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jackyjango · 4 years

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Joy

Part 4 of You and Me Make Us (A collection of headcanons)

‘How does this look, darling?’ Charles asks, emerging from the veil of velvet curtains, a dopey smile stretched over his lips.

Erik sets the magazine he’d been browsing aside and rakes his eyes over Charles’ form. The cardigan he has donned isn't any different from the one he’d tried prior to this; or any of the thirty-six other cardigans Charles already owns.

Frankly, Erik doesn’t understand Charles’ obsession with cardigans, or why he insists on buying a pair whenever they take a trip to town despite owning several pairs, or why he insists on buying it from a boutique that has marble for flooring and velvets for drapes and costs equivalent of four sweaters that one could buy from an ordinary shop. It’s just a waste of money.

Erik, however, doesn’t have the heart to voice his complaints in the face of Charles’ expectant smile. The blue of the cardigan on his person now is a shade lighter than what Charles generally prefers but Erik can’t deny that it still looks good on him. Call him biased, but anything looks good on Charles.

‘It looks good,’ he says, getting up from the plush cushions of the sofa, ‘Are you buying this one, or do you want to try a few more?’

Charles smooths his hands down over the thick wool of the cardigan fondly and declares with a giddy smile, ‘I think I’ll keep this one.’

They pay for their purchase-- and Erik can’t help wince at the price tag-- and Charles bids farewell to the owner of the shop who he claims is a friend.

‘Are you sure you didn’t want anything from the boutique?’ Charles asks-- again-- as they head back to the car. ‘The maroon shirt by the window would have looked great-’

‘No,’ Erik cuts him short and opens the passenger door for Charles. ‘I have everything I need.’

Two nights later, Erik finds Charles in his study polishing a barrel of sleek metal with a satin cloth.

‘Erik!’ Charles beams brightly when he spots him by the door. ‘Right on time, my friend,’ he says as he rushes to drag Erik by the arm to the table. ‘I’ve been meaning to show you this for quite sometime now.’

Spread out on the table are six boxed metal trays, housing an array of various kinds of pens. They’re arranged in parallel rows in the grooves dug out in the velvet cushioning them.

‘This,’ Charles says with a proud smile, ‘is my pen collection. Here-’ Charles picks out a pen from the nearest tray, ‘-this pen is handcrafted out of aircraft grade alluminium. And this one here-’ he points to another pen two rows below the first- ‘is made from titanium, I’ve been told.’

And so Charles explains the metal profile of several other pens in the collection, no doubt aimed to appeal to Erik’s powers. And appeal to his powers, they do. Erik can’t deny that the metals most of the pens are made up of are exquisite. The titanium is pure, the alluminium unadulterated and the iron of the inner springs rust free (They’re no doubt well curated and cared for). He even spots a few pens which are plated in silver and embossed in gold. One or two even have diamonds on them. They scream opulence, affluence and wealth.

‘So,’ Charles asks, drawing in a deep breath, and looking up at him owlishly, ‘What do you think?’

Charles may be as wealthy as they come, but Erik knows that he doesn’t overindulge in his riches (That is, if you discount the times he prefers a high-end boutique to purchase his clothes, or the premium brand of tea he prefers-- a tin of which costs more than Erik’s monthly expenditures-- or the occasional hand made soap or aromatic shampoo he splurges on). Charles doesn’t bat an eye at the array of cars packed into the garage below the mansion. He doesn’t fuss over the splendour of the Mansion or its contents. He even wears a ratty pair of shoes and a watch that doesn’t tell the time. Erik knows that Charles is self-aware and responsible of the privilege he’s born into, but all he can think of when he looks at the display in front of him is that it’s just a waste of money; a meaningless extravagance. How many pens could one want at once? Surely, not more than one.

Charles’ smile falls a notch or two as he catches onto Erik’s thoughts. He turns away from Erik and carefully begins placing the pens he’d pulled out in their assigned slots. His disappointment could very well be a physical pain in Erik’s chest.

Erik stands still at his side unsure of what to do or what to say. Though he can’t retract his thoughts, or apologise for thinking them, he wants to say something, do something that’ll bring back the smile on Charles’ face in full force.

But before Erik could do or say anything, Charles says in a small voice, ‘My father loved collecting pens.’ He still doesn’t look at Erik. ‘It’s his collection that I expanded upon. I used to spend my Saturday afternoons huddled up in his study polishing these pens or arranging his bookshelf while my father read to me.’ Charles smiles ruefully and something twists in Erik’s chest. He trails his fingertips over the ink barrels fondly and continues in a voice so small that Erik has to strain his ears to listen to Charles. ‘I don’t need them, true, but they remind me of him. They make me happy.’

That night Erik recounts Charles’ words, wondering what it’s like to own something just for the sake of it; just because it brings him joy. Erik doesn’t own things that don’t serve him a purpose. He can count on the fingers of one hand the items of clothing in his possession-- two pairs of trousers, two turtlenecks, two shirts, a suit, a pair of boots and a leather jacket to be precise. He doesn’t own anything else because he doesn’t need anything else. He can’t wrap his head around holding on to something because it makes him happy or brings him joy.

But then he looks down at Charles, who’s sleeping on Erik’s chest-- pink lips parted and breathing softly--and it hits Erik right in the gut.

He puts up with Charles’ naive ideologies, his ideas of peace and harmony, and his bratty bunch of children and still seeks out Charles after everything because Charles makes him happy; because he brings him joy. The notion should unsettle Erik, irk him to no ends. But it doesn’t. Instead it brings him something very close to peace.

Erik holds onto Charles a little tighter, kisses his temple and falls into a blissful sleep.

Erik rounds in on Charles just as he’s about to sneak in an armful of chocolates into the shopping cart. They’re the kind which are loaded with sugars and calories. It’s not the kind of nutrition which the body needs (and especially not Sean’s body, because the kid is as scrawny as a dried twig). A concept which seems to evade Charles completely.

‘Really?’ Erik asks, unimpressed.

Charles just looks at him guiltily, chewing on his bottom lip and blinking his blue eyes owlishly. Please, he says mentally.

Erik suppresses a smile that bubbles up his chest and says as sternly as he can, ‘Fine. If it makes you happy.’

Charles drops the chocolates into the cart, and rushes to peck Erik once on the cheek. ‘Thank you, my love.’ he beams giddily, flooding Erik’s mind with waves of affection. ‘They do make me happy. And so do you.’

With that, Charles wanders off to the next aisle, no doubt to drag in another load of chocolates for the whole house while Erik stays rooted to the spot, a small smile fighting its way onto his face.

And that smile increases by folds when back at the mansion, Charles pulls him in with sticky hands and kisses him with chocolate smeared lips.

#cherik #cherik fic #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #headcanons #cherik headcanons #charles making erik happy or bringing him peace is my jam #and vice versa #jjcherik

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ugly-sugar-fruit · 5 years

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Ok, so headcanon.

After whatever the hell happens in Dark Phoenix, Peter Maximoff --who is very much alive, thank you very much,-- decides to have a try of a normal life.

Some years later Peter is working as an architect on a restoration project of old libraries in Central Europe; and in Sokovia, their last project, Peter meets a girl in a bar.

Her name is Suzanna and she has long curly hair, a dark shade of strawberry blonde.

She witty, intelligent, impressive.

She's a scientist, she tells him and laughs at his cheesy joke.

She asks what brings him to Europe; "self-discovery" - Peter answers - "both of my parents are from here."

They bond over growing up in a country that their parents fled to, Suzanna's mother was a Polish Romani like Peter's, they talked until the bar closed, and Suzanna offered to show him 'Sokovia's greatest treasure'.

She took him to a church in the centre of Novi Grad, that had long been burned down.

"My mother and father stayed here, during the war" She told him.

Sokovia, in the 1940s, had been a small, densely populated country, its Western side was separated from Slovakia by its river and its Eastern side separated from the Czech Republic by its mountain, it's capital, Novi Grad was its only major city.

At the start of spring 1941, it had the same sized population as Luxembourg, by the time the spring of 1995 rolled around, Sokovia's population had tripled.

Between the river and the mountain, over 120,000 refugees hid from the Nazi rule.

"They housed a thousand here " Suzanna explains "Sokovia embraced it's refugees and protected them from the Nazis and their allies, in 1994 they stormed the city and burned this church down.

That is Sokovia, unbent under tyranny, we opened our arms to those poor souls that fled concentration camps and protected them as a country should protect its own.

It's nice, that you worked to restore our central library. But if you really wanted to restore something of importance for Sokovia, you should have started here"

Peter was supposed to stay in Novi Grad for half a year.

He ended up staying for five years.

He restored Sokovia's church and as the candles lit the altar, he asked Suzanna on a date.

He met Suzanna's parents after months of dating, her mother was brash and spoke Polish without the secrecy Peter's mother had, and her father called him Russian endearments.

Dates turned, into long cuddle sessions, that turned into them moving in together and painting their walls yellow.

One day he woke up with long curly hair on his face, and as the world moved in its agonising slow pace, for the first time he didn't mind, he counted Suzanna's eyelashes, again and again, and again, and he realised he was in love.

He proposed in winter, in the spring, after the wedding, they moved to the countryside.

Suzanna planted an apple tree into their garden. She tended to the tree, with devotion, and when the apples grew, she made them into a pie, and jam and anything she could think of.

When the twins were born, first Pietro and twelve minutes later Wanda, for the first time in a long time, Peter considered finding Erik.

The twins inherited Peter's endless energy, luckily for their mother, their father had the speed to match them.

One day Peter considered his life; his wife was smart and pretty and fierce, and she always wore summer clothes, even in the winter, she lived with endless amounts of patience for her husband and equally endless gentleness for their children.

Their house was old and littered with drawing done by the twins, and old cheap furniture they bought when they first moved in, the scrapes on the floors and walls that came from three energy-filled joy pills living in the same house and all of it coming together as a mark that proved this house, had become their home.

And Pietro and Wanda were the lights of his life, every day Peter fell more in love with his children, every day he feared losing them more.

That day Peter called Charles, he didn't tell him where he was, but he told him about Suzanna and Pietro and Wanda, apple pies and tiny hands and how the world moved at the perfect pace.

Charles said he was happy for Peter, he sounded like he was crying.

Wanda and Pietro turned eight, and Kamil Novoty rose to power.

Sokovia's freedom was threatened and the people rose to arms.

In the following years, Sokovia was torn apart by the fighting between the corrupt government and the citizens, and amongst it all, half of Peter's home was burned to the ground.

A year after they moved to the capital, they had settled into their apartment building well, and despite the growing revolution in the streets, their family continued living, peacefully, together.

Then Peter got shot in the foot, during a riot in the marketplace.

Suzanna fretted over him for weeks, and Pietro followed him with a blanket that he threw over his father at every opportunity.

One afternoon, Suzanna was making apple soup to cheer Peter up, and directed the twins in chopping vegetables for the beef stew.

They settled around the table, eating and laughing, like they did every day, happy though not necessarily safe, a loving family.

Having dinner, just the four of them.

(Peter considered telling Charles where they were, Peter considered finally contacting his father)

The first shell hits, and it makes a hole in the floor, everything happens so slow, for Peter, but his leg is useless and he can't move fast enough, can't do anything.

His mind processes everything at super speed.

The tears of fright that roll down his children's eyes, so so slowly, Peter's wife gasps as the floor cracks underneath them, so so slowly, Suzanna grabs his hand, her hand is so so soft, it has tended to him and their children so so warmly.

Peter holds his wife's hand and looks at his crying children, the hole widens and they go in.

Years later, the Avengers, the X-men and the Brotherhood of Mutants collaborate in defeating some aliens trying to invade earth, that had also kidnapped a bunch of mutant children for a zoo.

In the quiet after the battle, Wanda Maximoff sits down next to Charles Xavier and Magneto and tells them who her father was.

She lets Charles hug her, and tells him that her father spoke fondly of him, and then turns to Magneto and says the same.

She speaks of her mother, and the apple tree she tended to and their first home that was peaceful and burned down.

She speaks of her father and how he worked on several projects at a time, always filled with boundless energy and good-humour, and how he blasted rock music at full volume and always managed to convince their mother to dance with him.

She speaks of Pietro, and the protests and Hydra.

She speaks of Ultron.

And Charles recognizes the pain and rage and grief that sings in her mind, so similar to what he first glimpsed once, long ago; underwater, trying to stop a submarine.

The Professor cries, for another student and friend lost, for another child he had failed to protect, for the young woman that had felt such pain.

And then Wanda turns to Magneto, and using hushed German, tells her father's secret to Erik Lehnsherr.

And Erik cries, for another one of his children that he has lost.

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