirt and breeches, though.

The magician unlocks the handcuffs with an apologetic noise. His eyes seem to catch on Charles wrists, which have been rubbed red by the cuffs, and his mouth tightens.
There is clearly some sort of inner conflict going on there, and it is making Charles uncomfortable. “Are we going, or what?” he says abruptly. “I have to be there by noon.”

The magician stands up quickly, almost as if he is a little bashful at being caught (in what, Charles wonders. Caring?) and nods. They leave, locking the wagon door behind them.

The air outside is tinged bitter with the sweaty, sewage-y smell of the city warming up in the sun, and Erik strikes a concise path through the already busy market, leaving Charles to hurry after him. He considers, absently, how easy it might be to simply slip away into the crowd, but each time the thought enters his head, Erik casts a glance back over his shoulder as though he can read Charles’s intention in his nervous walk--so he decides against it.

Erik draws to a stop before they reach the intersection of Pine and Wade St. Turning, he places a bracing hand on Charles’s shoulder.“I’m afraid this is where I must leave you.” he tells him. In the bright sunlight, his eyes seem very pale and clear.

Charles swallows. “Where are you going to be, then?”

“I have my ways.” the magician responds, sweeping his arm out dramatically. “Don’t look out for me. Just go about the business like you would normally, whatever that means for you. The point is to act natural.”

The boy raises an eyebrow at him, thinking that's easier said that done, but nods reluctantly. “I—well, okay. Fine.”

And he walks away, trying not to glance over his shoulder to often. When he finally does, he sees that Erik has—somehow—already disappeared. Shaking his head, he makes his way to the meeting place, which is a small courtyard with a few benches wedged in between where the walkways of the two streets meet, and tries not to look to much like he is waiting for someone. A few feet away, someone is selling trinkets from a wooden cart. He’s not really sure what they are, (vague glittery things?) but contents himself for a few minutes by trying to figure out why anybody in their right mind would ever pay coin for something as useless as that.

However, Emma is not a hard person to miss, so Charles doesn't have to wait very long. He’s just sitting down gingerly on one of the benches (narrowly avoiding some dubious looking stain or other) when he catches a flash of blond hair.

She looks beautiful, more so in the full light of day as opposed to the shady, grimy light of the tavern, the sun glinting in her golden hair. Her dress, pale lavender silk with a gathered skirt, is finer than anything Charles has seen in a long, long time. It reminds him sharply of the things his mother used to wear, and he frowns, forcibly quashing that memory before it goes to far.

Coughing, Charles pushes himself to his feet. He raises his hand, every so slightly. Emma must catch the hint, for a second later she is sweeping imperiously over to join him. Her skirt brushes against Charles’s side and he swallows. Hopefully this meeting doesn’t take long. He can’t help but feel that they must make a strange picture—this fine specimen of a lady, clearly upper-class, and a scruffy urchin boy, and he doesn't like to stand out if he can help it.

“Oh, there you are, sugar.” she breathes, “I trust you’ve done what I’ve asked?”

“Did you doubt me?” he begins teasingly, but then sobers, nodding crisply. "I looked in on Lehnsherr’s wagon, sure enough.”

Emma is staring at him, and Charles refuses to let her find anything at all telling about his expression. She smiles tentatively. “Well? I assume you—”

“—Payment first.” Charles makes sure his voice is sharp, uncompromising. He grins at her, all politeness, but he wants her to know he's not the sort she can jerk around. “It’s a policy of mine, you’ll understand.”

The two size each other up for the space of a second, before Emma lets out a soft snort. She looks almost impressed. “You strike a hard bargain, Charles. I can respect that. Here.” and she is digging in her purse, withdrawing a handful of bright, gleaming coins.

Charles checks them over, feeling for counterfeits (though really, he can tell just by looking at them that these are genuine bits) then shrugs. “Fair enough. I snuck in there while he was doing one of the shows,” Charles says casually, pocketing the coins, liking the weight of them at his side. He notes how Emma leans forward, not quite able to mask that she is clearly very interested in what he has to say. “He’s got the usual live-in stuff. Table, some food in the cabinets but not much. There are books, too. Looked like histories mostly. Maybe an almanac or two.”

“And?” Emma grips his shoulder, a frown marring her pretty face. “Anything strange, sugar? Maybe some books a crackpot stage magician like him wouldn’t be like to have?”

The boy twists in her grasp, brow wrinkling at the sudden intensity in her voice. “Not really—I didn’t notice—no. Not like that.”

“Did you check everywhere? Surely you would have—Charles, did you even make a list?” she snaps, voice going all cold, and Charles finally succeeds in breaking her grip.

He glares at her, taking a step back. For someone who’s hands look so soft, she has a disconcertedly hard and sharp grip. He's sure he'll find marks where her nails have bit into his flesh. “Oh, come off it. You didn’t hire someone like me to make lists. I told you already, his books were the common sort. Boring, really. Erik isn’t…”

Her eyes narrow dangerously, and Charles realizes his mistake a second too late. He freezes.

“Oh, so it’s Erik now, is it?” She grins at him, catlike. Her hand edges toward the ties of her purse, Charles’s blue eyes tracking its progress warily. “Awfully familiar way to address someone you've never met.”

Charles stares at her, mouth working. “Er. Maybe I just felt overly formal saying Lehnsherr all the time?” he tries weakly, though he knows its no good. Emma had never told him Erik's first name, and she obviously remembers that. She just smiles again, and takes another step forward, and-- you know what, now would be a good time to leave, he thinks.

“Oh, no you don’t, Sweetie. We have so much to talk about.”

He turns on his heel just in time to see Emma make a grab for him. She’s got something clasped in the palm of her hand, but he doesn’t have time to make a guess at what it is, because suddenly the street becomes a whole lot louder than it was a second ago.

Something big and wooden rolls past Charles’s face, between him and Emma. It’s the trinket cart, which makes no sense at all, because there isn't even much of a slope here, and someone would have had to push it very hard to get it to roll all the way over here. The noise is a mix of Emma’s outraged cry as the grubby wheels roll over the edge of her beautiful skirt, and also the distressed calls of the poor shopkeeper running after the cart, who is waving his arms and shouting piteously: “My wares! Good God, somebody stop that cart!”

As far as distractions go, Charles himself couldn’t have come up with a better one. Quite wisely, he wastes no time in legging it away.

He’s just rounding the corner when he’s grabbed around the middle and yanked into an alley, back against someone’s hard chest. An iron band of an arm loops across his squirming form, and a large, warm hand comes up to cover his mouth. But Charles has been grabbed before; he’s no damsel in distress.

Stamping down decisively he manages to catch the others foot, simultaneously giving the hand a good bite, and is satisfied at the grunt of pain this gets him, the loosening of the grip. But then someone is panting into his ear: “Oh for—stop it—It’s Erik, okay?”

Charles pauses, whole body still taut with adrenaline. “Erik?”

“I’ll let you go, but please have the good sense to be quiet.” and yes, it's definitely the magician, sounding rather pained and a bit annoyed. Charles supposes he can't blame him. “The cart won’t distract her for long. We’d best use some less… conspicuous paths to get back.”

When Erik lets him go, Charles has the good graces to look slightly sheepish, and when he speaks it’s in a whisper. “Er, sorry about that. You have to admit it was kind of sudden, though. Do you always just manhandle people—“ he cuts off mid sentence, eyes going wide. “Wait, that was you who did that with the cart? That’s amazing! How did you—“

“Charles, I would love to explain the nature of that little spell to you, but we should probably be going.” he sighs, running a hand over his face.“This is turning out to be more complicated than I thought it would be.”

“What do you mean, we should probably be going?” Charles hisses, grabbing Erik’s arm and towing him further into the alley, around the corner so they can’t be seen from the street. “I took you along on this job, like you wanted, but now—for God’s sake, Erik, I’d like to wash my hands of this. I don’t need to be involved in this, whatever it is. This has nothing to do with me, and you know it.”

Erik’s face has gone curiously blank while Charles was speaking. “What, you think she's just going to forget about you? She thinks you’re involved now, somehow. She’ll find you.” He leans in close, close enough that Charles can feel his breath puffing lightly across his face. “What if I could give you another option?”

The boy puts a little space between them, shoulders tensing. He wets his lips. “L-like what?”

“You’re curious, Charles. And intelligent.” he begins, smirking when Charles rolls his eyes. “No, you are. You’re wasted as a common thief. I could show you things. Teach you, if you have any propensity to learn. You could be… an apprentice, of sorts.”

Charles stares at him, this man—this magician—with his inscrutable eyes and disconcerting smiles, and a word materializes in his mind as though out of smoke. And what a dangerous, enticing word it is.

Magic.

He knows it’s probably a bad idea. He’ll probably regret it later, when Logan comes after him, wanting to know why Charles has left the gang-- the fallout would not be good. But then again, what good is there for them, on the streets? This life promises nothing but sickness and pain; nothing but cold nights spent huddled on doorsteps, living each day on the razor's edge between ‘too-hungry’ and ‘functioning’. Charles would not be human if the idea of something else, something better, doesn't tempt him.

He’ll have to find some way to get Raven out, of course, but even this thought is tinged with hope. What if he could get Raven to the doctor, Hank? Erik obviously knew him well. It would certainly be better than anything he has been able to do for her in the past few weeks.

But he can still hear commotion from down the street, and Charles realizes this is probably not the best place to be debating this. Not when they have a getaway to make. That's okay, though--Charles has made a few of those in his life. He shoots Erik a look, jerks his head down the alley.

“Follow me, " he says softly. "I know a shortcut.”