YOU NEED TO STOP ME. THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.
I have lost my motherfucking mind. I was watching Cheri and immediately my AU sense pricked at me, and I thought AHAH, I could write an X-Men: First Class story where Charles is the wastrel son of a courtesan and Erik is...hot and then I realized it might be too challenging to write Erik into the Belle Epoque.
And then it came to me. Kushiel's Legacy.
Charles is the son of some famous smart Siovales hoo-ha and an adept at Eglantine house, and while this smart hoo-ha and the adept love each other very much, Hoo-ha still has a wife and kids of his own, and wife is none too keen about this son, Charles, who might come and take everything away.
So he's fostered in Eglantine like his mother, and becomes quite good at tumbling and juggling and dancing, and they've always held such high hopes for him, because he was always a bright boy, but he appears to have NO APTITUDE for playwriting, or poetry, or music. He likes digging things up in the garden and reading books and while that might get some people off, there is no particular genius involved in that, so they generally shake their heads and regard him as a failure.
Which, while he pretends not to care, he really does. Especially since he can hear EVERYTHING that people think about him. His only friend is Raven, a half-Tsingano, whose mother was cast out when Raven was born bright blue. Your kids aren't supposed to be bright blue, see?
One day, Anafiel Delaunay happens to be at Eglantine for some reason that probably makes lots of sense to him and no sense to anybody else, and Charles accidentally answers something that he overhears in his head aloud, alerting Delaunay that there is something up with the child.
Delaunay decides immediately to purchase his marque and everybody is like "Huh, maybe he likes really little boys who play in the dirt and can do a perfect back handspring. Weird."
Blah, blah, blah, Charles goes with Delaunay who teaches him to be the hottest and coolest courtesan around...oh yeah, and also a spy. But not everybody likes Delaunay and one day when Charles is coming back from having sex with somebody, their carriage is attacked and his faithful bodyguard dies and Delaunay decides to get a Cassiline Brother to protect him. BRILLIANT PLAN.
Enter Erik, a yeshuite whose entire family was slaughtered before him by the Skaldi and then he was taken to be given as a plaything to their leader, Shaw (Yes, Shaw is totally Waldemar Selig. What? you thought I was going to make him Melisande? That...might've made more sense for Erik actually, but I want this story to end happily, quiet!).
Erik escaped and ran and ran and ran and somehow he ended up being adopted by the Cassiline brotherhood. They found him on the road or something. They quickly notice his talent and spend the next ten years training him into a life of asceticism and incredible martial feats, yadda yadda.
Erik is horrified when he learns that he is to guard Charles, a courtesan, *cough* wanton slut, with his life. Neither the yeshuite nor the cassiline in him is at all prepared to deal with this.
But then one night when he's practicing with his daggers and thinks he's alone, he starts doing some things with them that nobody should be able to, and Charles sees and thinks he's beautiful (if a dried up old stick of a Cassiline). Erik is even more horrified to have revealed himself, but Charles explains he's not the only one. And everything would be wonderful only Charles is still a wanton slut spy and Erik has sworn a vow of celibacy. Oops.
That's okay though because conniving Melisande (damn it, Erik probably really should be Melisande, nothing else makes sense) has lots of plans to fuck everything up and everybody else dies, so they have to have sex, the end.
I have no idea where Sean or Alex or Hank fit into all of this. I guess they could be Remy, and Fortun, and Ti-Phillipe...but since everybody but Ti-Phillipe dies, I don't know if I like that comparison. OMG, Hank could be Favrielle! That would be HILARIOUS.
Just take this gif that totally proves how awesome this idea is as an apology and run as fast as you can.
And then it came to me. Kushiel's Legacy.
Charles is the son of some famous smart Siovales hoo-ha and an adept at Eglantine house, and while this smart hoo-ha and the adept love each other very much, Hoo-ha still has a wife and kids of his own, and wife is none too keen about this son, Charles, who might come and take everything away.
So he's fostered in Eglantine like his mother, and becomes quite good at tumbling and juggling and dancing, and they've always held such high hopes for him, because he was always a bright boy, but he appears to have NO APTITUDE for playwriting, or poetry, or music. He likes digging things up in the garden and reading books and while that might get some people off, there is no particular genius involved in that, so they generally shake their heads and regard him as a failure.
Which, while he pretends not to care, he really does. Especially since he can hear EVERYTHING that people think about him. His only friend is Raven, a half-Tsingano, whose mother was cast out when Raven was born bright blue. Your kids aren't supposed to be bright blue, see?
One day, Anafiel Delaunay happens to be at Eglantine for some reason that probably makes lots of sense to him and no sense to anybody else, and Charles accidentally answers something that he overhears in his head aloud, alerting Delaunay that there is something up with the child.
Delaunay decides immediately to purchase his marque and everybody is like "Huh, maybe he likes really little boys who play in the dirt and can do a perfect back handspring. Weird."
Blah, blah, blah, Charles goes with Delaunay who teaches him to be the hottest and coolest courtesan around...oh yeah, and also a spy. But not everybody likes Delaunay and one day when Charles is coming back from having sex with somebody, their carriage is attacked and his faithful bodyguard dies and Delaunay decides to get a Cassiline Brother to protect him. BRILLIANT PLAN.
Enter Erik, a yeshuite whose entire family was slaughtered before him by the Skaldi and then he was taken to be given as a plaything to their leader, Shaw (Yes, Shaw is totally Waldemar Selig. What? you thought I was going to make him Melisande? That...might've made more sense for Erik actually, but I want this story to end happily, quiet!).
Erik escaped and ran and ran and ran and somehow he ended up being adopted by the Cassiline brotherhood. They found him on the road or something. They quickly notice his talent and spend the next ten years training him into a life of asceticism and incredible martial feats, yadda yadda.
Erik is horrified when he learns that he is to guard Charles, a courtesan, *cough* wanton slut, with his life. Neither the yeshuite nor the cassiline in him is at all prepared to deal with this.
But then one night when he's practicing with his daggers and thinks he's alone, he starts doing some things with them that nobody should be able to, and Charles sees and thinks he's beautiful (if a dried up old stick of a Cassiline). Erik is even more horrified to have revealed himself, but Charles explains he's not the only one. And everything would be wonderful only Charles is still a wanton slut spy and Erik has sworn a vow of celibacy. Oops.
That's okay though because conniving Melisande (damn it, Erik probably really should be Melisande, nothing else makes sense) has lots of plans to fuck everything up and everybody else dies, so they have to have sex, the end.
I have no idea where Sean or Alex or Hank fit into all of this. I guess they could be Remy, and Fortun, and Ti-Phillipe...but since everybody but Ti-Phillipe dies, I don't know if I like that comparison. OMG, Hank could be Favrielle! That would be HILARIOUS.
Just take this gif that totally proves how awesome this idea is as an apology and run as fast as you can.