Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor the X-Men and I sadly don't get paid for writing this!

A/N: When a friend showed me this epic fanvideo ("The Greater Good - Harry Potter - Dumbledore and Grindelwald" by BroadStrokes), my first thought (besides: "Wow, this is great!") was: "Oh, another beach divorce...!" So in a way, this is a follow-up to 'Rebirth'. The actors certainly aren't the same, but I do see a common theme... Then again, I am slightly mad. :P

A Beach Wedding

by Dime

"I don't want to hurt you!"

Charles clenched his teeth and kept attacking. He did not want to hurt Erik either, he really didn't, but how could he just stand back and watch Erik kill thousands of people?

They rolled around in the sand, both desperately grappling for a better hold, a battle for the upper hand that was no longer about pride or arrogance or friendly teasing. Lives were at stake.

Erik's fist hit Charles - and Charles's world tilted on its axis. The taste of blood and sand in his mouth combined with the sound of the waves washing upon the shore, the ache in his chest so very, very familiar.

He had been here before. On a beach just like this, in a situation so eerily similar to this one.

And it had ended badly.

Completely disoriented, and yet imbued with a single-minded purpose and determination, the man who cared for the Greater Good above all else lurched to his feet. He did not understand where the knowledge came from, but he could see the future spread out in front of him as though he had walked down this path once before.

Down this road, he saw the triumph of the Greater Good.

But he also saw pain and heartbreak; friends and family dying, losing his love, losing himself. Straying so far from his ideals that he would groom an innocent child to commit suicide, "for the greater good". He would send his love to prison, and be alive, but alone, long past his time.

In that moment, he made a decision. Whatever the cost to the Greater Good, he would not repeat this mistake.

He would not let this come between them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw Moira McTaggert raise her gun to shoot at Erik. In his mind's eye, a different weapon was raised on the person who was so very important to him, but a deadly threat to their entire world, and he knew that the one to pay most dearly for this battle would be...

His sister.

"Stop!"

Erik glanced back over his shoulder at the shout - and was startled badly enough that he nearly dropped all those rockets again. Instead, they halted in mid-air where they hung suspended while he considered the oddly changed scene.

The agent was pointing a gun at him. But Charles had frozen her - along with everyone else on the beach, except for Erik under his helmet.

Charles himself was looking at Erik with tears in his eyes, but a determined set to his jaws. When he spoke, Erik strained his ears not to miss a single word; he knew whatever Charles said now, it would be far from trivial.

"I have made mistakes," Charles begun. Again, not what Erik had expected. Charles was a wonderful person, but like everyone else, he had his flaws; arrogance was certainly among them. "In fact, I have made plenty. There are so many things in my past which I am not proud of, if I had to enumerate them, I would not even know where to start. But there is one thing that I regret above all else."

Erik did drop several rockets when Charles stepped closer and got right up into his face.

"The one thing I have always regretted, will always regret, was pushing you away."

Erik's eyes widened. "What...?" He got no further than this.

Charles kissed him.

Every last rocket dropped out of the sky and with a drumbeat of scattered splashes vanished into the ocean. The man's arms came up and wrapped around the other's waist.

For several minutes, while the captains on the war boats not two miles from them looked at their first mates for confirmation of what their eyes were telling them, those two men who were born to change their world stood on the beach nearly motionless and simply kissed.

Finally, they broke apart.

"Charles, what...?" Erik asked again.

"I love you," the other man said. "I love you, Gellert."

Erik staggered back, clutching at his head. "No," he whispered, then louder: "NO!"

Images flashed into his mind: a dream shared, a dream lost; a love, fierce but broken. Her death. His betrayal. Then a lonely cell, locked away from the world for so many years, until a madman came to ask him about his long-ago quest, the quest he shared with the man he thought he knew.

The painful memories knocked him clear off his feet.

Sitting in the sand, clutching at his head, Erik's eyes focused on the one constant in all of his chaotic memories. He looked up at his best friend and worst enemy with a desperate plea: "Albus..."

The other reached out a hand and pulled him to his feet. "Let's not do that again," he said. "Let's never do that to each other again."

Erik's mouth twisted in wry humour. "How many times do you think we've already danced this same dance?"

Charles closed his eyes in defeat. "More than a few times, I'd wager. It feels like our positions are deeply ingrained: You, fighting for the superiority of our kind, indiscriminately sacrificing ours and the others for your cause; and me, fighting for a harmonious life for all, together -"

"- and making nearly as many sacrifices as I, along the way."

Charles grimaced. "Mine sacrifice themselves."

"Not without your input, they don't."

"...True."

Erik grinned cheekily. "What a pair we are, nicht wahr?"

Charles snorted. "Powerful, arrogant, and utterly stupid?"

"Just so."

Their arms found each other's hips and they drew close for another kiss. It made Charles lose his concentration and people on the beach started moving again.

Agent McTaggert did not, however, use this perfect opportunity to shoot at a distracted Erik Lehnsherr. Rather, she put the safety back on and returned the gun to its holster. With the things she was seeing, she did not currently trust herself to shoot. The words she heard when the two men ended the kiss could not possibly be real, so clearly something or someone was messing with her perceptions and if she shot now, who knew what damage she might do?

"If we want to stop repeating the same mistakes, we need to not work against each other for once."

"But our ideologies do not match at all!"

"Well, no. So I suppose that means we should not meddle in politics, for once."

Charles raised a quizzical eyebrow at Erik. "You actually believe both of us capable of staying out of politics?"

Erik harrumphed. "Maybe not. But we cannot get directly involved, it would be... bad."

Charles's eyes roamed the beach as though searching for a solution, only to land on a thoroughly lost-looking Raven.

"My sister!" he shouted gleefully.

"Arianna?" Erik asked doubtfully.

"Well, yes," Charles said, "but right now, I was talking about Raven. We both have some influence over her, which will make for a more balanced world view. She can be our interface to politics!"

Raven's lost look slowly turned into a frown.

"She's currently thoroughly on my side," Erik objected. "How does that make for a balanced view?"

Charles's smirk was as cheeky as Erik had ever seen. "She's not so much on your side as wishing to be by your side. Once she realizes just how very gay you are, I trust she will not shun me as completely any more. After all, we did grow up together and there used to be a lot of sibling love."

Erik's mouth twisted in distaste, while a bit further off, Raven's blue skin took on a decidedly greenish hue as she mouthed 'Gay...?'.

"Not that kind of sibling love," Charles scolded and playfully slapped at Erik.

"Well, with your family, one never knows," Erik said with a gleam in his eyes. "Wasn't there something about a goat...?"

"My brother did not do anything with that goat, and the charges were completely ridiculous!"

"I never said anything about your brother, Albus."

Charles flushed deeply. "Can we just forget about the past and focus on the future? Please?"

The dancing spark did not leave Erik's eyes, but he graciously agreed. They both turned towards a still peaky-looking Raven. "So how about it, Raven? In exchange for us no longer fighting each other, will you do us the honour of being our spokesperson in politics?"

"You're kidding, right?" she asked weakly. "Spokesperson for the both of you? I'll implode from the conflicting input!"

"No you won't," Charles said decisively. "Because that's actually what we're trying to prevent."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. But you know," Erik laid an arm around her shoulders, "we both really think very highly of you. And we love you."

Hope returned to her eyes for a moment.

"As a sister," Charles added and slung an arm around her waist from the other side as Erik nodded his agreement, dashing those hopes. "And we think our sister is intelligent enough to speak for us -"

"- and strong enough to stand up to us," Erik finished for him.

Raven extracted herself from the double sideways hug, leaving the two men to once more hug each other. "Why would I do something as obviously crazy as that?"

Erik cocked his head at her, then pointed at the war boats offshore. "Because I just saved all of our lives?"

Charles gave a cute little pout, then added his two cents: "Because I just prevented the start of a war," indicating Erik with a little nod.

Raven threw up her hands in despair. "Oh, alright!" Then she glared at them both furiously: "But I don't want to see any goats around the house! Nor any flaming birds or three-headed dogs. Is that perfectly clear?"

The two men meekly nodded at her.

"What about a giant chess set, though?" Charles whispered to Erik. And to a glowering Raven: "Remember, you need to balance between rage and serenity..."

"It has to be metal," Erik replied just as quietly. Then, looking somewhat anxiously at Raven, who looked fit to burst a blue vessel: "Let's discuss this later. We first need to do something about the situation here."

Slowly, they considered their beached Blackbird, the war ships still focused on them, and the fairly bewildered rest of their group.

"Umh. A kiss for courage?" Charles asked in an aside, the wish to procrastinate easily overwhelming his urge to serve the greater good.

Erik glanced around as well, twisted his lips and nodded.

The kiss went on... and on... and on... then broke.

"Ouch!"

Charles drew back, a hand rising to his suddenly bleeding lip. He glared at Erik. "Did you have to come back as a shark?"

Erik gave him an offended look. "Not all of us can be reborn wearing permanent lipstick. ...And at least I don't have a thing for goats."

"ARGH!"

~ The End ~

A/N: If you are mad enough to like this, please don't forget to review! ^^