Chapter Text
0
In the end, it’s metal. It always is, in Erik’s fantasies.
Klaus Schmidt and the coin ought to have taught them that. Everyone, mutant and human alike, ought to have realised that Magneto is a different breed, altogether. He, Charles, ought to have taken that lesson to heart when he had the chance. In his worst moments, he likes to believe that had he remembered that one irrevocable thing about Erik, he would never have traded himself in to the man. He’d have been sent, perhaps, to a prison camp along with other human sympathisers, suffering and atoning for whatever affinity they’d shown towards peaceful coexistence. But he wouldn’t have been locked up in his own apartment with Erik’s obsession and miserable want.
And surely, Charles wouldn’t have ended up here: tightening his fingers around the cast-iron railings of some dark, nondescript balcony, staring out at an empty platform. Two hours ago, he had no other prospects than colouring with Jean and Ororo. That, and occasionally wondering where Erik had disappeared to for the best part of a week, leaving behind Betsey Braddock to act as jailor in his stead. It seems like he’s about to get his answer.
[ “Do you think he knows that we’re spying on him?” Charles asks Braddock one long, cold afternoon. “Maybe he’s gathering evidence on us.”
“Evidence?” Braddock laughs, unpleasantly. “Over the last half year, has he struck you as the kind of person who bides their time to strike? If either of us were under suspicion, we’d be in interrogations rooms, screaming for mercy by now.” ]
Charles leans on the railings, and looks nervously around for any clue as to where he is. Azazael had conveniently neglected to mention the name of the destination, or why Charles’s immediate presence was necessary there. He’d zapped into the middle of the living room with the stolid proclamation: “You have ten minutes to get dressed. Magneto wants you. Braddock will stay with the children.” And, voila, here he is, apparently where Erik wants him.
Below him, on the sprawling grounds, there are many cameras and anxious reporters lined up. With the platform in the middle, it’s beginning to resemble an ominous, secretive press conference. Charles just can’t figure out what he’s doing there — with all that treachery of spying for Mystique and plotting against the First Mutant Regime so fresh in his head, it’s difficult not to fall into a loop of heknows-heknows-run-run-run.
The door to the balcony opens in a huff.
“Xavier…” Angel Salvatore acknowledges, stepping lithely forward. “You know who I am. Erik tells me you’re not onboard with tonight’s programme. He sent me over to break it to you gently.”
There is drawling mockery in her tone. Clearly, this is a task beneath her, apprising Charles of whatever spectacle Erik has planned. Now this is definitely cause for concern because Erik does not do less than apocalyptic.
Angel heads languidly over to the other end of the balcony, her ragged wings glimmering. From there, she regards him with a flatness that one usually reserves for insects climbing on walls, or for little children who cannot follow instructions: “I always wonder about you. You would’ve been so useful if you hadn’t forced us to take your telepathy away. Think about it, Xavier, you wouldn’t have had to stand there hoping for someone to tell you. You’d have just known. That’s demeaning, isn’t it? Don’t answer. I expect it would be demeaning to answer that in the first place.”
“Why does Erik want me here?” Charles asks in a voice that is decidedly not his own. He will not think about his telepathy. He will not think about things that were taken away. Focus on the dangerous, grievous now.
“Why, indeed?” Angel mouths in a soft, whistling tone. “Probably because you’re a powerless little human sympathiser and he wants you to know what’s going to happen to humans in a mutant world.”
“What?” Charles is breathless, all of a sudden, with paranoia. This is going nowhere, chiefly because Angel has decided that she will not help. That jibe about humans in a mutant world, though, has him alarmed all over again. There has never been a moment’s doubt about Erik’s philosophy on human-mutant relations. Has he finally made a call on exactly what to do with all the humans under his reign?
Downstairs, there is a sudden whirl of activity. Lights come on, cameras roll, reporters check their hair and makeup, and an ungodly murmur rises up. And Erik — cape, helmet, insanity, and all — strides out. A retinue of FMR soldiers march by his side. Like clockwork, the recording lights on the camera begin to blink silently. The show is on.
“Welcome.” Erik is grave, a light winter breeze lifting his cape. He goes up on the platform. “Each and everyone of you who heeded my call and came out here at so short a notice will be wondering why you’re at the Pentagon so late at night. You are here to bear testimony to justice…the time for war is past, now we’ll have wrongs righted. An end to the blood letting and death that was imposed on our mutant brothers and sisters, and children…”
For the duration of that pause, the world hangs in balance. Charles does not move even though every fibre of being, every bit of reason, is asking him to bolt. Then, Emma Frost leads a beleaguered, empty-eyed Bolivar Trask forward. Erik sweeps him onto the platform with a powerful pull on the metal shackles that bind him. He lands on his face with a sore thud, his face reddening and wrinkling in fear, but without a single sound eked out of him.
Charles feels that familiar twist in the gut. Death, he’s going to witness death.
Right behind Trask, Frost climbs the steps to the platform with great grace and comes to a stop beside Erik. She speaks without strain, hiding the mental effort of clamping shut the lips of a man who faces certain violent annihilation: “Bolivar Trask, ex-general of the Human Militia, three years ago, you sparked a genocide against mutantkind, calling for the extermination of our brethren across the globe. Tonight, we’ve emerge from the dark age you thrust us into. For your unspeakable crimes against mutants, we, the First Mutant Regime, sentence you to death.”
There is no clue of what is to come when Erik steps forward under the arc lights. Just him and Trask locked onto each other as though by a thread, just seeing each other. And Charles watching them with bated breath. A chill, maybe snow dust, runs down his spine. He very nearly forgets that he is in Angel’s company until she fumes out aloud: “Just die already, you miserable piece of trash.”
It’s from that impatience that the first signs of Trask’s impending doom surfaces. A small, trickle of blood from the nose, a bizarre twitch of the head, a long, pained gasp. Is Angel smiling? Charles has no power left to discern anything. A fine, pink mist covers Trask, leaving dark specks on his military uniform. If he could, if Frost would rescind her control, Charles has no doubt that the man would scream for all he’s worth. The thought alone is enough to sicken.
“Don’t faint on me, Xavier.” Angel mutters out of the corner of her mouth. “Erik’s not going to be pleased if his darling Charles can’t sit through a little execution. I don’t want to snitch and all, but you don’t want him to think your sympathies are still with the wrong side, do you?”
[ “My neighbours are good people, Erik. They don’t deserve to be evicted just because they’re human. Where would they go? The camps?” Charles tightens his grip on Erik’s arms. “I’m begging you…”
“Doesn’t it keep you up at night, Charles, the thought that humans could come for you and yours?” Erik’s fingers are warm and caressing across Charles’s hair. “They would tear you into two, limb from limb just for being what you are…your mercy is what allows your killers to live and fight another day.” ]
Pure, molten anger punctuates Erik’s words, he throws his arm out towards Trask: “I want the world to know, always remember, teach your children, there are atomic scraps of metal in your neanderthal blood. When I call, those little bits of iron are going to cut through tissue and bone, and come right to me.”
Who knew, who even guessed, that death could come from so deep within? Trask begins to keen, low and infernal, as the trace-iron rips out of his flesh in minuscule red bubbles. Trust Erik to do this right: to map every screaming nerve, deny the comfort of a coma, pull him savagely away from a quick death.
“I don’t peg you for a good gambler, Xavier. But how long now, do you think?” Angel simpers, beginning a game at Charles’s expense. “Seconds, a minute?”
Charles says nothing as the first, deep pocket of red erupts over Trask’s chest. This is a game that he is meant to lose. Like all those other games that he’s been roped into since Erik laid his eyes on him all those months ago. Nothing stopping Erik from switching him out for Trask once he tires of games; nothing except a curious, singular desire.
[ “I’ll come for you, Charles.” Raven promises, looking so very trite in the guise of the store attendant she wears. “You’re as safe as you’ll ever be, right now. Erik is blinded by you. Obsessed. Hang in there, keep him occupied. The moment I can find a safe passage for you…”
Charles hands her the rolled up copies of classified documents that Erik left behind in their apartment. He keeps his fingers crossed. ]
At 10.05 pm, just as a hint of snowfall begins, Erik closes his hand into a tight fist. Trask keels over, and lies there shuddering for a second, and finally goes still. In the snap of silence that follows, someone throws up, someone else sobs. Erik thunders: “Stand in our way, and meet Trask’s fate.”
There is a second, more frantic rumble of activity. Angel is unhappy, in the end, that Charles has been so boring. She holds the door open sullenly, waving for him to follow her into the warm, neutral room on the other side. She adds, a little salty: “Make yourself at home. Erik’ll get around to you when he can.”
Charles begins to speak but gives up almost immediately. A thrum of magnetism is rising in his wristwatch, tingling over his skin in even strokes. Erik knows exactly where he is. Perhaps, he should use this time to dwell on the composition of his own blood, and on metals that are always his undoing.
i
The first rule of an insurrection, Raven Darkholme ought to have taught Charles, is to never cry the enemy’s name, muffled, into pillows. The only thing keeping Charles from falling apart, atom to atom, is Erik’s intimate, possessive weight.
“I’ve missed this…” Erik grits out between his teeth, so quietly that Charles who’s doubled over, grunting, and anxious could easily have not heard it. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you…”
It would be far from true to say that Charles hadn’t thought about Erik in the five odd days that he was away; he and Betsey Braddock had ransacked every FMR file, every spare bit of official scrap that Erik had left in the apartment, trying to figure out what was keeping him busy. Anything that would aid Raven. And in the end…Charles flounders for words: “Why…why’d you…”
“Because you’re you, Charles.” Erik mutters smoothly, as though a vague paean to love is enough to undo the power he wields and abuses so abundantly. It’s still a wrong answer to the wrong question.
“No…why’d you take me there?” Charles gasps out, gripping Erik’s hand unusually tight. He doesn’t like the sudden lightheadedness that assails him, and does not want to fall back, pliable, usable, into bed. At least this way, he’s somewhat steady.
“You’re upset about Trask.” Erik states, sobered, with some manner of accusation playing out in his tone. “Let’s exchange our customary peeves and move on, shall we, love? I rid the world of one human scum and you weep for him. All’s balanced and equal, hmm?”
“It’s not about—it can’t be that simple…” Charles lines up against Erik and screws his eyes shut. Perhaps the conversation is only, thoroughly making matters worse. The best course of action would be to ride this out and sleep like the dead later on. Or preferably, play dead through this.
“It isn’t?” Erik takes up the sudden silence, kissing Charles’s shoulders. “Do I have your blessings, then?”
“You won.” Charles whispers. “My blessings don’t matter.”
Erik must take that for a concession of defeat. He rearranges both of them, Charles obeying shamelessly, to lie side-by-side, face-to-face. Now staring back at Erik’s long gaze, it’s easy to see what makes his life so precarious, and his spy-work so difficult and incomplete. His features must transform because Erik, deep in the dark, takes note.
“It’s alright to be angry with me, darling…” Erik smirks. “I wanted you there by my side, and you would never have come down to the Pentagon willingly. Not if you knew what was going to happen. I thought about telling you once Emma and I decided on the…details. But it would’ve been turbulent, for lack of a better word. We would have gone back and forth for days…and I must admit, I’m jonesing for a little bit of peace in our lives.”
“How very mindful, Erik.” Charles is way too depleted to pack any meaningful spite in his reply. “Has it occurred to you that there are less manipulative ways around a fight?”
“Knowing you, I find that highly doubtful.” Erik eerily follows Charles’s lips as though to catch a lie there. “Are you saying that there’s some world in which you would’ve stepped out onto that balcony willingly without a drop of moral outrage, and without a gazillion private battles with me?”
Charles knows the answer to this one, but he’s fresh out of fight. Any moment now, Erik is bound to remember the other, less than philosophical avenue that he left off for the sake of this discussion. So he takes a deep, incoherent breath, and buries his face in the bed, inches away from Erik’s arm.
“So, no.” Erik sounds ever so slightly broken. As if he understands the word at all.
“Erik…” Charles says the name devoutly, and is rewarded with unbroken heedfulness. “He deserved to die…for all the damage and bigotry he spread. It’s not as simple as taking the high ground, now. But his, his death…I…”
“I know what you wanted.” Erik says in a chillingly soft voice. “A polite hanging, somewhere offstage, and an abstract executioner. The opposite of witnessing history firsthand, I suppose.”
“Oh Erik, I’m not made to-” Charles lets desolation cloud his eyes over, and spill. He stops and adds cryptically. “History’s been plotting against me for a while now. First the war, then, all of this…”
Erik leans in and plants a chaste, tender kiss on Charles’s forehead: “It’s quite heady when the tides turn in our favour. For once, we’re not at the receiving end of history, Charles. You and me, and millions of our people…I made sure of that. That’s what I made you a part of. You and I, we’re…I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Charles stays silent and prays that the light in Erik’s eyes is not love.
ii
The winter sun is blunt, peeking in through the apartment window, and right onto Erik’s irritated eyes. He’s aged in soul; that realisation arrived over the course of eight, quick but heavily contested games of hide-and-go-seek between Ororo and Jean. Now he rues having agreed to babysit, the wiser option would have been to dump the duty on Braddock and accompany Charles to the supermarket. But he’s utterly tired, pulling trace-metal out of a neanderthal is no mean feat. And the alternative — Braddock going on her own — would have been laughable. Charles, having been cooped up in here for the last week, would have wrought a war.
So, this is it. Ruler of the free mutant states. From the corner of his eyes, he can see Ororo slinking behind Charles’s coat rack. It’s hard to miss the shiny, red dome of his helmet atop her plumes of white hair.
“That’s not a toy.” Erik notes, sardonically. “And it’s not exactly going to help you blend into your hiding place.”
Ororo turns her head in measured degrees, careful not to send the helmet toppling off. She speaks in a low, cautious voice, throwing suspicious glances all around: “…she can’t cheat now…”
Erik sighs. He knows how this is going to go. The one time he playfully placed the helmet on Charles’s head, Jean had burst into terrified sobs. Apparently, telepaths don’t do well without memories, and thoughts, and living minds. It took him a long while to take his attention off C. Xavier’s fate.
“Ororo…you know how it freaks Jean out…” Erik isn’t an idiot. Jean might be temperamental, but Ororo is the undisputed queen of tantrums. This takes the sort of tack that comes naturally to Charles, and only to Charles. “Wouldn’t it be best if everyone could be happy?”
“I’m happy.” Ororo smiles, hugging the especially ugly brown trench coat that Charles loves.
“Okay.” Erik smiles back, slightly strained. “That’s good. Now let’s find Jean and make sure that she’s-“
“No.” Ororo crosses her arms, indignant at what’s being suggested. “She’s got to give up looking…she’s got to say it…”
What would Charles do? Probably pull out a great line about kindness, and instantly win his case. Erik wouldn’t bank on kindness for two pfennings. He knows better: “Listen, that’s my helmet and I’d like it back.”
“I’m borrowing it right now…” Ororo quarrels, her eyes brightening with tears.
“Alright, alright…” Erik puts his arms up, heading towards the girls’ room where he knows Jean probably is. “But you’re giving it back at the end of this game. Not a second more.”
Behind him, he can hear a disgruntled Ororo groan. No point in pushing the issue any further. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Now Jean, Jean who is always and forever in Charles’s corner, is a different animal altogether. On indifferent days, she tolerates him, putting up a sly wall of silence and clinging to Charles as though her life depends on it. Her bad days are bad, she picks up and radiates Charles’s fear and crossness with intensity. As it is, Erik has been on the receiving end of a few rare good days. He remembers giggling banter, and a couple of colouring-book sessions, and one visit to a nearby park. This is far from any of those.
“Jean…” Erik calls tenderly, pushing the door open and stopping at the jamb.
In the middle of the room, twisting the hem of her dress in her fists, Jean, alone and tearful, looks like a spooked bird. She stares intently at Erik’s knees.
“Hey…” Erik haunches down, gently meeting Jean’s eyes. “Everything’s alright…”
Jean walks quietly into Erik’s arms, resting her face in his shoulders, leaving a wet spot on the fabric of his shirt: “I…I lost…Ororo…”
Damn that infernal helmet — how a distraught child eviscerates priorities — Erik’d have been well-advised to hide it or lock it away anyway. And on that subject, what fun it’ll be to explain to Charles why Jean is inconsolable. It’ll almost certainly be as terrible as the time he revealed his plan to evict everyone else in the apartment building because they’re humans. Six months on, Charles and the children have taken to visiting random apartments on walking tours, coming away with abandoned possessions. Not that he’s ever received anything but moral outrage. This, because of the actual tears involved, is gearing up to be messier.
“Darling, she’s outside. She’s got the red helmet on.” Erik soothes. “Doesn’t mean that she’s disappeared. Remember the time Charles wore it…That’s all it is…”
“…where?” Jean asks, hiccoughing, and unsure. “Where is she?”
Erik smiles warmly, pushing back the disheveled red hair off Jean’s face: “If I tell you, it’s going to be our secret. You can’t tell anyone that I gave away the hiding place. That would be cheating…”
“Okay…” Jean nods her head eagerly, relief flushing her face.
“Take a slow walk into the kitchen. Go open a couple of cupboards. Count to fifty. Then go near the coat rack, and count to ten in your head…and pull down the long brown coat on the left…” Erik instructs in a hushed tone, finishing with a wink. “Then, you come back here, and we’ll all get some hot chocolate and cookies before Charles gets here…and that’s definitely top secret…”
Jean wordlessly slides out of Erik’s hands, and rushes into the other room. So much for gratitude, and so much for Charles’s rule on too-much-sugar before lunch.
iii
“Do you think something’s wro—“ Charles asks in a flat whisper, leaning on the cold handles of his shopping cart, only to break off mid-sentence as Braddock emphatically crumbles a pack of cigarettes in her fist.
“Yes. Yes, I fucking do.” Braddock hisses, low and menacing. “Don’t you get it? Something’s always wrong with our lovely little production…Maybe, my messenger didn’t make it. Maybe, right now, they’re yelling our names to the FMR in exchange for an easy death…Maybe, your lover’s already sharpening a coin for you…”
Any other time, and Charles would have given into his wound-up, screeching nerves, and snapped straight back at Braddock. But this day, of all days, is quite whittled down by anxiety; he isn’t going to allow other cruelties to lay him lower: “…Stop it…”
The cold smirk on Braddock’s face tells Charles how badly he has miscalculated. She comes closer, her voice dropping freely, between rows of cereals: “ Or maybe, just maybe, our lady of Boston’s not coming…why would anybody risk their backs for a poor investment? Hmm? You sleep in the same bed as Mr. Magnetism and you still didn’t have a fucking clue about his plans for the general…some spy resource you are…”
“Are you done?” Charles asks, his lips trembling.
Braddock rocks back, and smiles unpleasantly: “Strangely enough, I think so.”
“I don’t think Rav-she’s coming…” Charles sighs, pushing his bizarre bevy of goods forward. “It’s been an hour. Erik’s going to wonder.”
“Kiwi fruits, batteries, stationery, and wool?…” Braddock rifles through Charles’s cart, and frowns. “It’d be a miracle if he doesn’t wonder. You need to stock up on alibis. That entire section over there is on sale…go buy random things. I’m going to load up on grocery and vegetables. At the very least, let’s not look like we’ve been hectically planning treason.”
Charles shrugs, and watches Braddock head down the aisle as it eerily stretches on. It’s fairly easy to feel forsaken twice-fold. Biting down on his despair, he calls after her in a shaky voice: “Did you tell her exactly what I told you to?”
Braddock does not even spare a backward glance.
iv
Erik is content to stretch out on the floor, cobbling together a crane out of Charles’s paper clips; he really shouldn’t miss a few, seeing as to how every shopping trip seems to bring in fresh supply. Occasionally, he lets his crane hover near Charles, swooping in and out of the air, cutting across the news broadcast that he is rooted to.
Not that Charles is impressed by Erik’s late-evening antics. Once or twice, his fingers twitch in irritation as though he might swat the crane to death. Instead, he sinks even more determinedly into the armchair, honing in to listen to a sage, white-haired reporter.
“…Midday clash in front of the supreme court where, for the fourth consecutive day, hundreds of human protestors gathered to demonstrate against Trask’s execution.” The report rolls soberly on. “Eyewitnesses say the march was mostly peaceful until late in the morning when a group of Militia sympathizers started to advance aggressively at the riot police. Ten of the instigators have been taken into custody and are currently being interrogated, according to our sources. Official counts say fifteen FMR soldiers as well as forty civilians have sustained injuries, with a seventeen-year-old human boy reported to be suffering from several broken ribs and a punctured lung…”
Erik hears a ring of dissatisfaction in the sigh that escapes Charles.
“Nothing’s right with the world, I know, love...” Erik answers indulgently.
Charles wordlessly looks over, taking in every bit of him. In between, Erik counts out the number of times his eyes dart to the crane, zooming in and out. He half-laughs, bringing the crane to a pause at the tip of his fingers: “Would you rather I didn’t maim your stationery?”
“Oh no, by all means, I live for it.” Charles answers with impish precision; Erik has seen Ororo settle into this same impunity at the fighting end of arguments. He has seen the same, wily haughtiness in Jean’s silences. They learn from the master, of course.
Before Erik can channel his quiet amusement into a reply, Charles trains his attention back to the news.
“In related news, the UN has expressed its disappointment with the FMR’s unwillingness to engage in diplomatic talks…” The reporter sounds perfectly disdained. “The organization, while continuing to strongly condemn Trask’s public execution as archaic and cruel, has said that it will not retaliate in kind or co-ordinate a military response. A UN spokesperson confirms that it will not endorse any action that might escalate conflict in the region.”
“We continue to hope that Magneto and the FMR will come in for talks.” A young woman blinks into the camera. “The coup has run its course and now, peace is on everyone’s agenda. Which is why we offer once again to moderate a treaty between all parties…”
“They’re offering a treaty again…” Charles leans urgently into Erik’s field of vision. “Are you listening?”
“I listened to them call us a coup.” Erik is sure to keep the sharpness out of his commentary, settling instead for flattening his crane out.
If Charles notices the mutilation, he gives away no sign. He falls haphazardly back into the armchair as though his bones have no will left: “You are a coup.”
“We’re a victorious coup, Charles,” Erik savours a second of reflection, using the time to shut the TV off.
A certain frailty seems to invade Charles’s body: “Says the mutant dictator about his war against humans…What you are is a foreign power. Don’t you know enough of history to be afraid?”
Erik smiles earnestly, the paperclips twisting in a small orbit above him: “No more afraid than I am of cutting a deal with a desperate agency helmed by humans. You think they’ll offer us anything but amnesty and a deserted island somewhere in the pacific?”
Charles is inert like a rag-doll, uneasy as he speaks: “What if that is the only way to end all this bloodshed?”
Erik wets his lips, sitting up and facing Charles: “There is so much more at stake than a few lives. Surely, you see this. Where was this international concern for violence when it was mutants being killed for sport in the streets? Now, they’re at the ends of their own morality. Do they drop their nuclear weapons on us or not, do they use their chemicals or not? This treaty is their way of wriggling out of guilt. Somewhere, Charles, governments are already readying themselves to turn on their own countries. It’s simple, really. Burn us out of existence, mourn the collateral, and build a new empire.”
“God, Erik, that’s…you can make sure none of that happens…” Charles scampers down to where Erik is. “You can stop this in its tracks.”
“No, I can’t, darling.” Erik says pityingly, as he lets his hand wander and rest on Charles’s ankle. He pretends not to feel a small quiver break out under his touch. “Only they can, and that’s our bargaining chip. We’ll be the violent usurpers and they get to play the benevolent peace-makers.”
“That’s the world you’re gambling with…” Charles says, whisking himself away from Erik in a single fluidic motion. “You can’t always put things back the way you want to.”
Erik forgets to pick up his paperclips.
v
What little solitude Charles can finally claim to be his, always arrives on those afternoons when Ororo dozes off. Erik, left to his own devices, is surprisingly good with Jean. They sit cross-legged across each other, trying their hand at a particularly hard jigsaw puzzle.
“This is ridiculous…” Erik grouses, staring suspiciously at a weirdly shaped piece. “I’ve won wars, this shouldn’t be so hard.”
Jean giggles, her aura of contentment settling all around Charles’s mind. Of course, he wisely does not comment. Silently, he picks up books he’s done reading, carefully packing them into a musty old box. He makes it as far as the front door, the box huddled in front, before Erik cottons on.
“You need any help with that?” Erik asks off-hand, looking up from the puzzle for a moment.
Charles isn’t fooled; that’s a pertinent question – where are you going?
“No, thank you.” Politeness never killed anyone in Charles’s situation. “I’m just headed off to 1D to dump these…and get new ones. Better go now before Ororo wakes up and disagrees.”
“Right you are…” Erik nods after the consideration of a briefest second. There is every indication that this is a terse allowance than an oversight. “Hurry on back up. It looks like Jean and I’ll need all the help we can get.”
A relieved Charles practically sprints down to 1D where he has, over time, discovered tawdry leopard print curtains, unfortunate furniture, and an extensive collection of epics and classics. He might be persuaded to forgive the deluded décor just for the sheer hours of boredom salvaged by the books.
The box of books fits under a corner niche, Charles discovers, and is pleased to leave it there.
“Rest in peace.” Charles wishes out aloud, kicking the box perfectly out of sight.
He goes over to the bookshelf, alphabetised, and numbered to meet someone else’s exacting standards. A lavish line of book covers peek out at him. He runs his hand along their spines, thinking reverently of the motley old woman who lived there. An emerald green cover stashed away in the back of the shelf strikes his fancy. It comes loose with a puff of dust, and a yellowing photograph falls from between its pages.
A sturdy boy, dressed to the tee in Militia regalia, fills the square frame. He gleefully holds up a scaly green hand, artlessly severed at the wrist and splashed in blood. At the bottom, a lean, cursive script lovingly reads: We’re winning, Nana. No more freaks.
Charles out-waits the pummelling of his heart and the lingering bite of bile in his mouth. With shaking hands, he slips the photo back among the pages of the book, and jams it violently into its old place. It looks back at him, strangely innocuous to the eye now.
He makes his way back to 3A, one unsteady stair at a time, and glues on a smile as he steals inside.
vi
The last thing Erik expects to find in the living room is a plume of smoke, the acrid scent of sulphur, and an exceedingly harried Azazael in the middle of it all. Yet, that is exactly what he finds. And he has to pause with a forkful of noodles in his mouth to take it all in. Charles, seated beside him at the kitchen counter, appears fascinated with the proceedings, carefully watching the man step closer to them. There’s something about former researchers and teleportation.
“I bring truths from the other world, my friend.” Azazael smirks. “The one that is without your choice of vices…”
This is accompanied by a strange, pointed look in Charles’s direction, balmy enough to make him squirm and drop his fork. The implications are definitely not apt for dinner-time, Erik agrees.
“I’ve barely been away a week. Surely, the other world is still turning in the solar system…” Erik asks, consoling Charles with a gingerly hand on his back. “Admit it, you just miss me out there.”
“Oh, but I’m not the one who misses you.” Azazael drawls, swinging an ornate little bag from his tail. “A little gift, courtesy the winged one…”
It’s quite some act, Azazael’s tail gracefully loping Angel’s gift forward, arcing just there so that the bag lands perfectly in Erik’s waiting hands. It has the elegant weight and bulk of glass, and the unusual blankness of no metal. Erik wonders if Charles is curious at all.
“Received with gratitude.” Erik says, toying with the idea of opening it then and there, with a rapt Charles in tow.
“Emma wants me to let you know that when you come back from your honeymoon – her word, not mine – there are some things that need taking care of…” Azazael continues, losing a little of his earlier playfulness. “Our Boston trip is going well, but everything’s not coming along as fast as expected. Not bad enough to need you to lead the hike, but she needs you to be mindful of that situation for the future. Also our cadets discovered an active militia laboratory down at Alkali lake. There’s a small pocket of rebels holed up there. Emma wants to take Le Beau and Creed, and their teams to flush them out. The site looks awfully cosy, though.”
“Keep watch over the next couple of days. Get numbers, see what ammo they have. Tuesday’s a new moon night, isn’t it? Get Hank to take out their communications and power…” Erik drums his fingers on the counter. It takes a lot of discipline not to sneak a quick look at Charles’s face right, no doubt, turning sallow and fearful. “In the meantime, I bet there’s a POW out there with intel on Alkali lake…I don’t need to tell you how to pump anyone for information.”
Azazael, however, has no such qualms. He smiles a little too widely at Charles: “Aah, Mr. Xavier is thanking the stars that the little ones are out of earshot.”
“That’s all well…” Erik glances sidelong at Charles, lingering on the dazed sadness in his eyes. “It’s about time Mr. Xavier acknowledges the things that keep the other world running.”
Charles leans back, his voluminous silence overtaking anything else Erik might have said. He laces his fingers together and stares at the food before him, at the pretty bag that Angel sent, anywhere but at Erik or Azazael.
“As entertaining as this is…” Azazael laughs, bringing Erik’s attention back to him. “I have other places to be. And for your sake, Erik, I hope there is enough wine in the house to get dear Xavier drunk enough to forget this conversation.”
When everything settles again, whatever little camaraderie had been struck up over hours of failing to solve a jigsaw puzzle is lost.
vii
Charles is obscenely breathless, tucked underneath Erik who gives no inkling of wanting to let him go. It takes a vague protest, a little whimper, before he rolls off Charles with a last, warm kiss to his forehead. A blanket is carefully plied over him, the hem pulled right up to his jaw and nipped lightly around him, just the way he likes it. The work, then, of a man who observes these little things.
“Erik…” Charles begins cautiously.
“Don’t.” Erik warns in a low growl. “None of that is up for discussion.”
Charles feels his face crumple and another small kiss being pressed to his jaw.
“Don’t you want to know what Angel gave me?” Erik asks with soft relish.
“I don’t care. She can give you whatever the hell she wants.” Charles says, most of his words made blurry by tears.
“A cologne…” Erik answers anyway, wiping away the wetness from Charles’s face with the edge of his blanket. “Oak and noir…whatever that is…”
Charles pushes Erik’s hand away, swiping away large trails of tears on the back of his own hand. Very little good comes of it, of course, as Erik settles in close, fingers loosely carding through Charles’s hair.
“Oak and noir sounds terrible…” Charles says pettily when he catches his composure again.
“Don’t like it, darling?” Erik replies in a tone heavy with sleep. “Then it’ll have to go.”
With the last of his waking consciousness, Charles notes that Erik sounds genuinely sorry that oak and noir is not here for the long haul, and then reminds himself briefly that the man in his bed casually ordered the torture of POWs.
viii
The streets are badly snow-strewn. So Erik’s ratty old parka doesn’t feel terribly out of place. Its fur-lined hood, dotted with flakes, makes for a sloppy disguise out there on the roads. At least, the rest of the world’s busy enough with the worsening snow storm and with their own lives to pay him a second look.
Behind him, Charles drags his feet down the last stairwell. He makes quite a show of wrapping a scarf over the many layers of clothing that he is already draped in, a navy blue jacket on top of a sweater that is now two sizes too large for him. Erik does not like how hard it is becoming for Charles to keep meat on his bones.
“Hurry up, Charles.” Erik calls impatiently, jiggling the keys and coins in his pocket. “If we rush, we’ll make the supermarket before it really starts to come down.”
“Help a guy out on his luck?” A behemoth of a man sticks his head out from the stoop near their building. He clutches a knapsack close to his chest.
Erik fishes out two yellowing bills, holding them up by the tips of his gloved fingers.
“Much appreciated…” The man croaks, reaching out to take the money and then quickly settling his bulk back inside the small shelter.
“There’s a government home two blocks down.” Charles chimes in, having finally made his way outside. “Last week, they were serving food two times a day. It’s on our way today. We’ll let you know if they’re still doing that.”
Erik smiles to himself; so like Charles to get involved with a stranger’s misfortune, and even more exasperatingly like him to reveal their route in the same breath. He takes extra care to make sure the front gates are well and truly locked.
“Sure…” The man seems non-pulsed by the offer of aid that is not monetary.
“Walk a little slower and we’ll be swimming in snow.” Erik gently loops an arm high over Charles’s shoulders, steering him onto the sidewalk.
“We shouldn’t be walking anywhere at all.” Charles hisses, taking unusually well to Erik’s hand around him. Perhaps the galling chill has its silver linings, after all.
“I’ve been going a little stir-crazy in there, you know…” Erik concedes, peeking at Charles’s muffled face. “You looked like you’d like a little outing as well. Plus, we are running out of paperclips.”
Charles does a small take, bizarrely caught in two minds over whether to meet Erik’s eyes or not. As a compromise, he stares floppily at Erik’s jawline before casting his gaze downwards at their boots and the snow.
“What?” Erik asks, a little engrossed by the drama. “You’re too fancy for useless stationery now?”
“I’ve got enough for now.” Charles mumbles out of the corner of his mouth. “We’ll need to restock on coffee and chocolates. And those wafers the girls love. Maybe some soup if this weather is going to hold.”
“Have you ever thought of what Ororo could do?” Erik asks out of the blue. “Maybe she could turn the day sunny, or bring back spring.”
“Erik, she has practically zero control.” Charles counters. “I’ll have you remember there’s a burnt-lighting streak running down one side of our building from when she tried to make it rain.”
“Yes, well. Accidents happen.” Erik suggests, fairly. “Haven’t we all been there?”
There is a thin, if definite, line of apprehension on Charles’s face when he gazes up at Erik: “We can hardly explain away the beginning of a new ice age, or the entire city going comatose with accidents happen.”
“That’s quite some doomsday vision you have there, love.” Erik laughs, a little taken aback, yet, tightening his grip around Charles’s shoulders ever so slightly. “But Jean and Ororo are hardly the apocalypse.”
“I know that.” Charles mutters, softly burying his gloved hand into the meat of Erik’s nearly drenched sleeve. His heartbeat flutters close by Erik’s side; a tell-tale sign of whatever Charles is grappling with in his head.
“Ask.” Erik offers, shaking his particularly mired left boot loose from thickened snow.
“What?” Charles asks, eyes widened out in surprise.
“Whatever it is, ask now.” Erik says quietly. “I don’t have to be a telepath to know there’s more on your mind.”
Charles, Erik has come to understand, is in a curious relationship with permissions. Particularly, he suspects, with permissions that are drawn from him. Typical of Charles to contemplate, distrustful by intuition, what catches are attached to his offer. Not an easy habit to break and Erik is not exactly known for his tender patience. Yet, for Charles, he’ll stoop to coax: “Go on, love. I want to know what you think. Jean and Ororo are yours, too.”
Erik reigns in a cold sigh; stupid, stupid to concede that turf, that power to Charles. It provokes nothing but more discomfort on Charles’s part, his eyes zoning out ahead.
“You don’t mean that, Erik.” Why on earth does Charles sound so wounded?
“Would you rather hold your peace forever?” Erik asks, sliding his hand down to Charles’s waist and curving it around that gaunt hipbone there. The shift is subtle, but effective as far as telegraphing intentions go; Charles has imperceptibly taken on the gait of someone treading on thin ice.
“That’s always bound to be my way out, hmm?” Charles sounds raw, chewing on his lips to emphasise the point. He looks so small against Erik’s conquering frame. “You’ve doomed me to silence in my own life. I have no say in what happens to me or mine. Now you want me to believe that what I want for Jean and Ororo matters?”
Where does Charles stow away all of this spirit, Erik wonders?
“Do you think you mean so little?” Erik stops in his tracks, ignoring the knee-deep ice and powdery snow, and turns to face Charles. “You are one half of all they have. When the world was collapsing around them, you turned a stranger’s apartment into their home. Their home, Charles. Trust me, that counts for more than anybody else can claim.”
“One half, Erik?” Charles melds their bodies closer still, and places a firm hand on Erik’s chest. “Nothing I say will count for anything ]unless I parrot exactly what you want them to hear. You’ll make sure of it. You wanted to know what I think. Very well…I don’t want Jean and Ororo brought up as soldiers. I do not want them infected with FMR’s brand of human hate. And, they will not grow up thinking that they can use their powers without consequence or with accidents happen, or whatever excuse you come up with. Now tell me I matter, darling.”
Years of tactical experience tells Erik that he ought not to give an inch – being cornered has never been particularly enjoyable for him. But this, the teasing weight of Charles’s body all along the front of his, this is far from menacing. And if he should ever choose to end this impasse, he can just slide Charles out of the way. But there is no scenario, no version of this where he would want Charles to stop touching him.
“Charles, I know when I’m being wound up and set.” Erik says, bearing down. “Jean and Ororo are homo superior, and I’ll be damned before they grow up not knowing what that truly means.”
“Call it what you like.” Charles peers helplessly up at Erik. “It’s Jean and Ororo, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them. But you already know that.”
“What are you asking of me?” Erik is suddenly aware of a cutting wind, swirling and lifting snow all around them. If Charles is also taking note of the steadily worsening blizzard, he gives no indication than to turn paler than snow.
“Follow up on your word. Let me be the other half.” Charles says with the ring of a plea somewhere in his voice. “Let them know that Mutant and proud does not have to mean ready to slaughter humans by the droves. You don’t have to teach them to be-“
“Me?” Erik completes the sentence, and it feels like a knot tightening deep in his ribs. So this is who he is to Charles Xavier – resident madman, fanatic, dealer of death. No wonder then that Charles is slinking back in his stance, leaving a warm spot on Erik’s chest where his hand was a moment ago.
When Charles speaks again, there is a small tremble about him: “Erik, there is more to you than rage and hate. I know there’s good in you. Whatever else you’ve become is destiny and circumstance. All I’m asking for is a chance for Jean and Ororo to be better.”
“Better is such a tricky word. We’re bound to have two definitions for it, us two…” Erik says, dutifully tapping snowflakes loose from their perch on Charles’s jacket.
“Hmm…” Charles huffs out a morose breath, slightly disentangling himself from Erik. “Doesn’t really matter after all then, does it?”
Erik allows Charles to lead him onwards, slogging through the worsening snow, and ignores the confusion gnawing at him. The rest of the way to the supermarket, he is distracted by the vague feeling that he’s just come out on the losing side of a long-drawn game of chess.
ix
It’s a little past 11.45 pm. Charles is curled up on the armchair, reading last year’s edition of Annals of Biology for the fifteenth time. This is silly, now: he knows exactly what Dr. Essex has to say on genetic mutations in page 34. He knows what he would say, point to point, to counter those arguments. He’d win easily too; Essex wouldn’t know what hit him. He grins at the fantasy.
“Turning out to be a beast of a storm.” Erik remarks, padding softly to the end of the sofa closest to Charles. Despite his conversational airs, he has the alertness of a man who’s foraging. Who knows what he’s looking for on a bleak, stormy night.
Charles, for his part, looks up over his journal to see the bulky green bottle of bourbon and the two glasses in Erik’s hands. He cocks his head, turning over a couple of pages, and asks: “Beastly, indeed. Are you out to get it drunk?”
“Well, not it.” Erik laughs, turning the bottle over in his palm for consideration. “Haven’t had a real sip in ages. I thought you might want to as well. That kind of a night, isn’t it?”
Charles scoffs out his skepticism — he can think of at least one burning reason not to be inebriated. Given a little more latitude and time, he could probably list many, many more grounds on which it would be suicidal for him to be less than cosmically aware at all times in Erik’s company. Never let it be said that he can’t spot a bad idea when it politely introduces itself. He shakes his head, refusing: “You’ve been deciding what kind of nights I have since the day we met. So I really wouldn’t know.”
“So you wouldn’t, darling.” Erik says playfully. Emphasis on the endearment. There’s little doubt, then, that he’s licking his wounds. Did he really think that store-bought alcohol and the storm of the decade would make a date that Charles can’t resist?
‘Enjoy your night cap.” Charles says, and dives into page 37, straight to the crux of Essex’s hypothesis. He can’t read anymore, not when he’s so distracted by the sound of glass clinking against bottle, a drink being measured and poured out. He scores over the same line, again and again, beginning to feel bad-tempered as the snow thuds into window panes.
“Charles.” Erik drops his voice to hit a tender whisper. “You’re terrified.”
“Shouldn’t I be?” Charles asks a little too quickly, a little too inflamed, as a smile queues up on Erik’s lips. Even then, it’s quite discomfiting to be the overt object of his attention. Someday, Charles will have to kick the habit of squirming his toes inside his socks.
“No.” Erik sounds cool, unfazed. No. Right.
“That works only if you know what no means, Erik.” Charles flips through his book again, pretending to lose interest, to move on. “Sadly, there isn’t one shred of proof-“
“Nothing will change if you have a drink with me.” Erik continues softly. “I’m still the terrible, awful dictator you hate, and you’re still you. You’re not agreeing to anything I believe in, or say, or do. You’re having a drink on a stormy night. No need for things to be harder than they are.”
Oh. That’s not too bizarre to imagine. For about thirty odd weeks, he’s been walking around, dreaming of a nice, smooth drink. Bourbon, even this swill, will go down with a slight, nostalgic sting. The flaw in this line of thinking is obvious, and momentous. At the other end of the tall glass of bourbon is Erik, prowling. Maybe just as lonely tonight as Charles himself is, but prowling and baiting all the same.
“I can’t.” Charles admits quietly, the words snagging on something deep in his chest. He senses that the answer is dissatisfactory, there are things that he simply cannot articulate: do we drink to your taming me, Erik?; and things that he tries so hard to bury: I’m terrified that I will get ape-shit drunk and confess all the plotting that I’ve been doing with Betsey Braddock and Mystique, to escape from you.
But Erik is nodding, small, confused gestures, Charles sighs in relief. He’s being cosseted — what exactly would he have done if Erik had ordered him to drink up?
“It’s alright, love.” Erik consoles. “We have to start somewhere, hmm? Here, have a sip and we’ll leave it at that.”
Charles watches, as if on a movie screen, Erik reaching forward with his almost full glass. Clever, clever Erik. A sip sounds doable, easy. It sounds like a way out, and the distance between his trembling fingers and the glass isn’t infinite.
“We’ll leave it at that.” Charles repeats, taking the glass, and squirming badly under Erik’s straight gaze. He wagers one final look at Erik before squeezing his eyes shut and taking a long swig. It feels like the familiar origins of a mistake. Atrocious, bitter, and comforting, all in one go.
“So what’s interesting in Annals of Biology these days?” Erik asks casually, taking the glass back without pomp or ceremony.
Charles, thankful for anything else to think about, launches into Dr. Essex and his flawed theories.
x
This is a gloomy affair. Erik always knew it would be; a skittish, suspicious Charles, two insistent children, and a low-grade headache. His breakfast, assiduously buttered toast and coffee, is churning in his stomach. Of course, the dullness shaping his thoughts is down to the alcohol in his blood. It’s bad enough that when he tries to sit up to answer Charles’s question, the movement hits his body like a brickbat. By all rights, he should say no. Instead, all he can heave out is a groan.
“Don’t you see, this’ll feel like an outing…it’s a good alternative, considering the snow’s going to last another couple of days…” Charles reasons, sitting down on the coffee table so that he’s almost level with Erik. Rare for him to want eye contact. Rarer still that he’d give up his no-man’s hours after breakfast. Isn’t this part of the day usually devoted to setting up craft projects with Ororo, playing jigsaw puzzles with Jean, taking long, indulgent showers, and rereading books for the umpteenth time, just to avoid being alone with Erik?
“You want us to take the girls and go snoop in your neighbours’ houses?” Erik paraphrases bluntly for his own glee. He’s not to be disappointed: Charles turns a delightful shade of red, possibly tripping over his own, overly blown moral compass. “Well?”
“Y-Yes.” Charles says. Has no one really told Charles that his real tell is the abrupt quirk in his accent, the small shivering that starts whenever he’s struggling inside? He looks smaller, more vulnerable asking for things, anyway.
“Yes, then.” Erik rises up gingerly, and noting for the first time that the girls have already dressed themselves in mismatched gloves and winter clothes for the trip downstairs.
xi
The homes of strangers have always been a bit of exotica for Charles. 1F, if he remembers correctly, is a heavy-set woman, middle aged and prim. This is far, far from peeking in through the sliver of an open door, or gazing uninvited through someone’s windows. In an earlier, perfect world, this’d be breaking and entering. Something to teach Jean and Ororo later; no calling to dampen their excitement now. He opens the door.
“Can we, can we?” Jean chants in a rehearsed decibel that stands universally for impatience.
“It’s like a doll’s house.” Ororo adds nimbly
Charles stares at the pastel pink wallpaper that adorns most of what he can see, considering, weighing. He’s a little awed by the shrine of collectibles and figurines, sitting in a prominent corner. Lace, ornate Neo-Victorian furniture, teapots, the works. 1F is a Jane Austen romantic. Charles asks, out of habit, peering down at the girls: “What’re the rules?”
“Lawless out here in Westchester, Xavier.” Erik says in a faux-grim voice; quite easy to erase the man when he’s been lowkey and eager to mark the end of their little train till now. The hint of mischief in his words, of course, is pointed damnably at Charles. “Go forth and pirate, ladies.”
That unfortunately is the sort of cue that children take seriously. Jean and Ororo scurry into the house, blurs of woefully paired neon colours. Trust Erik to orchestrate mayhem. Charles steps forward, feeling the plush carpeting swallow his footfalls to leave an incriminating trail behind him. He calls in a cracked, tired voice: “Careful, don’t touch anything without telling me…”
“Let them be.” Erik slides into place, close behind Charles, ensnaring him in a tight, covetous hold. “Isn’t that the whole point here?”
“No. The point is that these are still somebody else’s things.” Charles hisses, particularly upset at the ease with which he’s being plied into a more intimate grasp; Erik’s hand is starting to slip lower on his body. “You don’t let two stir-crazy kids free in an apartment full of expensive breakable things, Erik. Especially if you don’t own the damn place.”
Erik laughs, unsurprisingly dismissive of the complaint: “You’re adorable when you draw righteous lines in the sand. Admit it, Charles, you’re a natural scavenger. And right now, it suits you fine.”
“Fuck you.” Charles whispers cuttingly, disentangling himself from Erik. Distance, space to breathe and think, feels heavenly.
Erik quivers with laughter, gesturing elegantly: “After you, Captain Hook.”
Charles sinks a little into his own boots.
xii
Erik rules that Jean and Ororo can whisk away the yellow, pot-bellied toad atop 1F’s bedroom mantle. He shrugs at Charles’s dismayed frown, and ignores his portends of grief: something about teaching wrong life lessons. The only teachable thing here, Erik reckons, is the monumental knowledge that ceramic is fragile.
“So creepy…” Ororo holds the toad aloft, pointing out his leering grin. “What’s he so happy about?”
“Got to eat a lot of flies…” Jean deduces, poking with a steady finger at the toad’s smooth, bulging belly. “Lots and lots, like candy.”
Ororo drops the toad in distaste, and a yawning crack opens across his eye. There: lesson learnt.
xiii
Charles takes one look at the four poster bed, decorated with red satin and velvet cushions, and shivers with the knowledge that Erik will bring him down here tonight.