the better men;

notes: for the prompt: you're ducking and moving just to hide your bruises from all your enemies / and i'm in the crossfire dodging bullets from your expectancies. alex/armando (havok/darwin); pg; AU

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There had been a time when Alex Summers had held a quiet admiration for Erik Lensherr. He'd thought about that kind of strength; he didn't care for the power-if Erik could move metal, Alex could slice through lead-but to be in such control, of himself, and every bit of the air around him-

And then, of course, Erik had bailed on them and taken Mystique with him. For weeks, Charles and the mansion had lived under a storm-cloud of something bitter, stale, and a lot like mourning, and the rest of them couldn't help but get caught up in it as well.

It's difficult to keep a house this big warm, especially with winter just around the corner, and so Charles sends them recruiting.

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They don't end up with much, just street kids and misfits much like themselves but it's a start. It doesn't brighten up the place the way Charles had been expecting but the stories they bring with them aren't exactly sunshine.

Besides, it's all still too fresh, too early.

x

Sometimes, Alex thinks of Erik Lensherr still. It's not quite admiration anymore. It's not anything he can put into words.

It's just that, objectively speaking, Erik won the break-up, or at least, if they were playing the survival-of-the-fittest game, he's the one who came out with most of himself intact.

Alex had told Darwin this once and Darwin hadn't been impressed. He'd frowned at Alex, asked, "Why didn't you go with him then?"

Alex had rolled his eyes, elbowed him in the ribs and told him to not blow it out of proportion. (His other option was to feel outright hurt but he'd just thought Darwin would appreciate the irony was all.)

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Thing is, Alex is more like Erik than he'll ever be like Charles even if Charles is, according to Darwin, the better man. Darwin's faith in Charles frightens Alex sometimes.

Alex's own faith in Charles is, well, it's there because it has to be.

His faith in Darwin, however, is almost embarrassing.

x

It gets dark earlier these days, colder too. It's an excuse for them to huddle closer to each other under the covers, share the heat, not that either of them really needs it with the way their bodies are made. They don't speak much in these hours, mostly bone-tired from the day, don't really need to anymore and it's new but also nice.

x

There's a night where Alex keeps waking up, keeps thinking of Raven and Angel, of Erik Lensherr, and distantly, but in a way that's always there, just below the surface, of Scott.

Like a broken record, the question rings in his head:

Why didn't you go with him then?

Alex turns to face Darwin's side. He wants to wake him, shake him, tell him it was a stupid, stupid question even if, knowing Alex as well as Darwin does, it was a legitimate thing to ask. Darwin's always been honest like that. He calls it like he sees it without a shred of malice inside him.

Sometimes, it drives Alex up the wall.

x

It's not that he doesn't like the mansion or the people-even Hank's gotten bearable ever since he went all blue-but Alex knows that, one day, he is going to want out. And it won't be Erik he'll want to find.

This place is growing and soon it won't need him. It will probably need Darwin but he needs Darwin more and he wonders if he has it in him to make Darwin choose.

Sometimes, he just wants to stop fighting for other men's causes and other men's wars, even if they may be close enough to being the better men. He wants to start something of his own or keep looking, keep trying in vain. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter so long as he gets to take with him the best man he's ever known.