A/N: Just a little one-shot that was bugging me. As usual, I own nothing.
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It's a constant theme in the story of his life. Erik has something good, and he loses it.
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His mother is beautiful . Before the camp, before the ghetto, before Poland, her hair is long and thick. Her eyes sparkle, though he has long forgotten the color, and her cheeks are full; her laugh sounds like a thousand little bells ringing. She is strong: her first son died two days after birth and a week later she went back to work. Erik is a sickly baby, and she leaves her job to take care of her child. When he is six, his family flees from Germany to Warsaw, leaving behind friends and family and entering a new world. She sells her jewelry and fine china to pay their rent while his father works tirelessly. When there is not enough money, she sells her long hair to a local wig shop. She never fights the soldiers as they are taken from their home and forced onto train cars like cattle. She holds Erik on those long nights as people die around them, their corpses rotting away on the floor.
(How does a coin start all of this?)
He hopes her end is painless, like drifting to sleep on a soft bed after a long day.
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Magda is beautiful too. She is bald the first time they met, like a baby. She works the camp gardens by day and warms an officer's bed by night. Her face is sunken and sharp long after they escaped. It's only after they have been running for two years that it finally fills out. Her hair never grows past her shoulders, and she is always painfully thin.
(Does she remember the way the rusty barbed wire cut into their feet and left brown streaks on their hands? Does she remember the way Anya's hair curled and her tiny feet?)
She cannot stand him in the end.
He hopes she survives and makes it out of Ukraine. He hopes she finds someone else, someone who needs her.
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It's a constant theme in the story of their lives. Charles always saves him, and he is never grateful.
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Charles spreads through his mind like warm honey, not invading, just melding. He can hear the voice as clearly as if its owner is standing next to him, sharing a drink and a laugh. Erik chokes on a mouthful of salt water, his grip on the submarine slipping. He can't hold his breath anymore, his chest is exploding. He would rather die than let Shaw get away.
Charles is a book thrown wide open to the reader's favorite chapter. Erik hates him instantly. It's men like Charles, ones fascinated with how far the natural world can go, that tortured him, exploited him, made him empty. The young man is annoying, and his blind faith will get him killed. Or worse. It's best if Erik stays with him long enough to repay the favor of saving his life.
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Charles Xavier had more secrets than he's willing to divulge, and it is driving Erik crazy.
The man is as chatty as a little girl, but ask him about life before his work, and he clams up. He's found old photo albums and journals in the mansion, enough to piece together that the younger man has a brother and father that he never mentions. He asks Raven about them, but she refuses to reveal anything him, telling him it was in the past.
He doesn't expect the memory of his mother. He dreams about it for a week after he moves the satellite.
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It's a constant theme in the story of their lives. Charles loses something because Erik takes it.
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Peace was never an option. Never.
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Charles screams, and the world stops for a moment.
The last time Erik screamed like that he was eighteen and fighting through an angry mob that had set fire to his house. His senses were heightened, and he could feel the mobile above his daughter's crib begin to melt. An enraged man had pushed him back onto the cold street, and Erik ripped his gold bicuspid from his mouth. He remembers howling like an animal, every lamp on the street crinkling from his anger. He had not scream like that since Schmidt's last experiment on him.
The blood makes the sand stick to Erik's hands, and Charles's gaze never wavers as he refuses Erik's perfect world.
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It's a constant theme in the story of their lives. Charles loses everything and gets nothing in return.
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Logan shows up and throws everything to hell.
Of course, he and Raven never go visit the others. How are they supposed to know Charles could no longer walk? Raven falls to her knees in front of the chair and bawls. Charles lets her grip his hand, but he keeps a cool expression. His hair is longer and his bread is scraggly. His blue eyes shift over to Logan, and Charles asks him to tell his story.
They play chess, and Charles gives him the cold shoulder.
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"C'mon, wheels. It's time to grow a pair."
"Why should I," Charles spits with malice, "Why should I follow this path?"
"'Cause the world's going to end if you don't," Logan argues, and Erik shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Everyone from the old team is packed into the library, but now Logan sits across the chessboard from a bitter Charles.
"Why should I go willing to my own death, like a lamb for slaughter," hurls Charles, face contorting in a rage that should have never crossed his face. The room seems to freeze, and Logan sits up straighter in his chair. Erik is suddenly aware of every piece of metal in the room. A low buzz fills his ears.
"You saw," Logan says dishearteningly.
"Yes, I saw!" Charles is enraged, his face red from fury. "You were hardly hiding it! So tell me, why should I do this? For you, for the world, why?" His voice is a contained whisper, and Erik remembers feeling this kind of anger. It does not suit Charles.
Logan looks the professor dead in the eye. "Because you'll never be able to live with yourself if you don't."
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It's a constant theme in the story of their lives. Charles is the martyr, and Erik is the sinner.
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A bitter man goes into that room, and the man Erik left behind comes out.
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They play chess one more time before they go. Erik wins, but not really. Charles embraces his sister, and gives him a hearty handshake and his best wishes. He would. The metal on his wheelchair sings, and Erik realizes this is the end. He will never be able to return, no matter how Charles pleads with him to stay.
(Does Charles remember their chess games and the glowing menorah? Does he remember the smell of blood and the salty ocean seeping into their clothes when he wrapped his arms around Erik and pulled him from death?)
He hopes Charles continues to find the good in people that he never could. He hopes he finds his place in the the sun.
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It's a constant theme in the story of his life. Evil triumphs over good, but good keeps trying.