Fic: Chuck/Bryce (Chuck) and Charles/Erik (X-Men First Class)
These are written for photoash - thanks for the fun fic exchange and for writing me such great fics in return!
Prompt: Sparkle
Fic: Erik liked edgeplay. Their specific brand of it involved Erik lying completely still. He stared at the ceiling until the intrusion made him shut his eyes - not that it did any good, provided any shelter.
The game was this: Charles would reach into him, would touch something raw. He would follow the fear, intentionally heading for the splintery ends of Erik's mind that flinched from Charles' reach.
Charles would press on Erik's most fragile parts, and all the synapses around it would light up. Memories and fears and needs and other wordless, hopeless things, things that wouldn't be fit for gutters or dreams.
Erik was surprised the first time that Charles was able to go through with it, that he was willing to do this for Erik (to Erik). Eventually he figured out that Charles' hope and kindness were not signs of softness or even gentleness, and they were certainly not an unwillingness to be cruel.
Charles simply decided long ago that hope would be his weapon, and then for years (just as Erik had) Charles had honed it. Erik, against his will, cherished this about him.
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Erik never ceased to surprise him. It's not something Charles would have thought of, their play, their game, but it wasn't something he was averse to either.
He liked touching people's pain.
Pain was truthful; it wasn't ego or greed or any of the usual things that drove people. It was just there, sparkling like sharpened glass amid the worries and strategizing and business of everyday life. It was what made people who they were, what made an individual nothing like anyone else.
Joy is easily translated. But pain is utterly specific, and no one can know someone else's pain. Not really, not in all its borders and faultlines and hues.
Almost no one.
The first time they tried it, Charles was worried. Not about Erik - Charles could always force his mind to calm itself, to forget, if absolutely necessary - though it turned out that Erik could handle the things his mind had tried to hide, and never needed more than a night of being cared for by Charles, his close contact, a few distracting droll remarks, and no demands or pity or judgment. But Charles wondered at first what Erik would think of him, of his willingness - and then his eagerness - to rifle through the shredded seams of Erik's psyche. It turned out he was wrong to worry (and he was so often wrong about Erik, he should really learn not to assume). Erik never thought Charles was awful for what he liked (for who he was). And if Erik was afraid that Charles would think less of him, or that Charles would be dismayed by what he found, Charles never picked up on it. The trust was overwhelming, and Charles wondered why he himself didn't find it a bit disconcerting. He wondered if his ego were so large that he just gladly accepted it when Erik offered his mind up on platter, as if Charles assumed it should be his to play with all along.
Not that he took the responsibility lightly. Erik's mind was a labyrinth, that was true. And Erik thought of himself as the monster at the center of it -- he just didn't think there was anything wrong with being a monster. Charles knew this.
He also knew that Erik was wrong. There was no monster at the center. Mostly because there was no center at all. There's no entrance or exit or middle or margin to one's mind. Charles had been amid the sharp corners and swerving overlap of branches that saturated Erik's mind, and if there was a monster there (and Charles knew there might be), the monster was the maze itself. Its astounding scale, its sheer complexity and number of twists, its invogorating and unlikely pathways. Every one of them laced with the dim aching glow of Erik's past, Erik's heart, and Erik's pain.
There would be no saving Erik, Charles knew, not in the conventional sense, the sense that people mean when they talk about needing to be saved from oneself. People think you can kill off the bad half and then the good half will emerge stronger than ever. But Charles didn't think that. From what he saw, imperfect though his knowledge was, it would be like trying to untangle the footpath from the walls, the straight lines from the curves, heat from light. Such a thing would be impossible. And if possible, tragic, like burning a work of art, like cutting an animal in two.
Certainly, he wouldn't say this. Charles would tell Erik that there was good and bad in him, that he had both in extraordinary measure. This would help Erik, and it was not untrue. But he had no way of explaining that a mind, a moral being, is not a scale with good on one side and bad on the other. The deeper you go into someone's mind, someone's pain, the less you see these as different hues. The more you see them as a single beast with two reflections, bouncing in different directions as each is shone on from a different source of light. Charles saw, long before he was forced to admit it, that with Erik - with anyone perhaps, but certainly with Erik - there would be no way to make him choose the kind of man he wants to be. There would be no decisive victory, no wiping out of the parts of Erik that were deemed the enemy. There would only be small victories, moments of decision that Charles might be able to sway one way or the other. Mere pieces of a moral being, a paltry trail of string or breadcrumbs, the barest amount needed for a man of hope to follow. But he would follow anyway. He would follow that string, feeling its roughness, its fragility in the dark, trying not to get lost, trying not to get stuck in a maze.
Chuck/Bryce ficlets, with mentions of various other pairings
Prompt: water
Fic: Chuck/Bryce, pre-series
Sometimes, Chuck would sit in the bath, soaking in the heat and trying not to think of anything. He would hear Ellie and Devon in the living room through the vent, trying to speak quietly, as Ellie wondered why Chuck was still working at the Buy More, why he was still single, why he couldn't ever get over what happened years ago no matter how much they encouraged him. Chuck would slide down then, muscles and joints going loose, until he covered his head in the bathwater, and then he could hear nothing but the buzz of water sloshing around him. The sensation of the motion, the smooth sweep of water on every inch of him, seeping in and around him, was intense somehow in its softness. It reminded him of the first time Bryce kissed him, ran his hands along Chuck's chest, heating up his skin through the soft thinness of his gray T-shirt, the way it made him feel surrounded, immersed, like he was floating in some wary intoxication, barely even noticing that he was forgetting to breathe.
-------
Prompt: bitterness
Fic: Chuck was a cheerful person. He didn't dwell on the bad stuff. When their parents disappeared, Chuck and Ellie decided to look forward, to be cheerful, to continue on. And they, by and large, surrounded themselves with positive people.
So it was strange that the moments Chuck cherished with his college boyfriend were the times when something dark and bitter would flit across his eyes, would tighten his lips.
Bryce didn't share much. He was neutral on most political matters, opinionated on most science fiction and videogames, politely openminded about people, and very mysterious about his past. But once in a great while, Chuck would see it - a pulse of some resentment pumping through Bryce's blood, for just the second before Bryce was able to hide it and act like it was all part of the game, all part of the way of the world (and no use getting upset about the way of the world).
When one of their friends had to leave school because he couldn't afford it. When the morning paper discussed gay marriage (or lack thereof according to the law of the time). When Chuck talked about what it was like when his parents left.
When Chuck said that it wouldn't be a good idea to introduce him to Ellie.
When Bryce got drunk enough to talk about his childhood. About his bastard of a father.
When Chuck suggested that Jill might join them some time.
When TNG was cancelled.
When Chuck criticized his oral technique.
Moments, serious and not so serious, when Bryce showed that his response to everything wasn't just to fix it. Sometimes he would wallow in bitterness. He might not show it much, but he showed enough.
And he wouldn't ever talk about it, or let Chuck comfort him, but it was enough for Chuck to know that there was fire in there beneath the ice.
There really did exist cruelties, petty and large, that even Bryce Larkin couldn't dust off without scraping some of himself off with it.
Chuck didn't know why he found this a comfort, but he did.
Years later, when Chuck was not an upbeat person (when Chuck was a bitter person, an aimless person, a person who dwelled on the past every day, a person who still couldn't figure out why the only man he ever loved had ruined his life and stolen his future), he wondered if he deserved it. For enjoying Bryce's bitterness, for loving it like a work of art or a glimpse of skin. Maybe it was because he loved that bitterness so excessively that it clung to him, that it stuck there, flattened and musty, for years and years.
Sometimes, Chuck imagined what Bryce was doing, if he ever thought back to college (probably not). But if he did, Chuck hoped he was bitter too. For whatever reason he decided he hated Chuck, that Chuck meant nothing to him, he hoped Bryce was still bitter about it. He hoped Bryce was eaten by it, slowly, every day.
---------------
5 things that surprised Bryce about chucks relationships with other people
1. Chuck topped Sarah.
It shouldn't have confused Bryce. Nothing wrong with switching. And he was happy for them, that they were able to settle in one place - which Bryce still wasn't able to do quite yet. (And that was why it was Sarah and Chuck together, and neither with him, Bryce's ego insisted on believing).
But... Bryce had always toppped Chuck. And Sarah had always topped Bryce. And for some reason, Bryce assumed that the transitive property would apply.
2. Chuck never slept with Shaw. Bryce was sure he had. Even was a little jealous.
Okay, when heard that the famous and talented spy was working with Chuck, that Chuck as making good progress under the risk-ready guidance of this good looking asshole, Bryce was positive that they were sleeping together. And he was MORE than a little jealous.
He was relieved to be wrong on this one.
3. Chuck enjoyed the occasional threesome with Alex and Morgan. Chuck told him in strict confidence since no one wanted to let Casey know about it. Truthfully, Chuck looked ashamed when he said it. Bryce was surprised by this; discretion is one thing, but it wasn't like Chuck to be in a relationship he actually felt shame over.
4. It turned out that the reason for Chuck's uncertainty was that neither father nor daughter had any idea about the other. Chuck and Casey had been together longer than Chuck and Sarah had, though it was much more casual for most of it. Bryce thought it was an odd twist that John Casey of all people - the man who represented the OPPOSITE kind of spy Bryce was - ended up sharing a workplace and a bed with Chuck and Sarah. Protecting them, working with them, somehow even adapting to the hug-happy gaggle of family and friends that encircled the Bartowskis.
He was even more surprised to learn that despite all appearances, John wasn't part of their relationship. He and Chuck had their own, separate relationship; Casey and Sarah had never slept with each other, never had sex with Chuck when the other was in the room even. They felt it would compromise the best professional relationship they'd ever had.
Bryce thought that was stupid. But he was still kind of glad.
5. The thing that surprised Bryce the most was that no matter how circuitous and varied his sexual partners and activities were, Chuck always had room for more. Even if he had just had a four-way and as too tired for sex, he would want to cuddle with anyone willing. And he recovered as fast as he did when he was 19 (whereas Bryce's age was beginning to show in that area... a little). It was a big surprise that even thoguh Chuck had all he wanted and more than most could handle, as soon as Bryce was ready to put down some roots, Sarah and Chuck threw him a welcome home party and bought a larger bed.
Usually Bryce hated surprises. Surprises meant that things are beyond your control, that your planning and expectations and personal savvy have, in the end, meant nothing.
Once in a great while (and Chuck was almost always involved), Bryce really loved surprises.
-------------------------
Prompt: Sparkle
Fic: Erik liked edgeplay. Their specific brand of it involved Erik lying completely still. He stared at the ceiling until the intrusion made him shut his eyes - not that it did any good, provided any shelter.
The game was this: Charles would reach into him, would touch something raw. He would follow the fear, intentionally heading for the splintery ends of Erik's mind that flinched from Charles' reach.
Charles would press on Erik's most fragile parts, and all the synapses around it would light up. Memories and fears and needs and other wordless, hopeless things, things that wouldn't be fit for gutters or dreams.
Erik was surprised the first time that Charles was able to go through with it, that he was willing to do this for Erik (to Erik). Eventually he figured out that Charles' hope and kindness were not signs of softness or even gentleness, and they were certainly not an unwillingness to be cruel.
Charles simply decided long ago that hope would be his weapon, and then for years (just as Erik had) Charles had honed it. Erik, against his will, cherished this about him.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Erik never ceased to surprise him. It's not something Charles would have thought of, their play, their game, but it wasn't something he was averse to either.
He liked touching people's pain.
Pain was truthful; it wasn't ego or greed or any of the usual things that drove people. It was just there, sparkling like sharpened glass amid the worries and strategizing and business of everyday life. It was what made people who they were, what made an individual nothing like anyone else.
Joy is easily translated. But pain is utterly specific, and no one can know someone else's pain. Not really, not in all its borders and faultlines and hues.
Almost no one.
The first time they tried it, Charles was worried. Not about Erik - Charles could always force his mind to calm itself, to forget, if absolutely necessary - though it turned out that Erik could handle the things his mind had tried to hide, and never needed more than a night of being cared for by Charles, his close contact, a few distracting droll remarks, and no demands or pity or judgment. But Charles wondered at first what Erik would think of him, of his willingness - and then his eagerness - to rifle through the shredded seams of Erik's psyche. It turned out he was wrong to worry (and he was so often wrong about Erik, he should really learn not to assume). Erik never thought Charles was awful for what he liked (for who he was). And if Erik was afraid that Charles would think less of him, or that Charles would be dismayed by what he found, Charles never picked up on it. The trust was overwhelming, and Charles wondered why he himself didn't find it a bit disconcerting. He wondered if his ego were so large that he just gladly accepted it when Erik offered his mind up on platter, as if Charles assumed it should be his to play with all along.
Not that he took the responsibility lightly. Erik's mind was a labyrinth, that was true. And Erik thought of himself as the monster at the center of it -- he just didn't think there was anything wrong with being a monster. Charles knew this.
He also knew that Erik was wrong. There was no monster at the center. Mostly because there was no center at all. There's no entrance or exit or middle or margin to one's mind. Charles had been amid the sharp corners and swerving overlap of branches that saturated Erik's mind, and if there was a monster there (and Charles knew there might be), the monster was the maze itself. Its astounding scale, its sheer complexity and number of twists, its invogorating and unlikely pathways. Every one of them laced with the dim aching glow of Erik's past, Erik's heart, and Erik's pain.
There would be no saving Erik, Charles knew, not in the conventional sense, the sense that people mean when they talk about needing to be saved from oneself. People think you can kill off the bad half and then the good half will emerge stronger than ever. But Charles didn't think that. From what he saw, imperfect though his knowledge was, it would be like trying to untangle the footpath from the walls, the straight lines from the curves, heat from light. Such a thing would be impossible. And if possible, tragic, like burning a work of art, like cutting an animal in two.
Certainly, he wouldn't say this. Charles would tell Erik that there was good and bad in him, that he had both in extraordinary measure. This would help Erik, and it was not untrue. But he had no way of explaining that a mind, a moral being, is not a scale with good on one side and bad on the other. The deeper you go into someone's mind, someone's pain, the less you see these as different hues. The more you see them as a single beast with two reflections, bouncing in different directions as each is shone on from a different source of light. Charles saw, long before he was forced to admit it, that with Erik - with anyone perhaps, but certainly with Erik - there would be no way to make him choose the kind of man he wants to be. There would be no decisive victory, no wiping out of the parts of Erik that were deemed the enemy. There would only be small victories, moments of decision that Charles might be able to sway one way or the other. Mere pieces of a moral being, a paltry trail of string or breadcrumbs, the barest amount needed for a man of hope to follow. But he would follow anyway. He would follow that string, feeling its roughness, its fragility in the dark, trying not to get lost, trying not to get stuck in a maze.
Chuck/Bryce ficlets, with mentions of various other pairings
Prompt: water
Fic: Chuck/Bryce, pre-series
Sometimes, Chuck would sit in the bath, soaking in the heat and trying not to think of anything. He would hear Ellie and Devon in the living room through the vent, trying to speak quietly, as Ellie wondered why Chuck was still working at the Buy More, why he was still single, why he couldn't ever get over what happened years ago no matter how much they encouraged him. Chuck would slide down then, muscles and joints going loose, until he covered his head in the bathwater, and then he could hear nothing but the buzz of water sloshing around him. The sensation of the motion, the smooth sweep of water on every inch of him, seeping in and around him, was intense somehow in its softness. It reminded him of the first time Bryce kissed him, ran his hands along Chuck's chest, heating up his skin through the soft thinness of his gray T-shirt, the way it made him feel surrounded, immersed, like he was floating in some wary intoxication, barely even noticing that he was forgetting to breathe.
-------
Prompt: bitterness
Fic: Chuck was a cheerful person. He didn't dwell on the bad stuff. When their parents disappeared, Chuck and Ellie decided to look forward, to be cheerful, to continue on. And they, by and large, surrounded themselves with positive people.
So it was strange that the moments Chuck cherished with his college boyfriend were the times when something dark and bitter would flit across his eyes, would tighten his lips.
Bryce didn't share much. He was neutral on most political matters, opinionated on most science fiction and videogames, politely openminded about people, and very mysterious about his past. But once in a great while, Chuck would see it - a pulse of some resentment pumping through Bryce's blood, for just the second before Bryce was able to hide it and act like it was all part of the game, all part of the way of the world (and no use getting upset about the way of the world).
When one of their friends had to leave school because he couldn't afford it. When the morning paper discussed gay marriage (or lack thereof according to the law of the time). When Chuck talked about what it was like when his parents left.
When Chuck said that it wouldn't be a good idea to introduce him to Ellie.
When Bryce got drunk enough to talk about his childhood. About his bastard of a father.
When Chuck suggested that Jill might join them some time.
When TNG was cancelled.
When Chuck criticized his oral technique.
Moments, serious and not so serious, when Bryce showed that his response to everything wasn't just to fix it. Sometimes he would wallow in bitterness. He might not show it much, but he showed enough.
And he wouldn't ever talk about it, or let Chuck comfort him, but it was enough for Chuck to know that there was fire in there beneath the ice.
There really did exist cruelties, petty and large, that even Bryce Larkin couldn't dust off without scraping some of himself off with it.
Chuck didn't know why he found this a comfort, but he did.
Years later, when Chuck was not an upbeat person (when Chuck was a bitter person, an aimless person, a person who dwelled on the past every day, a person who still couldn't figure out why the only man he ever loved had ruined his life and stolen his future), he wondered if he deserved it. For enjoying Bryce's bitterness, for loving it like a work of art or a glimpse of skin. Maybe it was because he loved that bitterness so excessively that it clung to him, that it stuck there, flattened and musty, for years and years.
Sometimes, Chuck imagined what Bryce was doing, if he ever thought back to college (probably not). But if he did, Chuck hoped he was bitter too. For whatever reason he decided he hated Chuck, that Chuck meant nothing to him, he hoped Bryce was still bitter about it. He hoped Bryce was eaten by it, slowly, every day.
---------------
5 things that surprised Bryce about chucks relationships with other people
1. Chuck topped Sarah.
It shouldn't have confused Bryce. Nothing wrong with switching. And he was happy for them, that they were able to settle in one place - which Bryce still wasn't able to do quite yet. (And that was why it was Sarah and Chuck together, and neither with him, Bryce's ego insisted on believing).
But... Bryce had always toppped Chuck. And Sarah had always topped Bryce. And for some reason, Bryce assumed that the transitive property would apply.
2. Chuck never slept with Shaw. Bryce was sure he had. Even was a little jealous.
Okay, when heard that the famous and talented spy was working with Chuck, that Chuck as making good progress under the risk-ready guidance of this good looking asshole, Bryce was positive that they were sleeping together. And he was MORE than a little jealous.
He was relieved to be wrong on this one.
3. Chuck enjoyed the occasional threesome with Alex and Morgan. Chuck told him in strict confidence since no one wanted to let Casey know about it. Truthfully, Chuck looked ashamed when he said it. Bryce was surprised by this; discretion is one thing, but it wasn't like Chuck to be in a relationship he actually felt shame over.
4. It turned out that the reason for Chuck's uncertainty was that neither father nor daughter had any idea about the other. Chuck and Casey had been together longer than Chuck and Sarah had, though it was much more casual for most of it. Bryce thought it was an odd twist that John Casey of all people - the man who represented the OPPOSITE kind of spy Bryce was - ended up sharing a workplace and a bed with Chuck and Sarah. Protecting them, working with them, somehow even adapting to the hug-happy gaggle of family and friends that encircled the Bartowskis.
He was even more surprised to learn that despite all appearances, John wasn't part of their relationship. He and Chuck had their own, separate relationship; Casey and Sarah had never slept with each other, never had sex with Chuck when the other was in the room even. They felt it would compromise the best professional relationship they'd ever had.
Bryce thought that was stupid. But he was still kind of glad.
5. The thing that surprised Bryce the most was that no matter how circuitous and varied his sexual partners and activities were, Chuck always had room for more. Even if he had just had a four-way and as too tired for sex, he would want to cuddle with anyone willing. And he recovered as fast as he did when he was 19 (whereas Bryce's age was beginning to show in that area... a little). It was a big surprise that even thoguh Chuck had all he wanted and more than most could handle, as soon as Bryce was ready to put down some roots, Sarah and Chuck threw him a welcome home party and bought a larger bed.
Usually Bryce hated surprises. Surprises meant that things are beyond your control, that your planning and expectations and personal savvy have, in the end, meant nothing.
Once in a great while (and Chuck was almost always involved), Bryce really loved surprises.
-------------------------