For Everything, There is a Month
Summary: If X-Men: First Class had lasted a year, the relationship between Charles and Erik might have looked a little like this: they meet because of a jump in January, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Rating: K
Genre: friendship ; romance ; angst
Canon Character(s): Charles Xavier/Professor X ; Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
OC Character(s): none
Set During: X-Men: First Class
Notes: This is a story that will basically talk about themes – one theme per month – until the twelve months are up, to span the length of the relationship between Charles and Erik in "X-Men: First Class", with the POV of each chapter switching between Erik and Charles. Whether or not I choose to end the story as a fixit fic or leave the ending as sour as it was, well . . . I don't know yet. So read at your discretion if you hate overly angsty or sappy endings, because I don't know which it'll be yet.
Jump in January
~ Charles Xavier ~
He's never wanted to be a hero. He's never wanted to be a spy either. Or a secret agent. His eidetic memory, telepathy, and wide range of mastered languages aside, Charles Xavier is no soldier. He's an academic; his power lies in his words and his mind, not his body and muscles. Even so, the raid with the CIA is exhilarating, and it only gets better when he gets confirmation of not one and not two, but three other mutants – people like him.
The first, another telepath. She – he thinks it's a she, anyways – is cold like ice and hard like diamonds, but he pushes her out of his mind easily. She's strong, but her strength is in shielding. He's far more powerful than her.
The second, a mutant who could pull tornados from thin air. It's terrifying, and Charles is absorbing the fear from the men who are struggling to stay afloat after the man's overturned their boats, but to see confirmation of his thesis, of his kind. . .
It's amazing.
He's hurtling down the stairs, mind racing through possible explanations and reviewing every possible angle, when the pain hits.
It's the most powerful pull of a mind Charles has ever experienced, strong enough to break right through his shields, focused enough to call out to him without Charles having to reach for it, and for a moment Charles thinks he might actually be crying from the pain. He stops without even being aware of it, and he reaches out as easy as breathing, and –
There.
A man – another mutant – strong, focused, unstoppable –
Dying.
Not if Charles has anything to say about it.
He's barely aware of running back to the deck, following the siren thread of that mind, but he's shocked back to awareness when the mind's pull surges, and suddenly an anchor is rising above Shaw's ship, twisting in an arcane grip that has Moira and the other agents gaping in fear and surprise and worry.
The anchor crashes through the ship, tearing the deck to shreds, and Charles gapes too.
His gift is mental, and Raven's is physical, but he's never seen anything to match this. For as long as he lives, he'll never forget that sight.
But then the mind is being yanked towards him, still focused, focused enough that Charles has to strain to touch his mind behind the barriers of barbed wire and blazing guns and mud and needles and pain. It's that touch that has him half-leaning over the bars, screaming at the top of his lungs, urging the man to let go, let it go, please let it go.
The man ignores him.
Moira stares at him in shock as he yells at the man being pulled through the water, but he ignores her. This – this is far more important right now. He won't let a man die for something like this. If he can help, he can.
And then the man goes under the water.
Charles curses.
He still can't break through to the man, and even if he could, short of forcibly taking control of the man's body, he can't stop him. And Charles knows that's not the way to earn trust.
And so Charles – Charles who hates swimming and fears deep water and shies away from cold – Charles runs without thinking to the edge of the ship and jumps into the frigid ocean after Erik Lehnsherr.
The man's half-drowned by the time he manages to reason with him and haul him back to the surface, and he still musters the suspicion to spit fire at Charles and wariness at the CIA, but Charles doesn't care. Erik's standing there in a clinging, dripping wet-suit, without any weapons but his gift for metal, without any allies, and yet he manages to present himself with an ice-cold dignity that makes even Moira skirt around him. Charles would laugh, if he could, but Erik views him with more suspicion than anything after learning that he can read minds.
It's an occupational hazard, Charles is learning again, of being a telepath.
And yet . . .
And yet, he doesn't care. He finds he wouldn't trade anything in the world to be anywhere but in the cold Miami night, dripping wet and shivering as his clothes cling to him, with Erik staring suspiciously at him and Moira thinking he's crazy and Raven laughing her heart out over the telephone that he jumped over the side.
"Charles Xavier," he says, offering his hand. "Nice to meet you."
Erik raises a cool eyebrow. "Erik Lehnsherr."
Later on, as they change into spare clothes – track suits that are far too large for Charles, and he wishes longingly for his suits – Charles glimpses the numbers inked into Erik's left arm, and Erik stops and stares at him in a silent challenge, and the entire room vibrates under his power.
Charles feels slightly faint now. He's heard of the horrors of the second world war, of the poison gas and air bombardment and U-boats. He's even heard whispers of worse horrors, these . . . these concentration camps where men and women and children were starved, beaten, degraded, or worse. He's read a bit about the trials of the men responsible. But he's never met anyone who had firsthand knowledge.
And yet, here before him stands a living testament to the horrors of war.
Erik grins slightly, a threatening, predator grin, as he sees the understanding sweep over his face and Charles feels like a canary in a cat's cage.
"Not quite the person worth risking your life for, hmm?" Erik prompts.
Charles considers it. For a moment. Because that's all it takes. He's found something in Erik, and he'll be damned if he lets it slip away over something as silly as Catholicism versus Judaism, British versus Polish, pristine genetics professor versus scarred Holocaust survivor. No, he decides, he doesn't quite care at all, even if Erik has spent a rather unhealthy amount of time honing his body and mind to become a trained killer, has hands and a mind and a body covered in scars from a terrible childhood, and whose first instinctive thought was to track the easiest way to kill Charles, never mind that Charles could freeze Erik with a single thought.
"The jump was more than worth it," he counters firmly. "I found you, didn't I?"
The response startles Erik. He's good at impassiveness, but Charles is a telepath who's spent his life reading people, and there – Erik's eyes widen ever so slightly, and he goes slightly still, and his eyes scan quickly over Charles for the first time in something that isn't judging weaknesses.
Erik pulls the shirt over his head and doesn't comment again.
Charles sighs inwardly, and promises to himself that the first thing he'll do is to try and alleviate this suspicion of Erik's. He's honestly not reading his mind, not beyond that first touch that had him hurtling over the ship to save him, and he won't read his mind because Erik asked – well, yelled – for him not to. And he has a headache. And huge clothes that, until he gets his real clothes, will make Raven laugh all the way back. And he has to somehow find a way to convince Erik to stay, after he assures Moira and the rest of the CIA agents. And . . . well, the list goes on and on, and Charles's headache isn't getting any better.
Erik's looking at him funny, and Charles realizes that he just got asked something.
"Sorry, what?"
Erik studies him. "I asked you if you were done."
"Hmm. Yes." He hesitates. "I was trying to figure out to explain you to my sister," he explains, frowning.
Erik tenses.
"She's like us, Erik," Charles is quick to reassure him.
Erik relaxes, ever so slightly, but now at least's there's curiosity in his eyes. "What can she do?"
"Well, she has the ability to shape-shift and take on someone else's physical body. It shocked me, the first time she did it – she pretended to be my mother. If I hadn't been a telepath, I wouldn't have known the difference. So I assume she has the ability to control . . ."
And as Charles rambles on about genetics and DNA and cells, Erik at least does him the courtesy of not walking away or making faces or letting his attention drift. It's more than what most people will do for him, anyways, when he goes off on these tangents. When he realizes he has gone off on a tangent, he smiles apologetically and says, "Sorry, I have a habit of rambling. My sincere apologies."
Erik shrugs easily. "No, it's all right," he says, and he finally seems to have relaxed. He's even smiling slightly. "I assume your sister thinks otherwise?"
Raven answers that question by storming into the room and punching him for being so stupid as to jump over a ship, and she then proceeds to spend the next thirty minutes scolding him as though he's the one who's four years younger.
Erik stifles a smile.
Charles sighs, and resigns himself to his sister's lecture. Yes, he tells himself firmly, the jump was worth it.
Because of Erik.
And if that thought stinks the tiniest bit of infatuation, well . . . Charles is the telepath, not Erik, so who the hell gives a damn about it?
A/N: So, what do you think?
Sneak Peek: Freedom in February. Erik Lehnsherr thinks, sometimes, that he lost his freedom when he was about fourteen years old, a long time ago in a faraway land called Poland. Not when the guards pushed his family into the trains, not then. Or when he had a six-digit number tattooed into his skin. Or even when he was hustled into the camp at Auschwitz and separated from his parents. No, Erik Lehnsherr lost his freedom the second he fell into Schmidt's hands.