Title: Evolution
Rating: PG
Category: E/C, angst
Words: 1191
Summary: Erik and Charles play chess and muse about the evolution of their relationship.
Notes: Songfic to "Brave" by Rachael Sage.
He looks at his opponent, idly contemplating the plastic chess set. Erik wonders if Charles is looking into his thoughts, but rejects the notion-- Charles is too much the Boy Scout to invade his thoughts without permission, or at least a good reason. Still, though, he feels naked without his helmet.
He remembers the days when he welcomed Charles's presence in his mind, found it comforting.
Truth be told, he would still find it comforting, but is far too proud to mention this.
This wasn't how it was supposed to end. He was the Master of Magnetism, he was a grown man, he was powerful beyond belief. Furthermore, he had the love and loyalty of Mystique, a beautiful woman who was dedicated to the same cause he held dear. And yet here he was, scarcely better off than he had been in the camps all those years ago.
And, those things in mind, he didn't know which was the crueller irony: that he was now once more held prisoner by mere humans, or that when he was being tortured and interrogated by Stryker (the torture was completely superfluous, it was just something the man enjoyed on occasion) the name that he cried was Charles's.
When I look at you I think of everything I don't have
Everything you are is everything I'll never be
Blinded by the light, blinded by the darkness
Blinded by the sense I'll always be reckless
He watches Erik watching him, and resists the urge to probe his mind. He doesn't belong there anymore, isn't wanted. Charles Xavier makes his move, and remembers a time when he and Erik had been closer, before Erik had become Magneto, before he had turned his back on humanity. He remembers their debates-- on the existence of God, on the death penalty, on Nietzsche... He had admired Erik's dedication, his determination, his perseverance. He still did.
Some of Charles's most haunting nightmares had been ones in which he, too, had been in the concentration camps. He was still chased by a persistent doubt-- if he had lived through what Erik had, would he still be certain his way was the right one? Would he even have been able to survive the camps? Would he have wanted to?
Speculation aside... Charles had been born to an upper-class family, where he had witnessed his own forms of bigotry and hatred, but had not... when he searched Erik's mind, he had always been struck by how confident he was, how certain of himself. It had taken him so long to realize that Erik's mind was that of someone who has lost everything. There is a freedom which comes with loss, and Charles sometimes envied Erik for that.
When I look at you I think of everything I don't know
Everything you say is every place I've never been
Blinded by the light, blinded by the darkness
Blinded by the sense I'll always be aimless
He pretends to study the board but it is really his opponent's face which has his attention. The brown eyes that used to search his own, the lips that used to whisper reassurances when Erik woke up screaming after nightmares. Yet the part of Charles that he misses the most is the part he went to the greatest length to avoid. He knows how much it must have hurt Charles, when he started wearing the helmet. But it was necessary. His attachment to Charles was a weakness, and weaknesses could not be tolerated.
That was why he would eventually win: humans were weak, and Charles... Charles was stronger than he had initially, arrogantly, assumed. But Charles still believed that he, he and his "X-Men" could make it through this with their petty morals intact.
They did not, could not understand the nature of war. How do you explain color to a blind man?
At long last, Erik makes his move. It seems that Charles has, once more, put him on the defensive.
Sometimes when I'm awake I feel as if I'm dreaming
And all my hope's in pieces on the ground
You sing my heart to sleep
And I whisper that I'm freezing
Is every window open in this ghost town?
Charles did not quite permit himself to smile. Erik has, like always, underestimated him. Charles knew, perhaps better than anyone else, how easy it was to underestimate the complexity of the human psyche, how easy it was to get distracted by the surface and not dig deeper. He knew what Erik thought of him, knew that he presumed to think of Charles's plans as naive and ill-conceived.
But then, Erik had no sense of history. Revolution is seldom successful; too much change too fast sends the world into shock. A sudden change in environment will kill off a species, it's gradual change over time that leads to evolution.
Still, he admires that whatever Erik does, he does it with everything he has. There's a passion lurking behind those blue eyes that Charles, ever the New England WASP, could not attain. And perhaps that had been one reason things between he and Erik had ended the way they had; Erik could no longer stand to be in a position where he had something to lose.
And Charles remembers feeling the way Erik felt about him and thinks, not for the first time, of the irony that this man, this man who had once had an infinite capacity for feeling, now seems to feel nothing at all.
When you look at me you think of everything I don't have
Everything I am is everything you want to save
Burning in the light, burning in the darkness
Burning in the sense I'll never be brave
He moved his piece, deliberately, but he knew the game was Charles's. They were a fairly evenly matched pair, but he hadn't been playing his best in this plastic cube. It was hard for him to concentrate... he was so used to feeling magnetic fields around him, knowing that they were there even if he didn't need to use them.
He is grateful to Charles for his visits, even as he resents the feeling. He resented Charles in Israel, when they first met, working together in the sandy heat. He resented the man's noble earnestness, but not as much as he resented his attraction to him. He resented Charles's aloofness, his detachment, the way he effortlessly achieved the passionless state that Erik so wished to have.
Charles's secret, he had finally determined, was in fact his very compassion. Charles cared so much for everyone that he could not connect to just one person. He, on the other hand, tried so hard to care for no one that when someone did finally earn his trust, his love... it is a commitment, a bond.
He remembers the nightmares, remembers Charles comforting him, telling him he is brave, he is strong. Charles is right, but for the wrong reasons. Courage had nothing to do with his desire to survive. The only brave thing he has done in his entire life is to let himself fall in love with this strange American.
He is terrified that soon he will be forced to betray Charles, he knows it is only a matter of time. Stryker's mind control is strong, and thus far Erik has only been saved this because Stryker does not know the right questions to ask. Soon, however, he knows that his luck will run out.
Sometimes when I'm asleep I feel as if I'm floating
And all my hope's in pieces in the sky
You shake my heart today with promises of knowing
The answers to the oceans asking why we try
His gambit has worked, and the game is his. He wishes that life were as simple as chess.
But then, there is nothing simple about chess, just as there is nothing simple about life. Chess, with its perfect squares and its black and white, deceives you into thinking that it is simple. Life makes no such pretense.
He lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and he says "Check," and he wishes with all his being that he had the courage to have said "I still love you" instead.
I could be afraid or I could be afraid of nothing
I could be alone or I could be alone with you
Blinded by the light, blinded by the darkness
Blinded by the sense there is only love