Prompt #8
Warning: AU/What if
Regolamento dell'evento qua.
Potete scrivere/arteggiare qualsiasi cosa su qualsiasi fandom senza limite alcuno.
Usate questo post per inserire le vostre storie, direttamente o con un link.
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Avvertimenti: se presentiLink Storia: Oppure, se la storia è ( Read more... )
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Personaggi: Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier
Rating: G
Lingua: Inglese
Avvertimenti: Breve riferimento all'Olocausto, angst, old!Erik, What If, le libertà che l'autrice si è presa con il prompt.
1/2 (parte 2/2 a seguire nel commento successivo)
There's another reality.
(There isn't, not really, but Erik feels old and shattered enough that he can play pretend if he wants to.)
So, there's another reality; it's a world where nobody dies - nobody important, that is. Erik's mother never gets shot. Perhaps that's because there is no holocaust at all.
(Or would that be tweaking history just a little too much, debasing the memory of his people and those who have fought and fallen?
Maybe. But this is Erik's reality, alive and quivering only in the recesses of his frayed mind. He's old. He can play pretend if he wants to.)
In a better, less damaged world, Erik's late childhood is never the wreckage that it actually was - and the same goes for his future. Erik grows without the burden of guilt and a constant, simmering hatred weighing on himself; he gets to study, find a job, even travel the world for pleasure, or for the dull necessities of work and duty. It's not an endless thirst for blood and revenge that keeps him going.
(In the end he buries his parents, because not even the ludicrousness that comes with the infinite possibilities of dreams can wipe death out of a mind like Erik's - a mind that has seen so much of it. So his parents have to die. But it's of old age, in their home, and most importantly he gets to say goodbye, so it doesn't hurt like an open, gaping wound; it's more like a sweeter, occasionally twinging pain at the bottom of his heart.)
It's Erik's reality, so he gets to be fanciful. That is how it would happen: Erik would go to England, because England is rich and powerful and his parents would want only the best for him, and there - there, as awkward and uncomfortable as he would be, deeply at unease with the foreignness of the place, he would meet Charles.
(There is no specific where, or how, or when. Maybe it would be in a pub - Charles was always fond of pubs: they would argue over the quality of german versus english beer. Or maybe it would be at Oxford: Erik likes to think he was smart enough as a young man that he could have gone to Oxford.
Or, just maybe, it would be out in the rain. Doesn't it always rain in England? Erik would be standing there, sopping wet and pathetically homesick, and Charles - Charles, with his impeccable manners, and privileged, arrogant charm - would offer to share his umbrella.
And since it's Erik's fantasy, therefore he gets to be romantic, Erik would look for the first time into Charles' vivid blue eyes, at his freckled cheeks and cocky grin, and he would suddenly feel lighter and breathless, and think Oh. It's you. I've been waiting for you.)
In this other reality, they do not part. Not ever. They fight, scream endlessly at each other and disagree on the small things - and some of the big things and a lot of the actually important things, but neither of them ever leaves. They get to be young together. Eventually, old together. He laughs at and with Charles, drinks with him, sleeps with him, wakes with him, talks and argues with him until they're both grey and too weak to even go get the newspaper every morning.
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(By then, Erik would say something like "I suppose now it's too late to leave you. My legs can't run fast enough, these days", but Charles would know it for a joke, because in this reality, Erik can't bear the thought of running away from him.)
And since it's Erik's fantasy, so he gets to be delusional, Charles can walk. But that doesn't mean that he would run away, either.
(In this other reality, they are careless, and so in love. Erik would get to kiss Charles, count his freckles with his lips and fingertips, make love whenever and wherever they want to, for days and months and years until desire runs its course but love never does.)
Erik's reality splits into countless possibilities, limitless scenarios, unfathomable lives unlived. Sometimes Raven is there, and she's confident but not cruel, fond without her affection being devoured by bitter jealousy. Sometimes they are leaders of mutants, sometimes not. Sometimes they're just two people living an uneventful existence.
(Sometimes Erik imagines that one day, his other self would take Charles to New York and slip a golden band on his finger, bind him to himself through vows and state laws, kiss that finger and his mouth and make it really hard for both of them to run away.)
Whatever the details, however the scene plays, Erik is unburdened by anger and regret, free of a greater, grander purpose, and happy.
So, that is how it would go. But this is how it goes: there are Erik's fantasies; there is Erik's life. He gets to be and do whatever he wants when he's buried deep into the bright, bottomless pits of his own imaginary reality, with its hopeful alternatives and stubborn, patient series of "what if's".
When he opens his eyes, however, none of them are ever true.
(But Erik is old. He can play pretend if he wants to.)
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