A/N Originally a fill for a prompt over at X-men first kink.
Erik was unaware of who they were looking for as they entered the bar and Charles directed his attention to the leather-jacket clad man sitting directly in front of them. He tapped a cigar against an ash tray. Erik quickly cataloged all of the metal on the man's body. No concealed weapons, he sent to Charles. But then he stopped, focusing on one specific article: a chain around the man's neck; iron; no, no, not the chain, the piece of metal attached to it, he thought. He tried to focus on it, but Charles voice pulled him away.
No need to be so paranoid, Erik.Charles gave him a slight smile and nodded in the direction of the man. What would he possibly do in a place like this?
Charles stepped forward and Erik followed, his own mind occupied. As they drew closer to the man, his body reacted without any prompting: a jolt of adrenaline. Still, still, he didn't know why. He tried to push the thought away.
"Excuse me, I'm Erik Lensherr," he said, as if his own name would anchor him to reality. But to the contrary it sounded strange leaving his lips, hollow. His voice remained steady, but a tremor started in his hands. There was only one place that could still draw that reaction from him: those memories in that tightly locked section of his mind that only served to fuel his hatred.
He told himself to look at his memories objectively, as if he had not experienced any part of them, to strip any emotion but rage from them was the only method that gave him enough focus to actually hunt Schmidt. Who was this man?
He kept his face towards the TV in the corner of the bar, shadows obscuring most of his features. Erik's mind whirled, and he focused on the metal around the man's neck resting on his shirt. He briefly registered Charles voice echoing his own introductions, and the swift "Go fuck yourself" that followed, but even as Charles turned to leave, Erik remained focused. He caught the glimpse of a dog tag, the metal he had felt as the man turned slightly, so as to better reach his cigar.
"James Howlett," Erik said under his breath, sure no one had heard him and the name brought an emotion so foreign to Erik that he barely caught the breath that tried to wheeze out of his chest. Charles' hand alighted on his jacket sleeve.
"What did you say?" The man turned and acknowledged their presence for the first time, the cigar in his hand lingering above the bar. He raised it to his lips and inhaled. And then Erik didn't know what to say, but he heard, "You were there," ghost from his lips, and he couldn't move. Charles' hand tightened on his jacket sleeve, and he could feel the telepath pushing at his mind, but he didn't want to let go of this image. He held it back a moment longer. It was one of the only memories he held of that place that didn't involve pain or rage or fear, no it was different. So far removed. Hope, a hope he thought he would never feel again in that place, that this man had afforded him all those years ago. He remembered thinking, he would hate the men who would come to liberate them, because they would clap each other on the back and congratulate themselves for such great work. But more, because they had taken too long, because even one day was too long. But the months grew longer and longer and Erik began to lose the anger that had fueled him that made him endure day after day when the only thought that kept him going was how he would murder Schmidt.
Schmidt continued to subject him to experiment after experiment, often depriving him of food and sleep, and when he knew he would die, he began to embrace despair.
Schmidt kept him in a cell made out of plastic that afforded no light. It was the third day that he had not been released when the sound of muffled guns and foreign voices rang out and three sharp knives came ripping through his prison, destroying the material he had been trying to move for days; that he had bloodied his nails against.
Now, he pressed himself against the back of his prison, the pinpricks of light falling across his eyes, too bright and the voices outside too loud. And he knew Schmidt was there; Schmidt who was always so careful to never keep metal on his body, but now Schmidt had made a mistake. Erik could feel it, hanging around his neck, and he reached out with his exhausted mind, focusing, focusing, focusing, like Scmidt had forced him to do so many times, and yes yes yes.
He still couldn't see through the blaring light, and someone was speaking, but no that didn't matter, focus, focus. It was around his neck, and he threw himself into that feeling, grabbing the metal with his whole mind as strongly as if he had wrapped his hands around it and he pulled; pulled as hard as he could. He had Schmidt. He had Schmidt. He thought of his mother, alles ist gut, alles ist gut, alles ist gut, a terrible mantra matching the pounding of his heart, but then the same sharp milk white knives slashed through his prison, and one caught the outreached palm of his right hand; the palm he hadn't even realized he had risen, and his focus spun out of control and left him panting in the corner of the box, clutching his hand to his shirt, the blood pounding in his temples and his breath wheezing in his lungs.
The man in front of him raised his hands and spoke a language Erik didn't know. He watched in disbelief as what he had mistaken as knives only a moment before retracted into the man's hands. And Erik was too shocked by the pain in his hand and the light streaming in, cutting the darkness he had known for three days, to be cognizant of the man's strange ability in relation to his own. The man rubbed his neck where a pair of dog tags vibrated against his skin, and Erik let them go. They dropped back against his shirt.
Erik, come back. Come back. Charles voice pushed his memories away, and he found himself standing in the same grungy bar, blood pounding loudly in his temple.
"What do you want?" the man repeated. He had turned to face them. Erik registered Charles concerned expression in his peripheral. And tried to think in vain, I'm okay, but it faltered in his mind, and he let the thought sink back into the darkness, sure Charles had caught a glimpse of it. Instead, Erik focused on the dog tags around the man's neck, this time without the rage and confusion, and lifted them, just barely, so only he would know.