"6, 14, 18, 28, 30"
Title: 6, 14, 18, 28, 30
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Erik/others in the background
Genre: Alternate Universe, character centric
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of war and genocide
Word Count: 924
Summary: When Erik is six they come to America.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all copyright to these guys.
Author's note: Fill for au_bingo for the prompt "Alternative History: Canon historical event changed".
When Erik is six, his Mama packs their things into two big bags and takes him to the train station. Ruth is walking on her other side and by the look of her face is as equally puzzled as to what’s going on as Erik is. Papa is nowhere in sight until he is, when he runs in to them looking harried and a little scared, with tickets and passports in his hands. Erik doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he knows that for some reason they’re leaving home. It makes him upset, but he doesn’t say anything. His parents look miserable enough as it is. He spends the journey on the train squished between Mama and Ruth. He holds his Mama’s hand tight and smiles at her when she looks down at him. He doesn’t like it when she’s upset so he’ll try to be brave for her. It’s only when they get to the coast that he hears the name of their final destination.
America.
Somehow it doesn’t sound as grand now as it did when the kids in neighborhood were talking about it. This time it sounds only scary.
When Erik is fourteen and the war is one year gone, he reads in the newspaper about concentration camps. He runs to the bathroom and is sick for long time, acutely aware that if they didn’t leave it would be them, these corpses laying in the pile. It could be him and his family. Mama finds him bent over the toilet fifteen minutes later and they sit curled together, crying. He doesn’t know if these are tears of grief or relief, but it doesn’t matter in that moment. For week afterward everyone looks haggard and unhappy. Their life in New York isn’t the easiest, but he’s suddenly so very grateful for it.
On Sunday, when they come back from the Synagogue, he takes his family to the living room and makes the silverware dance around him. It’s a parlor trick for him by now, but it never fails to bring smiles on the faces of his loved ones. He wonders if this gift of his would be enough to save them even if they stayed. He doesn’t share the thought, afraid of the answer.
Mama tucks him into bed that night, for the first time in four years, and tells him how wonderful he is. She tells him that his gift is a present from God. That he’s destined for great things, to help people, he just needs to wait until they’ll be ready to accept it. He knows she’s right and he falls asleep with a smile on his face.
When Erik is eighteen, and doesn’t feel anything when Jennifer kisses him in the back row of the cinema during Cinderella, he realizes that maybe he’s not going to just start liking girls like he thought. He agonizes over it for two weeks, hardly eating and spending more time in his own room than is normal for him. Maybe there is something wrong with him, he thinks. All the other boys would be overjoyed at having Jen kiss them. Erik just wanted her to get her tongue out of his throat so he could breathe.
His Papa is finally the one to confront him about what happened. He’s embarrassed to confess the truth, but it’s his Papa and he can’t very well lie to him about something that big. They spend few hours, talking and drinking wine in Erik’s room and for the first time Erik realizes that he can have a friend in his parent as well. He falls asleep with his head pillowed on his father’s shoulder and when he wakes in the morning there is a book waiting for him downstairs. It’s thin and battered, and he knows it was read in secrecy by more than one person.
He doesn’t know if he is homosexual per se, but it seems to worth checking.
When Erik is twenty eight and works in the local car shop, Mama starts stoking on cans and bottled water. The cold war isn’t a new thing, but the tension between US and USSR increases with every year and there are whispers about nuclear war coming. Erik and Ruth usually roll their eyes when they hear someone mention it, but he sees how tight his sister holds Misha and knows that she too is afraid of losing her home again. Once was more than enough.
Erik loses another boyfriend to argument about war and decides that Americans aren’t worthy his time. They all want war, not realizing how disastrous and horrible it really is. He plays with Misha instead, babysitting for Ruth when she needs some time alone with her husband, and pretends everything is good with the world.
When Erik is thirty, the man with an English accent knocks on his door with the proposition of work for CIA. Erik laughs in his face and throws him out. But he thinks about it. He thinks about how old his father looks lately, and how his mother used to say he’s destined to help people. Maybe preventing another war was that something he got his gift for.
When he knocks on the man’s, Charles’, door later in the evening, there is no surprise on the face greeting him. But there is a chessboard set in the middle of the room and a cup of coffee just as Erik likes it. Erik takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again. This time he sees possibilities.
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Erik/others in the background
Genre: Alternate Universe, character centric
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of war and genocide
Word Count: 924
Summary: When Erik is six they come to America.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all copyright to these guys.
Author's note: Fill for au_bingo for the prompt "Alternative History: Canon historical event changed".
When Erik is six, his Mama packs their things into two big bags and takes him to the train station. Ruth is walking on her other side and by the look of her face is as equally puzzled as to what’s going on as Erik is. Papa is nowhere in sight until he is, when he runs in to them looking harried and a little scared, with tickets and passports in his hands. Erik doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he knows that for some reason they’re leaving home. It makes him upset, but he doesn’t say anything. His parents look miserable enough as it is. He spends the journey on the train squished between Mama and Ruth. He holds his Mama’s hand tight and smiles at her when she looks down at him. He doesn’t like it when she’s upset so he’ll try to be brave for her. It’s only when they get to the coast that he hears the name of their final destination.
America.
Somehow it doesn’t sound as grand now as it did when the kids in neighborhood were talking about it. This time it sounds only scary.
When Erik is fourteen and the war is one year gone, he reads in the newspaper about concentration camps. He runs to the bathroom and is sick for long time, acutely aware that if they didn’t leave it would be them, these corpses laying in the pile. It could be him and his family. Mama finds him bent over the toilet fifteen minutes later and they sit curled together, crying. He doesn’t know if these are tears of grief or relief, but it doesn’t matter in that moment. For week afterward everyone looks haggard and unhappy. Their life in New York isn’t the easiest, but he’s suddenly so very grateful for it.
On Sunday, when they come back from the Synagogue, he takes his family to the living room and makes the silverware dance around him. It’s a parlor trick for him by now, but it never fails to bring smiles on the faces of his loved ones. He wonders if this gift of his would be enough to save them even if they stayed. He doesn’t share the thought, afraid of the answer.
Mama tucks him into bed that night, for the first time in four years, and tells him how wonderful he is. She tells him that his gift is a present from God. That he’s destined for great things, to help people, he just needs to wait until they’ll be ready to accept it. He knows she’s right and he falls asleep with a smile on his face.
When Erik is eighteen, and doesn’t feel anything when Jennifer kisses him in the back row of the cinema during Cinderella, he realizes that maybe he’s not going to just start liking girls like he thought. He agonizes over it for two weeks, hardly eating and spending more time in his own room than is normal for him. Maybe there is something wrong with him, he thinks. All the other boys would be overjoyed at having Jen kiss them. Erik just wanted her to get her tongue out of his throat so he could breathe.
His Papa is finally the one to confront him about what happened. He’s embarrassed to confess the truth, but it’s his Papa and he can’t very well lie to him about something that big. They spend few hours, talking and drinking wine in Erik’s room and for the first time Erik realizes that he can have a friend in his parent as well. He falls asleep with his head pillowed on his father’s shoulder and when he wakes in the morning there is a book waiting for him downstairs. It’s thin and battered, and he knows it was read in secrecy by more than one person.
He doesn’t know if he is homosexual per se, but it seems to worth checking.
When Erik is twenty eight and works in the local car shop, Mama starts stoking on cans and bottled water. The cold war isn’t a new thing, but the tension between US and USSR increases with every year and there are whispers about nuclear war coming. Erik and Ruth usually roll their eyes when they hear someone mention it, but he sees how tight his sister holds Misha and knows that she too is afraid of losing her home again. Once was more than enough.
Erik loses another boyfriend to argument about war and decides that Americans aren’t worthy his time. They all want war, not realizing how disastrous and horrible it really is. He plays with Misha instead, babysitting for Ruth when she needs some time alone with her husband, and pretends everything is good with the world.
When Erik is thirty, the man with an English accent knocks on his door with the proposition of work for CIA. Erik laughs in his face and throws him out. But he thinks about it. He thinks about how old his father looks lately, and how his mother used to say he’s destined to help people. Maybe preventing another war was that something he got his gift for.
When he knocks on the man’s, Charles’, door later in the evening, there is no surprise on the face greeting him. But there is a chessboard set in the middle of the room and a cup of coffee just as Erik likes it. Erik takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again. This time he sees possibilities.