monstrousregiment: (Default)
[personal profile] monstrousregiment
Title: Blinding (5/6)
Author: monstrousreg
Word count: 2946
Warnings: None so far.
Pairing: Erik/Charles.

Summary: Erik and Charles, before the beach, in a house together but in different shores of a river. An errant thought from Erik makes them face some truths, and bridges begin to burn.

Notes: So. THE BEACH SCENE. Look, I don't know if this even makes sense, I need a fucking beta to slap me around. This feels sort of disjointed and not completely coherent to me, but any way I turn it around, it's he same thing and I'm just stuck on small wording. I hope the general idea comes through, idk idk. You will all hate this chapter so fucking much it's not even funny omg

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4

 

“I’m sorry for what happened in the camps,” Shaw says, face unreadable, tone soft. “I truly am.”

Erik remembers feel of Charles’ lithe, elegant body, flesh firm but softer than his own, skin white as a dove’s feathers, delicate ribs moving with the rhythm of his breath.  He remembers the faint smell of his shampoo, the scent of the clean sheets they laid on, the way Charles’ curls tickled his forehead where he pressed it against the back of the telepath’s head. He remembers waking in the morning, golden sunlight spilling luxuriously through the windows, down the polished woods floors, across the expanse of bare skin on Charles’ long throat.

Then  he looks at Shaw in the face, and the feel is Charles’ warm skin fades away like smoke in the wind.

Shaw raises his hand. It’s just a finger but the lightening of pain splits Erik’s skull open, so much so he hardly feels the pain of his back hitting the mirror. He lays dazed in the ground for a second, and Charles’ voice is back, infused almost with a smile, joyous with relief at having Erik within his reach again.

Erik, whatever you’re doing keep doing it, it’s starting to work.

“But everything I did, I did for you,” Shaw continues gently. “To unlock your power. To make you… embrace it.”

Erik tries to get to his feet. Shaw’s finger slips under his chin and he’s thrown against the wall again, mirror shards raining on him, and the back of his mind lights up like a flame’s been fed to powder.

It’s working. I’m starting to see him but I can’t yet touch his mind.

“You’ve come a long way from bending gates. I’m so proud of you.”

The worst part is he means it. He’s looking at Erik like a proud father looks at his accomplished, talent son. Erik’s mind is beginning to cloud with terror, the edges of his vision turning black.

Erik looks around quickly, evaluating. Charles is coming clearer in his head, his voice firm, his presence somewhat soothing the absolutely irrepressible panic that is quickly flooding Erik’s mind, the longer he is in Shaw’s presence.

He suddenly understands—the mirrors. He surges to his feet and brings down everything he can around them, filling the small room, shattering the mirrors, until Charles’ mind is as clear in his mind as his own. Some of the beams and bars hit Shaw, but he’s not affected and Erik is not really aiming to hurt him anymore, all he wants is for Charles to stop him.

Preferably before Erik loses his mind—something he is dangerously close to.

Shaw doesn’t even flinch.

“And you’re just starting to scratch the surface,” Shaw says, his voice soothing. Erik feels fractured with terror. He turns all of his power to the beam in front of him, pushing it away, blocking Shaw, trying to back away. The beam moves at his will, metal flinging through the room, but Shaw keeps advancing.

Erik is a child again, helpless against Shaw, frozen in terror, alone and forgotten, helpless—Charles is still in his mind with him, but his attention is really elsewhere, focused on Shaw, and he’s not helping Erik.

“Think of how much further we can go, together,” Shaw says. He flicks his eyes down and presses the tips of his fingers against the beam.

Erik struggles, he fights back as much as he can—but the beam turns against him, just like everything and everyone, and Shaw wins, he wins—Shaw always wins and Erik always loses everything.

It’s like Erik’s mind shuts down, and all he can do is breathe, and that just barely, because the beam is pressing against his chest, trapping him against the wall, restricting his chest.

Erik—Erik I’m trying but he’s still being blocked, just hold on I’m trying—

Shaw leans in close, threads his fingers through Erik’s hair, cradling his skull affectionately. He’s looking at Erik like he’s the best thing he’s ever done in his life, his masterpiece.

Erik realizes he’s shaking, and his eyes are overrun with tears. Beneath the roiling, incapacitating panic he can feel Charles, scrambling to soothe him, attempting to support the wreck of Erik’s mind with his own.

He can’t look at Shaw. He can barely breathe. His world is closing in around him, like a light losing brightness as it burns out.  

Shaw’s voice is an intimate murmur, “I don’t want to hurt you, Erik. I never did. I want to help you. This is our time. Our age. We are the future of the human race. You and me, son. This world could be ours.”

Erik remembers the warmth of Charles’ back against his chest in the morning, and knows as he laid there in bed in a manor under the sun, he was lying to himself. Charles is wrong. He’s been wrong all along.

There is no safe place. There is no safe place.

This is where Charles was wrong: there is no other path for Erik to walk. There are no options, no choices, no decisions to be made that will allow him to live.

“Everything you did, made me stronger,” he says. His chest feels like it’s breaking apart, inside out, like his ribs are trying to claw their way out, his heart is climbing up his throat. He blinks and tears roll down his cheeks. “Made me the weapon I am today. It’s the truth. I’ve known it all along.”

He cuts his eyes up to Shaw, and sees his smile, thin lips stretched over white teeth.

“You were my creator.”

The cables are obeying him. They snatch the helmet up and away from Shaw and Erik feels words roll out of his mouth and hears Charles cry out in his mind and Shaw goes still.

Erik stands in front of Shaw and the cable drops the helmet gently into his waiting hands.

“Sorry, Charles,” he says, turns the helmet around.

Erik, please. Be the better man. You have

“It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

Charles’ mind is desperate, Erik there will be no turning back

He’s gone. The spot at the back of Erik’s mind goes dark and dead. Charles’ been gone before, only not quite this completely.

Shaw is still frozen, and Erik comes close enough the tips of his outstretched fingers touch the metal of the helmet. It’s strange—Shaw’s been wearing it, and now Erik is, but the helmet’s still as cool as though no one had touched it. It feels strange and foreign on his head.

Erik tilts his head, “If you’re in there, I‘d like you to know, I agree with every word you said. We are the future.”

“But,” Erik turns away, withdraws. “Unfortunately, you killed my mother.”

He turns around, holds up the coin. Thinks it might have been his imagination that Shaw’s pupils contracted and hopes it wasn’t. He hopes Shaw is there, watching him, listening.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to count to three, and I’m going to move the coin.”

He sends it away.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

The coin breaks Shaw’s skin and a river of blood comes forth immediately, rolling down his nose, his cheek, over the curves of his lips to his chin and the ground. The sound of the drops hitting the ground is obtrusively loud in the dead silence of the submarine and through the ringing in his head Erik hears the gunshot and the sound of his mother crumpling to the ground like a puppet with cut strings

The coin stops.

And somehow, for some reason that I’m sure not even you can come up with, you’re following Shaw. Just, food for thought.

A succession of little hurts and pains, little aggressions people do against you, or perhaps great ones, that you consciously must choose to forgive.

“No,” he stumbles back a step and his voice breaks.

…but the choices you are making take you down a road that leads you to a place I cannot follow.

Erik looks at Shaw and thinks of his dead mother and then he thinks, No. You can’t have me.

“Erik!”

He whirls around and Charles comes barreling into him, tackling him to the ground. There’s no finesse in the attack and Charles’ forehead hits the sharp edge of the helmet’s cheekbone guard; his eyebrow splits open. In a split-second reflex Erik lashes out, remembers his assessment of Charles’ weaknesses and hits the most sensitive part of Charles’ anatomy—his elbow connects with a fragile temple.

Charles’ cry of pain jars him out of his shock, though, and he scrambles to sit up as Charles falls to the ground and struggles to stay conscious. Erik sees Shaw’s eyes shift and is suddenly stricken by white-hot panic.

“Charles,” he says urgently, rushing to his knees and slipping his arms around Charles’ shaking form. “Charles, don’t let him loose, whatever you do, don’t let him go!”

“Moira,” Chares gasps dizzily. “She has the syringe, the anesthetic. Get it.”

Erik raises his hand and tears apart the wall of the submarine, throwing himself out to the beach to land heavily on the sand. The helmet rolls away.

“Where’s Charles?” Moira yells, running towards him.

“Throw me the syringe!” Erik replies, swaying to his feet.

Moira fumbles with her thigh pocket and finally throws a small, flat silver box at him. Erik catches it with his power and lifts himself back to the submarine.

Charles is kneeling on the ground, clutching his head and trembling severely. Shaw is moving. Erik’s feet hit the ground just as Shaw’s finger touches Charles and the telepath goes flying. Erik yells, tears the box open, throws himself at Shaw to slam against his side, solid like a wall.  

Shaw laughs with bloody teeth, “That’s what happens to the weak—“

Erik plunges the syringe into the side of his neck and forces the liquid down. He feels Shaw fall to his knees but he’s already running to Charles—Charles, lying on the floor in an awkward tangle of limbs, bleeding from the eyebrow and the back of his head, a dark bruise blossoming already on the fine skin of his temple.

“Charles,” he says urgently, lifting him to his lap and fumbling with the opening of the front of the suit, desperate to slip his hand inside the leather and—

Feel the pulse there, slow but steady.

He breathes out a gasp of relief that is almost a sob, gathers Charles’ body to his arms and stands. Just then Beast claws his way up to the opening and falls into the room, quickly surveying the situation.

“Get him out,” He says to Erik, grabbing the back of Shaw’s coat. “He warned me he could be comatose after dealing with Shaw for a little while and I—“

“He what?” Erik stops in his tracks.

Hank looks up, startled.

“He didn’t tell you?”

Erik wants to answer, but he hears screams from outside and instead he goes to the opening and leans outside.

“They’re shooting!” Alex yells, dragging Sean to his feet.

Erik looks towards the ships, sees the rockets in the air, the bombs leaving behind them a trail of smoke and fire. He can feel the metal of a thousand bombs heading their way, ready to raze the little beach they’re in—

He shifts the weight of Charles’ body in his arms, feels the weight of his head on his shoulder, and without the use of his hands he stops the bombs in the air.

He floats himself gently down to the beach, kneels and gently lays Charles down. Sean, Raven and Alex are at his side in a second, holding the telepath’s head up.

“I’ll get the med kit,” Alex breathes, shooting towards the wreck of their jet. Moira makes to move to Charles and Erik pins her with his eyes, his lips curling away from his teeth.

Moira has this cute little crush on Charles. It would be endearing, Erik thinks, if it weren’t because it’s so completely irritating. Erik won’t go as far as thinking of Charles as his own—Charles belongs to no one but himself, even if Erik is often possessive—but he’s willing to protest to the idea of a human falling in love with a mutant. Besides, he’s seen how Charles looks at Moira—like she’s another child, someone else he is responsible for. And he knows that’s not how Charles looks at him.

“Stay back,” he spits. “Go call on your people and tell them this beach is secure, before they shoot us again.”

He bends down again to lean over Charles, smoothing dark hair away from his forehead. Sean removes his hand from the back of Charles’ head and his fingers are coated red. Alex almost barrels into Moira on his way back, and he falls to his knees roughly at Sean’s side, screaming for Beast.

“What happened? He was supposed to stay out of the way!” Raven sobs, grabbing Charles’ hand. “Why did he leave the jet?”

Erik looks up sharply, “The helmet. I put the helmet on. He couldn’t read me. He went in the submarine to stop me—“

Charles had never looked as fragile. Erik was painfully reminded how much shorter than himself Charles was, how much lighter, thinner, softer.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Sean demanded harshly, obligingly slipping his arm under Charles’ back to lift him to Alex could look at the back of his head.

Erik doesn’t have an answer. He shakes his head instead, and glares warningly at Azazel when he moves an inch closer.

“Are you going to let that hang there all day?” the Russian asks, pointing behind him.

With shock, Erik remembers the rockets. They’re still there, hanging in the sky innocuously. Erik carefully disentangles himself and lets Alex takes his place at Charles’ side, moving towards the beach. He realizes with awe that keeping the rockets in the air barely takes up any of his concentration.

He’s hardly ever been this angry, and yet this calm.

“Charles,” he huffs out an incredulous laugh. “You goddamn, beautiful genius.”

So this is what it feels like, he thinks idly, to be in complete control of yourself. Calm, yes, but still—infuriated.

“I feel their guns, moving in the water,” he murmurs.

Azazel laughs dryly, “Their metal, targeting us. Humans. United in their fear of the unknown. As per usual.”

“Take off your blinders, brothers and sisters,” he says, turning to stare at Charles, who looks like he’s died and not yet come back to life. “The real enemy is out there.”

Sean protests a ‘no, stay down, come on’ and when Erik turns around to see, Charles is struggling to sit up, leaning heavily on Alex’s side. Sean is cradling his skull, pressing a bandage to the back of his head and insisting he lay back down. Moira is standing close—but staring at Erik.

Azazel continues, “Go ahead, Xavier,” he says, giving the telepath a flat, disdainful look. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“My telepathy’s shut down,” Charles mumbles; he’s having trouble keeping his eyes open. “I can’t hear anything.”

“Erik,” Sean says shakily, “Erik, he needs to go to a hospital. We need to leave.”

“What are you doing?” Moira asks, eyes wide and glassy.

Erik turns around, lifts his hand, redirects the rockets.

“That’s what they wanted all along,” Riptide says. “To turn us against one another. We’re all the same, we want the same things!”

“Oh, dear boy,” Charles lets his head drop to Alex’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but we do not.”

“No,” Erik says quietly. “I suppose we don’t, after all.”

Build me something, Erik. Build me something nice.

He’s concentrating on disarming the delicate mechanism of the rockets, unplugging connections and setting everything on disarrange so great they can never be repaired. He turns them in the air, noses to their owners, and gently starts them in on their flight back home. They can have them back, and keep them as souvenirs. Stubs of weapons that will never blow up.

A gift from a better man.

Charles gasps, “Moira—“

The first bullet grazes the side of Erik’s head and pain explodes across his skull, sudden and blinding, maddening—but nothing Erik hasn’t deal with before. He turns around and deflects the bullets, giving Moira an incredulous look.

“You’re shooting bullets at a man that can bend metal!” Alex says, bewildered.

“What the fuck? Get down!” Sean pushes Charles down on the sand, covering his head with an arm and glaring at Moira. “Stop, you moron! You can’t shoot at Magneto!”

Moira pauses, staring at Erik, “Let the rockets go.”

“I am,” he replies, still dumbfounded.

Moira looks ferociously angry, something new and not at all welcome in her otherwise pretty face.“There are thousands of men on those ships, good, innocent men! They’re just following orders!”

Erik’s lips tighten. “I’ve been at the mercy of men following orders before. It wasn’t much of a comfort back then, and it’s not making me like them more now.”

“Erik,” Charles struggles from under Sean’s arm and stumbles to his feet. A side of his face is covered in blood, and the other one is chalk-white, even his lips bloodless. Raven grips his arm, sliding an arm around his stomach to support some of his weight.

“Charles, get down, Erik’ll be done in a second and we’ll take you to a hospital.“

“You’re not killing anyone, Erik,” Moira is shooting again. Erik shakes his head in disbelief as he deflects the bullets, deciding to just wait until she runs out of ammo to—

Charles’ cry of agony jars them all. Sean and Alex surge up off the sand and catch the telepath as he pitches forward. Erik goes to his side so urgently he slips on the sand and scrapes his hands.

“Charles, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—“

“It’s the shoulder,” Raven says, pressing a hand against the hole in the leather pumping out red-red blood. “It hit him in the shoulder. Beast!”

Charles grips Erik’s wrist so tightly it nearly hurts. Erik strokes back his hair soothingly, looking around for Beast.

“It’ll be alright, Charles, just hold still.”

“Erik, please, drop the rockets, don’t kill those men, I beg you.”

Erik stares in shock, pain blossoming in his chest. Why would Charles think that—but of course. His telepathy is gone. He realizes part of Charles’ disorientation stems from that, and not only from the wounds in his head.

“I disarmed them,” he says in a rush. “I disarmed all of them, they’re stubs, useless. I was just returning them. You were right, Charles, and so was I. We are the better men. I don’t want to follow Shaw—I want you by my side.”

Charles’ eyes are bluer than the sky against his pale skin, and he even manages a shaky grin.

“You’re a good man, Erik—the best man.”

“Yes, we’re all very proud, now can we get him to a hospital?” Sean huffs.

Beast drops out of the submarine, Shaw draped over his shoulder wrapped in cable cords. He tosses him on the sand and stands over his body, glaring when Riptide makes to come closer.

“Azazel,” Charles gasps suddenly. “Your little sister is dead. I know Shaw told you she’d keep her safe if you did what he told you, but she died. He’s been lying to you for a while. And Riptide—you never wondered what happened to your human parents. The car crash was a lie, Shaw made their car veer off the road and into a ditch. He knew you could control the wind, even as a child.”

There is a prolonged silence on the beach.

“How long?” Azazel rasps.

“Nearly two years, now,” Charles attempts to push himself up into a sitting position, but Erik keeps him down, shifting him so he is lying against him.

“This is the man you’re so willing to follow to your deaths,” Chares says, closing his eyes. “I’m begging you, don’t continue this. Please. Go in peace, we will not stop you, but leave Shaw here, to face justice for everything’s he’s done.”

Azazel and Riptide share a long look.

“The humans will never accept us,” Angel swayed to her feet.  “We’ll never be more than freaks to them! Azazel, look at yourself. They’ll never—“

“In Russia, where I lived as a boy,” Azazel cuts through. “They didn’t care. I was red, the color of the Motherland. I was their miracle child. I can go home. I will go home.”

“Your mother is still there,” Charles smiles slightly. “I was in Shaw’s head, and I know she’s there.”

Riptide strides purposefully forwards and grabs Azazel’s outstretched hand. “Come on, Angel. We’ll have time to think about it later.”

“You’re welcome to come with us,” Charles said slowly, eyes falling shut.

“Wait,” Alex jumps to his feet suddenly. “Azazel, wait, please. Don’t go yet.”

The red-skinned mutant stops, mystified.

“You’re coming, boy?”

Sean sat up, understanding, “No. No, we need your help! Charles needs a hospital, right now. Head wounds are nasty and he’s losing a lot of blood. Please, Azazel. He’s a mutant, just like you. You called us brothers before.”

Azazel seems reluctant, but he nods.

“I’ll return,” he promised, disappearing in a cloud of red smoke.

“Will he, do you think?” Beast asks doubtfully.

“I guess we’ll know soon enough,” Alex replies, staring at the spot in the sand where Azazel had just been.

“What do we do if he doesn’t?” Sean turns wide eyes on Erik, seeking guidance in whom he sees as Charles’ second in command—where somehow Charles has become the leader of them all, their commander, the beacon in the night.

Erik swallows. He’s never been a leader—this is a wolf pack and he is a panther. He’s always been alone, accountable only to himself and his god, a god he thought had deserted him completely. But these children, these cubs—they are his wards as much as they are Charles’. And he has to answer to them, and to Charles, who’s entrusted them in his care, should he be indisposed—as he is now.

“Our only option will be the American ships,” he says slowly. “The CIA knows we worked with them for a while, they’ll know we’re on their side. Moira, you’ll have to get us in there.”

Moira nods wordlessly, wiping tears from her cheeks.

There is a flash of smoke and Azazel is standing over them. Erik curls protectively, instinctively over Charles, even as Raven shoots to her feet and puts herself between them and the red-skinned Soviet.

Azazel raises his hands in a harmless gesture, “I’ll need to touch him. I know a hospital in Russia that won’t ask questions if you pay the right price. With a Russian citizen they won’t give you any trouble.”

Erik nods, but he levels a stern glare at Azazel. “You put your hand on me. The rest of you, a chain starting from me.”

“Moira,” Charles said softly, cracking his eyes open, crystal-blue slits. Moira rushes forward and drops to her knees, flinching when Erik glares at her in an almost feral way. It’s clear where Erik places the guilt for what’s happened to Charles, and Erik’s never been one for diplomacy.

“Charles, I’m so sorry,” she gasps.

“It’s alright, love,” Charles said, wincing to hold himself upright on his elbows and wrap a hand around the back of Moira’s neck. He brings her close so their foreheads touch. “It’s not your fault.”

Erik ruthlessly crushes the small, hurt feeling emerging deep inside his chest. Charles is not his, he reminds himself.

“Our first line of defense now must be anonymity, Moira,” Charles continues.

“Charles, I know. I won’t say anything, no matter what they threaten me with, I swear. You can trust me.”

“I know I can, sweet girl, and I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.”

Moira gasps again, a distinctly pained sound that is drowned out by Charles louder cry of pain. Alex catches the woman as she faints, and Charles goes boneless on Erik’s lap.

“What did you do?” Raven demands.

“Deleted memories,” Charles mumbles, and then his eyes roll back into his head and he’s out like a light.

Azazel grabs Erik roughly by the shoulder, and Alex hastens to release Moira and then—

There’re tiles beneath Erik’s knees and he’s looking up at a group of startled medics and Azazel is shouting in Russian. Charles is still, so very still, in his arms, and Erik realizes with a start that his own suit is tinted red with blood that’s not his.

 

Date: 2011-07-20 10:35 pm (UTC)
immortalje: Typwriter with hands typing (x-men: first class)
From: [personal profile] immortalje
I love how you've changed that beach scene, but that cliffhanger...
*sits on the edge of the seat, waiting for the next chapter*

Date: 2011-07-20 10:52 pm (UTC)
avictoriangirl: (erik/charles heartbreak)
From: [personal profile] avictoriangirl
I COULD NEVER HATE THIS, BECAUSE I LOVE IT. Although I have to admit that cliffhangers of DOOM are not my favorite things. ;) More soon? *puppy eyes*

Date: 2011-07-20 11:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shaishda.livejournal.com
I..I..I...I have no words.
I. A part of me wishes this was how the movie ended. fjdskl. I mean, I was satisfied with the angst in the movie but Erik went with them and Azazel is being nice I just can't handle it. I'm gone. My brain is gone. fjdslfjdksl.

Date: 2011-07-21 02:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] galidor.livejournal.com
ok. ok. Seriously. the way you rewrote the beach scene: excellent. Excellent. And way to go Erik!!! Be the better man!! We all knew you could do it!!

Date: 2011-07-23 08:36 am (UTC)
ender24: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ender24
loving your take on this, I hope the final chapter is up soon!

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