From Yesterday
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Sadly enough.
Warnings: AU-ish, Spoilers for DoFP!
AN: Wrote this while listening to Far Too Young To Die by Panic! At the Disco.
There are many things he regrets. Lives he could've saved. Wars he could've averted. But nothing more than all the years he wasted. All the times he fought Charles when they could've stood together. Even if they are side by side now. Legs brushing as he rests on the floor with Charles in front of him.
He wears no helmet. There is nothing in his thoughts that he fears for Charles to see. No secrets left between them. Most of their conversations are silent anyway. Made of truths never said aloud and realizations best kept between the two of them.
Just like the understanding that this probably won't work. That this is a slim chance at best, and one that's fading with every passing second. With every tick of the clock. With each heartbeat.
The Sentinels aren't made of metal, but both he and Charles know that they're coming. That it's only a matter of when – not if. That they are running out of time. And hope.
Definitely so when he sees Logan flail once again. When his claws unsheathe and he takes a blind swing at nothing.
But his claws and skeleton are more metal than bone. It's an easy thing for Erik to reach out with his gift and hold him in place.
And that's when Erik feels it. That's when it all changes.
He can feel her power tugging at him even as his own holds Logan down, and he's struck by a horrible and wonderful idea. One that coils through his very being and whispers into his soul even as he turns to look at his oldest and dearest friend. At the man who knows him as he knows himself.
Charles, blue eyes nearly glowing, lets out a small sigh and gives a nod. There is so much to say then, but at the same time, there isn't. They see and understand each other too well. Erik stays quiet even as he leans forward to rest his head on Charles' knee. A hand brushes his hair as he closes his eyes.
He has seen the very worst of humanity, of existence.
He won't break. He is steel, heated and reforged. Iron, shaped and remade. He isn't brittle. He didn't break for Shaw. Or the later years of solitude and imprisonment. When he watched friends and comrades die in screaming agony.
He did not break then. He won't break now. Even if he does, he has little left to lose.
Not when he feels Charles slowly unwrap from his mind and take a mental step away. When he feels the connection that's always open now slide shut.
He won't break.
He doesn't.
-O.o.O-
Erik wakes to a gunshot. It's startling, and he's already deflected the bullet before he realizes that he's the one who fired. The bullet thuds to the floor. Not to a wall. Not to the side. He's long ago learned from that mistake.
He glances around then. From the broken window before him to the long table. This is only vaguely recognizable, and he can't place himself. He knows this is the past but not where. Not when.
It takes him several heartbeats, body both foreign and familiar, but he turns. Blood immediately drains from his face at the scene before him. At the men before him.
Hank. Once dead and torn apart to save the school he loved so much.
Logan. Time-traveler and stubborn fool.
Charles.
Young. So young. But standing straight and proud. Eyes filled with a betrayal that cuts Erik to core and leaves him bleeding out. Sharp and angry but vibrant. Alive.
Logan is to the side, on his knees, holding his head with his eyes squeezed shut. His breath comes hard and fast like a horse after a race.
Hank has moved next to him, steadying even as he glares at Erik.
As for him, Erik looks from one of them to other and has a sinking sensation in his stomach. A feeling not unlike guilt.
Something tells him that this is all his fault. Somehow, it usually is.
Charles blinks then, and his head tilts subtly. Eyes flicking to Logan and then back to Erik. Before widening. Charles stares at him now. And keeps staring.
'He knows,' Erik thinks, mind still racing to catch up.
Even without his gift, even without reading his mind, Charles has always seen him. Can see that something isn't quite right. That this isn't the Erik that he knows.
Not yet, at least.
"What did you do?" Charles accuses then and in a tone that Erik hasn't heard for ages. Not since their last true fight in a future that shall now be the past.
Explanations are best put on hold, however.
Especially with a man – who bears a strong resemblance to William Striker – still being tased on the ground. Logan looking as if he's seen a ghost and been hit by a train at the same time. Hank gaping from one of them to the other as if watching badly played tennis. Not to even mention the increasing sounds of men approaching
-O.o.O-
"You are the craziest man I've ever met," Charles decides on the plane ride back to the States, and he's both reproving and strangely proud. Which is the most emotion he's shown since Paris.
Worrisome.
Erik is the forest fire. Burning, always burning. Even when the main blaze is out and only embers smolder.
Charles is the ocean. Deep and with hidden currents. Calm only on the surface.
But this isn't true calm. True serenity. This is something altogether much more troubling.
"Or," Charles adds, but his voice has lost its edge and he's sunk back in his seat, "simply but insanely determined."
That probably isn't far off the mark.
Erik will never admit it. Not even to Charles.
Definitely not when this Charles is both friend and stranger. Separated and distant. Out of reach.
This wasn't what Erik had wanted at all. This isn't how it needed to go. Not cameras catching Mystique escape, whereabouts currently unknown. Not Trask still alive and kicking up a fuss.
Logan, unsurprisingly, has adapted the best. He's a survivor at his core. Not to mention that he knows Erik. This Erik. They've long ago settled their pasts, hard not too when the world is burning down around them.
And truth be told, he looks relieved for the back-up. For someone familiar to lean upon when everything else is so strange.
Hank though is torn. Flying the plane and staring straight ahead like he wants nothing more to wake up and to find this all one very disturbing dream.
And Charles. Mind closed and shut off. A proverbial fortress with a chasm between them.
He's young and betrayed, angry in a way Erik hasn't seen in so very long. Doubting. Aching. Pretending that he isn't.
But the fury is easier to redirect than the hurt. Than the fear. And for all the time that he's just gained, fifty years' worth of it, there isn't enough to sooth that wound. Not yet.
"This is such a mess." Charles mutters, and he sounds defeated, despondent. "Past. Future. Timelines. Extermination."
"Don't get your panties in a twist, Chuck," Logan half-orders and half-grunts, cigar in hand. "We can still manage it. We've just got to find Trask. And Mystique. Stop this ticking time bomb."
"Not to mention the Sentinels," Hank unhelpfully chimes in from the front.
And Erik knows that's his cue.
"If I may," he cuts in, and they all look at him, some with more enthusiasm than others. "I do believe I know a way to find both Trask and Mystique."
That earns him a lifted eyebrow from Logan and a seat-shuffling by Hank. But it's Charles who he watches. Who he always watches. Who's now watching him in turn.
"What did you have in mind?" Charles asks with a false mildness. Erik can tell he's already suspicious, bristling.
Good. Very good. He'll need that spark.
Erik grins then. It's all tooth.
-O.o.O-
He saves the president. There's an irony to that. Erik had failed the first time but succeeds now. With all the cameras facing him and the world watching.
It isn't at all what he planned to do, but it earns him a brilliant smile that makes his chest tighten and his heart ache. And for that, he'd save a million humans and turn around to save a million more. Burn this world to the ground, rewind time, and try yet again.
He knows what to value now, after all. And if he can erase this one single regret, then it's all worth it.
Charles is sleeping now. He deserves it. Healing but bruised, face a pattern of greens and purples. Back and legs even worse.
But Erik knows how to be quiet, how to open a drawer soundlessly. To seat himself at the desk and slowly pen out his thoughts, memories.
Regrets.
It doesn't take long. Not nearly as long as one would think. He's back in the chair by Charles' bed soon enough, letter in hand.
Erik places it exactly where he know he'll look first. His own name is written across the top, and he gazes at it for a moment before turning back to more important matters.
The rise and fall of Charles' chest. The soft murmurs he makes in his sleep. The brush of telepathy that buzzes in the air and reaches for Erik even in his slumber.
He sees and feels it all. Just sits quietly, enjoys the moment of peace. Allows himself one brief instant of hope.
Before leaning back and letting sleep – letting the future – claim him, too.
-O.o.O-
Erik is lying flat when he wakes. It takes him several heartbeats to puzzle that out as he rubs both hands across his face. But even that stops him dead as he gets a proper look at them. Strong as they should be but wrinkled. Lined with age and years that weren't there when he went to sleep.
His heart leaps into his throat before he forces it back down, and something on the bedside table catches his gaze.
It's a letter. Familiar but not. Aged where just a while ago it was new. He can see the soft creases and wrinkles. The yellow cast to the paper from the years it's been carried. The little tears at the edges, the faint smudges of ink.
Erik can tell that it's been unfolded a thousand times. And refolded a thousand more. Carried across fifty years and countries, continents.
But no more. Not today.
He sits up and eases to his feet on knees that unfortunately ache with age. He doesn't make it far. Not even to the door when it opens, and he knows before he even sees Charles who it will be.
Erik isn't disappointed.
He is kneeling next to Charles before he's even truly realized that he's moved. Looking up and seeing a flicker of concern. Then, Erik watches a comprehension blooms, and he turns his head so that he doesn't have to see anymore.
So that he can avoid this truth for a just a moment longer.
He did it. They did it. They won.
The world is different.
But Erik knows – just as he knew from the beginning – that he if he won, he'd still lose. The world is different, after all. But he only remembers it as it was. The last fifty years of this time and place are a blank to him.
This is a life he never lived. One he doesn't know. Whatever happened, whatever changed, he missed it all.
His head lowers of its own accord then. Sinking down until his cheek rests on Charles' thigh, warm and safe. He feels familiar fingers slide through his hair and sinks into the offered comfort. Allows his chest to tighten with both gladness and mourning.
Everything he once knew is now gone. Replaced.
In the end, he has still lost all those years that he should've been here.
"We knew this day would come," Charles murmurs then, and his voice is soft, low. Fingers stilling but not falling away as Erik lifts his head just enough to look at him. "I saved them, you know. Your memories. It's all in here."
With his free hand, he taps his forehead, and Erik is mildly ashamed to say that he goggles for a moment before letting out a bark of laughter. One that would surely scandalize most of those who once knew him.
But Charles merely smiles. Eyes blue and shining. Mind a gentle brush that's both welcome and wanted.
"Let me show you," he says, and it's the only offer Erik needs.
He won't let this chance slip away. Not now. Not ever again.
Erik closes his eyes then. Relaxes against Charles even as he opens his mind.
And he steps into the past – the future – with nothing but wonder.
AN: I haven't written anything in ages, but this movie ate my brain. Oh, the feels…
Also, Erik… Why must you always fuck everything up?
Ever Hopeful,
Azar