people fall in love with what they cannot understand | XM: FC
(LOLOLOLOLOL i started writing again what am i doing)
Title: people fall in love with what they cannot understand
Series: X-Men: First Class (Fairy Tale AU)
Notes; Written for the kink challenge in which someone asked for a fairy tale.
Erik doesn’t tell anyone where he’s from.
That’s fine with Charles, because even though he could ask, ask till he had no more questions, he won’t.
Because he promised Erik, and Charles is not one to break promises.
Charles tells multiple variations of how they met.
They met in the ocean, where the waters were cold and deep, and silent. Erik was drowning, so Charles saved him. Charles was drowning, so Erik saved him. They were on a ship when it capsized. They met on the beach, when Charles was learning how to surf. Charles was swimming when he developed a cramp. Erik developed a cramp, Charles threw him a life vest.
No one is exactly sure of how they met, and when Charles smiles that disarming smile of his, the line of questions will inevitably teeter out.
No one bothers to ask Erik.
Perhaps they are afraid, because he is cold and snappish to anyone who isn’t Charles, or maybe it’s because he smiles like a shark; all teeth and no warmth.
What they know is this:
Charles came back with Erik, and somehow, managed to tame the shark in him because Erik never left after he arrived.
What they don’t know is this:
Erik was once tempted to leave, three days after moving into the Westchester home. He made it to the front gate of the mansion, before turning around. Charles was at the steps of the patio, of course, because Charles was always where Erik was, watching calmly with those blue eyes of his.
“Take care,” Charles said, and raised his hand in a little wave, mouth curled, eyes sad.
And just like that, Erik stayed. They don’t talk about why he almost leaves though, and the silence between them grows more comfortable.
The children in the mansion dub Erik “shark man”, because of his teeth, and, some say, because he looked like he would attack you if you were stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Charles laugh at this nickname, and tells Erik.
“Creative,” He says, dryly.
There are eight people living in under Charles’ roof.
None of them are related to each other, except for Raven and Charles, and even that is debatable.
Still, they sit down as a family once a week, to eat Hank’s burnt pot roast and Charles’ barely cooked potato salad.
It’s not family, but it sure feels like it.
Erik works with metal like he was born from it. He welds and melds and shapes them into the most impossible figures; massive spirals like the horn of a narwhale, he melts silver and cooper to form a perfect sphere that he places in Charles’ garden.
“It’ll rust, my friend,” Charles says, when he sees the sculpture, but he is smiling and so Erik smiles back (no teeth, all warmth), “so let it rust.”
If Erik was born from metal, then perhaps Charles was born from dreams and emotions.
He reads people like an open book and sees emotions laid stark on their faces, in their eyes, in the twist of their mouths.
Erik, though, is different. He doesn’t settle in his skin, the angles too strange on his curves, his eyes, too bright. Charles can’t read Erik very well. Time, Charles think, one must give him time to adjust.
But Charles know, people from the sea don’t adjust easily to life on land.
Erik has a tattoo on his arm.
Charles knows this because he has seen it. Flashes of skin, like ripples that break the surface of water. It looks like scratches, dark like squid ink against golden skin. The mark of a merman, Charles asks Erik this one day, light and teasing, or is it a shark man?
A flash of anger, red hot and brilliant, before Erik turns away, and in the aftermath of silence, Charles looks at the perfect sphere gleaming in his garden.
He has no regrets bringing a shark man home.
Later that night, while the mansion sleep, Erik goes into Charles’ room and sits by his bed.
He doesn’t apologise, of course not, because men from the sea rarely apologise, but Charles doesn’t let him under the covers either. Just stares at Erik with an eyebrow raised as if he is silently laughing at him. Perhaps he is. Perhaps he’s not. Charles is a human Erik cannot figure out. He fits into angles and curves too easily, like a moldable putty in the hands of a talented sculptor. Then again, Erik could never resist those blue eyes, not since the first moment they met.
So he says, “Charles.”
He doesn't say, I should not have turned on you so, but Charles hears it anyway.
And it’s like the tension in the room deflates, swept out like the low tide, as Charles laughs, silent, as he lifts up the blankets and motions for Erik to come in.
“If Erik’s a shark,” Raven says one day, when everyone is sure that the two of them are not in the house, “then what does that makes Charles?”
Hank looks up, “a human?”
“No, bozo,” Alex says, “we’re talking about totem animals.”
“Oh,” says Hank, face red, glasses threatening to slip down his nose.
Sean shrugs once, “I’unno.”
“You guys think too much about this,” says Angel as she flipped through her magazine; she doesn’t even bother to look up.
“Shhh!” Armando makes a flapping motion with his arms, like he’s trying to fly, “they’re coming up!”
One day, Erik tells Charles: “I hear the children have been thinking of your totem animal.”
Charles laugh, and Erik smiles, again, all warmth and no teeth.
“I think my totem animal is a rat,” Charles tells Erik this one day, while they are playing a game of chess.
Erik makes a non-committal noise at the back of his throat before opting to take Charles’ queen.
“Why a rat?” He asks, a heartbeat later.
Charles smiles; it’s a beautiful smile, clean and bright, “because we’re all rats in this game of life. Except you, my friend, you’re a shark. And checkmate.”
Erik can feel his human skin stretching, crackling, buckling in parts where it is pulled taunted over his real skin. It itches, a point somewhere around his left shoulder, a point he cannot reach. He feels the need rise in him - deep, dark, cool, wat- and is tempted to rip off this fragile skin.
Then Charles reaches over and grasps his shoulder and it’s like the itching and the stretching stops, suspended in time, suspended in water.
Charles’ voice is cool and flowing, like a constant stream over river rocks, “Erik.”
Erik looks at him, “Charles.”
They both pretend everything is okay.
The sphere in Charles’ garden eventually starts to rust, bits of red spreading like a viral rash.
Charles does not say, “I told you so,” but Erik smiles (with the barest hint of teeth) and says, “yes, Charles.”
(As a boy, Charles once read a story about a fisherman who stole a seal-woman’s skin.
The fisherman fell in love with the seal-woman, who had taken off her skin to bask in the sun. The seal-woman was pretty, exceedingly pretty, and the man was greedy in the way all humans are.
So, he crept up behind her and stole her skin.
Marry me, he said, and I will return your skin to you.
Then she bared her claws (because even seal-women in human forms had claws) and took her skin back by force.)
The only difference is that Charles does not have Erik’s skin.
He’s not sure what he has of Erik’s actually.
“A rat?” laughs Alex as he wrinkles his nose.
“That’s stupid, Charles,” Raven says, and she throws her hands up in the air at the word stupid.
“I like rats,” mutters Hank, face impossibly red.
Sharks are solitary animals, and they hunt by staying far enough to be hidden, but near enough to strike. They can also smell a drop of blood in the ocean, miles away from the source.
Did you know you’re more likely to be bitten by a person than a shark?
One night, Erik tells Charles, “the mark on my arm came from me being caught in a fishing net once.”
They breathe under the heavy blankets, and watch the moon throw crazy shadows over the furniture.
in, out, in, out.
Erik doesn’t continue the story, but he doesn’t need to to, Charles can read it in the set of his jaw, the way his arm tenses when Charles touches the marks, traces over it with careful fingers. Erik feels his human skin prickling, like ice caps on his back.
“What happened next?” Charles whisper, which is crazy, because they are both in Charles’ gigantic room and it’s not as if anyone was listening in.
“I capsized his boat,” Erik says, voice floating over Charles’ head. He doesn’t say, and then I drowned him, but he figures Charles knows that part.
Erik wonders if he should mention that he was initially planning to capsize Charles’ boat as well, before he saw the human’s impossibly blue eyes. Something tells him that Charles know though, because that’s the sort of human Charles is. The thought makes Erik growl, deep inside, and he hugs Charles a little tighter, muffling tiny bursts of laughter against his chest.
“Charles?”
snore
Men from the sea don’t say “love” very easily, so Erik leans in and whispers the words against Charles’ head, the hard curve of his shoulder, the bend of his ear.
It’s very strange how time passes so quickly.
It’s been three months since the shark followed the rat home when Erik follows the call of the ocean. He asks Charles, come with me?
And Charles smiles, knowing and brilliant, of course, my friend.
The sea is restless when they arrive. Of course, the ocean always want back their own kind.
“Come with me, Charles,” Erik says as he extends one hand. Behind him, the waves howls.
“I cannot,” And now Charles smile, but his eyes are sad, and his words are heavy, “but you should stay.”
The sea takes them both anyway, and in a cruel twist of fate, only the shark man makes it to shore.
Erik searches the seven seas for Charles.
He asks the waters, whose whispers are sometimes reliable; he asks the whales, who know the map of the ocean; he asks the mussels, who never stop talking.
Sometimes though, just sometimes, he wonders if Charles was chasing him too.
I hear he is still looking.
Title: people fall in love with what they cannot understand
Series: X-Men: First Class (Fairy Tale AU)
Notes; Written for the kink challenge in which someone asked for a fairy tale.
Erik doesn’t tell anyone where he’s from.
That’s fine with Charles, because even though he could ask, ask till he had no more questions, he won’t.
Because he promised Erik, and Charles is not one to break promises.
Charles tells multiple variations of how they met.
They met in the ocean, where the waters were cold and deep, and silent. Erik was drowning, so Charles saved him. Charles was drowning, so Erik saved him. They were on a ship when it capsized. They met on the beach, when Charles was learning how to surf. Charles was swimming when he developed a cramp. Erik developed a cramp, Charles threw him a life vest.
No one is exactly sure of how they met, and when Charles smiles that disarming smile of his, the line of questions will inevitably teeter out.
No one bothers to ask Erik.
Perhaps they are afraid, because he is cold and snappish to anyone who isn’t Charles, or maybe it’s because he smiles like a shark; all teeth and no warmth.
What they know is this:
Charles came back with Erik, and somehow, managed to tame the shark in him because Erik never left after he arrived.
What they don’t know is this:
Erik was once tempted to leave, three days after moving into the Westchester home. He made it to the front gate of the mansion, before turning around. Charles was at the steps of the patio, of course, because Charles was always where Erik was, watching calmly with those blue eyes of his.
“Take care,” Charles said, and raised his hand in a little wave, mouth curled, eyes sad.
And just like that, Erik stayed. They don’t talk about why he almost leaves though, and the silence between them grows more comfortable.
The children in the mansion dub Erik “shark man”, because of his teeth, and, some say, because he looked like he would attack you if you were stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Charles laugh at this nickname, and tells Erik.
“Creative,” He says, dryly.
There are eight people living in under Charles’ roof.
None of them are related to each other, except for Raven and Charles, and even that is debatable.
Still, they sit down as a family once a week, to eat Hank’s burnt pot roast and Charles’ barely cooked potato salad.
It’s not family, but it sure feels like it.
Erik works with metal like he was born from it. He welds and melds and shapes them into the most impossible figures; massive spirals like the horn of a narwhale, he melts silver and cooper to form a perfect sphere that he places in Charles’ garden.
“It’ll rust, my friend,” Charles says, when he sees the sculpture, but he is smiling and so Erik smiles back (no teeth, all warmth), “so let it rust.”
If Erik was born from metal, then perhaps Charles was born from dreams and emotions.
He reads people like an open book and sees emotions laid stark on their faces, in their eyes, in the twist of their mouths.
Erik, though, is different. He doesn’t settle in his skin, the angles too strange on his curves, his eyes, too bright. Charles can’t read Erik very well. Time, Charles think, one must give him time to adjust.
But Charles know, people from the sea don’t adjust easily to life on land.
Erik has a tattoo on his arm.
Charles knows this because he has seen it. Flashes of skin, like ripples that break the surface of water. It looks like scratches, dark like squid ink against golden skin. The mark of a merman, Charles asks Erik this one day, light and teasing, or is it a shark man?
A flash of anger, red hot and brilliant, before Erik turns away, and in the aftermath of silence, Charles looks at the perfect sphere gleaming in his garden.
He has no regrets bringing a shark man home.
Later that night, while the mansion sleep, Erik goes into Charles’ room and sits by his bed.
He doesn’t apologise, of course not, because men from the sea rarely apologise, but Charles doesn’t let him under the covers either. Just stares at Erik with an eyebrow raised as if he is silently laughing at him. Perhaps he is. Perhaps he’s not. Charles is a human Erik cannot figure out. He fits into angles and curves too easily, like a moldable putty in the hands of a talented sculptor. Then again, Erik could never resist those blue eyes, not since the first moment they met.
So he says, “Charles.”
He doesn't say, I should not have turned on you so, but Charles hears it anyway.
And it’s like the tension in the room deflates, swept out like the low tide, as Charles laughs, silent, as he lifts up the blankets and motions for Erik to come in.
“If Erik’s a shark,” Raven says one day, when everyone is sure that the two of them are not in the house, “then what does that makes Charles?”
Hank looks up, “a human?”
“No, bozo,” Alex says, “we’re talking about totem animals.”
“Oh,” says Hank, face red, glasses threatening to slip down his nose.
Sean shrugs once, “I’unno.”
“You guys think too much about this,” says Angel as she flipped through her magazine; she doesn’t even bother to look up.
“Shhh!” Armando makes a flapping motion with his arms, like he’s trying to fly, “they’re coming up!”
One day, Erik tells Charles: “I hear the children have been thinking of your totem animal.”
Charles laugh, and Erik smiles, again, all warmth and no teeth.
“I think my totem animal is a rat,” Charles tells Erik this one day, while they are playing a game of chess.
Erik makes a non-committal noise at the back of his throat before opting to take Charles’ queen.
“Why a rat?” He asks, a heartbeat later.
Charles smiles; it’s a beautiful smile, clean and bright, “because we’re all rats in this game of life. Except you, my friend, you’re a shark. And checkmate.”
Erik can feel his human skin stretching, crackling, buckling in parts where it is pulled taunted over his real skin. It itches, a point somewhere around his left shoulder, a point he cannot reach. He feels the need rise in him - deep, dark, cool, wat- and is tempted to rip off this fragile skin.
Then Charles reaches over and grasps his shoulder and it’s like the itching and the stretching stops, suspended in time, suspended in water.
Charles’ voice is cool and flowing, like a constant stream over river rocks, “Erik.”
Erik looks at him, “Charles.”
They both pretend everything is okay.
The sphere in Charles’ garden eventually starts to rust, bits of red spreading like a viral rash.
Charles does not say, “I told you so,” but Erik smiles (with the barest hint of teeth) and says, “yes, Charles.”
(As a boy, Charles once read a story about a fisherman who stole a seal-woman’s skin.
The fisherman fell in love with the seal-woman, who had taken off her skin to bask in the sun. The seal-woman was pretty, exceedingly pretty, and the man was greedy in the way all humans are.
So, he crept up behind her and stole her skin.
Marry me, he said, and I will return your skin to you.
Then she bared her claws (because even seal-women in human forms had claws) and took her skin back by force.)
The only difference is that Charles does not have Erik’s skin.
He’s not sure what he has of Erik’s actually.
“A rat?” laughs Alex as he wrinkles his nose.
“That’s stupid, Charles,” Raven says, and she throws her hands up in the air at the word stupid.
“I like rats,” mutters Hank, face impossibly red.
Sharks are solitary animals, and they hunt by staying far enough to be hidden, but near enough to strike. They can also smell a drop of blood in the ocean, miles away from the source.
Did you know you’re more likely to be bitten by a person than a shark?
One night, Erik tells Charles, “the mark on my arm came from me being caught in a fishing net once.”
They breathe under the heavy blankets, and watch the moon throw crazy shadows over the furniture.
in, out, in, out.
Erik doesn’t continue the story, but he doesn’t need to to, Charles can read it in the set of his jaw, the way his arm tenses when Charles touches the marks, traces over it with careful fingers. Erik feels his human skin prickling, like ice caps on his back.
“What happened next?” Charles whisper, which is crazy, because they are both in Charles’ gigantic room and it’s not as if anyone was listening in.
“I capsized his boat,” Erik says, voice floating over Charles’ head. He doesn’t say, and then I drowned him, but he figures Charles knows that part.
Erik wonders if he should mention that he was initially planning to capsize Charles’ boat as well, before he saw the human’s impossibly blue eyes. Something tells him that Charles know though, because that’s the sort of human Charles is. The thought makes Erik growl, deep inside, and he hugs Charles a little tighter, muffling tiny bursts of laughter against his chest.
“Charles?”
snore
Men from the sea don’t say “love” very easily, so Erik leans in and whispers the words against Charles’ head, the hard curve of his shoulder, the bend of his ear.
It’s very strange how time passes so quickly.
It’s been three months since the shark followed the rat home when Erik follows the call of the ocean. He asks Charles, come with me?
And Charles smiles, knowing and brilliant, of course, my friend.
The sea is restless when they arrive. Of course, the ocean always want back their own kind.
“Come with me, Charles,” Erik says as he extends one hand. Behind him, the waves howls.
“I cannot,” And now Charles smile, but his eyes are sad, and his words are heavy, “but you should stay.”
The sea takes them both anyway, and in a cruel twist of fate, only the shark man makes it to shore.
Erik searches the seven seas for Charles.
He asks the waters, whose whispers are sometimes reliable; he asks the whales, who know the map of the ocean; he asks the mussels, who never stop talking.
Sometimes though, just sometimes, he wonders if Charles was chasing him too.
I hear he is still looking.