A/N: Simul is Latin for "together", because when I'm lazy I just grab random Latin words and stick them as titles. No but I'm really sick today and sort of disgusting so I'm writing lots of schmoopy fluff. It's my method of coping.
Disclaimer: The X-Men own me. Not the other way round.
1.
Raven is pretty sure that this is what going into shock feels like. She can hardly feel anything, not the aching in her legs as she kneels on the beach or the heat of the sun on her skin.
She can feel the heat of Charles's hand in hers, but she can barely hear his words as he tells her to go with Erik. And she wants to go with Erik. She wants to feel like a person not someone to be protected, she wants to be proud of who she is, but beneath Charles's words are echoes of his pain-filled scream when he was shot, and the knowledge that she should have been backing him up there instead of standing in the background as he fought.
"It's what you want." He says breathlessly, and those words violently pull Raven from her daze. His hazy, pain filled eyes are staring up at her as he says it, and Raven focuses on the blue of his eyes as she speaks.
"You promised me you would never read my mind." The words are ragged.
"I promised you a great many things I'm afraid. I'm sorry." He kisses her hands through her gloves and then lets them fall and looks away, and there is so much pain there. Charles, for all that he's a telepath, has never worn his emotions on his sleeve like that, and Raven can't get up.
"You've never broken a promise to me." She says softly, her voice still broken. Charles always promised her that things would be different one day, that one day they would find other mutants and she wouldn't need to hide, and that promise has come true, hasn't it? Maybe it's not like either of them wanted, but it's been fulfilled. And Charles promised her that she would be safe, and that he would look after her, and he has kept all of those promises, even when they've caused more harm than good.
Raven's sense quicken, as Charles peers up at her and the silence grows longer. She can feel Erik looking at her, and wonders how Erik can even think of leaving Charles right now.
"Raven." Charles says softly. His voice has become even more breathless.
"What's happened to you?" Raven says, her voice clearer. Charles doesn't break his promises, she knows that he's kept himself away from her mind since they were children, if her thoughts are going to him then he must have barely any control of his telepathy left in him, and Charles's control was always brilliant when it came to her.
Something is wrong. Charles has been bloody and beaten, and still kept a barrier from her mind. She feels Erik move, and ignores him, focused on her brother, and realizes that something is happened that is very close to breaking him.
"I'm fine." Charles says, and she knows that he's lying.
"How much pain are you in?" She takes his hand up again. Charles may be horrible sometimes, and at times he barely knows her, but he has to be in so much pain, and she can't leave her brother when he is shattered like this.
"I…" Charles tries to avoid her eyes. "Go."
"I'm not leaving you." Raven says, and it's as though a spell on the beach is broken. She can hear the waves crashing on the shorelines again, feel sweat drying in her hair, and know that Charles needs her.
"I can't feel my legs." The words sound like they had to claw their way from his throat. Raven feels Erik drop down beside them, and wonders if when she spoke the spell broke for him as well, and whatever fog of vengeance he was floating in was cast away by that confession.
"What?!" That sounds like Erik. It doesn't sound like Magneto when he was gesturing for them to leave Professor X bleeding in the sand, it sounds like the man who played chess with her brother for hours into the night.
Raven can't tear her eyes away from Charles to look at Erik, but the shock in his voice says it all. He must have had no idea that Charles was so hurt, and of course he didn't, because Charles would rather they both leave happy than stay just because they felt guilty.
Tough. Her brother needs her, and she's staying out of love for him. Raven continues to stroke his hair, and for the first time in her voice, gives an order to Erik Lensherr.
"Get the teleporter. He needs a hospital." She's calm now. Charles's eyes flutter shut and he holds her hands so tightly it hurts, and Raven cannot even conceive what would have happened to them all if she left him.
Erik just waves a hand and the teleporting mutant comes. Erik has a charisma that no one else can match, Raven thinks, and with a sort of horror understands that it almost dragged her away from Charles when he needed her most.
The others are flocking around, she knows it, but Raven focuses on the silent tears that are trailing down Charles's cheeks, and is utterly sure that she made the right choice. Erik takes Charles from Moira with a sort of possessiveness that he uses for no one else, and they are all suddenly gone from the beach and in an emergency ward.
Erik takes off the helmet as the room erupts into chaos, some nurses fleeing and others screaming. But one runs to Charles's side, and Raven issues another order - she's never given so many orders in her life, but Erik is wrapped up in Charles and Charles is wrapped up in pain - to the rest of them. "You. Take Hank to somewhere private, and get Moira a phone to call the government. The rest of you, wait here."
She follows Erik and Charles into the emergency ward, and wonders what sort of horrible destiny she might have just averted.
2.
Boots thumping on the beach send vibrations through her knees. There are men in army uniforms, marines. They run at Moira, kicking up sand that is wet with blood. One shoves her away from
What is his name my God I don't know his name just make sure he's safe he's already hurt why was he hurt what happened I don't know
and he hits the ground, the sob of pain he held back for the sake of
Who hurt him who was he what was his name how could he hurt him why do I feel guilty
wrenching up through his throat. She tries to scream to them that they can't do that, he's just been seriously hurt, they can't manhandle him, but the words stick in her damaged throat.
A boy with ginger hair steps forward. His eyes are huge, full of confusion. Scorched wings hang by his sides, making his movements awkward. He is asking what's going on.
A blonde boy grabs his arm, pulling him back. This boy has shorter cropped hair than the redhead, a mark of prison life - she doesn't know how, but she knows that this boy was in prison - and yells something. His voice is lost in the roar of the descending helicopters.
A beast comes forward too. He is blue like the ocean and has fur matted with sand and salt. They all wear matching suits, though the blonde's has a gaping hole in the middle, with a scratched chest revealed beneath, and the ginger's has those broken wings. They must all be linked somehow.
The man whose name she no longer knows, but whose blood has turned her grey pants black, screaming, his hands going up to his head. The marines are dragging him away, paying no mind to his injury.
She doesn't understand. She tries to ask what's happening, what's going on, why she's here on a tropical beach holding a gun that for some reason repulses her, why every nerve in her body wants her to stop her own country from taking this man she doesn't know, when she should be in Vegas, spying on a casino.
They ignore her. Marines grab the teenagers. They come armed with tranquilizers, even though these are just kids. They are battle weary children, and Moira doesn't know how she knows but she knows that they are all exhausted and terrified and utterly confused by the fracturing of a union that was the center of their entire world. They are in no shape to resist trained professionals.
One marine takes her, as she stares around trying to comprehend, and leads her to another helicopter. She tries to struggle, tries to fight because she wants to fight for these children she doesn't know, one of whom has fur and for some reason that doesn't matter, but the marine's arms are strong and she is exhausted, just returned from a combat situation, and she cannot resist.
The helicopters take the boys - what are their damned names, she should know them - somewhere else. Moira is returned to Washington. She doesn't even get to change her clothes, and so she sits in combat gear that is stained with blood that she did not bleed, in an immaculate boardroom in front of a bunch of immaculate men in expensive suits. She is sandy and sweaty and she feels like the vulnerable one here, which is probably what they want.
So many questions. So many names they throw at her, names she doesn't know. They ask her where Xavier's base was. They ask her what each "mutant" can do. They ask her where the hell the other leader is.
Moira knows nothing. She only knows that pain flares in her head when she tries to delve into that black space between Vegas and Cuba, black space that has lasted months, and it is clear that she is of no use.
They let her go. She's demoted from her position as a CIA agent. Moira wants to fight this, but it seems that she's botched a most important mission, so she's sent to a small apartment and given a pension. She doesn't know whether it's worse that she doesn't remember what the assignment was, that she royally fucked up whatever it was, or that she isn't the least bit sorry for her screw up.
Emma Frost takes her hands away from Moira McTaggert's temples. "The Professor and his students were taken from the beach in Cuba by marines. The Professor wiped her memory just before the troops arrived."
The metal in the room slowly twists, and Emma doesn't need her telepathy to feel Magneto's rage. And he doesn't even feel what Emma gets from the woman's mind, all the raw edges where Xavier had to rip chunks of memory away through his own haze of pain. It was an effort to protect Magneto. Emma knows it must have been to protect Magneto, because she knows that Xavier must have known by the time the soldiers descended that he and his forces were lost.
"After everything Charles did for them…" She hears the swish of a cape as Magneto whirls, and then his footsteps clump down the hall. Emma rises and follows him, brushing her telepathy over the rough edges of Agent McTaggert's mind first, in a rare act of kindness.
Charles has been missing since Cuba. Erik only found out two days ago (it only took him two days to track down Moira, and he could laugh at the ineffectual nature of the witness protection program against a telepath), when he went back to the Manor, out of a simple desire for one last look at Charles. Upon his return to Westchester he found sheets still a mess from when they'd rolled from bed that morning, spoiled milk in the fridge, and an unfinished chess game.
He had hoped that Charles was wise enough to find a new base of operations, seeing as Erik knew perfectly well where the Manor was and could strike at it at anytime. Not that he would, there are some lines that even Erik will not cross, but it would be a wise tactical move on Charles's part.
"Magneto?" Mystique has been standing guard at the door. Her eyes are afraid, more like Raven Xavier than Mystique. "What do we do?"
"Find them." Erik leaves Moira without a second glance, curled up in a fetal position on the floor as she claws at her forehead, whimpering.
And find them he does. Erik is methodical and brilliant, and he has a telepath on his side.
It's still too late. They're at the same holding facility Emma was kept at, but in the lower levels. It seem that Emma was as ill-guarded as she was because she was the least dangerous mutant there, in the eyes of the government. Erik wishes he could tell them how wrong they were, but there is rage filling his mind as he storms the CIA, and none of the dead workers are susceptible to conversation.
Metal twists and screeches as Erik invades the base once more. This time he doesn't stop at Emma's cell. He goes down further, floating to cells that are smaller, where there is no heating and the air is stagnant. The guards are far more heavily armed, and with far more advanced weapons. Erik finds that cause to kill them in far more painful ways.
He finds the younger ones first. Sean is in chains. His throat is red raw, with scars on it where incompetent surgeons have been trying to understand what makes his vocal chords so extraordinary. He is deathly pale and can do no more than chirp when Erik rips away his chains and sends him away with Azazel.
Alex is on the floor below him. Alex is almost worse. There are little burn marks over his chest, and the skin is covered in a horrible rash that makes Erik suspect they were using radiation on him, trying to make the force inside Alex react with something else. Alex vomits blood and Erik thinks they may have been successful.
"He said you'd come." Alex says, through the blood bubbling up. "He said you'd come. He said you'd come."
Shame bubbles over in Erik as he realizes how long they have been here, and that the entire time they've been waiting for him. Because who else would be coming to rescue a flock of little mutants?
Hank is next, and the sight of him is terrible to behold. His beautiful fur has been shaved, badly, leaving little bloody nicks over his joints, and puckered lines where surgeries have taken place. He is collared like a beast. He is the only one of the children who has a food bowl and a water bowl in their cell. He is half starved and with one look in Hank's eyes, Erik knows that here is a rabid animal. Erik knocks him out and tells Azazel to lock him in the bomb shelter, not to lie him out with Sean and Alex.
Erik hates to keep Hank from his friends, but the bomb shelter is the only place he feels Hank could be contained. He would tear the rest of the manor apart.
Charles's prison is deeper. Erik has to descend down an elevator shaft, into where it's even colder. He recognizes the design on the walls, and sees that this prison is made to contain a physic. It must have been built just for Charles, long before the beach.
The government has been planning this, must have been planning this since they met Charles and somehow Charles kept working with them? As Erik wrenches open the doors, he still can't believe the mercy his friend holds.
He finds Charles, and every human within five miles is given a death sentence. Charles is being held upright, his arms spread out and wrists bound to thin metal poles, his back against a board. He's been muzzled. He is pale as death and as malnourished as the children.
That is not the worst. The worst are the wires plugged into his head.
Electrodes are connected to his scalp, feeding into a machine that pulses with ugly green light. Charles may be powering it, for all Erik knows. There must be fifty wires going into Charles's skull, two through his ears, two through his nose, the rest just connected at various parts of his head and neck and spinal cord.
"Charles." Erik croaks. Charles doesn't stir. Erik steps forward, stops himself, and takes off the helmet. If he begins to hurt Charles by removing the wires, then Charles must have a way to communicate. He takes off the muzzle first - how dare they muzzle Charles when all he ever did was preach peace - but Charles is in no state to speak.
Luckily, the wires have metal tips, but it is still a painstakingly slow process removing them. Charles doesn't stir, his vacant blue eyes still gazing past Erik. He doesn't scream until Erik removes the last one. This one is in the exact center of Charles's forehead, and when Erik begins to move it Charles lets out a yell that curdles Erik's blood.
Charles, it's me, Charles please, Charles wait!
A jumble of confused images meets him. A coin traveling towards his head, whispered pleas for Erik to stop, the sound of bones shattering, marines descending on the beach, frantically ripping every memory of mutants from Moira's head.
Then it goes blank, and Charles slips into some sort of sleep. Erik wraps his cloak around Charles and lifts him up, pressing a kiss to Charles's forehead that leaves Erik with bloody lips. Azazel transports them to the Manor. If in the months since Erik has been here the humans have not touched it, they will not touch it now, and that means that Charles was careful, that Charles told no one where he lived, that Charles was making plans for what would happen after the government stopped needing mutants too.
He sees to the other children. Sean still cannot speak, but Erik gets him settled down in bed with heated sheets and hot tea and a pillow to cling to. He disinfects the scars even though they're probably already clean, and the gratitude he sees in Sean's eyes is more like a chain than anything Charles could have put round his mind.
He cannot even fathom how to fix what they have done to Alex's body, but he understands what they have done to the boy's mind, so he puts Alex to sleep in warm sheets, tells him that he is safe now, and no one can harm him, and waits until the boy has dropped off to leave.
Hank is wild, out of control, but Erik holds him back with a metal pipe, doing his best not to harm him, and leaves blankets and a pillow and a plate of food, with proper utensils. He also leaves Hamlet, because he remembers that to be Hank's favorite Shakespearian play. Hopefully, it will remind Hank that he is more than the Beast.
In all this, Charles does not move. Erik has put him back in "their" room, and made him comfortable, but there seems to be nothing he can do for him. Emma fainted the second they brought Charles in, and Erik takes that to mean that the telepathic damage is rather intensive. Raven has gotten him all his favorite foods (she is feeling guilty about leaving them to this and relief over having been spared this and even more guilt over the relief), and laid them out by the bed, but nothing breaks his coma-like state.
Erik sits at a table in the corner. His helmet was left in the base, amidst the corpses. He is staring at the chess board, at the game Charles and he left unfinished when they faced Shaw. It had been a silent promise between the two of them that they both would return.
"Rook to b5." Comes a scratchy voice, and Charles is peering at him. Erik is kneeling by his bedside in a heartbeat, gibbering out apologies for leaving Charles on that beach, apologies for breaking his back (Erik saw the mark where the bullet pierced, saw the crushed bones), apologies for taking months to go back to the mansion to check up on the kids and only then finding out that they were missing, apologies for everything.
"Erik." Charles whispers. Erik sees endless forgiveness in his face. "It's okay."
Erik presses a kiss to Charles's knuckles and wishes that Charles wouldn't forgive him, wishes that Charles was furious and angry so that Erik could spend the rest of his life atoning for this, because he in no way deserves this love.
"There's no need." Charles cups Erik's cheek with the hand Erik has been kissing. "I'm sorry too."
"For what?" Erik cannot think of one thing which Charles has to be sorry for.
"For thinking that the world was ready." Charles's eyes are haunted. "They are not, Erik. They are not."
"Shush." Erik tries to soothe him, using the same methods Charles has used on him so many times. "Don't linger on that now."
"Of course. We have other things to worry about." Charles smiles faintly. "I have ideas about how to rehabilitate Hank, and what we need to do for Alex. Sean is going to take extensive training and rest before he has anywhere near the strength needed to fly again. We…" Charles trails off.
"We." Erik confirms. Charles smiles.
"We're going to be very busy." And, Erik thinks, Charles said nothing about Erik's methods in the base, voiced no disapproval at the fact that a group of murders is camped out in his house.
He cannot bring himself to be grateful at the change of heart. Not at this cost.
3.
This, Erik thinks, is a bad idea. Just because it happens to be a human holiday for love, which is already overly commercialized, he's expected to show up at Xavier manor with a bunch of roses and give Charles a card?
Apparently, going by Emma and Angel's significant looks and Raven's outright glare. Oh well. Charles is a romantic. He'll appreciate the gesture.
"Are you serious?" Or not. "You're actually trying to show up at my house with a bouquet of roses and expect me to just fall into your arms after you've been gone for months! Not bloody likely!" Erik ducks as the roses are flung at his head.
"I just thought…"
"I think that abandoning me on a bloody beach then not calling for five bloody months should justify a bit more than a bunch of bloody roses!" Erik looks up, hands raised pleadingly. He's guessing that whipping out the box of chocolate hidden under his cape won't help the situation.
"Well excuse me for being romantic!"
"Romantic?"
"Yes." Erik stands and straightens his cloak, glaring. "It's Valentine's day, traditional holiday for lovers, which we most certainly were. I realize that I didn't bring wine, but you usually have more than enough of that stocked around here."
"I…you…" Charles seems unable to articulate his response. Hurling a book at Erik helps. "You jerk!"
As he dodges more books, crumpled wads of paper, and a shoe, Erik ponders the best way to proceed. He could leave out the window just as he came in, but that would be more retreat than rectifying the situation.
"And furthermore, if I wanted roses, I could grow some in the gardens! Or don't you remember that we have gardens? You wanker!" Charles casts around for something else to throw. Erik tries to remember the best way to make Charles shut up. "You bloody arrogant twattish excuse for a mutant!"
Actually, making Charles shut up had always been rather difficult. Kissing him normally works, and Charles certainly looks kissable with his face flushed and his hair mussed, but from the tone of the other mutant's remarks, Erik would get his tongue bitten off.
"And if you think a half assed bunch of flowers will mmpf!" It's worth it.
Erik slides his arms around Charles as soon as he's confident Charles won't yank off the helmet. He's forgotten how really really excellent Charles is at this. Honestly, if he hadn't been a billionaire, Charles could have made a great prostitute.
"This…" Charles gasps out as Erik raises him out of the chair. "Does not mean" he groans and runs a hand over Erik's chest. "that I'm not mad."
"Mmhm." Erik angles his head to get a deeper kiss without his helmet banging Charles's forehead. Charles's arms lock around his neck. "I'm sure."
"Really." Charles breaks off to moan. "We should move…"
"Definitely." Erik lifts Charles into his arms and strides out the door. Thank God Charles's study and his bedroom are in the same hallway.
"Hurry." Charles growled. Erik yanks the door to Charles's bedroom open and slams it behind them, quite possibly breaking something. On the off chance that one of the kids comes inquiring about the noise, he locks it. "Erik!"
Erik dumps Charles on the bed, then pounces. Charles grunts and pushes himself up with one arm, using the other to undo Erik's pants.
"You know, this would be a whole lot more fun if you took off the helmet." Erik considers for a split second how stupid he would look naked except for his helmet and drags it off his head.
Loveyousomuchmissedyousomuch WANTyousomuchfastercloserhar der
Erik gasps as Charles's mind hits him, a wave of desire smashing into his own and heightening it, a familiar rush that no one else could imitate and which blinds him to the rest of the world as it goes higher higher higher
He lies with Charles wrapped in his arms, nose buried in chocolate locks. He feels as sated and comfortable as he ever has. God, he's missed the feeling of Charles's mind resting next to his.
"You're still a jerk." Charles mumbles.
Erik sighs. "Why, precisely?"
"You're going to leave in half an hour and I'll miss you again. It isn't fair." Erik closes his eyes and thinks of how much he has missed this bed.
"Would you let me stay?"
"Are you insane?" Yes reverberates around his skull. Charles winces. "I'm sorry, was that too loud?"
"No, not at all." Erik snuggles closer to Charles. He is home.
4.
Erik, despite a few rumors to the contrary, is aware that he does not live an ideal life. He knows perfectly well that his position as a mutant terrorist makes him a target for attack, that the Brotherhood's usual living conditions are unsafe, that he doesn't have regular access to schools or clothing.
Following this train of logic, Erik knows that he can't go about changing the world with two children clinging to the edge of his cape. Now matter how precious the two of them look, they are simply not good for his reputation. And this lifestyle is just not conducive to a stable upbringing.
Actually, Erik can only think of one place where Pietro and Wanda, probable mutants and motherless twins, would be guaranteed hot meals, beds, excellent educations, and a stable upbringing.
"But Daddy…" Wanda shies away from the gates. Erik has loaded her and Pietro up with everything they owned (one suitcase, total) and is now in the process of convincing them to go up the road to Xavier Manor on their own. "What about you?"
"Yeah!" Pietro adds. Pietro has white-blonde hair that certainly came from Magda, and is looking at the Manor in utter terror.
"I will be fine." Erik crouches down and looks at both of them very seriously. "Now listen. You need to go to the castle, and tell Professor Xavier that you need a home."
There's no way Charles will be able to refuse them.
"Will you visit?" Wanda asks. She looks a bit more like Erik, with dark hair and dark eyes, but it doesn't look like she's inherited his penchant for abandonment. Her lower lip is trembling.
"I'll try." Erik lies. He won't. Erik doesn't think he'll be very welcome in the Xavier household, and he refuses to endanger the chances of his children by bringing the destruction that always follows him into the Manor. "But only if you promise to do what the Professor says and to eat your vegetables."
"Bleh." Pietro mutters.
"And try not to cause too much chaos." Wanda shifts guilty. "Okay?"
"Yes Daddy." They say in unison. Erik focuses his will on the gate to open it, and fades into the shadows as they begin to walk up the path. After a brief, hesitation, he floats after them at a distance. Just in case.
They walk up the path, hands linked, and the suitcase swinging in Wanda's hand. They're interested despite the fear, Erik can tell. It isn't every day you get to live in a castle, after all. They reach the large and imposing front door, and Pietro knocks.
"Hello." Charles and a girl, one Erik doesn't recognize but who has actual pure white hair, open the door. Her mouth falls open. Charles leans forward, not looking surprised. "May I help you?"
"I'm Wanda and this is Pietro and we need a home." Wanda says in a formal tone. Erik is full of pride. "Are you Professor Charles Xavier?"
"Yes." Charles answers. He gestures to the girl. "This is Ororo Munroe. You are more than welcome to stay." He holds out a hand to Wanda. Erik watches her take it, a slow smile working up her face. They disappear inside.
Of course, Erik lurks around the grounds a bit anyway. Just so he can be absolutely sure that this arrangement will work out smoothly.
He watches a few students sitting in a room playing some kind of card game. Wanda and Pietro sit on the arm of the couch, Wanda watching and Pietro chattering away at a million miles an hour to Charles.
Erik is beginning to think that he really should go. Clearly, his children are going to be fine (probably). He stops when a young man wearing sunglasses and a dubious expression hangs up a sign in the front window.
Parent-Teacher Conferences, my office, 9 o clock.
Well, Erik is guessing that that means Charles has guessed Erik is hanging about. Erik's mouth twitches up despite himself.
He should have a nice chat with Charles. It's a perfect opportunity to fill him in on the twins' favorite foods, explain all of their quirks, make sure that they have a good room, and besides he likes talking to Charles.
Thus, at 9 o clock sharp, Erik floats into Charles Xavier's office. The window was left open.
"Good evening." Trust Charles to act as if Erik deposits children at his gates every day. The telepath gestures to the chair. "Care to take a seat?"
"Why not." Erik sits and frowns at Charles. His former lover's eyes carry far more weariness than they once did. "Are you well?"
"Oh, well enough." Charles says amicably. "Though I rather had a shock today."
"I didn't know where else to put them."
"They're welcome, of course." Charles smiles at him. "What happened to their mother?"
"Magda…" Erik sighs. "Long story."
"Hmm." Charles makes no further comment. Erik winces. He hadn't considered that bringing his kids to Charles's house and expecting him to care for them might be just a tad insensitive.
"She died in a fire, after the children were born. She was just…I didn't intend on impregnating her." Charles keeps silent. "I never loved her. She wasn't…" Erik shakes his head. This is crossing into dangerous waters indeed, if he tells Charles that no one he has ever met compared to the telepath as either a lover or a companion.
"Well, Pietro and Wanda are delightful children. They'll be well cared for here."
"Thank you." Erik sighs. "I hate to leave them."
"No one is forcing you to stay away." Charles says quietly. Erik glances at him, heart pounding.
"Really?" Charles smiles at him wearily.
"Erik…you will always be welcome here. I would never stop a parent from visiting his children." There's just a trace of bitterness in those words, as if Charles is remembering how Erik had never come back to visit him of his own impetus.
"I would like that." Erik says.
"You can have your old room back, if you'd like." Erik never had his own room. He'd always shared a bed with Charles, ever since their cross country trip to recruit new mutants.
"That would…I would like that."
Erik ends up spending three days a week at the Manor, just to spend time with the twins.
Then Charles ropes him into teaching a history course to the students, since he's hanging around them so much anyway. Erik mainly teaches them about why humanity in general is terrible and methods to kill people, which is probably why Charles changes the schedules so that his class about ethics and use of power immediately follows Erik's lectures.
Then Erik gets sick of the continual jokes about his helmet he hears being passed down the hallways and gets rid of the headgear altogether, since Charles clearly finds them all hilarious, even the bad puns and egghead comments. Charles is obviously incapable of properly disciplining the teenagers, and so Erik begins running detention two other days of the week.
Then he finds out that Emma, Azazel and Janos have all just left the brotherhood to go run a Casino because they've all gotten fed up with him not being there, and Angel shows up on Charles's doorstep looking very shamefaced, and Raven, after a long talk with Charles in his study that Erik thinks probably involved both of them crying, starts teaching a self defense course to all of the youngsters.
Erik realizes that he's been domesticated and doesn't particularly mind.
5.
"Kill all the humans." Mystique breathes in the boy's ear. Erik watches, detached, his arms still humming from the feel of Cerebro's metal under his control. He's ready to kill the boy, if something should go wrong. After all, he knows that the boy they're manipulating is a mutant of great power, not one to be trifled with. Seconds ago, Mystique had been on the floor going into convulsions, and it takes a very powerful illusion indeed for Charles to not recognize his little sister.
Erik turns to leave, aware that all over the world billions of people are dying. Still, he can't resist hanging back a moment, brushing his hand over Charles's shoulder.
"Goodbye, old friend." But try as he might, Erik can't step away. He's done it at last, humans are being eradicated at last, and it is thanks to Charles, the very mutant who has always believed in peace, that it was happening. Erik wonders if Charles will appreciate the irony.
That's assuming Charles survives this, of course. Erik tries to convince himself that Charles can take this mental strain, that he's been using Cerebro for over forty years now. And yet, in the back of his mind, he knows that there's a very great difference between touching a mind and wiping it out.
Are we going to rescue him? Erik curses Mystique as her words echo in his head. She had met him in the woods when he escaped, and those had been the first words out of her mouth when Erik told her that Charles had been kidnapped. She hadn't wavered when he told her that her brother was the key to a new world, but he'd seen what her first impulse was. It had been his first thought too, before he realized what a chance he had been handed.
It's worth it. This is the final stage. This is a perfect opportunity, and if it involves forcing Charles to commit genocide, so be it. The humans made the first attempt, Erik is only responding to their actions.
He still can't take his hand off Charles's shoulder.
This is war. He has to make sacrifices. It's regrettable that his old lover must be among them, but what is one utterly broken (because becoming a mass murderer will break Charles, no one can kill so many and stay whole) man compared to a bright new future?
He'd just never quite pictured that future without Charles. Even if Charles is fighting him, he's always supposed to be there.
The X-men will be here soon. Erik has to leave quickly and seal the doors behind him, to flee and leave Charles to do his business and hope that the other man can cope with his actions when this is over.
Magneto takes two steps away, his hand slipping off Charles's shoulder.
Erik…please…
That wasn't Charles. Charles can't penetrate his helmet. That was just a flash of memory, likely from that damned day in Cuba so long ago. Erik closes his eyes a second and is grateful that Mystique has left them, sensitive enough to give Erik a moment of privacy.
Erik walks into the corridor, and steps in a puddle of water. He stares down at it.
The dam is coming down around them far faster than he expected. Erik keeps staring, seeing his own lined face reflected in the pool. For just a second he sees Charles there too, bright and smiling.
What is he doing?
"Magneto?" Mystique asks. She's poised on the corner, just in case an do-gooder X-man comes around the corner trying to save their teacher.
"Wait." He turns and blows the door open. He hears Mystique's exclamation as Erik walks back in, wrenching the apparatus off Charles's head. Charles slumps over, going completely limp. Erik drags the wheelchair with him, shooting the sickly mutant a sardonic smile. "Hurry. This dam is a death-trap."
He could feel Mystique's shock as she sees at Charles, hovering just behind Erik. But she moves, leading them out through corridors that drip with water. Erik follows and keeps Charles close to him.
They reach the helicopter just in time. Erik sits down and watches the waters burst from the dam, swirling into the valley where Charles's precious students must be drowning. Charles remains unconscious as Mystique flies the helicopter to their little space in the woods, the old bunker that Magneto made telepath-proof when he first needed a place to hide.
Erik walks in and sets Charles's wheelchair down. He picks up Charles and puts him on the bunk they use as a bed, wondering at how his old arms can summon the strength. Charles doesn't move, his eyes still closed and his limbs limp.
"You saved him." Erik looks over at Raven. She's looking at Charles.
"The dam was collapsing. He might not have had time to finish." Erik sits down at their little table. It's the only furniture in the safe house besides the bunk. He wants to check what they have in terms of food. Raven moves to kneel next to Charles, taking hold of his hand.
"We're together again." She says wonderingly.
"It seems so, my dear." Charles has woken up. He squeezes Raven's hand and she hugs him fiercely. Erik wonders if she is trying to make up for forty years of betrayal in that hug, and knows that Charles would have forgiven her if it had been forty thousand. "Would you mind giving Erik and I a moment alone?"
She rises and leaves, suddenly sober, as if realizing that this probably won't last. The door shuts on their vault, and Erik is left smiling wryly at Charles, who smiles back exactly the same way.
"Thank you." Charles says. Ever-polite, is Charles.
"It seemed only fair." Erik kindles a fire and begins making tea. "After all, I could hardly go on without you there to be a thorn in my side."
"My students?"
"I'm afraid I've no idea."
"Hmm." Charles pauses. "If this is a ploy to make me run away with you, I'll not be going along without checking on my students. If Scott and Ororo are not there to carry on the School, I cannot leave it."
"And if they lived?" Erik is so sick of fighting. He is an old man. Surely he has earned the right to some little peace.
"I'm tired of fighting." Charles says softly. "I don't think I had any idea how ehauusted I was before today."
Whenever did they get so old?
"Rest." Erik says instead. Charles hand turns over and suddenly they are holding hands. Erik finds it almost comical that just that makes the years slide away, as if they are young again and Charles has just seized his hand to pull him over to show him a new idea for the future they thought they would shape together. "In the morning, we can check on your school."
In the morning, they go back to the school. Charles veils the three of them.
It seems that not one student was harmed. Erik watches the young fire-starter with all the potential holding hands with a blonde boy (Charles mutters to him that Bobby chased John out of the plane and convinced him to come back, despite all of Erik's unhelpful comments about an irrational teenager being a god among insects), the girl with the streak of white in her hair walking with a group of friends, while Wolverine watches looking pleased with himself, Scott with his arm around Jean, Nightcrawler entertaining a group of students, Beast chatting with Storm.
They are in mourning, but it will pass. They have contacted the President, and made a list of Charles's wishes that has clearly been purloined from his desk, and are at work healing the world.
"It seems that they'll get along quite well without us." Erik says finally.
"I own a nice little cottage in Canada." Charles responds. "Just let me leave Hank a note."
(+1)
Everything is gone now.
There is no hum of metal in his bones. There is no blue-skinned henchwoman. There is no partner for chess.
Mystique is gone. She went quickly after she took the cure for him - human aging caught up to her at last, and with horrifying swiftness. Her hair was, if reports were to be believed, graying within days of the cure.
Erik himself has only seen her once since she became human. He'd been sitting in a park, an old man no different than any of the humans around him. She had been wearing a grey trench coat - it matched her steel grey hair perfectly - and watched him. Erik only recognized her for her eyes.
No other person in the world could have such a combination of guilt and vindication, grief and pity, hopelessness and calm resignation swirling around their pupils. Erik didn't make any move to speak with her. She left after a few minutes of watching, and if Erik knew it was because it was far too painful to see the wreck he has become.
He doesn't need her pity, not on top that given to him by all the world.
Pity, it seems, is all anyone has to offer him now. The government doesn't care about him now, not when he is no longer a threat. The mutant community sees him as obsolete, a cruel joke if anything. His former followers are either at Charles's school, being taught the principles Charles left behind (and possibly how not to be defeated by a team they had outnumbered five to one), or locked in jail for terrorism, and none of them want anything to do with him. Why would they?
Worst of all are the X-Men, those who are now the leaders of the community.
Hank and Ororo lead them now. Ororo looks at him and sees the man who took the Phoenix and then couldn't handle what he had unleashed, whose hopes and dreams have crumbled to dust before him. She is so similar to Charles that she manages to not hate him. Erik would have preferred hate. It would at least show that he made an impact.
Hank is the only one of the original X-Men still alive. Erik doubts that when they first assembled, when Charles walked up to him with a smile and welcomed his mutation, that Hank dreamed he would be the sole survivor, he who was so insecure and so timid. But no matter, that Hank is long gone, and this Hank is one with confidence, poise, a worthy successor.
Erik almost tells him so. After all, Hank knew Erik when he was Charles's ally, when he was Charles's everything. He might understand that Erik means it. Maybe he also thinks of the old days, when they never dreamed their team would be shattered like this. Maybe he would reminisce with Erik, and they could share stories about the man who shaped both of their lives.
But some pride is all Erik has left now, and he'll not give that up to a mutant just as likely to tell him that Erik had fifty years worth of chances to reconcile with the X-Men, and it's too late now.
Even the loss of the respect of the mutant community and the fear of the human's compares to the loss of Charles. That loss was first covered by action, by the need to do and act, but now…now Erik had nothing to do but to dwell on his old friend.
His helmet is as obsolete as he. It is a pointless relic of the past, like his chess set. All that those once were to him has died with Charles.
Of all the futures Erik ever contemplated, Charles's death was never an option. He can feel the loss with every heartbeat. He feels in the way the X-Men look at him, with far more pity than simply that of a mourning friend - they cannot possibly understand the complexity of his relationship with Charles, but they are wise enough to guess that it was not platonic.
Few are wise enough to guess that love was always at the very heart of it.
Erik pays them no mind. He doesn't often see them, anyway. His place now is not at Charles's Manor, it is in a dingy little loft apartment in Brooklyn, among a rabble of humans who aren't smart enough to recognize him without the helmet.
It is in this apartment that Erik sleeps, and sleeps now.
As he sleeps, his breath becomes fainter. His old heart is so battered, deprived of the only man it ever loved and the only man who loved him back, it cannot help but slow.
Slow. Stutter. Stop, with something akin to relief.
Erik's eyes snap open, and he realizes that he is falling.
"Erik!" A familiar voice echoes in his ears. There is white light above him but it is fading fast, darkness encroaching all around him. "Erik, take my hand!"
Fingers brush Erik's hand, and as he always must, he seizes them. Erik is pulled up, out of the darkness and into light no longer blinding but gentle and somehow soothing. He does need to look to see who has saved him.
Porcelain skin. Soft brown locks. A gentle smile, as beautiful as the blue eyes which now rest upon him.
"Charles…" Charles smiles, and for the first time since he first put the helmet of a monster upon his head, Erik feels peace.
"My friend, did you really think I could leave you behind?" Erik moves forward - he has all his old strength back, somehow they are both young again, but wiser than they had been then - and bends to kiss him.
"Never." Erik murmurs, and for once, nothing shall tear them apart.
A/N: My OT3 is Erik/Charles/Happiness + sibling feels. I regret nothing. Review?