For Pips, based loosely on her Mob Boss AU from tumblr, with love. Thank you for letting me play in your sandbox and allowing me to smash all the castles.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Warnings: Violence, gore, blood, major character deaths.
My Burning For You is Love
.
.
.
.
.
One.
They stand together on the edge of the city. The pavement is cracked. Erik is still bleeding. Charles is bleeding too, and it's been a long time since he wasn't.
Erik can feel the heat from the flames even from here as they watch the city burn.
"Gone," Charles says, eyes glazed, and the blue is on fire with the reflection of flames and madness as he smiles, "it's finally all gone."
Erik lifts his revolver, his grin bloody. "Not yet."
.
.
.
.
.
Twenty.
Charles is brutal when they fuck.
His nails drag red lines down Erik's back as he jerks his hips up to meet every one of Erik's thrusts, biting Erik's mouth bloody and it feels like completion because every time they come together it feels like burning.
Burning, always burning.
They are always on this edge, balancing so precariously that the slightest movement could tilt them just enough to send them plunging over the edge. On one side, they fuck each other.
On the other, they would kill each other, smearing the remains of their bodies across the floors and walls, collateral damage reaching past the point of affordable, leaving behind nothing but stains and ruins. It reminds Erik of the way they fuck.
So far they've only ever fallen one way. So far.
Charles is brutal when they fuck, but Erik is a monster.
.
.
.
.
.
Nineteen.
Charles comes into power when he is young. He looks young.
On the inside, he feels old.
He keeps up his image for the first year. Young, naive Charles Xavier, new boss of the Xavier Family. With his telepathy, his mask is flawless. He doesn't want to have morals, but thinks he should.
He knows his power intimately. He knows he could twist the minds of every last person in this city. It would be nothing to him. They are all nothing to him.
Charles keeps himself in check.
Then he meets Erik.
.
.
.
.
.
Eighteen.
The body is not recognizable anymore.
Charles knows the barbed wire is all Erik's work, because it bends and curves so nicely under the direction of his power, but he can't remember who the bullet holes are from because there is a red haze over his mind, blood lust radiating off of him in waves and he can't remember if he pulled the trigger or if Erik did.
"I do believe I'm losing my mind," he says aloud, putting fingers to his cheek to feel the warm, wet blood. It is not his.
Erik is standing over what used to be Moira MacTaggert, chest heaving as he pants. He looks back over at Charles and bares his teeth. "You mean you haven't already?"
Charles smiles. "I'm sure I haven't the faintest idea what you mean."
Erik lifts his revolver, clicks the cylinder over once. There are only three chambers left to go. He aims for Charles. Pulls the trigger.
Click.
Now two.
Charles keeps his smile. "Not today, my friend."
.
.
.
.
.
Seventeen.
He used to want the voices in his head to stop.
Now he knows how to make them stop, but thinks it would be lovely if they all screamed before they did.
.
.
.
.
.
Sixteen.
"I want Cain in here now," Charles snarls, knocking the lamp off the top of the desk with a crash, eyes wild, "I want you to find him, break both of his legs, and drag him into this fucking office or I'll—"
"I'll bring you your stepbrother." Erik says, eyes glittering, from where he lounges on the sofa. "You need only ask."
Charles hurls a paperweight at him but Erik catches it with his power, sending it hurtling back past the telepath. It buries itself in the wall behind the desk with a dull clunk.
"I want to hear him screaming when you're still twenty miles away," Charles hisses, fists clenched, "do you understand me?" His telepathy is like a wildfire on the edge of the sea that is Erik's mind—malevolent flames licking close, but not quite touching.
There's nothing stopping him from crushing Erik's mind. That's part of the thrill.
Erik gets off the sofa. "You'll hear him from thirty."
.
.
.
.
.
Fifteen.
"Get out," Charles says to Logan and Darwin, and they leave.
Erik laughs at him. He's still tied to the chair, and his green eyes seem to glow in comparison to all the blood on his face.
I know everything about you, Charles tells him, and that's not very funny at all, is it.
"We'd heard you were a telepath." Erik says with another laugh, his head lolling. "But you're afraid of your powers."
Charles smiles. There is something wrong with it. I'm not afraid of them.
"Then why don't you USE THEM?" Erik's voice raises to a shout, angry beyond reasoning and for a moment his mind is nothing but a black cloud of incoherent rage.
Charles stares him down until the black cloud recedes. It does not disappear. It could never disappear.
Charles does not want it to disappear.
"I do use them," he says, "people just don't notice until it's too late."
.
.
.
.
.
Fourteen.
Charles crawls up the length of Erik's body, tracing the metallokinetic's skin with his tongue in one long lick that ends in a bite when he reaches Erik's shoulder. Erik hisses, one hand coming up to wrap around Charles' throat.
Charles sits back slowly, his legs straddling Erik's ribs. His eyes are half-lidded and a tiny smirk toys at the edges of his lips. Erik keeps his fingers wrapped around the telepath's throat, and Charles makes no move to dislodge them.
Without looking away Charles reaches down into the sheets pooled around them and pulls out Erik's revolver. He grips it with both hands and lifts it to his mouth, sliding the barrel in past his lips.
Clicks the cylinder over once. Pulls the trigger.
Click.
Four left now, Charles says, Erik's hand still at his throat and the gun still in his mouth, are you disappointed?
Erik slowly starts to squeeze.
.
.
.
.
.
Thirteen.
"Work for me." Charles says, and it isn't a question. He wants this, a need so strong it burns feverishly within him, and he can see the same sort of fire burning in Erik too.
"Your other men will never trust me," Erik says, the challenge clear in his eyes. Charles has untied him from the chair and they pace around each other slowly, circling like wolves.
First one to show weakness gets their throat ripped out.
Charles can see Erik's fingers flex.
"I don't care about them, I don't care about any of them," Charles says, narrowing his eyes, "they are nothing to me."
"Then what am I?" Erik asks mockingly, but he's circled close now, prowling nearer with liquid grace.
He doesn't seem to care for the answer. Charles can see that he already knows.
Erik picks up a revolver off the ground. Charles hands him a bullet. The metal-bender grins, and slips it into one of the chambers and gives the cylinder a spin, before raising the gun to his head.
"Click and I'll work for you," he says, "bang and I don't."
Charles smiles.
Erik pulls the trigger.
Click.
.
.
.
.
.
Twelve.
"She put out an arrest warrant for me?" Charles demands, and when the grunt fails to answer quickly enough he lashes out with his telepathy, striking like lightning.
The body hits the floor. Erik feels Charles' rage hit the ceiling.
"I will kill her," Charles says, and he is fire, anger hot and bright, and it nearly hurts to look at him because it is beautiful, "I will kill her, I will kill them all, but I'm going to start with her—"
.
.
.
.
.
Eleven.
Erik is dozing on the sofa when he feels very familiar metal drawing close, and then the barrel of the gun is sliding lightly across his forehead. He reaches up with his power and turns the cylinder once.
Click.
"That was a waste." There is only one one chamber left. Their game is almost over.
"No," Charles remarks lightly, "I'm just getting it ready."
.
.
.
.
.
Ten.
Cain is a bloody mess when Erik drags him in. Both of his legs are mangled. Charles can see bone.
He looks down at Cain distantly. Cain is saying something—screaming something—but Charles can't hear him. Everything is white noise. Erik is watching him patiently. It's like he knows.
"Why are his ribs still in place?" Charles asks absently.
Erik holds out a hand, and the poker stick by the fireplace floats over to his palm.
.
.
.
.
.
Nine.
Would you burn down the world with me?
"Don't be dramatic," Erik answers, "the world is much too large. This city, though."
Charles clicks the cylinder over once lazily. This city, though. There are four chambers left.
Erik uses his power to pull the trigger.
Click.
"This city is doable."
.
.
.
.
.
Eight.
Logan and Darwin have always hated Erik the most, so they kill them first.
Erik grabs hold of Logan's spine with his powers and rips the man in half. He melts down the rest of the Wolverine's bones into liquid metal. Not even Logan can recover from that.
Charles attacks Darwin with his telepathy, and Darwin's mind adapts to keep him out. Then Erik finishes with Logan.
He can't adapt against both of them.
.
.
.
.
.
Seven.
Erik knows that Charles never had a very stable grip on his mind. Maybe it's the telepathy. Maybe it has nothing to do with his telepathy.
But Erik knows that one wrong move by anything and Charles will snap.
Charles knows that, for all purposes, Erik is the same.
They play a game to see who will first.
.
.
.
.
.
Six.
Erik is destroying the subway system when what is left of the police force catches up to them. He doesn't hear the gunshots, nor does he sense their tiny bits of metal, because he's focused on ripping up the tracks straight through the concrete of the street.
He does hear Charles scream.
It will be the first and last time.
.
.
.
.
.
Five.
"MacTaggert didn't like that you had Erik dump your stepbrother's body on the front steps of City Hall, sir," Darwin says when they haul her in, "and I'm not sure what you were thinking either. You're going to start a war, sir."
"Did I ask," Charles says, "for your thoughts on the matter."
.
.
.
.
.
Four.
Erik slaughters the rest of the Family, ripping the foundations out of the old mansion and driving pipes through chests and foreheads.
Charles checks the mail.
Pity that it's a Sunday.
When Erik is finished, the mansion is nothing but a pile of rubble and no one is alive.
"It appears I've disbanded the Family," Charles says, "what would Grandfather say."
Erik looks over at him, his green eyes burning and his clothes splattered with blood, and he laughs and laughs and laughs.
Charles smiles indulgently. "And now the city."
His answer is one of the skyscrapers tilting to one side, all of the windows shattering, and the chorus of a thousand screams.
.
.
.
.
.
Three.
Charles is having a rather unremarkable day when Logan sticks his head in the doorway to his office. "Cain Marko has men on our turf again."
Charles looks over at Erik, lounging on the sofa. "How many times have I warned him?"
Erik folds his arms behind his head. "Once."
"That," Charles says, "is too many." He looks at Logan. "Get out."
Logan withdraws his head, and then Charles snaps.
.
.
.
.
.
Two.
Charles does not ask for thoughts.
He takes them.
.
.
.
.
.
One.
They stand together on the edge of the city. The pavement is cracked. Erik is still bleeding. Charles is bleeding too, and it's been a long time since he wasn't.
Erik can feel the heat from the flames even from here as they watch the city burn.
"Gone," Charles says, eyes glazed, and the blue is on fire with the reflection of flames and madness as he smiles, "it's finally all gone."
Erik lifts his revolver, his grin bloody. "Not yet."
Charles reaches for him.
Erik pulls him in. They are burning together. He presses their foreheads close.
Clicks the cylinder over one more time.
"I would have given you the world to burn."
Charles smiles. "And I would have taken it away."
Pulls the trigger.
.
.
.
.
.
Zero.
Bang.