Chapter Text
I totally blame this on the Rat and Shark comics. Totally!
Also inspired by this wonderful piece of art
Erik Lehnsherr still remembered the day that Charles Francis Xavier had stepped into his life. It was burned into his mind whether he wanted it to be or not. From one day to the next he had acquired a shadow. Dressed in pressed shirts that looked rumpled after a day, sweater vests and suit pants, he had looked nothing like the people Erik usually kept company with.
Not that he had kept company with anyone outside the necessary interaction, which was limited to the occasional chance meeting.
Charles he hadn’t met by chance. Charles had sought him out. He had come to this lonely house at the end of an unpaved road, with immediate access to a gravel beach. Charles, who had kept asking him about his past, about his life, about his Shifter abilities. A man he couldn’t get rid of.
And he had tried.
Oh, he had tried.
Nothing worked. No threats, no silent treatment, no leaving the man in his home for days as he swam the ocean and tried to forget about Xavier.
Charles would always be there, smiling brightly, a picture of quizzical innocence, endless curiosity and an appreciation for what others would call a Curse.
Erik had been born different. Right from the day he could walk he had been attracted to the ocean and the sea creatures feared him. Actually, land creatures, too. His parents had been normal people. As had been all of his family, and all friends and their family. Erik had been different and he had found out just how much when he had hit puberty.
Because he Shifted. He changed his human shape and became a predator of the sea. He was a shark with a sleek, tapered body, fast and dangerous.
Cursed, they called him. The others feared him, turned away from a confused young boy.
Gifted, another had explained to his fearful parents before Erik had been taken away to be trained and taught by Sebastian Shaw. He had hoped for his parents to come and get him one day; they never had.
It was throughout those torturous years, filled with pain and conditioning, shaping him into the perfect weapon for Shaw to use as he pleased, that he discovered he had a different ability as well. He could bend metal to his will. It was what proved to be his way of escaping the madman’s clutches. Shaw didn’t find out until the day he took one of his eyes out with a knife that Erik Lehnsherr was more than a simple Shifter.
Shaw was still out there and if he ever found the man he would kill him, but so far he had only managed to take care of some of his allies. Erik had left a trail of blood in his wake, dead bodies littering his way, and people feared him. His name was whispered with terror.
He didn’t care.
It actually suited his purpose.
Erik had always chosen a place to live close by the sea, paying for what he needed with the money he had stolen from Shaw and invested well. He lived alone. People tried not to be close to him. Those who knew what he was avoided him on purpose, those who didn’t instinctually feared him.
He was a Shark.
The only waterbound Shifter, the only predator of the sea, he knew of. A dominant male. Sharks hunted and lived alone. Sharks didn’t need companions. He spent days, maybe weeks, within the cold, dark depths of his element, feeding, exploring, fighting those who dared challenge him.
Alone.
Until Charles Xavier. A scientist, a scholar, a man from the city. A pampered child in his eyes, with no idea of the hard realities of life. Out on a boat, watching him, making notes.
Erik had approach him several times, running dangerously close, but Xavier hadn’t tried to shoot him, hit him or attempted to flee. Erik had been annoyed at first, then curious, then outright provocative in his approaches.
So Charles had followed him home.
Erik snorted. Yes, he had. And now he was playing host to a scientist who explored mutations. Apparently Erik was the most fascinating he had ever found and for reasons Lehnsherr couldn’t describe he tolerated Charles’ presence like no one else’s before.
Charles was indescribable. He was there, determined and bright-eyed. He asked simple questions, and Erik found himself answering. He told him about himself, about his abilities. Charles wrote it all down, asked him about measurements, distances, feeding habits. He was invasive, but Erik found himself not minding at all. At least he didn’t ask about mating habits.
*
A few days turned into weeks.
Turned into months.
Turned into time spent together, patiently answering questions, letting the other man even touch his Shifter form. Having a human hand not intent on killing him on his skin had launched a million sensations, most prominently a need for more. Charles had been gentle, careful -- and had found himself pushed into the water by a bout of playfulness Erik hadn’t known he possessed.
He even dared swim with him. There had been no fear, just complete trust, as the much smaller human in the tight diver’s suit that protected him against the deadly cold of the ocean swum with a twenty foot long, sleekly streamlined gray-black shark. The whole exercise had Erik nearly jumping him and taking what he so badly wanted. He wanted Charles, he wanted it all, he wanted to be buried deep within the smaller body and hear him cry out Erik’s name.
Within a week of swimming together for the first time, Charles made it a regular occasion until Lehnsherr could no longer restrain himself. They didn’t even make if off the beach and into the house. He shifted from shark to human faster than ever before, tackling Charles to the ground and devouring him hungrily.
“Took you long enough,” had been Charles’ comment after the first time, looking well-fucked and smug and so edible, Erik had been simply breathless.
After the beach Erik felt himself grow possessive of Charles, felt the predator want to mark. Their encounters were wild, unrestrained, and he felt guilty over simply taking sometimes, but Charles was just as much the initiator, and he didn’t try to take on the alpha role.
Not that sharks were pack animals. Erik was simply dominant and used to getting what he wanted. Charles was a manipulative little bastard who got him to do what he wanted anyway.
Until the Shark did claim him.
Drawing blood as he bit down, taking in the other man’s scent and taste, imprinting him on the Shark’s senses and claiming him.
The expression in the smooth face, those incredibly blue eyes, had been one of needwantlustacceptancemore. No disgust. Charles had fully well known what the bite had meant, what the taste had meant. The Shark would recognize him anywhere, any time. The very sight of the bite mark had Erik jump Charles’ bones twice more within twenty-four hours, and no room was safe.
How could one man have this effect?
For the first time in a very long life, Erik Lehnsherr was afraid of someone.
Of Charles Xavier, the unassuming scientist with the impossibly floppy hair, the bright blue eyes and a presence that was overwhelming. A man who had stormed into his life and taken over.
*
“Erik?”
He looked at his guest, at someone his Shifter side, the Curse, called ‘mate’ and wanted to claim forever. Erik didn’t want this man to leave again; ever. He was afraid of his own possessiveness, what this meant, what Charles would do if he found out. Sharks didn’t have partners. Shifters rarely did; some of the landbound with more benign forms, maybe. But the predators were beyond control, scaring their bedmates, frightening humans who didn’t expect their animalistic behavior. Erik had never pondered the idea of a permanent lover; his past encounters had been docile compared to what he and Charles had been up to. He would have terrified those past one-night stands; he had yet to find something that disgusted or terrified Charles.
But Charles would leave one day, when he was done researching, when the Shark was no longer of interest.
“Do you trust me?”
The question, which came out of the blue, stunned him, made him speechless, and he stared at Charles, who, under any other circumstances, he would never have called his equal in anything. But he was. More so. Charles held a power over him that had nothing to do with how compatible he felt in Erik’s mind. It was so much more.
“Yes,” he heard himself answer.
Charles smiled; not with triumphant, just warmth and love. “Then trust me when I tell you that I’ll never betray you. I’m not leaving you.”
“You can’t stay here,” Erik said roughly. “This isn’t your life!”
“My life is my own. I have no obligations anywhere. My life is learning about mutations, about those incredible gifts. I can do that here as well as anywhere else. And no one will miss me, Erik.”
Aside from the Shark. Aside from a vicious loner who had never needed anyone and now looked upon Charles Xavier like he was the most precious of things.
And he was.
The night was filled with little sleep and a lot of other things. Erik refused to give in to the predator in him until Charles gave him this exasperatedly fond look.
“Let go. I know you. I want you.”
It was enough to break the chain he had on his Shifter side.
Charles bore the marks for a week to prove it.
* * *
For all his pursuit of Shaw, Erik had never figured that he could be on anyone’s list. People feared him. He made sure to change houses often enough, that he never settled down. Maybe he had been in this one place long enough; maybe Shaw had grown tired of being the hunted and sent out his hunters in turn; maybe Charles, for all his pleasantness, had acquired some unsavory opposition. In a world where the Cursed were shunned and seen as abnormal, studying those poor souls might not be the best choice in life.
Of course they had waited for Erik to follow his instinct, swim in the ocean and hunt while Charles spent the time writing and reading.
Not that Charles went down easily, or willingly. But he did suffer, facing a Cursed who blocked his own gifts and delivered him to those who would do the dirty work.
They chased him. They knew who he was, what he was, what he could do. They came prepared.
Charles ran, but he was no match, and the pain of the injuries he received crippled his mind.
He desperately tried to get out of the house, but it was too late.
They caught him.
The knife burned as it drew blood.
tbc...