sareyen

[sareyen]

Are you a magnet? Because you’re attractive as hell (Cherik)

Read on ao3

Summary: Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are famous on campus. Or infamous, really. Their heated rivalry is well known amongst both the staff and students of their university, and it was a common occurrence to see the two of them duking it out all over campus.

When the university tells them to either play nice or say goodbye to their degrees, Charles and Erik decide to give them exactly what they asked for, and more.

So, instead of screaming insults at each other across campus, they shout bad pick-up lines at each other instead – something that everyone decides is infinitely worse.

“Oh no, here we go again,” a student sighed, leisurely picking up their books before dropping to their knees and scuttling under the desk. Other students also groaned, putting on their headphones and joining their classmates under desks, or plastering themselves out of the way against the walls. Some even just straight up left the lecture hall.

“Do you think they’ll just cancel class?”

“I hope they do – I haven’t started my mutants in politics essay yet, and it’s due on Friday.”

“Nah, this one only looks like DEFCON-3 at the most. Probably a few tables will be thrown, maybe Xavier will get pinned to the wall by some chairs, but that’s it.”

“No, it may even be DEFCON-4. Lehnsherr looks like he’s about to kill Xavier.”

The professor, a meek, mild-mannered man that wasn’t paid enough for this, dabbed at the sweat beading on his head as he looked between the two most out-spoken students in his class, agreeing with the gossiping students. Xavier and Lehnsherr were famous on campus – or infamous, really.

Whether it’s in their Mutant History class, or their Mutant Law class, or their Mutant Politics class, they were always at each other’s throats. On the good days they’d just spit arguments at each other in the middle of the lecture hall. On worse days, they’d have to be pulled off each other by other students before someone got injured. And on the worst days, Erik would almost pull all the metal pipes from the walls while Charles’s anger would give everyone on campus and surrounding suburbs a migraine.

They were both were brilliant students, of course. Their essays on mutant politics and law were top of the class, and Xavier definitely had the chops to become a future professor himself, while Erik could become a high-powered CEO, politician or… hitman, judging by the murderous gleam in his eyes at the moment.

“If you want a fight, Erik, I will give you a fight!” Charles Xavier hissed, grabbing onto the front of Erik’s shirt, staring up at him with angry blue eyes.

“U-Uh, guys…” Hank McCoy stammered, pushing his glasses nervously up his blue and furry nose, Erik just raising his hand with a wide, almost feral smile.

“Let him come,” Erik said, grinning, teeth gleaming under the trembling lights.

“Mutant U Daily! I saw today’s publication. I cannot believe that you called me a… a…” Charles seethed, usually rosy cheeks turning a bright shade of red that matched his ruddy lips as he shook Erik’s shirt, the taller man just smirking.

“Cowardly integrationist who’d rather bend over backwards on President McKenna’s desk in the oval office than stand up for the rights and safety of his fellow mutants?” Erik said, quoting his own prose verbatim, relishing in how Charles’s eyes only hardened. “Come on, Xavier. Tell me I’m wrong. The fact that you support the Mutant Registration Act just proves that you’re-”

“You twisted my words, you separatist imbecile,” Charles retorted, dropping his hands from Erik’s shirt to run his fingers through his hair in angry exasperation, like Erik was snipping at his last straw. If Xavier ever went bald, it would definitely be because of Lehnsherr – that everyone agreed on.

“Oh? I believe you said that, and I quote, ‘the Mutant Registration Act has its merits’,” Erik drawled, mimicking Charles’s thick English accent and then some, Charles groaning.

“Yes, I said that, but I’m unsure if you oh-so-conveniently forgot that I also said that while the act has its values, there are severe issues with it, which put mutants at risk of persecution and discrimination. So, considering a modified version of the act could have many benefits.”

“Oh, benefits. The only people it benefits are the humans, who would round us up and-” Erik spat out, Charles jabbing a finger into his taut chest before crossing his arms over his own.

“It could help track developing genealogical data, help identify likely mutants early and allow for education and preparation prior to manifestation, and if a mutant commits a crime – and only if they do – then their powers could be registered for monitoring and prevention of future crimes,” Charles ranted, shushing Lehnsherr with another stab of his finger when the man opened his mouth to retort. “Similar to the currently existing sex offender’s list. Lehnsherr, if you actually read my column on the Daily, you would have understood that, but apparently you are an illiterate buffoon-”

“Illiterate buffo- Is that the best you’ve got, Xavier? Because if you’re lowering yourself to petty name-calling then you must be running out of intelligent arguments,” Lehnsherr snorted, though the squealing from the pipes in the walls showed that the insult grated on his nerves. Charles merely raised a brow, expression cool, though the brewing headache everyone began having at the same time was proof that the usually sunny and cheerful man was pissed.

“You called me a cowardly integrationist slut first!”

“Oh no, I never called you a slut, Xavier. Freudian slip on your part?”

“Well you insinuated that I’d happily bend over for our dear Mr President just because I’m able to logically think about both the pros and cons about something instead of going straight to threatening domestic terrorism!”

“If you think that something that supports a second Holocaust has any pros, then there must be something wrong with your brain!”

“The only thing wrong with my brain is that it allows me to hear all of the insanity that’s rattling inside your brain!”

“Well listen all you like, Xavier, because unlike you, I actually support mutants since I don’t condone the use of suppressants or power-dampening collars,” Erik continued, glancing at Charles’s neck, where he often sported the thick, black collar during exams. The pipes in the walls rattled more intensely, enough to make even Charles look away from Erik’s eyes and to the quaking classroom around him.

Charles opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted when the door of the lecture hall burst open, revealing a very, very angry Professor Shaw, Dean of the Mutant Studies faculty within Columbia.

“Xavier! Lehnsherr! My office, now!” Shaw roared, glaring at the two most promising yet troublesome students, before whirling on his heels and stomping down the halls, the weight of his steps likely leaving potholes in his wake.

“Oh, thank God,” the weak-willed professor sighed, wiping his brow again before collapsing against his lectern with relief, only until he looked at his watch and slumped.

There was only 15 minutes left of the lecture left.

Guess another class had to be cancelled.

***

“This is the last straw, gentlemen,” Shaw said, smiling chillingly at the two students sitting in front of him. “I know you two despise each other, but enough is enough!”

“Professor Shaw, I assure you, this will be the last time-” Charles tried with a pleasant smile, Shaw shutting him up with a sharp look as Erik just rolled his eyes.

“Ass kisser,” Erik muttered, Charles turning to glare at him.

“I would have believed that the first time, Mr Xavier. And the second time. But this is the umpteenth time you two have caused trouble, and not only in Professor Jacob’s class. All of your professors have complained that your constant arguments are disruptive, not to mention the destruction of school property by Mr Lehnsherr, and your violation of the school’s telepathy restrictions-”

“Restrictions which are bullshit anyway,” Erik suddenly interrupted, Shaw slamming his hands down on his desk and angrily jerking an accusatory finger at the two students.

“Last straw! If you two are at each other’s throats and disrupt any further classes, then say goodbye to your degrees,” Shaw said, Charles and Erik’s mouths dropping simultaneously.

“Goodbye?” Charles echoed, standing up in alarm. “Goodbye, as in-”

“We fail?” Erik finished, Shaw smiling with false geniality, eyes like icicles.

“Indeed. You’ll have to repeat the year. Such a shame, considering you only need this semester’s credits to graduate. Like I said, gentlemen. Considering your behaviour these past two and a half years, you should be grateful that we haven’t expelled you outright,” Shaw said, waving his hand. “Now, get out of my office. It would be in your best interest to either get over your hatred for one another, or learn to deal with it. I’d better not have to get the two of you back in here again.”

“But-” Charles tried, Shaw ignoring him and just pointing to the door. Charles looked helplessly at the professor, but Erik just snorted and stomped out, Charles following glumly behind him.

“We need to talk, Charles,” Erik said as they left, Charles nodding. “My place or yours?”

“Mine,” Charles said, smiling a little now. “I have the good Scotch, remember?”

***

“I cannot believe Shaw’s audacity,” Charles complained, pouring two glasses of expensive scotch and sliding one over to Erik, who was sprawled across Charles’s couch and nursing a very unamused expression on his face at the mention of the Dean. “He’s punishing us for actually speaking up in class and debating very relevant subjects related to mutant issues. Last I checked, we’re paying to get a Mutant Studies degree.”

“Agreed. If our professors were actually qualified enough to teach us, we wouldn’t have to be the ones picking up the slack in class,” Erik said, swirling the amber scotch in his glass. “No one would learn anything if we didn’t discuss things so thoroughly in and out of class.”

“Precisely! And we both have the highest GPAs in the class. If Shaw fails us while Sean gets to graduate, it would be a gross failure of the American education system,” Charles said, Erik snorting and holding up his glass, the two of them clinking cups and drinking.

“Not to mention Summers. I caught a glimpse of his essay, and it was honestly such a train wreck. I wish I could unread it, my quality of life would be much better that way,” Erik said, Charles shivering at the mere thought. “Apart from you, the only people with more than one braincell in our class are Hank, Armando and Moira. Emma doesn’t count because she plagiarises everything.”

“Huh, surprised you added Moira there, since she’s a mere human and all,” Charles said with a small, teasing smile. Erik just rolled his eyes, patting the couch beside him. Charles let out a soft laugh, putting his glass down and sinking down on the couch next to Erik, who wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s belly and buried his head in his muscled thigh.

“I can’t fail this degree, Erik. You know my mother. She already thinks I’ve screwed up my life by studying mutant arts instead of something ‘useful’ like business management or ‘glorified pretentiousness’ so I can take over Xavier Pharmaceuticals. If I actually screw this degree up, it’ll only prove that she was right,” Charles mumbled, Erik nodding. Erik knew all about Charles’s less than pleasant childhood, and despite his boyfriend growing up in a grand house and immense material wealth, he knew about the pressure and coldness that came with it.

Having met Charles’s mother on multiple occasions, it was still a wonder how Charles grew up to become such a wonderful person. In this case, the apple flew far, far, far away from the tree.

“Same here. I can’t afford to pay for another year of school if I have to repeat. And no, Charles, I’m not going to let you pay for my degree,” Erik said, kissing Charles into silence knowingly, the man just responding wordlessly with a huff. “Yes, yes, you could pay off my student debt with your monthly allowance, but I don’t want you to.”

“And I won’t, if you don’t want me to,” Charles said, understanding Erik’s need for his independence, knowing that his boyfriend’s upbringing had made it difficult for him to rely on people. To trust people. Apart from his mother Edie, Charles had been the first person Erik could open himself up to, because Charles always understood. Maybe it was partially because of his telepathy, but it was also because it was Charles. Kind, patient, lovely Charles, who didn’t mind Erik’s barbed words and cold exterior, allowing him to slowly reveal small facets of himself until he was ready to give Charles everything.

“I don’t know why Shaw is getting his pants in a twist now. It’s not like we’ve ever actually been mad at each other. We’re just debating…” Erik said, before pausing and looking at Charles, peeling his head up from the telepath’s thigh. “You weren’t actually offended that I called you a cowardly integrationist, were you?”

Charles laughed, shaking his head and leaning down to plant a reassuring kiss on Erik’s lips.

“Only if you’re not offended that I called you a separatist imbecile… or an illiterate buffoon,” Charles replied, Erik’s eyes sparkling with mirth and fond affection, sitting up only to push Charles down against the plush fabric of the couch, hovering over him.

“Not at all,” Erik said, before frowning. “But I am offended by the fact that everyone thinks we hate each other. I overheard someone saying that if anything ever happened to you – which I would never allow to happen, mind you – that the police should question me first. Like I’d ever hurt you.”

Erik scowled at the memory of what he overheard in the university halls once. He knew he could come off as intimidating, especially with his menacing smile and taciturn demeanour, but the fact that they thought him capable of hurting Charles was insulting and ridiculous.

He loved Charles, and would rather die than let anything happen to him.

Charles caught that thought, blue eyes softening as he raised his hands to cup Erik’s cheeks, thumbs rubbing gentle, affectionate circles over the man’s skin.

‘I love you too, darling,’ Charles pressed into Erik’s mind, soothing some of the frustrated knots building there. Erik sank into Charles’s touch, nuzzling into the palm of his hand. ‘I also find it ridiculous how anyone can think that I despise you. And trust me, they think that a lot.’

“The fact that they haven’t even realised that we’re dating is also beyond me. It’s been two years! Idiots, the whole lot of them,” Erik scoffed, groaning when Charles began running his fingers through his hair.

“Darling, they wouldn’t notice unless we started having sex right in front of them in the lecture hall. And even then, they’d think it’s just hate sex. Everyone genuinely thinks we detest each other, which is why we’re in this predicament in the first place.”

“But I don’t want to stop arguing with you in class,” Erik grumbled. “Arguing with you is the only enjoyable thing I get to do all day. Without it, class would be boring as fuck, and everything you say makes more sense than whatever nonsense our Professors keep spouting, even if you’re an integrationist idiot.”

“Yes, yes, my frustratingly sexy supremacist. Alas, as much as I agree, if we don’t tone it down then we’ll be in the horrible position of repeating the year. I suppose we have to ‘play nice’ for Shaw until graduation,” Charles sighed, the two men sinking into a glum silence, before Charles perked up. “Unless…”

Erik raised a brow now, eyeing the mischievous curl of Charles’s lips.

“Since the university wants us to play nice, why don’t we play really nice?” Charles said, Erik beginning to catch on, lips spreading into his signature grin.

“Oh? Care to share what ‘playing nice’ would consist of?”

“Well, to start…”

***

Students and professors alike ogled at the unfathomable scene in the university parking lot.

They saw Erik Lehnsherr park his rust-bucket car like always, stepping out with his trademark glower and long legs. And, like always, Charles Xavier walked in through the gates from the bus stop, satchel slung over his shoulder and wearing his characteristic tweed.

But, unlike always, instead of hurling an insult at Xavier, Lehnsherr smiled instead and…  whistled.

“Hey, Xavier! Are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got ‘fine’ written all over you!” Erik called out, and everyone’s heads immediately snapped over to Xavier, expecting him to begin writing up a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Instead, the man just beamed and flushed a pretty pink, licking his lips before speaking.

“Really? Well, in that case, if being sexy is a crime, you’d be guilty as charged,” Xavier said back, even adding a charming wink at the end of it. Lehnsherr actually laughed – laughed – before walking into the building after Xavier.

Everyone had the same collective thought, almost like a telepath had put it there in everyone’s heads.

What the actual fuck?

***

Later that day, everyone expected for Xavier and Lehnsherr to begin duking it out in class as per usual, especially after their fight was interrupted by Professor Shaw the day before.

Lehnsherr sat down in his usual seat in the mid row by the window, but Xavier had yet to arrive. They noticed Lehnsherr’s long leg bobbing up and down as he continuously glanced at the door, as if waiting to murder Xavier the moment he walked in.  

Just before the professor hobbled in, Xavier arrived, blue eyes immediately zeroing in on Lehnsherr and skipping over to him with intent. Lehnsherr just leaned back in his chair and smirked, ready and waiting.

‘Oh, thank God, they’re going to yell at each other and everything will be back to normal,’ everyone thought, until Xavier spoke, that was.

“You know, someone should really call the cops, because it has to be illegal for someone to look this gorgeous,” Xavier said confidently, Lehnsherr’s smirk only deepening as his gaze on Xavier became even more intense, before he suddenly blinked, rubbing at his eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” Lehnsherr said, gesturing to his eyes before grinning. “There must be something wrong with my eyes, Xavier, because I can’t seem to take them off you.”

Xavier giggled, settling down in his seat after giving Erik another dazzling, flattered smile, while everyone else wondered if the world began spinning backwards today.

Because Xavier and Lehnsherr were not only being civil, but they were…

Flirting?

***

Like many students, Charles and Lehnsherr spent their free period in the library, catching up on assignments or revising for exams. Xavier was there first, lips pursed in thought as he perused the well-stocked shelves for obscure texts about mutant origins. When Lehnsherr strode into the library like he owned it, eyes immediately spotting Xavier, everyone held their breaths.

Lehnsherr walked over to the telepath quickly, long legs swallowing up the distance between them.

“Hey, Xavier,” Lehnsherr said, leaning on the shelf beside the shorter man, who turned to him with his head tilted to the side, curious. “Are you a library book? Because I’d like to check you out, take you home and get to know you a little better.”

Xavier’s lips twitched, clearing his throat as he approached the metal bender, reaching up and bracketing the taller man between his arms.

“Well, fancy that. Did you know that I’m writing a book myself?” Xavier said, voice almost a purr.

“No, I didn’t know that. What kind of book?” Lehnsherr asked, Xavier hopping up onto his tiptoes, leaning in.

“It’s a phonebook, and it’s missing your number,” Xavier concluded, everyone in the library simultaneously choking on their own breaths as Lehnsherr grinned, flicking his wrist up and making a student nearly screech when their marker levitated out of their hand and into Lehnsherr’s.

Lehnsherr scribbled a string of numbers onto Xavier’s palm, their fingers lingering far too long against each other for anyone to feel comfortable.

“If you need help writing it, I’m great at rearranging the alphabet. Of course, I’d put U and I together,” Lehnsherr said, Xavier biting his lip before stepping back, humming thoughtfully.

“I might just have to take you up on that, Erik.”

Everyone was silent, pretending to stare at their laptops or books, but unless their mutation was stealth it was obvious they were eyeing the two most high-profile mutants at the university. Xavier left first, checking out a large stack of books, and moments after Lehnsherr followed him, grinning widely and looking far too pleased with himself.

***

“A library book? Really, Erik? And you wrote down the pizza place’s number on my hand with a permanent marker,” Charles gasped through a breathy moan as Erik kissed and nibbled at his neck, tongue lapping at the freckles there.

“It was thematically appropriate, at least. The library line, not the pizza thing,” Erik defended himself, smiling as Charles just huffed and tugged at his hair, pulling him down into a dirty kiss. “I was just really craving pizza.”

“I wish you could’ve felt the way everyone’s minds imploded in the library,” Charles said when they broke for air, flipping the two of them over and straddling Erik’s body, pushing him down onto the mattress and peppering kisses down his chest.

“Oh?”

“Mm. They were all wondering why we weren’t at each other’s throats like usual. Wondering if the world was ending and all that.‘The apocalypse is nigh’ someone very eloquently put it,” Charles continued, kissing his way back up when he got to the dipped V that disappeared into Erik’s jeans, sucking a dark red welt on his boyfriend’s neck and finishing it off with a cheeky bite.

“Not at each other’s throats, huh? The evidence here begs to differ,” Erik echoed, voice rough as he tilted his neck to the side so Charles could admire his hard work that blossomed darkly on Erik’s, Charles’s own eyes darkening.

“Seriously, if you come to class with that, people would have to realise that we’re fucking, right?” Charles sighed, reaching down to undo Erik’s fly, the metallokinetic flicking his fingers to help him out, the zipper sliding down on its own accord. Erik drank in the small smile Charles couldn’t fight back at the sight of that, even now. Charles always loved the little ways Erik used his powers, that spark of wondrous delight never dulling no matter how many times Erik lifted a forkful of spaghetti or turned on a tap when his hands were full.

‘Well yes, you’re quite brilliant, Erik,’ Charles spoke reverently into Erik’s mind, licking his lips before grinning. ‘Even if your pick-up lines are terrible.’

“Oh, just you wait,” Erik chuckled, pulling Charles down as he ground his hips up, the telepath gasping at the friction. “There are plenty more where those came from.”

“Oh, I so look forward to it. And to everyone’s reactions,” Charles purred, reaching down and slipping his hands into Erik’s briefs. “Now, since you were craving pizza for dinner, what are you desiring for dessert?”

‘You,’ Erik projected, arching up when Charles began palming his hardening cock.

“Same here,” Charles said, winking, and Erik pre-emptively rolled his eyes. “You must be my dessert, because I’ll be pudding it in you.”

“Charles, just shut up and fuck me.”

***

Erik glared at his laptop, the essay he had been reading and re-reading over and over beginning to blur in his eyes. If there were any telepaths or empaths having lunch on the grass outside the school buildings, they would likely feel the waves of frustration and exhaustion wafting off him right now.

At least, until the scent of sugar exploded in front of him, his essay obscured by a box of colourful donuts, a blinding smile and ocean blue eyes.

Charles tried not to burst out into laughter as someone on the grass thought very loudly ‘Oh shit, here comes World War III’.

“Erik,” Charles chirped, plopping himself down next to the German, who closed his laptop and pushed it off his lap with his powers.

“Charles,” Erik replied simply, looking amused when his boyfriend picked up one of the glazed donuts, holding it out to him. Erik took a large bite, Charles laughing and rubbing some of the crusted sugar off his lip.

“Are you a doughnut? Because you’re just a-dough-able,” Charles said with a straight face, Erik almost choking on the sugary treat, but managing to swallow it and pinch Charles’s thigh.

Picking up another donut – the sickeningly sweet caramel one that Charles favoured – Erik pressed it against Charles’s lips. Charles licked it slowly, sugar coating his tongue and lips, before taking a languid bite and letting out a low moan.

Erik squeezed the telepath’s thigh again, making him smile.

“Charles, you must be a donut, because I’m ready to glaze you inside and out,” Erik said, Charles unable to hold back the peal of laughter that escaped his lips. The telepath almost wheezed as he careened into Erik’s chest with laughter, the metallokinetic catching both him and the forgotten box of donuts.

‘Oh, someone just thought that they’d rather us try to murder each other than hear such bad pick-up lines. Apparently us blowing each other up is far more tolerable than us blowing each other on the grass,’ Charles pushed at Erik, who just grinned and looked around the grass, everyone who was staring suddenly turning their gazes away.

‘Good. Maybe if we’re even more sickeningly sugary sweet Shaw will tell us that we should go back to arguing instead,’ Erik projected back, Charles raising an eyebrow.

‘You know what, darling? You are a genius. On another note, if you’re as sick of your essay as your mind says you are, shall we go back to mine so you can glaze my donut hole?’

***

“Erik! Come and feel my new shirt! Do you know what this shirt is made out of?” Charles yelled from the top of the stairs, all of the students, including Erik, stopping and turning their heads up to look at him. “It’s boyfriend material!”

Charles beamed as people groaned in their minds, while Erik just ran up the stairs and swept Charles off his feet obnoxiously.

***

“You, Charles, must be a magnet, because you’re attracting me like crazy,” Erik said as he sauntered up to Charles in the halls, the telepath backing up into some lockers as Erik caged him in, both men smiling at each other as everyone else collectively gagged.

***

Charles burst into the classroom, holding his phone out and then thrusting it towards Erik.

“Hey Erik. Cupid is on the phone. He wants to tell you to give me my heart back,” Charles said, the students around them dropping their heads in their hands and wishing that their disgust-induced migraines went away.

***

In the men’s bathroom at adjacent urinals, Charles and Erik continued, the students around them wishing they were anywhere else because they knew what was about to come.

“Charles, my love for you is like diarrhoea – I just can’t hold it in.”

***

 For the next two weeks, any time, any place, no matter who was around, Charles and Erik were unrelenting. What had once been yelling matches about mutant rights became pun-ridden flirtation filled to the brim with horrible pick-up lines and even more horrible eye-sex.

“Erik! If you were a vegetable, you’d be a cute-cumber.”

“Charles! Do you have a Band-Aid? Because I scraped my knees falling for you!”

“Erik, my secondary mutation is actually precognition, because I definitely see you in my future!”

“Charles, no wonder the sky is so grey today – all the colours are in your eyes!”

“Erik, we must be in a museum, because you’re a work of art!”

“Charles, life without you is like a broken pencil, completely pointless!”

“Erik, are you a campfire? Because you’re bloody hot and I want s’more!”

“Charles, you need to take me to the doctor, because I broke my legs falling for you!”

***

Everyone only lasted another week of Charles and Erik’s constant pick-up lines and bad puns, and on Monday morning they found themselves sitting in Shaw’s office once again, the Dean scowling at them with, what Charles could feel, a killer head ache.

“Okay, you two win. I’ve had enough. We’ve all had enough. You two can graduate, whatever, just stop with the… stuff you’re doing,” Shaw spat out stiffly, Charles sitting there with faux confusion while Erik just smirked, both of their reactions grating on Shaw’s already thin nerves.

“But we’ve done exactly what you told us to. Play nice, wasn’t it? In fact, I think Charles and I have been beyond nice,” Erik said, Charles’s lip twitching.

The vein bulging in Shaw’s forehead pulsed.

“No, I think I can speak on behalf of the entire campus that we’d rather you stop being nice to each other. I’ve had enough emails being sent to me regarding complaints about your… conduct. I had far less emails bombarding me when you two were about to tear down university infrastructure. So, for everyone’s sake and sanity, please go back to hating each other,” Shaw said gratingly through gritted teeth, before waving the two of them out and rummaging around his desk for some painkillers or hard alcohol.

Or both.

Together.

When Charles and Erik left, they grinned at each other, before Erik leaned in with a suggestive nudge.

“So, what do you want to argue about in class today?” Erik whispered, Charles laughing with bright eyes, hopping up to peck Erik’s lips.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll think of something. We’ve got weeks of arguing to make up for.”

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #x-men #xmen #fanfic #ao3 #fluff #humor #pick-up lines #groovy flirty mutants

[sareyen]

If I could walk back to yesterday, I would (Cherik)

Read on ao3

Summary: Charles had braced himself for the pain. He knew that when Erik would push the coin through Shaw's head that he would inadvertently push it into his. He knew that he would feel the slow, torturous drag of metal through his skin, his brain tissue, his mind. He had even prepared for the heartbreak and the betrayal, because once Erik had put on Shaw's helmet, Charles's heart had already shattered to pieces.

But when Charles's mind was fractured by the coin, he hadn't been prepared to lose a part of himself he could not bear to live without.Because without a mind he had no telepathy, and without telepathy, Charles was... Human.

Or: Charles loses his telepathy after Cuba, and all the pain that follows.

Charles stared at Moira’s face, her lips moving and moving, and yet Charles couldn’t hear anything.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

There were no overlapping words, no buzzing in the background, no undercurrent of emotion underlying each spoken syllable. As Charles stared at Moira’s pretty face, her dark hair, her brown eyes, her soft lips, he might as well have been staring at a statue. A statue made of cold stone with no thoughts and no feelings despite the marble smile someone carved upon their face.

Charles licked his chapped lips, peeling and cracked, tasting a little like iron and a lot like blood.

He was in a hospital. Hospitals should be loud, and yet this one was eerily quiet. There should’ve been people shouting, people breaking inside, a never-ending flood of pain and suffering and happiness and hope.

And yet, Charles heard nothing. Felt nothing.

Charles calmly raised his fingers to his temple, scratching at the skin there, worn and red from where he had been picking at the flesh. His nails dug into his skin, pain spiking, and yet he still felt nothing.

“… Charles. Charles? Charles, are you listening?” Moira asked, waving her hands in front of his face, worry pinching her brow. Was it worry? Or was it pain, or regret, or pity? Charles couldn’t tell, not when it was so quiet.

Charles’s eyes listlessly traversed over her face, lingering momentarily on the bruised purple line circling her neck, before swallowing dryly.

“Apologies, Moira. I…” Charles started, words drifting off as he squinted at his friend, whose face only twisted further into worry. Charles stared and stared, listening but not hearing, Moira quickly stepping over to his side and kneeling by his hospital bed, taking his hand in hers.

“No, no, it’s alright, Charles,” Moira said quickly, offering him a shaky smile. “Are you in pain? Do you need me to get the doctor? He said they would review your medications if the pain management wasn’t right for you…”

“No, no, that… I’m not in pain,” Charles assured her, looking down at his legs. He could see the upward slope of the starched hospital blankets where his limbs sat, and yet when he rubbed at his thigh he couldn’t feel anything at all.

Funny. They were clearly there, both of his legs. Funny, his mind was there, too, and yet…

Nothing. Empty.

Human.

Charles’s hand on his thigh trembled, so he gripped his leg tighter, trying to still the tremulous muscles.

“No, I’m not in pain,” Charles said again with a broken smile, turning to Moira, who bit her lip as she blinked rapidly while holding back tears. Charles wondered how she knew that he was lying, because she was never a telepath, not like he used to be. How could she know that he wasn’t smiling as his lips curled upwards, that he was just pretending to be alive.

“Charles, please. If you are in any pain, it would be best-”

“No, no, truly, Moira. I… I’m really in no pain. Rather… You know, I can’t feel anything at all.”

Moira’s expression looked shattered as she squeezed Charles’s hand, unable to stop the way her eyes flickered down to his legs – but she didn’t realise Charles wasn’t talking about his legs. Of course, how was Moira supposed to know that – she wasn’t a telepath, not like Charles used to be.

No, Moira wasn’t a telepath.

But then again, neither was Charles. Not anymore.

***

Charles placed his hand on the door, the heavy oak slab swinging open. He stepped through the threshold, dust and leaves blowing in and scattering over the aged floor. The air was stale yet chilled, no hint of heat in the halls, no lights warming the ceilings or sunlight hitting the walls. The iron chandelier cast dancing shadows on the floor as Charles slowly walked forwards.

Sean, easily recognised by his familiar messy hair and freckled neck, was standing there with his back turned to Charles. The professor opened his mouth to call to the young boy.

“Sean, what are you waiting here for? Where is everyone?” Charles asked, though the boy did not answer. Charles frowned, stepping around the boy, mouth opening again. “Sean…?”

When Charles saw the boy’s face he took a startled step back, breath catching in his throat.

“Yes, Professor?” Sean said, though his mouth did not move. No, nothing moved at all, because Sean’s face was made of grey stone, the boy a mere statue that spoke but thought and felt nothing.

“W-What?” Charles stammered, taking another step back as the still statue just smiled at him. “No. H-Hank?! Alex?! Raven?! Erik?!”

Charles whirled around, running up the stairs and down the halls, slamming open the first door and rushing inside, frantic.

“Hank, what is happeni-” Charles immediately asked as he entered the scientist’s room, before abruptly stopping and almost tripping when he saw Hank sitting at his desk, blue fur an ashen grey and his sharp teeth still and frozen in stone.

“What is it, Professor?” Hank asked, mouth unmoving as his statue-like body stared back at Charles.

“N-No,” Charles whispered, running back out and fumbling with another door down the hall, slick hands slipping on the ornate knob as Charles struggled to breathe.

Bursting through the door, Charles whimpered when he saw Alex sitting cross-legged on his bed, smiling at Charles with an unmoving face made of stone. Charles could feel the colour drain from his face as his legs buckled, but he managed to step backwards, his chest so tight he felt like he would collapse at any moment.

“Raven!” Charles yelled as he tore down the hall to his sister’s familiar room, bursting through it shoulder-first as his blue eyes frantically searched for her. A broken noise clawed its way up Charles’s throat when he saw his sister, blue scales now made of smooth marble. She sat with her legs up along the windowsill, head turned to look at Charles with a wide smile.

“No, no, not you too, Raven. Oh, God,” Charles cried, stumbling over to his sister and cupping her face with shaking hands, choking when the stone was cold under his fingertips.

“What are you doing, Charles?” Raven asked as she just continued to smile at him with an unchanging face, Charles lurching back and shaking his head hysterically.

Erik. There was still Erik. Erik, whose mind was like nothing Charles had ever felt before, so vibrant and alive and strong and good. Charles knew the feeling of Erik’s mind. Cherished it. Charles remembered how Erik’s brightest memories had felt, the warmth of them despite their age. He could remember the tinge of auburn around the corners of the memories, a sunset hue reminiscent of the glow of the menorah, feeling like the softness Erik’s mother’s smile.

When Charles ran out of Raven’s room, he immediately saw Erik’s lean figure at the end of the hall, standing on a balcony behind an open pair of French doors. White curtains fluttered around him like ghosts, and Charles slowed his steps, feet dragging through tar as he neared the metal-bender.

“E-Erik, my friend. Please… You have to help me. Something’s wrong. I… I…” Charles begged, clasping his friend on the shoulder only to freeze. Charles’s heart dropped, thudding against the stone floor. Erik’s shoulder was hard and ice cold, feeling of nothing.

“Oh God,” Charles gasped, legs suddenly growing numb and sending him to his knees.

“Charles.”

Erik’s familiar voice echoed in Charles’s ear, and through his tears, the professor looked up to see Erik’s grey stone face smiling at him with a large show of teeth, eyes emotionless and a helmet adorning his head.

“I’m going to count to three and I’m going to move the coin.”

Charles woke up sobbing, his hot tears spilling down his temples and staining the pillows, fingers clawing at his hair. His scalp stung as his fingers ripped out tufts of dark chestnut hair, bloodied strands sticking to his sweaty palms as he screamed into the silence.

A nurse heard his cries, quickly rushing in and gasping as she saw the young man thrashing about in bed, upper body twisting while his legs remained still and lifeless.

“Mr Xavier, Mr Xavier, please stop! You’re hurting yourself! D-Doctor! Someone!” the nurse cried out, rushing over and grabbing Charles’s wrists, struggling to hold him back as he resisted, his hair falling onto the white sheets around him.

Charles only settled when the doctor pumped more sedatives through his IV, and when he woke up, his head was shaved to the scalp and arms tightly tethered to the rails of his hospital bed.

***

Moira insisted on staying at the mansion while Charles recovered. Charles didn’t have the energy to deny her.

Charles knew that she had feelings for him, having read her mind before the fateful Cuba mission. Moira had no experience shielding from a telepath, the woman honest and straightforward, something that Charles had appreciated, although he couldn’t reciprocate her feelings. It wasn’t that he didn’t find her attractive – Moira was beautiful, brave, and intelligent, that was obvious.

But she wasn’t Erik.

Charles gripped the arms of his wheelchair tighter, biting his lips as his body tensed at the sensation of his heart wrenching.

“Erik, where are you?” Charles murmured to himself, pulling one hand off his wheelchair to crumple the fabric of his tailored shirt that rest over his fractured heart. I miss you, I don’t know what to do without you. We want different things, but I that never meant I didn’t want you. I need you, especially now that I have nothing.

Now that I am nothing.

“Professor?”

Charles gasped in surprise at the sudden noise behind him, jerking in his chair, metal squeaking.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t… I thought you sensed me outside. I knocked, so I thought…” Hank hurriedly said, beginning to turn back towards the door. “Were you busy with something? I can come back later if you’d like.”

“No, it’s alright, Hank,” Charles said, forcing his lips to curl up into a smile. Charles slowly wheeled himself behind his desk, movements clunky and unpractised, his changed body still getting used to its new condition. Charles was grateful Hank didn’t say anything, just waited patiently for Charles to position himself. Clearing his throat, Charles looked up at Hank, who pushed his glasses higher up his furry nose. “What did you need, Hank?”

“It’s about Moira,” Hank said in a hushed voice, glancing at the door, before turning back to Charles. “If she returns to the CIA, they’re going to ask her about us. Where we are, where they can find us.”

Charles nodded slowly, the thought already having crossed his mind previously. A month had passed since Cuba, and while some things were on the mend, others were only becoming increasingly complicated.

“Yes,” Charles said, fiddling with a metal paperweight on his desk, something Erik made for him before they left for Cuba. “For us, anonymity will be the first line of defence. I know Moira would never willingly disclose our whereabouts, however…”

“If the humans threaten her, or worse… try to… torture her,” Hank said, voice quietening at the end as he winced. Hank looked down at his feet uncomfortably, so he missed the way Charles also flinched.

The humans.

A month ago, Charles wouldn’t have reeled at Hank’s words. He knew that Hank didn’t utter the words with the same intention as Shaw, or even Erik, but something about the distinction still cut deep. Mutants. Humans. Us. Them.

Charles hadn’t told Hank or the others that he no longer had his powers. Amidst the chaos of Cuba, the bullet and the paralysis, they had been distracted by other things, allowing Charles to bite back the words that would turn his comrades into them and Charles into an outsider.

And Charles was afraid. Afraid that if they found out that he no longer had his powers they would push him away. They may not have the same genocidal tendencies as other mutants, but even Hank and the others were wary of humans. They had seen their potential on the beach; the distrust, the fear, the hatred.

Now that Charles was one of them, how would they look at him?

Charles swallowed back the empty, cold feeling blooming in his chest, picking up the metal paperweight and shoving it into a drawer.

“We should discuss this with Moira herself,” Charles said, Hank looking back up again, hesitation written on his face. “What, Hank?”

“I was just thinking… maybe it would be safest, for not only us, but for Moira as well, if you just…” Hank said, slowly gesturing at his temple.

“No!” Charles blurted out, Hank jumping at the sudden rise in volume. Charles sucked in a tight breath, shaking his head, fingers digging into his wheelchair. “Sorry, I- That was- I… My telepathy, I…” Can’t. “I won’t. Moira deserves more than that. I don’t want to do that to her, not to a friend that has helped us so much. There has to be another way. Hank, I’m… I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry, Professor. You’re right,” Hank said, smiling a little. “Moira is a friend, and we trust her. We can figure out another way.”

“Thank you, Hank,” Charles said, trying not to wince as Hank smiled at him, the expression gentle and yet not tinged by a colour of warmth like it usually was, Charles’s head deathly silent. Charles stopped speaking after that, Hank taking that as a sign for him to begin explaining his plans to upgrade the mansion’s security systems, Charles only half able to pay attention, because all the while he was staring at the empty void above Hank’s head, screaming inside.

I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.

***

Charles’s telepathy manifested when he was nine. At first, he thought he was going crazy, all the voices in his head clamouring and unrelenting, piling up until Charles couldn’t even hear himself. It was only until he realised that the voices were coming from other people’s heads that he managed to figure out how to keep everyone else out. Even then, he thought there was something wrong with him, and for three years, he had hated his telepathy with all his soul.

Until he met Raven, who was the same, and yet so, so different.

They were together in their otherness, and their bond began because of their powers. Sometimes, Charles had wondered if he would’ve befriended Raven the same way without his powers, because over time it became evident that he and Raven were very different people. In fact, Raven was more like Erik, and both of them were different from Charles. Charles and Raven disagreed on more than they agreed with, and for all the light teasing his sister sometimes gave him, Charles could sense that deep down she was discontent with something.

And now, without his powers as the last thread holding on to his sister, they were no longer together in their otherness.

No, that was made obvious when Raven left him bleeding on the beach, with only the silence in his head to keep him company.

***

“Promise me you’ll look after yourself, won’t you, Charles?” Moira said with a slight frown, lingering in the frame of the grand Westchester door. Sean stood behind her with her leather suitcase swinging in his arms. Moira shivered as she bundled up, wrapping her tan trench coat around her slender frame and brushing wayward brown hair from her face.

“Really, Moira,” Charles huffed, laughing a little. “What makes you think I wouldn’t?”

“Oh, don’t get me started, Charles. Skipping breakfast every day, for starters,” Moira sighed, stepping back into the foyer of the grand mansion and kneeling beside Charles’s chair. The ex-telepath’s smile softened, taking Moira’s hand in his and pressing a chaste kiss to the back of it.

“I promise. You just focus on what you have to do, alright?” Charles said, Moira nodding and getting up, patting Charles on his shoulder.

“Well, I suspect that they have telephones in Scotland. I’ll be expecting you to pick up the phone when I check in,” Moira said, Charles laughing at his friend, who stared at him for a moment in hesitation. Something seemed to grow determined in her gaze, Moira quickly bending down and giving him a small peck on the cheek. “Just wanted to once before I go. Goodbye for now, Charles.”

“Yes, goodbye, Moira,” Charles replied, the brunette giving him another smile before following Sean out to the waiting taxi, the boy chattering to her about things she has to eat and see when she’s in Scotland, and to make sure she calls as often as she can.

“Do you think she’ll be alright, Professor? Without…” Hank spoke from behind the professor, Charles craning his head to look up at Hank.

“Yes. If any good came out of the second wave of missiles, it’s that everyone thinks that we’re all dead, Moira included. She understands that she can never go back to the government, not with what she knows. And besides, I think she’d make a good doctor, don’t you?” Charles said, Hank huffing out a laugh.

“You know she’s only becoming a doctor because of you, Professor,” Hank said, a little teasing. Charles rolled his eyes, spinning his chair around to head back into the mansion towards his study, eager to jump into planning training regimes for Sean and Alex to better harness and control their powers.

If Cuba showed them anything, it’s that they were still sorely in need of improvement if they were to stay safe.

“No, she’s doing this because she’s a driven, intelligent woman that wants to help people,” Charles replied dryly, Hank now the one to roll his yellow-hued eyes.

“You know what she thinks of you. It surely has to be in her mind, and I saw that kiss,” Hank said, Charles gritting his teeth as he wheeled towards his study faster, forcing the dark thoughts from taking hold of his attention.

No, I don’t. I can’t see into her mind, not anymore.

***

Charles had gotten into the habit of covering his shaved head with a variety of hats; knitted beanies, baker boys, mariner hats, sports caps. The only kind of hat Charles steered clear of were fedoras, the accessory reminding him too much of Erik.

Hank, Sean and Alex felt a little guilty when they first noticed Charles wearing hats, the man rarely wearing them in the past. To them, Charles’s newfound inclination towards head accessories was due to their failed attempts to hide their staring at his bald head, which had started to regrow patchily after his stint in hospital.

They knew Charles had been fond of his hair, so the boys pointedly didn’t mention anything when Charles started to wear the hats every day, covering up his sparse locks. After the first month, though, they wondered why Charles was still wearing them – he should have had a short crop of hair regrowing by now, but the man was still adamant on covering his head up with hats.

 Again, the boys said nothing, because the Professor’s self-esteem had already taken a hit recently, with the chair and everything. Even if Charles never said it, the boys sometimes caught his frustrated grimaces and mumbled curses.

But, while Charles was self-conscious about his lack of hair, that wasn’t the reason for the knitted beanies and caps. No, the professor had to use them to cover up the cuts and the bruises, the crescent-shaped welts made by his nails, the uneven patches of skin where he continued to pull out fistfuls of his hair.

In the privacy of his bathroom, Charles stared at himself in the mirror with a blank expression, slowly pulling the woollen beanie off his head, the grey-brown fabric falling onto the tiled floor. He stared at the pink puckered skin where some of his older wounds were healing, shakily raising a hand to pick at the fresh scabs forming, before grinding down his teeth as he clawed at his head.

‘Come back, come back, come back,’ Charles screamed internally, closing his eyes as he hunched over, biting on the fabric of his pants to stifle his scream. ‘Why can’t I hear anything?! Why?! Why?! Why?!’

“Why are you broken?” Charles whimpered, tears collecting in his eyes as he stared at himself. His blue irises were bloodshot, dark circles casting shadows over his entire face. His complexion had always been fair, but now he was ghostly pale, a shadow of the man he once was. His lips were a dull, ashy pink, cracked and dry, and his cheeks hollow.

“You’ve given up, just like your stupid legs,” Charles laughed bitterly to himself, rummaging without care through his lowered bathroom cabinet, bottles of ointment and medicine containers clattering onto the ground messily. When his fingers found the familiar razor, Charles grinned with savage coldness, bunching his pant legs up and running his fingers over the barely-healed scars.

“Why can’t you feel anything?” Charles moaned as he slashed a line across his thigh, red beading up like small ruby pearls. “Why can’t you just-”

“Professor? I heard lots of things dropping on the ground, are you alri… P-Professor?!”

Hank, in his panic, leapt over with his mutant strength and slapped the razor from Charles’s hand, the little blade clattering in the bathtub and speckling it with red. Hank’s eyes traversed Charles’s damaged legs, then widened even further when he saw Charles’s head, which looked even more maimed, the focus of his ire clearly collected there.

“Professor, what are you doing? Why are you…”

“I’ve tried everything, Hank,” Charles wailed, crying out with so much despair that Hank’s legs felt weak. “Everything! I can’t hear anything, Hank! I don’t know why I can’t hear anything! My mind… It’s just like my legs. Useless, utterly, utterly useless!”

“Wait, Professor. What do you mean?” Hank asked as he grabbed onto the professor’s shoulders, trying to stop him from thrashing and harming himself further. “Don’t tell me you mean… your powers?”

“It’s all gone,” Charles howled, shaking fingers hovering over his head. “I can’t hear anyone in here anymore. Everyone’s gone.”

“Oh God,” Hank dropped, now unable to stay upright, dropping down to his knees in front of Charles. “I-It’s going to be okay, Professor. Sean, Alex and I, and you, we’ll work it ou-”

“No! You can’t tell them,” Charles begged, tears salty on his tongue as they dripped down his face. Charles grabbed at Hank’s sleeves, shaking the man firmly. “You can’t, Hank. I don’t… If they see me like this… If they realise that I’m…”

Not like them.

Different.

Human.

Hank looked tormented, but as he stared at the professor, who looked so desperate and on the brink of something, Hank just nodded.

“Okay, I won’t, Professor. I won’t, but we… We need to clean up your wounds,” Hank said quickly, voice clogged as he tried not to cry, Charles slumping with a sob against Hank’s larger frame. Hank quickly hoisted the Professor up, lifeless legs dangling limply, carrying him to the bed and gently laying him upon it.

Charles, exhausted, fell into a fitful sleep in the time it took Hank to fetch first aid supplies. The intimidating beast with a tremulous heart choked back tears as he dabbed antiseptic solution again Charles’s bleeding, bruise-mottled skin, the fragile man leagues away from the confident, charismatic, lively person he had met just mere months ago.

Who would have thought that something as small as a coin could do so much damage.

***

Under the guise of working on Cerebro, something that Alex and Sean had little interest in, Hank and Charles tried method after method to try and revive Charles’s telepathy. And, method after method, they failed.

Hank started off simply, safely; testing, assessing Charles’s brainwaves, hypnosis. When nothing improved, Hank moved on to more experimental things with Charles’s encouragement, despite his own misgivings. Hydrotherapy, electroconvulsive shock therapy, stimulant medications, Hank tried it all but to no success.

Hank even tried to reverse-engineer Cerebro; instead of casting Charles’s telepathy out further, he aimed to try and reel psionic energy back in. That had ended with Charles passing out, remaining unconscious for three days, enough for Sean and Alex to wonder what the fuck was going on with the Professor.

But Hank made a promise and couldn’t tell them, much to their displeasure. However, when Charles woke up and lied about being struck down with the flu, a perfectly synthesised smile on his face betraying nothing of the turmoil beneath, they had begrudgingly let the matter go.

With each failure, Charles would slam his fist into the wall, before collecting himself and fanatically rummaging through research papers and journals, trying to find the next method, and the next, and the next, and the next. With each idea, Charles would brighten with hope, no matter how painful or dangerous the treatment was.

He was desperate, Hank could see it, and the boy was not strong enough to tell the professor that there was a point where they would take things too far, to a point where they could never go back.

Hank struggled to sleep at night, because, deep down, he knew they had crossed that line long ago.

***

It was in 1966 when Alex and Sean left to fight in a war for something greater than just themselves. Charles was worried, of course he was – they were his students, after all. Almost like sons. Hank had assured him that he didn’t need to worry – they had been training every day since Cuba, and while Charles may view them as children, they were anything but. They had their powers, and that already afforded them more protection against human warfare than not.

Charles had smiled glumly at that, Hank immediately realising his mistake and patting Charles’s shoulder.

“I didn’t mean that their powers make them more…” Hank started, Charles silencing him with a biting laugh and shake of his head.

“It’s alright Hank, you don’t need to lie. It’s simply a fact, isn’t it? Even if not to the extent of Erik’s beliefs, their powers do give them strength that sets them apart from others. Meanwhile, here I am, weak and powerless, and to top it all off, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life.” Charles couldn’t stop the stink of bitterness from cutting his words.

“Charles, that’s not what I thi-”

“I truly should have gotten over this by now is what you’re thinking, isn’t it? God, it must be so freeing for you all, to not have to tiptoe around me with your thoughts.  It’s been four years, Charles, and you’re still bitter. What, should it take me one year to get used to my legs? One year to get over losing my powers? One year to get over Raven? One year for Erik?” Charles continued, knuckles white as he gripped the wheels of his chair.

Hank opened his mouth to rebut him, but Charles just wheeled away, slamming the door of his study behind him.

***

 Hank swallowed nervously as he watched the last drop of the experimental serum slide into the glass vial, the machine sealing it with a latex bung and mechanically ejecting it with a hiss. With hands devoid of claws and blue fur, Hank carefully placed the vial into a sleek wooden carry case alongside a clean metal syringe.

After perfecting the serum that would alter his cosmetic appearance, Hank’s brilliant mind began wondering if he could tweak it to alter other things. Namely, Charles’s telepathy.

In theory, if he could create something that suppressed parts of his own mutation, there may be something in it that could instead potentiate it. Hank’s serum was unlike any other drugs he and Charles had tried, as it was made solely for the professor, tailored to his DNA and physiology.

Hank gripped the wooden container tightly with anticipation, hurriedly tapping his feet as he ascended the elevator, rushing towards Charles’s office.

When he arrived there, Charles was staring out the window across the grass, eyes stormy as he looked towards the satellite tower.

Hank paused for a moment, knowing that when Charles was looking at the large structure with that look in his eyes, it was better to leave him alone with his thoughts.

But this might be the thing he has been waiting for since Cuba.

“Professor,” Hank said, clearing his throat and nervously closing the heavy oak door behind him, Charles humming to acknowledge him, closing his eyes and breathing out heavily before turning his chair around.

“Yes, Hank?” Charles asked, voice tired and worn thin, but still laced with fondness for the only person that has stayed beside him all this time, even during some of his worst moments.

“I finished it,” Hank said quickly, sitting in front of Charles’s desk and opening up the case he brought. Charles’s eyes immediately widened, brightening with a light so rarely seen these days, the once murky blueness of them shifting to that sparkling ocean hue that was so striking.

“The serum? Is this the serum?” Charles asked, quickly wheeling around his desk to grab onto Hank’s arm, the younger mutant nodding eagerly, making Charles burst out into giddy laughter. “Oh, Hank, you are brilliant. Let’s try it now, right here.”

Charles was already rolling up his sleeves as Hank grabbed his arm, looking at the professor seriously.

“Professor, this… This is completely experimental. I can’t guarantee that it will work. Like my first serum, it could cause an unexpected reaction. Or… Or no reaction at all. I just don’t want you to be disappointed…”

“It’s alright, Hank. Frankly, at this point, things couldn’t possibly get worse, could they?” Charles said, smile straining as he rubbed the thin, pale skin at the fold of his elbow. Blue-green veins were bright under his nearly translucent flesh.

Hank didn’t say anything, just nodding and hoping that Charles was being honest, hoping that if this last attempt to regain the man’s telepathy failed that it wouldn’t be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Okay, we can do it now, but at least let’s go back down to the lab in case there are any… adverse effects. I have all my equipment there. It’ll be safer,” Hank said, Charles conceding and wheeling quickly down to the lab, the man more energetic than he has been for the past few years.

Once they were there, Hank hooked Charles up to a few machines to monitor his vitals to err on the safe side, the man beaming as Hank finally drew up one vial of the serum, flicking his finger against the cartridge and feeling for Charles’s vein.

“Are you ready, Professor?”

“Yes, yes, Hank. I’m more than ready,” Charles said. “Hurry.”

Hank didn’t waste any more time, injecting Charles with the amber liquid. Charles’s heart rate shot up slightly before settling down into a steady rhythm, though the regular beats were slightly faster than usual. Charles let out a shaky breath, closing his eyes as he waited for the serum to take effect.

The lab was silent save for the beeping of the machines, until Charles suddenly gasped, eyes flying open. Hank startled, rushing over to see what was wrong, but Charles just shook his head and stared down at his legs, shakily reaching down to his knee.

Hank was startled again when left Charles’s leg twitched, Charles letting out an overcome laugh, hands massaging at the legs and tears gathering in his eyes.

“H-Hank, is this a side effect? I… I can’t believe it. I… I can feel my legs,” Charles said, his toes beginning to twitch, and soon he was able to slightly raise both legs. Charles’s laugh bubbled out of him, unbidden and incredulous.

“I, uh, unlike the serum I use for myself, which alters my DNA to change my appearance, yours alters your DNA, but in a more regenerative, amplifying sense. It doesn’t rewrite your X-gene, but it does try and potentiate it. It looks like not only the brain is affected… It must affect all of your nerves…” Hank mumbled, contemplating and deep in thought as Charles began to push himself up onto his feet, using a metal bench for balance.

Charles laughed again, shaky but standing, smile wide and bright, and Hank couldn’t help but smile too.

Hank and Charles marvelled at his newfound ability to walk, until Hank remembered the reason he made the serum in the first place.

“Professor, but what about your powers? Have they returned?”

At Hank’s question, Charles froze from where he was doing a slow lap around the lab.

“I…” Charles started, closing his eyes as his brows bunched together. Soon, his fingers were at his temple, first firm and determined, before beginning to tremble.

Hank felt dread and disappointment swell in his stomach.

“I… No. No, Hank, I… I can’t hear anything. I still can’t hear anything,” Charles stammered, shaking his head as he collapsed heavily against a wall, Hank rushing over to him.

“Professor-”

“It can’t be fixed, can it, Hank?” Charles choked out, slamming a fist on his now functional leg. “You can fix my legs, but my telepathy… I’m broken forever, aren’t I?”

“I can do some more research on the serum, Professor. Other combinations, this… this is a good base to begin more research,” Hank said, though he couldn’t bring himself to promise the Professor something he wasn’t sure he could achieve.

Because, deep down, Hank knew he didn’t have to power to fix whatever was broken inside Charles that day on the beach.

He wasn’t sure if anyone could.

***

Charles stared at the chess set, pushing a rook across the board, the same way Erik did during their last game together. Although Charles lost his telepathy, he still had all of the memories in crystal clear detail etched in his mind. Whether that was a blessing or a curse depended on the day.

Some days, Charles was glad to have those snippets of happiness, forever there for him to relive when he wanted. And on others, they made Charles drain a bottle in order to try and forget, because the memory of the two people he loved most in the world was often too much to shoulder, especially now that Charles was something they abhorred.

Charles knew exactly how Erik felt about humans, the small quips and words over chess were only cast in stone the moment Erik put that helmet on. Charles had, for a brief, wonderful moment, thought that the good he felt within Erik was enough for him to realise that there was another path. A path that was not paved by death and destruction, but by hope instead.

Maybe Erik had been right – Charles had been naïve.

It turned out that Frankenstein’s monster was not too different from his creator. Though the buried goodness in Erik set him apart from the vile nature of Shaw, in the end, Erik agreed with him. Erik agreed that humans were inferior, and that they deserved to die.

We are the children of the atom. What will kill the humans will only make us stronger.

We are the next stage of human evolution.

The humans have played their hand, now we get ready to play ours.

Peace was never an option.

Charles stared at the chessboard, the pieces growing blurry, before letting out an anguished cry and pushing the set off the table, white and black tumbling onto the floor.

Charles took a heavy swig of the scotch, straight from the bottle, throwing his head back and covering his tear-filled eyes with his sleeve.

On the beach Erik had told him that he wanted Charles by his side. But that was the old Charles.

The broken Charles would never get to hear that again, not while he was human and Erik was not.

This Charles without his powers was just another vulnerable ant under Erik’s boot, insignificant and meaningless.

***

Sean died in 1969 during the war. Hank and Charles found out when Alex sent them a letter. A bombing, apparently. They never recovered his body, but his dog tags found at the bottom of a ravine told them enough.

Something about that broke the last fractal of hope in Charles, and before he knew it, he began reaching for the bottle and the serum, oftentimes both, more often than not. As Charles used the serum more and more, the amber liquid dulling the pain, at least for a while, he couldn’t remember nor imagine a time he could live without it.

***

Logan stared at the man sitting on the staircase of the school – no, not school. It wasn’t a school yet. Right now, it was just a decaying building filled with the walking corpse of a man half dead. He was shorter than both Beast and himself, with long chestnut hair that hadn’t been washed in weeks, if Logan’s keen nose was to say anything about it. His cheeks were hollow and eyes haunted, blue and bloodshot and a bloody mess. Logan could see how the man would’ve been considered handsome when he was younger and less broken, but now he just looked a right mess.

Logan had never met this man before, but Beast – the older, future one – had told him about him. The Professor. Had the fancy as fuck name of Charles Francis Xavier. It was easier for Logan to just remember him as Chuck. Apparently used to be a telepath, and a strong one too, but after good ol’ Mags ripped a telepathic coin through his head he lost his powers. Logan supposed that Magneto had always been an asshole.

Jean – Logan’s chest squeezed – had also mentioned him on occasion, eyes filled with pity and sadness, and a little bit of fond longing. She had only known him for a short while before his passing, but he had left a deep impression on her. Apparently, despite losing his powers, the Professor was the person that helped Jean develop and control her powers to most, teaching her that her gifts were precious and nothing to be afraid of. He would know, having lost them for good.

Charles Francis Xavier was a good man, according to those that knew him. And, according to those that knew him, it was a shame that he died so early.

Like his father, they said. A bullet in the study, and that was that.

Funnily enough, moments before Kitty would send Logan back in time, Magneto himself had pulled Logan aside. The man who had always been an adversary suddenly looked like an entirely different person, his face aged with a lifetime of pain and regret.

“Charles… He died, towards the end of the 70s. We weren’t… I wasn’t…” Magneto started, face twisting with pain, before he shook his head, grey hair falling over his eyes. “If you see him, help him. The world would have been a better place with him in it.”

Logan had raised a thick eyebrow at that, Magneto just whirling around with a flourish of his cape, clutching at something tightly in his hand.

A scrap of a crumpled bullet.

Looking at the man now, Logan could see the early signs. He looked defeated, resigned, and really, really doped up. Logan had lived through the 70s, so he knew how doped up loads of people had been, but this was different. Most people doped to have fun, but this man drugged himself sky high to live. Beast had warned him about that too – the man was dependent on some sort of serum, and though it allowed him to walk, it made him drift through life in a bitter haze.

“Fifty years from now? Like in the future, fifty years from now?” Chuck asked, laughing in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Logan said, Chuck turning to Hank, pointing at him with a raised brow.

“Hank sent you from the future?” Chuck asked again, Logan rolling his eyes and nodding. “Piss off.”

“Not to kick a man when he’s down, but if you had your powers, you’d know I was telling the truth,” Logan growled, the Professor’s face shuttering, smile wiped from his red lips as Beast turned to him sharply.

“How did you know I don’t have my… Wait, who are you?” the Professor asked, eyes narrowed.

“I told you. Beast sent me, we’ve fought alongside each other for years,” Logan said, Charles staring at him, before looking at Hank, and then returning his gaze to Logan.

“You’ve been saying that Hank sent you. That you knew him. You have never once mentioned knowing me,” Charles said, Logan letting out a gruff sigh, shrugging his hefty shoulders.

“Because I don’t,” Logan said, Charles narrowing his eyes again.

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re dead,” Logan replied, Charles and Hank freezing.

After a long moment, Charles stood up, robe fluttering around him as he stalked over to Logan.

“Fuck off,” Charles spat, Logan not budging as the shorter man stared up at him. Logan has stared into the eyes of many dying men before, and what he found in the Professor’s eyes was not new.

Fear.

What he was afraid of, Logan didn’t know. Fear of death, fear of what he’d leave behind, fear of himself. Of what he had been thinking about doing.

“The Professor is dead?” Hank asked, rushing forward and growling, grabbing Logan by the collar. “When? How?”

Logan just stared at the Professor, who swallowed thickly, averting his gaze.

He knew. Maybe not the when, but definitely the how.

“What does it matter, Hank? At this point, it doesn’t matter. Logan came here to change the future, did he not?”

Well, he came to save the future from the monsters the humans created. He didn’t come here to save someone from himself.

***

They broke Erik out of prison. Charles punched him in the face.

It didn’t feel as good as he expected it to.

***

“You have no idea what I’ve done.”

The anger brewing from the hurt and the pain bubbled within Charles, spilling over after being bottled in for years.

“I know that you took the things that mean the most to me,” Charles replied, gripping his thighs tightly. Raven. My powers. You.

Charles tried not to wince as the plane shook.

“Well, maybe you should’ve fought harder for them.”

The professor could feel the pangs of wounds on his scalp from where he tore at his own hair, feel the ridges of scars scattered across his thighs. Of days wishing Raven was there, of nights in bed sobbing into his pillow alone as he cried for Erik to come back. Of drugs and electric shocks and drowning and dying, over and over.

Charles stood up, because just being able to do so was him trying. Trying to live with the hand he had been dealt, because sometimes, just trying to live was so fucking hard.

“If you want to fight, Erik, then I will give you a fight!”

The plan shook again, Logan barking out a warning, but Erik just raised his hand.

“Let him come,” Erik said slowly, eyes trained on Charles, who lunged and fisted Erik’s shirt in his hands, trembling.

“You abandoned me! You took her away, and you abandoned me!”

“Angel. Azazel. Emma. Banshee,” Erik named, voice ice cold as Charles couldn’t hold back his wince. “Mutant brothers and sisters.” Unlike me. “All dead!” Almost like me. “Countless others, experimented on, butchered!”

Charles staggered back from both Erik’s words and the erratic movements of the plane as the metal-bender’s powers ran amok.

“Where were you, Charles? We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you? Hiding! You and Hank! Pretending to be something you’re not!”

Charles collapsed into the chair, shuddering out a breath as his mind blanked out, Erik’s words cutting him deep in his soul.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t, because I’m nothing any more. I’m powerless, weak, afraid, tired.

Human.

***

Charles coughed as plaster dried his throat, rubble cascading down on him as the stadium settled down on the ground with a plume of dust. A large stone collided with his head, sending him kneeling on the ground, his vision blackening for a moment while his ears rang. Sticky wetness dribbled down the side of his head, and when he swiped his fingers through it they came back red.

Ah, how familiar.

It took Charles a while to collect himself, only managing to clear his clouded mind as screams erupted from around him, prying open his eyes against all of the smoke to see Erik descending from the sky like a God, plunging from the Heavens to unleash destruction upon mortal men.

If only I had my powers, I could’ve seen this coming. I could’ve seen what Erik was trying to do… I could have stopped him from shooting Raven, I could have…

Could have, could have, could have.

Who was Charles, to go against the power of a mutant? Charles, as useless now as one of the humans holed up in that bunker, which had been taken apart by a mere flick of Erik’s wrist.

What made Charles so different from the people Erik now aimed to murder, for the supposed sake of all mutantkind?

All Charles could do was watch as Erik impaled Logan and cast him away, slam Hank against a wall and imprisoned him with steel, the blue mutant growling as he struggled against the metal wrapped around him. Erik had just looked at Charles with a tormented but resigned expression, the ex-telepath kneeling on the ground and unable to fight him, body weak and mind even weaker, though Erik didn’t know that.

Charles smiled grimly when he noticed Erik wearing the helmet.

You needn’t wear that ghastly thing, my friend. I couldn’t lay a mental finger on you even if I tried.

The humans in the shattered bunker cowered as Erik raised his arms, the hijacked sentinels descending like angels around their leader.

“You built these weapons to destroys. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts,” Erik yelled, voice arresting and holding everyone’s attention, breaths bated in fear and anticipation. “Humanity has always feared that which is different. Well, I’m here to tell you, to tell the world, you’re right to fear us! We are the future! We are the ones who will inherit this earth! And anyone who stands in our way will suffer the same fate as these men you see before you! Today was meant to be a display of your power. Instead, I give you a glimpse of the devastation my race can unleash upon yours!”

Charles looked towards the bunker, the humans now whimpering as they huddled together, hands pressed tightly in prayer or heads hung low in acceptance of their imminent deaths. Charles’s heart plummeted.

‘No. This isn’t the right way,’ Charles thought to himself, dragging himself up to his feet even though his head felt like lead. ‘This isn’t how we should do things. We are supposed to end a war, not start one. I am not naïve enough to believe that every human is righteous, good and just. There are humans that abhor mutants, that fear them, that want to eradicate them.’

‘But there are good ones, too. Moira, Erik’s late parents. All of the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters of mutants, who unconditionally love them despite their differences.’

‘And me. Just Charles, with no more powers to speak of, just another human that Erik wants to exterminate.’

‘Because even so, I still love him. Even after everything, I still love Erik, and I cannot bear to see him walk down this path of death and destruction. I won’t see him become like Shaw.’

“Erik!” Charles shouted, mustering every bit of his strength, stepping towards his old friend and lover, determined. “Erik, you mustn’t do this!”

“Here to try and stop me once again, Charles?” Erik scorned, turning his gaze away from the men in the bunker to look at his old friend. Charles opened his mouth to retort, Erik just shaking his head. “You live in the shadows in shame and fear, Charles. Cowering away while our mutant brothers and sisters die at the hands of the humans.”

“Killing the humans will not bring about peace, Erik. I know that there are humans that harm mutants, and that some may be sitting right here in that bunker today, but you can’t condemn all of them for the mistakes or a few!”

“They’ve created these weapons, Charles. Weapons that, in a future that will come to pass if we sit like you and do nothing, will wipe us out. This is a war, Charles, one that the humans have started, and one that we will finish,” Erik said, Charles shaking his head as he ran forwards, Erik growling and lifting a metal support beam, slamming it into the grass in front of Charles and momentarily stopping his approach.

“Erik! If you plan to kill the humans, then you’re going to have to kill m-”

“Save your breath, Charles. You didn’t stand by my side all those years ago, nor were you there when I was locked up for a crime I didn’t commit, and you were never there when our kind were being slaughtered in droves. You can’t stop me, Charles, because a new tomorrow starts today,” Erik said, grinning widely, flicking his palms up as the eyes of the sentinels flashed with light.

-Sentinel program rebooting. Changing target protocols; scanning for human brain frequencies. Initialising. Confirm target; human. Executing-

“Erik! Erik, please don’t do this! Please!” Charles yelled, hauling himself up and reaching out desperately, just as Erik locked eyes with him.

“I’m sorry, Charles. But this time, only humans will be shot. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

Erik clicked his fingers.

Oh, Erik.

Charles only took one step closer before a sentinel turned to him, eyes flashing as it scanned him, and before Erik realised what was happening, the machine fired.

Three bullets were released before Erik clamped his powers down on all of the sentinels, the machines crumpling to the ground. But even then, it was too late.

The three bullets all sunk into their target. One in the leg, one in the stomach, one in the shoulder.

Charles seemed to fall in slow motion, the force of the bullets sending him collapsing backwards onto the dust-covered grass.

“Charles, Charles! Charles, why is this happening, this isn’t what was supposed to happen,” Charles heard Erik shout frantically, Charles’s body suddenly feeling light, floating upwards as he was hoisted up into Erik’s arms.

Ah, what a familiar embrace.

It hurt Charles to speak, his throat gurgling with blood from one of the bullets, Erik’s eyes widening as he turned white.

It was Charles’s turn to stare at Erik wide-eyed when the man ripped off his helmet, dropping it to the ground and pleading with Charles desperately, frenzied.

“Charles, speak to me. Stay with me,” Erik croaked, trying to ignore the way his hands were saturated with Charles’s blood, which dripped onto his lap in a constant, unrelenting stream. It was the bullet embedded in Charles’s stomach, Erik could feel it, the small bundle of metal that had ripped through his organs. Erik knew stomach wounds. He knew what this meant.

It seemed that Charles did too, smiling knowingly. Blood painted his grey lips bright red, a caricature of how alive he used to be.

“No need, my friend. The helmet… You’re safe from me, now,” Charles managed to churn out, coughing a mouthful of blood and dropping his head against Erik’s chest, breathing a mere rattle of his chest. “My telepathy. Mm, I lost it.”

“You lost-” Erik echoed, his heart squeezing so tightly he felt like his chest was collapsing. “What do you-”

“It’s been… a long time. Since Cuba,” Charles wheezed, forcing his heavy eyes open to look at Erik, the man’s face a picture of distress as he looked down at Charles in dawning horror.

“No. Charles, that can’t be… Don’t tell me… Because of me...” Erik whispered, Charles shaking his head, using what remained of his strength to reach up and cup Erik’s cheek, rich red blood smearing against the man’s skin.

“Shh. It’s… too late to matter anymore. It doesn’t matter anymore,” Charles said, managing to smile as a tear spilled down Erik’s cheek and dropping onto Charles’s hand.

“If you told me, I could have… would have… Why didn’t you tell me?” Erik asked, gripping Charles tighter to him, like he could tether him to this world and never let him leave.

“I was afraid,” Charles admitted weakly, letting out a broken laugh. “Because you… you loved me, once. Because I was a mutant. And now… I’m no longer… I just wanted to be the person that you loved, once, and not another human for you to hate.”

Erik’s expression shattered.

“No, no, no, Charles,” Erik choked, devastation wracking his voice as he dropped his forehead to Charles’s, hot tears sliding onto Charles’s cold cheeks. “That’s not… Is that what you thought? That I’d stop loving you if you weren’t… If you didn’t have your powers?”

When Charles didn’t answer, Erik let out a crushed noise, pressing his lips to Charles’s with frightening desperation.

“Charles, Charles, liebling, you’ve never been just your powers to me. Never. I loved your powers, yes, but that’s not what I fell in love with. I fell in love with you, and I never stopped loving you, not for one second. I- Charles- Gott, I love you, and I don’t know what I’d do without you, and oh, no, what have I done? What do I do? I need to fix... I can… I can… I can fix this. Charles, you’re going to be fine. I’m going to… I have to…”

Charles coughed out another mouthful of blood, vision starting to grow dim, and he knew he was out of time.

Charles shook his head, dropping his hand from Erik’s cheek and instead laying it over Erik’s hand that clutched at Charles’s chest. It was shaking so, so much, Charles letting out an exhausted sigh, squeezing Erik’s hand as much as he could manage.

“Shh, shh. It… It doesn’t matter. Erik, maybe this… was meant to happen. In the future Logan came from, I… I am already long gone, love. So… it’s okay. It’s what was meant to happen. It’s alright. You’ll… you’ll be alright.”

“Charles, no, no, no, don’t do this to me, Charles. Don’t say that, you’re not going to-” Erik said frantically, holding Charles tighter as he felt the man begin to slip away. Erik sobbed as he held Charles, whose head was tucked against Erik’s neck as the man hunched over his dying body.

Charles had sometimes wondered what his last words would be, especially after Logan revealed that he had long since passed in the future that had yet to pass.

Charles knew that Erik was still alive, even at the end, living a long, long time without Charles, without knowing how Charles felt about him, because he never had a chance to say it.

So, Charles’s last words came easily, whispered against the skin of Erik’s neck, a puff of air against the mutant’s pulse.

“I’ll always love you, old friend. Alles ist gut.”

#cherik #xmen #xmen fic #angst #major character death #xmen first class #days of future past #charles x erik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #professor x #magneto #ao3 #i am sorry

[sareyen]

A Faerlie Big Misunderstanding (Chapter 1/?)

Read on ao3 here

Summary: Erik is the Chosen One, destined to slay the evil faerie that lives deep within the Dark Forest. Charles is the supposedly evil faerie that lives deep within the Dark Forest. But, the adorable, blue-eyed and sunshine-smiled faerie was the furthest thing from evil Erik has ever had the pleasure of meeting in his life. So, instead of killing the evil faerie, the only acceptable thing for Erik to do is fall in love with him instead.

Or: Erik is the Chosen One destined to kill the evil faerie, and Charles is supposedly this evil faerie, but is actually just a cottagecore gay who just wants to live in peace. And of course, they fall in love.

Legend has it that, when the Chosen One was born, the Evil One would return. An evil faerie with the power to corrupt minds, plunging the world into darkness. Defeated once centuries ago by the first ruler of Genosha, King Klaus, the Evil One has been waiting, biding his time and collecting his strength, waiting for the day he could complete the destruction he was denied once.

Erik has heard stories about the Evil One since he was young, like all Genoshan children. Parents whispered tales of the Evil One to their children before bed, warning that if they misbehave the dark faerie would steal into their rooms and fill their minds with nightmares. Children played make-believe games, pretending to slay their friends dressed in the dark cloth of the Evil One, banishing him like the First King did all those years ago.

But unlike these children that waved around wooden sticks like they were swords, Erik was born with the power to control metal. Not only could he bend steel and crush iron, his might stronger than that of a thousand soldiers, he was the only one who could forge and wield the sacred sword that would be commanded by no other master.

Yes, Erik was the Chosen One, born with the power to kill the Evil One.

And since the Chosen One was born, the Evil One would return.

As such, it was his destiny to destroy it, once and for all.

***

King Shaw rescued Erik when he was a boy no taller than his waist from amongst the ash and carnage of his small farming village. Though the Evil One was in hibernation, his loyal subjects razed the earth in his name. Amongst these monsters, none were more feared than his Horsemen, monsters with powers second only to the Evil One himself. A demon the colour of blood that could disappear like a phantom, a monster made of wind that could flatten villages with a huff, a flying witch that could melt the faces off any man that gazed upon her, and a deceivingly beautiful succubus who could dismember an entire army with ice-cold apathy.

It had been a normal day, the bright sunshine and serene chirping of birds giving no warning of the nightmare that was to come. Erik had been helping his father feed the cattle as his mother tended to the garden, smiling as she watched her husband and son in the field. Erik had turned to his mother just in time to see her smile morph into a look of pure horror, her watering can falling to the ground as she rushed forward, crying something unintelligible.

“Erik!” his father screamed, pushing Erik away just as his chest was impaled by a demon-like tail, blood spurting forth and blanketing everything in red.

“Papa…?” Erik whispered, following his father’s gaze to his mother, who was halfway across the field and desperately screaming.

A puff of smoke, and then another cry of pain as a red demon appeared behind his mother in a blink, bloodied tail wrapped around her neck.

Crack.  

Erik didn’t even see the moment his mother’s body crumpled to the ground lifelessly, neck bent unnaturally and eyes glassy, for suddenly he was no longer on his family farm but suspended in the air. His thin body was held tightly in a coiled red tail that dripped with his father’s blood, the smell of sulfur suffocating his lungs as he screamed.

And then it was chaos.

Twin tornadoes tore through the straw huts and ramshackle barns, leaving nothing but splinters in their wake. Villagers screamed and wailed, each panicked cry soon snuffed out into nothing as heads rolled and faces melted.

Erik could only watch in frozen terror as everything he knew was destroyed in a matter of minutes.

And then, as quickly as he had been taken, Erik’s feet were on the ground. That didn’t not last long, Erik falling to his knees as he retched, the smell of blood and smoke making his eyes sting as his stomach emptied, spew running clear.

A heavily accented voice laughed – a laugh of a demon – and murmured amusedly in his ear.

“We’ll be coming for you soon, boy. It’s only a matter of time,” he cackled, before disappearing in another puff of smoke.

It could have been mere minutes or a thousand hours by the time King Shaw found Erik, curled up in a ball covered in soot and his own vomit.

When Erik’s bleary, bloodshot eyes opened, he saw the man sitting on a pristine white horse looking down at him, regal robes fluttering in the wind, seemingly untouched by the death and destruction that surrounded him.

“Halt! Look for survivors and canvass the area, the devils may not have gotten far!” the man ordered, jumping down from his horse and striding over to Erik, who had managed to pull himself up to kneel, tears still streaming down his face. “Come, someone! Tend to this poor lad!”

“Y-Your Highness…” Erik croaked, the King waving his hands as someone wrapped a blanket around Erik’s trembling shoulders.

“Young boy, it’s alright now. Tell me, what happened here?”

“The Evil One,” Erik choked out, rubbing at his eyes, turning his head up to stare at the King, who raised a brow. “He killed everyone. He killed… my parents.”

“My, my. You poor thing,” the King said, patting the boy’s shoulder and squeezing it tightly. “It seems that you have nowhere to go.”

Erik shook his head, turning to what remained of his home. Erik forced his tears to dry, small hands balling up into tight fists, dirt-caked nails almost drawing blood in his palm. His gaze averted, he didn’t see the way King Shaw’s thin lips curled up into a smile, one that did not reach his eyes.

“You are angry. I can see it. If my home was destroyed, my family murdered, I would be angry too. But anger is good, young boy. You can use that anger, let it fuel you. Fuel you to destroy the one that destroyed everything you hold dear,” King Shaw said, drawing Erik’s attention back to him.

Erik was silent for a moment, drinking in the King’s words, that fire in his empty belly surging forward, all consuming.

“Use my anger…” Erik echoed, the King nodding with a small smile. “To kill the Evil One?”

“Yes,” the King said, holding out a hand to the boy. “And I can help you, Erik. I can give you everything you need to kill it.”

Without hesitation, Erik took the King’s hand.

***

Twenty Years Later

“You have trained all your life for this task,” King Shaw’s voice echoed over Erik’s head from where he kneeled, helmet tucked under his arm and hand gripping onto his sword. The sacred sword. The metal hummed under his fingertips, helping soothe his thundering heart. Similarly, the helmet under his arm felt cool to the touch, tempering the heat under Erik’s skin.

Both were forged by Erik himself, the only one able to manipulate the sacred metal able to repel the Evil One’s mind magic. No fire, not even the Hellfire that burned under the heart of Genosha, was able to smelt the magical ore, and yet with a mere tug of Erik’s power he was able to forge the only armour and weapons that could stand a chance against the dark faerie.

“Erik, you know what you have to do,” King Shaw continued, the gaudy golden crown atop his head gleaming under the harsh Genoshan sun.

Erik did know what he had to do. He has woken up every morning with only his mission in mind. Every beating in the training ring, every bruise, every cut, every drop of blood and sweat spilled was all for this mission.

His destiny.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Erik said, bowing his head. “I will not fail you.”

“Of course you will not fail! Do not dare to return without the Evil One’s head!” King Shaw said, snapping his fingers, the armoured soldiers in the wings stomping their feet and spears. “People of Genosha! Today, we enter a new age, one where we no longer tremble in fear of the Evil One, who resides deep within the Dark Forest! Today, we will accomplish what my ancestors failed! Today, we shall claim victory!”

The soldiers roared as Erik rose, slowly lowering the sacred helmet over his head.

Erik turned his face towards the sky, thinking of his parents and the distant memory of his childhood.

I’ll kill the Evil One, even if I have to die in the process.

***

They had been walking deeper into the Dark Forest for three days, but had not seen a single soul. Not a single ghost, nor phantom, nor flesh-eating monster. Under the canopy of plush green trees, leaves obscuring the sun, all Erik could hear was the trudging of an army of feet and clanging of armour.

While Erik could see the soldiers around him beginning to become complacent, no longer walking in unison and eyes wandering around aimlessly, Erik remained alert.

That’s why he was the only one who could react when all hell broke loose.

“Formation!” Erik yelled, but his voice was drowned out by the screaming of the soldiers around him as a powerful red light scorched its way across the ground, opening up a deep chasm in the ground that seemed to swallow the soldiers up.

“Formation, damn it!” Erik ordered, before letting out a pained grunt as a piercing screech cut through the air, trees shaking wildly. The sound brought Erik to his knees, ears rattling under his helmet.

Erik couldn’t help but be reminded of that horrible day, the screams of the soldiers around him no different from those of his desperate parents, of the farmers and villagers that screamed as they perished.

Erik grit his teeth, pulling out his sword as his other arm stretched out, his power rushing forth.

The swords that had scattered across the ground from the fallen soldiers rose up before scattering, flashes of metal darting through the forest, searching for their elusive targets.

“Woah, what the heck?!” a shrill male voice yelped from above, Erik latching on to the sound as he crushed his fist together, the swords answering his orders and flipping in the air, all racing towards the enemy voice. “Oh, shit!”

“Sean, shut up!” another male voice called from the distance, Erik straining as his power pulsed.

As the storm of swords cut through the leaves, green falling down like rain, a sudden burst of that blinding red light snapped through the trees once again, hitting the swords and deflecting them downwards to spear the ground.

“Shit, that must be him! Oops, time to go!” the first voice said, drifting off as the figure darted away.

“Hey! Come back here, monster!” Erik growled, feet pounding on the ground as he rushed towards the disappearing voice.

The soldiers screamed all around him, slowly dropping off one by one, but Erik remained steadfast as he continued rushing forwards towards his obsession. As Erik edged forwards, there was a shimmer of some sort of barrier, likely meaning that Erik had stumbled into the Evil One’s den. Finally.

It wasn’t long before Erik broke through the last line of trees, hissing as his eyes were assaulted by the strong rays of sun that were no longer obscured by the forest. The cries of the soldiers were also rendered silent, almost eerily so, and Erik felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight, muscles coiling in anticipation.

Erik narrowed his eyes, scanning his surroundings, before his steps paused in confusion.

From the stories, the den of the Evil One was supposed to be a place of complete misery and death. There should be rivers of blood, but all Erik could see in the distance was a serene lake that glistened azure blue. There should be skulls scattered across the ground like pebbles, but under Erik’s feet was vibrant green grass speckled with daisies. And, there should be corpses strung up on pikes, rotting away in the sun, but instead there were merely trees adorned with fragrant fruit neatly lining a perfectly kept walkway.

A walkway that led to a… cottage?

The cottage was unassuming and homely, walls made of stone and wood, roof of tightly packed straw. Ivy climbed in free disarray up one side, while the other was covered by cloth where an apparent hole had been blasted through. Flowers of every colour blossomed around the cottage, a rainbow rising from the ground. A light plume of smoke was drifting languidly into the air from the stone chimney, wisps disappearing into the pastel sky.

This was nothing like the den of the Evil One of lore.

 “What…” Erik murmured to himself, eyes darting side to side, expecting attackers to spring from behind the perfectly pruned hedges.

Erik’s words were cut off as his senses sharpened the moment the cottage door creaked open as he approached, an invitation.

Erik’s lips parted in a tight grin, hand tightening around the hilt of his sword, fingers of his other hand twitching, ready to latch on to any metal at the first sign of the Evil One.

“Oh, you’re welcome to enter! Just, please put your sword away, and preferably take off your boots? I’d rather not have to clean up muddy footprints,” a smooth, slightly amused voice called from inside.

The anger Erik had been holding tightly in his palm flared, and he roared.

“Time to meet your demise, Evil One!” Erik shouted, all of the metal in the immediate vicinity rising with his call. Rakes, shovels and watering cans all slammed into the walls of the cottage, bursting through.

But then something heavy and extremely furry slammed on top of Erik’s head, knocking him out cold.

***

Erik was drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness for what seemed like a decade. His waking moments were punctuated by a cacophony of unfamiliar voices, Erik’s mind too clouded and aching to make out any of the words, and before he could find any clarity he fell back into unconsciousness over and over.

‘Ah, that awful helmet was the culprit.’

‘Want me to throw it into the lake?’

‘Ew, we don’t litter here, Sean. Besides, with Raven guarding the lake, she’d probably throw it back at you and knock you out.’

‘Should we tie him up?’

‘You tie him up! I don’t wanna touch him. Did you see how many teeth he had when he yelled?’

Erik moaned in pain as his body was rolled over the uneven floor, head knocking on something and sending him right back into dreamland.

‘We should kill him just to be safe.’

‘Don’t kill him here! You’ll get blood all over the floor and then I’ll have to mop it all up!’

‘We can just throw him in the lake and let Raven deal with him.’

‘But didn’t you see his powers? He has to be at least part faerie, and we don’t kill other faeries.’

‘No. We don’t kill people. Period.’

‘But he’s here to kill you, Charles!’

‘But he won’t. There’s good in him, I’ve felt it.’

Erik managed to gather enough consciousness to pull open his heavy eyes, the movement not going unnoticed and eliciting a scream from a lanky, curly-haired boy with freckled cheeks.

“Ahhh! He’s awake!” the boy yelled, just as a big, blue furry arm smashed against Erik’s head for the second time, sending him flopping onto the floor, passing out once again.

The next time Erik woke up, it was to frantic chatter. This time, Erik had enough of a mind to stay very, very still as to not alert his captors. Erik kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady while rolling his wrists, which seemed to be tied around a wooden pillar behind his back. Erik was slumped on the floor, head hanging down and stripped of his armour, leaving him only in his leathers and linen underclothes.

Erik also noticed that his helmet was gone, his heart picking up in alarm, almost making him twitch and expose his ruse. Luckily, it seemed that his captors had yet to realise that he was awake, Erik’s obscured fingers twitching as he reshaped a small metal spade into a sharp blade, the metal beginning to saw away at the ropes binding his wrists.

 “Hank, didn’t I tell you not to hit him so hard? The poor man is concussed!” Smooth Voice (as Erik’s mind eloquently catalogued) said scoldingly, though the edges of the man’s words were not hard not cold, instead exceedingly warm.

“I didn’t mean to! He was throwing the gardening hoe through the window! What was I supposed to do?” a gruff voice – now labelled Gruff Voice – mumbled, chagrined.

“Well he had that stupid-looking bucket on his head anyway. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that, so if he died I think Hank did him a favour,” another voice – Rude Voice – chimed in with a snort, the sound of metal scraping against the floor loud in Erik’s ear.

Erik barely restrained the snarl about to leave his lips, his makeshift blade sawing away more furiously at his bindings, which were beginning to fray thin.  

“Alex, don’t kick around the watering can and help Sean mop up all of the debris,” the Smooth Voice sighed, exasperation evident. Smooth Voice then sighed, the gentle noise followed by the creaking of a chair and a slight groan.

“Charles, are you alright? Your legs?” Gruff Voice hurriedly spoke.

“Yes, yes, Hank. Thank you. Just a lot of excitement today. It’s been a long time since we’ve had visitors.” Smooth Voice paused, before it chuckled. “Speaking of our visitor, it appears that he is awake, and has been for a short while.”

“What?” Gruff Voice said, suddenly alert.

“I’d advise against that, if I were you,” Smooth Voice said, and Erik startled when he realised that he heard the voice in his head. The Evil One. It had to be. Erik’s anger burst forth again as the rope binding his wrists snapped, the blade flying into Erik’s hand as he lunged up to attack.

Suddenly, as if someone had grabbed onto each and every one of his muscles, Erik’s entire body froze. The only thing he could move were his eyelids, which blinked rapidly in alarm. His arm was poised mid-stab, mouth half open in a war cry and eyes open wide.

Erik strained against the invisible force as a large, blue… beast wearing threadbare linen clothes and spectacles stomped over to him with a hard glare, pointed teeth exposed as his lips pulled back in a snarl. The beast towered over Erik, clawed hands extended… only to daintily pluck the metal blade from Erik’s hand and throw it into the pile of debris being swept into a corner by the lanky, freckled boy Erik had glimpsed at earlier.

Erik was able to move his eyes to stare at the man seated by a small dining table covered with dust and glass (from the window Erik had apparently smashed with a garden hoe), one hand poised at his temple and the other holding a small tea-cup. He leisurely took a sip from the steaming cup, letting out a happy hum at the taste.

The man had floppy chestnut hair that was swept back from a charming, rosy-cheeked face. His eyes were a startling shade of blue, too blue to be human, and his lips were full and red, like the man had been snacking on the berries Erik had noticed growing in the expansive gardens.

Even though he donned a frumpy knitted cloak and simple brown pants, the man seemed to glow more vibrantly than even King Shaw, who was always covered head to toe in Genoshan finery.

The man was ethereal, and for a moment, Erik was captivated.

Until he remembered why he was here, and who this obviously was. This man clearly ruled over the other monsters that held Erik captive, and with that coaxing voice in his head and the way he commanded Erik’s own body to do his bidding, there was only one person he could possibly be.

‘The Evil One,’ Erik’s mind whispered, the faerie suddenly choking on his mouthful of tea as his cheeks flushed red, the blue beast’s brow crinkly in worry as he rubbed the man’s back as he continued to cough.

“Ah, is that what people call me these days? That is quite unfortunate,” the man mumbled, grimacing a little, before turning to Erik, eyes growing sad. “Doing this to you probably isn’t aiding my image. I do apologise, I assure you I wouldn’t be in your head like this if you weren’t trying to kill me.”

Erik tried to squirm, call on his power, anything, but the hold on him was too strong.

“Now, I don’t usually peek into the minds of others without permission, but considering you are trying to kill me I had to take a few liberties. I hope you do understand. But, I am going to let you go now, so it would be lovely if you refrained from trying to stab me with what used to be my shovel,” the Evil One said slowly, the hand at his temple slowly lowering itself to rest against the side of his cup. The moment it did, Erik’s control over his body returned in a rush, his knees buckling as he heaved in a laborious breath.

“Mind magic, my King warned me about it,” Erik cursed, eyes hot as he stared at the Evil One, who remained seated while the blue beast stepped in front of him protectively. Erik extended his metal-sense, searching for his helmet, but was unable to feel it.

“Ah, your helmet? I’m afraid it’s…” the Evil One started, but was interrupted when a youthful, blond boy with a slight smirk sauntered forwards, leaning on his broom.

“At the bottom of the lake. Your sword too. Sorry,” he said sarcastically, the lanky boy behind him laughing.

“Fuck,” Erik couldn’t help but drop, the Evil One’s red lips quirking up into a small smile.

“Yes, I do apologise. I tried to stop them, but… Well, they are rather protective of me, you see,” the Evil One sighed again, casting fond eyes at the others in the room, before turning back to Erik. “Now, why don’t you take a seat and have some tea. You have been travelling for a number of days now, you must be tired. Dinner is served at sunset, it’ll be roast pheasant tonight, Moira’s specialty. Oh, and please do try not to kill me again. I was barely able to stop Hank from concussing you a third time.”

The blue beast huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, jerking his head over at the empty seat while the blonde boy began sweeping again as the lanky one draped a large cloth over the hole Erik had left in the wall.

Meanwhile, Erik just gaped at the Evil One, who was now smiling at him invitingly, arm sweeping over at the empty seat by the dining table.

“Who are you?” Erik blurted out, wondering if he was still unconscious, or already dead and in some sort of twisted afterlife.

“Oh, pardon my manners, I haven’t properly introduced myself yet, have I? You can call me the, uh, ‘Evil One’, but I’d much rather you just call me Charles,” the Evil One – Charles? – said, just as a pretty brunette woman walked in carrying a large tray of aromatic roast. “Ah, right on time! Please, Erik, isn’t it? Take a seat, you are in for a real treat!”

***

Erik sat deathly still at the crowded dining table, not touching the plate of food the Evil One had placed in front of him, even though his mouth was watering and his stomach gurgling with hunger.

“It’s not poisoned, Erik,” the Evil One laughed, pointedly tearing off a piece of bread and some pheasant from Erik’s plate, placing it in his mouth and swallowing. “See?”

When Erik still refused to eat, the Evil One sighed again, looking a little downcast like it was a crime against faerie folk to not eat roast pheasant when offered.

“Hmph, ignore him, Charles. He’s probably too busy trying to figure out a way to kill you,” the blond boy – Alex – said, rolling his eyes before stuffing his mouth full of bread roll.

Charles had introduced all of the other monsters as they arrived at the dinner table, each taking a seat while staring at Erik like he was the otherworldly creature here, as if they themselves weren’t beasts.

Alongside Alex, the lanky boy was apparently called Sean, and the blue monster called Hank. The woman that had brought out the food was Moira, while the young boy that sat beside the blonde shyly introduced himself as Scott. Apparently, there was someone else called Raven that usually resided in the lake, but she didn’t appear because she was pissed that someone had thrown Erik’s armour into her home.

“Try to be more understanding of Erik everyone,” Charles said, giving Erik another one of those gentle, coaxing smiles. “I do believe his understanding of us is quite askew.”

“Yeah, he called you the ‘Evil One’. Charles, the ‘Evil One’! Can you believe it?!” Sean wheezed, slapping his knee and making chewed pheasant fly all over the table, everyone groaning.

“How is he not evil?” Erik spat, slamming his fist on the table, the metal cutlery trembling. Everyone at the table tensed, ready to pounce on Erik if he so much as moved a fork anywhere near the Evil One. The only one that didn’t look ready to impale Erik was the Evil One himself, who just reached over the table to grab some golden butter to slather over his bread roll.

“Do enlighten us, Erik. What evil deeds are you accusing me of, exactly?” Charles asked, raising a brow while biting on his bread roll.

“Making us sweep up the Chosen One’s mess, I bet. That’s pretty evil of him,” Alex guffawed, Sean grinning while Hank’s blue lips twitched upwards.

Erik took offense at their joking, sickened by how they were making light of the death and destruction they leave in their wake. How little the deaths of the soldiers mean to them, how insignificant the deaths of Erik’s parents are, when to Erik it meant everything.

It was what has fuelled him all these years.

Without the anger, pain and rage that came with it, Erik would’ve long since perished.

“You killed all those soldiers in the forest,” Erik started, the Evil One leaning on his elbow, listening intently. “You tried to destroy Genosha centuries ago, only thwarted by King Klaus and banished to this forest. And… you murdered my parents.” Erik balled his fists at the way his throat still tightened at the mention of his parents, the pain still as raw as it was all those years ago.

“Oh, Erik, is that what they told you?” Charles sighed, putting down the bread roll and standing up slowly. Hank began to stand up to help him, but Charles waved his assistance away, walking over to the hole in the wall that used to hold a door, now just splinters of wood after Erik blasted it away.

“Come, Erik. It would probably be best for you to see, and for me to explain,” Charles said, before turning to his underlings. “You needn’t come along. Enjoy your dinner, and then continue cleaning. It would be best to try and plug up that hole, otherwise we will be in for quite a draughty evening.”

“Alright, call if you need anything, Charles,” Sean chirped, tapping on his temple before diving back into the pheasant on his plate, or what was left of it, anyway.

‘He’s probably luring me out to kill me. He seems to be reluctant to make a further mess of his den. A bloody death it’ll be for me then. Mama, Papa, I’m sorry – I don’t think I’ll be able to avenge your deaths,’ Erik said to himself, helplessness and anger swirling in his belly.

If the Evil One heard Erik’s thoughts, he didn’t comment on them, merely ushering Erik to follow him. Considering who had the upper hand, all Erik could do was obey him, though he hung back at a distance, wary.

Charles smiled understandingly, raising his hands slightly in a show of good faith, but Erik knew better than to trust the Evil One. Despite all his training, Erik was powerless; considering the physical stature of the Evil One, if it was a battle of physical power, Erik would triumph easily. However, the Evil One had the power of the mind, and with that, Erik was powerless. Even King Shaw’s specialised training could not help him here, not without a way to combat mind magic.

‘If only I had my helmet, then we’ll see who is in control,’ Erik thought to himself, Charles humming.

“Yes, with that helmet I wager that I’d be helpless against you. You have power that no one can match, not even me,” Charles admitted, sounding almost… impressed. Pleased. Charles chuckled again, eyes almost curving into crescents as he smiled, the motion reaching his eyes. “Well, yes. I am both impressed and pleased! Your magic is wonderful, Erik. A power like yours is rare, only seen once before, I believe.”

“I am not a cursed faerie. I am the Chosen One, destined to ki-” Erik started to rant as they trudged through the forest.

“Kill me, yes, you announced that very clearly when you blew a hole in my cottage,” Charles said. “That is but another lie that you have been fed, Erik. And now that you are here, I am hoping to help you see the truth.”

“And I am to just trust the Evil One? The harbinger of death?” Erik scoffed, staring at the back of the Evil One with blatant distrust.

“Harbinger of d- And you are to trust your King? The… conjurer of lies?” Charles asked back, Erik frowning.

“Of course. He saved my life, after you destroyed it,” Erik said, the Evil One sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I see I have decades of mistrust to sort through. A difficult task I have ahead of me, it seems,” the Evil One said, ducking under a low-lying branch before stopping. “No matter. We will just go through things, one lie at a time. Starting with this one.”

The Evil One stepped to the side and just gestured in front of him, not looking at it but at Erik instead, taking in his reaction.

Erik was reluctant to take his eyes of the Evil One – in case the man was about to kill Erik in the forest in return, and not because he was devastatingly beautiful, of course – but eventually forced himself to look at what the faerie was trying to show him.  

And… what?

“There are some more in the holes there, but I assure you they are all wholly alive. Alex sometimes gets a little enthusiastic when intruders come knocking. Again, I do apologise,” the Evil One said as Erik gaped, something he seemed to be doing ever since he arrived at the Evil One’s den.

“I… What?” Erik asked very eloquently as he tried to process what he was seeing.

The soldiers that Erik had thought dead were all lying across the ground, snoring away peacefully, some even hugging each other as they obviously slumbered.

Finally registering the Evil One’s words as well, Erik rushed over to the trenches in the ground that had been opened up by the red beams that were apparently created by Alex. Peering over the sides, Erik was even more flabbergasted to see more soldiers fast asleep with their heads pillowed by dirt.

“As you can see, all of the soldiers are alive and well. Ah, well, some are a little bruised, but they’ll recover once they get back home,” the Evil One assured Erik.

“I… What… How?” Erik asked, turning to the Evil One questioningly, still wary.

“You accused me earlier of killing the soldiers that your King sent to kill me. As you can see, I did no such thing. They’re merely sleeping, and once dawn breaks tomorrow, they will march their way home to their families,” the Evil One said, tapping on his temple. “Again, I did take a few liberties, you’ll have to forgive me.”

“Why?” Erik asked, the Evil One laughing, tilting his head to the side slightly as he stared into Erik’s eyes.

“Because we don’t kill, Erik. Neither human nor faerie, and certainly not you,” the Evil One said softly, turning back in the direction of the cottage. “Now, let’s go back. We may be able to make it back in time for dessert. It’s apple pecan pie, if you were wondering.”

And that was how Erik found himself following along behind the most perplexing enigma of all time, one that could kill Erik at any given moment, but hadn’t.

‘Yet,’ Erik reminded himself, clenching his fist tightly.

Hasn’t killed you yet.

***

Erik begrudgingly ate a spoonful of the apple pecan pie, only after the Evil One had again plucked off a decorative nut and swallowed it to prove that it wasn’t poisoned.

It was a terribly delicious pie, and Erik couldn’t help but finish the entire thing, especially after depriving himself of dinner. Erik at least had the decency to decline the second helping the Evil One offered him, instead retreating back to his stoic, silent edginess as everyone else cleared the table and began cleaning up.

“If you still think I’m going to kill you, Erik, you are sorely mistaken. Ah, thank you, Sean,” the Evil One said as Sean placed a pair of teacups and large pot of tea on the table in front of him.  

“Reading my mind, faerie?” Erik seethed, the Evil One shaking his head, brown hair fluttering over his ocean-blue eyes as he poured two cups of tea, pushing one across the table to Erik. The scent was herbal, but not bitterly so. A little sweet and a little floral, similar to the scent clinging to the skin of the Evil One.

Not that Erik was paying attention to the way the Evil One smelled. Not at all.

“No. It does not take mind magic to see that you are wary and guarded. Understandingly so. Every time I move, you tense up, ready to fight. You hardly touched the food, thinking it poisoned. But, Erik, I am not being ingenuous when I say that I mean you no harm. If I wanted to cause you harm, you would not have even made it past the threshold of the forest,” the Evil One said yet again, trying to assuage Erik’s distrust, but his words only made Erik tense up more.

The Evil One seemed to realise his mistake, chastising himself. “Ah, that last part sounded like a threat, didn’t it. I, uh, that was not my intention. Is it obvious I don’t entertain many guests? Apart from Moira, I have not seen any new faces for centuries. I… oh, I’m not making this any better, am I? Would you feel better if we retrieved your helmet? Oh, but then you would definitely try to kill me again if you had it. Maybe just your sword, then? I’ll get Alex to fish it out for you, since he was the one to dispose of it in the first place. Alex? Alex!”

Erik just stared at the Evil One, mind whirling as the man continued to chatter to himself. What he said was true – once Erik’s helmet was off, the Evil One could have finished him off any time. Even with the soldiers the Evil One, or even his underlings, could have slain them with ease, and yet they were alive, clear as day.

Erik’s mind was at war with itself, his present colliding with the beliefs ingrained deeply within him from his past.

‘The Evil One is nothing like the tales… Could he be speaking the truth? Could everything I’ve believed to this point be a lie? But this could all be a trick, just another twisted ploy the Evil One is using. Why, I can’t fathom. Either way, I’m at his mercy for now, until I can figure out a way to get my helmet back… Until then, I can at least hear him out, because if there is even the slightest chance he’s telling the truth…

Then what have I been working for all this time? If this faerie didn’t kill my parents…

What am I supposed to do?

***

Alex, dripping wet and soaked to the bone, all but threw Erik’s sword at him, the soldier catching it with his power much to the Evil One’s utter delight.

“How marvellous,” the Evil One exclaimed, clapping his hands together as he stared at Erik in awe, not noticing the way Alex crudely gestured at Erik behind the Evil One’s back. “Truly marvellous!”

“Yes, Charles, it’s truly marvellous giving a weapon to someone that wants to murder you,” Moira huffed, dumping a ratty hay-filled mattress onto the floor in front of the gaping hole Erik left in the wall, before throwing an equally ratty blanket and hole-ridden pillow atop it.

“Oh, hush, Moira,” the Evil One shushed fondly, the woman just frowning and squeezing his shoulder. The Evil One patted the back of her hand before picking it up and kissing her knuckles fondly. “Thank you for your concern, dear. Truly, I can take care of myself.”

“Even so, the others have decided to keep watch on rotation, in case he does decide to try anything,” Moira said, casting a questioning look at Erik, who bristled. “Good night, Charles.”

“Good night,” the Evil One replied, Moira giving Erik a wide berth as she walked past him to get to the door, but not before pointing at the makeshift bed she had just made.

“I think you can sleep on the floor, but Charles said you at least need a mattress. So there’s your bed. You made that hole in the wall, so you have to sleep in front of it,” Moira said before exiting, Erik once again floored by the actions of these monsters of the Dark Forest.

Once Moira left, the only ones remaining in the cosy cottage was Erik and the Evil One himself, though Erik’s trained ears could pick up the scuffling of a furry watchdog just outside of the cottage. The blue beast, most likely. Erik’s twice concussed head throbbed at the thought.

“I’m sure you have plenty of questions, Erik, and I will be more than happy to answer them. However, I’m sure you are exhausted, as am I, to be frank. It took a lot of energy to put so many people to sleep at once, it’s been a long time since I strained myself as such. So, why don’t we get a good night’s rest and pick this up first thing tomorrow over breakfast,” the Evil One said, getting up from where he sat with a yawn, rubbing at the corner of his eyes sleepily, looking far too at ease.

And adorable.

But the Evil One could not be adorable, because he was the harbinger of death and destruction, a cold-blooded killer that was wearing a lilac knit cloak.

The Evil One nodded at Erik with another easy-going smile, before retreating behind a door, closing it gently behind him. Candlelight flickered alight, seeping through the cracks in the door, the shadow of the Evil One moving beneath the frame.

Erik didn’t respond, merely walking over to the mattress and plopping down cross-legged on it, not putting himself in an even more vulnerable position by reclining. Erik clutched tightly at his sword, still glistening with water from the lake it had been fished from, carefully keeping an eye on the door that separated him from the one he was supposed to kill.

Erik did not sleep that night, eyes never leaving the door, even after the candle had long been snuffed out.

Next chapter → (2/?)

#cherik #X-men #x-men fanfiction #ao3 #fantasy #faeries #crack #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #professor x #magneto

[sareyen]

To my roomba with love (Cherik)

Read on ao3 

There are a lot of things that Erik loves about Charles. He loves all of the obvious things; Charles’s kindness, his intelligence, his laughter, his eyes. He also loves the little private things; the way Charles sneaks Erik his unwanted tomatoes, his warbled opera singing in the shower, that sensitive spot on his hip.

And he loves the silly things about Charles, especially the way the man has a habit of talking to inanimate objects when he thinks no one is looking. Charles has conversations with the kettle, the washing machine, and their roomba – and every time Erik eavesdrops on him, he falls in love with the man a little bit more.

***

It was a Sunday morning, somewhat late by Erik’s standards, the man’s fatigued body allowing him a few extra hours of sleep after a hectic business trip. Erik had barely gotten any sleep between meetings and flights, and when he had arrived back home to a half-asleep Charles he only had enough energy to shirk off his clothes before collapsing into bed beside his husband.

Still, despite his tiredness, Erik’s body woke him as the sun tried to filter into the bedroom, the single slither of sunlight enough to rouse him. Erik had surprisingly awoken to an empty bed, the patch of mattress dripped in the shape of Charles still warm.

Erik had pulled himself out of bed groggily, tugging on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, before quietly padding out of the bedroom in search of his missing husband. Erik stifled a yawn as he meandered through the hallway, ears pricking up at the sound of clinking glasses in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Miss Kettle,” a whispered voice sounded from the kitchen as Erik neared, consonants soft and vowels gentle like the morning sun drifting through the parted curtains. The voice made Erik pause, the last of his sleep ebbing away. His silent steps came to a stop, Erik lingering outside the threshold of the kitchen and leaning against the plaster wall, small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Please work hard again today,” Charles said quietly, and Erik could imagine the man tapping the side of the kettle as he filled it with water. “You’re going to have to work double since Erik is back. Yes, yes, I know you’re getting old now, but you still do your job perfectly. Oh, of course! Your water comes out perfectly boiled, steaming and wonderful. Don’t sell yourself short, I’m not willing to sell you yet myself. You’ve been with us since my first PhD, I’m quite attached to you, you know. Oh, pish posh, I won’t have you belittle yourself like that, young lady.”

Erik covered his laugh with his hand, heart fluttering as he heard the water begin to boil and whistle.

“Shh, shh, shh, darling! You’ll wake Erik up,” Charles chided in a whispered tone as the kettle’s shrill cry rolled to a full boil, the light clatter of metal against metal cutting the sound off as Charles pulled ‘Miss Kettle’ from the stovetop. “We have to be quiet, I want to let him catch up on his sleep. He was so exhausted last night, we should let him lie in, hm? He’s been working so hard for us lately, he deserves a break.”

A surge in the desire to run into the kitchen and smother Charles with kisses thrummed through Erik, making his toes curl into the soft carpet. Erik contained himself, however, but let himself peek around the corner just in time to catch Charles pouring the boiling water into two mugs - a magenta one with a red E on the side, and a matching dark blue cup with a yellow C.

Erik was entranced as he watched Charles dunk the tea bags a few times, adding a dash of milk to each, his husband soon picking up both mugs and turning back to the kettle.

“Thank you for your hard work once again, Miss Kettle,” Charles murmured, the smile on his face reaching his azure eyes, making his sleep-rumpled visage and fluffy bedhead all the more endearing. “I’ve got to go see if Erik is awake yet, so good bye for now.”

With that, Erik quickly but silently tiptoed his way back to the bedroom, sliding into bed and closing his eyes, controlling his mouth’s urge to grin as he feigned sleep.

Charles soon entered the room, and Erik heard the light clack of a mug being placed on his bedside table, followed by the warm feeling of a kiss being pressed to his forehead.

Opening his eyes, Erik let himself smile as he was met with Charles’s beautiful face, the man’s red lips parting in muted surprise.

“Good morning, Liebling,” Erik said, Charles smiling as he leaned down once again, this time kissing Erik on the lips as he set down his own cup of morning tea to crawl onto the bed, weight of his thighs pressing against Erik’s sides.

“Morning, Erik,” Charles sighed against Erik’s mouth. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No,” Erik said, pulling Charles close to him. “Not at all.”

***

The washing machine beeped angrily, and Erik heard Charles curse under his breath, pausing in front of the laundry door on the way to the garage to head out on his daily run. Halfway through fastening his watch, Erik smiled as he heard his husband curse again, not too dissimilar from the way that tongue had curled around a moaned ‘Fuck’ during Erik’s early morning cardio session in bed.

“Don’t make that noise at me, young man,” Charles continued, followed by the noise of more buttons being pressed. “I know it’s early, but I need you to wash these bed sheets, otherwise your father and I will be sleeping on a barren mattress tonight.”

Erik had to bite back the chuckle that threatened to spill from his lips as Charles seemed to wrestle with their temperamental washing machine. The machine was somewhat new - a housewarming gift from Raven - but Charles had struggled to get used to the high-tech device that had options other than just warm wash and cold wash.

It was at times like this, though, that made Erik wonder about having children. Erik had never thought about having kids, about even settling down enough to even consider having them. Having lost his parents young, Erik had always been by himself, not growing attached to places or people, moving between cities and beds.

But then he had met Charles, and everything changed.

Charles had given him a home, back when he was still an undergrad and living in a shitty walk-up that didn’t have a working heater. That apartment had been their first home together, even if at the time Erik was adamant that they were no more than fuck buddies. But fuck buddies turned into friends, then into roommates, to boyfriends, to fiancés and, finally, to husbands.

They hadn’t thought about becoming parents, though. Charles had his hands full with his students, and at times it felt like he already had dozens of kids. And yet, sometimes, Erik would catch him like this, calling their furniture and their appliances his children, and Erik their Papa and…

Erik’s heart squeezed tight.

“Your father’s about to go on a run, you should get a little exercise too,” Charles chirped, punching a few buttons before hopping onto his toes to get the liquid washing detergent from the shelving above. Erik peered around the corner in time to catch the slight glint in Charles’s eye, the twitch in his lips as he thought of something apparently hilarious.

As the barrel inside the washing machine began to turn, Charles gave it a little pat on the lid.

“Good lad, enjoy your spin class,” Charles said, chuckling to himself as Erik’s eyes rolled, though his mouth was curled softly in matched amusement at his silly, adorable, utterly wonderful husband.

Erik was so absorbed in the warm cocoon of his heart that he didn’t notice Charles leaving the laundry, the man almost bumping into right Erik.

“Oh! Erik, you surprised me,” Charles said, not hesitating to slide his arms around Erik’s lithe frame to snuggle him against the wall. Erik’s arms fit around Charles with perfect familiarity, the German man pressing a kiss to Charles’s upturned cheek. “I had thought you already left on your run?”

“I was just about to,” Erik replied softly, Charles tilting his head up further to ask for a kiss, Erik indulging him willingly.

“Bring home some bagels on your way back?” Charles asked hopefully against Erik’s lips, the taller man chuckling.

“Anything for you, Liebling.”

***

When Erik got home from his run, body comfortably tired, he placed the bag of Charles’s favourite bagels on the kitchen counter along with his keys. Glancing around the room in search for his husband, Erik hummed to himself when he saw that it was empty.

Wiping some of his sweat from his face with the hem of his shirt, Erik leisurely made his way through the apartment until he heard the muffled accent of his husband in his study. Erik briefly wondered if the man was talking to Raven or Moira on the phone, but that notion was shot down quickly when Erik looked through the slight gap in the door, silently chuckling.

Charles was sitting at his desk, the papers he had apparently been grading left forgotten as he clapped to himself, the man watching something lazily move across the floor. The thing was near-silent if not for the whisper of a mechanical whir.

“Oh, look at you go!” Charles exclaimed, almost cooing as leaned down on his ornate desk chair, ushering the thing closer. “Come here, girl! Come here! Aw, that’s a good girl!”

The Roomba skittered across the hardwood floors, sucking up the dust and dirt as it went, beginning to approach Charles’s feet. The man giggled as it bumped into his toe, turning in a circle as it recalibrated itself. Charles then laughed at its apparent confusion, now folding himself over to give the device a scratch on its supposed head like it was a puppy.

The Roomba let out a short beep, before turning and sashaying back across the room to find its next pocket of dust.

“My, my, your appetite is quite impressive today,” Charles said, leaning his elbow on the desk as he smiled, watching the Roomba work. “Eat up as much as you can, Roo – you know how Erik is with dust.”

Erik momentarily thought about getting Charles a real dog, imagining his blue eyes widening with love at the tiny creature. He imagined Charles curled up on the couch with the pup on his chest, the two snoozing together. He imagined Charles reading a book with the puppy curled up on his lap. He imagined going on walks with Charles, holding his husband’s hand with his left, the puppy’s leash in the other.

Erik decided that he rather liked those images, filing them away in his mind amongst the many other things he wanted to experience with Charles. Things he would experience with Charles, because they had the rest of their lives to live together, after all. Erik would make sure of it.

But, for now, Erik merely opened the door to the study, Charles immediately looking up with an elated smile on his face, letting out a bright “Erik, you’re home!” Soon, Erik was embracing an armful of Charles, had warm arms draped around his neck, and his favourite pair of berry-red lips on his. “Welcome home, darling. How was your run?”

“Good,” Erik said succinctly, burying his head in Charles’s neck and breathing him in, the man chuckling. Pulling back, Erik kissed Charles on the tip of his nose, his husband’s cheeks warming slightly. “Sorry, I probably smell.”

“You smell like you,” Charles said, nuzzling Erik’s neck in return, and Erik could feel the slope of his husband’s smile against his shoulder. “But, you can go shower. I’ll get the coffee on and reheat those bagels. You did bring the bagels, right?”

“Mm, of course. They’re on the counter,” Erik said, Charles beaming, and disentangling himself with one last kiss to Erik’s cheek.

“Excellent, that’s why I love you, darling,” Charles said, skipping off to the kitchen to claim his bagels, Erik just smiling fondly after him.

Before Erik made his way to the bathroom, he heard Charles begin to speak again, but this time not to him.

No, when Charles spoke he said hello to the coffee machine, good morning to the toaster, and good day to the fridge, while Erik just thought -

And that’s just one of the many reasons why I love you, Charles.

#cherik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #professor x #magneto #X-men #x-men fic #x-men fanfiction #fluff

[sareyen]

It’s hard to see in the dark (Cherik)

Read on ao3

Warning: implied/referenced suicide, major character death

The aftermath of ‘Turn off the light’: Charles is dead and takes his light with him. Everyone stumbles around in the dark he leaves behind, and as they do, they come to realise that they did far too little, far too late.

Sometimes, Erik wished there were words in the English language that could wholly capture a concept, a feeling, a state of being. In German, there were some words that did that, some of which he had never grasped the value of until he met someone that was all of them and more.

Ohrwurm; for a melody that won’t leave your mind, though for Erik, that melody did not come in the form of songs on records lazily spinning around in the lounge, nor the tinkle of piano keys from the drawing room at Westchester. No, for Erik, Ohrwurm was a laugh, a voice, a curl of British consonants and soft vowels. A voice that rang in the recesses of Erik’s mind, a song that made his breath hasten and his heart squeeze.

Gemütlichkeit; a word that captured the overall feeling of warmth, friendliness, cheer, and many, many other things. Peace of mind, cosiness, a sense of belonging. There were lots of English words, but not even all of them together could really describe Gemütlichkeit. So, it was funny how Gemütlichkeit suddenly sounded a lot like Charles, because when Erik sat in the glow of the fire, the soft upholstery of luxurious furniture under his fingers and with Charles peering up at him through the swirl of a glass of scotch with a smile on his red lips, there was only warmth and friendliness and cheer and peace and belonging and more, more, more.

And Weltschmerz; a word that Erik only understood because it was something that made Charles sigh every now and then. Though there wasn’t a word in English that was quite the same, ‘world weariness’ was somewhat close, and no one felt the pain of the world more than Charles, because no one believed in it more. Erik always felt something stir up inside of him, a messy concoction of feelings unfamiliar to the man who professed to be without a human heart, when Charles would see anti-mutant propaganda in the papers or on the television. His stomach would flip when Charles’s blue eyes would harden, the shorter man striding towards the underground chamber and to Cerebro to find others like them so they could, maybe, understand what Gemütlichkeit meant too.

Or Geborgenheit, which was similar to Gemütlichkeit. This was something that enveloped Erik every day, in everything Charles did. With Erik’s youth, there were very few instances where he felt what made up Geborgenheit; comfort, security, love. But he felt it every morning when he would wake to Charles’s fingers softly carding through his auburn locks and the light chuckle that left his lips before he murmured “Ah, sorry, my friend – did I wake you?”. Erik would grumble, lithe arms wrapping around his lover’s waist to bury his face in the slope of the man’s neck, feeling warm and safe and cherished.

Maybe he should have realised something, recognised that something wasn’t quite right about the fact that Charles always went to bed after him and yet rose from slumber before Erik could shake off his dreams. He pushed the apprehension aside, though, because Erik was no stranger to insomnia or the elusive nature of sleep. Sometimes, when Erik struggled to sleep himself and woke in the night, his senses would pick up on the warmth pressing against the slopes of the metal desk lamp and the rhythmic movements of Charles’s familiar watch; reading, as always.

Those nights, Erik would give Charles’s watch a sleepy tug, the man jumping slightly. Charles would turn his head, handsome features half-illuminated by the lamplight, and give Erik an almost sheepish smile, like he had been caught.

He had been caught, but Erik hadn’t known that yet. He hadn’t known what he had caught.

“I’m sorry, I got lost in the book,” Charles would murmur, closing his tome with a light thump and padding over to the bed, crawling under the covers and pressing himself against Erik’s skin, nose nuzzling the German’s chest. “Go back to sleep, Erik.”

Last night was similar to one of those nights, and Erik thought nothing of it. Charles was wearing his silk pyjamas, the ones that felt nice when pressed up against Erik’s skin, and from the slightly rigid set of his limbs Erik knew he wasn’t ready to sleep just yet. There was a hum beneath his skin, one that was vastly different to the relaxed, lethargic haze washing over Erik. Charles probably had a book he was invested in, that he couldn’t put down. That was also like Charles, really; stubborn, unrelenting in his beliefs. Determined.

If there was something he wanted to see through, he would not stop until the end.

So, when Charles pressed his lips against Erik’s, the metallokinetic didn’t dwell on it too much, even if it felt a little different. Instead of a goodnight it felt more like a goodbye, but then Charles smiled, brushed his fingers across Erik’s forehead to push some wayward strands from the wrinkles beginning to form there, and Erik just thought of Geborgenheit and Gemütlichkeit and nothing else.

There was another feeling simmering there, though, and it made Erik toss and turn in his sleep. It was early in the morning that Erik fully stepped out from the unsteady grips of unconsciousness, that feeling settled uncomfortably in the base of his stomach.

Blinking heavily, Erik’s eyes did not have to adjust to the morning light, the heavy curtains blotting out any semblance of the warm rays. Odd, because usually when Erik awoke, the curtains were open a slither, enough to draw lines of gold over Charles’s freckles as he woke Erik up with gentle fingers in his hair.

Erik frowned, turning to Charles’s side of the bed and finding it empty, the sheets crinkled but not slept in. The edges of the plush bedding were still tucked into Charles’s corner, only slightly dishevelled from the heaving of Erik’s body as he turned onto his side, hand splayed over the cold sheets.

There was an English word for the feeling Erik had now, Erik knew. Foreboding. That sense of unease the stemmed from nothing concrete, nothing tangible. Just an added sense of there’s something wrong and something is about to happen, and that something was never a good thing.

Erik was pulling himself up when a gut-wrenching scream tore itself through the halls of Westchester. The estate was large, and the scream was a torrent; glass windows rattled, beams creaked, and Sean’s mutant cry snapped Erik completely awake.

It did not take long for Erik to throw the covers off himself and pull on a grey jumper, rushing out the door and down the hall to the source of the noise.

‘Charles? What happened?’ Erik projected in his mind, finding it more convenient to call out for the man who was likely already rushing towards Sean with the goal of soothing the sheer panic found in the boy’s voice.

Erik’s mental question was met with still silence, and Erik felt that feeling again. Foreboding.

Erik didn’t know why, but he began walking faster and faster down the halls, and things only seemed to become quieter and quieter. Erik thrust out his powers, raking over the metal inside the mansion; he felt the aged planes of old candelabras and slightly rusted faucets. He felt Hank’s wire-frame glasses warming as they slipped over fur, and he felt the shaking of the frostbitten zippers of Sean’s flight uniform.

Latching onto the location of that metal, Erik’s footsteps thumped on wood as he walked downstairs, drawing closer to Sean. When he walked out the back door of Westchester towards the gardens, his teeth bit together as he was slapped with a gust of frosty morning air, the dew on the grass iced over and winter wind biting.

The first thing he saw as he walked along the grey and naked rose bushes, pruned for the winter and devoid of their usual vibrant redness – redness like Charles’s lips, Erik’s mind supplied with a tinge of wry acceptance – was Sean folded over and dry-retching into the bushes. The boy shook like the leaves that blew across the stone pathways meandering across the ground.

When Erik neared, he could hear Sean’s wretched gagging punctuated with heaving sobs, and saw that the boy had tears dribbling down his face which was as white as a sheet.

Erik hadn’t had the foresight to wear shoes, and his toes blistered in the cold but he kept walking on. Sean must have felt him approach, because when Erik neared, the boy looked at him with unabashed despair written over his face.

For a boy whose power was in his voice, Erik couldn’t make out the words pouring out of his mouth, because they sounded a lot like “Oh God, Erik, he’s dead. He’s dead. The Professor… He… Oh God, he’s dead”.

From behind him, Erik could feel the others catching up. Raven flanked Hank’s hulking form, Alex, Darwin and Angel following behind them, but Erik paid no heed to them, clamping his hands down on Sean’s shoulders and shaking the boy. His fingers dug into Sean’s shoulders firmly, because he needed to understand, because Sean was speaking nonsense and he couldn’t be speaking English because what he said just didn’t make any sense.

“What happened?” Erik asked, voice rough after having just woken up and tight from the cold. Sean struggled to breathe, mouth moving again in words that made no sense. Raven gasped behind him, and Erik caught something about “Behind the bushes… God… His body… Blood… So much blood… His head… His legs… He… Dead”.

Dead.

Erik shoved past Sean, bare feet sliding across the frosted stone path and around the bushes, before his body froze.

Erik has witnessed death before. He had been in the room when his mother died, he had killed men before, he had seen Shaw’s body slump to the ground as a crimson coin hovered in the air. Erik remembered the sound his mother’s body made, a strangely hollow thump that was no different than someone dropping a sack of potatoes onto wooden floorboards. And he remembered what his mother looked like, lying there on the ground with blood pooling from the bullet in her brain. She had looked peaceful, face slack and eyes closed, and if it weren’t for the oozing circle on her temple she would have passed as someone in a deep slumber.

This was not like that. Because the sound that this body looked like it made when it hit the ground wasn’t a hollow thump but a deafening crunch, and the body looked like a corpse and not someone wandering the lands of dreams.

Erik’s heart stopped beating for what felt like an eternity as he stared, and once again he couldn’t understand. Because that body looked like Charles, but it couldn’t be Charles because Charles wouldn’t be lying on the ground in those silk pyjamas that felt nice on Erik’s bare skin, silk pyjamas that looked crisp with ice that clung in beads to the fabric.

But that was Charles, his brown hair gently blowing in the wind and covered in dew like the grass.

Charles, eyes closed and mouth slightly parted, lips blue and grey and mimicking the clipped rose bushes that weren’t flush with red any more.

Charles, still and prone, legs bent in ways they shouldn’t and a halo of red frozen around him.

Sean’s words made sense now, and yet they didn’t, because Charles couldn’t be dead. Not Charles.

Erik thinks he made a sound, because his throat started to burn and his lungs sear in the biting frost. His weight fell to his knees, and then onto his palms, which chafed against the stone. Erik didn’t register what his body was doing, because he was reaching for Charles with frantic hands, fingers pressing against Charles’s upturned back, his neck, his face, his head. His hair felt sticky, and his skull dipped in places it shouldn’t, and Erik made another sound that rocked through his entire body.

“Charles, Charles, what are you doing out here?” Erik pushed, hands shaking as he rolled Charles onto his back, the man pliant. His skin was ice cold, and red had turned to brown and black where it had stilled and pooled under his skin. Erik could feel the congregation of iron that didn’t move in a lump under Charles’s flesh and whimpered.

“No,” Raven said from behind him, voice near-silent.

“Charles,” Erik said again, tugging at the man’s shoulders, hauling him onto his lap. Charles’s head lolled back, and Erik’s throat let out a choked noise as he cradled the telepath’s head in the curve of his elbow, other hand brushing across his cheek, across the bridge of his nose, carding through his hair like Charles always did to him to wake him up in the morning. And yet, Charles’s eyes didn’t open to reveal that familiar blue, just as the sky that hung above him was grey and obscured by clouds.

“Charles?” Erik whispered, leaning in close, like he expected Charles’s parted lips to puff out a breath of warm air, but they didn’t. Erik rocked Charles back and forth in his arms, hunching over as he felt his eyes sting. Erik’s forehead dropped down against Charles’s own as he cradled the man’s face.

‘Charles… Charles… Liebling, you can hear me, can’t you?’ Erik pushed in his mind, his words a firm press. When they were met with silence, Erik’s mental voice rose and swirled, panic overriding the control he had built over the years, his soul unravelling.

‘Charles! Charles, read my mind, listen to me. Please. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, don’t do this to me. Charles!’

Maybe Erik had been screaming the words out loud too, because he felt a trembling hand grip his shoulder.

“Erik… Erik, the Professor, he’s…” Hank said, voice clogged like he had a throat full of fur as well.

Dead.

For all Erik knew, a telepath could have shoved the word into everyone’s mind, because that’s the word that everyone thought as Hank’s voice drifted off.

“No,” Erik forced out, shaking his head. “No, don’t tell me that Charles is…” Dead. “He can’t… He wouldn’t just…”

Leave.

‘You’re not alone, Erik. You’re not alone,’ Charles had said into Erik’s mind that first night. Even as they rolled amongst the vast and endless waves of the pitch-black ocean, Erik had not felt adrift, because Charles anchored him and kept him afloat.

But now…

Yes, there was a German word for now.

Mutterseelenallein; the English word ‘alone’ was not the same as Mutterseelenallein. Because Mutterseelenallein was more than just the feeling of being alone – it was alone and it was more, it was a world with you surrounded by nothing.

It was the feeling of being without Charles, because without him, Erik was beyond alone.

***

The mansion was in shambles; furniture toppled over, papers scattered across the ground, metal torn from walls and twisted into grotesque shapes that mirrored the turmoil inside Erik’s soul. The mansion was a mess, but it was better that Erik unleash his anguish on objects without souls than the others, though Alex had copped a fist to the face when he had tried to help Hank pry Erik off Charles’s… body.

The thought made Erik’s eyes burn again, and his nails dug into the skin of his palm as he clenched his fists together. Metal groaned in pain around him, crying out in a way that Erik couldn’t bring himself to.

Charles’s mangled body was lying in Hank’s lab on a slab of metal, the only metal in the mansion that had yet to be twisted into obscure lumps. Every time Erik ran his powers across the metal slab, he couldn’t pick up on the way body heat usually seeped into it. He couldn’t feel the metal grow warm, like the way the inside surface of Charles’s watch was warm against the pulse at his wrist. No, the table was cold, as cold as the body lying atop it.

Hank, Alex and Darwin had forced everyone out of the lab while the furred man examined Charles. They said examined, now, because the first time Hank had said autopsy, he had almost been impaled by the spindles of a coatrack.

Sean had been too nauseous to go into the lab, and Erik too volatile. Angel was soothing Raven, who was in some sort of catatonic state. While Erik raged, Raven had shut down. She had fainted, first, the moment Hank and Alex managed to wrench Erik away from Charles’s body and allowing her to see it unobscured for the first time, and she had made the same sound Erik’s Mama had when she dropped to the ground.

Now, hours later, she had awoken, but moved around like she was still half in dream. She hoped she was. She hoped, desperately, that this was just a nightmare, a bad dream. She hoped that she would wake up in her bed, soaked in sweat and tears in her eyes, and run into Charles’s room like she had when they were children and jump into his bed. Like back then, she would crawl under his blankets and press herself to his side like a cat, Charles murmuring “There, there. It’s alright now. It was only a bad dream”.

But this wasn’t a dream, so Raven couldn’t wake up, and Charles wouldn’t be waiting for her in his bed and silk pyjamas and be there to pat her head and tell her that everything was going to be alright. He couldn’t, because he was lying on a metal slab as Hank cut him open and pushed and prodded at his organs to figure out how he died, even though everyone knew the how. Hank, in his own way, was in denial and had to seek out the truth through science.

When Hank entered the room, Raven immediately jumped up, rushing to him.

“Hank?” she asked, voice raw, and the man swallowed thickly. His eyes were red behind his glasses, and the fur beneath them was pressed flat and damp.

Hank seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment, trying to walk through the jumble of his emotions that obscured the facts. When emotions failed, Hank fell back onto the clinical; fractured skull, lumbar vertebrae, legs, arms, ribs. Those shattered ribs splintered into his lungs and his heart. Liver, kidney and spleen lacerations.

“But… It was the head injury that… you know,” Hank said, as if his words should be a relief. “It… It was fast. He… wouldn’t have felt pain, not like if he had survived long enough for multiple organ failure or a pneumothorax or-”

“But how, Hank?” Angel asked, glancing at Raven, who had collapsed back onto the couch beside her. Angel wrapped her arm around Raven’s shaking shoulders, rubbing her hand up and down the girl’s bicep as she began to sob, showing more movement than she had for the past four hours. “Did… Was it an attack? Another mutant? Someone… Someone who worked with Shaw, who could sneak in and…”

Hank shook his head.

“No. The autop- examination revealed that there was no foul play. That the Professor…”

“No,” Erik said flatly, anger and despair simmering on his tongue. “Charles wouldn’t… Why would he… There’s no reason for him to…”

Everyone looked at each other, hearts shattered like Charles’s bones, as they all asked themselves –

Why?

***

They held the funeral exactly one week later, in the backyard under the cover of rain. Raven had spent a day in Charles’s room going through his large wardrobe, pushing through the hangers of geriatric cardigans, pressed slacks and knitwear, trying to hold back her tears so they didn’t soil her brother’s clothes.

Oh, how she had teased him for his wardrobe before, threatening to burn each and every one of his tweed coats with fraying elbow patches and those silly fingerless knit gloves. Now, though, she waded through them carefully, scaled skin brushing across soft cashmere that still had the cling of Charles’s smell on them – like fabric softener mixed with old books and sunlight, and maybe a little bit like tea.

Raven pulled out one of Charles’s dapper suits, the one he wore to the ceremony after he got his first PhD. Raven remembered that day. Charles, beaming that smile of his that could light up any room, hair swept back and yet still flopping over his eyes whenever he doubled over in an all-encompassing laugh. His cheeks had been flushed by elation and drink, and he had been beautiful.

When they had dressed his body on that metal slab in the lab, pulling cold and compliant arms through ironed arm holes and rolling his body to pull on the black dress trousers, Raven had to excuse herself from the room because it was too much. Because that was her brother lying there, dressed like how she remembered him, but the makeup Angel had painted on his face was only a mask that made him look like a ghost pretending to be alive.

As Darwin read through his eulogy, saying something eloquent and collectedly impassioned, Raven’s mind drifted off. For the past week, she had wondered why, over and over, the single question unrelenting.

She and Erik had scoured the mansion for a letter, for an explanation, for something, but Charles had left none. They pawed through the margins of his books, the papers on his desk, everything, and yet they found nothing. Charles, who always had to have the last word, hadn’t left a single thing behind.

Nothing was amiss or out of place, and it was a constant sore reminder of the man that was now being lowered beneath the Westchester lawn beside a small metal monument. The monument featured Charles’s face sculpted in a wreath in the centre, lines and slopes formed by Erik’s hands and Erik’s powers, the depiction of Charles’s face startlingly accurate. Erik’s fingers had recreated the exaggerated curve of his nose, his full cheeks, his bow lips. Lips that Raven was sure Erik had memorised the feel of.

Erik, who had been so close to him, but had been just as shell-shocked – if not more – than anyone else standing in the rain around a headstone made of metal.

As Raven watched her brother’s body sinking lower and lower, Erik’s hands shaking as he used his powers to grip onto the metal handles of the casket to gentle place his lover to rest, Raven just kept staring at her brother’s sculpted face and asked –

Why?

***

Weeks passed, and then months, but by then Erik had stopped counting. His days bled into each other, his life now categorised into a painful stretch of time labelled ‘before Charles’ and the numb agony of ‘after Charles’.

Erik did find a word for ‘after Charles’, though.

Sehnsucht. The English words ‘yearning’ and ‘longing’ could not hold a candle to Sehnsucht. Erik’s thoughts were consumed by Charles, even more than when the man was alive.

When people say that you see the light when you meet death, they should really say that when you die you take the light with you. Because Charles was dead, and suddenly everything was dark, and yet some things were made clear. In the darkness, the people left behind realise what it really means when they say to not take anything for granted.

Erik had realised that all too late. He had tried for so long to not feel for any one, to not grow any attachments because he learnt, long ago, that when you care for someone you gave them some kind of power over you. By loving someone they could hurt you when they were taken away.

But Charles. God, Charles. Charles, who was so alive and vibrant and just a beacon of everything that was bright had seemed impervious to everything. He seemed infallible, and that had infuriated Erik, deep down. Charles, who had appeared so arrogant and self-assured, whose smirk always held the air of ‘I know I’m right, my friend, there’s no use arguing’. Who walked around the world a step above the rest because he knew everything that went on in their heads, and…

The emptiness in Erik’s head was stifling. Quiet, far too quiet. Every morning when Erik woke from a fitful sleep in Charles’s bed – which no longer smelled like him – he was enough in dream to momentarily expect to feel the warm curl of Charles’s mind lapping against his, to hear a silent ‘Good morning, love’ or ‘Sorry, did my thoughts wake you again, darling’, and Erik would grumble back a “You’re too loud, Charles”.

But then, Erik would open his eyes, and instead of seeing a pair of blue ones gazing back at him he only saw an empty expanse of bedding and a pillow still fluffy and smooth from disuse.

It was well into spring now, and the garden was awash with colour, but Erik barely noticed it as he walked around aimlessly. Erik often did that, these days; when the memories sitting in Charles’s bedroom overwhelmed him, he would go outside to try and clear his head. He’d walk along the paved path, around the side of the mansion, and each time he would get closer to that spot. The spot stained with a halo of red, red that he had overheard Sean whispering to Alex about, saying that “It’s all gone now, after we scrubbed it away, but I don’t know, man – I still can’t walk down that way without…”

Erik had turned the corner quickly, not wanting to hear the rest, because Charles had been washed away just like that, with bleach and rain and mud.  

As he walked through the garden, Erik flicked his wrist, Charles’s wristwatch floating out from his pocket. Erik held it in his palm, powers running over its grooves and indentations, over its arms that had stopped ticking the moment its owner stopped breathing. Erik could feel the stagnant metal, the scratches on the underside, the engraved ‘Happy birthday, son’ sharp on his senses. He couldn’t feel how the glass watch face was cracked with his powers, and instead ran the pad of his thumb over it, memorising its feel.

Erik stopped walking when he reached the lawn, the metal gravestone warm under the sun. Erik’s heart twisted as he neared it like he did every day, and he stretched forward to gently wipe away some of the grime that had been blown across it overnight.

And, like always, Erik kneeled in front of it and pressed his forehead against its surface, murmuring –

Why, Charles?

***

It wasn’t completely true to say that Charles left nothing behind, because he did. Memories, feelings, and a long list of readings from his last dance with Cerebro. They had only just discovered it, the thick paper studded with black ink sitting on the bench behind the large powered-down machine.

They probably would have found it sooner, if any of them had the heart to go in there, to a place that had Charles written all over it. Cerebro had become a relic over the past months, and like Charles’s watch, had become stagnant without its owner to keep it alive.

The last list of readings – latitudes and longitudes stamped in ink – had been folded into a binder, annotations in black pen scribbled along the margins. Annotations in Charles’s distinct hand, regal and smooth, swooping letters somehow conveying intelligence and innovation, but also understated elegance and a noble upbringing.

Alongside the locations of the young mutants Charles had been searching for were notes on their powers, or important facts of note. Katherine Pryde – intangibility. Ororo Munroe – atmokinesis. Scott Summers – Alex’s brother! Similar powers, how marvellous. Anna Marie – power absorption? Jean Grey – telepath and telekinesis, very powerful but she’s terrified about what she can do I understand.

And that was it. No scribbled note or instructions, just a list of people, of children, and yet it was a list that somehow brought a flicker of life back to the mansion. Because even if Charles hadn’t written down explicit instructions, they all knew what he wanted. What he had dreamed about.

A school, a safe haven for mutants. A place like Genosha, but for all the young mutants who didn’t quite know their place in the world. A school where they could learn to embrace their gifts, and to be around people just like them.

Charles left them this list, his final one, to find them. To build this school, one that he would never see come to fruition.

Why, Charles? What would make you do this to yourself, when you had wanted to achieve so much?

Why?

That question still haunted Erik in his waking days and in his dreams, but as he clutched the list of names, he felt that maybe, somewhere in there, there could be an answer.

He was right, and amongst those names was an answer.

But that doesn’t mean that it was a nice one.

***

“I know you,” the young red-haired girl said, large eyes staring unblinkingly at Erik and Raven as they stood in front of her. She looked at Raven first, tilting her head to the side. “Why are you not blue? When I saw his mind, you were blue. He liked you when you were blue, it made him feel… proud.”

Raven’s mouth dropped open, her pink skin flickering to blue for a brief moment in shock as the girl – Jean, as Charles’s list had told them – stared at her unflinchingly.

“I… who?” Raven stammered out as her image rippled, before settling into her natural blue scales and red hair. Jean blinking slowly, head tilting to the other side as she stared into Raven’s yellow irises.

“The man that spoke to me in my mind a long time ago. He has some of the same powers as me, but he was much better at it. He told me that you,” Jean said, pointing to Raven in her blue form, before turning her gaze to Erik and continuing, “and you would come find me. He said it may be someone else though, like the tall man that looks like a blue teddy bear, or the pretty lady with the wings. But he said it would probably be you two.”

“Charles,” Erik whispered, Jean nodding. Erik suddenly felt like there was a boulder in his throat, but he managed to speak around it. “You said he… spoke to you. When did he…”

“It was in winter,” the girl said, looking into the distance a little wistfully, small smile on her youthful face. “He was very nice. I was scared, and he told me that it would be alright. That he was scared too, and that it was okay to be scared. He told me that I could use my fear to learn how to control my powers better, so I don’t have to be scared of hurting anyone. I wanted to meet him, because he was really nice, and he understood, but he said that he had to go somewhere far away.”

Raven’s face fell and Erik clenched his jaw, Jean flinching as a hand flew to her temple.

“You’re… You’re angry, and sad, and… and… It… It hurts,” Jean stammered, one hand clutching at the fabric of her dress that rested over her heart, her eyes wide as they began to glaze over. Her pupils flickered wildly, mouth moving rapidly as she took a step back, shaking. “You’re too loud! I-It hurts, you hurt, I hurt, and… oh… Oh… and he hurts. He hurts a lot, so much, because he’s scared and alone and…”

Erik and Raven winced as the girl, with so little control of her powers, sent a wave of psionic energy at the two of them. The both of them fell to their knees with their hands over their ears, clamping over them like it would stop the ringing rattling through their brains.

“Stop it,” Erik gasped out in pain as the pressure in his head flared, and he could feel the young telepath’s mental fingers poking around his mind. Her touch was clumsy, uncontrolled, like she didn’t know what she was looking for as she rifled through the mess of memories and feelings, stirring them up and bringing them to the forefront of Erik and Raven’s minds.

Images of Charles flashed by, the girl somehow latching on to every memory involving him. She saw everything; the frost, the blood, the metal slab, the chess games, the laughter, the nights stargazing as they trekked across the country, the beach, the shared glances, the gentle brush of fingers.

Erik let out a pained noise as she dragged forth everything his mind had to offer about Charles, the pain anew, and Erik gathered all of his thoughts to push the girl from his head. Steel walls climbed up and up and up, reinforced with iron bolts and pointed barbs.

‘Get out of my head.’

“Oh,” the girl wailed, slowly lowering herself onto the ground, arms around her torso as she hugged herself, eyes wide. “That’s why he hurt… That’s why his mind felt like that… And he still hurts. Alone… he’s so alone…”

The young telepath’s eyes then rolled back, her tiny and undeveloped mind overwhelmed, and she soon slumped forward with her head lowered. Raven and Erik gasped as the pressure on their minds receded, the two of them looking at each other with heavy gazes.

Why?

***

It had been a month since Jean came to the school to live, and she had been skittish around Erik and Raven ever since. It wasn’t that Erik and Raven were avoiding her – if anything, it was the opposite. The girl knew something about Charles. He had clearly shown her something, or she could have plucked it from his mind as she had pulled their memories of him from theirs. And yet, whenever the girl saw them, her eyes would widen and she would scuttle off in the opposite direction.

“I get why the children run away from Erik, but Raven?” Alex said, raising a brow as the older mutants sat in the kitchen.

“It’s only Jean that runs away from Raven,” Angel pointed out, making the shapeshifter wince. “What the hell did you two do to her when you were recruiting?”

“We did nothing,” Erik said, narrowing his eyes as he vaguely gestured towards his head. “She did… things. She wasn’t like Charles – she clearly didn’t know what she was doing. But she said things about him. About Charles.”

“And we’ve been trying to talk to her about it ever since, but every time either of us get close to her she runs off!” Raven said, throwing her hands up as she munched on a strawberry. “She even… I think she even used her powers on me the other day. Cast an illusion so I didn’t see her, but it wasn’t perfect. Instead of erasing herself from my senses, she just made it fuzzy and it was unnatural. If it were Charles…”

“Anyway,” Erik said, cutting off that train of thought with a gruff grunt. “She knows something about Charles, about why he…”

“Well of course she does, Sugar. Unlike you lot, she knows how to listen.”

Erik leapt up at the sound of that familiar voice, the kitchen drawers all rattling open as the knives flew out from their homes to hover in the air around the approaching figure that had appeared in the archway of the kitchen. Hank leapt up as well, snarling, while everyone else faced the newcomer with narrowed eyes, muscles taut and ready to fight.

“Oh, do calm yourselves,” Emma Frost drawled, waving her hands warily at the knives that inched closer to her tight white suit. “Contrary to what you’re all thinking – except you, Angel, dear – I’m not here to harm. And no, Erik, I’m not here to ‘avenge’ Sebastian or all that other nonsense you’re thinking about. I’m here because I heard a whisper about your pet telepath being very much buried beneath the ground and was, well, curious. Because I hear things from up there sometimes, and even though we were certainly not friends, I can understand him. Quite. I didn’t think that he would… he was strong, stronger than me. But I suppose it was that soft heart of his… And it was all too much in the end, I suppose…”

“Frost…” Erik said warningly, knives jerking forward, Emma flickering into diamond for a brief moment before relaxing back to her normal guise.

“Sugar, I really do come in peace. This little lady can attest to that, can’t you, dear?”

Emma’s eyes turned away from Erik for a moment, looking behind him. Jean stood there wearing her nightgown, a teddy bear held tightly in her arms as she looked at Emma, tentative but not wary. There was something silent being said between them, that everyone was sure of.

“Jean?” Raven asked, the red head looking at her and nodding slowly.

“Mm. Ms Fr- Emma,” Jean said, looking back at Emma, who smiled a little. “Emma said that… That she just wants us to understand. We… We both want you to understand, because we understand.”

“Dear, the first thing you should learn is to not talk in riddles. People detest us and our powers already, they only get more annoyed if we try to be cryptic about it all,” Emma said, Jean’s cheeks colouring.

“Why would you want to help us?” Erik asked, Emma letting out a heavy sigh, reaching forward with her index finger to nudge at one of the hovering knives, giving Erik a flat look. The metallokinetic gritted his teeth, but let the knives fall onto the dining table.

“Oh, I’m not helping you. I’m helping him. Because, even if he wasn’t going to be angry about it, I will, because I’ve experienced it. Unlike him, I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if I make you uncomfortable. I had enough of that with Shaw, with that ridiculous helmet. Because if he just trusted me I would have done anything for hi-” Emma cut herself off with a harsh click of her tongue.

“You think you are different – from Shaw, from the humans. But you’re not,” Emma said, after calming herself, Jean slowly walking towards her. When she neared, Jean carefully reached up to hold onto the hem of Emma’s top, the icy woman looking down and patting her head – a little awkwardly, the gesture clunky for someone unaccustomed to doling out affection. Still, Jean relaxed a bit, looking more at home than she had for the past month that she had been living at the mansion for.

“And who’s being cryptic now? Cut to the chase,” Erik snapped, Emma smiling emptily.

“Well, we’re telepaths, Sugar. It’s easier for us to show you. We’ve felt how he felt, and maybe if you do too, you’ll understand why he did it.”

Erik opened his mouth, and before he could say the words in his mind, Emma let out a biting laugh.

“Stay out of my head?” Emma echoed, drawing the words from Erik’s mind, Jean wincing. “You see, that line worked on your pet telepath, and maybe a little too well. But I am not so principled. Maybe that’s why I’m still here, and he’s up there.”

“Stop this nonse-”

“Jean, Sugar. Let me help you. This is how you show them,” Emma said, gently touching the back of Jean’s head, the girl’s eyes closing as the teddy bear dropped from her hands, which rose in front of her.

And then, through Charles’s eyes, everyone saw why.

***

Charles stood in the middle of the packed room, the bow tie around his neck wound too tight and the starch in his shirt like a vice. He was short, short for the nine-year-old boy that he was, and he stood stiffly between his mother and father as they greeted their guests.

Charles had been nursing a headache all morning, and he was a little woozy from all of the painkillers his mother had plied him with, because no matter what he had to show up to the Xavier Foundation’s gala. It would be terribly rude if the Xaviers’ only son played hooky, when all of their guests would be bringing their own children. And, if Sharon was going to show everyone who held all the cards, Charles had to be on his best behaviour and show everyone exactly what a Xavier son was all about.

But the painkillers hadn’t helped with the buzzing in Charles’s head, which had only gotten louder and louder as more people piled into Westchester.

Charles let out a gasp as his mind twinged.

‘… up straighter, stupid, quit slouching.’

The words were in his mother’s voice, but she was talking to the councilwoman with her painted lips right now, wasn’t she? Just as Charles thought this, he felt his mother pinch at the flesh at his back.

‘Goddammit, did I give him too much? I gave him less than the adult dose, but…’

Charles swayed on his feet slightly, but not because of the drugs. His head felt like it was splitting, the buzzing turning into a muttered chorus of noise.

‘… Charles looks so ill. I told Sharon that we should let him rest. I’ll finish greeting the guests, and before my address I’ll tuck Charles into bed...’

Charles heard his father’s voice, leaning into its comforting timbre. Charles felt a spike of alarm, his father’s hand suddenly coming to rest at his back as Charles swayed.

‘… was that…?’

Charles bit back a pained moan as his head pulsed again.

‘… have to talk to Brian Xavier…’

‘Funding…’

‘No one’s looking, maybe I can nick that statuette now…’

‘God, she looks fat in that dress.’ ‘She’s skinny like a Jew fresh out of…’ ‘Oh dear Lord, he actually dared to bring his mistress to this?’

The voices picked up, more and more tumbling over one another, each wave barely breaking before the next washed over Charles who gasped for breath and drowned.

‘Oh, Xavier’s boy is an adorable lad, isn’t he? Looks like his mother, not much like his father. So that’s Sharon’s kid? Hmph, doesn’t look like much. Won’t fill his father’s shoes, eh? Once his father dies, he’ll inherit everything. Lucky bastard. John is the same age as that Xavier kid. Maybe I should push them to become friends. Friends in high places will get my son anywhere. Fuck, Sharon still looks as fit as she did in school. Damn. Good God, Brian’s boy looks white as a sheet. Why is he looking at me like that? Weird kid. God, watch where you’re going, you little shit. I would wring your neck, but that would get me out of Brian’s good graces and I need his sponsorship. Once Brian is out of the picture, everything will be mine for the taking, and then Cain… Jesus, that Xavier kid looks like he’s about to spew. Crazy kid. Weird. Something’s wrong with him. Is he sick? Maybe he really is a freak.’

Charles gasped, stepping out from his father’s concerned embrace and racing up the stairs, past the crowds and mental gazes and hurtling into his bedroom. He whimpered with his hands over his ears as he slowly sunk to the ground and crawled under his bed, breaths laboured.

I’mnocrazyI’mnotcrazyI’mnotcrazy.

Getoutgetoutgetout.

***

Charles looked up at his mother, who returned his gaze with a look of pure horror and terror and a plethora of other things.

‘Oh God, he’s no listening to me right now, is he?’

Charles kept his mouth shut, giving his mother a false smile, as if he didn’t hear her.

“Mother, can we eat at that restaurant with the dessert that they light on fire tonight?” Charles asked innocently, his mother’s painted mouth twisting up into a stiff grin.

“Of course, dear. I’ll get one of the staff to ring the restaurant.”

‘Maybe he didn’t hear. Maybe he doesn’t know that…’

“Father won’t be coming, will he?” Charles said, Sharon’s face faltering.

‘Oh God, how do I tell him?’

“Oh, it’s alright, Mother. I already know. And I know that you’re sad, and I’m sad too. Which is why we should eat at that restaurant, because it makes you happy,” Charles said quietly, shuffling forward and placing his hand over his mother’s own, which froze.

‘Oh God, how could he know? He must be reading my mind now, he must. Oh God, don’t read my mind, don’t, don’t, don’t!’

Sharon pulled her hand out from under her son’s smaller one like he burned her, getting up from her chair and picking up her glass of wine with her, smoothing her dress as if she could flatten her fraying nerves.

“How thoughtful of you, Charles. But maybe… maybe not tonight. I’m very… tired.”

‘You’re not,’ Charles thought to himself as he looked at his mother, who looked everywhere but at him.

You’re just scared of me.

***

“Charles, can you just, you know, stay out for once?” Raven huffed, rolling her eyes. Charles flinched, but the movement was so minute it was barely noticeable.

“Raven, it’s not that easy to just-” Turn it off.

“Or you’re just lazy,” Raven countered, rolling her yellow eyes. “Charles, I get that when we were kids for you to stay in my head all the time, but you can shield better now and I need my privacy! I’m 16, for Christ’s sake!”

“I’m trying, Raven, but I can’t just turn it off! It takes a lot of concentration to shut people out, and it’s really hard when there are lots of people and you think loudly and it’s feels better for me to just focus on one mind and you’re the only one I-”

“But you can’t just be in my head all the time, Charles! It’s my mind! My thoughts! Just because you can read them doesn’t mean that you can do it any time you want!”

“I know that, Raven, but I told you it’s hard to-”

“You promised me you wouldn’t read my mind without my permission!”

“And I kept that promise, but sometimes I slip!”

“Oh, right,” Raven said, scoffing a little. “You just ‘slipped’ and found out that Robbie kissed me the other day while I was pretending to be Cecilia and gave me shit for it? Suuuure.”

“That was… an accident. I wasn’t… I wasn’t searching for that, but you were thinking really loudly about how his lips felt and-”

“Oh, gross! Stay out of my head, Charles! I don’t want you to hear my thoughts!” Raven yelled, face scrunching up in disgust as Charles pulled his mind back, the swell of his powers naturally following his heightened agitation.

“Sorry! It’s… I… God, sorry, okay? I’ll stay out of your head, just… try to think less loudly. Please,” Charles sighed tiredly, Raven huffing.

“I don’t think loudly, you’re just too nosy for your own good, Charles.”

But you do think loudly, because your mind is so bright and special and you’re my sister and I want to be with you forever because you’re the only one that doesn’t think that I’m a freak. Because we’re the same.

We’re the same.

Even if you don’t think it, sometimes.

***

Charles watched through Shaw’s eyes as Erik’s hands slowly brought the helmet down over his head. The sharp cut of its opening made Erik look like a completely different person, not like the man that murmured sweet German words to the skin at the base of Charles’s neck, or the man that had draped his coat over Charles’s shoulders when he had dozed off in the passenger seat of the car.

Charles didn’t know who this was, because this person didn’t have a mind. He was just a void, a void that Charles loved but one that didn’t love him back, because he couldn’t stand the thought of Charles being in his head.

But Charles loved Erik’s mind. It made Charles feel safe, protected and warm, and… well, Charles didn’t have a word for it. At least, not in the English language. Maybe there was a word for it in other languages, but Charles had to settle for safe, protected and warm.

Charles didn’t want to do much more than to just curl up in a corner of that mind he so adored. He just wanted to lie there in front of the fireplace; he didn’t want to stoke the fire burning within it, or snuff it out. He just wanted to bask in its glow that thawed all of the chill from within Charles’s bones.

Still, Erik’s mind didn’t want him there. He had known it, in the subtle walls Erik had been building against him, in the way Erik’s mind would push back when he felt Charles taking up too much space. In the way the fireplace turned into an inferno and burned.

With the helmet, though, it just felt cold. Empty. And that was somehow worse, because Charles was sure that this was what Erik wanted. Because of the helmet, Charles knew that Erik didn’t want him, because to want Charles was to want his mind, because that was as much a part of him as his heart, his eyes, his mouth. It was written in his genes, and Charles knew how much Erik loved the powers of others; he was in awe over Raven’s abilities, proud of how Sean had learned to fly, impressed at the destructive power of Alex’s plasma blasts, and genuinely supportive of Hank’s new appearance.

And yet, Erik put on the helmet, because in the end, he didn’t accept Charles’s gift.

Charles thought that maybe, maybe, Erik would be like his own father. That, like Brian, he’d accept all of him, because even if not out of love, it was out of the goodness of his heart. Because Charles knew there was good there, even as much as Erik tried to deny it. Charles had felt it, had believed in it.

He’d still believe in it. Maybe it’ll just take more time.

Just a bit more.

Charles wouldn’t push him so much, Charles could stay out of his mind if he could. He just had to try harder.

And –

Oh God. The coin. Oh, no, Erik. Erik! No, no, oh, God, please stop. Please, please, please. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Oh God, too much, it’s too much! It hurts too much!

I just want it to end.

***

Charles placed down his cards, a smirk on his face as he chuckled, gathering the chocolates they were using as betting chips and popping one in his mouth.

“Four of a kind,” the telepath said smugly through a mouthful of sweetness, Raven groaning and throwing down her cards while Alex swore. Darwin just smiled, Angel rolled her eyes and Sean stared at his own cards, confused. Erik, on the other hand, just quirked a brow as he let his losing full house drop to the table by the paperclips that he used to hover them in front of his face.

“We should ban you from poker, Charles. Or just card games in general. You have an unfair advantage,” Erik teased, the chocolate on Charles’s tongue suddenly tasting bitter.

“Right?” Raven chimed, clapping her blue hands in agreement. “It’s been like this ever since we were kids! It’s unfair! He can just, you know, mind shazam us and win every time!” Raven gestured at her head and stuck her tongue out, Charles’s brow creasing.

“I’m not cheating. I’m not even trying to read your minds. I’m blocking everything out, I promise – it’s no fun if it’s that easy. I can’t help it if I get a general sense of disappointment or excitement coming through, but it’s not as if I read your mind to find out your cards. Erik has beaten me before,” Charles said, voice quiet, pushing the chocolates in front of him around with his fingers.

“Yeah, only because he’s the best at blocking you out,” Raven said, Erik snorting.

“And because he is expressionless normally, so his normal face is already a poker face,” Sean said, yelping as a paper clip collided with the centre of his forehead, likely leaving a little welt.

“I’m really not trying to read your minds,” Charles pushed again, but by that point Raven had shuffled the cards, dealing out the next hand. Charles looked at his cards – a useless lot – and felt Erik looking at him from the side.

“Don’t peek, Charles,” Erik said, Charles rolling his eyes and pushing down the sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I told you, I’m not. And, anyway, I’m done for tonight. I’m quite tired, so I’m going to take a bath first.”

Throwing his cards down, Charles got up from his seat, giving everyone a polite ‘good night’ smile before leaving the room.

Before he could leave, though, he heard Raven’s triumphant “Ah ha!” as she flipped over his discarded cards.

‘See? He had a dud hand – he probably left because he saw I had a royal straight flush!’

***

Charles was asleep, he knew it, but he also knew that this dream wasn’t the same as usual. Like thoughts, dreams had their own personal signature, and this one didn’t feel like one of his own.

Someone spoke, wearing a dark suit adorned with metallic pins. They weren’t speaking English – German? Polish? Something of the sort.

Ah, Erik’s dream, then.

Charles, in sleep, took a little longer to gather his thoughts, and was about to eject himself out of Erik’s mind when he saw him. He was younger than the Erik Charles knew, but could recognise him from the unchanging severe brow and auburn hair, and his memory of the serene vision he had unearthed for Erik that day they had moved the satellite dish.

Young Erik, with the mind of Charles’s Erik, looked frantic as he was ushered into a room where Shaw was sitting, looking similar but different to the man on the Cuban beach. An image of how Erik viewed him as a child. This is an old dream, then. Or nightmare, Charles deduced, since he could feel the beginnings of panic settling into Erik’s subconscious.

Charles’s heart ached as he saw Young Erik bite his lip in fear when Shaw ordered him to move the coin. Charles stood there behind him, his presence not yet known, and watched as Erik’s mother trembled, gun pressed to her temple.

‘No, no, not again, not again. I’ve killed you, you’re gone, but why are you still-’ Erik’s mind whirled as he raised both hands, child-sized and shaking. In his dream, his powers were cut off, and Charles could feel his fear spiralling out of control.

Charles had told Erik that Shaw’s death would not bring him peace, and it hadn’t. It had made him feel more secure, of course, knowing that a madman like Shaw was no longer in the world, but he was not at peace. This nightmare only proved it.

‘But, maybe I can help bring you peace, my friend,’ Charles thought to himself, stepping forward in Erik’s dream space. Charles moved to stand beside Erik, who finally noticed his presence, eyes growing wide.

“Rage and serenity, my friend,” Charles said softly, gently touching Erik’s cheek, and then his temple. “Remember.”

Charles wrapped his mind around Erik’s, soothing out the fear and the panic, tweaking and repaving the path the nightmare usually followed. Erik’s small hands flexed, and unlike every other time he had experienced this dream, the coin moved.

But Charles only influenced that part, and didn’t stop Erik from moving the coin through Shaw’s head, making Charles scream.

At that point, Erik and Charles both woke with a start, the German pushing himself away from Charles who had been pressed against his side.

“Were you in my head, Charles? Did you see?” Erik said, voice strained, eyes narrowed.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Stay out, Charles. I don’t want you in there, to see that. I… Just… Stay out. Please,” Erik said, voice drained. Charles nodded, another apology on the tip of his tongue like they always were when it came to this.

‘I just wanted to help. I’m sorry,’ Charles said to no one but himself, and when Erik opened his arms to let Charles nestle himself there again, Charles tried not to think about it for much longer.

But if there was one mind Charles couldn’t control, it was his own.

***

‘I’m tired.’

That was something Charles thought more and more often lately. Not tired like the way Sean is after watching too much television, or Alex from overexerting himself in the underground bunker. No, Charles very soul was tired; he had nothing left, really. All of the exuberance he had on the outside was but a façade now, a shadow and caricature of what he used to be. Of what everyone thought he was.

But he was tired. It wasn’t one big event that had wiped out his fire and his light. It was just a series of little things, of small comments, of mental walls and nudges away. It was in the wary gazes of the people around him, the frequent and unbidden ‘oh, crap, is he listening right now?’ that people couldn’t hold back even if they tried.

It was the way people could never really trust Charles, because whatever he said, it was probably said because he knew that’s what they wanted to hear, right? Because they wanted to hear that he didn’t listen to their thoughts, and for the most part Charles hadn’t. But like everyone, he slipped, and would catch a thought as if they had said it out loud, and because to him it was like they had spoken it, he would respond and the immediate backlash of ‘I thought you said you’d stay out of my head, Charles,’ would snap him back into focus.

Charles had been tired for a while now, and he wasn’t ready just yet, but he was preparing. He was beginning to say goodbye, in ways that wouldn’t let people catch on to him.

But, how could they? They weren’t telepaths.

Charles had spent time with every one of his family – because they were family to him, now – before that winter’s night. He helped them coax out more of their gifts, and praised and encouraged them to continue on their journeys. They had smiled at him, thanked him for his advice, and gone on their way, while Charles too slowly trudged on towards his final destination.

Saying goodbye to Raven had been hard. Charles had almost cried, and Raven had given him a questioning look, but Charles just shook his head, kissing his sister’s hand.

“No, it’s nothing. It’s just… you’ve grown up so well, and so beautiful. I don’t think I say it enough. But I’m proud of you, always. Don’t forget that,” Charles said, Raven rolling her eyes, though her mouth broke into a smile as Charles hugged her tightly.

And Erik.

God, Erik.

Charles had, at one point, envisioned a future with Erik. He imagined how they’d be years into the future, grey, wrinkled and old. Charles imagined Erik losing his hair, but somehow finding that imagined version of the German attractive nonetheless, and snorted at the idea of it being the other way around – Charles was fond of his hair, after all.

Charles imagined them still living in Westchester, but with a large rabble of children running about their knees, powers dancing from their fingertips. He pictured a middle-aged Erik resting his head across Charles’s lap as they read together, or the two jetting off to Paris and Germany, to visit where Erik had grown up.

Charles imagined years of Erik making him cups of tea, of kissing Erik, holding Erik, loving Erik. The fantasies and wishes came so easily, one after the other, a series of ‘what could be’ and ‘if only’.

Charles imagined waking up next to Erik every day for the rest of his life, and, he supposed, he had gotten that until the very end at least.

Charles touched his lips softly, smiling at the memory of how Erik’s mouth felt against his for the very last time, and carried that feeling with him as he climbed onto the ledge of the highest balcony. The wind rippled through Charles’s pyjamas and made him teeter on the stone edge, hands outstretched for balance.

The wind threaded through his spread fingers, coaxing, holding his hand.

One last time, Charles closed his eyes and cast his power out. He touched on the sleeping minds of Hank, Sean, Angel, Darwin, Alex, Raven and Erik, pressing a disguised ‘thank you, and good bye’ against each and every one of them, before letting himself tip forwards, weightless.

And Hank had been right – he hadn’t felt a thing.

***

Emma took her hand off the back of Jean’s head, and instead hefted the girl up as she leaned into Emma’s side with exhaustion after projecting what she had seen in the brief moment she had connected with Charles’s mind. Her youthful face was slick with tears, as were those of all of the others in the room – even Emma’s eyes were glassy as she felt everything Charles had felt, like she had lived through those moments herself.

“Oh, oh, Charles,” Raven sobbed, hand flying over her mouth as she cried, legs shaking. “I didn’t… I didn’t know…”

Erik stood eerily still, mouth slightly parted, though not a single breath passed between his lips. A single tear teetered over the edge of his burning eyes, sliding down a pale cheek as the echoes of Charles’s silent agony rippled through him.

Had he done that?

To Charles?

He had made Charles feel like that?

Charles, who had done nothing less than make him feel loved, cherished, safe – Gemütlichkeit. Charles, who had given him a home, a purpose, a reason to live that was more than just revenge. Charles, who had never told him how it all made him feel, how Erik made him feel.

But why would he? Erik had never wanted to listen. He had never asked.

He had always assumed Charles just knew, that if Charles wanted Erik to ask, or to know something, he would just make him. But that wasn’t Charles, was it? Out of all the people in the world, the gift of telepathy had been given to Charles. Charles who, like no one else, wouldn’t use his powers for his own selfish gain – to hurt others, to control them. Charles, whose powers taught him the value of free thought, of organic feelings, of everything that was real, had been the one given that gifts.

Charles had no ulterior motives, nothing more than the simple, basic feeling of wanting to be close to people he cared about, in the way that he knew best. While others held the people they loved close in their arms, Charles embraced them with his mind. That was what Gemütlichkeit was for him. It’s just that no one could understand it.

No one took the time to understand him, because they just pushed him away.

Erik pushed him away.

Erik, who should have been the person to hold him close, to tell him “You’re not alone, Charles, you’re not alone”. But instead of that, every time Erik told Charles to stay out of his head he had been alienating him, pushing him to isolation, making him feel unwanted, like he had felt all his life.

And it had driven Charles to… to…

Charles, Charles, Liebling. Gott. What have I done?

Erik’s heart twisted, and the pain was as physical as it was emotional, the man crumpling to the floor.

“I never told him,” Erik said, voice raw. “I never… I assumed he knew, so I never said it. Any of it. I never told him that I…”

That I love him. That he’s everything. That I only started living when I met him. That he was home. That he was Gemütlichkeit itself.

“So, now you see,” Emma said, tugging Jean towards her, the young girl hugging Emma around the waist. “So, before you accuse me – us,” Emma said, looking down at Jean, “of plundering your mind for no other reason than to pluck out your inane thoughts for the fun of it, just remember that this is how we are. To us, thoughts are like air, the stretch of our minds like lungs expanding. We don’t choose to read your thoughts – we choose not to. And it’s hard to block thoughts out. That’s what you don’t understand. For that Professor of yours to block you out most of the time takes a great deal of concentration, concentration that I, and young Jean here, don’t have.”

A note of anguish clawed its way out of Erik’s throat and he struggled to breathe.

Charles, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, forgive me. Please, come back. I need to tell you, all the things I never said. The things I should have said, every day. You have to hear them, you can hear them in my mind, whenever you want. Whenever you need it.

Please.

 “You said you heard him, heard C-Charles,” Raven said through a hiccup. “Let us talk to him. We have to tell him… Everything. That we’re sorry, for everything.”

Erik pulled his eyes from the ground, looking at Emma, who just shook her head, wry smile gracing her features.

“Trust me, if I could, I would – as much as I loathe to admit it, I’m not powerful enough to reach the astral plane yet, not like your telepath. And who knows where he is now, floating around up there in the astral plane, without a care in the world. Even if I could, would you really want me to? To take him away from that place, where he wants to be, just because you want it?”

Emma’s words weighed on everyone, and after a long stretch of silence, Emma sighed.

“I didn’t only come here to make you feel guilty, although I can’t say I regret it. Even if I don’t agree with everything he stood for, and even if he was a naïve fool with a bleeding heart, he was no coward. And he was a telepath, and what he wanted – one of his final wishes – was to make a place where telepaths are accepted. Complete and fully. And I can’t say I disagree with that wish,” Emma said, Erik blinking.

“What do you mean?”

“That wasn’t really a riddle, Sugar,” Emma said, patting Jean on the shoulder. “I’m saying that I’ll help you build that school you’ve started. You’re going to need me, if you’re going to find any one. Now, he said that the machine, what was it called again – Spanish for brain, he said – would need to be recalibrated, but I should be able to operate it with a little practice.”

“And,” Emma continued, smirking. “You’re all doing a terrible job at making Jean here feel at home. If you’re going to start making telepaths feel like they’re accepted as much as your blue skin and wings are, you’re going to need me.”

‘But you’re not Charles-’

“I know, Sugar,” Emma said, voice softening just a touch. “Trust me, I know. But, in the fleeting moment he pressed into my mind, he did tell me to say one thing to you.”

Erik’s heart hammered as Emma walked closer after making sure Jean wasn’t going to collapse in a heap, raising her hands questioningly. When Erik let her place her fingers on either side of his head, Erik shuddered as he felt her telepathic touch filter in. Her touch was cold, so different from the all-enveloping warmth of Charles’s mind.

But then, as Emma pushed the feeling and image of Charles into Erik’s mind – Charles, smiling that damned smile which lit up rooms and minds and hearts, fingers carding through his hair – he couldn’t help but loose a sob.

Alles ist gut, Erik.

Alles ist gut.

But it wasn’t.

Not in the dark.

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #x-men #marvel #professor x #magneto #mystique #ao3 #poor charles #i like to hurt

[sareyen]

Turn off the light (Cherik)

Read on ao3

Warning: major character death, implied/referenced suicide

For some reason, people thought that Charles's telepathy was like turning a light on and off. That, if he wanted to rummage around someone's head, he would just flick a switch and dive in to his heart's content, and once he was done, he could tug on the switch and be just like everyone else.

But telepathy wasn't like a light to be turned on and off. It was more akin to breathing. Like how everyone's lungs filled with air, doing what was natural for them, Charles's mind breathed in thoughts like it was meant to. In the same way that you can hold your breath, straining as you do so, Charles's mind was the same; he could block you out, but he would need to concentrate to do it, because if he didn't, his mind would do what it naturally would. Breathe.

So, when people told him 'Get out of my head, Charles' or 'Stop reading my thoughts, Charles', they didn't realise that they were telling him to suffocate.

But that was the way it has always been, and likely the way things will always be. That wasn't to say that things haven't come a long way with time. Mutants were beginning to be accepted in the world; Raven walked around azure and scaled, Hank went to the library furry and blue, and Angel let her wings unfurl when she wanted to stretch them without a second thought. Even Erik often walked down busy streets with his metal coin twirling and hovering over his palm, so naturally, so at ease. Mutant and proud, as they say.

Everyone always smiled when they saw other mutants embrace their powers in Genosha, and yet, when Charles answered their silent thoughts that wondered about what was on the menu for dinner, or if they had any milk left in the fridge, their smiles would turn into small frowns and the walls inside their minds would clam up. They didn't need to say it, but the barbs around their minds said enough; 'Stay out, Charles'.

The thing about telepathy was that, in the right time and place, it was something to inspire awe; when they needed to unearth Shaw's plans from Emma Frost's mind, Charles telepathy was a gift. Convenient. Erik asked him to wield it, to embrace it, and he had kissed him once they returned back home and murmured "You were amazing, Charles. What you did was amazing," against the telepath's mouth. But then, in Cuba, Erik had shut him out. Inconvenient. At the wrong time and place, telepathy was something abhorred, unwanted, feared.

You see, this is how it has always been. Since their youth, Raven had always complained about how Charles had made her hide her blue skin and yellow eyes, about how unlike Charles and Erik whose shells could pass off as human, they would never accept her. But now, she was walking around in her natural skin and thriving, and Charles was happy for her. He told her so without moving his mouth, and Raven had huffed, reminding him that he had promised to stay out of her head. It was funny how people never seemed to realise that it wasn't only humans that didn't accept telepaths, but mutants too.

Family, too.

And Charles was tired - tired at being told not to breathe, to stifle himself, to constantly tread on eggshells with all of his muscles tensed in order to hold everything that was natural in. It was hard to hold his mental breath when there were people around telling him to just turn the switch off, so it was only natural for Charles to begin withdrawing himself in favour of finding quiet places where it was just him and his mind, the only one in the world that seemed to want him in it. For someone whose powers let him spend time in the minds of others, Charles spent an awful amount of it wallowing inside his own.

Like how Genosha was a safe haven for mutants, these quiet pockets of solitude were something similar for Charles, though the library in the middle of the night or the secluded bench at the edge of the vast Westchester gardens were more hiding places than a safe haven. When Charles was alone in these hideaways, he could breathe a bit more easily; he could let his mind stretch out, mental muscles cracking after being cramped and contorted into a small locked box for a long time. He didn't have to be fearful of overstepping the boundaries placed around him or feeling the mental backlash of rejection and wariness directed at him if he did, and he didn't have to exhaust his energy trying to keep it all inside. It was at these times that Charles could replenish his energy before, when morning broke, he had to stop breathing again, so everyone else could breathe easy.

It was harder to find time to rest these days, though. Before, Charles had the space inside his bedroom to let his thoughts roam free. But now that Erik spent the nights pressed against Charles's back, breath gently fanning against his skin as he breathed steadily and deeply, Charles could not rest. During sleep, Charles couldn't keep a hold on his telepathy, and the first night Charles had subconsciously dipped into Erik's dream - or nightmare, really. Flashes of Shaw, of Auschwitz, of death and pain and intimate agony had made Erik startle awake at the feeling of Charles's mental presence, scuttling across the bed in a cold sweat.

"Were you in my head, Charles? Did you see?" Erik had churned out, almost accusingly. Charles had nodded in the dark, apologising instantly - because that was what he always did, apologise. 

Charles sometimes wondered why he always felt the need to apologise. Raven never apologised for walking around naked in her skin, or Erik for making the metal rattle when he got excited. And yet, Charles apologised for breathing, again and again and again.

Still, Charles apologised, over and over, and assured Erik that he would try harder to stay out of his head. Erik accepted that, though Charles could feel the apprehension waft off him in waves, and the two settled back under the covers once again. Erik soon drifted to sleep, arm loosely draped over Charles's stomach, but the telepath couldn't quite fall back into unconsciousness as easily, knowing that the moment his eyes closed his mind would slip back in to where it was not wanted.

Charles let himself enjoy the warmth of Erik's body curled around his until the metallokinetic slipped off into the world of dreams, the telepath sliding out from their shared covers and walking around the quiet mansion to find a pocket of silence. The library always worked, and Charles settled down on a plush settee and draped a thin blanket over his body, letting himself rest for a few moments in the pitch black darkness.

Sometimes, albeit rarely, Charles would curl up and press his head against the pillow on the settee and cry. He would cry because he was exhausted, because everything hurt, because it was so dark without the lights on and because he can't just turn it off. These nights would remind Charles of when he was younger, when he didn't understand what was going on and just wanted the voices in his head to stop. Back then, he had wanted them to stop because he was scared, but now, he wanted them to stop because everyone else was scared. 

When people asked him why he looked so tired lately, blue eyes shadowed by dark circles and exhaustion, and why it seemed like he wasn't around as much any more, Charles just laughed and shrugged it off, making up excuses. He said he was dead on his feet because he read books late into the night, that he was working on yet another thesis, that he was finding more people like them with Cerebro, because these days that was the only time people would say 'Your power, the things it can do are amazing, Charles'. He didn't tell them that he couldn't sleep because when he did, he couldn't turn it off, and if he didn't turn it off everyone's thoughts got too loud because he was too loud and they wanted him to stay out, out, out.

Charles never told them because they never wanted to hear it, and they never thought to find out because 'well, we're not the telepath here, are we, Charles', so no one knew that, on one winter's night, Charles figured out how to turn off the light. Erik had settled into bed first, sleepily mumbling "Aren't you coming to bed, Charles?", the telepath smiling down at him and pressing a kiss to his forehead. He told Erik that yes, he'll sleep soon, the metallokinetic grunting as Charles kissed him again, before turning off the lights and slipping from the room.

Charles wore his silk pyjamas as he trekked slowly down the silent halls in the dark, ignoring the shiver of the biting winter cold when he opened the french doors to one of the many balconies of Westchester. His bare feet smarted against the icy stone, his freckled nose turning red as he breathed in and out, white puffs curling into the night air.

For some reason, people thought that Charles's telepathy was like turning a light on and off. That, if he wanted to rummage around someone's head, he would just flick a switch and dive in to his heart's content, and once he was done, he could tug on the switch and be just like everyone else.

But telepathy wasn't like a light to be turned on and off. It was more akin to breathing. Charles could hold his breath for a short while, but there was really only one way to stop breathing completely, wasn't there?

So, like that, Charles turned off the light.

Read the sequel here → ‘It’s hard to see in the dark’

#cherik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #X-men #marvel #ao3 #professor x #magneto

[sareyen]

The Price of Hope (Cherik): Part 4/4

Read on ao3

Legion (2010) AU: The apocalypse is coming, and the key to humankind’s survival lies in a pregnant waitress and a rag-tag group of strangers, all broken in their own ways. Charles, the oldest of the archangels, sacrifices everything - his wings, his Gift, Erik - to help the humans that Heaven has given up on. Because, he believes, that even if they stumble and lose their way, it doesn’t mean that they are lost forever.

Chapter 4

“…for they cannot die anymore,

because they are equal to angels and are sons of God,

being sons of the resurrection.”

Luke 20:36

“Oh, God,” Moira said, watching as liquid began to drip from beneath Raven’s skirt. “Oh, God. Does anyone know how to deliver a baby?!”

For some reason, everyone immediately turned to Charles, too used to the angel having all the answers. Charles looked as blank as they did, though, and it was then that they realised that angels weren’t born the same way as humans.

Suddenly, Angel brushed past the group consisting of frozen humans and an angel, kneeling beside Raven and hoisting her to her shaky feet.

“Calm down, everyone, Jesus – no offence,” Angel said, turning to Charles who just shook his head. “I’ve delivered a baby before. One of the… girls got pregnant, and I had to… Anyway. We need to get her to the couch in the staff room. Sean, get us some cool cloth and a bucket of water. Moira, try to find some clean towels, and something for Raven to bite on. And Hank… just follow me for moral support.”

Hank looked pale and drawn, but nodded, following Angel and Raven while everyone else sprang into action.

“This is not what I’m trained for,” Logan said curtly, muttering that he’ll keep watch from the roof, Alex saying the exact same thing and following him there. Darwin made himself busy preparing food, since he figured everyone was going to need their sustenance, considering Raven was about to give birth to the saviour of humankind and they had just fended off the backwater diner from a second invasion of angel-possessed vessels.

Soon, Charles was left alone in the front of the diner. It was far from silent – everyone could hear Raven’s screams through the closed door of the staff room and there was the sizzle and clatter of pans as Darwin cooked in the kitchen, but Charles’s mind itself was deathly quiet.

Slowly, Charles cleared a space in the centre of the diner, pushing away debris and shell casings with his feet, which were still bare and red with cuts and welts, blackened with dirt and soot. His feet were far from their usual milky white and smooth appearance, and Charles had only seen himself so covered in muck once before, a time long, long ago, when someone else had hated humans with every fibre of their being.

Charles had fought against that person to protect these humans back then, but it had been so very, very different. Charles had his wings, for one.

And back then, he had not stood alone.

Charles softly lowered himself to his knees, buried in the silence, and closed his eyes before tilting his head up to Heaven.

‘I know You have taken away my Gift, and I know that You do not want to hear what I have to say, but I will say it anyway. Please let this child live. Please let them all live. There is still good in them, I’ve seen it. Feel it. I feel it, here and now. So please, give them another chance.’

Charles paused, sucking in a breath as the wind seemed to whistle at the walls of the diner.

‘But if you don’t give them a chance, then I will forge one myself with the power I have left. I will prove to you that they are worthy of their existence, because the people here – Moira, Logan, Alex, Sean, Darwin, Angel, Hank, Raven – their hearts are pure.’

‘They are proof that hope is not lost.’

The wind picked up for a brief second, battering at the windows. Then, all was silent once more, and Charles believed that to be His answer.

‘Very well. You will send him then, won’t you. Is that kindness? Or cruelty? Sometimes Your will still confuses me.’

Charles’s eyes then opened when a chorus of cries erupted from behind the closed doors, and Charles knew, even before Moira had rushed out with frantic elation, that the child had been born.

“What’s his name?” Charles asked as he walked in to see Raven sitting up on the couch, drenched in sweat and thighs reddened with the evidence of the birth, a weary but resolute smile on her pretty face.

“Kurt,” Raven murmured, looking at Hank, whose arm was draped over her shoulders protectively.

“Kurt,” Charles echoed, tongue wrapping around the name.

“Not angelic enough for you?” Raven asked, raising a brow, finding the energy to tease through the grips of her exhaustion.

“No,” Charles said, lip curling. “It’s not angelic at all. It’s very human, and that’s why it’s perfect.”

Everyone in the room shared a smile, until there was the crack of thunder outside, startling everyone. Logan and Alex rushed down from the roof, Darwin popping his head in as thunder clapped and lightning arced through the sky.

For some reason, everyone thought they could hear the thump of drums and a chorus of trumpets, carried by the thunder and the wind.

“He’s coming,” Charles whispered, heart twisting. “You have to go. Now.”

“Who’s coming?” Logan asked, already beginning to lift his gun, Charles’s voice grave.

“The possessed can’t touch the child, now that he has been born. He is… sacred. Bu He has sent someone who can harm the child,” Charles murmured, Raven’s eyes growing wide, the young girl clutching her child closer to her chest.

“They’re still going to try and kill Kurt? After he’s been born?” Raven asked, Charles nodding.

“He’s sent him, to finish the job. The job I was originally sent to do,” Charles said, everyone flinching at Charles’s admission that he, as an angel, had been ordered to kill the people sitting on the ratty staff couch in front of him.

“Who, Charles?”

“Someone like me,” Charles said slowly as the thunder grew louder and louder, getting closer and closer.

“You mean another angel?” Hank asked, glasses slipping from his sweaty nose bridge.

“Not a regular angel, not like the ones possessing the vessels,” Charles said, trying to still his trembling hands, balling them into fists. “An archangel. The one that I believe is the strongest of us all.”

And the one I hold most dear.

“An archangel,” Alex said flatly, expression pinched. “So, he’s more powerful than those things outside? More powerful than… you?”

“If I still had my Gift then I could maybe subdue him, but he has God at his back,” Charles said, wounds on his back burning like a brand. “And he has always been strong and unwavering in his convictions.”

And I am too soft-hearted to kill him.

As everyone began to try and digest what Charles had said, the earth began to shake violently – the walls vibrated, plaster and stone turning into dust as cracks split in horizontal lines along the walls. Charles yelled something, but couldn’t be heard over the noise, everyone ducking low for cover as the roof of the diner was lifted clean off its walls, revealing a pitch-black sky cracked with lightning.

The humans screamed as they dropped to their knees, arms over their head to shield themselves from the debris as the roof was levitated off, crumbling to pieces around the diner.

Charles alone stood, eyes trained on the figure hovering in the sky with large, strong wings, face cut with shadows illuminated by the lightning.

Erik looked down at Charles through his war helmet, one that he hadn’t worn since the War in Heaven. Back then, Charles had worn a similar helm, the two side-by-side, wings beating as one.

But now, they stood on opposite sides and moments away from a battle – one that would only end when one of them perished.

Charles was not clairvoyant, for that was solely His power, but he knew the odds. It was not only because of his lack of wings and the loss of his power that he knew that his long existence was likely to end today, but the fact that, even now, Charles could not bear the thought of killing Erik.

Not Erik.

Because Charles was as merciful as he was soft-hearted.

And Erik had always said that would be the end of him.

***

Heaven burned.

Charles should have seen it coming. Yes, he had the gift of minds and not of foresight, but he should have picked up on the unsaid signs festering in Sebastian’s – no, he called himself Klaus now – mind. But Charles had been too trusting of his archangel brothers and sisters and did not see their treachery.

Power. Power had been the impetus, the driving force. Seb- Klaus had been overcome by it and it had corrupted him, for he was surely not born corrupted. He had gifted Klaus with the power to control power, and in Klaus’s egotistical mind he had thought that meant that he was power absolute.

Klaus had long been unhappy with his place in Heaven. He did not like being ordered to do His bidding, he did not like how he was always going to be the second archangel, always after Charles, never the most beloved. Even Charles himself had passed over Klaus for Erik.

And the humans. Klaus spat as his mind uttered the word. Klaus did not understand why the humans were held in such high regard, why they were so loved when they were weak and could break with the snap of his fingers. Klaus did not know why everyone loved the humans more than an archangel like him, an archangel that was the most powerful of all the angels.

So, Klaus waged war on Heaven. He turned a few of the other angels to his side; Emma, who had the Gift to harden her physical body into diamond and the only being able to repel Charles’s Gift naturally. Azazel, who could manifest his corporeal anywhere out of thin air. And Janos, who was a master of the wind.

Klaus had tried to recruit Erik in his rebellion against Heaven, and maybe, maybe, Erik had been momentarily tempted by the idea. Erik had, at first, loved the humans, seeing them through Charles’s eyes. But, over time, he had begun to see that the humans were not deserving of their love.

But then Charles had looked at him with those blue eyes, weeping, and saying that war and death is not the right path. That peace could never come from such a dark and tumultuous campaign. Sitting on their cloud, Charles had pressed his forehead to Erik’s, gently nudging warmth and love and hope through their bond; briefly, Charles had shown Erik the potential of these humans, who were like infants still learning to walk. They were young, so, so young, and should be given another chance.

And how could Erik abandon Charles then? Abandon the humans that Charles held so much faith in? Even if some of the things Klaus lauded resonated within Erik, the desire to protect Charles and their Heaven meant more to him.

Back then, Erik still had hope.

Shaw and the other three archangels swooped in the skies of Heaven, brandishing their weapons as they lay waste to marble buildings and pristine pillars. The lesser angels were no match for the four rebel archangels, and with only Charles, Erik and Selene able to hold them back, Heaven was on fire.

Klaus cackled as he raised his hand, sending a powerful blast towards Charles, who was kneeling on the ground with his fingers pressed against his temple. The angel was already bleeding, red trickling down his forehead and dripping onto his white armour. Charles’s face was strained as he became locked in a mental battle with Emma while trying to coordinate the efforts of the other angels defending their home.

Erik saw Klaus mounting an attack on the momentarily unprotected Charles, letting out a growl and thrusting his hand out, sending the swords of slayed angels hurtling towards Klaus, sharp blades gleaming in the sunlight.

Erik’s display of his might made Klaus grin, the expression making Erik grit his teeth.

“What a waste of your potential, Erik,” Klaus laughed, voice echoing over the screams of his brothers and sisters. “Why do you fight for a hopeless cause? On behalf of those humans who are too weak to fend for themselves?”

Erik did not answer him, just steeled his gaze and raised his arms – metal swirled around him, a tornado of steel and iron rivalling Janos’s, before letting out a yell and sending it spiralling towards Shaw.

Shaw just laughed again, letting the debris collide with his divine form, which rippled and absorbed everything. Suddenly, Shaw released all of the energy Erik’s attack had charged him with, Erik cursing and beating his wings, swooping out of Shaw’s line of fire.

“Erik!” Charles called out, wobbling to his feet as Erik saw Emma’s diamond form turning back into soft flesh and golden hair, her wings freezing as she dropped from the sky. Charles sucked in a tight, exhausted breath after his confrontation with Emma, but forced himself to launch his form into the air to meet Erik.

“Emma?” Erik asked, forcing out the question when all he wanted to do was crush Charles to his chest and wipe away the blood flowing from his wounds.

“I dealt with her. It took a long time to break through her shields, but I only had to find the crack in her defences,” Charles said, dark circles under his eyes despite the small smile he held on his face that was like a ray of sunlight in the darkness.

“And Janos? Azazel?”

“Some of the younger angels have subdued them, using sheer numbers against their power,” Charles said, mind pushing ‘teamwork and family conquers all’. “And, some of the younger angels are quite powerful. Ororo and Jean show great potential.”

“So now it’s only Klaus,” Erik said, Charles nodding. “Charles, he is power itself. How are we supposed to suppress him?”

“That, my friend,” Charles said, pressing his hand against Erik’s leather-clad chest, lighting a fire inside him, “has a simple solution.”

Erik raised a brow as Charles smiled, determination set into his features.

“It’s you and I, Erik. Even Klaus, absolute power, will be rendered obsolete if we work together.”

Charles’s words had been proven true, even if he were not a clairvoyant or future-seer. Klaus fell from Heaven, and his lieutenants punished. Heaven still stood, and Charles and Erik were still an unbreakable force.

At least, until they themselves broke apart.

***

Logan was the first to fire, aiming his sights at Erik who hovered in the air. Erik just smirked as the bullet – metal – bounced off his wings like they were nothing but dust. Erik flicked his wrist, the gun quickly wrenched from Logan’s arms – and everyone else’s – and hurled onto the ground, twisted into a lumps of useless metal and gunpowder.

“Erik!” Charles yelled, rushing forwards, capturing his friend’s attention with a single cry of  his name, so familiar on his tongue. “Don’t do this!”

“You still try protect them, Charles? When you know how this will end?” Erik said coldly, descending from the skies with the beat of his wings. All of the humans gaped at him – they had long believed in Charles’s spiel about angels, but it was different seeing one, wings and all, in the flesh.

“I have hope,” Charles said simply, Erik’s lips pulling back in anger.

“After all they have done? After all of the pain and suffering they have caused?”

“You believe they’re all like those men you’ve seen with darkness in their hearts. But listen to me very carefully, my friend. They are not all without hope. There are good, honest, innocent humans that have been born, that live and breathe on this earth, in this room, right now. Why do you seek to judge them all based on the actions of a few?” Charles asked, stepping closer to Erik, eyes locked. Erik appeared to stiffen as Charles walked closer while discarding his gun with a clatter on the ground.

“We’ve tried it your way, Charles. So many times,” Erik said, letting out a shuddering breath when Charles stepped in closer. Though shorter than Erik, Charles seemed to fill up the space in front of the winged angel. Charles raised his hands, cupping Erik’s cheeks, hindered slightly by his harsh helmet.

“Erik, you once said that our kind is superior,” Charles said, leaning in close enough so he could feel the flutter of Erik’s breath across his cheek. “Now is the time to prove it. Killing them is not the answer, and will not bring the peace you want. Peace does not come with death – it comes with hope.”

Erik was silent, seeming to sway a little in Charles’s embrace, leaning in until their lips almost touched. And maybe they did, for a brief, brief moment, but it was too fleeting to be more than a dream.

“He has lost hope, and as have I,” Erik whispered, raising his hand as Charles screamed hastily.

“Everyone, run!” Charles cried out, using all of his energy to tackle Erik to the ground, the angel surprised by Charles’s sudden movement, the angel and the fallen dropping with a heavy thud.

Charles felt the humans scatter from behind him, grabbing whatever they could and piling into two cars that were parked out the front.

“Charles!” Erik seethed, flipping the two of them over with a beat of his wings, Charles unrelenting in his scrabble for purchase on Erik’s torso, attempting to pin the taller man to the ground.

“I won’t let you hurt them, Erik!” Charles replied, letting out a grunt as Erik pushed him off roughly by the ribs, Charles rolling on the ground. Erik raised a hand, about to pull on the threads of his power to pull the escaping vehicles back when Charles slammed into his body again, fist colliding with his face. Charles let out a pained hiss as Erik’s helmet sliced into his knuckles, red dripping down Charles’s pale arm.

“Charles, I don’t want to hurt you, I’m only here for the child!” Erik said, grabbing onto the back of Charles’s grey coat and wrenching him upwards into the air, throwing Charles against a broken wall. The wind was knocked out of Charles as he dropped to the floor tasting iron on his tongue.

“Well you’re going to have to go through me to get to Kurt,” Charles said, blue eyes growing hot as he picked up a long shard of wood, end jagged and pointed. Erik looked pained, but flicked his wrist, ripping rods of iron from amongst the plaster walls and directing them at Charles, attempting to loop them around the fallen’s wrists to subdue him, for Charles had been stripped of his powers and was no stronger than a human. The thought made Erik want to scream.

Charles dodged Erik’s projectiles, swatting them away with his makeshift wooden weapon and then swung at Erik, the taller angel parrying it with his metal gauntlet easily. Charles did not give up, though, even if his attacks did nothing but make Erik more and more agitated.

When Charles’s wooden weapon collided with Erik’s arm, the man let out a burst of his power, slamming the back of a gun into Charles’s face, sending him flying back with a loud crack.

“Charles, don’t make me hurt you!” Erik growled, pulling out the sword hanging by his waist, the familiar weapon gleaming as he slowly walked over to Charles, whose vision was spinning, his limbs struggling to pull himself up. Charles ached all over, but he had to stand. He had to, to give the humans a chance to get away.

“I… won’t let you… hurt… them,” Charles wheezed out, coughing a little, red spraying from his mouth. Erik shook, the grip around his sword tightening. Charles’s fingers fumbled around, grabbing onto a broken shard of glass, which sliced into his hand as he stood. Charles weakly pushed his body forward, swinging the shard of glass like a dagger, the glass shattering as it met with the hilt of Erik’s sword.

“Why do you make me do this?” Erik asked brokenly, voice shaking as his eyes grew wet. Charles grabbed onto the front of Erik’s armour, trying to pull him back and away from the humans he so desperately wanted to save. God, why does Charles continue to fight when he knows that he will not win?

Charles couldn’t hold himself up on his feet any longer, slumping onto the ground by Erik’s feet. Erik just stared at him, heart shattering as Charles stared up at him, trying to plead with him with those eyes Erik so loved. The eyes that held the colour of the sky, but not now – not with the clouds and the thunder obscuring everything that is bright.

“Charles, you don’t have the strength to stop me,” Erik said quietly, Charles letting out a grieving sob as Erik stepped backwards, towards the direction the humans had fled in. “Charles, wait here. Once I’ve dealt with them, I’ll come back for you. We can plead to Him together, and He will forgive you and we can-”

Suddenly, a bullet slammed itself against Erik’s helmet, ricocheting off the surface. The movement surprised even the metal-bending angel, whose head whipped to the source of the surprise attack.

“Charles!”

Logan, who had been driving, swerved sharply which brought the car to a skidding stop. Moira, who had been the shooter, immediately shot out of the passenger side and fired again.

Sean, Angel, Darwin and Alex got out of the car as well, pulling out their guns and firing.

Leaving Charles to sacrifice himself for their sake had not sit well with the rest of the group, and they had turned their car around after getting Raven and Hank to continue onwards in the second car, to get Kurt as far away as they could. If this angel was after the child, they had to go far, far away, and the rest of the group would do what they could to buy them time.

They knew that they were probably heading towards their deaths by returning, but they knew  that if they didn’t they would die anyway – along with the entire world.

Erik seethed, jerking his hand out and slamming the offending bullet to the ground. Moira’s eyes widened, but she fired again, and again, and again, bullets meeting Erik’s invisible wall, bending to the left, right, upwards. The others began shooting as well, and Erik roared, the bullets crumpling into useless lumps at his feet.

And then, Moira shot again, the bullet travelling directly towards Erik’s face and, instinctively, the angel deflected it downwards.

Erik, through the tingling sense of the metal he controlled, could feel the moment the bullet pierced through something warm and soft before lodging into a solid structure, hard yet brittle. Moira dropped the gun as Logan watched, the hardened man faltering, as a short gasp echoed through the air.

Erik turned his head, just in time to see Charles fall. Erik’s heart plummeted, his vision tunnelling as everything inside him screamed.

Before Erik even registered it he was on his knees, pulling Charles into his arms, sword abandoned on the ground as he tugged on the deflected bullet lodged inside Charles’s body. Erik felt it slip out, far too wet with blood – Charles’s blood – and blunt at the end where it had collided with Charles’s spine after tearing its way through his chest cavity.

Charles’s eyes were wide, mouth open in a silent cry as blood gurgled into his lungs and up his throat.

“Charles, Charles!” Erik yelled, body frozen as he held Charles, not sure what to do because Charles’s chest was rattling unnaturally and his blue eyes were growing dimmer and dimmer, the light in them fading away.

Charles moved his mouth, trying to say something, but could only cough up crimson blood.

Erik then remembered – it was the human who shot this bullet, the bullet that ripped a hole in Charles’s chest. A bullet that was killing Charles.

Erik turned his head towards the woman – Moira – and clenched his fist. The necklace around the woman’s neck constricted and she was lifted up into the air, choked noise lodged in her windpipe as she flailed around with pitiful futility, hands tugging uselessly at the metal wound around her throat.

“You did this,” Erik said, voice thunderous despite its quietness, fist shaking as he squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

Or did I do this to you, Charles?

Suddenly, Erik felt a hand tugging at his raised arm, shaking but determined, though his grip was not as strong as it usually was. Erik’s hand immediately dropped under the weight that pressed down on him.

Charles’s hand squeezed his arm, a plead for Erik to look at him. Erik couldn’t say no, not now, not when Charles – God – Charles was bleeding out in his arms, far too mortal. The man felt like a hollow, flimsy piece of paper in Erik’s embrace, too light without his wings, too empty without his Gift.

“Charles,” Erik said, unable to say anything else. Charles’s forced his mouth to remained closed, lest he begin coughing up blood again, and made his mouth curve up into a gentle smile. Erik’s eyes blurred as he noticed Charles’s skin begin to glow, the man’s body burning up, disappearing.

“No, no, Charles,” Erik chanted, begged. “No, don’t leave me. This isn’t what I wanted. I need you by my side. No, Charles. No. Oh, God, don’t do this. Not Charles. Please, God. No.”

Charles began glowing more and more, his hand rising to cup Erik’s face, before trembling to brush a tender caress across his cheek.

And then, Erik could hear him, that voice nestled inside his head that was so quiet it was almost imaginary.

‘Good bye, old friend.’

***

Charles and Erik had talked about fear, once. A silly human weakness, Erik had always thought.

But deep down, he knew that he feared one thing. He feared it so much that he pushed it down, down, down, to the very depths of his being so that he never thought about it, never considered it. For Erik, pushing it out of his mind meant that it did not exist, and if his one fear did not exist, then he had no fears at all.

But oh, Erik feared. Erik was terrified of one thing, a thing that he never thought could pass; because angels were immortal, and Charles was the oldest and most beloved of them all. Charles, who would never be forsaken by Him, who would always be basked in His light.

Erik, whose sole fear was losing Charles, had his fear realised today.

Erik had been tasked with bringing upon the apocalypse, the end of the world.

Erik hadn’t realised that his world would end with it.

Charles body had burst into a beam of light, so blinding that Erik’s eyes had to close. When they reopened, his arms were no longer full of a man with chestnut hair and ocean blue eyes, a man that smiled up at Erik like he always did, in a way that said ‘It’ll all be alright, my friend’.

But how could things be alright when Charles was gone?

Gone to a place where even Erik could not follow.

And Charles had sacrificed himself for what?

For the humans?

Yes, the humans. The humans who not only took everything away from their own kind, but everything away from Erik.

Erik felt the humans, the humans that killed Charles, move away in a car full of metal. Metal, metal like the bullet I sent into Charles's chest. Erik smiled something terrifying, his teeth clashing as the lightning flashed overhead.

Slowly, Erik stood, stretching his wings before launching into the air, the sound of vengeance singing in his blood.

***

‘Run.’

The humans could hear Charles’s voice in their heads, which was a wholly strange and startling sensation, but one they heeded. Their lives – and humanity’s – depended on it.

“What the fuck do we do?!” Sean screeched as Logan slammed on the accelerator, wheels squealing across the dirt.

“Charles died,” Alex said, followed by a string of curses, gripping onto his gun with one hand and the back of the passenger seat with the other to steady himself, the car lurching down the highway. “What the hell are we supposed to do now that Charles is dead?! He’s the only one who knows what the fuck is happening!”

“Well, as long as Hank, Raven and the baby get away, that means we still have hope, right? That means that we can still stop the apocalypse?” Angel said hastily, everyone giving each other lost glances.

“Charles never explained why Kurt is the key,” Alex said, everyone groaning.

“Maybe he’s the second coming of Christ or something. Who the fuck knows, man?” Sean said. “What I do know is that we have to get the fuck out of here because we’re definitely on the hit list of that angry angel dude!”

Suddenly, the car swerved violently, everyone screaming.

“Logan, what the hell?!” Alex cursed as the car spun, Logan’s rough hands jerking desperately against the steering wheel that seemed to rebel against his commands.

“It’s not me!” Logan growled as the metal of the car rattled violently. The rusted car hummed, the thrumming noise building to crescendo into a loud screeching noise as the car was pulled side to side, like a child playing with a Hot Wheels toy.

“Oh, shit! It’s him! He’s here!” Angel yelled, peering out the back of the car and jerking her hand into the sky.

“What?!”

“Oh, hell no,” Moira grimaced, heart shaking erratically when she saw what Angel was gesturing to – it was that man, Erik, the angel sent to wipe them all out. The angel sent to finish what Charles could not bring himself to do.

“Is he controlling the car?” Darwin shouted over the ringing of the metal.

“Beats me, kid! All I know is that we’ve got to get the hell out of this car. It’s a fucking death trap!” Logan gritted between his sharp teeth, muscles straining to try and regain control of the wayward vehicle that had been pulled off the pot-hole covered asphalt and onto the undulating rolls of sand and dirt of the rural desert.

Logan slammed his feet on the brakes, the car rattling and swerving through the sand.

“We’ve gotta jump!” Logan said, everyone screaming and looking at him with incredulity in their panicked gazes.

“Are you insane?” Angel screamed, the car’s roof suddenly making a grating noise, the centre beginning to punch inwards. The doors of the car rattled, hinges snapping, as the walls of the vehicle began to crinkle like someone was bundling up the car in their fist, a mere can of soda being crushed.

“Oh, God, we’re gonna die!” Sean cried out as Darwin and Alex kicked out the doors, wind rushing inside the car. Moira opened the passenger door while Logan kicked the driver’s side out, adrenaline ripe in the air.

“Jump!” Logan ordered, hurtling himself out of the car, followed by Darwin, Alex and Moira. Sean and Angel both screamed as they threw themselves moments after everyone else, just seconds before the car imploded into an array of metal shards and ignited fuel.

Heat flared from the explosion, which sent a storm of sand and dust erupting into the air, everyone’s vision clouded by red.

Everyone let out pained grunts as they collided with the sand, the tough granules chafing their skin and coating their mouths.

“Everyone alive?” Logan grunted, Darwin raising his hand from where he was half-buried in the sand, Alex letting out an affirmative groan. Sean spluttered sand from his mouth while Angel shook out her coat, Moira shaking her head to get rid of the ringing noise that had slammed into her when she collided with the ground.

The group barely had any time to celebrate their survival when dust plumed up again when something landed hard on the sand.

Angel, who had been pulling herself up, was suddenly slammed face-down into the sand as her legs were tugged backwards out from under her – the force sent the metal zipper on her boots to fly off as she let out a pained noise.

“Oh, shit!” Alex yelled as the dust cleared, revealing an angel with the face of a demon. Rage dripped from every curve on Erik’s body, rippling with anguish and unbridled fury. The angel was beautiful in a way that was terrifying, especially now with the harsh jut of his jaw and the firm lines of his brows and the darkness in his light eyes.

Erik eyed the humans in an almost detached eeriness, and yet heat swirled and rolled inside of him, a brewing storm that needed an outlet. And an outlet he found, raising his shaking hands to pull at the metal hanging from the humans’ bodies – Angel’s boots, the eyelets of Alex’s shoes, Darwin’s belt, Logan’s dog tags, Sean’s bracelets and Moira’s necklace.

All of the humans screamed as the metal around them hoisted them into the air, but the ones with the metal around their necks were only able to scream silently.

Logan, face growing red and veins bulging, gripped at his dog tags and let out a strained grunt as he ripped the chain links apart with his burly hands, dropping into the sand. Logan didn’t bother to suck in a breath as he bolted across the desert, throwing his jacket off to discard the metal of his zipper, lunging at Erik with a roar.

Logan’s arms wound around Erik’s torso, brute force slamming into the avenging angel. Erik thought, for a second, that this human was strong, Logan’s tackle sending Erik and his wings back-first into the sand.

Logan’s efforts made Erik’s attention waver for a moment, his grip on the metal around the other humans faltering enough for them to drop to the ground, hiccupping and gasping for air.

“Get rid of all your metal!” Logan growled as he struggled against Erik in the sand, trying to hurt the angel that just returned his blows with cold amusement, thin lips spreading in a chilling grin.

“Weak,” Erik spat, jerking his wings to conjure up a flurry of sand and air that offset Logan’s hold on him, the man flying backwards in an arc.

“Logan!” Darwin called, rushing to the man who shrugged him off, running towards Erik again.

Erik just watched as the humans struggled – their efforts were pitiful, really. Like watching ants struggling to stay afloat in a pool of water. Erik just watched as they squirmed and tried to unwrite the fate already written for them, but couldn’t quite find the words.

When Logan sprung up, Erik knocked him back with a sheet of metal pulled off the burning car, the man’s head snapping to the side at the force.

After Logan, Darwin tried to subdue Erik, but did not fare any better. Nor did Alex. Nor did Angel. Nor did Sean. And nor did Moira.

Still, Erik kept watching the humans pick themselves up from the sand, not caring that they were covered head to toe in it. Angel tried to circle around Erik to subdue him from behind, but he just snapped his wings back and sent her flipping. Alex swung at him, but Erik swatted him away with the back of his hands without any effort. And Moira, Moira tried shooting at him again, and that made Erik angry. The foolish human clearly hadn’t learnt her lesson the first time, but the first time was already one time too much because Charles…

Charles is no longer here.

Erik watched as the humans squirmed in the sand, still trying to fight him even when it was obvious that they could not win. Erik didn’t know how to feel – he thought he would feel more pleasure in eradicating these humans, but there was this small, inane buzzing at the back of his mind saying ‘There’s more to you, Erik. More than just this pain and anger. There’s good in you, too’.

Erik paused, the humans now struggling to get back up again. It reminded Erik of something Charles had done a long time ago.

“Those with power should protect those without,” Charles had said as he hovered over the body of an injured young boy, whose stepbrother had just pushed him down a gaudy set of stairs in an opulent mansion. The boy’s left leg was twisted unnaturally and he was in so much pain that he even forgot how to cry. The step-brother hovered at the top of the stairs, snivelling down at the injured boy, when Charles turned his eyes to him. The human did not see Charles, of course – no one could see Charles, not unless he wanted them to.

Charles then pressed his fingers over his temple, the boy at the top of the stairs growing still and his face growing slack, eyes glazing over.

“You will find no interest in this boy any longer. You will not hurt him, you will not target him. You will leave him alone,” Charles said slowly, the putrid youth’s mouth mirroring Charles’s words. When Charles dropped his fingers from his head, the boy at the stairs blinked, shaking his head like there was something stuck in his ear, before turning around and disappearing down the hall.

The broken boy stared at the retreating back of his step-brother, confused and too used to the boy sauntering downstairs to finish the job, to make sure that he was so broken that there was no hope in him being able to put himself back together.

But this time, Charles just smiled as the young boy pushed himself from the ground, biting hard as his leg screamed with pain, eyes alive and vibrant.

Why did these humans remind Erik of the boy with the broken leg, the one Charles protected out of nothing but the goodness of his heart?

But these humans weren’t like that boy; that boy was a child, and had done no wrong. These humans, however… they were no innocents.

The humans slumped in the sand, bodies weak as Erik stood before them, a pillar of power unrelenting. Erik ground his teeth, raising his sword, eyes closing for a moment as Charles’s image flashed in his mind. Charles, who would likely hate what Erik was doing right now.

Charles, who died because of these humans.

In a wave of anguish, Erik gripped his sword tighter, his power surging out as the metal shards from the exploded car swirled into the air above the heads of the kneeling humans, who leaned into one another while staring at Erik, obstinate and defiant.

‘Stubborn to the death. So very human,’ Erik thought to himself as he pushed at his power, bringing down the shards to eliminate the humans whose hands were soiled with Charles’s blood.

But suddenly, the desert was surrounded by white. Light poured out from nowhere and everywhere, blinding and all-consuming. Erik’s mind went blank for a moment, his grip on the metal diffusing into nothing. Silver and steel dropped from a sky like fractals.

Then, once the flash of brilliance cleared, everyone’s mouths were hanging open.

Red lips were curled up in a smile that held the edges of a smirk, milky skin incongruous with the red of the desert. White robes fluttered amongst the dust, pristine and untouched, while slightly wavy brown hair swayed across a smooth forehead, tickling dark lashes that framed two sapphire eyes that burned yet calmed. And wings – wings like white ivory, soft yet regal, rippling with energy – splayed out across the horizon.

The newcomer’s eyes cast a cursory glance over the group of awe-struck humans, before settling on the vengeful angel before them.

“Charles?” Erik whispered, dropping to his knees, sword falling blade-first into the red sand.

Indeed, it was Charles. Charles. Charles, whom Erik thought lost forever. Erik’s Charles, who was standing before him whole, perfect and alive.

‘Hello, old friend,’ Charles gently coaxed into the turmoil of Erik’s mind, his anger and grief and all-consuming need for vengeance fizzling out into the abyss. Charles could sense all of those feelings – those very human feelings – and sucked in a tight breath, stepping towards the other angel.

No one could say anything when Charles stopped directly in front of Erik, the kneeling angel letting out a shuddering breath and reaching out desperately, wrapping his smoothly muscled arms around Charles’s waist before pressing his face to his stomach. Charles laughed, his belly rippling, and Erik cried.

‘I thought you…’ Erik thought, the words almost incoherent in the overwhelming mixture of flavours in his heart – elation, fear, regret, relief, love. So many things swirled around inside Erik, pouring over Charles until he was submerged in it. Charles held them to his chest as he returned Erik’s embrace, cradling the angel’s head against his body, fingers twining through his hair.

‘I know,’ Charles murmured through the newly rekindled thread between his and Erik’s mind, his spirit curling up in the Charles-shaped space in Erik’s very being.

‘How? I saw you… die,’ Erik pushed towards Charles, his words cracking with anguish even though they weren’t spoken aloud. ‘Just… how?’

“I told you, darling,” Charles said softly, tugging Erik up by the leather straps across his shoulders, smoothing his hands around Erik’s neck when the man stood until he towered over him. Charles stared into Erik’s grey eyes, a little glossy, before rising and pressing a kiss to Erik’s lips, which parted in an unravelled gasp.

‘All you needed was a little faith, Erik,’ Charles spoke in Erik’s mind, the taller angel letting out a breathless laugh against Charles’s plush mouth, slipping his arms around the revived angel’s waist and drawing him closer. Their torsos were pressed flush and welded together, their mouths slotting together seamlessly.

When Erik and Charles pulled apart, lips slick and mouths reddened, they pressed their foreheads together.

“Never leave me again,” Erik whispered, Charles humming.

“Mm. Let’s go home. Our work here is done, since He no longer wishes for the world to be razed to ashes,” Charles said, now turning to the collection of gobsmacked humans.

When Erik followed Charles’s gaze to them, they immediately bristled, stumbling back in fear. Erik just huffed, curling his hand to call his sword back to its sheath with his powers, one arm placed at the small of Charles’s back and the other resting on the hilt of his weapon.

“Everyone, there is nothing to worry about,” Charles said, smiling serenely. “You did it. Even when all the odds were stacked against you, you persevered and never gave up. That’s why you were chosen.”

“That’s it?” Logan griped, narrowing his eyes at Charles. Charles just laughed, picking up on everyone’s incredulity at the sudden turn of events. “The world was ending, and now suddenly He is all chummy?”

“It’s because of you. All of you,” Charles said, smiling wider. “You made Him believe again. You gave Him hope. You, who have proven that there is still good in the world, even when all hope seems lost. That was what I sought to do – to help you prove yourselves, because I always knew that you had it in you.”

The humans were silent, processing what Charles was saying. As the seconds passed, the clouds began to part in the sky, allowing the repressed sun to bask everyone in its daylight glow. The sun seemed warm, like a caressing gaze, one that promised of many more sunsets to come.

Erik nudged Charles’s back, casting his eyes to the opening made in the sky. Charles gave his angel a fond look, leaning into his touch.

“Now, I’m afraid it’s time for me to return to my home,” Charles spoke, looking at the humans as he and Erik took a step back. “If I may ask one thing – please find Hank, Raven and the child, and let them know that they needn’t worry. They can live their lives without burden; they can raise the child in a world that they helped save.”

“We will,” Moira said, Charles nodding and offering her a gentle smile.

“Will we ever see you again?” Angel asked, Charles and Erik looking at each other, wings beating as their bodies lifted into the air and disappearing into the enveloping warmth of the sun.

‘Maybe. The future is not yet written – just have a little faith.’

***

“Dangerous,” Erik murmured against Charles’s mouth, the shorter man giggling as Erik flipped them over on the rooftop, hovering over his relaxed form.

“Hm?” Charles teased, nipping at Erik’s lips, taunting the angel with his tongue.

‘You. Your mouth. Everything. Just sinful,’ Erik groaned mentally, leaning down to seal his mouth over Charles’s more securely, tongue searching and finding what it wanted when Charles let out a low moan.

“Erik, darling, the children are here,” Charles panted, Erik grimacing when Charles pushed at his chest, widening the slither of space between them.

Turning his head to the side, Erik looked at the ‘children’ Charles referred to; Moira and Sean lead a group of children aged five to ten across the grassy field as Angel, Darwin and Sean trailed behind them. Alex, who gently nudged his younger brother’s back while spinning a soccer ball in his hand, smiled as he watched the children leaping across the field with excitement.

“Come on, Kurt,” Raven chuckled, patting her son’s shoulders, smooth soccer jersey as he stumbled when trying to keep up with the group of children. “The game is starting soon.” With a gap-toothed grin, Kurt darted forward, Raven giving Hank and amused look from where he walked beside her.

“Can you believe he’s already six? That all that was over five years ago now?” Raven asked, staring at the congregation of children on the field.

Hank looked at his wife fondly, tugging her into his side. Raven leaned her head on Hank’s shoulder, before looking into the sky and smiling.

After Hank and Raven had escaped with Kurt, it had taken a few weeks for the rest of the rag-tag crew to find them holed up in a seedy motel. Hank and Raven, who had been running on nothing more than adrenaline and desperation, had nearly collapsed when Darwin told them that the apocalypse had been called off, just like that.

Everyone had been left stumped about what to do; everything had changed that day at the diner, that day when they realised the angels and Heaven were real and that things could end in a heartbeat.

They couldn’t just return to their lives, not those meaningless existences where they all felt like something was missing, that they could be doing more.

So, they didn’t return to their old lives, but made one anew.

By luck or by fate – or by God’s graces – the group that had been touched by angels had stumbled onto a sprawling patch of land free for them to live in. It was a home that seemed to have been gifted to them by the angels, a blessing that they wanted to share with others.

So, their house became a home for more than just them, becoming a refuge for children who were alone and deserted, a home that gave them a chance at a better life.

The St Charles Institute.

The group had never seen any angels again – neither Charles nor Erik, nor any of the other archangels they knew existed. They often wondered if there were angels hidden from sight, silently watching over them, but they could never find proof.

They were right, of course; Charles had always been fond of humans, but this group more than most. Whenever he had time, Charles often flew down to earth to simply watch and bask in their happiness, a constant reminder that all was right.

Erik often came with Charles on his expeditions, since at first he was not comfortable with letting Charles out of his sight – not when the image of Charles disintegrating into deathly light had been so deeply engraved in his psyche.

Now, though, Erik had relaxed somewhat – after six years of watching this odd group of humans live their lives, and seeing Charles’s smile growing brighter and brighter with each passing day, Erik found that he had begun to enjoy the turning of time in the world of humans as well.

The world was definitely not perfect; war was still waged and vile humans spread pain and suffering, but that did not mean that all was lost. For all the bad that there was in the world, there was good in equal measure, it is only sometimes hard to look past the darkness to see the light.

Erik let out a little snort as he watched the tiny humans kick the black and white ball around while the fledgling adults laughed and cheered them on. The sounds of their laughter permeated the air, reaching the rooftop of the institute where Charles and Erik lounged, out of view.

Erik turned away from the peaceful scene when he felt Charles’s gaze tickling at his temple, the blue-eyed angel’s face soft with a smile that Erik kept close to his heart.

‘What are you thinking about, Charles?’ Erik asked, brushing his thumb across the slope of Charles’s smile, before tasting it with his lips.

Charles let out a gentle laugh against Erik’s mouth, reaching up to press two fingers to Erik’s temple, showing him.

Warmth, happiness, peace and love pulsed through Erik then, a mixture of all of the feelings Charles was picking up from the group downstairs, but also so distinctly feeling like Charles.

Charles, who was all things good and wonderful, because he was witness to all of the good in the world.

And because he had never given up on it, even when it was hard to find.

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #x-men #x-men fic #marvel #professor x #magneto #ao3 #legion #james mcavoy #michael fassbender

[sareyen]

The Price of Hope (Cherik): Part 3/4

Read on ao3

Legion (2010) AU: The apocalypse is coming, and the key to humankind’s survival lies in a pregnant waitress and a rag-tag group of strangers, all broken in their own ways. Charles, the oldest of the archangels, sacrifices everything - his wings, his Gift, Erik - to help the humans that Heaven has given up on. Because, he believes, that even if they stumble and lose their way, it doesn’t mean that they are lost forever.

Chapter 3

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:4

When Moira asked Charles about what they had to do, she didn’t expect him to ask her and Darwin to cook lunch. Even though it was pitch black outside because of the unnatural cloud cover, the clock said that it was just past one in the afternoon, everyone’s stomachs rumbling the moment Charles mentioned food.

Now, Darwin was busy frying up burger patties, thankful that the generator was still functioning even if everything else seemed to be blown to pieces.  Meanwhile, Moira and Sean assembled the burgers, and Logan and Sean had taken the first watch on the rooftop having scoffed down the first burgers (and a beer for Logan). Hank and Raven, on the other hand, sat in one of the booths, munching on their own meals.

Hank didn’t have much of an appetite, not when he knew that there were dead bodies shoved into the commercial fridge out back, Moira not wanting to leave the corpses sitting there decaying in the front of the house. Still, he knew that he needed his strength for what was to come, especially if he wanted to protect Raven.

Hank looked at the young woman sitting opposite him in the booth, chewing around her burger carefully, her appetite no better than his own despite being pregnant. Raven’s hair was dishevelled and soaked with sweat, and the skin under her eyes was dark, her pupils themselves haunted and afraid. Still, Hank thought that she was beautiful, and could only agree with what the fallen angel had said – Raven was strong, so, so strong, and she always has been. Hank had always known it.

“I’m here for you, you know,” Hank said quietly, Raven’s head snapping up from where she was busy staring at a piece of fallen lettuce. Raven’s eyes widened when Hank reached across the table to take her hand in his, linking their fingers together tightly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Hank,” Raven whispered, eyes growing wet, before she smiled, big and wide and beautiful. “Please, I’ll be the one protecting you. I have the holy baby brewing in here, and out of the two of us, I’m a way better shot.” Raven winked, a tear slipping from her eye, the two youths smiling at each other warmly.

***

Alex sat at the counter, glowering down at his phone – he had been trying to contact his brother, but all the phone lines were still down. Alex had asked Charles if this apocalypse was happening everywhere, and Charles shook his head, saying ‘not yet, not if I can help it’. Charles had assured him that the vessels were only appearing here in this backwater town because of Raven, and that the rest of the world would not burn as long as her baby was still alive. Alex held on to that, only able to keep his head up by reminding him that Scott was still alright – for Scott, Alex would protect Raven and her baby, even if he died trying.

“Hey, man. Here’s some lunch,” Darwin said, sliding a plate across the counter and taking a seat himself, squirting some ketchup onto his fries. Darwin caught a glance at the picture on Alex’s phone, smiling a little. “Kid brother?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, brushing his thumb over Scott’s smiling face, the photo taken when his head lost his front teeth. “His name’s Scott. I was… on my way to see him, when… well.”

“When the apocalypse began?” Darwin supplied, Alex laughing despite himself, the sentence still sounding ridiculous to his ears even though he knew it was all true.

“Yeah. He’s been staying with relatives ever since… Ever since I went to jail,” Alex said, Darwin nodding – not judgemental, just listening. Alex relaxed a little, giving Darwin a grateful look. “I never talk about it with anyone, but I don’t know… if I die, I’d want someone to know. To, maybe, tell Scott what happened. So he doesn’t think that I just left him behind.”

“Hey, from what I can tell, you adore that kid. I’m sure he knows that,” Darwin said, bumping his shoulder with Alex’s, the blonde smiling a little.

“I hope so. But then again, I sometimes wished that he didn’t. He… Scott thinks I got sent to jail because of him. But it wasn’t his fault, not really. It wasn’t his fault that those assholes were scaring him and assaulting him. And it was my fault for letting my anger get the best of me, like always,” Alex said, eyes downcast.

“You were protecting your brother?” Darwin asked, Alex nodding.

“Yeah. I… I beat up those guys pretty bad. They hadn’t laid a finger on Scott, but they were about to. But since Scott wasn’t injured, I was booked for assault and locked up. Scott got sent to relatives because I wasn’t fit to be his guardian any more, but Scott sent me letters while I was in the slammer and our aunt… God, she’s not fit to look after him either.”

“So you were going to try and take him back?”

“To try give him a better life, the best one that I can,” Alex said, Darwin humming, patting Alex on the back comfortingly.

“Well, you’ll be able to do that, once we stop the world from ending,” Darwin said, nudging at Alex’s plate. “Come on, eat. If you thought my scrambled eggs were good, wait until you try my burger.”

***

Moira and Angel had hauled the dead bodies into the fridge, Angel staring at the body of her step-father numbly.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Moira said, though her own hands were shaking, because God, she was wrapping corpses in cling wrap and shoving them in the freezer at her workplace. This was not what she was qualified for, and when she woke up, showered and ate her Cheerios this morning, she hadn’t expected her day to pan out like this.

Surprisingly, Moira hadn’t lost her mind yet – with everything that was going on, Moira was expecting to have some sort of breakdown (or three), but for some reason her head was clear and full of purpose. Maybe it was because of Charles, the fallen angel that seemed to have all the answers, a constant and steady presence that enveloped Moira with a sense of calm. Maybe it was because her co-workers had also taken the recent events in stride, pillars propping Moira up.

Or maybe it was because that, deep down, Moira had a sense that this was what she had been looking for. This had been that ‘something more’ that she had been waiting for her entire life, stuck in this dreary small town that people forgot on maps.

“You know what’s funny?” Angel said, gesturing to the corpse of the man that had tormented her for years. “He’s dead, and I don’t even feel relieved. I’ve dreamt for years about how I would feel when he was gone from this world. I don’t know, I thought it would feel… like I would be reborn, or something, but I just feel empty.”

“It’s probably hard to feel reborn when the world is literally ending,” Moira said, Angel huffing out a laugh.

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s because he was nothing. You know, like the monster under the bed that your mind made up when you’re little. Looking at him now, I realise that he was just a man. A horrible man, but also just a man. He used to seem so much bigger, like an insurmountable force, but he was snuffed out. Just. Like. That. It makes me wonder, you know. If we will be snuffed out like that. If I will. Because he was always so much bigger than me and still died.”

“I’ve never been religious, so I’m not going to start preaching about retribution and whatever, but I do believe in karma. And let’s just say that he was due to cash in,” Moira said, grasping Angel by the hand. “Look, you’re strong. You told me about what you did, saving all of those other girls. I’d say you’re holding onto a lot of good karma right now, so you’d be best to cash that in as well.”

Angel looked at Moira, before giving her a tight hug. Moira hugged her back just as tightly.

“Thank you, again. You’re building up your good karma too, you know,” Angel said, Moira laughing.

“I’d hope so. This is the apocalypse, I’m going to collect all the good karma I can get.”

***

Charles stood in front of the sink in the staff bathroom, shirt and tweed jacket hanging from the hook. Charles winced as he peered over his shoulder in the cracked and dusty mirror, dabbing at the wounds on his back – the pockets where his wings used to be, and the laceration the broken plate had sliced into his shoulder.

There were bloodied cotton balls sitting in the sink and the tang of medical alcohol hanging in the air, Charles crinkling his nose. Even as an angel, it was hard for Charles to reach the wounds on his back.

In the past, when wars were waged between the forces of Heaven and Hell, Charles had been injured. Unlike now, though, Erik had always been by his side, tending to Charles’s wounds while Charles did the same to the taller angel. Erik’s hands, which were always rough and wielded his sword like it was a part of him – because it was, with Erik’s Gift of controlling metal – were gentle whenever they dabbed at Charles’s wounds, like the immortal angel were a piece of glass.

Now, though, Charles was alone in a diner bathroom trying to wipe away the blood from his broken wings.

Charles was about to give up, grabbing the lilac sweater he had taken from some hapless man’s clothesline before coming to the diner, when the door to the bathroom abruptly opened. Charles jumped, not used to being surprised – his power usually alerted him when people were approaching, and without it, Charles was blind and more vulnerable than he had ever been before.

Logan stared at Charles’s shirtless form, eyes trekking across the wounds on his back and the pile of bloody gauze scattered around him.

“Need some help there, Chuck?” Logan asked, Charles sighing.

“If you would be so kind,” Charles said, Logan nodding and gently pushing Charles to sit on the closed toilet seat, back towards Logan. Logan washed his hands before taking out some more cotton from the first aid kit, dousing it in alcohol before applying it to Charles’s wounds. Charles bit back a hiss, and Logan let out a small snorting noise from the back of his throat.

“So angels feel pain too, huh.”

“Oh, we feel a lot of pain,” Charles said, mouth quirking up. “Some more than others.”

“I’m assuming you’re one of those in the ‘more’ category,” Logan said, Charles chuckling.

“What makes you think that?”

“Your bleeding heart,” Logan said, Charles quietening. “It’s obvious because you’re here, and not flying around with your buddies, razing the world to ashes.”

“Astute observation,” Charles mused, hunching over slightly as Logan continued to clean up his back. “A friend of mine once said that my ‘bleeding heart’, as you called it, would be the end of me.”

“Why sacrifice yourself, then? For us,” Logan said, moving from the cut on Charles’s shoulder to the scar of his left wing. “You said God doesn’t believe in us anymore. That he lost his faith. If he no longer has hope, why are you here?”

Charles was quiet, blue eyes closing as he remembered, remembered that day when He made the humans.

“When God chose your kind, as the object of his love, I was the first in all of Heaven to bow down before you,” Charles said, smile nostalgic. “Maybe it was because of my Gift. I knew how much He loved you, and I felt that love in turn. Then, I felt you all too – your feelings, they were unlike anything I’d experienced before. Angels do not feel like you do. You felt so much, so many different, wonderful things. It was amazing.” Charles glanced back at Logan, the man not betraying his emotions and focusing on cleaning Charles’s wounds, though the fallen-angel knew the man was listening.

“But, even with all of the good things, the good thoughts and emotions, there was the bad as well. I’ve watched you kill each other over race and greed, waging war over dust and rubble and the words in old books. And yet, in the midst of all this darkness…” Charles said, voice drifting off, throat suddenly clogged.

“I see some people who will not be bowed, who will not give up, even when they know all hope is lost,” Charles said, turning to face Logan now. “Like Moira, who shows kindness to people even in the hardest of times. Like Sean, who remains joyful even when things are bleak. Like Alex, who worries about his brother more than himself. Like Darwin, who comforts people amongst when they falter. Like Hank, who loves Raven with a purity that is becoming scarcer and scarcer in this world. And Raven, who has been given a burden yet has not cowered, who does not rely on someone to save her but wields her own strength like a shield and a sword.”

“And you, Logan,” Charles said quietly, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I may not have my Gift, but I know of you. You, who has nightmares over the people you couldn’t save, but forgets all those that you did. Those soldiers, your brothers in arms, that were able to go back home to their husbands and their wives, to their children and their parents, because you pulled them out of the fray. There is so much pain in you, but you still stand. You do not let it bring you to your knees.”

“That…” Charles concluded, turning back for Logan to wrap his wounds with cloth, hands steady but pausing as Charles spoke. “…Is why I am here. Because I have not lost faith. Because I believe that just because you’ve stumbled, and lost your way, that it does not mean that you’ll be lost forever.”

Logan finished wrapping up Charles’s injuries, standing up.

“Are you here to guide us then, Chuck? To lead us back to the path so we are no longer lost?” Logan asked, Charles standing too, turning around with bright eyes.

“Not just you, my friend,” Charles said, looking up into the sky.

Because you are not the only ones who are lost.

***

“Charles?”

Erik padded nimbly across the marble gazebo where his friend lay prone across a white bench, hands over his head. Erik usually tread lightly, trained to not make any noise, but always knew that even if he were completely silent Charles could feel him coming from clouds away.

That was why Erik was surprised when Charles let out a startled gasp when Erik placed his hand on the smaller angel’s shoulder, unaware of Erik’s approaching form.

“Oh! Erik,” Charles said, sitting up from his prone position hastily, which only made him let out a pained groan, wincing. Erik felt a faint stab of discomfort in his own mind, the copper-haired angel frowning as Charles’s face grew a shade paler. “I’m sorry, my friend. I did not mean to project that.” The phantom stabbing pain in Erik’s head disappeared immediately, his head a little empty.

“Why are you in pain, Charles?” Erik asked, not bothering to ask if his friend was in pain, knowing that he was – and knowing that Charles would deny it anyway. Charles rarely showed any discomfort – an occasional rub of his temple, maybe, but never a grimace nor a crinkle in his brow. Even during the War in Heaven, where both Erik and Charles had been injured when fighting against Sebastian and his rebel angels, Charles had not shown that his injuries affected him. In fact, he had shrugged off his own wounds to use his mind’s Gift to block out the pain of their brothers and sisters. Right now, though, Charles could not hide his hurt.

“It’s nothing Erik. A mere trifle,” Charles murmured, sitting up fully now. Erik kneeled down on the ground, his sword tapping against the marble from where it hung low on his hips.

“You can hear them, can’t you? His beloved children,” Erik said, nudging at Charles’s hung chin, forcing the angel to look at him. As Erik peered into Charles’s eyes, he could see the pain and sorrow that swirled in their depths, a kaleidoscope of the faces of all of those humans that plagued Charles’s mind.

“Yes,” Charles said, closing his eyes as he raised his hands to clasp Erik’s. Erik squeezed Charles’s hands in return. “It is war again, Erik. It’s always loud when there is war. But, like always, it will pass, and I will be fine.”

“It will pass for now, but you know it will come back again, Charles,” Erik said bitterly, eyes aflame. “Them, the humans, wage war over and over. They continue to revel in the deaths of their own people, and yet they never learn.”

‘And you get hurt, every time,’ Erik supplied mentally, Charles sighing.

“Thank you for your concern, my friend, but you don’t need to worry about me. I am quite alright, it’s only a headache,” Charles said, offering Erik a lopsided smile. “And Erik, they have simply made a mistake again. They’ve just stumbled, and they only need to be taught to learn from their mistakes.”

“And how many times will you let them stumble until you realise that they no longer deserve to get up?” Erik asked sourly. “How long will you coddle them for? They are no longer infants, Charles, and yet they act like children.”

“I will always believe in them, Erik,” Charles replied, glaring at his friend a little when he merely scoffed at Charles’s assertion. “There is so much good in them, we only need to coax it out.”

“For someone whose sight is second only to God, you are truly blind Charles,” Erik replied, pulling himself to his feet and walking away, flicking out his wings with frustration. Charles watched his friend stalk off, frown etched on his soft features, before standing up himself.

There was still a buzzing in his head, but it had dulled, even if for a moment. Charles hadn’t been lying earlier – war was always louder than normal, and it took a lot of Charles’s energy to shut out the pain and the suffering.

Charles leapt off the marble platform and descended from Heaven, landing with grace on top of a dirt-caked building amidst a warzone. Charles could hear the patter of gunfire in the distance, weaving between the cries of soldiers barking out orders and singing to the beat of bombs tearing up the Earth.

Charles lightly glided from rooftop to rooftop, watching American troops hunker down in street bunkers, weapons drawn. The angel could sense that there were minds waiting in hiding, and after casting a glance over the minds of the Americans, Charles knew that they didn’t realise that there were enemy troops waiting to ambush them.

‘Much death will come,’ Charles thought grimly, bolstering his shields as he watched, hands clasped. Praying.

The insurgents rushed forward, catching the American soldiers unaware. Bullets sprayed and blood was spilled, turning the earth crimson.

But then, Charles could hear a voice that cut clear through the fog of death and anguish.

“I’ve got you!” the man yelled, voice rough as he gritted his teeth, lobbing out of the trench and darting forwards amongst the rubble and ricocheting bullets towards a soldier who leaned heavily against an abandoned Humvee, clutching at a gurgling bullet wound in his shoulder.

“Howlett,” the bleeding man rasped, the rough soldier grunting and shouldering his comrade’s weight, dragging him. “Leave me.”

The situation was dire; the insurgents outnumbered these two remaining soldiers, and there was nowhere for them to go. One man was injured, and the other had the best chance of surviving if he simply abandoned him. The soldiers knew it, and Charles knew it – but that counted for nothing, not when Howlett just grinned, his heart thumping.

“Not a chance,” Howlett – Logan, Charles’s mind supplied – dismissed his friend’s plea. Charles felt it then, just a spark rising above the hate and the hurt.

The desire to protect. Pure and untainted, even amongst the soot and ash.

Charles watched in rapture as Logan clung to the last thread of hope inside him, taking a gamble to defy the odds, even when they were stacked against him.

For his friend. His brother.

‘See, Erik? They are not so unlike us.’

‘I’d defy the odds for you, too.’

***

Alex clambered down the stairs, eyes wide.

“Something’s coming again,” Alex said in a rush, gesturing to the windows. Logan narrowed his eyes as he looked at Charles, who was already silently jerking his hand for Raven to duck behind the bar, Hank following her.

Peering out the window, Charles saw a single car pull up, and his blue eyes eyed at it with heady anticipation. Logan cocked his weapon, body tense.

“Are they one of them?” Moira asked, clutching onto her own gun as she wiped her brow with the back of her hand, beginning to sweat.

The car drew closer, stopping near the diner. From inside, everyone could see someone banging on the window, screaming. It was a child, a young boy around six years old, dressed in tartan flannel pyjamas and sporting a head full of light blonde hair.

“Help!” the boy screamed, hands slamming on the glass.

“Oh, Christ, it’s a child!” Moira said, alarmed, her eyes widening further when she saw a swarm of cars barrelling down the road, and from the way they were driving, everyone knew that those cars were filled with the possessed. Humans never drove in such perfect synchronisation.

The child continued to scream, and everyone looked at Charles, whose face was drawn up with pain.

“What do we do, Charles?”

“It’s a trap,” Charles muttered, face flashing with pain again, like the thought caused him physical distress.

The child wailed, eyes wide and tears flowing freely. Alex stared at the kid, who reminded him so much of his younger brother, Scott. Alex’s heart beat in his chest, mind screaming.

“We’ve got to get him!” Alex urged, beginning to rush to the barricaded door, only to be stopped by the butt of Charles’s gun.

“It’s a trap, Alex,” Charles said, shaking his head. The other cars pulled in closer, circling around the boy in the car, who looked around with a terrified expression on his young face. Everyone grew pale as the possessed began stepping out of their cars, creating a curtain of expressionless faces around the boy, obscuring him. It almost looked like their bodies were swallowing him whole.

“We can’t just leave the kid out there to die!” Alex fought, shoving Charles, his eyes only seeing Scott and imagining if that was his brother in the car, surrounded by those bodies possessed by murderous angels, vessels of the apocalypse with not a single shred of humanity in their hearts.

“I agree with Chuck, kid. Something about this stinks,” Logan said, Alex baring his teeth at the taller, broader man.

“So you’re going to leave a defenceless kid to those things?! Fuck you,” Alex said, pushing hard at Charles’s torso and running past him, flinging the front door to the diner open and unleashing a yell, spraying bullets from his assault rifle as he rushed forward.

“Shit! That fucking idiot!” Logan cursed and rushing to close the front door, perching in front of it with his gun trained at the opening. Everyone watched in horror as Alex ran into the fray, immediately being surrounded by the possessed bodies. Alex thrust open the car door, the boy scrambling into Alex’s arms as he cried. With the child in one arm and his gun in the other, Alex clambered onto the roof of the car, spraying bullets as bodies fell and edged towards him.

“He’s gonna get himself killed!” Angel yelled, Logan growling.

“We’ve got to do something,” Darwin said, scrambling for his gun.

Charles’s face was contorted in pain and slight panic as he watched Alex yell, clutching onto the young boy with desperation. Charles knew that he would run out of bullets soon, and once he did the possessed would climb over him and snuff him out.

But this had to be a trap, some kind of test. A taunt. He and the angels knew that Charles was soft hearted, they knew that he wanted nothing more than to jump into the fray himself and drag the boy to safety. Charles had hesitated, though, while Alex had held onto his faith and did not hesitate to sacrifice his safety for that of someone else.

Charles looked at Alex, whose eyes were beginning to dim as he realised that he was, likely, about to die.

Charles closed his eyes, blocking out the screaming in his head that came from no one but himself, giving Logan a look, the man looking stern but nodding.

“Everyone, go upstairs and provide us with cover fire. Hank, stay behind the bar with Raven. Protect her,” Charles said, everyone nodding quickly, rushing upstairs. Charles grabbed another one of the guns from where they were perched on the bar, throwing another to Logan, who caught it deftly.

“On three,” Charles said, Logan nodding. “One… Two…”

“Three!”

Logan and Charles rushed out, bullets firing to the staccato beat of bullets raining from above, Moira and the others hailing down gunfire like it came from Heaven itself. Charles and Logan tore through the mass of possessed, bullets making bodies drop before them, clearing a path towards Alex and the boy who stood atop the car like it were an island staving away a flood. Bodies dropped, parting like the Red Sea before Charles and Logan, the two of them reaching Alex quickly and covered in red.

“Alex, take the child and get back inside!” Charles yelled, Alex nodding in fear and adrenaline, hoisting the kid closer and leaping down from the car. Under the cover fire of the crew on the rooftop, but mainly due to Charles and Logan holding back the screeching throng of deformed possessed that rushed at them, Alex threw himself past the threshold of the diner.

“You okay, kid?” Alex asked the boy, who nodded, eyes large and wide. “Thank God. Or, not God, because he’s the one that got us into this mess. Anyway, stay here, kid.” Alex let out a tense sigh, grabbing a gun from the table and rushing upstairs to provide aid alongside the rest of the group.

With Charles, Logan and the others cutting down the numbers of possessed congregating outside, Hank and Raven sat huddled behind the bar, the two of them shaking slightly. Raven caressed her baby bump, not sure if she were soothing the unborn child or herself, and Hank’s hands were almost white with how tightly he was gripping his gun.

The young boy that Alex saved stepped around the side of the counter, Hank letting out a startled noise as Raven cursed loudly.

“Oh, God, I thought you were one of them,” Hank muttered, Raven nodding in agreement as she gave the child a small smile.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be safe here,” Raven said, trying to reassure the boy who had been screaming and crying for his life just earlier, standing up. “Charles and Logan, and all of the others, they’re protecting us. They’re going t- ah!”

Raven screamed in pain and terror as the boy suddenly jumped forward, slashing out with a knife he had hidden behind his back. Hank let out a cry as he saw Raven fall to the floor, hand coming to her stomach where the knife had torn through her shirt, dragging a line of red across her belly.

Hank’s mind flashed with something he had never felt before, something that he never wanted to feel again, a surge of adrenaline bursting through his body.

“Get away from Raven!” Hank yelled, cocking his shotgun and firing. His first shot missed, the boy – the possessed boy – ducking and darting to the side, edging closer to Raven, who scuttled back across the floor with another scream. Hank reloaded, shooting again, his bullet hitting the boy in the arm, tearing it clean off.

“Raven!” Hank yelled out, fumbling with the shotgun bullets he had on the counter, eyes wide as the boy did not even let his blown-off arm stop him from going after Raven.

Raven cried out as she fumbled around her, grabbing whatever she could. Wrapping her fingers around a metal pan, Raven just threw it in front of her in time to block the knife that swung down in a precise arc, far too much strength going into the swing for a six-year-old child. The metal of the pan bent and dented, the boy letting out a snarl as he swung again and again, the metallic ping of knife against pan deafening even with the symphony of gunfire outside.

“Get away from me!” Raven hollered, kicking his leg up and knocking the boy backwards.

As the boy began to pick himself up, Hank gave up with trying to reload his gun, just grabbing it by the barrel and charging forward, screaming.

“Get the hell away from her!” Hank screamed, swinging the shotgun and smashing it down on the possessed boy’s skull, which caved in at the sheer force. The boy’s body landed with a heavy thud by Raven’s feet, blood pooling along the divots in the tiled floor.

Charles burst in having heard Raven and Hank’s cries, dreading the worst – to his relief, he found Hank hovering over a shaking Raven, the body of the boy Alex had tried to save motionless in a circle of his own blood.

Having cleared out the majority of the possessed outside – severely depleting their meagre weapon reserves in the process – Logan and Charles had run back inside. Moira and the others headed back down from the rooftop once what was left of the second wave of possessed retreated back into the fog, Alex stumbling when he saw the dead body of the boy on the floor.

“What happened?” Angel gasped.

“The child was possessed,” Logan said simply, the blood from Alex’s face draining. “It was a trap. Chuck was right.”

“Oh, God,” Alex churned out, dropping to his knees, legs giving out. “I… I didn’t… I thought… I could have…”

“You didn’t know, Alex,” Charles said, shaking his head. “You wanted to protect a defenceless child, and you did what you thought was right. No one can fault you for that.”

“But…”

“Everyone is alright, and Hank dealt with it,” Charles said, eyeing the bloodied shotgun sitting on the floor beside the lanky man, walking forward to pat his shoulder. “Good job.” Kneeling beside Raven, who was peeling back her sliced shirt, Charles dropped his voice. “Raven, are you okay?”

Raven, beginning to nod and assure the angel that she was fine suddenly found herself robbed of her breath, lurching forward with a strangled noise. Everyone let out noises of terror, Charles gripping the shoulders of the young woman tightly as she let out a long, laborious groan.

“Raven? Raven?! What’s going on?” Hank asked frantically, Raven pulling her head up, sweat beginning to bead on her brow as he blonde hair matted to her head. Her lips, slightly chapped, curled up in a strained smile.

“The baby’s coming.”

***

The seven archangels stood in the grand hall. Emma, blonde hair long, wavy and adorned with white pearls, stood with her diamond bow slung across her back and a self-assured smirk on her plush lips. Janos, silent and clad in his all-covering leather suit, rested his hands on the mace he held against the ground. Azazel grinned wildly has he twirled his large trident-like spear. Selene’s dark hair swayed in the breeze from where she stood to the side, her twin daggers hanging on either side of her shapely hips and arms crossed over her chest while she pursed her lips, waiting.

Erik stood by Charles, the two of them always standing side by side. Erik was the third archangel He created, and Charles had been there the moment he had been born. Erik remembered opening his newly formed eyes for the first time and peering into depthless blue, a gentle smile on Charles’s lips as he reached out a hand and murmured, ‘Hello, Erik. I’ve been waiting for you’.

Charles and Erik had been inseparable ever since that moment, the two flying across the world He had created. Charles showed Erik everything beautiful that He created, and Erik couldn’t help but think ‘But you’re the most beautiful of all’. Charles had, of course, heard the thought, red creeping up his cheeks and ears. Charles had smiled at Erik then, murmuring a soft ‘At least, until He created you, Erik’.

It wasn’t that Erik or Charles did not get along with the other archangels, it was only that they preferred each other’s company. Everyone just understood that it was ‘Charles and Erik’, the first born and the third, always side by side. No one questioned it – it was as ironclad as His will.

Sebastian, the second oldest of the angels after Charles, soon waltzed into the room with an air that was far too domineering, even if he were the strongest of the seven. He had a sly smirk on his face, one that Erik always thought contrasted so starkly with Charles, who was all things beautiful but did not flaunt it. Sebastian was overtly prideful, and though Erik did not mind the way he revelled in what was the nature of angels, he thought that there was something unholy stirring inside the second-born.

“Sebastian,” Charles said, offering the angel a warm smile, the taller man just grinning with thin lips.

“Brother,” Sebastian purred in response, sauntering over to Charles. Sebastian held little regard for the other archangels, believing that even they were beneath him. But, Sebastian was wary of Charles, since he was older – the oldest – and His most beloved angel. Sebastian was envious, for Charles was older but weaker. Sebastian was pure power, his Gift dipped in strength, and could best Charles in the training arena easily. Sebastian abhorred Charles’s Gift, one that seemed to mimic the will of God. Sebastian thought it was ridiculous for Charles to be entrusted with that power, for the man does not use it at all, which is why Shaw could trounce him over and over in mock combat.

On the other hand, Sebastian merely tolerated Erik, because he was the third born and close to his own age. Sebastian had to admit that Erik was powerful, though not as powerful as himself, the third angel’s Gift of metal proving him difficult to best in combat. It did grate on Sebastian’s nerves that Charles seemed to favour their younger brother, even if Charles was generally cordial with all of the angels.

“Do you know why we have been summoned?” Charles asked Sebastian politely, the man shrugging.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Brother. I believe that He will make his will known soon,” Sebastian said, Charles humming in agreement.

As if Sebastian’s words were an introduction, His presence suddenly filled the room, all of the archangels kneeling at the sensation that washed over them.

No words were spoken, but his will was clear.

Charles gasped, blue eyes open wide in wonder, red lips uttering the word for the first time.

“Humans,” Charles breathed, his mind filling with images of two people sharing a likeness akin to angels, but without the expanse of wings at their back and lifespans limited to under a century. These humans were beautiful and wonderful and so full of something unfamiliar and new, that something pulsing inside Charles. Charles’s heart beat rapidly as his mind seemed to sink into those of these creations called humans, these creations that He so loved.

And oh, Charles loved them too. Charles loved their feelings, which were so much stronger than those of the angels in the room with him. These humans felt with every fibre of their being, and it made Charles feel alive.

Charles looked at Erik, tears in his eyes, and Erik stared back at him with a wide, toothy grin.

“Erik, I can feel their minds. Their hearts,” Charles said, reaching forward to clutch at his closest friend, raising two of his fingers tentatively. “Erik, can I share these feelings with you? Their feelings?”

My feelings.

Erik nodded, closing his eyes as Charles placed to fingers at his temple, unleashing the buzz of these minds that had just been born, Erik gasping.

The first and the third were so entranced by His new creations that they did not notice Sebastian’s embittered scowl, which twisted and darkened into something unbefitting of the white marble Heavens.

You see, when humans were born, Hell was too.

Next chapter (4/4) → 

#cherik #x-men #x-men fic #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #mario #magneto #professor x #xmen #ao3 #james mcavoy #michael fassbender

[sareyen]

The Price of Hope (Cherik): Part 2/4

Read on ao3

Legion (2010) AU: The apocalypse is coming, and the key to humankind’s survival lies in a pregnant waitress and a rag-tag group of strangers, all broken in their own ways. Charles, the oldest of the archangels, sacrifices everything - his wings, his Gift, Erik - to help the humans that Heaven has given up on. Because, he believes, that even if they stumble and lose their way, it doesn’t mean that they are lost forever.

Chapter 2

“At that time Charles, the great prince who protects your people, will arise.

There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.

But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.”

Daniel 12:1

Erik’s mind was always like a beacon to Charles. It was so bright that Charles could pinpoint its location anywhere, in any plane in existence, if he only closed his eyes and envision the seemingly glacial man.

Right now, that beacon was glowing like hot embers, anger radiating from the angel as he sat perched on a mottled rooftop at Auschwitz. Erik watched with rage bubbling in his belly as walking skeletons stumbled to their deaths, the numbers etched into their skin stark against their frailty.

“Erik,” Charles said, landing daintily beside the taller angel, white robs fluttering. Erik, unlike Charles, wore his dark battle leathers, his winged helmet resting beside him on the roof tiles.

“Look at them, Charles,” Erik said, voice simmering with anger and disgust – not at the prisoners, of course, but at the men that chained them and treated them like they were less than cattle. Charles shivered, lowering himself so he sat beside Erik, their wings bumping with their closeness. “Look at what they do to themselves, to their own kind.”

Charles swallowed thickly, the air thick and dense with misery, making it hard for him to think clearly. Charles has gotten good at blocking out such powerful emotions, he had to be – if he let go, he could hear all of the voices in the world at once, and he was sure it would overwhelm him. It _had _overwhelmed him, a long time ago, and Erik had been there for him.

But even as Charles became stronger as time passed, the human population was growing exponentially and the world population much more vast than it had been when He had only created the first two humans; En Sabah Nur and Nephri. Now, humans were many and more, and though Charles had an eternity of experience in bolstering the strength of his Gift, the constant influx of new minds weighed heavily on him.

Erik’s mind was unlike those of others, human and angel alike. It wasn’t that Erik’s mind was empty nor calm that made his mind so comforting to Charles. No, Erik’s mind could be tumultuous at times and infinitely impassioned, even if on the exterior his face was cut like cool marble, the tight line of his thin lips the only feature that betrayed his internal rage.

No, Erik’s mind could be as passionate and wild as anyone else’s, but it was the way in which it was passionate that Charles so cherished. Erik’s mind was always unclouded, always clear; other people could be muddled, lost and confused, but Erik’s was always so sure and resolute. So bright. Erik’s mind never faltered, and that always made him a steady anchor for Charles to latch on to when other voices threatened to overwhelm him.

“Yes, I can feel their agony, their suffering,” Charles said, voice quiet, face pinched with pain. Erik turned to look at Charles then, eyes softening slightly.

“That pain, how could humans willingly cause such torment?” Erik murmured, reaching out to overlay his hand on Charles’s, squeezing tightly. “These humans, they haven’t learnt, even after centuries and millennia. They still hurt and torture each other, and torture _you _with their pain and suffering.”

Erik’s hands trembled as he spoke his last words, clipped and bitter. Charles felt a spike in Erik’s vehemence.

Charles just let out a short hum, leaning into Erik’s side, and dropped his head onto the taller angel’s shoulder. Erik’s armour dug into his cheek a little, but Charles didn’t mind – Erik felt warm, as warm as an angel could feel – but maybe that was just the way his mind was enveloping Charles in an embrace, warming him from the soul his angel self did not possess.

Charles and Erik watched as a young Jewish boy tripped in the mud as his mother and father screamed for him, the gates closing slowly in front of his glistening eyes. The young boy cried out, rushing forward but was stopped by the hands of officers clad in stiffly starched uniforms. The boy’s knees dragged in the mud as he desperately called out for his parents who were being shepherded to their deaths. The boy yelled and yelled, but the gate still closed.

Erik’s fists clenched tightly, and the gate rattled a little, but nothing more than what could be passed off as a tremor due to a light breeze.

Charles’s eyes locked onto the forlorn boy, whose mind was like a knife twisting in Charles’s chest. As an angel, Charles did not have parents, not like humans did. Charles didn’t know first-hand what a bond between child and parent was, how a mother’s embrace felt, what a father’s protective touch meant. It was only through sharing the minds and souls of humans that Charles could understand, and it made him weep.

“Oh, Erik. That boy… his mind… what he feels…” Charles sobbed, turning his head away from the boy whose feelings were mirrored in his chest. Charles buried his head in the curve of Erik’s neck, the other angel a little stiff but wrapping his arms around Charles’s shoulders tightly nonetheless. Erik could feel a wetness seeping through the seams of his armour, but he didn’t care, not when Charles’s trembling made what could be his heart stutter and clench.

“How could humans do this to you?” Erik murmured, pulling Charles closer, breathing in the scent of his hair. Sunlight. “And how could you be so willing to bear it? To believe in them and love them, even when they hurt you like this?”

Charles let out a shuddering breath, pulling his head back to return to the scene playing out before him. The officers had let go of the young boy, who sat unmoving with his head hung, despair cloying around him. Charles watched as a young girl around the same age as him knelt by his side and gently chook his shoulders, murmuring in his ear. The boy nodded minutely, allowing the girl to slip her arm around him, pulling him to his feet. She smiled at him, urged him, gave him hope.

And Charles, tears still in his eyes, smiled, the clouds parting overhead.

Erik wasn’t looking down at the camp but at Charles, whom Erik thought was made of the same energy as the sun that now peeked through the break in the clouds.

“That, Erik,” Charles whispered, voice light and diffuse with warmth.

‘That is why I still believe.’

“Alex, Moira – barricade the windows. Hank, find anything we can use as weapons and gather them here. Sean, make sure that the back door is blocked, too. Logan, come with me,” the mysterious murderer – Charles – said, and even if he was pushy, his voice carried a sense of ‘this is absolute’ that made everyone jump into action. Before Charles lead Logan outside to his stolen borrowed car, Charles looked at Raven, who had since regained her wits, sitting in the corner booth and drinking a glass of sugar-laden juice.

“Raven,” Charles said, voice gentle. The woman startled, but didn’t shy away from the man, who was looking at her so carefully. For some reason, Raven sensed – knew – that this Charles fellow wouldn’t hurt her. Never. Still, Raven narrowed her eyes at him, but the man just continued to smile.

“What?” Raven asked, taking another sip of her drink and rubbing her belly.

“How are you? And your child?” Charles asked, Raven snorting.

“Well, we just saw a man dislocate his limbs in ways that are reminiscent of The Exorcist, and I saw said guy get his brain blown to bits. Those brain bits are still on the wall, you know. Like a bloody, gory, Jackson Pollock painting,” Raven said, shivering. “So, how do you think we’re going?”

Charles smiled, a little wryly to himself – if he still had his Gift, he would know _exactly _how Raven was feeling. But alas, without it, Charles was left stumped. Angels were more unfamiliar with feelings than humans with low EQ, and though Charles was more empathetic due to his Gift, he was simply blind without it.

“Ah, I see. That is… understandable,” Charles said, Raven raising her brow. “I hope that it brings you comfort to know that I’m here to protect you.” Charles smiled at Raven, who just gave him a confused and wary look. Charles turned to Logan before Raven could ask him exactly what he was protecting her from, the mystery man patting Logan’s arm.

“Come, Logan. I have some equipment in my car that would be of use to us,” Charles said, Logan grunting in response and trailing after the shorter, barefoot man.

When they stepped outside, dust swirling in the unnatural darkness, Logan spoke.

“So, Chuck, care to inform me about what the hell is going on?” Logan said, Charles humming.

“I still question why everyone uses ‘Hell’ as a curse. I suppose it makes sense in another context, but this is the apocalypse spearheaded by Him, so ‘Hell’ doesn’t quite fit the bill. But, I assure you, Logan – I’ll explain everything in due time. Time, which is short as it is, so we better get moving,” Charles said, bumping his fist on the boot of his commandeered car, the metal opening up to reveal bags of… weapons. Logan whistled, Charles letting out a small laugh.

“Where’d you scrounge all this up?”

Logan peered at the man beside him, who was busy pulling out a bag of machine guns and ammo. This man, with a disarming baby-face, who was wearing a scratchy tweed suit and a _lilac _sweater, for God’s sake. Logan felt like this man belonged in an office or a lecture hall, not in the middle of a desert with blood speckling his bare feet and a bag of AK-47s slung over his shoulder.

“Well, I just picked up a few things here and there on my way here,” Charles said, shrugging. “Now, could you so kindly help me carry our provisions in?”

Logan didn’t hesitate to grab the rest of the weapons from the boot, the two of them hauling them inside just as the rest of the group had finished boarding up the windows. Darwin emerged from the back room with a shelf, propping it up against the door after Charles and Logan returned.

“Woah,” Sean said, staring as Logan and Charles dumped the small armoury of weapons onto one of the booth tables. Hank, who had returned from scouring the kitchen for anything weapon-like, looked gobsmacked as he looked at the range of guns on the table, the kitchen knives and frying pan in his arms suddenly dead weight.

“I guess we won’t need the saucepan then…” Hank said, dumping the knives onto the table a bit sheepishly. Charles smiled at him, plucking one of the larger knives and twirling it in his hands, the blade whizzing around with practised finesse. Everyone just stared at him as he played with the knife, nodding.

“Mm. Very sturdy craftsmanship, I must say,” Charles said, throwing the knife and catching it, blade-side cradled in his palm. Sean clapped wildly, whistling. Charles handed Hank the knife, handle forwards, the taller man taking it shakily. “Now, guns are probably more efficient, but the knives will be good if we need to resort to close combat.”

Charles’s smile quickly fell from his face as he winced, letting out a quiet groan.

“What is it?” Angel asked, Charles shaking his head.

“They’re here,” Charles said, quickly grabbing guns and passing them around. “Now, who’s used a gun before?”

Logan, Alex, Darwin, Angel and Raven raised their hands. Hank shook his head.

“Do water guns count?” Sean asked, Moira elbowing him in the side, giving him an incredulous look as the boy glowered. “No for me, then.”

“I used a gun at a range once, but that’s it,” Moira said, Charles nodding.

“Better a little experience than none at all. Now, there’s going to be a bit of a steep learning curve, but here’s how you use a gun,” Charles said, grabbing Moira’s hands and wrapping them around an M4 Carbine. “Okay, safety here, aim…” Charles said, stepping around to stand behind Moira, arms wrapped around her as he held her hand. Moira sucked in a tight breath. “And – Raven, please cover your ears – shoot.”

Charles pressed the trigger, bullets spraying against the wall. Plaster flew into the air and the gun-shots made most of the group shriek, covering their ears (apart from Raven, who had already plugged her ears with her fingers). Logan was unphased and just checked the ammo of his own weapon.

“And that’s how you use a gun. Well done,” Charles said, patting Moira on the back, the woman trembling like a leaf.

“A little warning, next time!” Sean whined, Charles chuckling.

“My apologies, but time is unfortunately a luxury we don’t have,” Charles lamented, nudging Logan. “Logan, how good of a shot are you?”

“Three tours in Iraq, rifle marksmanship medal, some other shiny shit too,” Logan said, Charles beaming.

“Wonderful! Then, I’d suggest you get on the roof to them out before they get too close. Raven, Hank, you two should stay safe in the back because of the child. The rest of you should go up to the roof as well,” Charles said as he began ushering Raven carefully into the secure office, shoving the junk off the worn sofa so she could sit. Raven looked at Charles gratefully, while Hank looked at the gun Charles shoved into his hands.

“Hank, protect Raven, alright?” Charles said, Hank nodding frantically while Raven huffed a little, blonde hair flipping over her shoulder.

“I’m pregnant, not helpless,” Raven said, crossing her arms over her chest. Charles gave her a soft look.

“Of course not,” Charles said, meaning every word of it. “But that doesn’t mean you or your child should be put in needless danger. But here, take this, just in case.”

Charles handed Raven a hand gun, the young woman taking it firmly. Charles chuckled as she deftly checked the ammo, gun mechanism sliding and clicking. Patting the anxious Hank on the shoulder in parting support, Charles lead the rest of the group to the roof. Logan immediately set up the sniper rifle he had carried up in a bag, lowering himself down on the roof and looking through its scope. Alex, Sean, Moira, Darwin and Angel followed suit, their rifles pressed against their shoulders, eyes nervously darting out into what seemed like a desert abyss.

“Aren’t you going to tell us _what’s _coming?” Moira asked, turning to glance at Charles, who stood upright and proud on the edge of the roof, gun slung across his chest.

“Angels,” Charles whispered, the word carried away by the wind. Everyone looked at the man, bug-eyed.

“Angels,” Sean repeated, glancing at Angel, who rolled her eyes.

“Don’t look at me, man. That’s just the name my parents gave me,” Angel said.

“Angels. As in, God’s messengers?” Darwin asked, Charles chuckling.

“Yes, those angels,” Charles repeated, eyes narrowing as he raised his gun.

“You’re sure you don’t mean demons? Because that dead dude downstairs… He wasn’t wearing a toga and I didn’t see a halo,” Sean said, Moira elbowing him in the side again.

“Don’t rely on popular culture. What’s coming are definitely not demons,” Charles said, blue eyes seeing far into the distance, where a blip of light peeked through the dim. Logan noticed it as well, shifting his sights to the moving light. “Logan, what do you see?”

Logan was silent for a moment, peering through his scope, before letting out a snort.

“An ice cream truck,” Logan said.

“An ice cream truck? What, like a Mr Whippy?” Alex said, raising an eye brow.

As the ice cream truck neared, its catchy tune became audible through the silent night – the ice cream jingle made the hairs on the necks of the humans stand up straight, a chilled shiver running down taut spines.

“This is some horror movie shit,” Sean whispered, Alex nodding in agreement.

“An angel driving an ice cream truck though? This is a joke, right?” Angel asked, everyone staring at the approaching ice cream truck, which stopped in front of the diner. Its lights stayed on, but the jingle cut off when the driver’s side door opened with a clatter.

Two legs encased in a bright yellow and red polka-dot jumpsuit stepped out, revealing a slender man with an angular and slightly gaunt face, pompom covered hat perched on his head.

“He looks normal,” Darwin said, Logan letting out a bark of a laugh.

“So did that guy downstairs, kid.”

“Fair enough,” Darwin sighed, the ice cream man stepping forwards in the headlights of the car, casting dark shadows across the ground.

“What do we d-” Alex started, just before the ice cream man began to scream, a high-pitched whine that echoed across the desert. The noise was shrill, and nothing human vocal cords could ever reproduce, even Sean, who was a self-professed King of Karaoke. Angel let out a startled noise when the ice cream man’s jaw seemed to dislocate and stretch, falling downdowndown as he continued to scream. His arms began to elongate, as did his legs, his whole body stretching and stretching into something skeletal and utterly grotesque.

“Holy shit! He doesn’t look normal anymore!” Sean cried out, just as Charles began shooting, spraying bullets down at the man. The screeching continued as bullets riddled the man’s polka-dot suit, body jerking backwards before falling into the dust. His deformed mouth opened and closed a few times with rickety breaths before stilling completely.

“Oh God, you just killed another person,” Moira breathed out, finger shaking on the trigger. Looking up at Charles, who was still perched on the edge of the roof, Moira was surprised to see that the man had tears running down his face, though he did not sob. Charles’s beautiful face was still and serene, and Moira would’ve thought he were a statue if not for the way the tears slid down his face and the gentle sway of his chestnut hair as the wind ran its fingers through the thick locks.

“You okay, Chuck?” Logan asked, sparing a glance at Charles, who wiped at his eyes with his tweed sleeve and nodded.

“Yes, thank you,” Charles said quietly, eyes still locked onto the horizon. “And they aren’t ‘people’ any more. At least, not what you consider ‘people’.”

_‘They’re my brothers and sisters,’ _Charles thought sadly to himself, reloading his gun, spent shell casings rolling around and cooling on the rooftop by Charles’s feet.

Logan suddenly whistled, everyone bristling.

“More lights in the distance,” Logan said flatly, twisting something on his scope.

“How many?” Darwin asked, Logan’s mouth pulling into a grin bordering the line of deranged.

“A shit load.”

Logan was right – a procession of lights began emerging from the cloudy fog that had descended on the desert down, Alex cursing at the sight.

“Shoot them,” Charles said, everyone besides Logan hesitating. Logan fired a shot, one of the cars skidding to the side and colliding with another, bursting into flames. Charles began firing as well, cars skidding and swerving.

“There are people in those cars!” Angel said, as the cars that weren’t hit by Charles and Logan pulled in with screeching tires in front of the diner, their drivers pouring out of them like ants.

“They aren’t people anymore!” Charles yelled out over the sound of his and Logan’s bullets, the beings beneath them screeching and rushing at the diner. At the inhuman noises erupting from the invading mouths – mouths belonging to people that looked like plumbers, grandmothers, shopkeepers, children and businessmen – Alex yelled out and began firing. Darwin followed suit, as did Angel.

The bodies rushing in twisted and morphed, turning into terrifying caricatures of human beings – mouths gaping abysses, limbs long like spiders, eyes black as death itself. No, it was obvious that these invaders weren’t people, not the ones their bodies used to be, at least.

“Keep shooting them! I’m going down to make sure Raven and Hank are okay!” Charles said as he began to notice some of the angels beginning to make it past their line of fire, approaching the barricaded windows of the diner. Logan nodded in affirmation, Charles darting back down the stairs and into the diner, just as one of the angels had crashed through the window.

Charles gritted his teeth, firing his weapon. The angel was fast, scuttling across the ground and along the walls, leaping as it screamed through the mortal body that it stole.

_‘Charles!’ _the angel yelled, hurtling its crab-like form at the fallen angel, who turned his guns towards it, shooting it in the shoulder. That didn’t deter his sister though, the angel in the body of what appeared to be a youthful cheerleader jumping off the ground, tackling Charles.

Charles grunted when his back collided with the floor, a shard of a broken plate slicing his shoulder. Charles hissed and rolled, throwing his spent gun away and taking the hand gun out from his pants, firing. A bullet whizzed into the ceiling, another into the faux-leather booth, sending fluffy white seat stuffing puffing into the air.

The angel screeched again and clawed at Charles, fingers smashing down into the ground with inhuman strength, Charles grimacing.

_‘Disobeyer! Traitor!’ _the angel screamed at Charles, large maw snapping at the fallen angel who rolled again and brought his knee up to pommel his sister in the gut. The rabid angel skidded on the ground and righted itself quickly – but Charles was quicker, gun out and aimed at the angel’s crown.

“I’m sorry,” Charles said, squeezing the trigger. The angel fell back with the bullet’s blow, red oozing out onto the ground. Charles bit his lip as he looked at his fallen sister, mouth moving in a silent prayer, just as a window smashed behind him.

Whirling around, Charles raised his hand, but he had moved too slowly and too late – one of his brothers had thrown themselves through the window, teeth bared at Charles and about to tear out his jugular.

At least, it would have, if not for the bullets colliding with its temple and chest. Two rapid bangs lanced through the air, the angel skidding to a stop by Charles’s bare feet.

Charles turned to the source of the noise, surprise colouring his angelic face.

Raven was there, smoke still curling from the gun in her hands, eyes focused and brow determined. Hank hurtled out after her, gun awkwardly held in his hands, and his eyes widened behind his glasses when he saw the carnage in the diner.

“Oh God,” Hank said, wobbling a little on his legs, wrenching his eyes from the dead bodies on the ground.

“I told you I wasn’t helpless,” Raven said, giving Charles a small smile, which he returned.

“No wonder it’s you,” Charles said, Raven tilting her head to the side questioningly, before her eyes widened and her body keened over. Charles rushed forward as Raven bent, a pained gasp leaving her parted mouth as she clutched her stomach. “Raven! What’s wrong?”

“Raven!” Hank chorused, rushing behind the pregnant woman to support her, arm looped around her torso to help hold her upright.

“No, I’m fine,” Raven pushed out, waving her hand in the air. “The baby… The baby just kicked. Hard.”

“He’s a fighter,” Charles said, chuckling. “Like his mother.”

“He?” Raven echoed, curious. “How do you know it’s a he? I never confirmed the gender.”

Charles just smiled as there was a flurry of footsteps coming down the stairs, the group on the rooftop flooding into the ripped-up diner.

“Look at the mess!” Moira exclaimed, almost on the verge of tears. “I… I just mopped the floors this morning!”

“That’s the least of your concerns right now, Moira,” Angel said, mouth quirking up in a little amusement, despite the situation.

“They’re running,” Logan reported to Charles, nodding his head out the window. Charles hummed, shoulders seeming to loosen slightly.

“Well, it seems we have earned a moment of reprieve,” Charles said, walking over to one of the booths, brushing off a seat and setting himself down on it. Charles looked at the group before him, patting the expanse of faux-leather beside him. “Now, take a seat and rest your weary legs. I suppose it’s time for an explanation.”

Charles and Erik sat on a beach, wings resting in the golden sand. It was 1962, though time often seemed to blend into an incoherent expanse in their long existence.

“They were gifted with so much intelligence, and yet they use it to create tools of death and destruction,” Erik spat, standing up. Erik’s feet, clad in battle leather, did not leave any imprints in the sand as he stalked towards the water, wings unfurling in his anger.

Charles quickly got up too, following his closest friend across the sand to where the waves lapped at the shore.

A swarm of ships drifted across the sea – Russians and Americans – and were locked in a tense stand still. Charles could feel their fear and uncertainty swirling over the waves, their endless questions, the wondering if this was going to be their end. Charles knew it wouldn’t be, not yet, because He had not willed it to be so. But, these events were beginning to test His patience, Charles could feel it.

“What are their minds thinking, Charles?” Erik asked, grey eyes hard. “I can never understand them. What compels them to act like this? To make these choices that will only end in the destruction of their kind?”

“They are afraid, Erik,” Charles said, stepping to stand side-by-side with his fellow angel, who snorted.

“Afraid,” Erik repeated, Charles nodding. “I do not know what that is.”

Charles huffed, turning away from the stalemate of ships and their bombs, instead choosing to look at the profile of his friend. In the Cuban sunlight, Erik’s hair appeared more copper than brown, and at the angle of the noon sunlight his cheekbones were more angular than normal, making his jaw appear sharper. Charles always teased the man that he was the inspiration for the Italian statues of old, the old masters using the beautiful planes of Erik’s face and body as a model for the statues of their kind. Erik just snorted, but his eyes always lit up like the stars whenever Charles waxed lyrical about him.

“Fear is not exclusive to humans, Erik. Angels can feel fear, too, just not as often. We haven’t been given many opportunities to fear with our immortality and power,” Charles said, Erik beginning to grin, showing a flash of white teeth.

“Yes, because He made us powerful. More powerful than the humans, who die so easily yet spend their lives so recklessly. Compared to the foolish, foolish humans, it’s clear that we are superior, is it not, Charles?”

“My friend, you know I don’t believe that,” Charles said, placing his hand on Erik’s bicep, squeezing the taut muscle there. “We are not superior, nor are they inferior. They just don’t see like we do, Erik. Their lives are short compared to ours, their collective knowledge is eons shorter than what we have already experienced. We… We see things from above. We don’t live with our feet on the ground like them, with their emotions. Even I, who has the Gift to feel what they feel, only do it second hand. They live with their feelings, _by _their feelings. That is a power in itself, Erik. One that, I must admit, I find amazing.”

“Careful, Charles. It almost sounds like you are envious of the humans,” Erik said, glancing down at the man by his side, who just chuckled, stepping in front of Erik to dip his bare feet into the sun-kissed water.

“No, not envious, my friend. Just awed,” Charles said, gazing out across the sea. Charles listened – felt – at once; Charles was the Russian soldier longing for the conflict to end to be reunited with his infant daughter, and he was an American shipman twisting his new wedding band around his finger, praying that what he does today will protect the future for his wife at home. Most of the people on those ships, they all made decisions based on their hearts – of course, there were the few whose minds were tainted with darkness, but in the end, most of the men out there wanted to protect their countries and the people they loved that lived within them. That was a warm feeling that made Charles tingle, warming him up from the inside.

They just couldn’t see that the other side wanted the same thing.

“Awed at the humans who are ruled by fear?” Erik asked, Charles turning, wings dragging in the water.

“You don’t understand because you have never known true fear, Erik,” Charles said, Erik rolling his eyes.

“What do I have to fear?”

Charles just smiled, shrugging.

“Your fears are your own, my friend.”

“And you? You have fears that are your own? Fears that the humans don’t force upon you?”

Charles looked at Erik, deep into his blue-grey eyes, before dropping his gaze, the look in Erik’s eyes burning too bright.

“Yes, I have fears that are my own,” Charles said gently, stepping further into the water until it lapped at his thighs, the white fabric he wore billowing out languidly.

‘I fear that we will be torn apart one day.’

“So, angels,” Raven said, voice monotone. Hank’s mouth dropped open, having only heard this for the first time, unlike those on the rooftop. Still, hearing it for a second time didn’t make it any easier to digest.

“Yes, angels,” Charles repeated, Moira and Sean returning to the table with trays full of hot coffees and marshmallows. The group all took a cup each, but only Charles blinked as Moira placed a steaming cup in front of him. Curiously, Charles pulled the mug towards him, taking a careful sip – Charles had never consumed anything before, his body not needing human food for sustenance. But, now he had fallen, and Charles did not know what he was any more.

Charles decided that he didn’t particularly like this concoction called coffee, but that he did not mind the sweetness of the fluffy marshmallows that were like the clouds at home. Erik would probably prefer the coffee, though – the thought made Charles’s chest squeeze tightly.

“I suppose I should start from the beginning,” Charles said, pushing his coffee away and nibbling on another pink marshmallow. Everyone around the table nodded, the coffee forgotten as they listened attentively.

“The last time God lost faith in man, he sent a flood,” Charles said, breaths hitching all around the table. “This time, he sent what you saw outside.”

“So, this is the apocalypse? Is that what you’re saying?” Alex asked, coffee cup thudding on the table.

“Hm, I suppose so. That’s what you all call it. At this point, it’s more like an ‘extermination’,” Charles said, smiling wryly.

“What, so we’re like cockroaches? Pests?” Alex piped up again, clicking his tongue.

“Divine fumigation?” Moira offered, Logan snorting a little.

“That’s the short of it, yes,” Charles said, smiling a little at the analogy before sobering again. “Those beings that you saw outside, they’re just vessels. Possessed, you could say. The weakest willed are the easiest to turn.”

“Possessed by angels then? You sure they’re not possessed by demons? Because that’s what the movies say, man. The angels are supposed to be the good guys,” Sean said, Charles shaking his head.

“Your popular culture is amusing, and oftentimes quite flattering,” Charles said, taking another marshmallow and squishing it between his fingers. “But no. This is not the work of demons, but of His angels.”

“Wait, how do you know so much about this? Are you a… pastor, or something?” Raven asked, Charles giving them a serene smile.

“I know all of this because, yesterday, I was technically on their side,” Charles said, back beginning to burn again at the reminder of the appendages he had recently lost.

“So you’re a-”

“Was,” Charles said sharply, cutting Alex off, the boy flinching. Giving him an apologetic look, Charles lowered his voice. “Sorry. It’s… sensitive.”

“Right, sorry Chuck, you say that you were an angel or whatever, but I’m not about to believe that so easily,” Logan said, dumping the rest of his flask of whiskey into his coffee and stirring it with his finger, chugging it down. “That being said, I also don’t believe in God and shit either.”

“Well, that goes both ways, Logan. He doesn’t believe in you either, not right now,” Charles said, everyone tensing. Logan just stared at Charles, almost challenging, the fallen angel heaving out a prolonged sigh. “I do suppose this is all hard to believe. Piety has waned in recent centuries, and pop culture has reduced us to shiny white-winged beings. Unfortunately, things aren’t so glamourous.”

Charles shuffled from where he sat, shrugging off his tweed coat – now soaked with blood and what Moira was denying were bits of temporal lobe – and subsequently pulled his lilac sweater over his head. Moira, who was standing slightly behind Charles, gasped. Charles laughed dryly.

“Yes, I can’t imagine that it’s a pretty sight,” Charles mused, everyone getting up to get behind Charles, wondering why Moira looked so pale. It was obvious once their eyes fell upon the two red and puckered wounds on Charles’s back which almost met in a V-shape, long bony protuberances jutting out like sawed-off stumps from the jagged cuts.

“Oh, wow. So what are you, like Michelangelo or something?” Sean asked, Moira giving him a look.

“You mean Michael, the archangel?”

“Or Gabriel, and Raphael,” Darwin added, Charles laughing.

“Oh, yes and no. Our names seem to have gotten lost sometime during the past millennia. Instead of Raphael, try Emma. And instead of Uriel, my brother would prefer to be called Janos.”

And Gabriel’s true name is Erik. Erik, Erik, Erik.

“But your wings… they were…” Hank asked, staring at the wounds on Charles’s back curiously.

“…Taken as a punishment for my betrayal,” Charles said quietly, taking another sip of his bitter coffee.

“Betrayal?”

“Yes. You see, I’m supposed to help with your… fumigation. Evidently, I was against it, and threw myself from Heaven to try and save humankind. Obviously, He did not take too kindly too it, nor did my brothers and sisters, and hence my wings were torn from my back and my Gift taken away,” Charles said, voice airy and light but stilted despite trying to sound unaffected.

“So you’re here to protect us? Like a guardian angel?” Angel asked, Charles leaning on the table.

“Well, not entirely,” Charles said, turning his eyes up from his coffee to look directly at Raven, the blonde girl blinking. “I’m here to protect her.”

“Me?” Raven asked, alarmed. “Why me?”

“Because your child is the only hope humanity has of surviving,” Charles said simply, the diner growing silent. Heads turned back and forth between a still Raven and a calm Charles, who continued to chew on his marshmallows.

“Well, shit,” Alex muttered, sinking into his chair.

“No way. Nope, nuh uh,” Raven said, standing up as she shook her head. Raven threw her hands up, pacing around the diner as Hank hovered around, trying to get her to sit down. “Why me? I’m nobody. Hell, I know what everyone says about me. I’m just the girl who got knocked up by some random guy a few states over, the girl that threw away my future because I didn’t use protection! Why. Me?!”

“Because you’re strong,” Charles said, voice soft but cutting through Raven’s near-hysterical rant, the girl silenced by Charles’s words. “Because you’re a fighter, and brave, and good. Because you’re the only person that is strong enough to carry this burden.”

“I’m just a waitress,” Raven whispered, letting Hank guide her back to the booth seat with worried hands.

“No, you’re Raven,” Charles said, like that meant something. “You’re stronger than you know. Trust me.”

After a long moment, Raven’s mouth curled up.

“Well, who better to trust than an angel?” Raven said, Sean laughing, Darwin and Alex cracking smiles. Even Logan let out a snort, while Moira and Hank exhaled soft chuckles.

“So, let me get this straight, Chuck,” Logan said, crossing his arms over his burly chest. “To survive the apocalypse, we’ve just gotta protect the girl and her bub until it’s born?”

“At the very least,” Charles said, eyes growing dark. “Let’s get to that stage first, because once the baby is born, the vessels out there can’t touch him. But after that…”

Erik will come to kill the child.

“More of them are coming, then?” Darwin asked, Charles swallowing around the boulder in his throat and nodding.

“Yes, which is why we need to prepare. This first wave was them testing our strength. Next, they will test our weakness.”

“Okay,” Moira said, leaning on the table. “Charles, what do we need to do?”

Next chapter (3/4) → 

#cherik #x-men #x-men fic #xmen #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #professor x #magneto #marvel #ao3 #james mcavoy #michael fassbender #legion

[sareyen]

The Price of Hope (Cherik): Part 1/4

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Legion (2010) AU: The apocalypse is coming, and the key to humankind’s survival lies in a pregnant waitress and a rag-tag group of strangers, all broken in their own ways. Charles, the oldest of the archangels, sacrifices everything - his wings, his Gift, Erik - to help the humans that Heaven has given up on. Because, he believes, that even if they stumble and lose their way, it doesn’t mean that they are lost forever.

Chapter 1

“For behold, the Lord will come in fire And His chariots like the whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. For the Lord will execute judgment by fire And by His sword on all flesh, And those slain by the Lord will be many.”

Isaiah 66:16

“Charles, don’t be foolish!” Erik hissed, wrenching Charles’s arm back, forcing the shorter angel to look at him. Bottomless blue eyes stared up at Erik, determined. Unwavering. That gaze that always made Erik weak now only angered him.

‘Let me go, Erik,’ Charles pushed into Erik’s mind, the internal echo making Erik quake. But, still, Erik did not let go of Charles’s arm and only squeezed tighter.

“I will not,” Erik churned out, pulling Charles closer, the man’s wings tensing. “Charles, this is madness. You’d give everything for those… those humans. How could you…”

‘You, who is so beautiful and pure, so full of everything that is good. You, who has always been the best of all of us. Why would you want to lower yourself to the level of those humans who are beyond salvation?’

Charles’s eyes softened for a moment, likely overhearing his closest friend’s honest thoughts. Red lips curved gently, before flattening back out into a resolute line.

‘I have hope, my friend,’ Charles supplied softly, slipping his left arm from Erik’s grip to reach up and cup the taller angel’s angular cheek.

“Hope,” Erik said bitterly, lips pulling back in something resembling a snarl. Erik’s steely-grey eyes narrowed as he gathered a sharply cut collection of thoughts and images in his mind, the familiar thrum of Charles’s own mind buzzing around the fringes of his consciousness. Erik felt hesitation, never wanting to hurt Charles, but disregarded the feeling because he had to make Charles see.

Erik threw all of the images he had gathered from the past few millennia at Charles, who winced and stumbled a little, held in place by Erik’s hands which again gripped his biceps, shaking the stubborn man.

Erik sent Charles images of humans at their worst – hurting children, ravaging the land, of countless wars leaving blood to soak the Earth red. Erik throttled Charles’s mind with everything that was terrible, of everything soiled and tainted and so unlike the man wearing pristine robes of white, fringed with sunlit gold.

That very fabric was crumpling under Erik’s hands now, and Erik pushed down the sense of unease budding within him – Charles had always looked so clean and pure, always opting for white robes in contrast to Erik’s harsh warrior’s garb. Erik knew better than to be deceived by Charles’s appearance, knowing that underneath the fluttering white silks was a hardened body, strong and powerful, encasing a mind that was even more astounding.

“Erik, stop,” Charles gritted out, glaring up at Erik now with those blue eyes of his that He had modelled after skies and oceans. Or was it that the skies and oceans of Earth were modelled after Charles’s eyes?

Charles rarely used his Gift so forcefully, but now he snapped at Erik’s mind, shielding his own from the unrelenting torrent of earthly atrocities, silencing Erik. Erik, in turn, almost winced as his mind grew cold, Charles pulling back. It felt like there was an empty space in the base of Erik’s mind, so used to having Charles’s warmth curled up there. Charles’s constant tether to Erik was not invasive – never invasive – but just a silent hum of ‘I’m here, you’re not alone’.

Now, though, Charles refused to touch Erik’s head.

“Don’t you see, Charles?” Erik urged, the gold bands around Charles’s biceps and legs humming under Erik’s gift. “The humans, they’re beyond all hope. They kill and hurt each other for greed and wrath, they’ve razed the very Earth He created with smoke and death. It has taken Him so long to see it, but the humans are inferior and need to be exterminated. Even He has lost hope, and He is right.”

Charles eyes grew glossy and wet, and Erik watched him minutely shake his head, a mere tremble. Chestnut hair which shone almost amber in the light of the Heavens shook over Charles’s eyes, obscuring them as he looked down.

“I don’t believe it,” Charles whispered, Erik’s heart hammering at Charles’s admission.

“No, Charles, don’t say that,” Erik said, almost pleading as he shook Charles again, the metal surrounding them in the Hall of Angels in Heaven screaming as Erik’s Gift unfurled, unbidden in his internal panic. ‘Charles, don’t say it. Please, stay by my side. We want the same thing.’

Charles looked up again then, tears slipping down his reddened cheeks.

“I’m sorry, my friend, but we do not,” Charles murmured, and before Erik could open his mouth to respond, to use his Gift to rivet Charles to the spot, he froze. If Erik could control his body, his eyes would have widened, but Charles held him eerily still with his power. Charles’s tears continued to flow, collecting at his chin and dripping onto the white fabric covering his torso, as he forced Erik’s fingers to loosen and drop uselessly to his side.

Erik’s heart felt something wholly unfamiliar to him, something that angels so rarely felt. But Charles, Charles who was given the gift of seeing and hearing and feeling like a human, felt all of those human emotions and more. Erik couldn’t understand it, how Charles of all people could still believe in them when he could feel all of their worst emotions and was forced to shoulder them all.

‘Charles! Charles! Don’t do this!’ Erik screamed in his mind, his body non-compliant as Charles cupped Erik’s unmoving cheeks again, giving his friend a sad, grieving smile.

“Erik,” Charles whispered, hopping onto his toes to press his lips against Erik’s forehead once. Erik felt the warmth on his skin for a moment in his frozen state, his chest doing something once again, something that ached. The warmth was soon gone, Charles taking a step back after brushing his thumb over Erik’s cheek, where a single tear had inadvertently escaped.

“Erik, just because the humans stumble and lose their way, doesn’t mean they’re lost forever,” Charles said, giving Erik one last, lingering look before turning his back.

Erik screamed in his mind, but could only watch as Charles threw himself off the clouds and out of Heaven, descending from the skies and giving up everything for those humans that did not deserve him.

Erik knew the moment Charles’s angelic powers were ripped away from him when he found himself crumpling to his knees, Charles’s hold on his mind and body burning away to nothing.

***

When Moira clocked in for the early shift at the diner at four in the morning, it had been the same as any other day. McCone had slacked off during his uneventful nightshift and left Moira plenty of dirty tables to clean up, sauce beginning to dry into concrete on the plates and flies buzzing around. It was still pitch-black outside, the only cars in the parking lot being Moira’s beat-up Chevy and Darwin’s own rust-bucket of a car.

“What time did McCone leave today?” Moira asked Darwin, who just chuckled as he pulled his apron over his head after stamping his time card.

“The moment he saw me clock in, he bolted,” Darwin replied, Moira rolling her eyes while tying up her long brown hair into a tight ponytail.

“Figures,” Moira tutted, sharing a look with Darwin, who began preparing the kitchen. Moira, on the other hand, sighed and grabbed a large grey plastic tub, shoving dirty plates and cutlery into it and hating her miserable small-town life.

Sure, Moira knew that her life was better than most, but there was always the feeling that she could be doing more than working at a diner in her tiny town that was often forgotten on maps. Moira had always been ambitious and hard-working, and while her parents had always told her that ‘there is plenty to do in our lovely town’, Moira dreamed bigger – Moira wanted to study at a big university in the city, to become someone that could help shape the world into something better.

Unfortunately, to leave town she needed money, and there weren’t many jobs available in such a backwater place – hence the unstimulating job as a waitress in the town’s only restaurant.

It was as Moira was dumping the dirty dishes into the large commercial sink that the bell at the front door clattered, followed by hasty footsteps and a shrill “Sorry I’m late!”. Moira and Darwin just shared an amused look as Sean, a wild-haired teenager, barrelled in.

“You’re eight minutes late,” Moira said, raising a brow. “That’s actually pretty good by your standards.” Darwin chuckled and slid Sean a cup of coffee, the kid taking it gratefully and downing the watery concoction in record speed.

At that, Sean shot Moira and Darwin a newly-energised grin, quickly ducking to the back to dump his bagsand coat, before sidling up to Moira in the kitchen to clean the dishes.

Even though Moira hated her job, she didn’t mind her co-workers; Darwin, the cook, was easy to get along with and made some mean pancakes, while Sean was always energetic despite the sun not having risen yet and always managed to lighten up the dreary diner.

For the next hour, the three just cranked up the radio and danced around the otherwise empty diner. No one ever really came to the diner before six, so when the bell at the door chimed when the clock hanging above the counter just hit 5:23, the three workers nearly jumped out of their skins. Darwin quickly turned down the blasting radio, Sean hopped down from the counter and Moira cleared her throat.

A young dark-skinned woman walked into the diner wearing a short black halter-neck dress and teetering heels, hugging her dark, furry maroon coat around her slender frame. Her dark hair was slightly windswept and in disarray, eyes flittering left and right with agitation, before turning to Moira warily when she approached with her usual ‘service’ smile.

“Good morning. Table for one?” Moira asked, the woman licking her plush lips before nodding stiffly. “Okay. Would you prefer the counter or a table? We’re pretty empty, so you can take your pick. I’ll bring a menu and some water to you.” Moira vaguely waved her hand around, ducking behind the counter to pour a tall glass of water, tucking a menu under her arm.

The woman glanced around at the empty diner, before moving to the booth seat in the corner. Moira slid her water across the table and handed her the menu to peruse as the door opened again. Moira was surprised at the second arrival before six – maybe this day was panning out to be vastly different from every other day.

The person that walked in was a very gruff-looking man wearing a worn-and-torn military jacket and dark-wash jeans. His face was covered with dark hair and his brows looked like they were permanently furrowed and unable to be smoothened out. He was unfamiliar to the diner’s employees, who basically new everyone who lived in their small town.

Before Moira could greet him, the man planted himself at the bar and asked for coffee, as dark as they could make it, and a breakfast with everything in a voice that was biting and brusque. Moira let out a little snort at the man’s rudeness, but jerked her head at Sean, who went and poured the man a coffee while Darwin started cooking the man’s meal.

Turning back to the girl in the booth, Moira asked if she was ready to order, relaying the order of ‘scrambled eggs and a chocolate milkshake’ to Darwin, who gave Moira a thumbs up in response.

Before Moira could put the menu back in its place, the door opened again, revealing a young blonde man wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and leather jacket, face bleak and cool. Moira glanced at the clock – 5:52am. Christ, there were too many patrons at their backwater diner far too early in the morning.

“Morning. Take a seat anywhere, be with you in a second!” Moira called out as she poured the chocolate syrup into a tall milkshake glass, the young man nodding, before sliding into the booth by the door. After serving the chocolate milkshake, Moira walked over to the newcomer with a menu while he was on his phone, seeming to scroll through photos – one of them was of him and a slightly younger boy, the two of them smiling into the camera. Moira internally sighed at how different the man’s expression was as he sat there, desolate and weary, in the diner booth.

“Order when you’re ready,” Moira said, the man shutting off his phone and giving Moira a small smile.

Even though the morning was more lively than usual, Moira, Sean and Darwin got into the swing of things like always. It was at 6:15, when the three early patrons were all munching on their eggs and bacon, that the door opened, revealing someone that was familiar to the diner’s employees.

“Raven!” Moira said, hugging the blonde girl with a wide smile on her face. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be coming in to work!”

Raven gave Moira a sheepish smile, instinctively rubbing at her swollen and pregnant belly. Raven was 9 months pregnant now, and due to pop at any given moment, which was why she had recently taken time off work.

“I know, I know,” Raven said, bumping Sean’s fist as he leaned over the counter before Moira ushered Raven to sit down in one of the empty booths, the young woman letting out a relieved ‘phew’ when she sunk into the peeling red faux-leather. “I’m not here to work, I promise. The kid just really craved Darwin’s pancakes.”

Raven fondly tapped her belly, Moira laughing.

“Right, one serve of Darwin’s pancakes coming right up. And let me guess… a strawberry shake?”

“With extra ice-cream,” Raven said, Moira smiling.

“Sure thing.”

A few more minutes ticked by, and the door opened again, revealing another familiar face.

“Heya, Hank,” Sean said, waving at the tall and lanky man, who nodded his head with a shy smile, pushing his bulky glasses higher up onto his nose. Hank scanned the diner, and when he saw the back of Raven’s fluffy blonde head, turned a shade of scarlet that made Sean snicker and Moira stifle a chuckle. Sean, Hank and Raven had all gone to high-school together, and it had been obvious even then that Hank was nursing a hefty crush on Raven.

Unfortunately, Hank never acted on his crush, since he was of the notion that Raven – popular, beautiful and charismatic Raven – was out of his league. Hank was, quite simply, a geek, and had always been most comfortable in a lab or the library, while Raven was a cheerleader who also dabbled in the school’s volleyball team. Hank would never confess his affections to someone like Raven, and especially not now that she was, as the whole town knew, ‘knocked up’.

Raven’s pregnancy at a freshly ripened age of 19 had been gossip-fodder for the majority of her time being pregnant; after embarking on a road trip after graduating highschool, Raven had returned pregnant. People had tried to find out who the father was, but Raven had kept silent about it. Of course, with silence came rumours, and unfortunately lots of Raven’s so-called ‘friends’ had abandoned her in her time of crisis.

Raven, though, was stronger than anyone Hank knew, and this only made him love her more. Hank, even though he wasn’t the baby’s father and not even the object of Raven’s affections, wanted nothing more than to help her.

When Hank approached Raven’s table, the blonde smiling at him and kicking at the seat opposite her, Hank’s heart was alight.

“Hey Hank,” Raven chirped, the boy blushing and murmuring a small ‘hi’ in response. “It’s a nice morning, isn’t it?” At that, Raven looked outside at the sky that was strangely clear and devoid of any clouds, the sun beginning to rise over the distant mountains.

“Yeah, it’s a nice day,” Hank said, not looking outside but at Raven instead, soft smile on his face as the sunlight made her hair gleam more golden than usual, a halo around her beautiful face.

But oh, how wrong they were. This was not a nice day.

In fact, it was the dawn of the Apocalypse.

***

When Charles landed, he landed hard. Charles coughed out a pained breath when he collided with the dirt, dust pluming out from the crater his descent had etched into the earth. Spluttering a little, Charles waited for the dust to settle before pushing himself up to a kneeling position, groaning as pain lanced throughout his entire body.

Charles’s mind felt like it was splitting, like a hand – His hand – had reached in and rearranged everything, pulling out something integral. His Gift.

It had been a long time since the world had been so silent for Charles, and it unnerved him. Charles knew that this would happen, of course – he had blatantly disobeyed His will, so of course He would take away the gifts He had bestowed upon Charles when the angel was created.

The stabbing pain in Charles’s head soon ebbed away as his mind found its bearings, but that only gave way to another searing pain that splayed out from Charles’s back. Charles let out a sobbing breath as the pain in his back made him lurch forward, head hanging down as his arms propped him up, shaking.

Carefully, Charles bit on his lip, reaching back over his shoulder to probe at his back. Charles whimpered when his fingers met a jagged lump by his shoulder blades, and without seeing his back Charles knew what it would look like.

“Oh,” Charles croaked, pulling his fingers back from the stump of his wing, blood already crusted over. Charles shuddered, breathing erratic as his mind whirled. The angel – fallen angel, now – hunched over and hugged himself, struggling to catch his breath.

‘You knew what would happen. You knew, Charles, and you made your decision. This is necessary, this is needed. You have to stand up now,’ Charles told himself, wiping away the dirt and tears from his face, picking himself up from the ground. It was only then that he realised he was completed nude, his white and gold attire having been ripped to shreds in his descent.

Charles, of all the angels, was the most fond of the humans and Earth. Erik had always thought his infatuation with them ridiculous, even if a millennium ago he had only said those words with a small, fond smile on his face. Now, though, Charles could just see the hurt, disapproval and betrayal etched across Erik’s stoic face when Charles, in the end, chose the humans. The smarting sores on Charles’s back was a physical reminder of that. His wingless form was a reminder that he had forsaken God and the other angels – forsaken Erik – for the humans.

Even though his decision pained Charles, he did not regret it, because Charles believed. Charles, who had been given the Gift of peering into the souls of the beings that God had so cherished, until his faith had supposedly wavered. Yes, Charles knew of their pain, of their suffering, of their most vile potential. The images Erik had pushed at him in a final effort to change his mind were not new to the fallen angel. Charles knew of all of the evil in the world – felt it – but he knew the other side of the coin as well.

Charles knew about all the good in the world.

Charles, who could connect with all the minds on Earth, knew of the good there as well, just lying dormant and waiting. Unlike all of the other angels, who could only watch the humans with detached eyes, Charles could feel them. Charles knew what happiness felt like, what trust and hope and love felt inside a beating heart. Charles knew how it felt to be hugged by a mother, how it felt to see your child for the first time. Charles knew how it felt to laugh with friends until you all cried, Charles knew how it felt to hold the person you loved for the first time.

Charles also knew what loved felt like. What falling in love felt like.

That feeling was not discovered second hand like all of the others. No, that was a feeling born solely from Charles’s very being.

Charles grit his teeth and clutched at his chest that was full of Erik, but also full of hope.

Charles had a mission to complete, a mission that made him an enemy of all of Heaven, so he had to move quick.

That was why Charles trudged across the desert he landed in, naked like a newborn babe, to the town that was destined to be the beginning of the end – unless Charles found a way to stop it.

***

The pretty dark-haired girl in the corner booth had long-since finished her meal and milkshake, but was now sipping on a lukewarm coffee while glancing out of the window sketchily, like she was keeping an eye out for something or someone chasing her. The gruff man at the counter has since ordered a third plate of scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon while scoffing down his second helping of Darwin’s pancakes – Moira had noticed that he had added a hefty dose of what looked like whiskey into his coffee as well, the drink tucked away in a silver flash by his breast.

The young blonde man had locked himself in the bathroom for the past twenty minutes, and Moira could hear a heated conversation between him and child services, the boy hissing something muffled about a younger brother. The other boy in the picture, Moira supposed.

Hank and Raven had been chatting away in the middle booth, or at least, Raven had. Raven had regaled the entire diner about how her unborn child was going to be the most badass child the world has ever seen, and had been scrolling through her phone with a litany of potential baby names. Hank had just listened, soft smile on his face, only occasionally piping in with a ‘that’s a nice name’ or ‘what does that name mean?’. Hank spoke more when Raven asked him about the medical side of things, since Hank was studying pre-med (though he was already working his way through the medicine course on his own time, his intelligence leagues ahead of his age).

It was during a quiet lull in their conversation that the diner was plunged into silence again, the radio playing 80s hits suddenly cutting off with static. Darwin sighed, wiping his hands on his apron to knock his fist on the radio a few times, brute force usually fixing the issue. Strangely, the radio remained plunged in static, and Darwin frowned, trying to change the station to no avail.

Raven turned her head outside, a sense of unease washing over her as she noticed thick grey clouds rolling in, blanketing the sun in a shroud of darkness.

“Huh, looks like the nice weather from this morning is gone,” Raven mused, rubbing absentmindedly at her belly, the child kicking erratically. “Katie doesn’t like bad weather.”

“Katie?” Hank asked, Raven laughing a little.

“If she’s a girl,” Raven said, Hank smiling. “Well, Katherine – but I’d call her Katie. Ooh, or Kitty. Kitty is a cute name for a girl.”

“It is,” Hank said, head lolling to the side as he swooned at Raven’s round-cheeked elation. Raven opened her mouth to say something – likely about to begin spewing out boys’ names – when the girl in the corner booth swore loudly.

“Fuck! He found me,” the woman hissed, ducking down from the window with wide eyes.

“Are you okay?” Moira asked, the girl dropping to the floor, like she was about to climb under the table.

“No! He found me!” the woman hissed again, voice panicked. “Fuck! How the hell did he find me so quickly?!”

Moira frowned, looking outside; a sleek black sedan with heavily tinted windows had pulled up, and a well-built man in a striped 3-piece suit stepped out of it, imposing and severely out of place in the parking lot of their ramshackle diner. Taking in the girl who was trembling in her dress, scrabbling at her fraying coat, Moira frowned further. Clearly, that guy was bad news if he could make this girl so terrified.

“Hey, follow me,” Moira said, ushering the girl behind the counter and to the back of the diner. The girl did not hesitate to follow Moira, who let her into the small staff room that had sometime turned into a store room, packed floor to ceiling with boxes. “Stay here and wait until that guy’s gone. Don’t come out until I get you.”

“Thank you, God, thank you so much,” the girl said, rubbing at her eyes and smudging her heavy eyeliner. “He’s… He’s bad news.”

“What did he do?” Moira asked, the girl blanching a little, making Moira give her a reassuring look. “I don’t mean to pry, I just think it’ll help if I know what I’m trying to kick out of the diner.”

The girl snorted out a laugh, though it wasn’t amused in the slightest.

“He’s my step-father,” the girl said, disgust and fear written all over her face. “He… He’s involved in prostitution, and…”

The girl gestured to herself, eyes growing dark. Moira’s heart bled.

“I was one of the girls he used to pimp out, but as one of the older ones he was harsher with me. I didn’t mind it, since that usually meant he didn’t hurt the younger girls as much, but he went too far. So I… I retaliated. I burned down his office and stole all of the cash he had been hoarding, giving it to the girls so they could get away from there. I ran too, obviously – but he found me,” the girl said, biting her lower lip.

“Well, shit,” Moira breathed out, cursing. “If that’s the case, then you’re definitely staying in here. Seriously, don’t come out until I let you know it’s all clear.”

“Thank you so much,” the girl said, giving Moira a watery smile. “My name’s Angel, by the way.”

“Moira,” the brown-haired woman said, flicking at the name badge pinned to the front of her ghastly yellow and blue diner uniform, smiling. “Alrighty, time to deal with a scumbag.”

Moira closed the door behind her after putting her finger to her lips in a final ‘be quiet’ motion to Angel, heading back to the front of the house. Angel’s step-father was currently leaning against the counter, hand slapping down as he snapped at Darwin and Sean.

“I know she’s here!” the man seethed, Sean’s eyes wide while Darwin remained calm as always, stepping out of the kitchen and placing a comforting hand on Sean’s shoulder.

“Sir, who are you looking for?” Darwin asked, the man’s face pulling back with a sneer. Moira smiled a little at Darwin’s perceptiveness – he had clearly gotten the general gist of the situation, and though he didn’t know the details, he had recognised that this guy was bad news and on the hunt for the terrified woman Moira had ushered to the back just moments before.

“Black, tall, skinny, pretty with long dark hair. She should be dressed like a whore,” the man said, Moira bristling. Ugh, pig.

“Sorry, Sir,” Moira said, sidling up with a deceiving sweet smile, the one she used to serve entitled customers that sometimes stumbled into their humble diner. “No one fitting that description has come to our diner, we’d know. As you can see, we don’t usually get many patrons, especially not so early in the morning.”

“Don’t lie to me, woman,” the man spat, jerking a fat finger at Moira’s face, saliva spraying. The man then slammed his hand down on the counter again, the plates clattering.

“Excuse me, Sir, but we don’t tolerate violence in our establishment. If you continue this behaviour, I’ll have to ask you to leave,” Darwin said carefully, the pimp’s face going bright red, hand rising to slam back down on the counter.

Before he could, though, there was suddenly a loud ‘whack’, the pimp crumpling to the ground, knocked out cold.

“What the hell?!” Sean exclaimed, watching everything unfold with wide eyes. The other diners – the blonde boy, Hank and Raven – all watched in shock as well, eyes flittering from the pimp on the ground to the person looming over him.

Standing over him was the gruff bearded man wearing the army jacket sitting that had been at the counter. He rubbed at his knuckles, which had just a second ago made contact with the pimp’s jaw, sending him dropping like a sack of flour.

“Tsk, one punch and he’s already out? Pathetic,” the man grumbled, trudging back to his seat and shovelling some eggs into his mouth, chewing.

“What the hell just happened?” Moira exclaimed, rushing over to the unconscious pimp, checking for a pulse. He was still alive (barely), but it was obvious that his nose was broken and oozing a crimson puddle on Moira’s freshly scrubbed floors. Getting up, Moira glared at the man sitting at the counter who was eating his breakfast like he hadn’t just knocked a man out. “You just assaulted him!”

“He deserved it,” the man shrugged callously. “He was obviously an asshole.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can just go assaulting him! He’s unconscious!”

“Yeah, but now he’s not a problem,” the man said, cracking a grin that was a little feral. “You can thank me with another cup of coffee.”

“Oh, Christ,” Moira groaned, looking at Darwin. “Darwin, call an ambulance or something. And Sean, can you get this guy over to the corner, or one of the booths?”

Sean looked like he would honestly rather do anything else, which Moira thought was understandable - the kid hadn’t taken the dishwashing job to lug around fully-grown unconscious pieces of shit, but this was a strange day.

When the man – still unconscious – was tucked away in the corner, Moira went back to Angel, who jumped when Moira opened the door.

“Is he gone?” Angel asked quickly, Moira biting her lip.

“Uh, well, that’s one way to put it?” Moira offered, Angel giving her a confused look. “You can see for yourself.”

The two women walked out, and Angel gasped when she saw her step-father slumped on the floor, blood oozing from his broken nose.

“Who did that!?” Angel asked, eyes wide. The offender snorted, waving a hand briefly. Angel, still a little shell-shocked, pushed out an incredulous laugh. “Well, thanks. I only expected him to get kicked out, not… knocked out.”

“He seemed like he deserved it,” the bearded man said, Angel laughing.

“Yeah, he did,” she said softly, walking over to the man at the counter. “I’m Angel. I don’t really know how to repay you, but I could buy you another coffee?”

“Logan,” the man grunted, pushing his empty mug of coffee across the counter. “And you can thank me by buying me two.”

“Deal,” Angel said, beaming as she waved Moira over, who was exasperated by their disregard for the fact that there was a man bleeding all over her floor.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” Moira grumbled, just as Darwin hung up the corded phone mounted on the wall.

“Hey, the landline seems to be down,” Darwin said, Moira throwing her hands up in frustration.

“Just another thing to worry about! It’s clearly not enough that we have an unconscious pimp on the floor!”

“Hey, my cellphone isn’t working either. Like, there’s no signal,” Sean said, tapping at his phone with a frown on his face.

“Huh, weird – I’m not getting any cell service either,” Raven said, leaning over to see if Hank had any. His phone had zero bars as well.

“Is it because of the storm that’s starting outside?” Moira asked after checking her own phone, which wasn’t any better. Everyone looked outside at Moira’s comment, the sky now completely dark – it was only 6:45 in the morning, but it felt more like the dead of the night. In the gaps in the clouds was an odd silvery sheen, like constant, noiseless lightning, which cast disconcerting shadows across the barren desert outside of the diner.

“It’s just clouds, there’s no rain or thunder that would disrupt all the cell towers, let alone the land line,” Hank said, fiddling with his phone.

“Hey, Sean, do you want to make a quick run to the sheriff? Ask what’s going on?” Moira said, Sean nodding and pulling off his apron. As the boy headed to the door, he had to pass by the unconscious pimp, who suddenly jerked, making Sean scream shrilly.

“The hell, dude?!” Sean screeched, jumping back. The pimp’s eyes flickered open, Angel’s mouth opening in a silent, terrified scream, scuttling back behind the counter. Logan narrowed his eyes at the pimp, who was picking himself up from the floor sluggishly, head hanging low.

The pimp’s head then snapped up abruptly, eyes glassy. His gaze flittered across the diner, looking at Logan, then Darwin, then Moira, Sean and Angel – Angel tensed, about to run, but strangely, her step-father looked right past her. His eyes flitted to the blonde boy by the door, then Hank, and then…

When the man’s eyes fixed onto Raven, the girl bristling and cradling her baby bump instinctively, the man smiled, showing teeth reddened with blood.

The pimp suddenly lunged forward at Raven, who screamed. Hank also yelled, tripping out of the booth to block the man’s path, but the pimp was suddenly on the ground again when Logan kicked out his leg, landing a blow to the pimp’s side.

The man flailed to the ground, limbs flying and an odd screeching sound erupting from his throat.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Angel asked, trembling. “He… He didn’t even see me. Recognise me.”

“And why did he run after me?!” Raven yelled, gripping onto Hank’s arm, the lanky boy’s mouth pressed in a tight line, hands balled into fists.

“Guess my first punch knocked his brain loose,” Logan said, smirking. Everyone just gave Logan an odd look, but couldn’t say anything when the pimp on the ground suddenly jerked again, spasming. Logan looked a little surprised, staring at the man writhing on the ground. “Jesus, he’s pretty sturdy. That should’ve knocked him out cold.”

The pimp suddenly twisted onto his back, arms bending and bending and bending… until his tendons snaps and joints dislodged. Everyone watched, horrified, as the man’s legs did the same, contorting into something that was definitely not normal.

“Oh my God, what the fuck?!” Sean said, grabbing a frying pan hanging on the wall and holding it up like a bat. “Is the dude possessed?! Arms aren’t supposed to bend like that!”

As Sean spoke, the man whirled around, eyes staring at Raven with fixed focus. The man scuttled forward on all fours, making everyone except Darwin and Logan scream – the latter darted forward, kicking the pimp again, sending him crashing against the wall.

But, just as everyone thought that things would quieten, they only got worse – the moment the pimp hit the wall, he began climbing up it on all fours, nails digging in and leaving bloody indentations into the wall as he climbed like a spider up the off-white plaster.

“The Exorcist! This is the fucking Exorcist! The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!” Sean shrieked, waving his frying pan in the air frantically.

“Oh my God!” Moira cried out as Raven screamed, hauled to her feet by Hank and tugging her behind him.

“What the fuck is in your coffee?!” the blonde man hollered, grabbing his empty plate and smashing it over the pimp’s head as he – it – leapt off the wall and landed on his table. The young man let out a yell as he punched the pimp in the face, grunting in pain as his hand collided, the pimp’s head snapping to the side with the motion, but otherwise unphased. The blonde boy’s eyes widened then the pimp’s mouth pulled into a smile.

“Oh, shit!” the boy yelled as the demonically possessed pimp shot forward, knocking him onto the ground before aiming for Raven again.

“Someone get him!” Raven yelled, hugging her pregnant belly as Hank pushed her back behind the counter, grabbing the frying pan from Sean and slamming it against the pimp’s face, the collision of metal and bone echoing around the diner.

“Help me hold him down!” Logan yelled, slamming his burly body down onto the screeching demon-man, struggling to keep him down alone. “Hey! You guys, get the hell over here!”

The blonde man reacted first, sliding on his knees and grabbing onto the pimp’s arm, almost throwing up when he could feel the pimp’s joints bending backwards. Hank dropped down as well, grabbing a leg while Darwin seized the other one.

 “Someone knock him out!” Logan barked out, Angel suddenly running into the kitchen and grabbing a heavy cast-iron griddle, raising it above her head with something that resembled a war cry and slamming it down on her step-father’s head.

Thunk.

The demonic man stopped writhing, the three men holding him down not releasing him immediately, but only after he had stopped thrashing for a whole minute. Getting up from the ground, Hank was shaking, while Darwin had a deep frown etched on his face and Logan took a hefty swig from his beat-up flask.

When he swallowed, Logan pat the mysterious blonde boy on the back.

“Nice punch earlier, kid,” Logan said, the blonde man huffing.

“My name’s Alex, not kid.”

“Sure, whatever you say, kid,” Logan said, taking another drink as Moira leaned on the counter to steady herself.

“What the hell was that thing?” Moira asked as Raven sobbed, burying herself into Hank’s chest, the man freezing in surprise before tentatively wrapping his arms around the blonde girl.

“It would be more accurate to ask ‘what the Heaven was that thing’, my dear.”

Everyone turned, startled, to the voice that came from across the room. Standing in front of the door was an unfamiliar man that was, truly, beauty incarnate. Milky skin awash with a light smattering of freckles like constellations, sinful red lips, azure eyes and silken brown hair. He wore a slightly tight lilac V-neck sweater covered with a grey tweed coat and matching grey trousers. Strangely, his feet were bare.

From where they stood, they could see that the man was on the shorter side, but something about him filled up the entire room.

“Another weirdo?” Alex muttered, the newcomer’s lips quirking up slightly, seemingly amused. The man stepped across the floor, skirting around the small pool of blood where Logan had broken the pimp’s nose the first time, hopping lightly over the shards of the plate Alex had smashed earlier.

“I’d step away from him, if I were you,” the man said, voice lilting with a thick English accent, and despite being so soft and gentle, its weight made everyone – even Logan – jump away from the man on the ground. Just as they did so, the demon twitched, Raven screaming again.

“The hell, he’s still not down?!” Sean yelled, the man wearing the lilac sweater letting out a short sigh, reaching behind him to pull out a hand gun, pointing it down at the demon at his feet.

“What are you doing, Charles?” the demon man spoke, voice trilling, inhuman. “These weren’t your orders.”

“I’m sorry, Brother,” the man said solemnly, before pulling the trigger. Red sprayed everywhere – across the floor, up against the walls, on Logan’s shoes. Raven seemed to stop breathing, swaying on her feet and Hank letting out a strangled noise as he caught her in his arms. Moira’s mouth was wide opened, mind static like the radio, and Sean had fallen onto his ass in shock. Darwin stared silently at the scene unfolding before him, Alex cursing loudly and staggering back, while Logan just looked at the seemingly demure man with narrowed eyes.

Logan had killed men before, many of them, in fact. He had killed men in warzones from a distance with his rifles, and had felt the life bleed out of some of them when he strangled their necks. Logan was used to killing, and he knew what a killer looked like.

How strange was it, then, that when he looked at the man before him, he didn’t have the stink of a murderer?

In fact, the man looked all too pure in the way he held himself. Untainted, even if his hand was on a smoking gun and a little blood has splashed onto his bare feet. The man’s blue eyes shone with tears, but not of fear, regret or anger.

No, he was a man that looked like he was grieving.

“You just killed a man!” Moira suddenly said, rushing to the phone that didn’t even work, punching in 911 over and over.

“I assure you, Moira, that he was not a man. At least, not now,” the man holding the gun said calmly, tucking his gun back into the waistband of his pants.

“You know my name,” Moira said, eyes wide. The barefooted man just smiled, tilting his head in what looked like a greeting nod.

“Yes, I know all of your names, actually,” the man said, turning to Logan. “You’re James Howlett, or I suppose you prefer Logan. And you’re Alexander Summers, Sean Cassidy, Henry – or Hank – McCoy, Angel Salvadore, Armando Muñoz and… Raven Darkholme.” The man’s voice softened as he spoke the last girl’s name, looking a little wistful.

“Are you a spy or something?” Sean asked, spluttering. “Or psychic?!” The mystery man chuckled a little, shaking his head.

“No,” Charles said, clasping his hands in front of him, eyes closing for a moment, before opening them again. “And I’ll explain everything, but we have to deal with them first.”

“Them?” Darwin asked, Charles turning to the window.

“Oh, please tell me he doesn’t have friends,” Angel said, grimacing at the body of her dead step-father.

“No, not friends,” Charles said, giving her a sad look. “Brothers and Sisters.”

Next chapter (2/4) → 

#cherik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #logan howlett #X-men #x-men fic #xmen #first class #legion #ao3 #james mcavoy #Michael Fassbender

[sareyen]

Das Haus am See: The Lake House Cherik AU (Part 3/3)

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A Lake House Cherik AU: Charles and Erik both lived in the lake house, Charles in 2017, and Erik in 2019. By magic or fate, the two find out that the house’s letter box is able to send letters through time - and, in doing so, the two fall in love despite living in two different years. They vow to meet in the future, but fate is fickle, and time waits for no one.

Chapter 3

Charles stared at the screen of his computer, page blank. There was a half-drained bottle of scotch resting beside him, and pages of crumpled and torn note paper was strewn across his desk and oak floors – papers covered with desperate apologies that Charles had only just stopped sending to Erik through the letter box.

A week had passed, and the letter box was full to bursting with the numerous letters Charles left there, hoping that Erik would read them – any of them. Each day, Charles wrote handfuls of apologies, pleas and wishes, praying that he could hear the familiar phantom scrape of the letter box’s red flag and see the letters disappear two years into the future.

But Erik had been true to his word – he hadn’t come back to the lake house again.

When Charles saw the pile of forgotten letters through the haze of his hopeless gaze, he felt his blue eyes grow wet again, slamming down the screen of his computer before dropping his face into his hands. He pressed hard against his eyes with the palms of his hands, trying to will the tears to stop, as if he were applying pressure over a stab wound.

Erik’s final letter had felt like a stab wound, in the end, and had left Charles bleeding.

Charles had spent the majority of the week drinking his sorrows away and berating a version of himself that didn’t even exist yet. Charles had laughed bitterly, never hating himself more than he had in that moment. Charles hated the him living two years in the future, a version of himself that was as much a stranger to him as the nameless people he passed on the street.

Hours passed until Charles opened his laptop again, steeling himself as he tried to write – to finish Max and Wesley’s story.

Charles Wesley clung to the letters from Erik Max like they were his tether to everything that was real – because, to Wesley, there was nothing more real to him than Max. Max’s mind was a beacon, a light house saving Wesley from crashing onto the rocks. Before Max, Wesley had been floating aimlessly, adrift and lost.

It was when Wesley met the man beyond time that everything seemed to make sense, that Wesley began to find his purpose. With Max, Wesley finally felt like he wasn’t alone.

But, Max was not a man who believed in love so easily. Unlike Wesley, who was optimistic and filled to the brim with unadulterated hope, Max was a pragmatist, a realist and cynical in nature. Max was not one to easily believe that Wesley’s affections were strong enough to stand against time, even if Wesley himself knew the true magnitude of his longing, his pining – of his love.

Wesley did not know how to make Max hear his voice. With the seemingly insurmountable wall of two years between them, Wesley could scream and scream, but Max could not hear him, his head and his heart blocked by barriers of impenetrable steel.

How could Charles get Erik to hear him?

Charles looked at the clock on his desk, and it was well past midnight now. The lake outside was still and quiet, so silent it was almost eerie. The sound of cicadas punctuated the silence outside, alongside the occasional creak of the rafters as wind tugged at the walls of the lake house.

Getting up from his desk, his laptop left open to his novel without an ending, Charles walked outside with the bottle of scotch and planted himself by the edge of the lake. The night was crisp, but Charles warmed himself up with the burning slide of liquid amber down his throat.

Charles wondered if Erik ever sat by the lakeside like this, looking out over the expanse of water from the same vantage point as Charles did now. Have they ever appreciated the same view? If they have, Charles could begin to pretend that Erik was sitting beside him, looking in the same direction.

“Why did I abandon you?” Charles whispered to no one, his question responded to by cicadas and the wind. “I don’t understand… I would never abandon you, Erik.”

Charles drained the rest of the scotch, feeling light headed and heavy at the same time, and let himself fall back onto the plush grass. As Charles stared up at the stars, they stared right back at him, judging and questioning.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Charles grumbled at Cassiopeia, the constellation seeming to roll her eyes back at him. “I’m not lying. I’d never leave Erik like that. Never.”

Soon, Charles’s vision began to swim, the alcohol and his fatigue overtaking him.

‘Yes, I’d never leave you like that, Erik.’

‘I’ll find you.’

***

“You don’t look too good, Sugar.”

Erik didn’t even bother to lift his head from where he was staring into his now-cold coffee in the break room, sensing Emma slide into her usual seat across the table from him, white tailored suit filling Erik’s periphery.

“Not in the mood, Emma,” Erik grunted, finally taking a sip of his coffee.

“No, you’re definitely not. Your mood is terrible, it’s making all the new interns consider dropping out because you terrifying them,” Emma said, Erik looking up at her with weary eyes rimmed with dark circles. Emma just raised a brow as her cool eyes flicked up and down her co-worker, before letting out an irritating, all-knowing hum as if she could read Erik like a book.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Erik said, Emma smiling.

“Of course you don’t. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Come on, Erik. Sometimes it helps to get things off your chest, instead of bottling in all of those feelings you so abhor,” Emma pushed, Erik glaring at her. Emma was undeterred, leaning forwards a little in her seat. “Erik, we’re friends – at least, I consider us friends. Talk to me, I’m worried. Frankly, you haven’t been like this since… you know.”

Emma waved her hands around vaguely, but her insinuations were more than vague, the unspoken word divorce lingering in the air.

“I really don’t want to talk about him, Emma,” Erik said, Emma snapping her finger.

“Ah, so it’s about a him? I see.”

“Emma.”

“Erik,” Emma countered, rolling her eyes and tugging up her white sleeves. “I’ve seen you. You were always a workaholic, and I’m going to be blunt, but that’s part of what made things fall apart with Magda. Of course, there were other things, but let’s not pretend that your work wasn’t a part of it. But lately, over the past month, you’ve always been leaving the office on time on Fridays, and that Wednesday the other week. You never leave work early, and especially not when Shaw has given you so much to do. It’s obvious that you met someone, and I was honestly glad for you. You’ve seemed… happier, as of late, Sugar. And we both know you haven’t been happy in a long time.”

Erik stared at his co-worker – his friend – who was just giving him a look which told Erik that it was pointless to argue. Emma, as always, was right – and far too observant for Erik’s liking.

“If you know so much already, Emma, then you know better than to ask me anything else,” Erik responded with a grimace, sinking into his chair. Emma just sighed, rolling her eyes.

“I wouldn’t ask anything else if you didn’t look so depressed, Erik. Ever since last weekend, you’ve looked like a kicked puppy. Did things fall through with your new guy?”

What could fall through, when nothing ever started?

“There was nothing there to begin with,” Erik grumbled, shrugging. “We… We had only met once.” And I didn’t even remember it.

Emma blinked.

“Sugar, you met this guy once and he’s got you moping around like this? Damn, I want to meet this guy who managed to do this to the great Erik Lehnsherr.”

“It’s… complicated,” Erik said, biting his lip. “We… we talked. Through letters. We wrote letters to each other, and met once – a coincidence, really. At least, I think it was, on my part at least.”

“When did you meet him? Is that why you look like a kicked puppy now? The real thing didn’t match up to the person in the letters? And… letters? Really, Erik? How antiquated.”

“The letters were… I’m not even going to bother explaining it to you. And no, he-” didn’t show up. He abandoned me. “No, we met two years ago, right before Magda and I… I didn’t really remember, but we started talking through letters about a month ago and… Ugh. Anyway, it’s complicated, and long story short, we made plans and he didn’t show up. So that’s that,” Erik said, Emma sighing.

“Ah, so you got stood up. That must hurt, Sugar,” Emma said, before pausing. “But wait, so you met two years ago, but only now started talking again? You said you forgot him – he must have remembered you, though? To start talking to you again?”

Erik snorted at that – of course Charles remembered, he had just lived it, while it was two years in the past for the lawyer. Charles was still in 2017, and as much as he promised Erik he would weather time for him, he hadn’t.

“It’s too complicated to explain, but it’s over now. I ended it, and… and it’s for the better. He has his life, I have mine,” Erik said, Emma tilting her head to the side, scrutinising him before getting up from her chair to pat Erik’s shoulder once. The action reminded Erik of the balcony and Charles, how the once-stranger had comforted Erik in a similar manner.

Erik’s heart ached.

“Love is complicated, Sugar,” Emma said, giving Erik a small smile. “But, does this letter-writing ex-man of yours have a name?”

“Why do you want to know?” Erik asked, eyes narrowed. Emma just smiled, laughing a little.

“I did say that we were friends, did I not? I’d like to know the name of the person who stood you up in case I ever run into him. With my car,” Emma said, Erik letting out a snort at her ridiculous notion, but giving her a grateful look for her (potentially ill-directed) support.

“I don’t want him to be hurt, Emma. He… Charles had his reasons,” Erik said, Emma humming.

“Charles. Sounds like a pretentious prick,” Emma said, Erik barking out a laugh at that.

“I thought so too, at first. I mean, ‘Charles Xavier’ – I really shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that he has a posh English accent,” Erik said, Emma freezing.

“What did you say, Erik?” Emma asked, voice still.

“What?”

“Xavier? You said his name is Charles Xavier?”

“Yeah?” Erik said, frowning now, confused by Emma’s odd reaction. The woman rarely looked thrown, but right now she was gazing at Erik with a foreign look. “What is it, Emma?”

“No, it’s probably just a very scary coincidence. I mean, Charles is a common enough name, and I could have heard wrong, and it wouldn’t be surprising if there was more than one Charles Xavier in New York…” Emma said, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

“Emma, I don’t get what you’re trying to say,” Erik said, standing from his seat now to level himself with Emma.

“No, it’s just that, you know the case Shaw is working right now?”

“The Francis Graymalkin one, of course I know. Shaw hasn’t shut up about it for the past few weeks,” Erik responded, Emma nodding.

“Yes, well Francis Graymalkin was just the man’s pen name, a pseudonym,” Emma said, and Erik let out a grunt of knowing.

“I know. The man’s sister is the one who hired Shaw, right? Because their step-father and brother are trying to weasel their way into Francis Graymalkin’s inheritance. Her name was something Darkholme, so I figured Francis Graymalkin was a pseudonym – he’s probably called Francis Darkholme, or something of the like,” Erik said, Emma shaking her head.

“See, that’s the thing. Erik, Francis Graymalkin’s real name is Charles Xavier.”

***

Charles woke up the day after with a headache and a chill in his bones – falling asleep on the grass outside had made Charles awaken with a scratch in his throat and lungs that felt two sizes too big for his chest.

Still, Charles remembered the dream he had that night – of driving to NYC, of banging on Erik’s door, his pregnant wife be damned. In his dream, Charles had been selfish, pulling Erik into a molten kiss that sent his heart into spasms, his toes curling in his shoes. In his dreams, Erik hadn’t tasted of cigarettes but of scotch, heady and warm.

The Erik in his dreams had murmured a sigh against Charles’s lips, saying “Gott, Charles. What took you so long?” before tilting his head to slot his lips closer to Charles, devouring him in body and spirit.

People were always bolder in dreams; maybe it was a subconscious understanding that dreams couldn’t hurt you, and that they weren’t real. Dreams weren’t real, but they reflected Charles’s innermost desires. He wanted Erik, and he knew he wanted him, more than he has wanted anything before in his life.

Erik had said in his final letter that, since Charles hadn’t shown up to any of their planned meetings, that he clearly didn’t want Erik. That Charles couldn’t wait two years. Charles hadn’t believed him, but Erik knew the future better than Charles.

So, if it was true, and for some reason Charles couldn’t wait, why did he have to?

Erik said that he had to live his life, and maybe Charles should do the same. He should find Erik, talk to him like he did at the wedding. Yes, Erik had a wife that was with child, but Charles knew how that would turn out. Charles abhorred his own selfish and distasteful thoughts, but he couldn’t help them – Charles never wished such tragedy and misfortune upon any one, least of all Erik, but he couldn’t help but want a man who was taken.

At least, in 2017.

But oh, Erik. Erik. Charles couldn’t give up on Erik like that. Not Erik, who inspired Charles, who made him feel and live and want to live.

Charles rallied his determination, and peeled himself off the grass. Charles showered and shaved, and tamed his slightly over-grown mop of chestnut hair as much as he could. He brushed his teeth and ironed his clothes, pulling on his most comforting cardigan that he wore like armour.

Then, Charles picked up the keys to his rust-bucket car and gingerly tucked Erik’s The Once and Future King under his arm, thumb rubbing against the worn paperback.

As he walked to his car, Charles checked the letter box like he did every day, and found that it was still empty.

‘I’ll find you, Erik. Here and now,’ Charles vowed silently, getting into his car with Erik’s book in the passenger seat.

‘I’ll return your book to you, in person. I vow to you that I won’t break this promise, unlike the me of the future, which broke them all.’

***

‘Francis Graymalkin’s real name is Charles Xavier.’

The words echoed around the empty darkness in Erik’s head.

Coincidence?

Fate?

“But, since the man has been dead for two years, it’s obviously just a scary coincidence that he shares the same name as your pen pal,” Emma said, Erik barely registering her words over the repeated chant in his head of ‘Francis Graymalkin’s real name is Charles Xavier’.

Logically, it had to be a coincidence. But, there was nothing logical about any of this – about Charles, about the letter box, about everything.

Erik didn’t say a word as he pushed past Emma and out of the break room, his numb legs taking him straight to Shaw’s office. Bursting in, Erik was glad to see that the man was not there.

Erik wasted no time, not hesitating for a moment, striding over to the files splayed out on Shaw’s desk. Francis Graymalkin’s – Charles Xavier’s – poorly-written will was on top. Legal documents from some people surnamed Marko, notes regarding Charles Xavier’s properties and financials were scattered across the mahogany tabletop.

Properties.

Erik sifted through the papers, seeing some documents of ownership for a house in England, a holiday home in Cuba and a sprawling estate just outside of New York. Among them was a document of ownership for an idyllic lake house made of red-brick and a roof topped with blue tiles.

Erik felt like his heart was in his throat as he picked up the document, eyes flitting down towards the signature at the bottom – an elegant scribble with wide, confident loops sat under a printed name, in hand-writing that Erik had seen time and time before.

Charles Xavier.

The name had the same swooping ‘C’, the same looped ‘l’, and the same curled ‘r’. Charles Xavier was written in the exact same way that Erik’s Charles signed his letters, letters that Erik had unwittingly engraved in his memory and heart. Erik would never mistake that handwriting.

Erik’s Charles was Charles Xavier, and Charles Xavier was Francis Graymalkin.

And Francis Graymalkin was dead.

Erik felt bile begin to rise up his throat.

Francis Graymalkin died two years ago.

That meant that Charles, Erik’s Charles, died two years ago too.

“Oh, Gott,” Erik choked out, hands dropping the stack of property papers in his hand as his heart plummeted, everything going blank.

Erik now knew why Charles hadn’t picked up the phone that day. Why Charles hadn’t surprised him in Central Park in person. Why Charles didn’t show up for dinner at Genosha last weekend.

How could he, when he was already dead?

Erik remembered everything – Charles had been so sure that he would never break his promise to Erik. He had been adamant that he could wait, that he was a patient and faithful man. Charles, who knew who Erik was on the balcony but didn’t give in to his own selfish notions, because Erik had a pregnant wife. Charles, who begged and pleaded for Erik to give him another chance. Charles, who loved Erik. The man never said it aloud in words, but screamed it between every line in each of his letters. Erik knew that Charles loved him, that he loved him enough to be willing to wait for two years.

The plaque on Erik’s bench in Central Park had asked Erik to wait for Charles to catch up.

But, Charles had always been the one waiting for Erik. Charles, who loved a man that hadn’t yet known that he existed, that hadn’t had the chance to fall in love with him just yet, because Erik hadn’t lived at the lake house until later, because he hadn’t received that first letter until after Charles was already buried beneath the ground.

And what had Erik said to him, in his last letter? He said that he couldn’t wait for Charles, that Charles didn’t feel as much as Erik did. That Charles couldn’t keep his promise, to meet Erik two years in the future.

While Charles had always whispered his love between the lines, Erik had accused him of abandoning him in the same spaces.

But Charles hadn’t abandoned him – hadn’t even been given a chance to choose to abandon Erik. No, Erik had abandoned Charles, and Charles had died.

Charles died thinking that Erik hated him. That Erik didn’t love him.

Erik never told Charles that he loved him.

Oh, Gott. Fuck. CharlesCharlesCharles. No.

Suddenly, the door to Shaw’s office opened, revealing the man and a slightly familiar woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Shaw asked, voice snapping. Erik didn’t even care that his boss was staring him down, absolutely livid once he noticed the messy papers on his desk that Erik had obviously rifled through. Erik was too busy staring at the blonde woman, who was just looking at Erik curiously, a large book bag hanging from her slender shoulders.

“Did you know Charles?” Erik asked the young woman dumbly, voice cracking. The girl frowned, but nodded.

“Yeah, he was my brother,” she said slowly, Erik’s heart cracking.

Was.

Erik suddenly lost all words, as well as his breath. The woman – Raven Darkholme – stared at Erik questioningly.

“Did you know my brot-”

“Erik, I said, what are you doing in my office?” Shaw said, cutting the woman off. Raven’s large eyes flashed with something akin to recognition.

“Erik? Your name is Erik?” Raven asked, stepping past Shaw towards the man of that name.

“Yeah,” Erik coughed out, Raven biting her lower lip. “Yeah, I’m… I’m Erik. And I know… knew… shit. I knew your brother. Charles. How did you… Did he tell you? About me?”

“He only mentioned you once, on the day he…” Raven said, suddenly swallowing, like she had a boulder in her throat. Coughing a little, the young woman continued.

“What happened?” Erik whispered, Raven blinking to get rid of the tears. It had been two years, but Charles’s death still hurt her – he was her only family, even if not by blood.

“He told me about you, how he had… met someone. He said he – you – were a lawyer, who lived in New York. And… And that he was going to see you, and said that he had to, even if you didn’t want to see him or even know him – I never understood that part – but then there was a car accident. It was raining, and Charles… Charles was tired and sick, feverish, and… and… a truck… The paramedics, they said that he was calling out ‘Erik’ when he…”

Charles was going to see Erik.

Charles died because he was going to see Erik.

Erik swayed on his feet a little, but did not collapse, even if it felt like his head was ringing.

“When?” Erik asked, voice stretched thin, simmering with panic. “When did Charles… die?”

“Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at 7:39pm. Two years ago today,” Raven said quickly, like she was reading from a book.

Francis Graymalkin died two years ago, on Wednesday the 15th of March, 2017.

That meant that Charles, Erik’s Charles, died that day too.

Today was Friday the 15th of March, 2019.

That meant that two years ago, Charles would die today.

“No,” Erik breathed out, rushing out of Shaw’s office. Shaw yelled at his retreating figure, Raven stared at him in confusion, and Emma’s eyes followed Erik’s form with disguised concern.

Erik was barely registering what his body was doing, and soon he found himself in his car and driving down the highway out of the city.

Like his body was being controlled by an outside presence, Erik drove to the lake house, where he had to tell Charles not to find him. To tell Charles that he would die if he did, to tell Charles that he should wait a little longer.

Wait for Erik a little longer, because Erik loved him.

Erik had to tell Charles that he loved him.

***

Charles’s cold took a turn for the worst about five hours into the drive. He pulled over for a short break, refuelling his car, using the restroom and buying himself a coffee to warm his throat and shivering body. It didn’t take long for Charles to get back on the road, headache building and throat churning out harsh, shoulder-wracking coughs.

Charles smiled sourly to himself – of course, the day he chooses to see Erik, he had to have a cold. Even if he had showered and blow-dried his hair and picked out clean and crisp clothes, his effort went out the window the moment he got sick – his cheeks were feverishly flushed and dark eye bags prominent. His nose was dribbling and his lips chapped, and he was hardly attractive in such a ragged state.

Still, Charles wasn’t banking on anything happening – it was 2017, and Erik was still married, and his wife still pregnant. Charles wasn’t going to push anything, not now. But, Charles could be there for the man, get to know him in person. They could become friends, and maybe, two years in the future, when Erik was no longer married and knew who Charles was, the author could tell him that he loved him, and Erik could, maybe, say it back.

It was a nice dream, a dream that was shattered when a large freight truck slammed into the side of Charles’s car without warning, sending his rust bucket rolling across the highway. Charles couldn’t even scream, because he didn’t even know what was going on – one moment, he was fiddling with the radio that kept dropping out, and the next he was hanging upside down by his seatbelt, glass falling like snow over his face and something wet and warm dribbling down his forehead.

Strangely, Charles didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t move his legs. In fact, he couldn’t really move anything at all.

Images flashed before his blue eyes, which were slipping in and out of lucidity. Charles heard voices, so many voices, but he couldn’t understand a thing. Soon, there were flashing lights in pretty shades of red and blue, and then Charles was finally moving, even if he couldn’t really feel it.

Paramedics kept asking Charles questions, but the man couldn’t answer – his chest gurgled with blood, and he heard the paramedics curse, which made him try to laugh. God, why did laughing hurt?

Laughing should never hurt.

Things drifted in and out for Charles, but strangely, Erik was there; when Charles was awake, he saw Erik resting beside him, wearing the suit he had at Angel’s wedding, with his copy of The Once and Future King in his large hands.

‘Oh, I must have returned it to you,’ Charles thought, the Erik sitting in the ambulance with him smiling with all of his teeth.

When Charles fell unconscious briefly, Erik was still there – this time, Charles saw him sitting in front of a familiar letter box, small smile on his face as he read a letter covered with Charles’s cursive scrawl.

When Charles woke up again, Erik had disappeared, but a paramedic was hovering over him and yelling for him to stay awake.

“Erik…” Charles gurgled out, the paramedic leaning in to try and hear him over the sounds of his lungs collapsing.

“Erik? Is your name Erik?” the paramedic asked, trying to keep Charles’s focus on him. “Come on, stay awake for me!”

Charles tried to speak again, but everything was red, so he just thought instead.

‘I’m coming, Erik,’ Charles thought into the screaming silence, the ambulance pulling up to the emergency wing of the hospital.

The paramedics wheeled Charles out of the chair, blue eyes beginning to lose their lustre.

‘Erik, wait for me.’

“He’s crashing!” a doctor yelled out, wheels rolling across the concrete leading up to the hospital, rain beginning to drizzle down.

‘Erik, where are you?’

“We’re losing him!”

Charles’s blue eyes flittered here and there, losing their hold on everything real.

Well, everything except for the man standing outside of the hospital, brown-copper hair a little damp with rain, glowing embers of a cigarette dangling from his fingers. When Charles was wheeled past the man, time seemed to slow, if only for a moment.

The man’s face looked distraught, which was understandable considering he was at the hospital because his wife had miscarried for the third time and he had come outside to try and clear his head. When the man looked up into the sky, he wondered how much longer it would take for him to stop feeling so lost.

In a final flash of clarity, Charles recognised the man as the person he has been looking for this whole time.

Erik.

‘Oh, there you are, Erik. See?’ Charles thought, blood-splattered mouth curling upwards with eerie tranquillity.

‘I found you. I didn’t abandon you.’

***

Erik was sure that he would get a speeding fine, but he didn’t care. All he could think about as he drove like a madman, the route to get to the lake house second nature by now, was that Charles is going to die.

Erik’s car clock said that it was just past ten in the morning and Erik had been driving for an hour already, having bolted from work barely an hour in. Erik had always been good at numbers, and if it took Erik six hours to get to the lake house, he would get there around 3pm.

Charles died at 7:39pm, but he had been on the road at the time.

How long had Charles been driving for? Was this the stretch of road Charles died on?

‘Please, please let Charles still be at the lake house. Please, don’t let him leave, not before I tell him that I love him, not before I beg him not to look for me.’

When Erik reached the unfixed bottle neck that Charles had found frustrating two years ago, Erik screamed in the suffocating confines of his car – Erik willed the cars around him to move, because he had to get to Charles, and he was already two years too late.

When Erik finally pulled up to the front of the lake house, parking haphazardly on the lawn, he didn’t even bother to turn the engine off before fumbling to find some paper and a pen from the glovebox of his car. Erik ran to the letter box, scribbling frantically and wildly, breath lodged in his throat and heart threatening to burst open at its stitched seams.

Charles, I know why you didn’t answer your phone, why you weren’t at the park, why you didn’t show up for dinner. It wasn’t your fault, Charles. You didn’t abandon me.

I know who you are now, I know that you’re Francis Graymalkin. You were trying to find me that day – today. Charles, you died that day, trying to find me.

So please, don’t go.

Just wait, please.

Don’t look for me, don’t try to find me. I need you to live, Charles.

I love you.

It’s taken me all this time to say it, but ich liebe dich, Charles.

I told you in my last letter that I couldn’t wait for you, but I was wrong. I’ll wait for you forever. Professor X waited for Magneto for decades. For you, I’d wait centuries, because I want a life with you, Charles. I want you by my side.

We want the same thing.

So please, wait for me once again. Wait with me.

Just wait.

Wait.

Wait two years, Charles.

Then come to the lake house. Come home.

I’m here.

Erik’s hands were shaking as he shoved the letter into the mail box, slamming the flag down. Erik took a hasty step back, like giving the letter box space for it to work its magic would help.

Erik’s breaths were thin and shaky, steel-grey eyes staring at the unmoving letter box without blinking.

‘Please, please, please, Charles. Check the letter box. Please, don’t let me be too late. Please, I love you, bitte. Gott, please, not Charles. Please, please.’

A sob clawed its way out from Erik’s throat when the letter box didn’t move, sending Erik crumpling to his knees. Erik crawled forwards to grip the letter box, shaking it before dropping his forehead against its still surface.

For the first time in a long time, Erik cried.

“Please, Charles, bitte,” Erik whispered, shaking. The letter box remained still, stagnant. “Gott, please. Not now, not after all this. Please.”

Erik held on to the letter box like he wanted to hold onto Charles, to tether him to this world, to keep him by his side, but it remained unmoving, and all Erik could think was:

‘Oh Gott, it’s too late. I’m toolatetoolatetoola-”

Thunk.

Erik’s tremors ceased at the sound, the familiar scrape and clunk of the metal flag tickling his ears.

‘Wait for me.’

Slowly, Erik looked up through wet eyes, a sprig of hope emerging from beneath the cold.

Then, the letter box shook, the flag leaping.

Erik let out a sound between a sob and a laugh, opening the letter box with careful hands.

Inside was a single red carnation atop a small folded piece of paper, a single sentence written upon it.

Turn around, Erik.

Erik pulled himself to his feet, shuffling around like he was compelled to follow the written words. As he did, he saw a slightly beat-up car begin rattling across the street before stilling by the curb of the lake house. Erik’s breath caught, his feet beginning to walk, one step at a time, across the lawn.

The driver stepped out of the car, wrapped up in a light lilac sweater and grey tweed coat. Full head of dark brown hair, flushed red cheeks and even redder lips, bright blue eyes that were so alive.

Erik’s mouth parted slightly in awe, relief and hope as he walked towards the man – Charles – who began moving towards Erik as well.

The two met, almost toe-to-toe, in the middle of the lawn in front of the lake house. Erik held the three-word note and carnation, while in Charles’s hands was a very worn letter – the one that had been in Erik’s hands only moments ago. The one that told Charles that Erik loved him.

Erik stared into Charles’s eyes, and Erik into his, like they couldn’t quite believe what was happening. They both seemed to be waiting, waiting like they always did, so Erik had to speak.

“You waited,” Erik breathed out, and that was all it took for Charles to immediately surge into Erik’s space. Charles cupped Erik’s cheeks desperately, fingers careful but firm, and kissed Erik with two years’ worth of longing. Erik almost whimpered into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Charles’s frame and pulling him close, crushing him against his chest and deepening the kiss, wanting to feel Charles, to confirm that yes, he’s alive, he’s here, he’s with me, he waited.

The two pulled back for a brief moment, only when they remembered that they needed to breathe.

“Sorry for the wait, darling,” Charles murmured, kissing Erik’s mouth again, and again, and again.

“What took you so long?” Erik asked teasingly, nipping at Charles’s mouth, which curled up in a wide smile that made his eyes crinkle in the corners, a small peal of laughter lighting a fire in Erik’s heart.

“Mm, sorry. Traffic was horrendous. You’d think they’d have fixed that blasted bottle neck by now,” Charles said, shooting Erik a small smile before leaning in close to bury his face into Erik’s neck, breathing him in. Erik held him tightly, deciding that he’d never let go again.

“Let’s go home,” Erik murmured against Charles’s hair, the shorter man humming in agreement, Erik taking his hand as they walked towards the lake house that had been the beginning of everything.

When Charles and Erik stepped through the threshold of the lake house, the red brick and blue-roofed house seemed to sigh – it had been waiting for this moment too.

***

Erik’s hands traced abstract patterns atop the map of freckles on Charles’s back, the author letting out a blissful sigh. It was late at night, and the two men lay in bed, tangled in each other’s limbs.

“Your sister owns this house now?” Erik asked, Charles nodding from where he rested his head on Erik’s chest.

“Mm. I gave it to her two years ago. I… knew I couldn’t live there, not when you were supposed to move in. You changed the future – my future – Erik. This… This wasn’t the plan, and I thought that if I tried to force it to change, to meet you prematurely like I tried to before…”

Erik knew what Charles was skirting around – the last time Charles had tried to upend Erik’s past, he had paid the price with his life. The two men didn’t understand the fabric of time travel, they didn’t know of the rules that fate and lady time had laid down. All they knew was that they were meant to meet, but only at a certain time. Charles had tried too early the first time, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

He hadn’t made the same mistake again.

“I don’t think we were meant to meet until now,” Charles then whispered, pressing a kiss to Erik’s collarbone.

“We met at Angel’s wedding,” Erik reminded Charles, as if it were yesterday. Charles chuckled, a little wistful.

“Yes, but I didn’t try to change anything when I met you then. Meeting me didn’t change the course of your life between 2017 and now. I mean, Erik, you didn’t even remember me,” Charles said, chuckling in jest as he kissed away the frown building on Erik’s face. “But, the day I… died, I wanted to… well. Let’s just say that the world didn’t want me to change your past.”

“But it let you change my future?” Erik mused, Charles propping himself up to look at Erik, reaching out to smooth some of Erik’s sex-mussed hair from his eyes, gaze fond.

“I don’t know how this works, Erik, but, I wrote a theory about it, in my novel.”

“Your incomplete one?” Erik asked, raising a brow. Charles grinned.

“Well, considering I didn’t die, I had two years to finish writing it, darling. My theory is that the past can’t be unwritten. I couldn’t change your past, as in, anything that would have a lasting impact on your life before 2019. And you couldn’t have changed what would be considered my past, either,” Charles said, Erik’s mind whirling.

“But, I did change your past. I… You died before, Charles. But now you’re here, and…” Erik felt his tumultuous emotions begin to surface again, and before he completely lost it there and then in their bed, Erik kissed Charles. Charles indulged him, sighing into the lawyer’s touch, before pulling back with a serene smile on his face.

“Yes, I’m here, darling. And I don’t plan on leaving. But, like I was saying, you can’t change my past. Erik, I was living in 2017, so even though everything that happened that year for me was the past for you, it was still my future. You simply changed my future, Erik.”

“But still, what about all the other effects? The ripples that change caused. I still remember everything that would have happened – your step family contesting your will, your sister hiring Shaw. None of that would’ve happened if you died…”

“Ah, yes, well, that’s what has me in a bit of a rut. You seem to remember the events of your past timeline, but what I remember is different. It’s a funny thing, really – I ended up re-writing my will when I was… reminded of my mortality. There are no more loopholes, and my step father and brother lay no claim to anything I own. As for my sister, she still ended up hiring Shaw, just not about my will. Something about a secret trust fund that was hidden from her, courtesy of our lovely step-father,” Charles said, rolling his eyes. “So, in the end, not a whole lot changed – I’d wager that these minor ripples didn’t bother fate herself too much.”

“And you’re saying that you escaping death was only a ‘minor ripple’ as well?” Erik said, scoffing.

“Well, in my book I do say that fate had made an error in her original time line and sought to correct it,” Charles said, eyes softening. “You see, I’m inclined to think that we were destined to meet earlier.”

Erik’s mouth twitched at Charles’s words, instinctively drawing the man closer.

“Go on,” Erik said, bumping his forehead against Charles’s. “Tell me about this theory of yours.”

“Mm, demanding. But yes, I believe that we were supposed to meet sooner, but fate and time cocked up and we missed each other – so, they had to try and fix their mistake without undoing all of their other work. That’s why they linked us through the letter box, so we could meet and… well. The rest is history, isn’t it?”

“You really are a fiction writer, aren’t you, Francis?” Erik said, Charles laughing and swatting his lover’s chest.

“Oh, please! I know you’re a fan of my work, you’ve told me before. I have the letters to prove it!” Charles said, before suddenly sitting up like he had been struck by a bolt of lightning. Or an epiphany.

Erik was surprised when Charles suddenly wrenched the blankets off their naked bodies and jumped off the bed, tugging Erik’s arm. “Come on.”

“Charles, what are you doing?” Erik huffed, wanting nothing more than to have Charles’s weight pressed against him in bed, his thoughts apparently written all over his face when Charles laughed, kissing Erik’s lips briefly.

“I promise we’ll go back to bed soon. Just… humour me, for a moment, I almost forgot,” Charles said, squeezing Erik’s hand. Erik wasn’t going to protest, not now. Charles could probably ask him to do anything, and he wouldn’t think twice about doing it.

The two men didn’t bother putting their clothes back on, just wrapping some blankets around their shoulders as Charles nudged Erik down the upstairs hallway and to the drop-down ladder leading to the attic.

“The attic?” Erik asked, Charles nodding.

“Yes. Remember your first letter to me? The one you addressed to the new tenant?”

Erik did, Charles having brought Erik all of the letters he had saved, the two of them reading them together curled up by the fireplace.

“You mentioned the burn in the kitchen, courtesy of my poor cooking skills,” Charles said, giggling at his self-deprecating remark, which Erik found endlessly endearing. “But, you also mentioned the box in the attic. You obviously didn’t think too much of it back then.”

“No, I only glanced inside when I moved in, but it was just… full of stuff,” Erik said, Charles laughing.

“Full of my stuff,” Charles corrected, climbing up and tugging a dusty, slightly humidity-damp box, sneezing as a flurry of dust swirled in the air. Opening it up, Charles rummaged through the random knick-knacks that Erik had disregarded when he had moved in, before procuring something hidden beneath all of the irrelevant bits and pieces.

“What’s that?” Erik asked, Charles giving Erik a small smile, pressing it into Erik’s hand. And oh, Erik knew what this was.

“I believe I promised you that I’d return this to you, in person,” Charles said, leaning forward to lay his hand atop Erik’s, which caressed the book in his hand.

‘The Once and Future King.’

It had been here all along, simply waiting for Charles and Erik to unearth it, together.

“I love you,” Erik said, the words not quite able to convey just how deep Erik’s love ran. But, Charles seemed to understand, like he could hear it pouring directly from Erik’s heart.

“I love you too, Erik. Let me show you just how much,” Charles said, Erik letting out a breathless laugh as Charles kissed him.

Charles did show him. In the span of a kiss, Charles showed Erik two years’ worth of love.

And they both thought, for a moment, that yes, the wait was worth it.

Every single second.

#cherik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #X-men #x-men fic #xmen #the lake house #ao3 #AO3 fanfic #james mcavoy #Michael Fassbender

[sareyen]

Das Haus am See: The Lake House Cherik AU  (Part 2/3)

Read on ao3

Chapter 2

A Lake House Cherik AU: Charles and Erik both lived in the lake house, Charles in 2017, and Erik in 2019. By magic or fate, the two find out that the house’s letter box is able to send letters through time - and, in doing so, the two fall in love despite living in two different years. They vow to meet in the future, but fate is fickle, and time waits for no one.

Unfortunately, with all the work he had to do, Erik couldn’t stay near the lake house for the entire weekend, not with so much work piling up.

If it were any one but Charles, Erik would have maybe postponed visiting – it wouldn’t be the first time Erik cancelled his plans for work, something that had contributed to the end of his marriage with Magda.

But Charles… Gott, Charles. Charles, who was so sure that he would have waited two years for Erik to call. Charles, whom Erik believed had waited 2 years for him to call, but for some reason or another, couldn’t answer.

In the week of waiting, Erik had searched up everything he could online about someone named Charles F. Xavier, but found practically nothing – considering the man had so many PhDs, Erik thought that something would come up on university pages. While his name was listed on some university sites – Oxford and Cambridge, in particular – there were no pictures of the man anywhere. No social media accounts seemed to match the Charles that Erik knew, no journal publications, no news articles.

Even though it felt like Erik knew Charles, the man was still an enigma. With the social media search being a bust, Erik tried to track the man down through their only shared connection – the lake house.

Unfortunately, the real estate company couldn’t tell Erik much about the property, even though he had lived there for over a year. With the squabble over its ownership, everything regarding the property, including government records and the like, had been clamped down, leaving Erik with nothing more than empty air to chew on.

So, the only thing he could do was talk to Charles.

Eventually, Erik was able to leave work – for once, Shaw was still in the office after Erik left, seemingly in the throes of a strained phone call with the Graymalkin client – Francis Graymalkin’s sister, Erik surmised.

From what Erik has observed over the past week, settling the Graymalkin estate was an absolute nightmare – the man’s death had been sudden, and his will had been some sort of mess. It didn’t help that the man was a multimillionaire, and when a multimillionaire’s belongings were up for grabs, estranged relatives always emerged from the woodwork, which was apparently what was going on right now two years after his death.

But, that was Shaw’s headache, not Erik’s.

Erik had his own life to worry about.

Erik left for the lake house very early on Saturday morning, the week after his lengthy conversation with Charles. Considering Erik only had the weekend off, and that he had to return on Sunday in order to get his work completed, he had to make the most of the time that he did have.

When Erik parked his car in front of the lake house, he smiled when he saw that the flag was down.

Erik had never walked so fast in his life.

As Erik expected, there was a letter waiting for him, his name printed on the front in Charles’s handwriting that Erik believed he could recognise anywhere.

I do hope you managed to get here safely, my friend. It is a long drive from NYC, though hopefully by your time they’ve fixed that bottleneck along the highway – it was a nightmare in 2017, let me tell you. But, if you’re reading this, then I can assume you made it here safely, which I’m grateful for.

Responding to your last message, I can say that I have read The Once and Future King before, but that was a long time ago, so long ago that I can’t even remember where my own copy is – so, I’m also grateful that you have lent me yours. I can see that it is well-loved, the spine is basically falling apart. But, Erik, I’m mortified to know that you’re someone that dog-ears your books. It’s blasphemous, and may or may not be a deal-breaker for me.

Unless you can persuade me otherwise?

Erik laughed, shaking his head at Charles’s words, all of his frustration with Shaw ebbing away at the first curl of Charles’s lettering.

***

Charles knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t sleep the morning Thursday came, and instead camped outside wrapped up in a blanket with a cup of tea in a thermos, keeping a stern vigil on the letter box. He knew it was irrational, and that Erik had a life and a job – there was no way Erik would get there at 2am on what would be a Saturday for him, but there Charles was, sitting and waiting.

Charles had just gone inside to have breakfast at 11am, and had walked back out mid-chew and carrying a bowl of cereal when he noticed that the letter box’s flag was up.

Charles promptly choked on his mouthful of cereal, milk and cornflakes spurting all over his lawn and down his pyjama shirt.

Charles raced to his spot in front of the letter box, placing his bowl beside him as he pulled out his pen from the pocket of his robe, the flag flicking down.

I did make it here safely, thank you, but I regret to inform you that no, they haven’t fixed the bottleneck along the highway. In fact, it’s probably gotten worse, the asphalt falling to pieces. There have been a few car accidents along the highway, especially when it rains. Do you think you can put in a complaint to the council or something in back where you are in 2017? Then, hopefully, they would have it fixed by now.

And I’m glad you enjoy the book – but, like you said, I’ve only let you borrow it. I’ll be expecting you to return it to me in 2 years, in person.

Charles looked at the letter, awed, his heart clenching.

And he realised that yes, he may be a little bit in love.

***

Erik talked to Charles for almost the entire Saturday, up until he had to leave at sunset to make it back to NYC in one piece. They talked about everything – the future, politics, books. At one o’clock in the afternoon, they both ordered delivery pizza – the same one from the same shop – and pretended that they were eating together.

Charles had asked Erik, seemingly teasingly, if this was a date. Erik replied back that it was, not teasing in the slightest. Erik swore that he could feel Charles’s blush through his words, and the German smiled at that thought with far too many teeth.

Again, parting from Charles and the letterbox was painful, but that was life, wasn’t it? Erik was used to parting with people, but it was somehow more painful with Charles. Erik thought that it was probably because the chasm between him and Charles was more vast than any other – time was a formidable foe. At least, this time, Charles didn’t leave Erik empty handed.

Let’s go for a walk together then, my friend. What about your Wednesday evening, after you finish work? The weather forecast in 2017 says it’ll be a surprisingly sunny day for me – not sure if it’ll be the same in 2019, though.

Here’s a list of the route I’ll take around NYC – and maybe you’ll find something I’ve left you.

Until next time, my friend.

So, it was that Wednesday that Erik shrugged out of his work clothes and into some comfortable jeans and a T-shirt, as well as a waterproof jacket since, unlike in 2017, the weather was moderately cool and drizzly. Still, Erik thought that the day was beautiful.

Erik pulled out Charles’s letter, even though by this point he had read it so many times he could recite it.

I’m standing in front of your apartment complex right now, Erik, but in 2017 it’s more like a construction site. From what I would think is the front entrance, turn right and walk east along the street, past the Starbucks I’m sure will still be there.

Erik chuckled, glancing at the Starbucks just a few doors down from his sprawling apartment complex, as Charles said. Erik let his feet step to the cadence of Charles’s words, following the man on his walk. Charles pointed out the things he saw, similar but different to the things Erik witnessed on his own walk, but with Charles’s letter warm in his hands Erik could imagine the man walking beside him.

Erik followed Charles to the park, where he directed him amongst the trees, before telling him to stop by a specific bench by the fountain.

Read the plaque on the bench, Erik. This is my gift to you.

Erik raised a brow, bending down to peer at the little metal slab bolted into the rain-damp bench.

‘To Erik, my dear friend from the future Two years is a long time But maybe you can rest your legs here on our walk while you wait for me to catch up.’

Erik choked, mouth popping open. Charles had bought Erik a bench. In Central Park.

Charles’s letter made a bit more sense, now – “wait for me”.

So, Erik sat on his bench and waited. And waited. And waited.

But, Charles did not come.

And Erik walked back home, alone and despondent.

***

Sitting in the study in the lake house, Charles pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a groan before rolling his neck. His spine ached a little from being hunched over his desk all day, the words coming to him relentlessly. It had been a while since Charles felt so alive, so eager to tell a story – his and Erik’s, story.

Francis Graymalkin’s new novel, “Days of Future Past” was coming together chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph. The novel was vastly different from Charles’s previous work, and was essential a love story between an engineer named Max Eisenhardt living in the year 2019 and a genetics professor called Wesley Gibson living in 2017.

Well, that’s what the characters would be called in the final version. In the incomplete draft, Max was called Erik, and Wesley called Charles.

Charles had just written the final paragraph in chapter 13, in which Max went on a walk alongside Wesley, crossing through Central Park where Wesley had gifted the older man a park bench.

Smiling to himself, Charles looked at the certificate park management had sent him after he made a hefty donation of $10,000, allowing him to lay claim to one of the benches in the park. Giddy and with a fluttering feeling in his stomach, Charles allowed his fanciful imagination to envision the future between him and Erik.

Charles’s plan for 2019 was to lead Erik through the letter to the park bench dedicated to him, and then to appear. As a cheesy romantic, Charles imagined his future self emerging from behind a screen of trees brandishing a bouquet of bright carnations. Red ones, perhaps, because they symbolised love – and Charles was sure that he loved Erik.

Charles imagined Erik’s shock, and even though he had never seen the man’s face before, he’s sure that the expression on the man’s face would be beautiful. Then Charles could tell Erik that he loved him, and has loved him for two years – and hopefully, Erik could say the same.

Charles had to wonder, though – Erik had told him that Charles hadn’t picked up his phone call, two years in the future. Charles frowned at the thought. Charles doubted that his feelings for Erik would wane, even as new as they were. Charles had never felt anything like this before, and he doubted that two years would change that, not when he knew that Erik would be waiting for him at the end of it all.

Maybe Charles had changed his phone number. That was the most logical explanation.

Charles ignored the small kernel unfurling in his gut that, maybe, something else had happened.

But Charles was sure that he would have gone to meet Erik at the park, two years from today. Charles had already written it down in pen in his calendar, circling it bright red as to not forget.

Charles vowed to himself that, no matter what, he would meet Erik there.

Closing the screen of his laptop, Charles took a moment to check his phone, having ignored it while working. Charles found that, though the isolation at the lake house did wonders for his creativity, Charles had been a little starved for human interaction lately (despite his weekly correspondence with Erik via letter box).

Charles saw that he had two missed calls from Raven, calling her back as he reclined in his chair. His sister picked up on the first ring.

“Charles! You finally decided to call me back, huh?!” Raven screeched into the writer’s ear, the man wincing.

“I was busy writing, Raven. You know how it is,” Charles said, Raven silent for a moment.

“So, you got over your writer’s block? Good for you, Charles. I wonder who thought it would be a good idea for you to get out of the city. Maybe you should thank that person, they’re really very intelligent, don’t you think? Maybe you could even buy them a thank you gift, too… A little birdy told me that they’ve been looking at a particular Dior bag recently,” Raven said, playing at being coy.

Charles just sighed, too used to and too fond of his sister’s antics.

“Thank you, Raven. Yes, you were right, getting out of the city was a good idea. Send me the link to the bag and I’ll get it for you,” Charles said, Raven squealing and chanting “Love you, love you, love you!” which made Charles smile, shaking his head.

“Oh! But you distracted me! I was calling to see if you were free this Saturday?”

Charles was going to focus on writing his and Erik’s story on Saturday after finding out what happened on their park date – because it was a date, was it not? A date, booked two years in advance.

Raven could apparently smell her brother’s excuse through the phone, cutting him off swiftly.

“Please, Charles! You know my friend, Angel? She’s getting married on Saturday, and I had RSVP’d a plus one, since Irene and I were gonna go together, but… Irene and I are going through a rough patch right now, and I don’t want to go to the wedding alone!”

“Raven, I really do have… plans,” Charles said, wondering if telling Raven that said plans were him sitting in his house thinking about a man living two years in the future inside a mail box would end up with her committing him to a mental hospital.

It probably would.

“Charles, what plans could you possibly have all the way out there?”

“Raven,” Charles groaned, his sister pleading.

“Please, Charles? Just this once. Pretty, pretty please!”

Charles had never been able to deny his younger sister anything, and reluctantly agreed. Raven squealed, screaming “Love you, love you, love you” again, before promising to send Charles the details of the wedding.

Raven soon hung up promptly to browse dresses online for the wedding, leaving Charles in his quiet study. Sighing to himself, Charles wheeled his desk chair to the side slightly, reaching across his table to a small lockbox, unlatching it and smiling as he pulled out the first piece of paper contained within it, letting himself float amongst the comforting words of Erik’s letters.

***

At the wedding reception, Raven immediately drifted away from Charles to chat and dance with some of her friends, and Charles wondered why she needed him to come with her in the first place. She was clearly fine on her own.

Charles spent most of the night just hovering by the buffet, figuring that at least there was free food and wine, and he did end up sharing a dance with his sister partway through the evening. Still, the majority of the guests were much younger than Charles, and while the party was only getting more and more wild as the drinks poured, Charles was already knackered.

Needing to get some fresh air, Charles meandered outside onto the balcony of the countryside mansion Angel and her now-husband had hired for the reception, nursing a full glass of wine in his hand. The balcony overlooked a sprawling garden lined with neatly trimmed hedges, the quiet fountain in the middle of it gleaming silver with the moonlight.

Charles was busy admiring the quiet peace of the garden when the French doors to the balcony opened behind him. Charles jumped, whirling around, eyes locking with the surprise guest – it was a tall, handsome man with hair that shone a little auburn. His steely grey eyes locked with Charles, surprised to see someone already on the secluded balcony as well, and Charles noticed a slight shadow of ginger scruff across the man’s angular jaw. Like Charles, he wore a suit, but with his lean legs and narrow waist, Charles thought that the man pulled off the polished look far better than he did.

“Sorry,” the man mumbled stiffly. “I didn’t realise someone was already out here.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Charles said, letting out a soft laugh that was carried away by the wind. “Not quite sure why you’d be surprised, though. You would hardly be the only one wanting to get out of there.” Making a point, Charles shuffled along the balcony’s railing he was leaning on, making space for the man.

The left corner of the man’s lips curved up with barely-visible amusement as he stepped through the balcony’s threshold, closing the doors behind him. When the man made his way to stand next to Charles, he pulled out a cigarette from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and held it between his lips. As he held a lighter near the end of the cigarette, the man gave Charles a sideways look, questioning.

“You can smoke,” Charles said, shrugging. “You’re the one that will get cancer though, my friend.”

The man snorted at that, lighting up and taking a deep drag from the cigarette, exhaling through his nose. Charles ignored the bitter curl of the smoke through the air, the man tapping some of the ash off on the balcony’s banister with long, slender fingers.

“I’ve been trying to quit,” the man suddenly murmured quietly, Charles humming in response. “I did quit, while my wife was pregnant. The first time.”

“But you started again after your child was born?”

“No, I started after the child was miscarried,” the man said, the empty tone in his voice only making him seem full of anguish, though his face betrayed nothing when Charles glanced at him.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Charles supplied, the man shrugging, tapping some more ash off his cigarette before snuffing it out against the stone banister.

“It is what it is,” the man said, like he was trying to convince himself.

“Just because it is what it is, doesn’t mean you have to pretend that it doesn’t hurt,” Charles said, his balcony companion turning to him with a raised brow. Charles let out a huff of breath into the night air. “But, you probably don’t need a stranger at a wedding giving you a pep talk.”

“Not really. I’ve had enough of pep talks, especially after the second miscarriage,” the man mused, Charles’s eyes softening.

“Then let’s talk about something else. How do you know the lovely couple we’re celebrating here tonight?” Charles asked, the man giving Charles a small smile.

“I don’t know them personally. My wife is one of the groom’s co-workers. I’m just here for the free food,” the taller man said, Charles chuckling. “You?”

“My sister is friends with the bride, and I’m also just here for the free food. Oh, and the open bar,” Charles said, gesturing to the half-empty glass of wine he had balanced on the balcony rail. “But, frankly, even the wine isn’t enough to make me want to go back in there. I always loved a good party, but lately I’ve come to realise that I’m no longer a spry twenty-something-year-old.”

“Can’t keep up with the kids these days?” the man said, smiling with a show of straight, white teeth. Charles huffed again, though he couldn’t help his own smile that was beginning to grow on his face. For some reason, this man reminded Charles of his Erik, who teased him good-naturedly through his hand-written prose.

“Oh, no. I just don’t want to steal their thunder,” Charles said, waving his hand in the air, winking. The man let out a chuckle at that, before turning away from Charles to stare off into the distance once again.

“Sometimes I wish I could go back to how things were when I was their age,” the nameless man said, Charles leaning his chin on his palm while resting across the balcony, glancing at the man beside him. The man felt Charles looking at him, and laughed under his breath, almost incredulous. “Sorry. I don’t know where this sentimentality came from. I’m not usually like this.”

“It’s weddings,” Charles said, shrugging. “Makes people sentimental. That, plus the wine.”

“Mm, you may be right. Weddings. They remind me of my own, and how… much things have changed,” the man said, Charles remaining silent, before tentatively reaching out to pat the arm of the man beside him, just once. That light touch seemed to make the taller man falter a little, throat clogged. “I just don’t know what I’m doing with my life anymore.”

“Just because someone stumbles and loses their way, it doesn’t mean they’re lost forever,” Charles responded quietly, the man beside him freezing, before turning to Charles with slightly wide eyes.

“Is that a quote from Francis Graymalkin? From the second novel in the X tetralogy?” Erik asked, Charles blinking. This man has read his books?

“Yes, it’s from when Professor X-”

“-Talks to his younger self, and gives him a pep talk, of sorts,” the other man responded, eyes alight. Charles laughed at the way the man brightened the moment he began to talk about Charles’s books, warmth spreading inside him.

“Indeed. I take it you’re a fan?” Charles said as he picked up his wine glass, bringing it to his lips while the other man nodded, a smile on his face.

“I am. Francis Graymalkin is one of my favourite authors, his work has gotten me through some… tough times. ‘First Class’ is one of my favourite books, probably second only to The Once and Future King,” the man said, Charles pausing, lips pressed against his wine glass.

That’s Erik’s favourite book.

No. There’s no way…

Coincidence?

Fate?

“You…” Charles started, just as the French doors behind him opened, for the second time that night. Charles and the man turned simultaneously to look at the interloper, revealing a pretty woman with dark brown hair and neatly trimmed bangs, a little rounded in the belly – pregnant – and a slightly stiff smile on her face.

“Magda,” the man beside Charles breathed out, the woman giving him a slightly tired look.

“I was looking for you everywhere, Erik,” the woman said, and Charles almost dropped his wine glass.

ErikErikErik.

“Sorry, I was just…” Erik said, glancing at Charles, who was staring at him with an indecipherable expression on his face.

“I know you don’t like big gatherings, but at least tell me when you’re going to get some fresh air,” Magda said, hand cradling her baby bump. “I just wanted to tell you that it’s probably a good time to go home, it’s best that I don’t strain myself… because you know…”

Erik’s face darkened a little, likely thinking about the previous miscarriages, nodding immediately. Erik flicked his spent cigarette onto the stone beneath his feet, walking over to his pregnant wife.

ErikErikErik.

“It was nice talking to you,” Erik said to Charles, small smile on his face. “And thanks, for reminding me. That, you know – ‘I’m not lost forever’.”

Erik gave Charles another tiny smile before stepping beside his wife, large hand splayed against her lower back, intimate and protective.

Charles could only watch as the man he loved walked away, blue eyes trained on the back of a man that was still too young to recognise Charles at all.

In the silence of the night, the sounds of the wedding muted as the French doors closed, Charles remember another line from his second novel.

“Countless choices define our fate: each choice, each moment, a moment a ripple in the river of time. Enough ripples, and you change the tide… for the future is never truly set.”

“How right I was,” Charles sighed to himself, draining the rest of his wine in one large gulp and revelling in the warm haze that swept over him.

***

I saw you, you know – on the 25th of February, 2017. You look good in a suit.

Erik stared at the letter Charles had sent through the letter box, heart hammering.

‘I’ve met Charles before?!’ Erik screamed in his mind, rifling through two years’ worth of memories to try and find the one with Charles. 25th of February, 25th of February. Erik couldn’t pinpoint a specific time or event, that period of his life a vague collection of moments labelled ‘Mid-Magda’ and ‘Post-Magda’. Magda’s third miscarriage was towards the end of that month, and it wasn’t long after that that they had put their divorce into motion. Erik’s memories were hazy regarding everything else, his mind focused on his broken marriage.

But he had met Charles back then? And he couldn’t even remember it?

In novels and film, the meeting between two people was always cataclysmic and seemingly life-changing. The world stops turning, time freezes, and the protagonists always think ‘Oh, this is fate, isn’t it?’. But when Erik had supposedly met Charles, time did not stop, and the world did not stop turning.

Erik couldn’t even remember him.

When did we meet, Charles? This was two years ago for me, and I can’t remember you and my memories aren’t clear.

Erik hoped that Charles wouldn’t feel disheartened about the fact that Erik couldn’t remember him, not when Erik didn’t even know what he was looking for at the time. Erik had been so lost, and…

Suddenly, it clicked in Erik’s foggy head, just as the flag on the letter box moved.

It was at Angel’s wedding. You were with your wife.

Erik swallowed thickly, his suspicions realised – the man on the balcony, the one with the smooth English accent and ocean-blue eyes. The man that quoted Francis Graymalkin, the man who told Erik that he wouldn’t be lost forever. The man that Erik never got the name of.

That was Charles?

Why didn’t you say anything?

Erik frowned, brow crinkling and wrinkles gathering on his forehead.

You didn’t know me back then, so what could I say? ‘Hi there, Erik – I’m your pen pal you’ll start writing to 2 years in the future by shoving paper into a magical time-warping letter box’. You’d think I was mad.

And besides, you were married.

I assume that’s not the case in 2019?

Erik could feel Charles’s hesitation through his penmanship, how his ink grew lighter like he was wary of pressing too hard into the thick note paper. Erik quickly replied.

Magda and I divorced not long after the wedding. Not long after our third miscarriage.

Erik did not know what else to say after that, sending the two sentences as they were. Charles took a moment to respond, Erik biting the inside of his lower lip in anticipation and nervousness.

I am sorry to hear that, my friend.

Erik smiled wryly.

You’re not really sorry, are you?

Another pause in Charles’s reply.

I am sorry – I can’t imagine that it would have been easy for you. But… I can’t say that I’m disappointed. Does that make me a bad person, Erik?

Erik chuckled, gazing down at Charles’s words fondly – now that he knew what the man looked like, even if his two-years-ripened memories were a little fuzzy, he could picture Charles nervously biting on his lower lip, which Erik recalled as being unnaturally red like wine.

Maybe. But if it helps, I’m glad that you feel that way – it appears that we are both terrible people.

But, on another note – you’re a fan of Francis Graymalkin? I shouldn’t be surprised, not when you seem to share his naïve beliefs.

Erik could imagine Charles scoffing, blue eyes rolling as the man crossed his arms over a lithe chest.

Really, Erik? Let’s talk about you for a moment. You’re a fan of m his work as well, and yet you can’t seem to let go of your divisive separatist ideas.

Erik laughed, feeling heat flare in his belly. Suddenly, the image of arguing with Charles face-to-face, maybe over a drink in front of a warm fireplace, a chess board between them quickly being forgotten as they chatted relentlessly.

I assure you, Charles – I firmly believe that Magneto is correct, even if Francis Graymalkin turned him into a foil for the Professor.

I prefer to think of them as two sides of the same coin – frankly, one cannot exist without the other. In the end of the fourth and final book, they united and began walking the same path, did they not?

Yes. Even with their differences, they came together, in the end.

Do you think it could be the same for us?

Erik kneeled by the letterbox, waiting for Charles’s response. Erik had been thinking about this for a while, ever since Charles had failed to appear during their walk through the park, and not to mention when the man had failed to answer Erik’s phone call. Erik knew that he liked Charles, more than he has liked any one before – even maybe more than he had liked Magda when they had first started dating.

But, Erik has known too many failed relationships to risk being hurt again, especially when Charles had already failed to keep his promise twice. Maybe Erik was the naïve one now – was it perhaps foolish to think that a divide of two years was surmountable?

Yes, for Erik, seeing Charles would be like no time has passed at all. But for Charles – sweet, genuine Charles – it would be two years. Two years of waiting for Erik, who didn’t even know that he existed. On the balcony at the wedding, Charles had known Erik, while Erik hadn’t even given him a second thought. Erik couldn’t imagine how that would have felt.

Maybe two years was too much. Or, maybe Charles’s feelings for Erik just weren’t enough.

‘One last chance,’ Erik thought to himself, as he opened the letter box, reading Charles’s response.

I’d truly like to believe so, my friend. I want nothing more.

How about we meet for dinner, exactly two years from tomorrow – March 3rd, 2019. I’ll make a reservation, and I’ll see you there. You should choose the restaurant – it would be a shame if I made a reservation for a place that went out of business before 2019.

Erik swallowed, running his fingers over the date. A promise written in ink.

Erik preferred it to be written in stone.

Make a reservation for Genosha.

Done. See you at 7pm in two years and a day, Erik.

Yes. See you tomorrow, Charles.

***

For Erik, tomorrow came quickly, but he could imagine that the same could not be said for Charles.

Erik spent most of Sunday morning on March 3rd, 2019 lying on his couch just watching the clock tick on, a monotonous countdown until 7pm. At four, Erik showered. By five, Erik had ironed his dress shirt and black slacks. By half-past-five, Erik’s shoes were polished and his hair dried. By six, Erik was doing up the buttons on his shirt and tucking it into the waist of his trousers, sliding a sleek leather belt through the beltloops. By six-thirty, Erik was on the subway heading towards the restaurant, Genosha.

And, at ten-to-seven, the manager of Genosha was asking Erik if he had a reservation.

“Yes,” Erik said, a little breathless as the woman smiled at him patiently. “A reservation for two for 7pm. It should be under Charles. Or maybe Erik.”

The woman’s eyes seemed to widen with recognition as she looked at Erik, before a smile began playing at her lips.

“Oh, we’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” the woman said, crossing the name ‘Charles’ off her reservation book. Erik glanced down at it, noting that the woman had jotted down in the margin ‘the two years from tomorrow reservation!’, making Erik’s heart squeeze.

“Yes, two years,” Erik mused, the woman smiling in understanding, likely having been the one to take Charles’s initial reservation two years ago. She didn’t say much more as she ushered Erik to his table, low-lit with tea lights.

“Would you like to order a drink while you wait?” the woman asked, Erik shaking his head.

“No, I’ll wait for him.”

Charles has been waiting for 2 years, after all. What was ten minutes?

“Very well, sir,” the woman said, giving him another gleaming smile, before ducking back off to greet some other patrons.

Erik nervously smoothed the ironed legs of his pants, then began fiddling with the white table cloth, and then making his hands busy by straightening all of the cutlery in front of him.

Erik checked his watch – 6:58pm.

Two minutes, then.

Two years. What was two minutes compared to two years?

The minutes ticked by, and 7 o’clock came and passed. The manager stepped in with some water just after 7:00, filling Erik’s glass and asking him again if he wanted something to drink. Erik declined.

7:05pm.

7:10pm.

At 7:15, Erik ordered a glass of wine.

7:25pm.

7:40pm.

8 o’clock.

Erik caught the manager looking at him with a forlorn expression from the front of the restaurant, but her expression could not even touch the turmoil brewing inside Erik’s chest.

Erik’s hands were tightly fisted under the table as he found his eyes growing hot, and he gritted his teeth.

He was not going to cry, not over something like this. Erik rarely cried. In recent times, he could only pinpoint three times that tears had slipped from his eyes – his mother’s death, the first miscarriage, losing Magda.

So, Erik was not going to cry over someone who couldn’t keep a promise. Not over someone who clearly didn’t care about Erik.

***

On his Thursday (and Erik’s Saturday), Charles waited eagerly for Erik to respond to the letter he had placed in the early hours of the morning. It would have been just under a week ago that Erik and future Charles would have had dinner together at Genosha, and Charles was giddy thinking about what would happen now.

Would Erik tell him how well it went? Would he have a photo of the two of them together, a Charles that was two years older than the one he currently knew?

Or, would Charles accompany Erik to the lake house and tell the past him that everything turned out as Charles hoped it would, and assure him that it’s alright to still have hope.

Charles could only wait, feeding his anticipation with fanciful scenarios in his head.

The note Charles had left in the letter box was simple:

Erik, please tell me I recommended the tuna nicoise to you. The tuna nicoise at Genosha is to die for.

It took a while for Charles to gain a reply, which wasn’t surprising considering Erik had to travel from NYC to the lake house every week.

As Charles was envisioning him feeding Erik said tuna nicoise, the letter box squeaked, and Charles immediately leapt to his feet. Pulling out the letter, Charles licked his lips, unfolding it.

The words that he read made all of the colour from his face drain, Charles’s usually pink cheeks turning ashen.

You weren’t there. You didn’t come, Charles. Again.

‘No,’ Charles thought to himself, before speaking out loud. “No, no, no, no, no. That’s impossible. I would never…”

Charles felt frantic, reading into Erik’s words – the harsher-than-usual slope of his lettering, the way the ink seemed to rip into the page. Erik was angry, or disappointed, or both.

And it was future-Charles’s fault.

I don’t understand. Erik, something must have happened. I am so, so sorry, my friend. I would never… At least, the me writing this to you, right now in 2017, can’t even fathom the idea of not showing up. I’ve thought of nothing else since.

I have two years, Erik. We can try again.

Charles shoved the letter into the letter box, gnawing on his lower lip. The response was surprisingly swift.

No, Charles. It’s too late. It already happened, more than once, and every time it didn’t work.

“No,” Charles gasped, voice cracking as his eyes grew wet, Erik’s words growing blurry behind the veil of tears. “No, please.”

Charles’s hands were shaky as he wrote, his cursive wonky across the page. Some of the ink smeared as the tears that slid down his cheeks dribbled onto the page.

Please don’t give up on me, Erik. Remember Professor X and Magneto – they waited for each other for years. Decades. They meet again, time after time. They have another chance.

Please.

Charles loosed a sob as he saw the flag on the letter box shift up and down, and part of him dreaded opening it to read Erik’s reply.

Life isn’t a book, Charles. No matter how much we may wish it to be.

I let myself get lost this time. I got lost in this fantasy where time seemed to stand still. You helped me forget my troubles, even for a short while.

But, Charles – I have to learn to live the life I’ve got. I can’t wait for you to show up, and you couldn't keep your promise. We clearly don’t want the same thing.

So, please don’t write any more. I won’t be coming back to the lake house. Don’t try to find me.

Let me let you go.

Charles cried, writing frantically across the paper, a litany of ‘please’ and ‘Erik’ and ‘I’m sorry, forgive me’.

Charles sent his plea, but the letter box didn’t move again.

Next chapter (3/3) → 

#cherik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #X-men #x-men fic #marvel #magneto #professor x #ao3 #AO3 fanfic #james mcavoy #Michael Fassbender

[sareyen]

Das Haus am See: The Lake House Cherik AU (Part 1/3)

Read on ao3

A Lake House Cherik AU: Charles and Erik both lived in the lake house, Charles in 2017, and Erik in 2019. By magic or fate, the two find out that the house’s letter box is able to send letters through time - and, in doing so, the two fall in love despite living in two different years. They vow to meet in the future, but fate is fickle, and time waits for no one.

Chapter 1

Erik grunted as he hauled the last of his boxes into the back of his car, cursing under his breath when the boot struggled to close. After some rearranging, Erik managed to fit all of his belongings into the back, grateful that he had never been the type to hoard.

Pulling out a pen and paper, Erik leaned on the boot of his car, quickly scrawling a concise note to the future tenant of the lakeside house overlooking Chautauqua Lake. 

To the new tenant,

Welcome. As the previous tenant, I hope that you find everything to be in working order. I’ve filed my change of address with the post office, but their services are unreliable at best. If anything slips through, could you please forward my mail? My new address is below.

Thank you.

Also, the burn in the wall above the kitchen stove was there when I moved in, as was the box in the attic. You can do whatever you want with that.

E. Lehnsherr.

Erik quickly folded the paper and shoved it into an envelope, licking the seal and sliding it into the slightly rusted red letterbox at the front of the house, flicking down the red flag on the box.

Erik took a moment to appreciate the house he has lived in for the past year and a half, corner of his mouth lifting. Erik took in the rustic red brick house with its blue-tiled roof, the white trimmed windows and flourishing green front lawn.

Early in the afternoon, the house was cast in a warm golden glow, light reflecting off the lake water in the distance. The house looked warm and lived in, a far cry from how it had looked when Erik had first moved in; barren, with wilting plants in pots hanging on the porch, grass yellowing, dust collecting on every antique piece of furniture inside it.

When Erik had first moved in, the lake house had been cold and barren, much like Erik himself. Erik had moved into the house a year and a half ago after everything with Magda had crumbled to pieces, the multiple miscarriages taking their toll and culminating in a messy divorce. Erik had felt dead inside, moving out of the suffocating city and taking temporary leave from his job as an estate planning lawyer to take some time to gather himself in solitude.

Erik had not thought that he would become so attached to the lake house, which was almost 7 hours by road from the hustle and bustle of NYC. Living alone in tranquillity had made Erik remember his childhood in Germany with his parents, of happier and calmer times. The house had helped him heal, and even though memories of Magda still made his heart ache a little, Erik had learned to shoulder it.

Erik gazed at the house fondly for a moment longer, before turning around to his car packed full of his meagre things, ready to make the trip back to the city and the real world, leaving this little slice of serenity behind.

***

Charles pulled up to his holiday home on the Chautauqua lakefront in his car (or “Rust Bucket” as his dear sister, Raven, endearingly called it). It was beyond Raven’s comprehension as to why Charles, a successful novelist, didn’t go and by himself a new car when he could obviously afford it.

In the end, Charles was sentimental, and clung to things longer than he should. That probably stemmed from the fact that, as a child, he hadn’t had much to hold onto, very little to hold dear. His father had died when he was young, and his step-father was controlling and over-bearing, leaving Charles little in the way of worldly possessions.

But, Charles had been given the gift of heart and wit, and with that, he had built a career in prose. Inspired by his difficult childhood, Charles had created a book series about disenfranchised outcasts with special powers – outcasts that were as extraordinary as they were feared, beautiful but distrusted. Charles wrote about outcasts who could stand up for themselves, to cement their place in the world despite being beaten down at every corner, who would persevere even in the darkest of times.

The series spoke to anyone who had been alienated, who had been mocked for being different. It had become a platform on social commentary, on racism and homophobia, on class struggle and the inequalities that run rampant in the world.

The final book in the “X” tetralogy had been published only recently, and Charles’s fans were eager to find out if the New York Times best-selling author Francis Graymalkin was writing anything new.

Unfortunately, Charles had fallen into a writing slump – after concluding the X series, Charles found himself lost. The X series had consumed his life for the past decade, and now that it was finished, Charles did not know what to do. He had half-formed ideas rattling around in his head, but none that really inspired him.

It had been Raven’s idea to go and do some ‘soul-searching’, as she called it. Charles assumed she had gotten the idea from her current partner, a star-sign-abiding hippie who claimed that she could see the future. Apparently, Charles getting out of NYC would do him some good, and Charles had been inclined to agree – a change in scenery may be what he needed to find his writing inspiration again, and if not, he could at least get a holiday out of it.

It had been after Charles’s first ‘X’ novel had reached critical acclaim that he bought the lakeside house. He hadn’t really understood what had drawn him to it so much, but something in his mind screamed at him to buy it. It had been a charming house, two-storeys and made of red brick. It was a somewhat old house too, but looked well-loved and charmingly worn. Charles, who lived in well-loved and charmingly worn cardigans and enjoyed nothing more than curling up in a blanket with a cup of warm tea had been smitten by the quant property immediately.

Charles didn’t know how long he would live in this lakeside house for, since he didn’t know how long it would take him to complete a new novel. Getting out of his car, Charles didn’t begin unpacking just yet. It had been years since he’d been to the property and he had hired someone to maintain it, but he wanted to look at it for himself.

Charles unlocked the door and took a turn about the spacious house; warm wooden interior, large bay windows that overlooked the lake, antique furniture that looked both mismatched and fitting in the same breath. Charles smiled to himself, running his finger along a dark marble countertop in the kitchen, before opening the large doors to the back veranda by the lake.

“Home sweet home,” Charles murmured to nobody but himself and the lake, which rippled in response as a gust of wind brushed across it. Charles breathed in and out, before walking back to the front of the house.

It was then that he noticed the letterbox’s flag was tilted down, and Charles blinked curiously – no one had lived in the lake house ever since Charles bought it nine years ago, and he knew that the caretakers wouldn’t be sending mail out from his address.

Charles opened the letterbox then, and inside was a single letter in crisp white paper that looked too fresh to have been sitting there for a long time. Holding the letter in his hands, neat and heavy-handed lettering with ‘To the resident’ on the front, Charles glanced around.

He was alone, the secluded house still and quiet.

Charles walked plonked himself down some low stone walling lining the outside of the house, ripping open the letter with his finger.

“Previous tenant?” Charles read aloud, frowning. Unless this letter was from someone living there a decade ago, it had to be a prank, or a mistake. Charles read on, raising a brow about the kitchen burn marks and the box in the attic. When Charles had walked around the house moments earlier, he hadn’t noticed anything amiss in the kitchen, curiosity beginning to bubble in his stomach.

Jumping up with vigour, Charles clutched the letter tightly as he headed directly to the kitchen, inspecting the wall that was supposed to be singed. Charles inspected his kitchen carefully, but there were no burn marks to be seen anywhere.

“A prank?” Charles mused to himself, looking back at the letter. “Box in the attic?”

Charles checked there too, but all he found there were cobwebs and dust, making him sneeze. Climbing back down from the attic, Charles chuckled at his fanciful beliefs. This E. Lehnsherr was either a jokester, or awfully confused.

Charles quickly threw the letter onto the kitchen table, not thinking too much about it, too busy moving his things in and unpacking the rest when the movers came – he always had a lot of things, never being able to let the things he treasured go.

***

It was a two weeks later that it happened.

Charles had never had the most skill in the kitchen, a simple stir-fry the extent of his culinary expertise. Today, he had been particularly scatterbrained, frustrated by his lack of creativity and being stuck writing the same three paragraphs over and over, not feeling inspired in the slightest. To top it off, Charles hadn’t slept particularly well – the nightmares of his childhood had tempered with age, but every now and then, they would make his nights hell.

Half asleep and dazed, Charles had taken his eye off his saucepan, the flames catching on some of his food and bursting upwards in a roaring flame. Charles squeaked, quickly turning off the burner and tugging the saucepan off the heat, singing his finger in the process. Charles hissed, jamming his finger under cold water as the flames died down.

Looking glumly at his smoky-borderline-charcoal dinner, Charles suddenly realised that the wall was burned.

‘Also, the burn in the wall above the kitchen stove was there when I moved in, as was the box in the attic. You can do whatever you want with that.’

“Impossible,” Charles whispered to himself, hastily turning off the tap, charred dinner forgotten. Charles stumbled over to his kitchen table that had become covered with paper, books and empty tea-cups, rummaging around for the letter he had haphazardly thrown there weeks ago. Under a water bill and his worn copy of Jane Eyre, Charles found the letter from E. Lehnsherr.

Coincidence?

Or fate?

Raven’s hippie girlfriend would definitely say fate, that it was written in the stars or in her tea leaves.

Whether it was mere coincidence or true, divine fate, Charles deemed that he should at least respond to the letter, considering E. Lehnsherr had left his new address. Scrounging up a pen from a pocket in his cardigan and ripping out some paper from the leather-bound notebook he always carried around, Charles wrote back.

January 21st, 2017

Dear Mr/Ms Lehnsherr,

I received your letter, but I believe there has been some sort of misunderstanding. I purchased this lake house nine years ago and have never rented it out in that time, leaving it empty for all of these years. Perhaps your letter was meant for the Sandburg cottage down the shore, since that, to my knowledge, has been unoccupied for years.

More importantly, I am curious about the supposed burn marks in the kitchen, for when I moved in the wall was pristine. Just moments ago, however, I was attempting to make a chicken stir-fry and singed the wall above the stove, just as your letter had said. How could you know about that, when it only just happened?

Kindest regards,

C. F. Xavier

Charles smiled at the letter, before carefully folding it up and sliding it into an envelope, placing it back into the letterbox and flicking the flag down.

Suddenly, he felt the urge to write. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure what he would write about, but it would stem from a mysterious letter from a man that seemed to know about things before they happened.

***

“Getting back into the swing of things, Sugar?” Emma asked as she slid into the chair opposite Erik in the breakroom, nursing an expensive cappuccino from the luxurious company coffee machine. Erik fiddled with his own plain black coffee, snorting.

“Estate law isn’t rocket science, Emma,” Erik said offhandedly, Emma chuckling as she flicked her long blonde hair off her shoulder, smoothing her crisp white silk blouse.

“Yes, but you’ve been out of action for almost two years. It would be normal to be a little rusty,” Emma replied, Erik shrugging. “And with your own experience, sometimes estate planning law can be… emotional.”

Erik gave Emma a warning glance, his co-worker encroaching on dangerous territory. Emma just smiled at him coolly, unfazed by his cutting gaze. Even though Erik was notoriously private and solitary by nature, people knew about his troubled marriage and the reason for his brief leave from work. Though Erik was no divorce lawyer, managing wills and estates after someone’s death had hit a bit too close to home, and even now, people walked around him on eggshells.

“It’s fine, Emma,” Erik responded, the woman humming as she sipped on her cappuccino. “It’s just numbers and law, nothing more.”

“Hm, heartless as always, Sugar,” Emma chuckled, getting up and patting Erik’s shoulder. “Seems like you have gone back to your usual self after your little retreat. Congratulations.”

Erik rolled his eyes, not feeling like he should be congratulated at all. He had always been somewhat emotionally detached – not emotionless, because Erik felt. Has felt. He loved Magda, greatly, and he had hurt when he lost her. He had also known hurt after all of their miscarriages, after the deaths of his parents. Erik, at this point, was used to loss.

That’s why estate planning law was, at times, hard – dealing with the affairs of those recently deceased and looking into the eyes of their mourning relatives, Erik could relate. After losing Magda, Erik had needed a break, to rebuild the walls around his heart.

And he had rebuilt them, or so he thought.

When Erik returned to his office after his break, he found his boss, Sebastian Shaw, waiting for him.

“Ah, Lehnsherr, there you are,” Shaw said, thin lips pulling back in a grin. Erik was not overly fond of his boss, who was too cut-throat at times, but that made him damn good lawyer. It was from him that Erik learnt to push clients and their opposition to get the most that they could, but a part of Erik could never quite meet Shaw’s callousness.

“What is it?” Erik asked, voice clipped. Shaw just grinned at Erik’s brusque tone, eyeing his best lawyer carefully.

“I know it’s only been a short time since you’ve been back working with us, but you were always my best. Our services have been requested to manage to estate of a high-profile client,” Shaw said, Erik’s eyes narrowing.

“If you’re coming to me with this, it must be a big client,” Erik said carefully, Shaw chuckling.

“Quick, as always. Yes, it is a big client. Do you know the author, Francis Graymalkin?”

“Author of the X tetralogy?” Erik asked slowly, heart thundering. Shaw nodded, and Erik frowned, heart squeezing. “He died around two years ago, though.”

Erik was a huge fan of Francis Graymalkin’s work, having read the first novel in the famous X series, ‘First Class’, just after it had been released. At that point, the book hadn’t gained the traction and fame it was now renowned for, but it had spoken to Erik deeply. Francis Graymalkin’s words were full of soul, witty at times, startlingly emotional at others. Through Francis Graymalkin’s words, Erik could feel his character’s pain and their elation, and though the political and social commentary was oftentimes naïve and pacifistic, Francis Graymalkin always made sure to touch on all sides of an argument. While he clearly lauded the integrationist perspective in his novels, he did not discount the separatist standpoint that one of his characters, Magneto, championed.

Francis Graymalkin’s work helped Erik through the pain of his mother’s death, which occurred a few months before the release of the second novel, which saw the characters persevering through a dismal future even when all hope seemed lost. The fourth book was what helped Erik get through the mess with Magda – ‘Phoenix’ touched on the loss of a character that the protagonist considered a daughter and the ramifications of that. The book ended on a note of hope, which Erik clung to.

Francis Graymalkin was notoriously private, not showing his face once, though he had penned numerous interviews over the years. Erik read every one of them, finding the man intriguing, sometimes snorting at his political views that so often contradicted Erik’s own but were so thoughtfully explained that Erik couldn’t discredit them at all. Even though Erik had never met Francis Graymalkin, nor had he ever seen the man’s face, the author had done more for Erik than anyone else before.

Erik had heard that the author had begun writing a new novel, and that he had been in the final stages of completing it before he died. Erik had been eager to read it, even if Francis Graymalkin said that it was vastly different from his previous work – a romance novel, of sorts, apparently. Sadly, reading it was now a dream that would be left unfulfilled, because Francis Graymalkin was dead, his story left unfinished.

“Yes, from memory it was a car accident two years ago. I think this it’ll be two years to the day in a month,” Shaw said, sounding cold and detached. Erik swallowed thickly, angry that the life of someone so inspirational had been snuffed out just like that by a simple hunk of moving metal. “Some new things have come to light in the man’s will. To put it short, a family squabble has erupted, and the man’s sister has hired our services. Since this is a high-profile case involving millions, I need you to take over the cases I’m currently working. I’m going to need to pour all of my effort into the Graymalkin estate proceedings.”

Erik wasn’t surprised that Shaw was hogging the Graymalkin estate, because Erik would’ve done the same if he were in Shaw’s shoes, though for entirely different reasons. Shaw liked high-profile, lucrative work, but Erik just wanted to see the affairs of one of his favourite authors realised as he willed it.

But, Shaw was his boss, and he had no reason to contest the man’s plan, not when his argument solely hinged on being a fan of Francis Graymalkin’s novels.

“Fine,” was all Erik said, Shaw clapping his hands together once, satisfied.

“Excellent! I’ll send you the details of the estates I’m settling after my meeting with Francis Graymalkin’s sister,” Shaw said, leaving Erik’s office with little else.

Erik sighed, suddenly feeling a lot more drained, and counted down the hours until he could go home. Erik suddenly felt the urge to just curl up in bed and read one of Francis Graymalkin’s novels. Remember the man’s death struck something in the German man, and it was almost funny how Erik immediately sought comfort in the dead man’s own books.

***

When Erik went home, he realised that his copies of Francis Graymalkin’s books were nowhere to be found. They weren’t in any of the half-unpacked boxes he had pushed against the walls of his newly built apartment, they weren’t in his bookshelf stacked with law tomes and other novels, and they weren’t anywhere in his car.

“Shit,” Erik muttered, shower-damp hair dripping down the back of his bare neck as he padded around his apartment, the smell of fresh paint still making his head spin a little despite airing out the room the day he moved in.

If the books weren’t here in his new apartment, they had to be at the lake house. Considering Erik drove straight from there to his new abode in NYC, that was the only logical option.

So, it was on that weekend, that Erik made the seven-hour (or six, at the speed Erik drove), trip back to the Chautauqua lake house.

Erik could have easily bought the series anew at a bookstore, but something about that idea irked him – his copies were well-read, dog-eared in spots, coffee stains dropped on some pages. The spines of the paperbacks were worn, and the covers faded, but they were familiar under the pads of Erik’s fingers, and reminded him of hours spent reading and coming alive through Francis Graymalkin’s words.

Erik wasn’t often sentimental, but Francis Graymalkin tended to stir up unfamiliar feelings in Erik’s soul.

Erik had contacted the real estate agency managing the property, who temporarily returned his keys to let him gather his final things – since Erik left a few weeks ago, only the young lady that apparently owned it had come here, but that things were in contention since there was some sort of dispute regarding the property’s true owner. Erik didn’t inquire too much about it, wanting to gather his books and make the drive home, not keen to spend more than a day on the road.

Erik found the box he had missed behind the couch, which had since been covered up with white cloth. The house seemed duller and emptier without inhabitants, and for some reason, it felt like the building was holding its breath. Waiting.

For what, Erik didn’t quite know.

Erik gave the house a silent farewell for a second time, loading the single box of books into his backseat. As he was getting into the car, Erik noticed the letter box’s flag was up, signifying that mail had been delivered. Considering Erik was the house’s last tenant, he cursed the post office’s shoddy work at listening to his change of address notice, getting back out of his car and trudging over to the metal contraption.

Opening it, Erik found a few bills that had slipped through his change of address notice, and some junk mail that he swiftly ignored. Erik was about to close the letterbox when he noticed a letter beneath a flyer for a local pizza shop – it was not the letter Erik had left there two weeks ago, and strangely, it was addressed to him.

‘To E. Lehnsherr,’ was printed on the front in elegant cursive, and Erik picked it up.

“What the hell?” Erik muttered, tucking his bills under his arm and ripping open the letter, grey eyes running from side to side as he read it, brow creasing. Then, Erik scoffed. Though its author was eloquent and polite, they seemed to be confused – an older individual, with dementia, perhaps. The letter was dated February 9th, 2017 – but, as Erik checked again, it was currently Saturday the 9th of February, 2019.

To be stuck two years in the past, this C. F. Xavier was either an idiot, or a poor, lost soul.

Even more ridiculous was the fact that this person (whom Erik assumed to be the lake house’s contentious female owner the real estate agent had mentioned visiting) thought that no one lived here, when Erik had literally moved out two weeks ago. C. F. Xavier must be confused, and Erik felt that he needed to correct the person, or at least give them a healthy dose of reality.

Erik walked back to his car, opening the box of books in his backseat to find some paper to write on. Erik found an old notebook, ripping out an empty back page before scribbling down a response to C. F. Xavier.

February 9th, 2019

Dear Ms Xavier,

I am familiar with the cottage that you mentioned, and I assure you that I did not mistake my own address. Unfortunately, you seem to be confused – I’ve lived at this lake house for almost two years, and have since moved to ---, NYC. It would be great if you could forward my mail to this address if you receive any.

And, by the way, it’s 2019. It has been all year – ask anyone.

Erik

Erik may have been a little aggressive by underlining 2019 so heavily, but he didn’t care too much, folding the letter inside the empty letterbox and flicking down the flag.

Walking back to his car, Erik suddenly heard the squeak of metal behind him, turning with a slightly startled jump.

The letter box’s flag was up.

Erik’s eyes darted around his surroundings, trying to look for the prankster, but it was quiet.

Then, the flag jerked itself down without a hand touching it.

Erik’s heart hammered, his long legs surging forward and his hands ripping open the letter box. The folded letter he had just placed in there had disappeared, and something else had replaced it. It was from the same paper C. F. Xavier’s initial note had been written on, and on it was the same refined cursive scrawl.

He had just received a reply from C. F. Xavier, a C. F. Xavier who was nowhere to be seen.

***

Charles almost screamed when he saw the flag move itself, blue eyes staring at the metal letterbox with a mixture of fear and rapture. Charles nibbled on the end of his pen, unblinking, waiting for the phantom to move the letterbox again.

“Come on, my friend…” Charles goaded the lake house phantom, gasping when, after a long, laborious length of time, the flag shoved itself down. “Good God.”

Charles opened the letterbox, and found that the paper he had placed face down only about five minutes ago was now face up, with E. Lehnsherr’s – Erik’s – distinct scrawl beneath Charles’s own lettering. Charles couldn’t help but laugh, breathless and giddy, reading the mysterious letter with excitement.

February 4th, 2017

Dear Erik,

My friend, I’m not sure about you, but it is the year 2017 where I am. You told me to ask anyone, and I did – I texted my sister and my friends, and they all assure me that it is indeed 2017.

While our incongruous dates are confounding, I am more intrigued as to how you are responding to me. I am not well-versed in practical jokes or magic, so may I ask, how are you doing this?

Yours,

Charles

P.S. I’m not sure what lead you to believe that I am Ms. Xavier, but I am usually addressed as Mr. Xavier. However, please just address me as Charles.

Charles,

I am as confused as you are – if anyone is the magician, it’s you. I’ve been watching this letterbox, and no one has touched it.

Erik

P.S. The real estate agent said that this property was owned by a woman. I didn’t mean to offend you, nor assume your gender.

Charles blinked, swallowing deeply. This was…

Amazing.

Charles sucked in a breath, planting himself on the grass in front of the letterbox, ripping a new piece of paper from his notebook and writing with fervour.

Erik,

Don’t worry, you did not offend me in the slightest, and even if you did, I’m rather pre-occupied worrying about the fact that we can even have this conversation.

My mind is fanciful by nature, and I can think of a few different scenarios that read like fiction – but, with what is happening, fiction seems to be our new reality. Since you are adamant that you are living in 2019, and I am even more sure that it is currently 2017, I’d wager that this letterbox is some sort of time-travelling device.

Either that, or I am going insane. Please tell me that I am not alone in my insanity, my friend.

Charles

Charles placed the letter in the letterbox, flicked the flag, and waited.

He did not have to wait long for a response.

***

Charles,

It seems that you aren’t alone in your insanity. But, I think I am more insane for thinking that your illogical logic is… logical. In case you are still in disbelief, I have a coin minted in 2018 – not 2019, but futuristic enough.

Erik

Erik grinned down at his response, pulling out a 2018 dime from his pocket and placing it atop the letter. Erik willed in his heart for the coin to be sent through smoothly, not sure about the limitations of this time-travelling device in the shape of a letter box. Erik waited for Charles’s response eagerly.

He, too, did not wait long.

*** 

Erik,

A dime from the future – how much do you think it would go for on the market? Some coin collectors can be positively rabid.

I joke, though. Erik, this is amazing. Whatever physics are at work here, I can’t even begin to explain it – I may have a degree in biophysics, amongst other things, but my knowledge on time travel tells me that the very concept is a myth. Science fiction. I’m not sure what I could send you to prove that I am indeed from the past, but it seems like you believe me thus far.

Here is a biscuit that’s expiring soon – in March 2017, to be precise. So, about a month from now (my time).

Charles

Before sending the letter, Charles had pat himself down, trying to think of something to give Erik but coming up empty – everything Charles had could be easily procured in the future. Still, Charles felt like he should send Erik something – in the end, he placed a plastic-wrapped biscuit alongside his letter, flicking down the flag as he held Erik’s 2018-minted dime in his palm, the metal warm.

*** 

Charles,

I’m sure you would be called a fraud if you tried to sell a dime from the future. Frankly, I think I would be the only person who would believe you.

And Charles, in your opinion, would the biscuit be safe to consume? Technically, two years haven’t passed in the biscuit’s lifetime.

Erik

***

Erik,

If I met you now, you wouldn’t believe me any way – because, for you, this conversation hasn’t even happened yet.

And that is marvellous to think about, isn’t it? Positively groovy. Also, please try the biscuit – if you become ill, let me know.

Charles

Erik let out a choked laugh, eyeing the biscuit he had left sitting atop the letter box. The thought that Charles had procured it and thoughtfully given it to Erik made something churn in the German’s belly. Whether that was a side effect of the strange warmth spreading in his chest or because his stomach pre-empted the food poisoning the expired-but-unexpired biscuit would give him, Erik couldn’t tell.

Still, Erik opened the plastic packaging, swallowing down the biscuit in two bites.

It was sweet.

***

Groovy? Really, Charles? How old are you?

I had pegged you for a senile old man at first, since you seemed to be stuck two years in the past – I think you just confirmed my suspicions.

(And the biscuit was delicious.)

***

Charles snorted at Erik’s response, not feeling offended but elated instead – Charles’s heart was thumping wildly, lurching ever time the letter box would rattle. Charles couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face as he hastily penned a reply to his new friend.

A senile old man? You wound me, Erik!

And I’m 31. So, in your time, I would be 33. But, since you’ve made fun of me for my age, how old are you then? Twelve?

***

Almost. Triple it.

***

You’re 36 in 2019, then? So, you’d be a youthful 34-year-old right now.

***

Congratulations, Charles. You can do math.

Erik chuckled to himself, licking his lips as he sent the snarky and teasing response.

How long had it been, since Erik could speak with someone so easily? So naturally?

It had been a long time – maybe ever since Magda?

Or maybe even before that?

*** 

This infantile mocking is why I thought you were 12, Erik. But I do apologise – I shouldn’t make fun of my elders.

Charles wasn’t sure if he was teasing or flirting now – maybe a mixture of both. But, God, talking to Erik lit something inside Charles that had been dormant for a long time.

***

Who’s the child now? Are you sure you’re not in elementary school still, Charles?

*** 

I graduated from high-school when I was 16, actually. So, no, I am far from being in elementary school, my friend. Unfortunate, because I think we could have become great friends in the playground, considering we are both apparently 12-years-old.

***

I have no doubt about that, Charles.

But, you mentioned that you have a degree in biophysics?

***

Well, a PhD in biophysics, to be precise.

Erik’s eyebrows went up when he read Charles’s response. The man had sounded educated in his responses, but this was impressive. Charles was an intellectual, and that was something Erik appreciated. Still, he felt the need to tease the (slightly) younger man.

***

Are you bragging?

*** 

No, my friend. If I were bragging, I’d tell you about my other PhDs in genetics, anthropology and psychology. Oh, and my meagre Bachelor’s degree in English.

Erik choked when he read Charles’s reply, grey eyes bulging. Gott, Charles was a genius. Was he even real?

Time travelling was one thing, but someone like Charles Xavier – funny, intelligent, cheeky Charles Xavier – existing?

Erik could hardly believe it.

*** 

So, you’re a 12-year-old child genius then?

***

You’re the one who said it, my friend. Not me.

What about you? What did 12-year-old you grow up to become?

Charles wanted to know more about this man who lived in the future – sure, Charles was curious about other things about the future unknown to him, like world events, new technologies, political intrigue – but more than that, he wanted to know about the man who lived in it.

A man that, in what was a handful of minutes that spanned two years, Charles felt bound to.

Raven’s girlfriend was, maybe, right about something.

***

A lawyer, specialising in estate planning law. No PhDs here, so I have nothing to brag about.

*** 

You’re selling yourself short, Erik. I’d wager that it isn’t easy becoming a lawyer, having to pass the bar amongst other things. Not to mention the fact that your job involves professional arguing – I enjoy a good debate myself, but I could never become a lawyer.

Erik smiled at that. He could feel that Charles’s words were genuine and spoken from the heart. There was something about the way he wrote that made it seem like he bore his heart on the page, something that Erik had always struggled with.

But, talking to Charles like this, Erik felt lighter.

*** 

And I could never complete 4 PhDs. Oh, and a bachelors in writing – how could I forget?

***

Why do I feel like you’re mocking me again, my friend?

***

Because I am.

***

Hmph – that’s the noise I made just then. It’s a shame that you can’t hear it in person.

And God, Charles wanted to hear Erik’s voice. To speak with him – but sadly, he was two years too early.

*** 

What if I could?

Erik’s heart hammered – Gott, he wanted to hear Charles’s voice. He wondered if Charles’s voice would match his gentle, elegant cursive. If it did, he imagined Charles to be soft-spoken, maybe with a posh accent. For some reason that seemed to match Charles’s written voice well. But, from what Erik could tell, Charles had a mischievous streak – the man was surprising, in every way.

***

What do you mean?

***

What if I called you, in my time?

Charles almost dropped his pen when he read Erik’s words, eyes widening to blue saucers.

*** 

You mean, in the future?

*** 

That’s another way of saying it.

***

Very well, I’ll bite. Here’s my number: XX XXXX XXXX

Call me.

Erik found himself breathless all of a sudden, staring at the string of numbers.

Charles’s number.

Erik hadn’t felt like this since he was actually 12-years-old.

*** 

Is this how you give people your number in bars, Charles?

“Are you flirting with me, Erik?” Charles asked himself incredulously, though his cheeks coloured.

‘God, I hope you’re flirting with me, my friend.’

*** 

No, usually I just skip that step and take them home.

But enough stalling, Erik – have you called future me yet?

Erik couldn’t help the surprised laugh that erupted from his throat. Charles, Charles, Charles.

*** 

Not yet – Charles, I will call you at precisely 3:05pm on Monday, the 9th of February 2019. Which, for me, is a minute from now.

“I’ll be waiting,” Charles vowed to no one but himself, wondering where he would be in two years, waiting for Erik to call. Would he be back home in NYC, tucked away in his office? Or would he be at his publisher’s, excusing himself from a meeting with his editor, Moira MacTaggert, to answer Erik’s impending call in private?

Or, maybe, Charles would have tried to surprise Erik. Charles could surprise him by showing up at the lake house, since he knew that Erik was there, right now.

Why hadn’t Charles done that already?

***

Alright. I’ll be waiting for your call, Erik.

Erik’s hands were shaking as he dialled Charles’s number, double and triple checking to make sure the digits were correct.

He pressed call.

The phone rang for a few beats, and then a few more, and then for many, many more. Eventually, the robotic female voice told Erik that Charles did not pick up, and Erik’s heart fell, disappointment flooding him over a man two years away.

Erik didn’t know what to do, and ten minutes passed – there hadn’t been this much of a lag between their sent letters, and Erik was surprised when the letter box flag jerked up and then down.

Erik hastily checked it, pocketing his phone once again. 

Have you called future me yet, my friend?

***

I did – you didn’t pick up, you asshole.

Charles frowned. He hadn’t picked up? Why hadn’t he picked up?

Future Charles, you idiot.

***

Well. I’m disappointed in future me. Something must have held me up. I do apologise, my friend. Please believe me when I say that I want nothing more than to answer your call.

Gosh, I’m making excuses for a me that doesn’t exist yet.

But, please, Erik – trust me when I say that I am very sorry.

***

Erik sighed, reading Charles’s message over and over. He did seem awfully apologetic, and maybe he was right – even though this was now for Erik, for Charles it was two years in the future. Many things could’ve changed for the man in that time. He could have simply forgotten, he may have moved countries and changed time zones, or maybe, knowing Charles, he overworked himself getting a 5th PhD and was passed out over his desk.

Erik noticed that the sky was beginning to glow orange, sunset approaching, cursing under his breath. If he didn’t start driving home now, it would be well past midnight by the time he got back to his apartment.

No apologies needed, Charles. Two years is a long time, and I’m sure you were just busy – working on your 5th PhD, perhaps?

And, sadly, I have to leave now – I was only here to pick up some books that I had left behind. I’ve got to drive back to NYC now.

***

Charles read Erik’s letter, frowning. Was this it, then?

Charles didn’t want this to be it. 

Oh, that’s sad news, my friend – this conversation with you, no matter how brief, has meant more to me than you know. I’m not sure what magic is at work here, but I will be here in a week’s time. I would very much like to speak to you again, Erik, if you wanted.

Charles waited with bated breath, hands pressed together tightly as he eyed the letter box flag.

Up.

Down.

Charles opened the letter box, surprised to find Erik’s letter wedged between the pages of a worn book – The Once and Future King.

I’d also like to speak with you again – this… means a lot to me, too. I hate to leave so soon, but I’ll give you this to help pass the time before I can return. It’s my favourite novel – considering you have a bachelors in English, you may have already read it, but still.

Until next week, Charles.

Charles laughed, fingering the pages of the book before dropping his forehead to its cover, breathing in the smell of old pages and something like cologne.

Erik’s cologne.

“I’ll be waiting, my friend,” Charles whispered, getting up and walking back into the lake house, not waiting a moment before going into the study and booting up his laptop, which was open to the novel he had begun working on when he had first received a reply from Erik.

“Days of Future Past – by Francis Graymalkin”.

Next chapter (2/3) → 

#cherik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #x-men #x-men fic #the lake house #au #marvel #james mcavoy #Michael Fassbender #ao3 #AO3 fanfic #professor x #magneto #time travel

[sareyen]

Puppy Love (Cherik)

Read on ao3

Basically, Erik has a massive crush on his co-worker, Charles Xavier, but believes that the man has a boyfriend that he’s enamoured with called Logan. Too bad Erik didn’t get the memo that Logan is actually Charles’s dog.

‘Charles Xavier has a boyfriend. And it’s not me.’

Erik churned the thought around in his head after overhearing the conversation that had played out in the communal kitchen at their accounting firm.

Charles had been talking to a few of their co-workers around the coffee machine, blue eyes impossibly bright and red lips moving with mirth as he chatted. Charles was always so sociable, something that annoyed yet endeared Erik at the same time.

Erik could see him from the window of his office, the smaller man holding a hot cup of tea in his hands, sometimes pursing his lips to gently blow across the steaming cup. He was looking as good as always; slightly overgrown brown hair pushed back behind his ears, small yet fit body wrapped up in a tailored button-up and some tight grey slacks, topped off with polished black shoes. He had forgone his coat and the sleeves of his shirt were pushed up, showing off his smooth and pale arms, slightly dusted with freckles.

Erik may or may not have been nursing a hefty crush on Charles Xavier for months, ever since the man joined their company. Charles was not only the single most attractive man Erik had ever seen in his life, but he was also ridiculously intelligent and surprisingly stubborn, the only one of Erik’s co-workers seeming to match him blow-for-blow in arguments/debates in the break room. At first, their arguments had scared many of the other employees, but over time, people had come to realise that it was just their thing.

So yes, Erik liked Charles Xavier, who would debate politics with him in the break room over a quick game of chess on Charles’s phone. Charles, who wasn’t scared of Erik’s intimidating shark-grin or put off by his aloof personality. Charles, who always smiled at Erik in a way that made it look like his smile held a secret.

Charles laughed at something a co-worker said, Erik getting up and deciding to get a coffee. When Charles saw Erik emerge, his eyes immediately lit up, nodding towards the taller man with that smile on his face.

Erik gave Charles a small smile in return as he pushed at the espresso button on the coffee machine.

“Are you sure you’re not coming to Friday night drinks with us?” Sean, a co-worker, pouted at Charles. The blue-eyed man just shook his head. “But Charles! You’ve been skipping out on drinks for the past few weeks!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Charles apologised, though he didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest. “Now that Logan’s living with me, I try to get home earlier to eat with him. Plus, I don’t like the thought of him waiting up for me in bed.”

What.

Erik’s espresso had finished spurting out from the machine, which made a pained hissing noise, but Erik couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears.

‘Who the fuck is Logan?’  

Erik whirled around to Charles, who only had a gentle smile on his face, one that was so soft and lovely that Erik faltered.

‘Charles never smiles like that at anyone. Not even me. Logan must be…’

“You’re so whipped, Charles,” Alex, another co-worker quipped, Charles only beaming in response. Erik frowned, heart knotting together – Charles obviously loved Logan, who was obviously his boyfriend, dearly. A man did not smile at the thought someone with that tender a look in his eyes and a smile that lovely without being head-over-heels in love. That was why Erik was confused about the way Charles had been looking at him. Was Erik so out of touch that he had misread the signs?

“I also need to go home and clean up after him. He’s fond of making a mess around the house, unfortunately,” Charles said, though he didn’t sound annoyed in the slightest, only endeared.

‘I wouldn’t make a mess in our house,’ Erik thought bitterly to himself. Erik was neat by nature, and looking at Charles’s cluttered and messy desk at work, Erik had always imagined that his home would be the same. For someone who liked order as much as Erik, the fantasy of fondly chastising Charles for leaving mugs around or his books scattered everywhere had only made Erik smile in the privacy of his thoughts.

But now that he knew that Charles had a boyfriend that he lived with, that’s all those thoughts were – mere fantasies.

“Sounds like a hassle to me, though,” Moira said with an amused smile, Charles just laughing, his azure eyes crinkling in the corners.

“Yes, well, I love him so I don’t mind,” Charles said gently, Erik’s heart crumbling to pieces.

‘G-tt, Charles really loves this guy – his boyfriend. When the hell did Charles get a boyfriend?’

Charles turned around to Erik properly then, bright smile still on his face. He opened his mouth to say something to the German man, but Erik did not hang around to hear it, needing to get out of there.

Erik hastily grabbed his espresso, almost scalding himself in the process, and hightailed it back to his office with a slam of the door behind him. When he got there, Erik just sat down at his desk, coffee rapidly growing lukewarm and his mind clouded with static.

Because fuck, Charles Xavier had a boyfriend that he really, really loved.

A boyfriend that wasn’t Erik.

***

Now that Erik knew Charles was not single, he made every effort to snuff out any attraction he had to the man. Or at least deny it, because even though Charles was out of bounds, Erik could not stop thinking that his red lips were extremely kissable, or feel the need to brush his fingers through Charles’s thick, chocolate locks whenever he saw the man hunching over some documents while nibbling on the capped end of a pen.

It did not help that Charles didn’t stop flirting with him either, even though he had someone called Logan waiting for him at home and in his bed, as Charles so often mentioned.

Erik tried his best – he really did – but it seemed like Charles was making a huge effort to be even more irresistible than usual. Charles and Erik worked in the same department, and as the two most productive members of the team, Erik couldn’t avoid him even if he tried. So, Erik just aimed to be strictly professional as they reviewed accounts.

“There’s an error here,” Erik said gruffly, clicking his tongue in annoyance as he circled an issue in the report Sean had written up. Charles hummed, walking over until he was right beside Erik, their shoulders bumping. Erik sucked in a tight breath when he felt Charles steady himself by placing a hand on the back of his chair. Charles then leaned in over Erik’s shoulder and nibbled on his pen with those obscenely red lips, reaching for the papers in Erik’s hand and making their fingers brush as he did so.

‘G-tt, Charles smells like… coconut shampoo?’ Erik groaned, getting a solid whiff of Charles’s soft yet sweet scent. Charles never smelled like the sharp tang of aftershave like Erik, but of clean soap, mint and fabric softener.

Erik always imagined that would be what home smelled like.

“Mm, yes. There is a similar issue in one of the documents Moira sent through. We should probably tell the team if it’s a consistent issue,” Charles mused, turning his head to peer down at Erik, still so, so close. Erik swallowed thickly when Charles smiled, pen tapping at his plush lower lip and eyes bright as he looked through his dark lashes. “Are you alright, Erik? You look a little flushed.”

“I’m fine,” Erik grumbled out, pushing on his desk to make his wheeled-chair put some distance between him and Charles. Charles blinked, his smile seeming to freeze for a moment, the pen dropping from his lips.

Charles then opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Moira poking her head through the open door of Erik’s office. Erik didn’t know if he was irritated or relieved by her interruption, but turned his head towards her, face producing its signature scowl.

“What is it, Moira?” Erik asked, voice a little snappy. Moira flinched, Charles giving Erik a raised brow, before the brown-haired woman cleared her throat and spoke.

“I just have a message for Charles. Your sister was trying to get through to you on your phone, but you left it in your office so she bombarded me with messages instead,” Moira said, Charles frowning.

“Is Raven alright?” Charles asked, a little worried. Erik began frowning at the crinkle in Charles’s brow, wanting to smooth it out with his fingers. Erik knew that Charles loved his sister dearly, having told Erik over crappy office coffee that his sister was the only person he considered family.

Erik had, at that point, fantasised about how he could add to Charles’s family.

“Oh, it’s nothing like that. She was just desperate to know if you and Logan were coming over to her place for dinner. She’s at the shops and needs to know if she needs to cook extra,” Moira said, Charles’s frown disappearing and being quickly replaced with a wide smile.

‘Fuck, that Logan guy again,’ Erik growled silently, hands tightening around the papers in his hand, crinkling them. Charles’s smile made Erik’s chest squeeze tightly, at both its beauty and the fact that it wasn’t a smile for Erik, but for Logan. Verdammt.

For Charles’s sister to be so excited about having Charles’s boyfriend over for dinner, she must like the man a whole lot as well. Shit. The fact that the boyfriend has integrated into the Xavier family to such an extent meant that this relationship was definitely serious.

And yet, Charles was still pressing himself into Erik’s side and giving him those seductive smiles and heated glances, looking at Erik like he knew that if he kept pressing, Erik wouldn’t be able to resist him any longer.

“Logan does have a big appetite,” Charles giggled – actually giggled – getting up from where he sat beside Erik. Charles squeezed Erik’s shoulder, leaning down to murmur ‘I’ll be right back, let me just message my sister’ into Erik’s ear, his hand searing hot.

Erik just watched as Charles, both angry at the man for playing with his feelings when he was clearly in a relationship, and upset at himself for not being able to control his feelings for Charles.

***

It was about a month later that Erik found himself at the staff Christmas party, and as a Jewish man (albeit a very loose one), Erik had never been particularly fond of Christmas. It wasn’t because of a religious thing (again, Erik was a very loose practitioner of the Jewish faith), but because he found the whole thing extremely tacky and obnoxious. The way ‘Christmas Cheer’ was shoved down your throat, and how an old, fat, bearded man got paid to have children sit on his lap had always made Erik grimace.

Still, Erik had been roped in to attend the staff Christmas party, even when he made it obvious that he did not want to be there. Moreover, Erik had made it clear that he was not going to participate in the gift swap, and merely stood on the sidelines nursing a warm and watered-down beer as his co-workers all squealed while opening their gifts one-by-one.

Most of the gifts were the punchlines of long-running jokes, and of course, a number of them held sexual connotations that left the gift-givers rolling around in drunken hysterics while other co-workers snickered as they watched on. Sean had been given a ball gag which stemmed from an office consensus that he was overly talkative and needed to shut up 99% of the time. Moira got a vibrator because she was ‘single-as-fuck’ as Alex put it, while Alex himself got a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs that everyone burst out laughing at – Erik didn’t socialise enough with the rest of his co-workers to get the inside joke.

Erik was mainly disinterested in the whole gift exchange, until Charles’s gift was plucked out from the pile. Erik’s eyes lifted from his feet to the man, whose cheeks were a little red with drink, a paper crown perched wonkily atop his head. He smiled happily as he began unwrapping his present, looking far too adorable for Erik to handle.

“Oh! I love it!” Charles exclaimed, and Erik leaned forward slightly to see a bit better from his distant vantage point outside of the circle of employees. When Erik saw what Charles was holding in his hands, he immediately choked on the mouthful of stale beer he had in his mouth.

Charles was holding a black leather collar with a silver name plate on the front.

Considering the fact that all the previous gifts had been overtly sexual, Erik’s mind went straight into the gutter as Charles twirled the collar in his hand. Erik coughed after swallowing his beer, pushing the image of Charles in said collar splayed out on satin sheets. Erik has had many fantasies about Charles, and though many were quite kinky in nature, Erik’s mind had not ventured into collar territory and G-tt, Erik’s cock twinged at the mental image. At least until Charles opened his mouth to speak again.

“Logan will love this!” Charles chirped, Erik’s heart plummeting. “Let me guess – Moira, this is from you, right?”

“You got it, Charles,” Moira said, Charles giving the woman a tight hug. “You told me that your last one broke when Logan got a bit rough, so I figured I should get you a new one.”

‘Oh, G-tt, I didn’t need to know that,’ Erik groaned internally, beginning to feel a little sick.

“I did. Thank you, Moira,” Charles said, looking far too touched to have just received a fucking collar for his boyfriend by a co-worker. Erik knew that Charles and Moira were close, but he didn’t think they were close enough for Charles to give her a play-by-play of his sexual exploits with his boyfriend.

Erik couldn’t care less about the Christmas party or the gift giving any longer, so he quickly chugged the rest of his beer, wanting to get out of the office, to be anywhere but there.

Before Erik made it to his car, he was stopped by a familiar ‘Erik!’, a hand grabbing onto the fold of his elbow. Erik’s stomach flipped as he turned, knowing the feel of that hand on his arm and the lilt of an English accent wrapping around his name.

Charles was panting a little having chased after Erik, the two of them standing alone in the silent carpark. Charles’s cheeks were still red, but maybe even more so now after physically exerting himself to catch up with Erik. Charles must have felt hot after running, unbuttoning another button on his shirt, exposing more of his milky, smooth skin.

G-tt, he was beautiful.

“I know you don’t celebrate Christmas, Erik, but did you really need to leave without telling anyone?” Charles said, smiling as he pretended to scold Erik. The German just shrugged, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants to stop from grabbing onto Charles instead, wanting to do nothing more than to tug the dishevelled man into his arms.

“What are you doing here, Charles?” Erik mumbled, Charles smiling in response. It was then that Erik noticed that he had a hand held behind his back, one that quickly revealed itself to procure a small package wrapped in brown parchment and twine. There was a simple card slipped beneath the tightly bound cord reading ‘Erik – Happy holidays, my dearest friend. Yours, Charles’.

“What’s this?” Erik asked dumbly, Charles laughing and grabbing Erik’s wrist to get him to take the gift.

“A present, obviously,” Charles said, smiling up at Erik sweetly.

“I wasn’t part of the gift exchange.”

“Oh, I know. This isn’t part of the exchange. I just wanted to give you a present, because you’re…” Charles said, biting on his lower lip, ears turning a little pink. “Anyway. Just open it. Please.”

Erik looked at Charles for a moment, the man’s endless blue eyes urging him to open the gift. So, Erik did, fingers a little stiff as he undid the twine and slipped his finger beneath the sticky tape. When he pulled the wrapping paper off the package, his mouth dropped open slightly.

“The Once and Future King,” Erik read, opening the worn cover. It felt like his heart had jumped into his throat, an emotion largely unfamiliar to the man washing over him. “First edition?”

“Yes,” Charles said, seeming to find Erik’s wondrous reaction to his liking. Charles reached forward then to reach for the book, fingers brushing over the well-loved pages to point at something scrawled on the second page – C.F.X. “My first edition, to be precise. You said it was your favourite book but that you couldn’t find it when you moved, so I figured I’d give you mine. Well, it’s your now, I suppose. Happy holidays, Erik.”

“Charles…” Erik breathed out, unable to say much else. Charles just smiled, head tilting to the side as he gazed up at Erik. Erik looked back at the man, wanting to kiss him desperately, to devour his cherry red mouth and taste every inch of him. Charles noticed Erik’s eyes dropping to his lips, the shorter man licking them and leaning in slightly, eyes fluttering closed.

Erik began drifting into Charles’s orbit, close enough to feel Charles’s bated breath dust his cheek.

But then Erik remembered – boyfriend, collar, Logan.

Erik took a quick step back, Charles feeling the suddenly coldness between them, blue eyes flicking open with a trace of hurt.

“Thank you for the gift,” Erik said stiffly, taking another step back. “And happy holidays to you, too. See you next year, Charles.”

With that, Erik whirled on his feet and power-walked to his car, breathing heavily. Erik regarded the book in his hands, thumbs brushing over the pages that he knew Charles’s fingers had touched in a similar way, before thudding his head on the hard cover.

“He has a boyfriend, Erik. Get a fucking grip,” Erik muttered to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly. “You’ve got to get over him by the new year.”

But, when did people ever go through with their New Year’s resolutions?

***

Erik spent the New Year with his mother, Edie, who cooked enough to feed a small country even though it was only the two of them celebrating. Even though the mainstream New Year wasn’t Rosh Hashanah, the mother and son still saw each other, taking the holiday to spend some quality time together. Erik was always busy with work, so he appreciated the holiday, giving him time to visit his mother properly.

Edie had discreetly asked her son if he was going to bring anyone over for this particular New Year, but like always, Erik had said ‘No, Mama, there’s no one’. Usually, Erik didn’t really care that he had no one to bring – his usual one-night-stands were just that, and he hadn’t met anyone that he actually wanted his mother to meet.

This year, though, Edie had noticed the way Erik’s mouth pressed into a tight line as he said ‘No, mama, there’s no one’, but she didn’t say anything. The woman just gave her son a knowing look, sat him down at her small dining table and murmured “You’re looking a little skinny, Schatz. Eat a lot now, and I’ll pack the rest for you to take home.”

Erik stayed at his mother’s house that night, squeezing onto his small childhood bed that he had grown out of a long time ago. His mind drifted to Charles once or twice (or maybe a lot more than that), wondering what he was doing for New Years. Charles probably went to see the Times Square Ball Drop with Logan, kissing him as the countdown fell to zero. He probably murmured ‘Happy New Year, Darling’ to his boyfriend with his luscious accent and wide blue eyes, red mouth curved up in an endearing smile. Charles probably went home that night and had wonderful New Year’s sex with Logan (collar and all), while Erik lay sleepless and alone in his too-small bed.

Erik left his mother’s house the morning after, both arms laden with bags filled with Tupperware containers containing potatoes, sweet brisket and other Edie Lehnsherr specialties.

Erik hadn’t taken his car, since the previous day he had wanted to walk in the crisp winter air to clear his head. He regretted it now, though, Edie packing him far too much food, the added weight making the walk back to his apartment more tedious than usual.

It was when Erik was passing by a park near his mother’s house that he saw a familiar man standing on the grass through a gap in the leafless trees, bundled up in a thick dark grey coat, black trousers, fingerless gloves and a plush beige muffler. Erik’s steps slowed when he immediately recognised the dark chestnut hair and pale freckled skin as the man turned slightly, mouth curled into a tranquil smile.

Erik watched as Charles pulled his scarf tighter around his neck, the morning breeze biting. Then, he raised a gloved hand to his mouth, calling out.

“Logan! Come back here!”

Erik flinched, knowing that he should just keep walking – he didn’t need to see Charles’s boyfriend, he didn’t really want to. He didn’t want to be hurt when he saw the man that Charles loved, the man that was probably nothing like Erik.

Because Charles would never love Erik, not the way he loved Logan. Logan, who waited for Charles in bed every night, Logan who Charles made sure to eat dinner with every night, Logan who was basically a part of Charles’s family already.

Erik knew he would be hurt, but he was riveted to the spot, eyes squinting as he tried to look past the trees at the man Charles was calling to.

One second, two seconds, three seconds passed.

And then, Erik saw him.

A large German shepherd darted across the grass, chewed-out tennis ball lodged in its mouth and brown tail wagging energetically. Charles let out a gentle, melodic laugh as the dog bounded over to him, and bent down to rub at the fur behind the large dog’s ears, pressing a kiss to its head before grabbing the tennis ball from its gob.

“Good boy, Logan,” Charles said in a cooing tone, the dog barking as it licked at Charles’s hand affectionately, coaxing another laugh from the man. Erik’s mouth just dropped open at Charles’s words.

Logan.

‘Logan is a dog?!’ Erik’s mind screamed, eyes wide as he watched Charles throw the tennis ball, which flew in an arc…

Towards Erik.

Charles’s eyes followed the ball, which bounced off a tree trunk and rolled to a stop by Erik’s feet. The dog – Logan – sprinted with laser focus towards the bright green ball, but Erik didn’t look at him. No, Erik was just looking at Charles, who had now noticed Erik standing there, his blue eyes widening.

‘If Logan is a dog, then Charles doesn’t actually have a…’

The two men stared at each other, fixed in some kind of stale mate as the winter winds threaded through their hair. It was only when Logan reached Erik, barking up at the man before retrieving his ball, that Charles began walking forward as well.

“Erik,” Charles said, breath puffing out in the cold when he neared Erik. Logan circled his owner’s legs, tail slapping against Charles’s shins. Charles’s smile was a little weak, and his shoulders were hunched like he wasn’t sure if it was alright for him to approach the taller man. Reaching down, Charles softly grabbed on to Logan’s collar – the black leather one Moira got him in the Christmas gift exchange – to hold the energetic dog still.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Charles said quietly, Erik nodding in return, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“I’m on the way back from my mother’s house,” Erik supplied, Charles humming, absent-mindedly stroking Logan’s fur.

“And I hope you had a good New Year?” Charles said, the attempt at small talk a little painful, but Erik nodded again, clearing his throat.

“Yes. I, um, always spend it with my mother,” Erik said, before lifting the bags of left overs in his arms. “I also always end up bringing back too much left-over food. My mother always makes too much for just the two of us.”

Charles laughed a little at that, though it didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Sounds nice,” Charles replied, a little wistful. “I just spent the new year with Logan here. Raven went to the ball drop with her girlfriend, but I, ah, wasn’t quite feeling up to it. But, I very much enjoyed my microwaved mac n’ cheese, and Logan enjoyed his steak.”

‘Charles did spend the New Year with Logan, but Logan is a dog and not Charles’s boyfriend… If Charles just spent it with his dog then he doesn’t have a boyfriend?’ Erik’s mind whirled, his heart thundering in his rib cage.

“Oh,” Erik said, the silence between them heavy with everything unsaid. Logan’s head, mouth still holding the slobbered tennis ball, looked between Erik and his owner, before letting out a whine, Charles’s eyes dropping to the dog.

“Are you hungry, Logan?” Charles murmured, rubbing under the dog’s chin, before looking back at Erik. “Well, the two of us should probably get going. It was lovely seeing you though, Erik. I’ll see you back at work next week.”

Charles gave Erik another weak smile, clipping a striped leash onto Logan’s collar, before turning around. Charles took a few steps, Logan trotting loyally beside him, before Erik dislodged the boulder in his throat.

“Wait!” Erik called out, rushing after Charles, who turned, surprised. Charles just raised a brow, Erik sucking in a breath before speaking, eyes locked with Charles’s.

“Like I said, I have too much food. Did you… I mean… If you wanted to… Would you like to come back to my place and have lunch?” Erik offered, Charles’s blue eyes widening, red lips parting slightly.

“Oh,” Charles whispered, looking genuinely surprised. “I’d… I’d love to, Erik. But I didn’t think you…”

Erik frowned as Charles’s voice tapered off with things unsaid.

“Didn’t think I what?” Erik asked, hiding his nerves behind his naturally gruff tone.

Charles licked his lips, not out of seduction, but out of nervousness.

“Well, after the Christmas party… in the carpark… I didn’t think you were interested,” Charles said, voice quiet. He looked at his shoes, at Logan, before peering up at Erik hesitantly. “I didn’t exactly hide my interest, and when you pulled back I figured that was your answer. So…”

Charles shrugged, hand tightening around Logan’s leash.

‘G-tt Erik, you’re an idiot,’ Erik groaned to himself, shaking his head and stepping closer to Charles, until their toes almost brushed. Erik gently nudged Charles’s chin upwards, the younger man looking at him with confusion and a glimmer of hope.

Their breaths danced in the cold air between them, puffs of white in the morning chill. Erik brushed his finger over Charles’s cheek, red from the cold and maybe from something else, the mean leaning into Erik’s touch.

“I’m sorry,” Erik said, letting out a short, self-deprecating snort. “I was an idiot. I’m interested in you too, Charles. I have been for, G-tt, a long, long time now.”

“Then why did you pull away that time? When we were about to…” Charles whispered, bringing his hand up to press against the one Erik placed on his cheek.

“I thought you had a boyfriend,” Erik blurted out, his own cheeks heating at the now-ridiculous admission. Charles blinked, looking confused.

“What on earth made you think that, my friend?” Charles asked, letting out a tiny, amused laugh. “Who did you think was my boyfriend?”

Erik was silent, now thoroughly embarrassed, though his eyes dropped to the slightly menacing-looking dog sitting patiently by Charles’s side. Charles caught the movement, his eyes lighting up with mirth and a choked laugh escaping his mouth.

“Logan?” Charles asked, incredulous. Erik’s cheeks reddened further. “You thought that Logan, my dog, was my boyfriend?”

“It sounds stupid when you say it like that, but yes, I did,” Erik huffed, rolling his eyes as Charles burst out laughing. Erik’s heart sung with the sound of the man’s genuine, bubbly, eye-crinkling laughter.

“You are a fool,” Charles said after his laughter petered out, though his lips held the remnants of his elated smile. Charles’s eyes softened immeasurably as he looked up at Erik, his eyes beholding him with even more warmth than when he would talk about Logan. “But I guess I should clear things up. Erik, I most definitely do not have a boyfriend. I haven’t had one for a while. Certainly not since I’ve met you. And this is Logan, my dog.”

“So I gathered,” Erik murmured, Charles smiling as he lifted himself onto his toes, reaching forward with his free hand to cup Erik’s chin, pressing a long-overdue kiss to the taller man’s lips. Erik sunk into the warmth and softness of his mouth, wrapping an arm around Charles’s waist and tugging him closer, the two of them fitting together like they were made for each other.

The shorter man laughed against Erik’s mouth once more, a little breathless, before the two of them pulled back, matching smiles on their faces.

“I’m expecting an explanation on why you thought that I was dating my dog over lunch,” Charles said, mirth dancing in his voice, Erik cracking a toothy grin.

Erik knew he should be mortified, but when Charles was looking at him like that, he honestly could not care less.

‘Because Charles Xavier does not have a boyfriend. But if he had one, it would be me.’

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #raven darkholme #x-men #x-men fic #xmen #fluff #office au #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #marvel #james mcavoy #michael fassbender #logan howlett

[sareyen]

I Fell In Love With Your Ugly Face (Cherik)

A huge fluff-fest: Charles and Erik have pulled ugly faces at each other from across the train platform every single day since they were children. It was their tradition. But one day, Erik stops - and Charles doesn’t know what to do.

It started when Charles was 11-years-old, the day Charles finally persuaded his mother to let him take the subway instead of the Xavier’s private car, giving him a new sense of independence that he had been sorely lacking in his sheltered life.

Charles had a pep in his step, his heavy backpack strapped across his shoulders, private school uniform crisp and well-ironed, shoes freshly polished and fluffy brown hair neatly combed across his head.

Charles had always looked like a posh schoolboy, so put together and neat. It didn’t help that he had a round-cheeked, angelic face fitted with baby blue eyes.

Not like the boy standing on the other side of the platform.

They were standing directly opposite each other on opposing sides of the platform waiting for their trains to arrive. The other boy looked a little older, but maybe that was because he was much taller than Charles, even back then. Contrasting to Charles, the other boy was all hard lines, with brown hair that sometimes looked copper under the fluorescent lights of the subway and steely grey eyes. He had a scowl on his face as he looked at Charles, their eyes locked.

Charles didn’t know what compelled him to do it – his mother had always instilled in him to always look ‘clean, calm, polite and respectable’. Maybe it was because the other boy, dressed in ripped black jeans and a well-loved band T-shirt looked so comfortable in his dishevelled manner, had inspired Charles, who had never felt that free.

So, Charles pulled a face at the other boy – he scrunched his nose up, twisted his red mouth to the left and made his eyes bug out. Charles knew he looked ridiculous and ugly, but that was the point. The other boy blinked, shoulders twitching in surprise as he just stared at Charles, grey-blue eyes flicking up and down once.

Charles almost felt embarrassed, until the boy on the other side of the platform pulled his own face right back at Charles – his sharp cheeks puffed out, eyes splitting in two different directions, and mouth opening in what looked like a strangled and misshapen ‘o’.

Charles burst out laughing at the boy’s face, the sound carrying across the near-empty station. The other boy smiled in response, showing a startling number of teeth, but his eyes crinkled in the corners.

Before Charles could say anything, the mystery boy’s train pulled up and he gave Charles another small smile before getting on. Charles watched him as the train pulled away, wondering if he would see the boy again.

***

Charles did see the boy again. The day after, in fact.

The boy was be standing on the opposite side of the platform at the same time as the day before, wearing ripped jeans in a lighter shade and a different band T-shirt. His hair was a little less messy this morning, and the boy was holding a backpack on one shoulder, colourful pins studded into its front pocket. Charles still wore his preppy school uniform, ironed and pressed, polished and clean.

When the boy saw Charles standing across him again, the corner of his mouth lifted and he nodded a brief hello. When Charles dipped his head in return, smiling himself, he was startled when the boy suddenly pulled a shocking face, one that was much better than the last one. This time, he had included a double chin while his pupils migrated towards the middle of his face, one eyebrow going up as he flared his nostrils.

His handsome face was contorted with forced ugliness, and Charles giggled before wiggling his nose to loosen up his own face. The boy watched, that half-smile now on his face, as Charles pulled his features this way and that, making himself as ugly as he could like the boy on the other side had just seconds ago.

Charles heard a little chuckle, which was drowned out by the noise erupted from the boy’s approaching train. The boy got on the same as the day before, again tilting his head down in a silent ‘bye’, Charles managing a wave as the boy disappeared from the station again.

Charles had a feeling he would see the boy again tomorrow.

***

That night, Charles stood in front of his bathroom mirror atop a plastic stool. He scratched the back of his ankle with his foot, absent-mindedly rubbed his belly over the silk pyjamas he wore while he stared at his face.

The nameless boy had pulled a very good ugly face this morning, and Charles felt like he had to try harder to coax more laughs out of the boy, who naturally seemed a little stoic. Charles remembered the small smile he had on his face and the sound of his short chuckle, something warm fluttering in his belly.

So, that night, Charles spent far too long in the bathroom practising making ugly faces. His mother was concerned, but Charles was 11, almost 12 – she didn’t need to know what he was doing locked up in the bathroom, so she never asked. She was usually too inebriated to remember that he was there, anyway.

Eventually, after brushing his teeth, Charles decided on the face he was going to pull the morning after, and went to bed with a smile on his face and a thrum of giddy excitement under his skin.

***

Charles saw the boy on the other side of the platform every weekday from that point on, and every day they would pull a face at each other. Summer, autumn, winter, spring; they saw each other every day on their way to school, Charles always in his pressed and starched uniform, the nameless boy with the shark-like smile alternating his band T-shirts or graphic hoodies depending on the weather.

One year passed, and then two, and every day they would see each other and pull a face without fail. Funnily enough, they had never spoken to each other in all that time; they would nod in greeting, pull their faces, chuckle and smile to themselves, and then the mystery boy would get on his train and leave, sometimes staring back at Charles as he grew smaller and smaller.

Charles worried that one day the boy would stop coming – maybe he would move to a different school, since he looked older than Charles. Or maybe he would move states and cities, and Charles would never see him again.

Sometimes, when that fear hit him as the boy’s train drew away, Charles would vow to himself that he would ask for the boy’s name the day after.

But he never did.

Maybe it was fear, maybe it was awkwardness, but Charles could never bring himself to speak to the boy. It was like they had this agreement in their odd tradition – they never spoke to each other before, so what if by speaking, Charles would break the fragile thing they had now?

Charles didn’t want to lose this thing that he had with the nameless boy whose face made Charles laugh every day.

So, Charles just kept going – he kept preparing new ugly faces to make every day, and suddenly, four years had passed.

***

It was the end of the spring of Charles’s 16th year. He hadn’t changed a whole lot in the four years since first pulling that face at the boy – his face still held its boyish charm, his nose a little too big for his cherubic face, and he had developed a darker smattering of freckles over his nose bridge. He grew a little taller, but not as tall as the boy on the opposite platform.

While Charles felt like he hadn’t changed much, the other boy had. He had grown taller, his long limbs showing lean but strong muscles under his band T-shirts. Sometimes, he would swap out the T-shirts for sleek black high neck tops that clung to his form, Charles’s eyes widening the first time he saw it. The boy’s face became more angular, his eyes a little harder and his hair cut short and neat. Charles thought that he was handsome, even when he pulled the most ridiculous, unflattering faces he could muster.

Charles clung to his backpack with that familiar hum of anticipation, one that hadn’t waned ever since he was 11-years-old. He had been stressed with assignments and mock exams lately, since he was on track to graduating early; Charles was the top of his class and had no need to worry, but worrying was in his nature, even if he looked like he was put together on the outside. Charles had always thought graduating early was a good thing, but then he would remember the boy on the opposite platform. When Charles finished high school, he wouldn’t take this specific train at this specific time any more.

He would never see the boy on the other platform again.

If the boy was older than him, he would probably be graduating soon as well. But if he was the same age as Charles, and one day he didn’t show up…

Charles didn’t know if the other boy would feel the same way, but if that happened to Charles, he would probably start crying in the middle of the platform.

When Charles padded down the stars, he could see the boy standing in his usual spot, like always. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, and he was glancing around the subway station with antsy eyes, appearing more agitated than usual. He was usually always very calm, almost bordering on cold – at least, until he would pull his face and smile when Charles returned it with his own.

The nameless boy spotted Charles then and immediately nodded, though for some reason he didn’t smile. Charles’s heart fluttered despite itself, and he quickly took his place in front of the boy.

Charles had prepared a very good face today, since he wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to do this for. Each face was more precious now that Charles felt like this… relationship was coming to an end.

Not that anything had really started, anyway.

Charles counted to three in his head, and then pulled the face – double chin, squiggled mouth, upturned nose, wide and lopsided eyes, hollowed cheeks. Charles knew he was positively ugly, and he had expected the boy to laugh and make his own face, like always.

But he didn’t.

Charles immediately dropped his ugly expression, heart thundering in his chest. The boy just looked at him, almost seeming… pained. Charles’s heart dropped in his chest, echoing around the deathly quiet platform.

The other boy just looked at him, not making his face like he usually did. His train soon came, and he got on it, but this time Charles didn’t wave as the carriage pulled away.

Charles felt numb, body frozen.

He was sure the face he was making when the other boy disappeared was uglier than any he had made on purpose.

***

Charles didn’t know what to do – it felt like the other boy had ended their tradition, just like that. Sure, it was a stupid thing that shouldn’t matter this much – he didn’t even know the boy’s name or his school. But, it had felt like Charles’s heart had been broken when the other boy didn’t make a face back at him.

Maybe the other boy was older, like Charles thought. Maybe he grew out of it – it was childish, and stupid, and Charles knew that it was, but it was still something that he looked forward to every day. Even when his mother ignored him, even when he had a hard exam that day or even when Charles was just feeling plain miserable, knowing that he would see the boy and be able to share an ugly face and a laugh made him want to get up in the morning.

But now that the other boy had grown out of it… grown out of Charles…

What was the point?

Charles didn’t go to school that day, calling in sick.

***

 Charles skipped class for the rest of the week to ‘recover’ from his cold (lovesickness, he laughed sadly to himself), but knew that he had to go back to school. It was his final year, and he couldn’t afford to miss any more classes or exam prep.

Charles ended up taking the Xavier car the Monday of the week after. Logan, the family driver, just raised a gruff brow when Charles climbed into the backseat looking glum.

“You okay, Chuck?” Logan asked, and Charles offered him a weak smile, nodding. Logan didn’t look convinced, turning on his loud music and driving Charles to school with nothing else said.

Logan ended up taking Charles to school every day after that, all the way until finals.

Charles wondered about the boy often, especially as the car passed the station, and he knew Logan noticed.

“I can drop you off at the station if you want, Chuck,” Logan offered every day, and Charles would always shake his head, give him a sad smile, tearing his eyes forcefully from the station.

“No, thank you, Logan,” Charles would murmur.

“Alright, Chuck. Whatever you want,” was Logan’s programmed reply, before he twisted the volume knob of the Rolls Royce and filled the car with his music.

It was a new morning tradition, one that Charles didn’t really like at all.

***

It was Charles’s graduation day, and he wore his clothes more crisply than usual. His hair was neatly styled, shoes freshly polished, tie held back with a luxurious silver tie bar. He didn’t have his school bag this time, not when he was just going to his graduation.

Logan had called in sick at the last minute, even though Charles knew that the man hadn’t succumbed to a cold at all during his long service under the Xaviers, and the man had been working as their driver before Charles had even been born.

Since there wasn’t time to organise another driver last minute, and Sharon was in no way sober enough to drive one of the family’s luxury cars to the graduation ceremony herself, Charles had to either take the subway or not go at all.

So, that was how Charles found himself walking down the steps of the familiar subway station that he hadn’t been to in almost a month.

Each of his steps echoed down the stairs, and since the graduation wasn’t held at peak hour, it was mainly deserted.

Like usual, Charles’s eyes naturally drifted to the opposite platform, where he knew the boy wouldn’t be standing – it wasn’t their normal time, and the boy had probably left any way. Charles felt tears springing into his eyes when he saw that the opposite platform was completely empty, but he held himself together. It somehow hurt more to miss someone he didn’t even know the name of.

Charles turned his eyes away from the empty platform on the opposite side, dropping them to his feet as he trudged glumly across the black-scuffed tiles of his side of the platform.

Then, there was the sudden echo of frantic steps, the staccato noise bouncing off the walls in the empty station.

The footsteps were getting louder, moving closer and closer, and Charles finally lifted his eyes.

“What-” Charles gasped out as he saw the source of the noise.

It was the mystery boy, wearing a plain white T-shirt, ripped black jeans and combat boots. His hair was messy and he wasn’t holding his usual school bag either, but he was making a face of shock, relief and…

Hope?

The nameless boy ran across Charles’s side of the platform until he was standing right in front of him – up close, the boy was taller than Charles thought, and smelled like soap and fabric softener, and a little bit like coffee.

“You…” the boy breathed out, brows bunching together as his words failed him, grey-blue eyes staring at Charles with a strength and intensity that made his knees buckle. The mystery boy’s voice wasn’t exactly what Charles had expected, a little low and rough, but exceedingly gentle as he spoke to Charles.

The boy usually on the other side of the platform was now standing so close that Charles had to crane his neck up to meet his eyes. Charles nibbled on his lower lip like he always did when he was nervous, the other boy’s gaze dropping there for a moment, before looking back into Charles’s bright blue eyes.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” the other boy finally said, Charles letting out a short, strangled noise from the back of his throat as the taller boy gently grabbed Charles’s wrist, like he thought he was going to disappear right in front of his eyes. “I don’t even know your name, but I hoped…”

“What are you doing here?” Charles whispered, voice cracking a little. The other boy blinked, like he had the first time Charles pulled a face at him.

“I… I recognised your uniform and saw that… your graduation ceremony was today. I didn’t know if you were a senior or not, but I… I had to try. The chance was small, but I had to try, so I’ve been waiting here for you,” the boy said, words coming out in a rush. The boy sucked in a deep breath, like he wasn’t used to talking so much so quickly, before looking Charles dead in the eye again. “I was about to leave, since the ceremony starts soon… but then you came.”

“I…” Charles started, shocked speechless by the other boy’s words.

He waited? For me?

Charles’s eyes teared up, and the other boy looked startled, mouth opening and closing like he didn’t know what to say. The hand around Charles’s wrist felt hot, the heat travelling all the way down Charles’s arm and into his heart.

“Why did you stop?” Charles whispered, voice trembling slightly. The boy now pinched his eyebrows together again in confusion.

“Stop…?”

“The faces,” Charles explained, dropping his eyes down, embarrassed. “That day… you didn’t make a face like normal. I thought…”

The other boy groaned, making Charles look back up at him. Charles was surprised to see that the other boy’s cheeks were a little flushed, and realised that he was embarrassed.

“I… Gott. Okay,” the other boy said, hand squeezing around Charles’s wrist. “I like you. I’ve liked you for a long time now. Maybe… Maybe ever since you made that face at me, all those years ago.”

Charles’s mouth dropped open, the other boy continuing, tip of his ears now turning a little pink.

“You’re so beautiful, even when you make those faces. And your smile. I just… I didn’t want you to only see me as… that ugly guy who made ugly faces. I didn’t want to look ugly in front of you anymore,” the boy admitted, cheeks now bright red and his mouth pulled down in a slight scowl, which seemed like his default expression.

“You like me?” Charles squeaked out, eyes wide. The other boy’s eyebrows pinched together again, but he nodded stiffly.

“I do,” the boy said again, sliding his hand from Charles’s wrist to take Charles’s hand instead, twining their fingers together. Charles’s breath caught in his throat and his heart stuttered.

“I believe I like you too. I… I really like you too. For a long time,” Charles breathed out, the other boy’s eyes now widening, before his mouth slowly pulled out of its scowl and into a wide, gloriously breathtaking smile that showed all of his white teeth.

The other boy was about to say something, but was cut off when the approaching train blared its horn to signal its presence, both of the boys jumping. The train slowed, its doors opening, and the boys looked at each other, sharing a smile.

Charles let the other boy tug his hand, the two of them getting on the same train for the first time.

The carriage was empty apart from Charles and the nameless boy, and the two of them sat side by side, hands still linked.

“Where are you heading?” the boy asked, Charles letting out a soft laugh, leaning into the boy’s side a little as the train swayed.

“Graduation ceremony. I’m a senior,” Charles said, the other boy letting out a laugh under his breath alongside a muttered ‘thank Gott’. “And you, my friend? Where are you heading? This isn’t your usual train.”

The other boy smiled, looking into Charles’s eyes, the two of them leaning in with a pull of gravity.

“Wherever you’re going,” the boy replied, Charles laughing. “My own graduation ceremony was yesterday. I’m also a senior. Or, well, I was a senior, 24 hours ago.”

Charles smiled, staring into the boy’s eyes – the boy, whose name was still a mystery.

“I’m Charles,” Charles said, their noses bumping together. The other boy let out a breathy chuckle.

“Erik. I’m Erik,” the boy that was usually on the other side of the platform murmured, just before they both leaned forward to close the last thread of space between them.

Their kiss was short and sweet, and when they pulled back, they were both smiling.

And at that moment, they were making the best faces they had ever made before.

Note: This was inspired by a manga that I can't remember the name of where the characters pass by each other on the way to school and pull faces at each other every day for years, until the boy stops and they fall in love - if any one knows this, please let me know so I can properly credit it! Thanks for reading! x

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #charles x erik #xmen #x-men #x-men fic #fluff #marvel #james mcavoy #michael fassbender #ao3 fanfic #ao3

[sareyen]

X-Pressions of the Heart: A Boyband AU (Part 3/3)

Read on ao3

Chapter 3

It was a week later, but the morning began very much the same as it had every other morning since Charles and Erik slept together.

Erik woke up first, immediately rolling over onto his side and reaching his long limbs out to curl around the bundle of heat he knew was sleeping in the bed next to him. Hands met smooth skin that smelled like soap and fabric softener, warmed by the blanket and so, so cuddly.

Erik let out a content sigh, burying his face in the dip of Charles’s spine, breathing him in. The younger man was still asleep, chest rising and falling as he lay on his side, one arm under his head.

Knowing that it was still too early to awaken since Charles’s alarm hadn’t gone off yet, Erik let himself sink into Charles’s heat, closing his eyes as he languidly nuzzled at Charles’s back, like a cat rubbing up against his owner’s leg.

It was as Erik was beginning to doze off again that Charles woke up with a soft chuckle, reaching down to clasp Erik’s hand that hung across his waist.

“Mm, you feel like you’re very comfortable there,” Charles said, voice croaky from sleep. Erik laughed into the slope of Charles’s upper back, kissing his skin there. Charles brought Erik’s hand up to his mouth to kiss it, before adjusting himself in Erik’s loose embrace to face him. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Erik replied, kissing Charles’s red mouth, before pulling back. “Coffee?”

“Ugh, yes please. I’m going to need two if I’m going to get through the stage rehearsals today. You really wrung me out last night,” Charles said, scrunching up his face as he yawned, flopping back on the bed as Erik climbed out of it. Charles did not hide the way he stared at Erik’s nude ass as he pulled out a fresh pair of briefs from a drawer in Charles’s wardrobe, Erik turning around and rolling his eyes.

“How your fans actually believe that you’re an innocent man is beyond me,” Erik said, walking back over the bed to lean over and kiss Charles again, before leaving to make the two of them some coffee.

Charles spent a few more minutes in bed just checking messages on his phone, replying to Moira’s “just making sure you’re awake, rehearsal at 9, remember” text and responding to some more messages from Raven, one of which was link to a very interesting article that made Charles grin. Charles read over the article quickly and screenshotted some key bits before rolling out of bed as well. Like Erik, Charles pulled on some underwear, but also an oversized and fluffy knit jumper which hung just below the swell of his ample ass, sleeves long and falling over his hands.

Erik was stirring Charles’s usual (blasphemous) order of vanilla syrup, caramel and cream into his pastel tie-dye mug, and was about to squirt the customary cone of whipped cream on top of it when Charles entered the kitchen. The singer looped his arms around Erik’s middle and squeezed him tight. Erik just hummed, smiling at the weight pressed against his back, fluffy and warm.

“Your mug of sugar,” Erik said, handing Charles the steaming hot cup with an affectionate eye roll, taking a sip out of his plain black coffee.

“You made my mug of sugar perfectly, thank you,” Charles said after taking a sip, licking at the whipped cream before kicking open the fridge with his foot, peering inside and not finding much at all. “Ugh, I’m running out of food. I’ll have to go grocery shopping sometime. I hate grocery shopping.”

“Only because people keep recognising you when you try to buy lube,” Erik said, Charles scrunching up his nose.

“Which is why you should buy the lube, darling.”

“Oh, sure,” Erik said, snorting. “Because God forbid your fans find out that you have sex.”

Charles laughed at that, pulling out his phone to show Erik the article he had screenshot just moments before, the German’s eyes narrowing as he read it, before his mouth broke out into a wide, toothy grin.

It showed a pretty blurry photo of Charles wearing a cap and glasses but not much else to hide his identity grabbing onto someone’s arm with a wide grin. The other person’s face was obscured by some shelving, but it was obvious that it was a man from his tall, muscular build.

“They’re calling you my ‘mystery boyfriend’,” Charles giggled, stepping closer to Erik to drag him into a sugary kiss, holding his diabetic concoction out of the way. “People are also saying that you turned me gay, apparently.”

“Not how it works,” Erik scoffed against Charles’s mouth, the singer just laughing.

“Hm, they’re not far from the truth, actually,” Charles said, grinning slyly. Erik raised a brow, Charles leaning into his arms, burying his face in Erik’s neck.

“I only really understood that I also liked guys when I saw your Azazel interview 8 years ago,” Charles said, chuckling in the crook of Erik’s neck, the older man’s arms coming around him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Charles echoed, closing his eyes and relishing the feel of Erik’s arms around him. “You were just so hot in that video, Erik. I couldn’t help myself.”

***

Erik was sitting in the audience area near the front of the stage as Charles and the rest of X-Boys worked out their marks on the concert stage. It was a large stadium, the stage a sleek black colour and spread out into the standing audience in a large X shape. The twisting light backdrop was fitted with many large TV screens that would project close ups of the band members’ faces.

As they practised the dance to ‘Sweet Love’, Charles would often wink at Erik, maintaining eye contact whenever he could, seeming to dance for Erik and Erik alone. When Charles was singing about Sweet Love and rolling his hips like that just for Erik, the journalist found that he could stomach the terrible lyrics. He would deny that his heart clenched every Charles would mouth ‘you’re my sweet love’ with a salacious wink though, squirming where he sat on a wobbling fold-out chair.

It really shouldn’t have been so… mesmerising. The song was still terrible, the lyrics still horrible, but somehow seeing Charles dancing and singing to Erik like he meant every ‘you’re my sweet love, your sweet love sustains me’, and Erik couldn’t help but smile like a fool, showing too many teeth.

When Charles broke formation on the stage, everyone else were confused, stopping mid-dance to look at Charles. The sound guy, Bobby, was also extremely confused, hand moving to stop the music. However, when he saw that Charles was still moving to the music, he just shrugged and gestured for the lighting man to focus on Charles.

Moira looked on with exasperation, head dropping into her hands as she mumbled ‘And here we go’. Hank tilted his head to the side, lost. Alex raised a brow and leaned back on his heels, curious. Darwin smiled a little, nodding his head in appreciation. Sean, on the other hand, was grateful to be given a break so he could have a snack.

“You’re my sweet love, darling,” Charles sang, Erik snorting when the man changed ‘baby’ to ‘darling’ like the cheesy thing he is, sauntering over to the edge of the stage and wiggling his finger at Erik, smirk on his lips. “Come here darling and give me your sweet love.”

Erik got up from his chair, rolling his eyes but walking towards Charles, the wiggle of his finger tugging on a string tethered to his chest and pulling him into the singer’s gravity. When Erik reached the edge of the stage, Charles dipped down low, dragging his index finger up Erik’s chin.

“You’re sweeter than melted chocolate and lemon drop candy,” Charles continued, wiggling his hips dirtily, and suddenly the boyband stage turned into a strip club platform. All Charles would need was a pole and less clothes to complete the look, and everyone people were definitely whispering around them, but Erik didn’t care. He didn’t care at all when Charles leaned down to nip at Erik’s mouth, quickly and teasingly. The moment he did so, the stadium erupted with a mixture of excited gasps and loud cheers, Charles grinning cheekily. The touch only lasted a moment because Charles stood up again to spin before dropping his ass low again, this time fisting the front of Erik’s shirt firmly, planting a wet and sticky kiss on Erik’s mouth.

“Mhmm, sweeter than melted chocolate and lemon drop candy,” Charles murmured against his mouth, the contact broken when Erik burst out with an endeared (but also mildly horrified because the line was so bad) laugh.

“Terrible,” Erik snorted, Charles pulling back with an indignant remark that was rendered obsolete when Erik shook his head and pulled Charles back down. The singer giggled, dropping himself so his legs hung over the edge of the stage, Erik nestled between them, and let the journalist kiss him in full view of everyone filthily, reminiscent of their morning make-out session that left them running a little late to rehearsals.

The supportive cheers and enthusiastic wolf-whistles were suddenly cut short when someone shouted “Cut the fucking music!”, Bobby scrabbling to pull back the sound dials. Everyone turned to the source of the noise, including Charles and Erik who both look mildly put-off at having to pull their mouths off each other. Shaw, the epicentre of the loud noise, stormed across the stage while waving an iPad around wildly in his hand, eyes locked on Charles.

“What,” Shaw spat, “is the meaning of this?!” The man’s face was red as he stomped his way towards Charles and Erik, soon dragging the back of Charles’s plain T-shirt with his arms and wrenching him up. Charles yelped as the fabric snagged his neck, wincing in pain when he was hauled up to his feet. Erik glared daggers at Shaw, growling and grabbing at the edge of the stage to haul himself up and drag Shaw by the neck of his black silk shirt.

“Get your fucking hands off him,” Erik warned, voice low; he sounded relatively calm, but there was a dangerous quality to his voice that made the stage workers, lighting crew and sound people widen their eyes and scuttle off.

Shaw whirled to Erik, shoving a meaty finger into his chest, so hard that it would probably bruise. Erik didn’t back down though, shoving Shaw’s chest back, lips pulled back in a snarl. When Shaw stumbled back, Erik moved himself to stand between him and Charles, shielding the smaller man behind him. Erik felt a little better when Charles grabbed onto the back of his shirt, hand smoothing over his lower back comfortingly.

“You…” Shaw seethed, looking like he was about to slam the iPad over Erik’s head for a moment, before deciding that Erik’s taller and slightly broader stature was disadvantageous to him, instead just shoving the screen at Erik’s face. “You’re to blame as well, you bastard. Care to fucking explain this?!”

The screen showed a similar article to the one Charles had been sent by Raven that morning, and when Charles recognised some of the pictures he laughed, peering around Erik’s side with bright eyes.

“Oh, Erik! Look, there are some other photos. Those angles are much more flattering, my left side has always been better than my right. You look rather dashing too, it’s almost unfair. So photogenic,” Charles gushed, smiling up at Erik, who just scoffed.

“You don’t have a bad side, Charles,” Erik said, Charles looking at him fondly, before winking.

“Of course not, darling. My right side it good, it’s only that my left is even better.”

“So humble,” Erik said, returning Charles’s smile with one of his own. The two were about to kiss, ignoring Shaw completely, when the man screeched again.

“This is unbelievable! You two will fuck up everything I’ve worked for!” Shaw roared. “I will not let X-Boys be ruined by a pair of fucking homos!”

“And what are you going to do about it? If you’re going to get me to break up with Erik, I will not,” Charles asked, nose scrunching up at Shaw’s blatant homophobia, hand tightening at Erik’s back. Charles’s words tickled Erik’s heart, but the warm feeling was stunted by Shaw’s disgusting rampage. Instead, Erik mirrored Charles’s affronted expression, looking at Shaw like he was rotten garbage stinking up the entire stage.

“I can fire you, Xavier!” Shaw threatened, wiggling his finger at the two men. “I made you, Charles! I own you! You would never have become what you are without me! You’re choosing your boyfriend over me, over your fame, your success. You’re nothing without me!”

“Sure, fire me the week before our world tour starts. That would be great for your business,” Charles said, voice flat as he glared at Shaw. His blue eyes that were usually liquid oceans languidly rolling with waves under the sun had hardened to arctic shards of ice.

Shaw gnashed his teeth together, finger shaking at Charles but seemingly unable to find the words, Charles’s use of the word business a slap to the face.

“Xavier you… I will not let you ruin this! I will not have a fag in my band, and don’t you go thinking that I actually need you! I can fire your little homo ass and you would never even-” Shaw continued, but was stopped when the opening beat of ‘Love Me, Hate Me’ started to blare from the surrounding speakers, drowning out his voice. Everyone jumped at the sudden noise, looking up to the sound booth where Alex and Darwin were.

“What is the meaning of-” Shaw screamed, but was cut off when Alex spoke, still hooked up to his microphone, voice carrying across the stage.

“If you’re going to start firing people because of their sexual orientation, you won’t have much of a band, Shaw,” Alex said, Darwin chuckling beside him.

“What?” Shaw asked, eyes narrowing as his hands balled into shaking fists of rage at his sides.

“Hands up if you’re not straight!” Alex shouted through the microphone, immediately raising his hand. Darwin laughed beside him, hand going up as well, Shaw’s mouth dropping open as his eyes widened to saucers. Charles grinned, raising his hand and moving to stand beside Erik, linking his free hand with the journalist’s.

Shaw saw his life (and paycheck) flashing before his eyes, immediately turning to Hank and Sean who were still on the stage.

Hank slowly raised his hand, cheeks a little red but giving Charles a small, supportive smile. Sean was a little confused, looking at his band mates who were all raising their hands for some reason, joining in even though he had no idea what was going on.

“So, there you have it,” Charles chirped happily, wiggling his fingers in the air. “Now, I’m sure that, uh, you don’t want your lucrative little business to suffer because you no longer have any employees, Shaw. And I also don’t think you want us to sue you for unfair dismissal either…”

“And I definitely don’t think you want the video to be released on the internet,” Alex called out from the sound booth, down towards the side of the stage, where Moira was filming everything on her phone. Shaw paled, everything he had said in the past five minutes replaying over and over in his head.

“Erik, you don’t happen to have any journalist friends who would be interested in a story about a record boss who abuses his employees and discriminates based on sexual orientation, do you?” Charles asked the man beside him, who made a show of thinking carefully, nodding with his eyes locked onto Shaw’s.

“I have a few contacts… I’m sure TMZ would be interested too, though,” Erik said, Charles humming.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure! I wonder what would happen if they managed to get a hold of the video…”

Shaw’s face flashed red and white, the man pointing his fingers uselessly at all of the band members, Erik and Moira, before stomping his way back out looking like a toddler not getting what he wanted after a dramatic temper tantrum.

Everyone stared after the man who was, still, their boss. Erik glared at him all the way until he disappeared backstage, before turning to Charles.

“I really do have some contacts, you know,” he told Charles seriously, the singer just letting out a breathy laugh, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sure you do,” Charles said, his band mates returning from the sound booth and heading towards him.

“What do we do now, Charles? Did we just… blackmail Shaw? Is that what just happened?” Moira asked, heading over from the wings of the stage, looking a little worried as she fiddled with her phone.

“Well, first we should contact the authorities, a lawyer, and probably the COO,” Charles said, smirking. “Mr Quested might be interested to know that his boss has been a very naughty boy, and that he could be in for a little promotion.”

“How devious, Charles,” Darwin laughed, patting the older man on the shoulder.

“Janos has always been a lot nicer than Shaw, and he honestly gets pushed around by the bastard as much as everyone else does,” Alex quipped, Sean and Hank nodding in agreement.

“So things will be alright?” Moira asked, brow still creased with worry.

“They will be,” Charles assured her, the boys around him all smiling at their manager. “If anything, under new management, things will be more than just alright.”

***

Things were alright – better than alright, even. Sure, the next few days were tumultuous, with a power struggle erupting within Hellfire Records which escalated into a public ousting of a large player in the music industry. Shaw’s fall from grace had been dramatic, fiery and very, very well-covered by the press.

‘X-Boys’, ‘Hellfire Records’ and ‘Charles Xavier gay’ were all trending topics leading up to the start of the world tour in LA. The video of Shaw abusing Charles with homophobic slurs and threatening to fire him had ended up on the internet, Shaw immediately coming under fire by not only Charles Xavier and X-Boys fans, but also other members of the public and the music industry.

Fans tweeted and made posts screaming their support for their boys, other celebrities condemned Shaw’s words and praised Charles for his strength and bravery in the face of such hatred, while the LGBTQ community and their supporters all rallied behind Charles and his boyfriend, who had been revealed to be none other than harsh music journalist Erik Lehnsherr.

Of course, there were some haters – the homophobic bigots and keyboard warriors were given new ammunition and jumped out of the woodwork when the news story broke. Charles, who has had the voices of the public shouting in his ear since his audition on X Factor tuned them out with practised ease, but Erik was not so successful. Erik couldn’t care less about comments about himself, but when he read comments calling his Charles a ‘fag’ and other derogatory names, the older man saw red.

Erik was only stopped from unleashing an online tirade by Charles closing the screen of his laptop, pushing it off his lap and replacing it with himself – it turned out that Erik was an even more passionate lover in bed when he was riled up, much to Charles’s delight.

Despite the haters, the #CHERIK, #X-BOYS4EVA and #X-PRESSLOVENOTHATE tags were popular everywhere online, and only bolstered the hype for the beginning of X-Boys’ tour. The new CEO of Hellfire Records, Janos Quested, held a press conference to inform everyone that the company was under new management, and that the new Hellfire Records would support its artists no matter what.

With such public focus on the group, it was only natural that the media and paparazzi only became more eager to follow the members around, particularly Charles. People wondered about his sexuality, about whether he had been hiding it, or if this was all just a media ploy; Charles didn’t say anything, just smiled coyly for the cameras and thanked fans for all the support.

Like with the online comments, while Charles was used to the scrutiny, Erik was not; Erik was not unheard of, but as a journalist whose claim to fame was the written word, people knew of his name and prose but not much else. Now, his face was almost as famous as Charles’s.

Erik wouldn’t say he was comfortable about it – he was a more solitary man by nature, and he had lashed out at the throng of reporters and camera-wielding fiends that cloyed around him suffocatingly, shouting “Tell us about your relationship with Charles Xavier!” and “How long and you and Charles Xavier been dating?!” whenever they caught sight of him. Erik had yelled right back, telling them all to ‘fuck right off and leave him and Charles in peace’, glaring at cameras as he did so. If looks could shatter lenses, everyone was sure that no paparazzo would be left unscathed.

“How are you still able to smile at them when they constantly attack you like a pack of rabid dogs?” Erik grumbled, spent and a little sticky and lying on top of a boneless Charles Xavier, words muffled into the man’s chest. Charles laughed, kissing Erik softly on his head before beginning to card his fingers through Erik’s hair.

“I learnt to block them out, I suppose – learnt to shield my mind from them,” Charles said, hand pausing their soothing ministrations in Erik’s hair, making the man let out a noise of reproach at the ceased movements. Charles let out a short laugh again, his fingers resuming their comforting movements, before sighing.

“Erik…” Charles started, biting his lip. His lover let out a throaty noise to show that he was listening and not asleep (though two rounds of hot sex plus Charles’s calming fingers were very close to sending him off).

“Hm?”

“You don’t regret this, do you?” Charles asked, hesitantly. Erik frowned at Charles’s words, the man’s fingers pausing in his hair again.

“What makes you say that?” Erik asked, before freezing and pushing himself up onto his elbows to look at Charles seriously. “Do you regret it?”

“God, no!” Charles said quickly, shaking his head as Erik let out another throaty noise, flopping back down, appeased.

“Good. Because I don’t either,” Erik said, kissing Charles’s bare chest.

“You didn’t sign up for all… this, though,” Charles said, voice glum. “I like being surrounded by people, I like being social. I knew what I was getting into when I chose this career. But I’ve seen how you look when the paparazzi swarm around you. You don’t like that kind of attention, and I feel bad that, because of me, you have to-”

“Charles, shut up,” Erik said, rolling his eyes and shifting himself to pepper kisses against Charles’s stomach, working his way up his abs and chest as he spoke. Charles’s breath hitched. “I know where you’re going with this, and it’s stupid. Yes, I’m a music reporter and I’m not a celebrity, but I have hung around enough celebrities and been in the business long enough to know what it entails. Yes, the… publicity sucks, and I want to run over those reporters that camped in front of my shitty apartment complex the other day, but in the end it’s all worth it, because I get you. You’re worth it, Charles. So, just shut up and let me hold you.”

But the time Erik finished, his kisses had reached Charles’s lips, lingering there for a long while. When he pulled back, Charles’s eyes were a little watery, and his kiss-bitten lips curled in an awed, affectionate smile that radiated with the purest happiness.

“Has anyone ever told you that you are ridiculously sweet?” Charles asked, Erik snorting.

“No,” Erik replied, pecking Charles’s lips again. “I’m only sweet to you.”

“Like melted chocolate and lemon drop candy,” Charles mused, and Erik groaned, kissing the man again just to stop him from reciting those ghastly lyrics again.

“Charles, shut up.”

***

Erik stood with Moira to the side of the stage, out of the view of the audience but in a position that allowed them to watch the opening night of the X-Boys X-pression tour. Erik found himself smiling and tapping his foot to the beat of ‘Love Me, Hate Me’ as he watched Charles perform; under the stage lights and the screaming of fans, all of the members performed with more energy and passion than they had in rehearsals. The unabashed joy on Charles’s face as he performed for his fans warmed Erik’s heart.

It was obvious that Charles loved what he did. Sure, the songs he sang were terrible and his sparkling costume chafed in unmentionable places, but Charles was happy. He projected that happiness all over the stage, his smile wide and eyes brighter than the stage lights. Erik may not like the band’s music, but from the screams and tears of adoration from the crowd, Erik didn’t think that it was all bad. Music, in the end, existed to make people feel things, to inspire and captivate. Even though Erik knew that Charles could do more, sing songs like Paralysed that meant more, Charles was already doing something good – making people happy.

Erik could understand their fans a bit better now, he felt. Even if he still thought that ‘Sweet Love’ was the shittiest song of the 21st Century.

The final note of ‘Love Me, Hate Me’ played and the crowd went wild. Erik knew after sitting in on rehearsals that the climax and final song of the concert, ‘Sweet Love’, was up next (which was hilarious to Erik, since ‘Love Me, Hate Me’ essentially described his feelings for the song in question). Love Charles, hate the song.

“Thank you LA!” Sean shouted, the crowd responding with more screams. Alex and Hank smiled at their fans lining up closed at the X-shaped extensions from the stage, leaning down to high-five them as they walked back to the main portion of the stage.

“You have been a fantastic audience on our opening night,” Darwin said into his microphone, the big TV screen behind him showing a close-up of his handsome face, which turned to look at his band mates, who all smiled back at him.

“We’ve been saving the best until last,” Alex said as the fans began screaming again, the chorus of female voices chanting ‘Sweet Love, Sweet Love!’, making the X-Boys laugh. “You got it!”

“But first,” Hank said, voice soft as some stage hands began wheeling a grand piano onto the stage, four members of the X-Boys stepping out of the way while Charles stepped forward. Erik frowned at the movements on the stage – there hadn’t been any of this at any of the rehearsals, and Erik had gone to the final one just yesterday.

Charles turned to look at Erik with a smile then, hair sweaty after dancing, cheeks red with exertion and moisture making his shirt cling to his back a little – and he was absolutely beautiful. The camera focused on his face, blue eyes impossibly bright on the big TV screen.

“As you all know, a lot of things have happened over the past week,” Charles said, the crowd screaming ‘We love you Charles!’. The singer smiled at that, blowing a kiss towards the crowd, some girls reaching forwards like they could catch it. “Thank you! Thank you, for all of your well-wishes, for all of your support, and for your never-ending love! It means a lot to me, more than you all know.” The crowd aww’d at Charles’s words as the man began to walk to the piano that had been deposited in the middle. All of the lights focused on Charles, the other X-Boys disappearing into the shadowy background.

“Now, we’ve saved ‘Sweet Love’ for last, but before we get to that, I have to get something off my chest first,” Charles said, turning away from the crowd to look at Erik again. “You see, you have all shown me so much love, and I was inspired. You all know that, very recently, I’ve met someone, someone that is very important to me.”

The crowd roared to life, the TV screen showing the curve of Charles’s mouth, the warmth in his eyes. Erik was speechless, unable to look away from Charles, heart hammering.

Oh G’tt.

“I’ve written lots of songs before, some of them silly like ‘MSG and Me’, and other heavy like ‘Paralysed’. I’ve written songs that no one has heard but the walls of my shower, and some that I’ve left unfinished. Those unfinished songs, you see, all had one similarity,” Charles said, the crowd quietening, reeled in by Charles’s voice, which softened.

Charles was no longer speaking to stadium full of people, nor to a camera. No, under the spotlight, everything else faded away – everything except Erik. It was him that Charles was speaking to now, him and no one else.

“I could never finish those songs because, well, they were all love songs,” Charles said, letting out a laugh. “I could never finish them because I didn’t know what it was like to love someone. At least, not until now.”

“Fuck,” Erik said, unable to say anything else, his mind a storm of ‘G’tt, Charles, you cheesy bastard, fuck, he’s so beautiful, I love him, fuck, how the heck does he exist’.

“Now, someone has shown me what it’s like to love, and I was able to finish writing a love song for the first time,” Charles said, smiling at Erik as he stepped backwards, before slowly seating himself at the piano. He pulled off the microphone taped to the side of his face, and adjusted the one in the stand hovering next to the piano.

“This is that song,” Charles said, the crowd screaming while Erik covered his mouth, not sure what to do with the feelings about to overflow inside him. On the TV screen, Charles’s fingers could be seen pressing against the keys gently, piano music wafting through the stadium. As his fingers moved through the introduction of the song, Charles kept speaking.

“I know I talk a lot, but there are some things that are hard for even me to say with words,” Charles said, smiling. “So, I put them all into this song. I hope you understand.”

‘I do,’ Erik answered silently as he watched, enraptured.

“This song is dedicated to the person I love,” Charles said, Erik choking. “It’s called ‘Not Alone When I’m With You.”

Charles was silent, letting his fingers glide across the keys. His chest swelled as he took in a breath for one beat, two beats, three beats.

Then he sang.

And Erik almost collapsed under the weight of his love.

‘Your magnetic field, you drew me in, I saw you when I was adrift, In a sea all alone, I didn’t even know what I was looking for, Until I saw you, and felt your mind, You glowed so bright, a beacon in the nothingness, You pulled me ashore, and kept me warm, Your words, oh, your words, You whispered them but I could hear clear, Straight into my mind, you opened up, Made me feel like I’d never felt before, And darling, no matter what happens, If the world is against us, even if we’re worlds apart, I’ll find you, I want to be by your side, Because you made me realise that I’m not alone, Because I’m not, not when I’m with you.’

When Charles finished singing, the piano fading out as his hands slipped from its keys, everything was silent; the crowd were stunned into noiselessness, tears streaming down their faces as they watched completely slack-jawed. The song was beautiful, and was awash with all of the colours of Charles’s heart – it was more honest than anything the X-Boys had released before, and held emotion that ‘Sweet Love’ could only aspire to behold. It was honest because it was Charles’s heart. Charles’s heart spoke directly to Erik’s heart, which stopped in his chest as Charles stood up and walked over to him.

The camera followed the singer as the crowd was pulled from their stupor when Charles rose, the stadium beginning to fill with the sound of applause and cheers.

Charles didn’t hear anything, though, as he walked off stage and threw himself at Erik, kissing him with as much passion as he had put into the song, and then some.

“I hope you understand,” Charles murmured against Erik’s lips, the journalist letting out a wrecked noise and pulling him in closer. ‘Just how much I love you. That I want to be with you, no matter what.’

“I understand,” Erik whispered, voice thick. ‘We want the same thing.’

‘We do,’ Charles thought, as the other four members of X-Boys rushed back onto the stage, Alex shouting that it was time for the grand finale.

Charles and Erik parted from their embrace when Sean called out “Charles, stop making out with your boyfriend! It’s ‘Sweet Love’ time, but not that kind of sweet love!” The crowd were delighted at that comment, screaming as Charles laughed, kissing Erik again before grinning.

“I’ll be right back,” Charles vowed, heading back towards the stage, but looking over his shoulder to give Erik a mischievous smile. “Don’t hesitate to sing along, darling. I know this is your favourite song.”

“Shut up, Charles,” Erik said, though his voice was far too rough with emotion, and much too fond.

‘Sweet Love’ was a perfect end to a perfect concert – the crowd went wild, X-Boys smiled throughout the whole performance, and even Erik found himself thinking - 

‘Your sweet love sustains me too, Schatz’.

***

X-BOY’S CHARLES XAVIER: AN IN-DEPTH AND INTIMATE LOOK INTO THE SINGER THAT HAS CAPTURED HEARTS AROUND THE WORLD, AND MUCH, MUCH CLOSER TO HOME

…Charles Xavier smiled at me, curling up on his couch in his navy silk pyjamas and his favourite baby-blue cardigan, which I told him was a shade lighter than his eyes. He laughed at that, swatting my arm and telling me that ‘there better be a question in there, darling’.

I assured him there was just one more question, and he nodded, waiting expectantly, eagerly.

What does the future hold for you, now that the X-Pression Tour has ended? Is this going to be a new chapter in your life? Or a whole new novel?

The ‘Paralysed’, ‘Not Alone When I’m With You’ and ‘Mind Reader’ singer quirked up his eyebrow, the same way he does when he is amused by an interesting move in an afternoon game of chess.

“That’s technically three questions,” he replied, before falling into silence and thinking carefully, like he always did. The oldest X-Boys member always contemplated questions seriously and with care.

“It is hard to predict the future. Some may have that gift, but unfortunately, I do not. I can tell you about some of the things I want for my future, however.”

The singer smiled again, and I urged him to continue.

“Firstly, I would like some black forest cake and a cup of tea – sometime in the near future, preferably. Then, I think I would like to take a short break; travelling the world on tour was wonderful, but it is always unfortunate that we don’t get to enjoy seeing the cities we visit as much as we would like. I would like to maybe visit Germany, for reasons I’m sure you would know.”

I did.

“The new CEO of Hellfire Records has given us time to recuperate after the tour, but we have been discussing taking X-Boys into a new direction stylistically. We’d like to explore new genres, since we ourselves are constantly evolving. We would like to show our fans different sides of ourselves. I’d be interested in writing some new work for a future album, but that is sometime far into the future. For now, though, I would like to relax and spend some time cuddling my boyfriend, so I think this is a good place to end the interview.”

Charles Xavier turned off my recorder at this point, so I couldn’t write about what happened after. What I can say, though, is that I am very interested to see what Charles Xavier and the X-Boys deliver in the future.

Whatever it is, I am sure that it will be far better than the train wreck that was X-Pressions and that musical sludge called ‘Sweet Love’.

***

“Your love letter to your boy is trending,” Emma chuckled as she passed by Erik’s office, the journalist pausing in the review he was writing for some indie artist’s debut EP.

“My work always does well, Emma,” Erik said, feigning casualness, though his heart leapt at the news. Then, he realised what Emma said. “And it wasn’t a ‘love letter’. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“It reads like a love letter to me, sugar,” Emma said, clearing her throat. “You mentioned his eyes every second sentence, and you basically ended your piece by unsubtly bragging that you two fucked after you finished interview.”

“I said we cuddled!” Erik retorted, Emma raising a brow.

“And we’re supposed to believe that you only cuddled? Please, sugar. Charles’s fans may be young, but even they weren’t fooled. And when you mentioned chess, was that a euphemism for something? Some secret kink?”

“Fuck off,” Erik grumbled, glaring at his boss who just chuckled. “Anyway, you need to hold up your end of the deal, Emma.”

“What deal?”

“Don’t be a bitch,” Erik grunted, eyes narrowed. “I wrote your piece on X-Boys. Technically I wrote two, because I also wrote that one about Charles. So, hold up your end of the bargain, or so help me-”

“Ah, ‘The Photo’,” Emma said, clicking her manicured fingers. “Already done, sugar. You can check, if you want.” Emma threw her phone to Erik, and he quickly checked to make sure she had deleted The Photo.

“And your computer? Laptop? Hard drives?”

“All deleted too,” Emma said. “You have my word, Erik. You know I always uphold my end of a deal.”

“Yes, after you blackmail people into accepting them in the first place,” Erik replied hotly, getting up from his chair to get ready to head home from work. “But yeah, if you said you deleted them, you deleted them.” Emma smiled sweetly at Erik, and that look made him pause, one arm through a sleeve in his jacket. “What, Emma?”

“Oh, nothing, sugar,” Emma said, waving her hand as she continued to smile, looking far to amused for whatever was on her mind to be ‘nothing’.

“Emma, what did you do?” Erik pressed, his boss laughing.

“Relax, Erik. I kept my end of the bargain. Do stop frowning like that or your wrinkles will make you look like a middle-aged perv compared to your jailbait-looking boyfriend,” Emma said, walking out of Erik’s office when he flipped her off, grabbing his bag and heading back to Charles’s place.

It had taken a while, but Erik and Charles had worked out how to evade the press for the most part; it helped that Charles’s apartment complex housed many celebrities and people in the public eye, meaning that security there was quite rigid. Charles had managed to get Erik exempt from all of those security checks, and now he could just directly enter the secure underground carpark and head up to Charles’s penthouse without fuss.

When Erik reached Charles’s place, the door opened before he could even get his own key out, Charles tumbling into him and kissing him desperately. Erik was shocked for a moment, catching Charles as they both stumbled, before kissing back just as eagerly, albeit confused.

“I’m home?” Erik asked breathlessly when Charles fisted the front of his shirt, pulling him inside and beginning to suck on Erik’s neck, hands fumbling with the journalist’s shirt. Erik’s cock sprung to life immediately, helping Charles pull his shirt off him, stepping forward to back Charles into the wall, the man moaning as Erik slipped his thigh between Charles’s legs.

“I’m not complaining…” Erik panted as Charles continued to suck at his neck, collar bones and chest, fingers fumbling to undo Erik’s belt, the clanging of the metal making Erik lick his lips. “But did something happen?”

Charles detached his lips from Erik’s skin now to laugh, lowering himself onto his knees to look up at Erik. For a moment, Erik felt the world stop turning; it was just him and Charles, his breath knocked out by the sheer blueness of the man’s eyes and the way he gazed up at Erik like the older man was the world.

“Yeah, I saw something earlier today, while you were at work,” Charles said, sliding Erik’s belt out, throwing it to the ground and working at Erik’s fly, hands brushing across the bulge of Erik’s erect cock.

“Oh?”

“Mhmm,” Charles said, corner of his mouth lifting. “Yeah, I saw something, and fuck, did it make me horny. You were so fucking hot, Erik. I couldn’t wait for you to come home the moment I saw it, and I’ve been hard ever since but I didn’t want to touch myself, not until you came home.”

Erik startled at that, hand flying to grab Charles’s, which were about to pull his pants down. Charles whined, looking up at Erik needily, but the man just stared down at him.

“Charles, what exactly did you see today?” Erik asked, Emma’s suspicious smile coming to mind.

She wouldn’t have…

Charles smiled a little wider, tugging himself from Erik to crawl over to the coffee table where his phone sat. He hurried back on his knees, flipping the screen around to show Erik exactly what he had seen, and it was something Erik had seen many, many times before but pretended did not exist.

It was The Photo.

The one from Erik’s college days, when Emma had forced him to dress in drag after he lost a bet; bright red bob, tight spaghetti strap blue sequin minidress, black boots, full make up.

Erik knew never to bet against Emma that night.

And now, even though Emma had technically kept up her end of the bargain by deleting The Photo from all of her devices, he knew to never trust her again.

Because she sent The Photo to Charles, who was now smiling up at him hungrily with the mortifying picture in his palms.

Charles must’ve seen the panic in Erik’s eyes, because he laughed, turning his phone off and tossing it onto the couch, hands tugging at Erik’s pants eagerly once again.

“Darling, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You were beautiful,” Charles assured him, taking Erik’s cock into his hands, still smiling that sugar-sweet smile that tasted like melted chocolate and lemon drop candy. “I’ll show you how beautiful I think you are, right now.”

When Charles wrapped those red lips around him, Erik found that he didn’t care about The Photo any more.

Not one bit.

***

Sometime in the future…

Like usual, Erik woke up obscenely early and instinctively rolled over to try and snuggle Charles, a morning routine he indulged himself with every day. It was barely light outside, but strangely, the bed beside him was empty and cold. Erik frowned, opening his eyes and squinting in the dark.

Charles’s side of the bed look like it hadn’t been slept in at all, and Erik sighed. The journalist had gone to bed earlier that night, Charles pressing a kiss to his cheek and sending him off to sleep without him because he had been struck by a sudden burst of inspiration at around midnight. It appeared that he didn’t end up going to sleep at all, something that happened every now and then.

Erik pulled himself out of bed, the cold sting of the morning air making his skin prickle with goosebumps. Pulling on a discarded jumper and grey sweatpants from a velvet armchair in the corner of their large bedroom, Erik padded through their palatial house in Beverly Hills, heading down the stairs and straight to Charles’s music studio.

Erik held himself carefully to try and avoid making too much noise, eyes scanning the room for his husband. He found him quickly, the lump of blankets under the grand piano a familiar sight, surrounded by some paper with music notes scribbled across them. Erik’s heart squeezed with affection, quietly walking over to the man who was curled up beneath the piano swathed in blankets, sleeping on the plush rug.

Charles was snuffling a little, making relaxed breathy noises, and Erik smiled. The journalist dropped to his knees to crouch beneath the piano too, pushing some of Charles’s slightly overgrown hair from his closed eyes. The sleeping man was so tired after almost pulling an all-nighter that he barely stirred, just mumbling something incoherent under his breath. Charles subconsciously nuzzled his face towards Erik’s warm palm, making the man chuckle softly.

“Good morning, Liebling,” Erik whispered, another part of his usual morning routine. Even though Charles couldn’t hear it, Erik felt like he needed to say it, softly pressing a kiss to Charles’s forehead.

It has been almost 14 years since Charles and Erik met, almost 10 since they got married, and just over 8 years since X-Boys disbanded, much to the sadness of now-20-something-year-olds everywhere. Even though the group themselves were no more (only reuniting for the occasional charity concert every now and then), the individual members were very active.

Alex had become a successful solo act, known for his sex-appeal and progressive lyrics. Darwin transitioned into the smooth jazz scene like he had always wanted, while Sean became a permanent fixture on broadway. Hank, in the end, decided that performing was not what he wanted to pursue, and ended up working alongside Charles in the record company they co-owned.

Charles was the CEO of Graymalkin Sound, and Hank was his right-hand-man and COO. Their company was relatively small compared to all of the large record labels in LA, but due to the reputations of both Charles and Hank, their company had done well for themselves in the handful of years they’ve been active.

It also helped that the two had a good eye for talent. One of their artists was Scott Summers, their ex-band mate Alex Summer’s younger brother, who was a handsome crooner with a sensual and smooth voice. Jean Grey, his girlfriend, was this generation’s Pop Diva, with a voice that was powerful and vibrant. Her debut album, Phoenix, had topped billboard charts for multiple weeks straight. There was also Ororo Munroe, who went by the stage name ‘Storm’ – a youthful soul singer with an abundance of natural talent.

Though Charles was officially the CEO of Graymalkin Sound, Hank was in control of most of the business affairs, while Charles focused on the music. Charles wrote most of the songs for his artists, while also occasionally writing scores for films, such as the successful action movie ‘First Class’.

While Charles’s career had changed in a drastic direction, Erik’s hadn’t. Erik still worked for Brotherhood of Music alongside Emma. Since it was common knowledge that the terrifying journalist Erik Lehnsherr was head-over-heels in love with ex-boyband member Charles Xavier, lots of his interviewees had thought that he wouldn’t be as critical about their work. But they were wrong, and even though he was happily married and in love, Erik still wrote scathing and brutally honest reviews – so, now he was just known as the prickly journalist that is only nice to Charles Xavier and Charles Xavier only.

Crawling back out from under the grand piano, Erik walked over to the computer, which was only in sleep mode. Giving the mouse a nudge, Erik settled into Charles’s comfortable chair, taking a curious look at the product of Charles’s inspiration and his need to tire himself out so badly.

It was a mostly finished song, titled ‘TOP SECRET SONG FOR ‘THE’ DAY! SUPER TOP SECRET! DO NOT PEEK! FOR CHARLES’S EYES AND EARS ONLY! NAME PENDING!’

Erik snorted quietly at his husband’s intermediary song title, glancing at Charles, who was still lightly snoring under the piano. Putting on Charles’s headphones, Erik sneakily pressed play.

There was a light piano melody, something Charles was well-known for, in a soft, soothing melody that sounded like a caress.

And then Charles’s voice, just speaking, and still as lovely as it was when he was only 24.

‘This is a little song I wrote for you, Erik. You are the love of my life, and nothing makes me happier than being able to live by your side. Happy 10th Anniversary, darling.’

Erik smiled, heart full, and pulled off the headphones, stopping the recorded song from playing any further.

Their anniversary was tomorrow, and Erik could wait.

He had forever with Charles, after all.

-The End-

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #xmen #xmen fic #x-men #boy band au #james mcavoy #michael fassbender #ao3 #ao3 fanfic

[sareyen]

X-Pressions of the Heart: A Boyband  AU (Part 2/3)

Read on ao3

Chapter 2

When Charles and Erik entered the café, it was relatively quiet. Still, Charles kept his head down, not wanting to be recognised, because then he’d have to do the ‘yes, I can sign whatever you want’, ‘yes, I’ll take a selfie with you’, ‘oh, you’re too sweet, darling’ schtick. He didn’t mind it most of the time, since it was flattering when fans recognised him, but frankly he wanted to just spend time getting to know Erik. Erik, who had been noticeably less prickly since their brief conversation in the Hellfire foyer.

Charles caught the eye of the barista, a bubbly girl named Kitty that always served Charles with a friendly smile like he was any other patron. Kitty silently pointed to one of the back tables that was partially hidden by a partition, the most secluded table in the café. Charles beamed back at her, mouthing ‘thanks’, before nudging Erik’s arm to the table.

The two men sat down, Charles taking off his cap and sunglasses, Kitty soon walking over to them with menus.

“Hey, Charles,” Kitty said happily.

“Hello, Kitty. Busy day?” Charles replied gently, the girl nodding, letting out a huff.

“Yeah, the lunch rush was pretty bad today,” Kitty said, scrunching up her nose.

“Your boss still hasn’t hired someone else? Jubilee’s mum made her quit because her grades have slipped, right?”

“Yeah, you remembered,” Kitty said, smiling a little. “But to answer your question, no, we’re still understaffed. It’s a nightmare.”

“I can imagine,” Charles said, sounding like he really understood. Kitty just shrugged, mentioning that it was part of the job, before turning to Erik. “Oh! Right. Kitty, this is Erik Lehnsherr. He’s a music journalist doing a piece on X-Boys. Erik, this is Kitty, the best barista in the city.”

“Introducing me like that isn’t going to make me slip you a free piece of cake, Charles,” Kitty said, Charles humming like he didn’t believe her, making the girl and Erik laugh. Erik shook Kitty’s hand, the girl nodding chirpily, quickly running through the specials of the day, before ducking off to wait on another table that called her over.

“You must come here a lot,” Erik said conversationally, Charles nodding as he barely skimmed the menu, already knowing what he was going to get.

“I actually used to come here often before joining X-Boys,” Charles said, tapping on Erik’s menu where it said ‘black forest cake’. “Best cake in the city, alongside the best coffee.”

“I’m not surprised that you have a sweet tooth,” Erik said, Charles grinning.

“Isn’t this where you’re supposed to say something cheesy like ‘you don’t need cake, you’re sweet enough already’?” Charles asked, putting on the voice of a sappy, melodramatic soapie star. Erik snorted, putting down his menu after deciding to trust Charles’s earlier recommendation about the steak sandwich.

“Has that line ever worked for you before, Charles?” Erik teased, the singer wiggling a brow.

“You’d be surprised, Erik. I have ways of getting what I want.”

Erik let out a ‘hmph’, but it was by no means bitter. In fact, Erik had a slight smile on his face, small but present nonetheless. On someone who seemed like they were born with a frown, even a slight quirk of a lip was big thing.

“I’m sure you do,” Erik then said quietly, staring at Charles. Charles was drawn in to Erik’s eyes, and he found himself falling forwards into the journalist’s orbit without knowing. Charles’s tongue flickered out to wet his lips, and Erik’s gaze dropped there, before he smirked and sat back in his chair, away from Charles.

It was Charles’s turn to let out a short ‘hmph’, making Erik chuckle at the pout now present on the singer’s lips. Oh, Erik was flirting, alright. Teasingly, maybe, but Charles could read the signs.

Charles was just about to bite the bullet and ask Erik if he wanted to go out for a drink later, or maybe dinner, or maybe just skip both and head back to Charles’s opulent high-rise apartment and eat him out in bed instead, but Kitty had wandered back to them asking if they were ready to order. Charles had to restrain from banging his head on the table in frustration, but that would have probably scared Kitty and he genuinely liked the younger girl, and she didn’t know that she had her A+ service had inadvertently cock-blocked Charles.

Erik maybe knew, though, considering he now had a wide and smug grin etched onto his face, showing all too many teeth but making Charles’s heart stutter. He looked intimidating, but in a way that only turned Charles on more.

Charles ignored the heat pooling in his gut as he ordered the mushroom risotto and a vanilla and caramel macchiato (which Erik snorted at), the journalist ordering the steak sandwich and a coffee, black, no sugar. Of course.

Their drinks came quickly, and Charles made sure to remind Erik and Kitty that they had been made by the best barista in the city when she served them, the girl rolling her eyes but whispering ‘do you want red velvet, black forest or lemon vanilla today?’. Erik had laughed when Charles’s eyes lit up like lights at Christmas, immediately saying ‘black forest’. Kitty laughed, nodding, before heading back to the display case of cakes and saving them a piece.

“You really have everyone wrapped around your finger, don’t you?” Erik said, Charles raising a brow, adding a sugar into his already sickly-sweet coffee, making Erik grimace a little.

“Has the interview started?” Charles asked, Erik shrugging.

“I’m not recording it right now, so it’s up to you,” the journalist said, Charles smiling. “Depends how honest you want to be.”

“Hm. Then, how about just a conversation between friends, to start with. As long as you promise not to treat me like Worthington,” Charles tacked on at the end, Erik letting out a loud laugh.

“No promises, Charles. If you start comparing yourself to Elton John or Queen, then…”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Prince,” Charles said, Erik feigning an appalled expression, only tempered by the way he was struggling to control his smile.

“You’re worse than Worthington. Interview over, I don’t even care if you sue me, I have to expose the real you to the world, Charles,” Erik said, Charles letting out a faux gasp.

“No! But my career, Erik! You can’t taint my career like that, what would I do? I don’t want to have to go back to bartending at a shitty bar down town, flirting with men for tips,” Charles whined, Erik raising a brow. Charles laughed at Erik’s curious expression, winking. “But yes, I was tipped generously, if you were wondering. Very generously.”

“Like I said, you have everyone wrapped around your finger,” Erik said, Charles taking a sip of his whipped-cream-laden drink. A little cream lingered on his lips, and he swiped it with his tongue slowly, locking onto Erik’s eyes as he did so. Erik swallowed thickly, licking his own lips in response, a reflex.

“Everyone, you say. Does that include you, Mr Lehnsherr?” Charles asked impishly. Charles smirked, but his expression was broken when he felt Erik’s foot nudge at his ankle. Charles jumped in surprise, Erik smirking at the reaction.

“No, I’m not interested in Charles Xavier of X-Boys,” Erik said slowly, foot slipping under the cuff of Charles’s jeans, nudging at his bare ankle. Charles’s breath hitched as Erik leaned forward, elegant fingers sliding around the rim of his coffee cup. “But the real Charles Xavier?”

“What about him?” Charles asked, corners of his red lips curving upwards.

“Yeah,” Erik said, just as Kitty came with their meals. “Yeah, I’m interested.”

***

Erik had scrapped the interview questions he had prepared for Charles. Reading them off like a shopping list when the conversation between them just flowed so naturally seemed wrong. Sitting in the obscured corner table was not a boy-band member and a journalist, but a flirty 24-year-old that was also an incredibly intelligent Oxford graduate, and a slightly misanthropic music snob with a surprising passion for cooking.  

Charles and Erik talked about lots of things, moving back and forth between one topic to another smoothly, never stuck in a bout of awkward silence. Erik found out that Charles held a degree in genetics, which surprised him immensely, especially when Charles talked about the topic with such vigour and excitement. Charles told Erik that he would have liked to pursue a PhD in the topic if he hadn’t dived into a career in music, and Erik had teasingly quipped that with his cardigans, he was already half way there to being a professor.

Erik also learnt that it hadn’t been Charles’s intention to join X Factor, but that his sister had secretly signed him up, partially as a joke but also because she was sick of hearing his solo shower concerts through the door. In return, Erik talked about how he was born and raised in Germany, but had come to the US because of the music. He also talked about how he liked cooking and baking, and Charles was less-than-subtle about wanting to try it sometime. Erik had, surprisingly, said ‘yeah, some time’, making Charles beam that bright, megawatt smile that lit up his eyes.

Talking to Charles properly made Erik truly realise that the slightly younger man was shockingly intelligent. He went to Oxford and graduate top of his genetics class, and despite the terrible lyrics in X-Boys’s songs, he could recite poems by John Donne and passages from Jane Eyre even more easily than the lyrics from his last album.

If Erik had been attracted to Charles’s appearance before, knowing that his mind was equally as attractive – or even more so – just sealed the deal for Erik.

It had only been a matter of hours, but Erik liked Charles Xavier, at least on a primal, basic level. If Charles Xavier had been in a bar, Erik would have definitely bought him a drink, and in less than a matter of hours, he would have him writhing beneath him in bed.

But, even though they talked, flirted and teased each other over food and coffee like they had known the other for years, Charles was still a celebrity, and Erik was still a journalist supposed to be interviewing him. It wasn’t professional, or prudent, but it was tantalising.

Charles was tantalising.

Erik didn’t give a fuck about X-Boys – his stance on them hadn’t changed (because Sweet Love was a disgrace to all music). But Charles. Charles was so much more, and G’tt, Erik wanted him. It was obvious that Charles felt the same way about him, too.

It was when they were sharing the single slice of black forest cake Kitty had slipped them under the table that Charles asked Erik if he wanted to meet up at his apartment later. Erik said yes immediately, and earned him another endearingly honest, joyous smile from the singer.

“Fantastic, my friend,” Charles said, unlocking his phone and sliding it across the table to Erik, letting him insert his number. Erik slid the phone back, fingers brushing Charles’s as he took it from the other man, before calling Erik. Erik’s ringtone, his mother’s favourite Elton John song, buzzed from his pocket before Charles hung up.

“Good song,” Charles said, though he gave Erik a joking look. “Sweet Love would be a much better ringtone, though.”

“Is it yours?” Erik asked, Charles jerking his head to where Erik’s phone now sat on the table.

“See for yourself.”

Erik, curious, rang Charles, and was surprised when, out of all the songs it could be, Starship’s Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now started playing.

“Are you serious?” Erik asked, just before he fell into hysterics as Charles began singing to the 80s classic, looking far too engrossed in the song, even as he adopted a more feminine tone for Grace Slick’s female parts. He continued singing for a few bars after the call had cut off, and Erik noted that his voice was quite lovely, even if he was only playing around.

“It’s a great song,” Charles defended, Erik unable to hold back the cheek-splitting grin he had on his face, his cheeks hurting with how much he had smiled in the span of the past hour. “It’s my go-to karaoke jam.”

“I thought you said that was Celine Dion,” Erik said, Charles shaking his head.

“No, she’s my shower jam,” Charles clarified, Erik humming, as if everything Charles said made complete sense. The two men looked at each other, before dissolving into amused snickers, Kitty coming over with a confused look on her face to hand them the check.

“… You two okay?” Kitty asked, a little apprehensive when Charles wheezed, Erik snorting loudly at the inelegant but adorable noise.

“Peachy,” Charles said through a hiccup, laughing again when he caught Erik’s grin. “Thanks for the meal, Kitty. Tell the chefs that it was great, once again.”

“Will do,” Kitty said, still giving Erik and Charles an odd look and sorting out the bill. Charles tipped generously, as always, and before they left he slid is sunglasses and cap back on.

“I have to get back to Hellfire,” Charles lamented as he and Erik stepped out of the café. “Moira’s making us sign some of the merch Shaw wants to sell on tour. It’s a ridiculous price mark-up, if you ask me – I could be signing something silly like “Xtreme Cockerspaniel” and they’d just think it was me being pretentious and signing things “Xavier Charles” like I was Bone, James Bond or something.”

“What a tough life you live, Charles,” Erik said, the singer huffing. “I’ve got to get back to the office anyway to transcribe some of my recordings.”

“Remember to only write flattering things about me,” Charles said, leaning in a little, like he was whispering a secret. And in a way, Erik supposed he was. “I’ll see you at mine later? For a drink and… well.”

“Mm. Later,” Erik echoed, Charles smiling.

“Later.”

***

When Erik got back to the office, he did not transcribe his recordings. No, instead he locked himself in his room, got out his headphones, and began searching up everything he could on Charles Xavier.

Yes, it was mildly creepy, but Charles was technically a public figure, even if he didn’t feel like one to Erik, not any more. And, since Erik knew the man personally, he wasn’t like all of those 14-year-old fan girls erecting shrines with Charles’s face cut out and stuck onto voodoo dolls and professing their love for him on Tumblr.

That was not Erik, even if he was currently searching up Charles Xavier on YouTube and opening each video result in a new tab, testing the limits of Google Chrome’s processing abilities.

Most of the videos were poorly cut and edited fan-videos that were really just a conglomeration of clips taken from various official X-Boys videos. Still, Erik watched them, in awe at how Charles’s face was so fucking cute, and yet could look at Erik in public with nothing but sex in his eyes. How other people never noticed that Charles was dirty as hell was beyond Erik.

Erik scrolled through the comments, cringing at the excessive use of “OMG” and “MY HUSBANDDDD”, but agreeing with the comments that yes, Charles was ridiculously adorable yet hot at the same time, and yes, his eyes are ridiculously blue (and even bluer in person, if that was even possible). And yes, Charles did have an amazing voice, especially for someone whose vocals were drowned out by 4 other voices in a sea of electronic beeping and thinly disguised autotune.

Erik had only heard Charles sing a little when he had begun jamming to his own ringtone. Charles hadn’t been serious at all, but Erik recognised that he could actually sing, and that he had range, climbing up to high notes with ease. Why Shaw forced him to stay within a single octave range almost enraged Erik, who stewed with the thought ‘why isn’t Charles given a chance to really shine?’

G’tt, Erik was starting to sound like a 14-year-old k-pop fangirl complaining that her bias (or her ‘Oppa’, whatever that meant) didn’t get enough lines to show off his talent.

Erik was curious to see what Charles’s voice sounded like, stripped back and singing songs that weren’t just ‘your sweet love sustains me, girl’. Erik eventually, after replaying a video titled “Charles Xavier being ridiculously cute for 8 minutes straight” (which made Erik snort because Charles was the furthest thing from straight he could possibly get), Erik found himself on a simple black-and-white casted video of Charles sitting by an upright piano. He wore a crisp white shirt and black slacks, looking much more mature in the simply ensemble than the colourful costumes he wore in other videos.

[Charles Xavier Original Song – Paralysed – Live Version]

“Original song?” Erik read aloud, wondering if Charles wrote the song himself, or if by ‘original song’ they just meant ‘not a cover, just a song written by someone else, like all of X-Boys’s discography’. Consulting the comments, Erik found out through Charles’s die-hard (and stalkerish) fans that this was a live recording of Charles’s X Factor audition song, which he said he wrote himself, lyrics and everything.

When the song started, Erik watched in anticipation, Charles’s fingers gliding across the piano keys like they were a part of him, a gentle yet melancholy melody sifting through Erik’s headphones. It was pretty, and nothing like X-Boys’ boisterous music. Soft and gentle, but simmering with light and unexpected power.

Much like Charles, with his soft cardigans which hid the flame of passion and mischief deep down in his soul.

Erik was already enraptured the moment that Charles’s started playing the piano, but the moment he began to sing, Erik’s mouth dropped open.

Erik suddenly felt like he was breathing too loudly, so he stopped altogether, wanting nothing more than to hear Charles and only Charles. His voice was… transcendent, soft but unyielding, the hint of a tremor underlying his rich timbre. This was no ‘Sweet Love’, ‘Love Me, Hate Me’ or ‘Strawberry Crush’. No, this was a song that was written from the heart, and Charles laid it all bare in his melody and his lyrics.

‘I can’t run away from you, even if I tried My legs of lead, wading through tar while you push me down Down so far I can’t get up, can’t see the surface You control me, fear encages me Begging, but no one hears me Crying, but no one cares And God, I want to push you away The you who hurt me But I’m paralysed Oh, I’m paralysed’

The video finished playing, the light spinning around the ‘replay’ icon, but Erik was frozen. Paralysed.

Erik didn’t even realise he had tears in his eyes until Emma walked into his office, breaking her usual Ice Queen demeanour when she gasped out “Good God, sugar. What the fuck happened to you? Who died?”

Erik couldn’t answer, and Emma quickly sashayed her way around Erik’s desk, placing a hand on the back of his chair and leaning down to squint at his screen. Her painted mouth moved silently as she read the video title, as well as the million and one open tabs of Charles Xavier videos on his webpage, turning to Erik with a sharp snap of her blonde hair.

“Jesus, you come back from interviewing the group once and you’re a vapid fanboy now? You, Erik Lehnsherr, who made Warren Worthington cry with your review of his single ‘Angels Never Cry’ and then cackled in his lawyer’s face when he threatened to sue us?” Emma looked at Erik like he had been possessed by the spirit of a 14-year-old fan girl, waving her manicured hand in front of his face.

“Emma,” Erik said, voice thick as he turned to her, taking off his headphones. “Have you heard Charles Xavier sing? Have you heard this song that he wrote himself when he was apparently 14 and going through a really hard time? So hard that he felt paralysed, like his legs were lead, wading through tar? Emma.”

“Oh my God, there is something wrong with you,” Emma said, snatching the headphones away from Erik and pressing one side to her right ear. Erik frowned at her, grabbing them and forcing them on her head properly, because it was rude to Charles to listen to him with just one ear. No, you needed to listen to Charles – to love Charles – with your entire soul, and that still wouldn’t be enough.

“Listen,” Erik ordered his boss before pressing the replay button, who just rolled her eyes, not expecting much at all – just like Erik had, before he met Charles Xavier.

Had that been just this morning?

Yes, but you could fall in love with a song and an artist in the span of a song, in the length of a chorus, in the breath of a note.

One morning was plenty of time to fall in love with Charles Xavier.

Erik didn’t know whether he wanted to stare at Charles’s tormented face on the screen or at Emma to gauge her reaction, just switching between the two. He saw Emma’s eyes twitch a little in surprise as the song started, her mouth then dropping open as Charles hit the chorus for the first time, her head tilting in curiosity when he reached the final verse, voice tapering off into a weighty silence.

When the song ended, Emma slowly peeled the headphones off, turning to Erik with a serious expression.

“What the fuck is he doing in X-Boys with talent like that?” Emma asked seriously, Erik nodding vigorously.

“I know. Emma, I want to write a piece on him. Just on him,” Erik said, Emma’s eyebrows rising up to her hairline.

“You want to write a piece about Charles Xavier of X-Boys?”

“Just Charles Xavier,” Erik said, dropping X-Boys completely. “You heard him, Emma. He’s… mein G’tt.” I love him. “His music.” Him.

Erik left it there, hoping that was enough for Emma to understand.

“I mean, yeah, his music is amazing, and his voice as well, but Erik – I’m not going to let you drop the X-Boys article. We need that, and if you’re going to drop them to write a solo piece on an artist who isn’t even a soloist, you’re going to anger a lot of fans,” Emma said, Erik rolling his eyes.

“I don’t give a flying fuck about those fans, not when they’ve been sleeping on Charles’s talent,” Erik said, vehement. “Anyone who… cages Charles in a group like X-Boys deserves death. Right now, it’s not fear that encages Charles. It’s your ex Shaw and his stupid company, as well as the stupid little fangirls who keep saying that they… what, ship Charles and that Summers kid together. Anyone who genuinely thinks that they belong together can’t be trusted.”

Emma stared at Erik, frowning now and looking terribly tempted to call for an ambulance, because Erik was either high on drugs, drunk out of his mind, or suffering some kind of stroke. Then, it dawned on Emma that Erik…

“Do you have a crush on Charles Xavier?” Emma asked, almost appalled that she even said the question out loud. When Erik didn’t answer and just glared at her, Emma clapped her hands together, doubling over in peals of chime-like laughter. “Oh, sugar. This is… Oh, oh, this is priceless! I have to tell Angel, I have to tell everyone. Erik, if that’s the case, go right ahead and write a piece on your boy crush. But, I’m still expecting one on X-Boys as a whole too. You’re capable of working two large projects at once, no?”

“Charles isn’t a project – he’s an artist and a visionary, and someone that’s really cute in cardigans and-”

“Oh, gosh. Hold that thought, sugar, I can’t take any more laughter for today. I’m going to develop laugh lines,” Emma said, sucking in a breath as she tried to gather her wits again, morphing back into the Ice Queen the office was so fearful of. “Charles Xavier, he’s really a force to be reckoned with.”

“He invited me to his apartment tonight,” Erik said quickly, Emma blinking.

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah,” Erik said, nodding. “I know.”

“Why you?” Emma said, Erik flipping her off. “I mean, I adore you, sugar, I really do, but how? You’re…” Emma just gestured up and down at Erik, like that was all that needed to be said. Grumpy. Taciturn. Rude. Judgemental. An A-grade asshole. Sounded about right.

“Yeah, well, he did, so can you let me off early today?” Erik said, Emma nodding, sitting on the edge of Erik’s desk as he stood, grabbing his leather jacket from the back of his chair.

“Charles Xavier’s music is one thing, but Charles Xavier himself is… interesting,” Emma said as she watched Erik grin widely.

“Emma, you have no idea.”

***

“You met a guy?!” Raven screeched through the phone, Charles wincing. Plucking his mobile from where he had it wedged between his ear and cardigan-clad shoulder, Charles switched it to the same position on other side before returning to where he was tidying up his apartment.

Charles had never been the neatest person in the world, putting it down to being an artist that needed to work in organised disarray, as he put it. Controlled chaos, restrained passion, what have you. At some point, between gruelling dance practises and X-Pression promotions, that organised disarray had turned into a nuclear warzone, and Charles had spent the rest of his afternoon after finishing work at Hellfire Records to clean his apartment in preparation for Erik’s arrival.

Charles was busy putting books back into his over-stacked bookshelf as he chatted to his sister.

“Yes, Raven. I don’t know why you’re so surprised that I met someone, you know I’m not exactly picky. You visited me at Oxford for a week and met, I don’t know, more than 7 guys I’d hooked up with,” Charles said, Raven groaning at the memory.

“Yes, but that was before you became a prominent fixture in every hormone-driven teen’s wank bank,” Raven said, Charles rolling his eyes. “How? When? Where? Who?”

“Journalist covering the X-Boys tour, this morning, at the dance studio, and Erik Lehnsherr,” Charles replied quickly, and Charles heard Raven’s rapid typing even through the phone.

“How do you spell ‘Lehnsherr’? I’m not getting anything that screams ‘Charles’s type’,” Raven said.

“Raven. He’s the guy that made your childhood crush cry,” Charles said, the younger girl silent on the other line.

“Azazel? The guy you’re talking about is the guy that called Azazel a… man in a red gimp suit who thinks his accent is actually a character trait? That guy?”

“One and the same,” Charles said, chuckling fondly.

“Charles! No! You can’t! Can’t you see that he’s trying to get into your pants to draw out all of your dirty little secrets before he writes a damning article about you and ruin your career?” Raven yelled, Charles wincing again and just putting his sister on speakerphone.

“Raven, Erik isn’t like that,” Charles said, his sister snorting.

“Suuuure. Have you heard from Azazel since that interview? NO. You haven’t. And that’s because Erik Lehnsherr single-handedly ended his music career. Charles, he’s going to finish you!”

‘I hope he does finish me. In bed,’ Charles mused to himself, snickering silently.

Audibly, Charles just sighed at his sister.

“Raven, I know that you’re worried and that is very sweet of you, but you never had a hand in my dating life before you made me join X Factor, and frankly, that hasn’t changed now. So, thank you for worrying, but really, there is nothing to worry about. Erik is…”

Perfect? Amazing? Everything I wanted wrapped up in a not-so-little German hunk?

Mhmm.

“Don’t come crying to me when your face is plastered all over TV after Lehnsherr writes an article calling you a ‘posh and pompous British twink who takes it up the butt’,” Raven warned, Charles laughing.

“Would he be lying, though?”

“True, but that’s the problem – it’s true, so you can’t even deny, deny, deny.”

“Raven, it’ll be fine.”

“You and relationships are never fine, Charles. But fine. Tell me everything after. Well, not everything – just the PG stuff. Gotta go – Irene is calling me,” Raven said, sending Charles a kiss through the phone, which he returned before tucking his phone into his cardigan pocket.

As Charles cleaned, he thought a bit more about Raven’s words, wondering if it would really be so bad to just… rip off the façade given to him by Shaw and show the world who he truly was. Someone who was a little damaged by his traumatic childhood but was saved by the love of his sister. Someone who was bisexual with a slight leaning towards men, who was known around Oxford as charming but a bit of a slut. Someone, who had never really been in love, so he could only sing love songs about girls ‘sweeter than melted chocolate and lemon drop candy’ because he didn’t have to believe it to sing it. Someone who could only write songs about hurt, ramen and genetics, and was really an average dancer, but stayed up late just so he could nail the complex footwork in the second verse of Love Me, Hate Me.

Someone who wasn’t Charles Xavier of X-Boys, but just Charles.

The Charles he was with Erik.

As he waited for Erik to come, Charles began thinking that revealing himself may not be bad, because if Erik Lehnsherr accepted him, surely others would too.

***

Erik was a successful journalist, and even though Brotherhood of Music had slumped in terms of income recently, he hadn’t been in want of money. He was comfortable, and had a nice apartment and a good, reliable car.

Still, he had been momentarily stunned when Charles had opened the door to his penthouse apartment, ushering Erik in with a wide smile and a joking “Welcome to my home, AD.”

“Nice place,” Erik said as he glanced around, pulling off his light jacket for Charles to hang on a coat rack by the door.

“Honestly, it wasn’t that nice a few hours ago,” Charles admitted, giving Erik a wry grin. “Don’t, uh, look in that closet over there. I may or may not have just thrown my mess in there to deal with later. It’s my proverbial ‘rug to sweep everything under’.”

Erik chuckled a little at Charles’s admission that he was normally a bit of a slob, the singer leading Erik further into his home with a lingering nudge on his elbow.

Though Charles didn’t live in a sprawling mansion (though Erik believed that he probably owned one somewhere in the city, or maybe another apartment in New York or the like), his penthouse was spacious, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the LA night. The furnishings were all understated but with an air of elegance, and Erik could tell that everything in his home was quite pricy.

Still, none of it seemed out of place; other homes could sometimes feel like a showroom, beautiful to look at by so impersonal. Charles’s apartment, though well-designed, looked lived in, things neat but not perfect. The blankets on his large L-shaped couch were rumpled, like he had been snuggled up under them just a moment ago, and there was an empty mug with a lone tea bag sitting on the coffee table next to a worn hard cover of ‘The Once and Future King’ – surprisingly, Erik’s favourite book.

The journalist’s eyes followed the title to a wall of books, all of which looked to have been read sometime before. They were crammed in there and almost over-flowing, with no order to them; they weren’t stacked alphabetically by author or title, and the coloured spines clashed with each other in a mish-mash of hues. The lower shelves had books that looked more worn than the others – Charles’s favourites, he supposed. Everything was in slight disarray but kept safe and clearly loved – that seemed so like Charles.

Erik turned back to the man then. He was still wearing the jeans from earlier, but instead of the T-shirt and cardigan combo, he donned an oversized and fuzzy knitted jumper which swallowed his shorter frame up. He was painfully adorable, and yet, he was looking at Erik like he had been in the dance studio – full of want, desire and heat. Erik swallowed, suddenly very aware of how warm the apartment was – or was it just him that was warm?

‘G’tt, I’m wearing too many clothes right now. Is Charles feeling warm, too? He must be boiling under that jumper, he should just take it off, along with everything else he’s wearing.’

Clearing his suddenly parched throat, the journalist quickly handed Charles the bottle of wine he had brought. Erik’s mother had taught him to never come to someone’s house empty-handed, but Erik had no idea what to get Charles who was someone who probably already had everything. So, Erik just went for the simple option and bought wine.

Charles let out a joyous laugh when he saw the wine Erik had gotten him.

“You remembered my favourite wine,” Charles said, and Erik shrugged, a little embarrassed.

“You only mentioned it earlier this afternoon, it’s not like it’s been a long time. Nothing to be so worked up about,” Erik said, Charles shaking his head and placing the wine down on top of a bench in the spacious living room.

“No, it shows that you cared enough to listen. Not everyone does that, you know,” Charles said, Erik frowning.

“You must have only talked to shitty listeners then,” Erik replied, Charles chuckling.  

“Seems that way. Although, they all turned out to be shitty people, too. Different from you, I’d wager,” Charles murmured, stepping towards Erik, until they were almost toe-to-toe. Their eyes locked, the attraction that had been simmering almost to boiling point still there. It had been a constant thrum under Erik’s skin since they parted at the café earlier, and from the look in Charles’s eyes, he knew the younger man felt the same way.

Charles tentatively pressed his hands against Erik’s chest, leaning into him. Erik could smell Charles’s shampoo like he had freshly showered, and his hands were hot even through the fabric of Erik’s shirt. Charles let out a breathy laugh, tilting his head up to look at Erik’s, lips just one little twitch away from Erik’s own.

“I know I invited you over for drinks first, but…” Charles whispered, eyes dropping to Erik’s mouth, eyes dark.

“Yeah, I know, but I couldn’t care less about drinks right now,” Erik breathed out in a rush, reaching up to cup Charles’s face, leaning forward to kiss him, hard. Charles immediately surged into Erik’s touch, hands scrabbling at the taller man’s chest, then moving to slide around his neck to pull him closer. Erik groaned at the way Charles nipped at his lower lip, teasing his lips apart. Charles’s mouth knew what it wanted, and Erik gave it to him willingly.

Charles kissed deeply and frantically, moaning as their tongues tangled wetly and Erik met his enthusiasm blow for blow, hands sliding down Charles’s neck and torso to rest on his hips, digging in there. The squeeze of his fingers made Charles gasp into his mouth, the sound stirring Erik up. Erik began stepping forwards, Charles moving backwards with him until he was crowded against a wall, groaning with desperation.

“You’re wearing too many bloody clothes,” Charles muttered when Erik detached their lip with a slick noise to mouth at Charles’s jaw and neck. Erik huffed out a strained breath.

“That was exactly what I was thinking, you’re reading my mind,” Erik murmured against Charles’s skin, feeling the column of Charles’s neck move as the younger man laughed, hands sliding under the hem of Erik’s shirt.

“Darling, I think we want the same thing right now,” Charles smirked, pulling Erik’s shirt over his head and dropping it without ceremony to the ground. “Bedroom?”

Erik grinned, nodding and pulling at Charles’s own shirt, the man laughing.

“Yeah. Bedroom.”

***

Erik woke up first, feeling tired but sated, and maybe even a little sore. He and Charles had fucked well into the night, not having to hold back since they both knew they had the next day off.

After coming twice each, they had managed to pull themselves out of bed to soak in Charles’s grand jacuzzi bathtub, the two of them lazily wrapped up in each other’s arms surrounded by rose-scented hot bathwater, smelling like the same shampoo and sharing warm kisses that weren’t like the earlier, more frantic ones.

The kisses they shared in the bath weren’t done to get somewhere, as a means to an end. They just kissed because they wanted to, and because they could, revelling in the feel of each other.

So, they kissed and drank wine as they lounged in the bath, Charles sitting between Erik’s legs and leaning against his chest, head dropped back on the slope of Erik’s shoulder. They had stayed in the bath until the hot water cooled and their fingers pruned, drying each other off with fluffy towels before falling back into bed, limbs tangling before drifting off into a peaceful sleep.

Even though they had gone to bed later than Erik usually would, he was a natural early riser and found himself groggily opening his eyes at a time that felt premature. Sunlight drifted through a gap in the curtains, casting a line of gold across Charles’s bare chest.

Erik blinked, rubbed his eyes blearily, before smiling. Erik took the opportunity to brazenly stare at the man beside him; smooth, freckled chest rising and falling with soft puffs of breath. He had one hand resting on his belly, just above where the blanket covered his bare lower body, and his other arm had been stretched out beneath Erik’s neck. His face was serene, red lips slightly parted as he breathed lightly. He didn’t snore, but every now and then he let out small sighing noises, nose twitching and dark lashes fluttering against his soft cheeks. His hair was sex-mussed and tousled with sleep, and Erik was sure he was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his 30 years on earth.

Erik was surprised Charles didn’t wake up from the feeling of someone staring at him, or when Erik couldn’t hold himself back from running his fingers through Charles’s messy hair and pressing a kiss to his forehead. Charles’s nose just crinkled adorably, the man mumbling something incoherent, naturally shifting towards Erik’s warmth.

Charles rolled over towards Erik, and the older man chuckled, letting him nestle himself in Erik’s arms and enjoying how he felt tucked beneath his chin. Charles settled further into his embrace when the man began to draw slow lines up and down the bumps of Charles’s spine, tracing the curves of each of his vertebrae with the rough pad of his finger.

Erik had counted to 19 when Charles woke up with a throaty moan, tightening the grip he had around Erik’s waist.

“Nnngh, s’ too early,” Charles mumbled, nuzzling his face into Erik’s chest.

“I don’t think it’s early any more, it’s already-”

Suddenly, ‘Sweet Love’ started playing from Charles’s bedside table, Erik jumping while Charles just buried his face further into Erik’s chest, groaning.

“Erik, turn it offff,” Charles whined, patting Erik’s back pleadingly. “I forgot to turn off the alarm last night. I got… distracted.”

“Charles… your alarm tone is ‘Sweet Love’?” Erik asked, astonished. “Seriously?”

“Sweet like melted chocolate, ngh, lemon drop blah blah,” Charles mumble-sang through a yawn, and Erik could feel his hands moving behind his back in what he figured was a half-asleep version of the choreography. Erik let out an amused grunt, Charles shifting as the other man moved to reach over him to slam his hand down on the alarm, shutting off the bloody song.

“Well, I’m wide awake now,” Erik grumbled, Charles chuckling, pulling back and rubbing at his eyes before looking at Erik.

“It’s a great wake-up song,” Charles said, Erik rolling his eyes and leaning down to capture Charles’s mouth with his, the younger man sighing happily into the touch. “Mm. Good morning to you too.”

“Good morning,” Erik murmured in return, flopping over onto his back. Charles followed him and curled up to his side, kissing his shoulder.

“Sleep well?” Charles asked, rubbing a hand up and down Erik’s toned arm, resting his chin on the journalist’s shoulder. Erik smiled and turned his head to kiss the crown of Charles’s hair, humming with contentment.

“Yeah. Sleep was good,” Erik said, Charles purring happily.

“But waking up was even better.”

Especially when I get to wake up to this.

Next chapter (3/3) →

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #xmen #xmen fic #x-men #boy band au #james mcavoy #michael fassbender #ao3 fanfic #ao3