This is based off/inspired by Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings, slightly AU and based off of First Class. Enjoy!
Erik and Charles meet.
If you wish to read a happy story with a happy ending, go to A.
A.
Erik and Charles meet one night, in the ocean. Erik was trying to avenge his mother's death that night, but Charles stopped him. "You're not alone," he said, hugging Erik close to him. They were both freezing from the icy ocean, dripping droplets of water over the CIA ship's carpet.
Erik eventually gets his revenge, killing Shaw on a beach on Cuba. The missiles were never fired, and their ragtag family of eight return home to the luxurious Westchester Estate. Back in the comforts of their bed, they make love for the first time. Slick bodies move together in tandem, their heart-filled moans echoing after each other, chasing and circling one another until they unify. For the first time, they tell each other "I love you" and become more than just best friends.
Charles opens up a new school—a school where mutants could learn and train together. Where they would never be alone. Erik is one of the teachers, quietly feared yet respected by his students.
In between days of teaching and training, they spend time together—playing chess, drinking a good glass of scotch, just enjoying each other's company.
Erik and Charles live a long, happy life. Erik dies at 76, and Charles dies two years after. They loved each other very much. This is how this story ends.
B.
Erik and Charles meet one night, in the ocean. Erik was trying to avenge his mother's death that night, but Charles stopped him. "You're not alone," he said, patting Erik comfortingly on his arm. His eyes shine with sincerity. In that moment, Charles falls in love with Erik.
Erik uses Charles. He uses him for his body, for his intelligence, for his resources. He uses him to get to Shaw, who he eventually kills. But still, he stays. At night, he pads silently across the hall and into Charles' room, who is nude and waiting for Erik. Charles is soft and pliant under the hard planes of Erik's body, his rough thrusts slamming Charles against the headboard of their bed. Afterwards, Erik picks up his clothes, and leaves. Leaves Charles to clean after himself and the mess they made. At night, Charles is Erik's fuck toy.
They never play chess anymore. Not together, at least.
In the morning, Charles wakes up and goes downstairs to help prepare breakfast for the children. In the morning, Charles wakes up and goes downstairs, preparing to act as though he is nothing but Erik's friend. In the morning, Charles wakes up and goes downstairs, preparing to face the worried look of his friends when they see a fresh set of fingerprint bruises around his wrists and the hickeys left on his neck.
One night, as Charles climaxes and Erik is still inside him, he looks right into his green-blue eyes. "I love you," Charles whispers. His face crumples when Erik gives him a disgusted look, and pulls out instantly. He wipes his sullied hands on the covers, and dresses as quickly as possible and walks out without a look back. Erik never visits his bedroom again after that.
Charles eventually closes in on himself, shutting himself in his room. The school he had set up eventually declines and his children stop trying to help him. Erik never talks to him anymore, never even looks at him anymore and eventually, he leaves too. They all do. With no one else left in the estate, Charles drinks himself to death. He dies young.
Erik marries a woman named Magda, and they have one daughter named Anya. Everything continues as in A.
C.
Erik and Charles meet one night, under the strobing and pulsing lights of the bar. Red, green, yellow, orange, pink, blue, the colours keep changing. It gives Erik a headache. It's his first time in a gay bar. It's his first time coming out of the closet (although to a room full of complete strangers) ever since he admitted his own sexuality to himself when he was 14. "You're not alone," whispers Charles as they grind together on the dance floor, all heat and body and friction.
They continue on with their relationship, and Erik moves in with Charles just after two months of dating. Soon after, they bustle out of the honeymoon stage, and the fights and arguments begin. Raised voices become the norm, with narrowed eyes and angry words spat out into the air. The fights escalate, and sometimes fists are thrown and kicks are aimed until every argument is finished with a black eye and a bloody nose. Most of the time, the fights are stupid and irrelevant—perhaps about Erik drinking the milk straight from the carton or how Charles would leave a few grains of rice unfinished whenever they ate Chinese.
Just short of their one year anniversary, Erik and Charles break up. Erik packs up all his belongings, leaving only memories behind. They both relearn how to sleep alone on a bed, but it takes time. Even now and then, Erik wakes up and reaches over to wrap an arm around Charles, tug him into his curled up, warm body. His arm meets the cold and cruelly untouched sheets instead.
Charles moves on, and spends the rest of his life dating many girls—never men. There's Gabrielle, Amelia, Teri, Shi'ar, Lilandra, and Jean. He settles down eventually, marrying a woman he had met back in Oxford with a mind that matches his own. Her name is Moira, and they rarely fight. Everything continues as in A for him, just without an Erik.
Erik never gets over Charles. He is still in love with Charles, the first man he was completely honest to, and sometimes he sits in his room, fingers grazing over the metal chess pieces—a whisper of a touch. Although he had bought a chess set to aid him in getting over Charles, it serves now as nothing but as a representation of what they once had. What he once had.
Erik dies alone, a white queen held gently between his fingers and cradled towards his chest in a way his relationship with Charles never was. He would have been holding the king, except it had gone missing ages ago.
D.
Erik and Charles meet one day, bumping into each other in the west wing of Westchester High School. It's almost laughable about how terribly cliché it was. Their books flew, and they hastily bent to pick it up with Charles' anxious "sorry!" and Erik's acknowledging grunt. Like in the movies, one of them took the wrong book. By the time he returned it, a coffee date was set.
They spend their first date getting know to each other, and when Erik tells Charles something he never told before—his passion for poetry—all Charles says is "groovy!", eyes twinkling. "You're not alone," and they make more plans to share their poems.
Sometimes they just hang out at the mall, sitting at the food court munching on cheap and greasy burgers. Other times, they sit on Charles' king sized bed or Erik's mangy couch and write poems for each other. They spend every hour together after school and well into the evening, but never during school.
By now, they are both well aware of their feelings for each other. Charles makes the first move, when they are lying side by side on the grass beside the riverbank. He slowly slips his hand into Erik's, threading their fingers together as they gaze into the clouds. Before they leave to go home, they share a soft and hesitant kiss.
Although Charles hadn't expected anything to change, he is still slightly disappointed that he and Erik don't even make eye contact at school. Before, Charles was Erik's dirty little secret of a friend, and now he is his dirty little secret of a boyfriend. Charles won't lie, it hurts, but he understands. He understands that Erik has a reputation as the most popular guy at school to keep. He understands that Erik most definitely can't come out of the closet. Erik needs this understanding, so Charles gives it to him.
What Charles does not understand is why Erik needs to sleep with other girls on the side just to prove to the school that he isn't gay. He doesn't understand why every month, Erik sets aside one day to go to some club geared towards high school students and find a new girl to bring home. The next day, he shows up to school with hickies that Charles didn't give and it hurts.
They don't fight about it though—never. They don't even talk about it. Charles knows that their relationship is still fragile, and although they're still young, he knows that he loves Erik. That is why when they sleep together on the weekends, he tries his best to ignore marks made by other women, brush off any perfume that is left on his clothes and why he tries his best to take no notice of Erik at school like how Erik takes no notice of him.
It only takes one night to bring down the entire relationship of Erik and Charles. Erik goes on his monthly excursion like usual, picking up a girl who may have be too old or too young for him. She is just looking for a quick lay, and he is fucking her into the mattress while thinking of someone completely different to her small, lithe body. Another man. It is during this that something happens, something rare enough that one wouldn't consider it beforehand. The condom breaks.
Erik and Charles both don't find out until weeks later though. They don't find out until a girl wearing clothes too big for her body strides through the door of Westchester High and stops in front of Erik in the cafeteria, where Charles is sitting a few tables over. To Erik, this girl is only vaguely familiar. To Charles, this girl is just a stranger. It almost doesn't matter though, because they both get similar feelings of dread settling deep in their stomachs.
"I'm pregnant," she announces, her face a horrible mixture of fury and shame. You can tell by the redness and puffiness of her eyes that she had spent many days crying. Both Charles and Erik can't help but hope that they heard wrong, that they're mistaken and that this is just some silly nightmare that they will wake up from.
It's not.
From this point on, life goes downhill for both the girl and Erik. Being the responsible young man, Erik marries this girl and they raise their twins—Wanda and Pietro—together but life for them continues a bit like C. They fight, but they never make up, they never separate and the twins grow up wondering what a happy family is like.
For Charles, he loses the love of his life and his own moral code prohibits him from seeing Erik. He knows that just one peek, one conversation and he will lose his will and become Erik's dirty little secret again. He marries a nice young woman, but they don't have any kids. With time, Erik is pushed to the back of his mind.
E.
Erik and Charles meet one night. Erik is sitting on a park bench, alone and lost in his thoughts. Like Erik, Charles is alone this night. He strolls down a concrete path lined with trampled flowers and grass until he sees the faint silhouette of Erik under the lamp post. Instantly, he knows that Erik is like him—different. Without hesitation, Charles sits down on the bench next to Erik, close enough than normal strangers would but far enough to avoid Erik's personal bubble. "You're not alone," he says that night, and he means it.
They both have powers caused by a mutation in their genes. Erik can shape and shift metal to his own will and Charles is a telepath. Of course, he never reads Erik's mind without permission. Their friendship is too special for that.
And that is all it really is. A friendship, nothing more. Despite knowing that, Erik can't help but grow feelings for Charles. He's the first person Erik meets that just understands what he's been through. Someone Erik can relate to and someone he can tell everything to without being judged harshly. He knows that Charles is the perfect friend he will ever have, yet he can't help but wish for more.
Charles on the other hand doesn't wish for more. Due to his promise to Erik, he never finds out because Erik never tells. He never sees Erik as anything more than his best friend. He understands Erik, and he can relate to Erik. He's someone who would never judge Erik for what he has done because he knows, but Erik to him is nothing but a friend that he picked up on a stroll in a park.
Erik lives as in B, and Charles experiences life with women as in C. They both remain best friends until they die.
F.
Erik and Charles don't meet one night. Erik is in the ocean, trying to avenge his mother's death and Charles is on the boat. By the time he realizes there's another man, just like himself, in the water, it's too late. The tell-tale beating of the heart slowly fades away in Charles' head before it's gone completely, an echo in his brain. Although it's disheartening, Charles does not lament for long for a man he never knew.
That night, Erik and Charles simply don't meet. They never will.
And that is how this story ends.