Inspired by Maroon 5's Last Chance and that single line: And I'm the boy you've left behind. Basically its a Erik-returns-to-build-Charles-their-long-distance-love-machine. And yes, my obsession still hasn't fade away. I don't own a thing.
XXX
Last Chance
XXX
1. This is the contraption that will end us all, he claims.
The metal panels rearrange themselves at his mercy, shifting like a child's blank canvas. Except his only color palette is a greying metallic and it isn't even the shining sort of silver.
One week ago. (He isn't keeping tabs, no, not at all.)
"Sorry for the intrusion."
Charles is still that warm rush of calm, he assumes. But Azazel makes manners seem menacing, more threatening than polite in all honesty. His apology is ambiguous, Magneto doesn't know for whom it is for.
"Erik?"
He only knows this intrusion of another's privacy hurts everything that Charles stands for.
And, because there is no understanding beyond what is verbally said, he allows himself a moment to imagine: Sincere blue eyes. But there is no proof, they have been apart for far too long. He seems to have forgotten. (Impossible.)
"I need your help."
The request has been simple, come back, built me a device that will keep me up and searching for that unknown feedback and leave. The last is an implication of his own, one that Erik makes for himself, before resolve crumbles along side of control, and he easily complies.
"Hank has the blueprints all ready for you."
And then he leaves just as softly as he has intruded on his life.
It takes all of ten seconds for Emma to walk in, glittering a diamond shell.
"He was just here."
Her voice jabs and nothing makes this any easier than he has imagined it to be but Magneto easily walks pass her with an air of indifference. "Who?"
"The telepath."
She doesn't say his name, she doesn't even need to know his name to know he is his in every single aspect of that word. Emma turns to Azazel but he has long since learnt to keep his mouth shut, before Magneto, before Shaw even.
She drops his name and prays with all her heart that it will ground him in place. She is beginning to sound like Mystique and she doesn't even know why she is beginning to care all of a sudden. She has never had this problem, not even with Shaw.
"We're too close to him, Magneto."
He is standing by the frame of the door when she is warning him of all the consequences, like he doesn't have a clue.
"It doesn't matter, he won't do anything." He doesn't care.
(But you will and you do.) But anything she says always falls upon deaf ears, still, she hasn't learnt or maybe this is her way of getting through to him and they continue. Sharp stares meeting menacing glares.
One week later. (But it isn't like anyone is counting the days away.)
"Erik."
Charles has changed in ways he can't see. There is sadness lying haunting in his eyes and Erik can see all that and more. He can pretend he is imagining it all, he can think he doesn't take notice. And yes, he might just be that oblivious. But it isn't in him to comment or leave another wake of destruction after him: He isn't a clear summer day anymore, he is a turbulent storm with his worst still to come.
Perhaps now, they are finally a match.
"Thank you for coming."
He doesn't make small talk about Raven, he doesn't comment on the weather, he doesn't even have the decency to look appalled by the presence of a man who has damaged him for life. In fact, Charles doesn't say much really.
And for once, Erik is the one filling in the silence suspended in the air.
"I like what you did with the house."
Erik stops in his steps. Because it is only then that he realizes his mind has been overriding reality and the words his tongue is articulating make him sound like a man with taste. He refuses to acknowledge the raised eyebrow on Charles' part and simply opts to stare with defiance at those eyes, daring him to challenge him in any shape or form.
Charles only smiles faintly.
Blue with gray around the edges, fading in sharp shards of optical filaments. Erik is starting to sound poetic and that is never a good sign.
"…Thanks, we just finished last week."
It goes without saying that he seeks him out the same day. But Cerebro can no longer loom ahead, an oversized white golf ball in a field of green, rather it is all underground, like a hidden secret of their shameful past.
(And much like the feelings he has suffocated beneath short and supposedly manageable years of being apart.)
He follows Charles into the elevator and they descend beneath the earth.
2. You take me to places and show me new faces but we won't ever change, he confesses.
There are loose wires hanging down from the spherical room. Stray metal panels and steel beams. The tiled floors are grainy and dusty and there is a broad blue back in the centre of it all.
No one acknowledges Hank, just yet, and he pretends he can't hear a thing all the same. But it is unknown whether anyone notices the rigid spine and the slight curling of the ends of his blue fur.
"Sorry, old friend, but I can't go any further than this."
Charles stops by the opened doors where the corridors are still smooth and sleek, unlit and dim but still assessable unlike the beginning stages of what Cerebro will become.
They stand a mere two feet apart but there is a distance that they can never just ignore. Because there is an ocean of pain and knots over knots of regret and guilt that stands in the way.
Erik nods in understanding and takes another step backwards, stepping right into Cerebro. The soles of his shoes are halfway in between two worlds.
"If there's anything, just think a little loud—" But Charles; voice catches in his throat and it is like they finally remember the helmet straining between them, another addition to everything that obstructs their shared path. He sounds worn down and a little border lining on desperate. "I mean," he swallows thickly at this, "just tell Hank if there's anything you two need."
He turns around, hand on the wheels as he makes to leave, back out of everything he has initiated. (And for the sake of what? He still hasn't decided.)
"Charles." Can I assume that I am safe here?
It is a break through.
A simple sort of therapy that isn't supposed to be capable of healing the soul this soon but it does and it makes him smile. Lips and teeth hurting as Erik's mental voice finally makes its way into his head, burrowing within the empty spaces that is starting to gather dust at the edge of all that sadness.
Charles sits still, careful because he isn't convinced that this isn't just another fleeting moment of hope he has envisioned for himself.
…Of course, my friend.
And it is tedious and uncertain but this is how healing works in reality, they suppose.
Erik slowly turns the metal structure of the wheelchair, the one he has put him in, so they can face one another. Nothing is emotional, at least not on the surface, not as far as they can tell but they have also learnt to never pry, at least never again. There are no free flowing tears or quivering bottom lips. They are much too old for this and although years in the future, they will miss the chance to indulge and let go just a little more, right now, they know this is enough.
Erik has his helmet in his hands and he floats it over like a peace offering.
Except it is the representation of all the resentment he should feel. Charles has accusations he can flood into Erik's mind, he has all the pain and exhaustion from months in rehabilitation but when metal touches his up-turned palms, all that dissolves and he is left with Erik.
No scarred past that comes with the Lehnsherr name, no heightened determination to bring forth mutant supremacy that lies heavy with equivalence to Magneto, because Erik is just a young man he has spent nights after nights playing a simple game of chess with.
And it is just that.
With all the worn and old arguments forgotten, they finally see the other for who they are.
"Charles."
"Hmm?" He replies, a little breathless from the shock of the metal, smooth and cold in his hands.
"Hold on to that for me, will you?"
Charles nods, smile strained but genuine, like he finally means what he says and his face finally reflects what he feels on the inside. Erik turns around, long cape sweeping behind him and Charles notes to mention it to him that it gathers more dust than it looks menacing.
Unless Erik is trying to make a fashion statement. If that is the case, Charles will keep quiet.
3. I am the vessel in which you ride in, not the map in which you rely on, he says.
The relationship they have is built on trust. And it is in his last moments on the beach that he learns to reflect.
He thinks of—oh, what was that single running thought?
He can't recall. But he knows it has led him on a nameless search he hasn't found the start to. There is a warmth in the knowledge that Erik is back in the Westchester Mansion and although he may be meters and meters beneath the surface, there is a heated sensation that is beginning to spread.
Yes, it is different now but he likes to pretend they can be civil and easy, and he hopes they won't fall back on old habits once more. (Because it is with experience that he knows that it never gets them anywhere without scars and bruises to show.)
Charles finds solace in the human mind, all hidden memories and secret thoughts combined just as Erik finds comfort in the way metal curls with his beckoning.
"Why does it have to be him, Professor?"
He is sitting in the downstairs study when Alex walks into the room with Sean trailing behind. They have both grown, filling out t-shirts and dragging long and awkward limbs into something that resemble confidence and young men instead of boys forced to grow up in circumstances that they cannot change.
"Can you think of anyone else?"
Charles doesn't ask them to sit, this house is not his anymore, it is theirs as much as it is anyone he lets through the doors.
"We could have made it from scratch."
"I am sure you could." And he does believe that, he has faith in what they can but don't know how to do yet. There is no mockery in his voice, just a sense of sincerity that they are still not used to.
"Then why?"
"He was free, he had time, and he didn't mind helping out an old friend."
"Professor—" Alex starts but Sean clenches a hand around his elbow, fingers pink, knuckles white. And Charles doesn't need to guess to know all the exertion Sean has put into that grip to keep Alex from launching forward in a frenzy of words laced with righteous poison. (One that he knows he needs to hear, but just please not today.)
"No one needs that, Alex. Professor X is a the professor here, just listen to him."
Sean pulls a tight-lipped smile, an attempt at reassurance, and yes, they have truly grown.
"Thank you, Sean. Alex. Erik is still a friend, despite our past… setbacks."
Alex bites back on all the comments he wants to make at the vocabulary Charles decides on and Sean lessens the force he applies to Alex's arm.
"And he is the perfect candidate to help us with Cerebro, I didn't want anymore hassle with the construction crew." He doesn't want to sound like he is explaining himself but he knows he is doing just that. "They ruined too many nice rugs I had and nearly killed the trees in the yard if it wasn't for that slightly nicer landscaper we hired at the last minute. Erasing their memories of the past month is not hard, it is convincing them that the sudden deposit of our payment is legit and reasonable."
Alex rolls his eyes and Charles pretends he doesn't hear the we-shouldn't-have-even-paid-them that he mutters beneath his breath. Sean smiles and it is crooked and natural.
There are still so many omissions that need to be brought up but today, they decide as a broken family of the left behind sort, is not the day they bring up the past that is only starting to scab over.
The betrayal is still raw, lines of angry red that is still pink and puffy around the edges, and they are not masochistic enough to go digging the day Erik comes back.
The helmet sits at the low shelf by the window. Magenta red gleaming in the afternoon sun and it is getting harder to ignore.
Charles smiles and Professor X will try again. For all the times he has failed to convince an old friend, he really should have just learnt to let go.
But forgiveness is always easier in return.
It may be the bullet that has terminated his ability to ever walk on soft grass, warm sand and cool wooden floors but it is forgetting the man that has caused it all that is proving harder and harder to do.
Charles can't forget Erik and all the good he could have done instead.
XXX Kuro
This is a 9-part oneshot that had to be separated before it grew even further out of epic proportions… OTL