FIC EXCHANGE: NEW FUTURE
Title: New Future
Author: xlikethenightx
Recipient: withoutmaps
Rating: PG
Pairing/characters: Charles/Erik; also features Moira, Emma and Raven
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for love, out of love.
Author's Notes: Thank you to sasha_b for the beta-job!
Summary: After the beach, what then? Charles and Erik put their lives back together. Written for the prompt “I'd love to see how they process their feelings after the beach. Separately and through Raven/Emma/the boys.” It rather got away from me, as these things do, but I hope you like it!
Charles
Pain. At first, that was all there was, just pain, inside and out, low and insistent despite the morphine, sharp and dull and heavy all at once, in his back and in his head and in his heart. And all around him, the tension and worry in the minds of everyone who came to sit with him, Hank and Alex, Sean and Moira, worry for him and the bitter sting of betrayal at how it had all ended, there on the beach. So much pain.
And beyond the pain, eclipsing any faint feelings of triumph he might have felt at having averted a third world war, an overwhelming sense of failure. And beyond even the failure, an almost cripplingly acute feeling of loss. As if everything that mattered to him, everything in the world, was gone.
He focused on the pain, terrible and all-encompassing, because that at least could be rationalised. As long as he didn't think about how it had come about, the ache in his spine and the sting of the surgical wounds and the sharp, slicing headache that just wouldn't go away.
Besides, the pain was preferable to the fact that below his waist, he couldn't feel anything at all.
Erik
Nothing. At first, that was all there was, just nothing, inside and out, a great gaping void in his head and in his heart and all around him. He barely registered his companions, barely even noticed Raven's frantic, tearful worry, her bitter self-recrimination at how it had all ended, there on the beach. Nothing at all.
Behind the nothingness, agitating to get in, the twin sensations of triumph and emptiness: his goal achieved but what now, what next? And behind even that, unwanted, unneeded, the bitter sting of loss, as if he had for a moment tasted something unexpected and wonderfully sweet, only to have it taken away again in an instant.
He allowed himself to focus only on the nothingness, overwhelming and enveloping, because that at least meant he didn't have to think. Didn't have to think about betrayal and bullets, disagreements and partings and the unfamiliar weight of the helmet he wore.
Besides, the nothingness was preferable to the fact that inside his mind, he couldn't hear anything at all.
Moira
Moira MacTaggart can't tell you anything about what she felt in those weeks after the crisis. She can't tell you anything about the weeks before, either. But if you'd asked her before, while she was still at the mansion, this is what she might have said.
She was deeply, desperately worried about Charles, in those first awful days when he was lying still and quiet in an anonymous hospital bed, recovering from surgery and struggling to come to terms with the awful knowledge that he'd never walk again. Not to mention losing his little sister. Not to mention losing Erik.
Moira wasn't entirely sure what had been going on between the two of them, but she also wasn't stupid. She wasn't blind enough not to have seen the tension between them, the intensity of their sudden, deep friendship, an intensity that went far beyond the simple fact that Charles had saved Erik's life. She wasn't sure just how deep that friendship was, but she told herself she didn't really want to know. It wasn't her business.
She tried not to mention it to Charles, once he'd come out of the coma the doctors had put him into for the first couple of days, while his body began to recover from the surgery to his spine. She tried to keep the conversation to safe topics, like the weather, and the bravery of the boys - their boys, she couldn't help thinking, though she wasn't sure if the 'they' in her thoughts referred to herself and Charles, herself, Charles and Erik, or the whole damn lot of them, up to and including the unfortunate man in black who had first helped to bring them all together. She certainly wasn't including the CIA in it, anyway, and she wasn't sure what that meant for her future with the agency. But any conversation, on whatever topic she could choose, always ended up skirting around the gaps between them where people had once stood, Raven and Erik, and even Angel, though nobody had had much chance to get to know her before she'd taken up her better offer. Charles' sense of failure was so acute that she knew all about it without him needing to say a word; he wasn't projecting intentionally, but she knew he was feeling it, because damn it all, she was feeling it too. They'd been so close to being a proper little family there, for that brief, bright moment, a real team, a force for good, and now it was all gone.
Well. All except the boys. They were almost funny, if she was honest with herself, being so careful with each other, at least at first, not wanting to disturb the Professor or make him worry - it was almost adorable how they'd shifted to referring to Charles as "the Professor", their respect for him heightened by the crisis to a point where they clearly no longer felt comfortable referring to him by his name.
It didn't take too long, though, before Alex was calling Hank names, and Hank was growling and Sean was driving everyone nuts with his talking, dear god did that boy ever shut up? And Charles said something about being glad that at least some things were getting back to normal, his voice faint and strained, and Moira had to smile, just a little bit.
The Academy was the logical next step, really, once Charles was fit enough to be up and about. Those boys still needed a home, a purpose, and in all honesty, so did Charles. And as for Moira, she'd rather assumed that she'd find her own home there too, her own purpose, because surely the CIA wouldn't have her back now? They'd abandoned her, after all.
But then there was a quiet conversation about anonymity, and a kiss, and now Moira can't tell you anything about any of them. Anything at all.
Emma
Emma Frost can't tell you anything about Erik in the weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Well, nothing beyond his apparent liking for winding bedsteads around attractive women; the rest of it was a carefully constructed blank. The weeks after, though, she could tell you plenty about them. Except, of course, that she won't. Miss Frost has her own game to play, her own reasons, and she keeps her own counsel.
But if she were minded to share with you, this is what she might say.
The helmet is, of course, desperately annoying. It annoyed her when Shaw had it, and it annoys her even more on the really rather handsome head of its current owner. She knows next to nothing about this man, after all, nothing beyond what she's managed to pick up in brief, fleeting encounters when she wasn't being blocked by his floppy-haired accomplice, jealously guarding Erik's thoughts like a possessive lover, you can't have them, he's mine, and it's close to infuriating. Emma doesn't like it when she isn't holding all the cards - or when she isn't allowed to hold them.
Any fool could see that he's moping, though. She isn't quite sure why, given the fairly fundamental difference of opinion between Erik - or, indeed, Magneto, for goodness' sake - and Xavier. One would have assumed that he'd be glad to be rid of the idealist; Emma would have been, in his shoes. She's never had any time for professional possessiveness, and the way Xavier blocked her way into Erik's thoughts, just because he could, rankled with her more than she's willing to admit. But no, he appears to be having some very mixed feelings, and the fact that Raven is also moping for her country as well as mooning after him really isn't helping matters. It might be almost adorable if it wasn't so bloody irritating.
Emma doesn't mention it, when she talks to him. Truthfully, she feels it's completely beneath her notice. Whatever's bothering him, it doesn't fit their purpose, and it's threatening to become a distraction. She might just have to tell him to get a bloody grip. Time is marching on and the world is making up its mind about mutants. They need to be ready; trouble is coming their way, and if Magneto has any sense at all, he'll be prepared to strike first.
In the meantime, Miss Frost keeps her own counsel. It is, after all, the only way she's ever going to get an intelligent conversation around here. So she won't be telling you anything about her innermost thoughts. Anything at all.
Raven
Raven Darkholme is a mess. It's been two weeks, three days, nine hours and seventeen minutes since she walked away from her adopted brother on that godforsaken beach, since she joined hands with her new friends and let Azazel take them away. Her sense of belonging with Erik, who accepts her for who she truly is, overrode her loyalty to and love for Charles, who could never understand how much she hated her true face, her real body. Even though Charles was badly injured, even though he needed her, she didn't stay with him.
He sent her away, bloody selfless idiot that he's always been, he saw that she wanted to go with Erik, and he sent her to him, gave her the freedom to make her own choice. She almost hates him for that, because she can't blame anyone for the way she feels now. The only one she can blame for her guilt is herself.
Watching Erik, Raven is struck by how quiet he is. Back at the mansion, he was - well, he was never exactly talkative, except maybe with Charles, but he was at least approachable. These days he seems lost in thought almost all the time, and nobody really wants to try going near him, talking to him, learning a little more about the man who suddenly seems to be their leader.
Raven can make a pretty good guess as to what the problem is. Or, problems, at least. Spend your life hunting someone down, you're going to feel pretty damn empty once you've actually caught them and killed them. And she'd bet anything she had on the other problem being Charles, or the lack thereof. Raven didn't miss a thing, years of keeping an eye on her ridiculous brother in Oxford had honed her observational skills where he was concerned, and the looks that passed between the two of them were easy enough to read. She didn't get the chance to work out exactly what was going on, but she knows they were close, closer than either of them had expected to become.
Sad, really. You can't be friends with someone whose opinions differ so fundamentally from your own. Or so she'd have thought, if it weren't for the ache inside her whenever she thinks of Charles, his boyish enthusiasm, his idealism, his drunken laugh. Her brother, her confidant, her best friend. He never understood her, but he was always there and he cared. What in the world is she going to do without him? And for that matter, what's he going to do without her? She'd bet whatever she had left after betting on Erik that Charles is just as miserable, back home.
Men. Honestly. Why do they have to be so absolute? Much as Raven doesn't understand Charles' need to fit in, to be accepted by flatscan society, she misses her big brother. And she misses Hank, almost painfully, mourning the lost opportunity to find out everything about him, find out if he could have been the one she'd been looking for. She even misses Alex and Sean, sort of. They were all shaping up to be such a good team, the happy family she'd never had. Why'd Charles and Erik have to go and ruin it all?
Erik
Eventually, the nothingness began to fade. Eventually, he began to allow himself to feel again. Slowly. Began to allow himself to examine the emptiness inside him, the lack of purpose in the aftermath of Shaw's death. Began to construct a new purpose, a new reason to wake up every day, to put one foot in front of the other towards a future that was bigger and broader than he'd imagined before. His single-minded pursuit of the man who'd simultaneously made him and broken him had rather eclipsed the possibility that there could ever be a future beyond it. But now - well, he had a team, or the ragtag, traumatised beginnings of one, and there was a world out there which hated and feared him and his kind. A world that had been out-evolved, pushed into obsolescence without even realising. Someone had to step into that void. Someone had to step up and give the mutants a voice, a name, a future.
And perhaps this new future would bury the voice inside him, fill the void, settle the sudden desire - or was it a need? - for companionship. Or, if he was honest with himself, the inexplicable longing for one person in particular; if it were simply company he needed, intelligent conversation, he could have turned to Emma, and if it were a warm body to distract him…well, again, he could probably have turned to Emma; he was doing his best to keep Raven at arm's length. She was still too young, and she reminded him of Charles. No, it was more than any of that. Nobody else would do, nobody else could be what Erik needed.
Erik had never had friends. At first there had been no opportunity, once they were swept into the ghetto and then to the camps, childhood bonds broken for ever. Then there was the dark time, the time when nobody looked out for anyone but himself. And then came the long, solitary, single-minded hunt for vengeance. None of it had allowed time or capacity for friendship, much less for…anything more. He did not like to put the word to it. But there it had been after all, unwanted, unbidden, pulling him from the darkness and telling him he wasn't alone. The concept was too big to wrap his mind around at first; after nearly two decades of solitude, he'd grown completely accustomed to it. The idea that there might be others like him, and people who cared about him, was completely alien.
But there they were. There Charles was, irrepressible, impossible to put off although Erik did his best, like an overenthusiastic but terribly well-bred puppy. And despite his reservations, despite the knowledge, sure and constant, that he didn't need anyone but himself, somehow Erik had found himself letting Charles in. Somehow Erik had found himself a friend. He didn't know what to do with that. Especially with such a deep, intense, instant connection. Easiest to break it off, seal it away, to wear the helmet and keep Charles out. And when next he saw Charles, his "old friend," unwanted, unbidden, but so very hard to forget, well, he'd just have to insist to himself that it didn't matter. None of it mattered. You don't need anyone, Erik Lehnsherr, nobody but yourself.
Charles
Eventually, the pain began to fade. Eventually the wounds healed, physical and mental, scarred over, and he began to allow himself to examine them, nudging at them with a grim fascination, reorganising his thoughts and his feelings until they were easier to handle. Until they no longer threatened to swallow him whole.
It helped that he had a new purpose, a new task to occupy him. A new role, to take in and accept and comfort and train the world's young mutants, preparing them for the future that was coming. Someone had to take a stand - metaphorically at least - and step forward - again, metaphorically, damn that bullet - and give those children a voice, a name, a future. Even if it was all done anonymously.
And perhaps this new future would fill the void inside him. Perhaps it would make the scars fade away. Perhaps it would keep him so busy that the longing for company, for a good game of chess, for Erik would fade. Hank was a worthy conversationalist, his knowledge perhaps even broader than Charles' own, a true Renaissance man, but he was not a strategist, and Charles did not play chess with him. Jean, a new addition to the Institute not long after its foundation, the most powerful telepath and telekinetic Charles could hope to encounter, was sweet and sympathetic, a good listener, but Charles did not burden her with his own problems. Scott, Alex's brother, a born leader with a nascent charisma that was so completely different to Erik's that Charles had no problem keeping his mouth and his mind shut around him. And all the others who came to the Institute, one by one, each of them different, each of them needing the advice and the guidance and the care that only Charles could give them. It kept him busy enough that he could largely ignore that he himself needed someone else. Someone who remained stubbornly closed off from him. Erik.
Charles had not had friends, particularly, as a child. He had had classmates, at school, but Raven had been his first proper friend. They had grown up together, known each other inside out, though they had never really understood each other. It wasn't really until they got to Oxford that Charles had made other friends, lots of friends, classmates and drinking companions and girlfriends, even though he was utterly rubbish at flirting. But still none of them had understood him, and he had never quite understood them. It hadn't been until that night in Miami, the sudden overwhelming rush of anger and pain and loneliness and need, someone like him but not, there in the water needing to be rescued, whether he knew it or not. And Charles had not even stopped to think; he had just leapt in with both feet and held on for dear life. Suddenly it mattered more than anything in the world, saving this man, giving him something he could anchor himself to, giving him friendship and a safe haven and a place he could call home.
And if their difference of opinion had proven too much for them, for the time being, then so be it. Charles would learn to live with the loss. But he had never been the sort of man who gave up hope easily. If the next time they saw each other they were still at odds, so be it. They had all the time in the world, and Charles refused to believe that the connection they had was so easy to dismiss. It mattered, almost more than anything, and Erik might not know it but he still needed Charles. Just as Charles, in his turn, needed him.
Later
It is a long, slow road to understanding, uphill across rocky terrain strewn with the debris from all the times they have stood at odds, facing each other across the battle lines drawn by their conflicting ideologies. It takes years and several fairly fundamental disagreements, not to mention a seemingly never-ending series of confrontations and explosions. But in the end, their friendship is stronger than their differing opinions. They are polar opposites, but they are also too alike to be truly sundered. It is easy, in the end, to meet in Central Park to play chess, to call each other "old friend" and mean it, to acknowledge everything that lies between them without a word needing to be spoken. And when the world finally moves on, when the mutant cause moves beyond their own era, their own disagreements, who do they have to turn to but each other? It may take decades, but they are too significant to each other to remain forever divided. Scott Summers is a capable leader, a man for the times far more than Charles, now, and the future is safe in his hands. Erik's cause is eclipsed, overtaken by events, and so is Charles'. There is no pain, no numbness, and absolutely nothing to hide. Finally they can sit in peace, the only option at last, play chess and reminisce, and marvel that they can finally put all their differences aside, because the world has at last rendered them irrelevant. The happy ending they are not sure they deserve - or perhaps a happy beginning, to something else entirely.
Author: xlikethenightx
Recipient: withoutmaps
Rating: PG
Pairing/characters: Charles/Erik; also features Moira, Emma and Raven
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for love, out of love.
Author's Notes: Thank you to sasha_b for the beta-job!
Summary: After the beach, what then? Charles and Erik put their lives back together. Written for the prompt “I'd love to see how they process their feelings after the beach. Separately and through Raven/Emma/the boys.” It rather got away from me, as these things do, but I hope you like it!
Charles
Pain. At first, that was all there was, just pain, inside and out, low and insistent despite the morphine, sharp and dull and heavy all at once, in his back and in his head and in his heart. And all around him, the tension and worry in the minds of everyone who came to sit with him, Hank and Alex, Sean and Moira, worry for him and the bitter sting of betrayal at how it had all ended, there on the beach. So much pain.
And beyond the pain, eclipsing any faint feelings of triumph he might have felt at having averted a third world war, an overwhelming sense of failure. And beyond even the failure, an almost cripplingly acute feeling of loss. As if everything that mattered to him, everything in the world, was gone.
He focused on the pain, terrible and all-encompassing, because that at least could be rationalised. As long as he didn't think about how it had come about, the ache in his spine and the sting of the surgical wounds and the sharp, slicing headache that just wouldn't go away.
Besides, the pain was preferable to the fact that below his waist, he couldn't feel anything at all.
Erik
Nothing. At first, that was all there was, just nothing, inside and out, a great gaping void in his head and in his heart and all around him. He barely registered his companions, barely even noticed Raven's frantic, tearful worry, her bitter self-recrimination at how it had all ended, there on the beach. Nothing at all.
Behind the nothingness, agitating to get in, the twin sensations of triumph and emptiness: his goal achieved but what now, what next? And behind even that, unwanted, unneeded, the bitter sting of loss, as if he had for a moment tasted something unexpected and wonderfully sweet, only to have it taken away again in an instant.
He allowed himself to focus only on the nothingness, overwhelming and enveloping, because that at least meant he didn't have to think. Didn't have to think about betrayal and bullets, disagreements and partings and the unfamiliar weight of the helmet he wore.
Besides, the nothingness was preferable to the fact that inside his mind, he couldn't hear anything at all.
Moira
Moira MacTaggart can't tell you anything about what she felt in those weeks after the crisis. She can't tell you anything about the weeks before, either. But if you'd asked her before, while she was still at the mansion, this is what she might have said.
She was deeply, desperately worried about Charles, in those first awful days when he was lying still and quiet in an anonymous hospital bed, recovering from surgery and struggling to come to terms with the awful knowledge that he'd never walk again. Not to mention losing his little sister. Not to mention losing Erik.
Moira wasn't entirely sure what had been going on between the two of them, but she also wasn't stupid. She wasn't blind enough not to have seen the tension between them, the intensity of their sudden, deep friendship, an intensity that went far beyond the simple fact that Charles had saved Erik's life. She wasn't sure just how deep that friendship was, but she told herself she didn't really want to know. It wasn't her business.
She tried not to mention it to Charles, once he'd come out of the coma the doctors had put him into for the first couple of days, while his body began to recover from the surgery to his spine. She tried to keep the conversation to safe topics, like the weather, and the bravery of the boys - their boys, she couldn't help thinking, though she wasn't sure if the 'they' in her thoughts referred to herself and Charles, herself, Charles and Erik, or the whole damn lot of them, up to and including the unfortunate man in black who had first helped to bring them all together. She certainly wasn't including the CIA in it, anyway, and she wasn't sure what that meant for her future with the agency. But any conversation, on whatever topic she could choose, always ended up skirting around the gaps between them where people had once stood, Raven and Erik, and even Angel, though nobody had had much chance to get to know her before she'd taken up her better offer. Charles' sense of failure was so acute that she knew all about it without him needing to say a word; he wasn't projecting intentionally, but she knew he was feeling it, because damn it all, she was feeling it too. They'd been so close to being a proper little family there, for that brief, bright moment, a real team, a force for good, and now it was all gone.
Well. All except the boys. They were almost funny, if she was honest with herself, being so careful with each other, at least at first, not wanting to disturb the Professor or make him worry - it was almost adorable how they'd shifted to referring to Charles as "the Professor", their respect for him heightened by the crisis to a point where they clearly no longer felt comfortable referring to him by his name.
It didn't take too long, though, before Alex was calling Hank names, and Hank was growling and Sean was driving everyone nuts with his talking, dear god did that boy ever shut up? And Charles said something about being glad that at least some things were getting back to normal, his voice faint and strained, and Moira had to smile, just a little bit.
The Academy was the logical next step, really, once Charles was fit enough to be up and about. Those boys still needed a home, a purpose, and in all honesty, so did Charles. And as for Moira, she'd rather assumed that she'd find her own home there too, her own purpose, because surely the CIA wouldn't have her back now? They'd abandoned her, after all.
But then there was a quiet conversation about anonymity, and a kiss, and now Moira can't tell you anything about any of them. Anything at all.
Emma
Emma Frost can't tell you anything about Erik in the weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Well, nothing beyond his apparent liking for winding bedsteads around attractive women; the rest of it was a carefully constructed blank. The weeks after, though, she could tell you plenty about them. Except, of course, that she won't. Miss Frost has her own game to play, her own reasons, and she keeps her own counsel.
But if she were minded to share with you, this is what she might say.
The helmet is, of course, desperately annoying. It annoyed her when Shaw had it, and it annoys her even more on the really rather handsome head of its current owner. She knows next to nothing about this man, after all, nothing beyond what she's managed to pick up in brief, fleeting encounters when she wasn't being blocked by his floppy-haired accomplice, jealously guarding Erik's thoughts like a possessive lover, you can't have them, he's mine, and it's close to infuriating. Emma doesn't like it when she isn't holding all the cards - or when she isn't allowed to hold them.
Any fool could see that he's moping, though. She isn't quite sure why, given the fairly fundamental difference of opinion between Erik - or, indeed, Magneto, for goodness' sake - and Xavier. One would have assumed that he'd be glad to be rid of the idealist; Emma would have been, in his shoes. She's never had any time for professional possessiveness, and the way Xavier blocked her way into Erik's thoughts, just because he could, rankled with her more than she's willing to admit. But no, he appears to be having some very mixed feelings, and the fact that Raven is also moping for her country as well as mooning after him really isn't helping matters. It might be almost adorable if it wasn't so bloody irritating.
Emma doesn't mention it, when she talks to him. Truthfully, she feels it's completely beneath her notice. Whatever's bothering him, it doesn't fit their purpose, and it's threatening to become a distraction. She might just have to tell him to get a bloody grip. Time is marching on and the world is making up its mind about mutants. They need to be ready; trouble is coming their way, and if Magneto has any sense at all, he'll be prepared to strike first.
In the meantime, Miss Frost keeps her own counsel. It is, after all, the only way she's ever going to get an intelligent conversation around here. So she won't be telling you anything about her innermost thoughts. Anything at all.
Raven
Raven Darkholme is a mess. It's been two weeks, three days, nine hours and seventeen minutes since she walked away from her adopted brother on that godforsaken beach, since she joined hands with her new friends and let Azazel take them away. Her sense of belonging with Erik, who accepts her for who she truly is, overrode her loyalty to and love for Charles, who could never understand how much she hated her true face, her real body. Even though Charles was badly injured, even though he needed her, she didn't stay with him.
He sent her away, bloody selfless idiot that he's always been, he saw that she wanted to go with Erik, and he sent her to him, gave her the freedom to make her own choice. She almost hates him for that, because she can't blame anyone for the way she feels now. The only one she can blame for her guilt is herself.
Watching Erik, Raven is struck by how quiet he is. Back at the mansion, he was - well, he was never exactly talkative, except maybe with Charles, but he was at least approachable. These days he seems lost in thought almost all the time, and nobody really wants to try going near him, talking to him, learning a little more about the man who suddenly seems to be their leader.
Raven can make a pretty good guess as to what the problem is. Or, problems, at least. Spend your life hunting someone down, you're going to feel pretty damn empty once you've actually caught them and killed them. And she'd bet anything she had on the other problem being Charles, or the lack thereof. Raven didn't miss a thing, years of keeping an eye on her ridiculous brother in Oxford had honed her observational skills where he was concerned, and the looks that passed between the two of them were easy enough to read. She didn't get the chance to work out exactly what was going on, but she knows they were close, closer than either of them had expected to become.
Sad, really. You can't be friends with someone whose opinions differ so fundamentally from your own. Or so she'd have thought, if it weren't for the ache inside her whenever she thinks of Charles, his boyish enthusiasm, his idealism, his drunken laugh. Her brother, her confidant, her best friend. He never understood her, but he was always there and he cared. What in the world is she going to do without him? And for that matter, what's he going to do without her? She'd bet whatever she had left after betting on Erik that Charles is just as miserable, back home.
Men. Honestly. Why do they have to be so absolute? Much as Raven doesn't understand Charles' need to fit in, to be accepted by flatscan society, she misses her big brother. And she misses Hank, almost painfully, mourning the lost opportunity to find out everything about him, find out if he could have been the one she'd been looking for. She even misses Alex and Sean, sort of. They were all shaping up to be such a good team, the happy family she'd never had. Why'd Charles and Erik have to go and ruin it all?
Erik
Eventually, the nothingness began to fade. Eventually, he began to allow himself to feel again. Slowly. Began to allow himself to examine the emptiness inside him, the lack of purpose in the aftermath of Shaw's death. Began to construct a new purpose, a new reason to wake up every day, to put one foot in front of the other towards a future that was bigger and broader than he'd imagined before. His single-minded pursuit of the man who'd simultaneously made him and broken him had rather eclipsed the possibility that there could ever be a future beyond it. But now - well, he had a team, or the ragtag, traumatised beginnings of one, and there was a world out there which hated and feared him and his kind. A world that had been out-evolved, pushed into obsolescence without even realising. Someone had to step into that void. Someone had to step up and give the mutants a voice, a name, a future.
And perhaps this new future would bury the voice inside him, fill the void, settle the sudden desire - or was it a need? - for companionship. Or, if he was honest with himself, the inexplicable longing for one person in particular; if it were simply company he needed, intelligent conversation, he could have turned to Emma, and if it were a warm body to distract him…well, again, he could probably have turned to Emma; he was doing his best to keep Raven at arm's length. She was still too young, and she reminded him of Charles. No, it was more than any of that. Nobody else would do, nobody else could be what Erik needed.
Erik had never had friends. At first there had been no opportunity, once they were swept into the ghetto and then to the camps, childhood bonds broken for ever. Then there was the dark time, the time when nobody looked out for anyone but himself. And then came the long, solitary, single-minded hunt for vengeance. None of it had allowed time or capacity for friendship, much less for…anything more. He did not like to put the word to it. But there it had been after all, unwanted, unbidden, pulling him from the darkness and telling him he wasn't alone. The concept was too big to wrap his mind around at first; after nearly two decades of solitude, he'd grown completely accustomed to it. The idea that there might be others like him, and people who cared about him, was completely alien.
But there they were. There Charles was, irrepressible, impossible to put off although Erik did his best, like an overenthusiastic but terribly well-bred puppy. And despite his reservations, despite the knowledge, sure and constant, that he didn't need anyone but himself, somehow Erik had found himself letting Charles in. Somehow Erik had found himself a friend. He didn't know what to do with that. Especially with such a deep, intense, instant connection. Easiest to break it off, seal it away, to wear the helmet and keep Charles out. And when next he saw Charles, his "old friend," unwanted, unbidden, but so very hard to forget, well, he'd just have to insist to himself that it didn't matter. None of it mattered. You don't need anyone, Erik Lehnsherr, nobody but yourself.
Charles
Eventually, the pain began to fade. Eventually the wounds healed, physical and mental, scarred over, and he began to allow himself to examine them, nudging at them with a grim fascination, reorganising his thoughts and his feelings until they were easier to handle. Until they no longer threatened to swallow him whole.
It helped that he had a new purpose, a new task to occupy him. A new role, to take in and accept and comfort and train the world's young mutants, preparing them for the future that was coming. Someone had to take a stand - metaphorically at least - and step forward - again, metaphorically, damn that bullet - and give those children a voice, a name, a future. Even if it was all done anonymously.
And perhaps this new future would fill the void inside him. Perhaps it would make the scars fade away. Perhaps it would keep him so busy that the longing for company, for a good game of chess, for Erik would fade. Hank was a worthy conversationalist, his knowledge perhaps even broader than Charles' own, a true Renaissance man, but he was not a strategist, and Charles did not play chess with him. Jean, a new addition to the Institute not long after its foundation, the most powerful telepath and telekinetic Charles could hope to encounter, was sweet and sympathetic, a good listener, but Charles did not burden her with his own problems. Scott, Alex's brother, a born leader with a nascent charisma that was so completely different to Erik's that Charles had no problem keeping his mouth and his mind shut around him. And all the others who came to the Institute, one by one, each of them different, each of them needing the advice and the guidance and the care that only Charles could give them. It kept him busy enough that he could largely ignore that he himself needed someone else. Someone who remained stubbornly closed off from him. Erik.
Charles had not had friends, particularly, as a child. He had had classmates, at school, but Raven had been his first proper friend. They had grown up together, known each other inside out, though they had never really understood each other. It wasn't really until they got to Oxford that Charles had made other friends, lots of friends, classmates and drinking companions and girlfriends, even though he was utterly rubbish at flirting. But still none of them had understood him, and he had never quite understood them. It hadn't been until that night in Miami, the sudden overwhelming rush of anger and pain and loneliness and need, someone like him but not, there in the water needing to be rescued, whether he knew it or not. And Charles had not even stopped to think; he had just leapt in with both feet and held on for dear life. Suddenly it mattered more than anything in the world, saving this man, giving him something he could anchor himself to, giving him friendship and a safe haven and a place he could call home.
And if their difference of opinion had proven too much for them, for the time being, then so be it. Charles would learn to live with the loss. But he had never been the sort of man who gave up hope easily. If the next time they saw each other they were still at odds, so be it. They had all the time in the world, and Charles refused to believe that the connection they had was so easy to dismiss. It mattered, almost more than anything, and Erik might not know it but he still needed Charles. Just as Charles, in his turn, needed him.
Later
It is a long, slow road to understanding, uphill across rocky terrain strewn with the debris from all the times they have stood at odds, facing each other across the battle lines drawn by their conflicting ideologies. It takes years and several fairly fundamental disagreements, not to mention a seemingly never-ending series of confrontations and explosions. But in the end, their friendship is stronger than their differing opinions. They are polar opposites, but they are also too alike to be truly sundered. It is easy, in the end, to meet in Central Park to play chess, to call each other "old friend" and mean it, to acknowledge everything that lies between them without a word needing to be spoken. And when the world finally moves on, when the mutant cause moves beyond their own era, their own disagreements, who do they have to turn to but each other? It may take decades, but they are too significant to each other to remain forever divided. Scott Summers is a capable leader, a man for the times far more than Charles, now, and the future is safe in his hands. Erik's cause is eclipsed, overtaken by events, and so is Charles'. There is no pain, no numbness, and absolutely nothing to hide. Finally they can sit in peace, the only option at last, play chess and reminisce, and marvel that they can finally put all their differences aside, because the world has at last rendered them irrelevant. The happy ending they are not sure they deserve - or perhaps a happy beginning, to something else entirely.