Fic: Violets (X-Men: First Class, G)
title: Violets
author: ilovetakahana
word count: 733
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]
pairing: Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr
rating: G
notes: Mansion fic, although I'm deliberately fudging the timeline here because I maintain they spent at least a month in training or something. <3 Written for johanirae, whose birthday it is today, for her prompt "Erik courts Charles - clumsily".
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org.
Contrary to popular reports - that would be Raven, again, thanks but no thanks - Charles Francis Xavier is not a morning person. He likes his pillows and the beaten-up sheets that are already fraying and pilling; he likes his bed, and he likes being tucked into warmth and darkness. There is a reason why he prefers to sleep in one of the corners of the library in the Westchester mansion, where he’s set up a little cot and a few dark lamps.
The books and the few objects in their display cases are all hidden away on the western side of the mansion, in the last room to get any sunlight. The windows boast particularly thick curtains, which Charles takes a distinct pleasure in drawing closed if it looks like it’s going to be another long night working and thinking and dreaming.
[Dreaming, Charles will argue in the future, is an important part of his work.]
During the first few days after the flight to the mansion, Charles had prudently, sleepily waited until everyone else had moved down to the kitchen and the various breakfast nooks before venturing out of his snug little burrow, back to his room for a change of clothes and a shower, little caring that he made that journey looking like a drowned rat. After all, there was supposed to be no one else to see him, right?
Except this morning. He staggers around the corner, stuffs most of his fist into his mouth to stifle his yawns - and there is a bedraggled nosegay hanging off the doorknob.
Charles goes from barely functional to wide awake and hyperaware in the space of roughly three seconds - it’s a new record, even for him - and he carefully gathers the tired wildflowers and wilted violets in his hands and flees into his room, locks the door securely.
The purples and greens and whites and yellows have long since lost their vibrant life, and no scent rises to Charles’s nose - but when he puts the flowers down on his coverlet, when he thinks about the hands of the man who’d taken pains to gather this secret present, there’s something in his chest that feels warm and tight and shaky.
Where had Erik even found those violets? How far had he ranged - the grounds surrounding the mansion are immense. Charles knows that it has always been a struggle to find those elusive flowers, his favorite flowers.
He casts out his mind, and there - Erik is walking outside, ignoring the hothouse on the south side of the mansion. Hands in his pockets, looking out at the bright morning, not really seeing the blue sky and the distant fluff of white cloud.
Hello, Charles.
“Good morning, Erik,” he says and says, letting Erik hear his quiet laugh. “I found your present. Thank you.”
makingfunofme flowerswitherednow howcanheappreciate
“I’m not making fun, I promise.”
You actually like withered wildflowers. Some kind of present they must be.
“It’s the thought that counts?” Charles splashes some water on his face, tries to tame the wild flurry of his hair, shrugs his shoulders to work out the kinks in the muscles. “And believe me, in my case, the thought more than counts.”
Silly. I’ll do better.
Charles withdraws from Erik’s mind, and when he looks at himself in the mirror there’s nothing for it but to own the high hot flush staining his cheeks, the unwarranted joy in his eyes. Oh, yes, he’s never been under any illusions, he knows Erik may not even remain for as long as he’d promised - but Charles will at least have had these flowers, these little conversations, a clumsy and beautiful courtship, slow burn, never enough.
He buttons up his new shirt and pulls on one of his favorite jumpers, chocolate-brown and already unraveling near the elbows. Gloves and a battered pair of boots.
When he’s ready, Charles looks around and - there, there’s his old genetics text, the one that he annotated and then used as the springboard for his undergraduate thesis - and he carefully tucks the flowers between the pages, among the other little keepsakes and memories. The few good things he’d had here in Westchester.
He hurries out the door with a plan in mind, homing in on Erik, knowing they can afford to have this one day.
author: ilovetakahana
word count: 733
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]
pairing: Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr
rating: G
notes: Mansion fic, although I'm deliberately fudging the timeline here because I maintain they spent at least a month in training or something. <3 Written for johanirae, whose birthday it is today, for her prompt "Erik courts Charles - clumsily".
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org.
Contrary to popular reports - that would be Raven, again, thanks but no thanks - Charles Francis Xavier is not a morning person. He likes his pillows and the beaten-up sheets that are already fraying and pilling; he likes his bed, and he likes being tucked into warmth and darkness. There is a reason why he prefers to sleep in one of the corners of the library in the Westchester mansion, where he’s set up a little cot and a few dark lamps.
The books and the few objects in their display cases are all hidden away on the western side of the mansion, in the last room to get any sunlight. The windows boast particularly thick curtains, which Charles takes a distinct pleasure in drawing closed if it looks like it’s going to be another long night working and thinking and dreaming.
[Dreaming, Charles will argue in the future, is an important part of his work.]
During the first few days after the flight to the mansion, Charles had prudently, sleepily waited until everyone else had moved down to the kitchen and the various breakfast nooks before venturing out of his snug little burrow, back to his room for a change of clothes and a shower, little caring that he made that journey looking like a drowned rat. After all, there was supposed to be no one else to see him, right?
Except this morning. He staggers around the corner, stuffs most of his fist into his mouth to stifle his yawns - and there is a bedraggled nosegay hanging off the doorknob.
Charles goes from barely functional to wide awake and hyperaware in the space of roughly three seconds - it’s a new record, even for him - and he carefully gathers the tired wildflowers and wilted violets in his hands and flees into his room, locks the door securely.
The purples and greens and whites and yellows have long since lost their vibrant life, and no scent rises to Charles’s nose - but when he puts the flowers down on his coverlet, when he thinks about the hands of the man who’d taken pains to gather this secret present, there’s something in his chest that feels warm and tight and shaky.
Where had Erik even found those violets? How far had he ranged - the grounds surrounding the mansion are immense. Charles knows that it has always been a struggle to find those elusive flowers, his favorite flowers.
He casts out his mind, and there - Erik is walking outside, ignoring the hothouse on the south side of the mansion. Hands in his pockets, looking out at the bright morning, not really seeing the blue sky and the distant fluff of white cloud.
Hello, Charles.
“Good morning, Erik,” he says and says, letting Erik hear his quiet laugh. “I found your present. Thank you.”
makingfunofme flowerswitherednow howcanheappreciate
“I’m not making fun, I promise.”
You actually like withered wildflowers. Some kind of present they must be.
“It’s the thought that counts?” Charles splashes some water on his face, tries to tame the wild flurry of his hair, shrugs his shoulders to work out the kinks in the muscles. “And believe me, in my case, the thought more than counts.”
Silly. I’ll do better.
Charles withdraws from Erik’s mind, and when he looks at himself in the mirror there’s nothing for it but to own the high hot flush staining his cheeks, the unwarranted joy in his eyes. Oh, yes, he’s never been under any illusions, he knows Erik may not even remain for as long as he’d promised - but Charles will at least have had these flowers, these little conversations, a clumsy and beautiful courtship, slow burn, never enough.
He buttons up his new shirt and pulls on one of his favorite jumpers, chocolate-brown and already unraveling near the elbows. Gloves and a battered pair of boots.
When he’s ready, Charles looks around and - there, there’s his old genetics text, the one that he annotated and then used as the springboard for his undergraduate thesis - and he carefully tucks the flowers between the pages, among the other little keepsakes and memories. The few good things he’d had here in Westchester.
He hurries out the door with a plan in mind, homing in on Erik, knowing they can afford to have this one day.