Revolutions and University Politics: A WIP (1/?), Erik/Charles, X Men First Class
Title: Revolutions and University Politics: A WIP (1/?)
Author: purple_spock
Beta: The unbeatable, always amazing illfindmyway
Verse: X Men First Class
Pairing: Erik/Charles (Eventually)
Status: First Time
Rating: PG 13 (for now)
Word Count: 1735
Genre: AU
Disclaimer: I don't own X Men, nor did I create any of its characters. If I did, I would be Stan Lee, and I would be unstoppably awesome.
Summary: An AU, in which no one has mutant powers, but everyone is instead living in San Francisco during the mid 1970's. Charles is a gay rights activist, heavily involved in that scene and is a professor of bio-psychology. Erik works as a machinist for the physics department at the same university Charles teaches at, and is a hansom stranger.
AN: I've heard it said that you should write what you know, and I know X Men, the gay rights movement, psychology and machining for physicists. I know other things too, but these four just seemed to fit. This is my first foray into this fathom and my first multi-part fic. Your patience is appreciated. : )
The first time they see each other they only locked eyes for a few seconds before Erik took a Billy-club in the face and was knocked out. The officer restraining Charles pulled him into the police wagon and that’s all he saw of Erik as the doors closed behind him.
Charles had been held at the police station for a few hours but knowing they had nothing concrete to hold him on - or possibly just wanting to avoid paper work - they had released him without filing any reports. By the time he got home Charles was tired, sore and thoroughly discouraged. What had started out as a peaceful meeting had turned into a raid and a small riot. Once the cops had interfered things had quickly ballooned out of control; just another example of the San Francisco Police Department’s fine strategy for controlling the gay rights movement. Charles sighed to himself as he filled the kettle, put it on the stove, and turned on the burner. If things kept going like this there would be little hope of convincing people that violence and riots were not the ways to get what they wanted from the government.
The kettle came to a boil and Charles poured it over a bag of Earl Grey, his mind drifting to the man he had seen beaten unconscious. He wasn’t sure what was more memorable about him; his rather striking features or the sound of his nose being broken. Charles shuddered at the memory, trying to push it out of his mind as he carried his tea to his room, intent on falling asleep as soon as possible. He paused outside his sister’s bedroom door, fingers drifting over the “Raven” in cut out letters she had stuck on, surrounded by Polaroid’s she had taken over the years. Each one reminded Charles of something happy, the day he graduated from university or Raven’s 20th birthday when a failed attempt to bake a cake had turned into an epic food fight. His spirits somewhat lifted he retired to his room, finishing his tea and slipping into bed just as the sun started creeping in at the edges of his blinds.
***
When Charles awoke he was pleased to see that is was three o’clock in the afternoon. He shuffled into the kitchen, unsurprised to see Raven’s signature trail of destruction and a note stuck to the fridge in her large, dramatic writing.
C -
Gone to work then out for coffee with the boys.
Be home around six.
Spaghetti for dinner?
- R
He smiled at the flowers she had doodled around the edge, slipping the note into the pocket of his robe. While the thought of his sister going out with “the boys” was somewhat troubling, he knew that they likely had more to fear from her than vice versa. His sister may be all soft curves and beautiful smiles but she had a sharp tongue and wasn’t opposed to kicking a man in the shins with dangerously pointy toed boots.
He spent the next three hours alternating between doing dishes and writing his latest research paper regarding rat behaviour under the influence of opiates. By six the kitchen was clean and he’d managed to write four pages, though he was fairly certain the last one was mostly fancy words that didn’t make any sense. Raven burst in just as he was putting the spaghetti into the boiling water and a can of tomatoes into a pan.
“Hello Raven,” he greeted as she flung her arms around his shoulders anyway.
“Good evening Charles,” she said, the cheerfulness in her voice contagious. “Or should I say ‘Good morning’?” She giggled to herself, releasing him, smoothly moving to the cutting board Charles had already set out on the counter, chopping the basil and garlic she found there with practiced ease.
He laughed. “Actually no, you’re about three hours late for that,” he turned around to watch her at work.
“I figured you’d sleep forever. I heard you come in last night.”
“This morning, but what else are Saturday nights for if not to - “
“Start a riot?” she brushed past him to the stove, adding the chopped basil and garlic to
the tomatoes.
“I never start riots Raven, people just seem to start them around me,” he replied lightly, taking the now cooked spaghetti off the stove and draining it in the sink.
“Did you get hurt?” Raven’s voice seemed casual as she deftly stirred the sauce, but she was pointedly not looking at Charles and he could tell she was upset.
“Raven,” he said gently, abandoning the pasta in the colander in the sink. He moved closer to her, tilting his head to see her better. “I’m fine. I’m careful but these things happen. It’s just a by-product of what’s happening here. I wish it weren’t, but apparently neither side agrees with my particular vision of things.” Unwittingly resentment crept into his voice. He shook himself, forcing the bitterness from his tone. “I’m fine,” he repeated, hoping it would come out comforting.
“I know Charles,” she turned toward him, placing a hand on his chest, “I just worry.” Her concern hung in the air between them for a few moments before Raven seemed to brush it off, smiling at him. “At least you have to go to work tomorrow. No going out tonight for you. Shall we eat?”
The rest of the night passed pleasantly. They ate their dinner in the worn couches in the living room where they stayed for the rest of the night. They watched their small black and white television and Raven entertained Charles with stories about work that day and what she had talked about with her friends over coffee. Charles laughed at her stories and resisted the urge to tell her to be careful about boys and their intentions, knowing her only response would be to roll her eyes.
Raven went to bed first ruffling his hair as she walked past, laughing at his irritation. “Goodnight Raven,” he kissed her on the cheek as she hugged him. She kept laughing until she reached her room despite his rather pointed glare at the back of her head. Charles stayed up for another couple of hours working on his paper before going to bed himself, his thoughts now completely occupied by response times and energy levels instead of handsome strangers and police brutality.
***
The next morning was chaos. Charles woke up seven minutes before he had to leave, barely managing to shower and dress before stuffing his books and notes in his bag and running out the door. Raven shoved a piece of toast in his hands as he hurried past her, which he ate as he ran to the bus stop.
When he got to the university things didn’t slow down. One of his graduate students - a boy named Armondo but whom everyone called Darwin, due to his love of evolutionary psychology - was out sick and there were already three students waiting outside his office with questions about the upcoming midterm. By the time he got down to his lab his other graduate student had less than convenient news.
“I don’t know what happened.” Hank gestured towards what used to be a testing environment for rats, but was now little more than a pile of broken glass and bent metal, lying sadly on the floor. “One of the janitors must have bumped the table over the weekend and it fell off.”
Charles looked up from the wrecked contraption. “Let’s not blame the janitorial staff too quickly. Regardless of how this was broken, it is incredibly problematic.” Charles sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. Not even nine ‘o’clock and things were already falling apart. “We’re already down one man with Armando off sick, and with this broken we’ll have no hope of running five trials today, let alone the 25 we need to get done be the end of the week.”
“Can’t we get a replacement box?” Hank asked, clearly flustered by the situation.
“We can, but it will take at least two weeks to get one from the manufacturer, and I was hoping to be done with this experiment by then.”
“Oh!” Hank exclaimed, suddenly inspired, “I know what we can do.”
Charles looked at Hank, mildly taken aback by Hank’s exuberance. “And? What can we do Hank?”
Hank seemed oblivious to Charles’ reaction, continuing on quickly, “Maybe they could build one at the machine shop in the physics department. They build things for experiments over there all the time. It probably wouldn’t be that difficult for them to build something like this. It couldn’t be much harder than a vacuum chamber right?”
“That’s a decent idea Hank,” Charles nodded, “I suppose the worst case is that they can’t do it and we order one anyway.” He picked what was left of the crumpled box frame off the floor. “I’ll take it over to the physics building on my way to class then. If you could carry on?”
“Sure thing professor. I’ll just clean up this glass and work on graphing the results from last week.” Hank gestured vaguely at the mess on the floor as Charles left, already absorbed in his own thoughts. He was an excellent lab assistant and the most promising graduate student Charles had ever had but Hank seemed to exist in his own world most of the time.
After three wrong turns and a rather embarrassing incident with a tour group and an impromptu photo session, Charles eventually found the physics department. He consulted the directory and found his way to the room labelled “Machining”. Relieved to have found where he was going, he opened the door and walked into the shop. He found the immediate cacophony of machines and the strong smell of metal and oil to be rather unpleasant.
Wanting to leave this overwhelming environment as quickly as possible he approached the person closest to him, a man working with his back to Charles. Shifting his destroyed box in his arms, he tapped the man on the shoulder, shouting “Excuse me,” above the noise.
As the man turned around the first thing Charles noticed was his bruised face and swollen nose, followed by a charming but rapidly fading smile as Charles found himself lost in the same captivating eyes of the man he’d seen beaten unconscious two nights before.
Author: purple_spock
Beta: The unbeatable, always amazing illfindmyway
Verse: X Men First Class
Pairing: Erik/Charles (Eventually)
Status: First Time
Rating: PG 13 (for now)
Word Count: 1735
Genre: AU
Disclaimer: I don't own X Men, nor did I create any of its characters. If I did, I would be Stan Lee, and I would be unstoppably awesome.
Summary: An AU, in which no one has mutant powers, but everyone is instead living in San Francisco during the mid 1970's. Charles is a gay rights activist, heavily involved in that scene and is a professor of bio-psychology. Erik works as a machinist for the physics department at the same university Charles teaches at, and is a hansom stranger.
AN: I've heard it said that you should write what you know, and I know X Men, the gay rights movement, psychology and machining for physicists. I know other things too, but these four just seemed to fit. This is my first foray into this fathom and my first multi-part fic. Your patience is appreciated. : )
The first time they see each other they only locked eyes for a few seconds before Erik took a Billy-club in the face and was knocked out. The officer restraining Charles pulled him into the police wagon and that’s all he saw of Erik as the doors closed behind him.
Charles had been held at the police station for a few hours but knowing they had nothing concrete to hold him on - or possibly just wanting to avoid paper work - they had released him without filing any reports. By the time he got home Charles was tired, sore and thoroughly discouraged. What had started out as a peaceful meeting had turned into a raid and a small riot. Once the cops had interfered things had quickly ballooned out of control; just another example of the San Francisco Police Department’s fine strategy for controlling the gay rights movement. Charles sighed to himself as he filled the kettle, put it on the stove, and turned on the burner. If things kept going like this there would be little hope of convincing people that violence and riots were not the ways to get what they wanted from the government.
The kettle came to a boil and Charles poured it over a bag of Earl Grey, his mind drifting to the man he had seen beaten unconscious. He wasn’t sure what was more memorable about him; his rather striking features or the sound of his nose being broken. Charles shuddered at the memory, trying to push it out of his mind as he carried his tea to his room, intent on falling asleep as soon as possible. He paused outside his sister’s bedroom door, fingers drifting over the “Raven” in cut out letters she had stuck on, surrounded by Polaroid’s she had taken over the years. Each one reminded Charles of something happy, the day he graduated from university or Raven’s 20th birthday when a failed attempt to bake a cake had turned into an epic food fight. His spirits somewhat lifted he retired to his room, finishing his tea and slipping into bed just as the sun started creeping in at the edges of his blinds.
***
When Charles awoke he was pleased to see that is was three o’clock in the afternoon. He shuffled into the kitchen, unsurprised to see Raven’s signature trail of destruction and a note stuck to the fridge in her large, dramatic writing.
C -
Gone to work then out for coffee with the boys.
Be home around six.
Spaghetti for dinner?
- R
He smiled at the flowers she had doodled around the edge, slipping the note into the pocket of his robe. While the thought of his sister going out with “the boys” was somewhat troubling, he knew that they likely had more to fear from her than vice versa. His sister may be all soft curves and beautiful smiles but she had a sharp tongue and wasn’t opposed to kicking a man in the shins with dangerously pointy toed boots.
He spent the next three hours alternating between doing dishes and writing his latest research paper regarding rat behaviour under the influence of opiates. By six the kitchen was clean and he’d managed to write four pages, though he was fairly certain the last one was mostly fancy words that didn’t make any sense. Raven burst in just as he was putting the spaghetti into the boiling water and a can of tomatoes into a pan.
“Hello Raven,” he greeted as she flung her arms around his shoulders anyway.
“Good evening Charles,” she said, the cheerfulness in her voice contagious. “Or should I say ‘Good morning’?” She giggled to herself, releasing him, smoothly moving to the cutting board Charles had already set out on the counter, chopping the basil and garlic she found there with practiced ease.
He laughed. “Actually no, you’re about three hours late for that,” he turned around to watch her at work.
“I figured you’d sleep forever. I heard you come in last night.”
“This morning, but what else are Saturday nights for if not to - “
“Start a riot?” she brushed past him to the stove, adding the chopped basil and garlic to
the tomatoes.
“I never start riots Raven, people just seem to start them around me,” he replied lightly, taking the now cooked spaghetti off the stove and draining it in the sink.
“Did you get hurt?” Raven’s voice seemed casual as she deftly stirred the sauce, but she was pointedly not looking at Charles and he could tell she was upset.
“Raven,” he said gently, abandoning the pasta in the colander in the sink. He moved closer to her, tilting his head to see her better. “I’m fine. I’m careful but these things happen. It’s just a by-product of what’s happening here. I wish it weren’t, but apparently neither side agrees with my particular vision of things.” Unwittingly resentment crept into his voice. He shook himself, forcing the bitterness from his tone. “I’m fine,” he repeated, hoping it would come out comforting.
“I know Charles,” she turned toward him, placing a hand on his chest, “I just worry.” Her concern hung in the air between them for a few moments before Raven seemed to brush it off, smiling at him. “At least you have to go to work tomorrow. No going out tonight for you. Shall we eat?”
The rest of the night passed pleasantly. They ate their dinner in the worn couches in the living room where they stayed for the rest of the night. They watched their small black and white television and Raven entertained Charles with stories about work that day and what she had talked about with her friends over coffee. Charles laughed at her stories and resisted the urge to tell her to be careful about boys and their intentions, knowing her only response would be to roll her eyes.
Raven went to bed first ruffling his hair as she walked past, laughing at his irritation. “Goodnight Raven,” he kissed her on the cheek as she hugged him. She kept laughing until she reached her room despite his rather pointed glare at the back of her head. Charles stayed up for another couple of hours working on his paper before going to bed himself, his thoughts now completely occupied by response times and energy levels instead of handsome strangers and police brutality.
***
The next morning was chaos. Charles woke up seven minutes before he had to leave, barely managing to shower and dress before stuffing his books and notes in his bag and running out the door. Raven shoved a piece of toast in his hands as he hurried past her, which he ate as he ran to the bus stop.
When he got to the university things didn’t slow down. One of his graduate students - a boy named Armondo but whom everyone called Darwin, due to his love of evolutionary psychology - was out sick and there were already three students waiting outside his office with questions about the upcoming midterm. By the time he got down to his lab his other graduate student had less than convenient news.
“I don’t know what happened.” Hank gestured towards what used to be a testing environment for rats, but was now little more than a pile of broken glass and bent metal, lying sadly on the floor. “One of the janitors must have bumped the table over the weekend and it fell off.”
Charles looked up from the wrecked contraption. “Let’s not blame the janitorial staff too quickly. Regardless of how this was broken, it is incredibly problematic.” Charles sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. Not even nine ‘o’clock and things were already falling apart. “We’re already down one man with Armando off sick, and with this broken we’ll have no hope of running five trials today, let alone the 25 we need to get done be the end of the week.”
“Can’t we get a replacement box?” Hank asked, clearly flustered by the situation.
“We can, but it will take at least two weeks to get one from the manufacturer, and I was hoping to be done with this experiment by then.”
“Oh!” Hank exclaimed, suddenly inspired, “I know what we can do.”
Charles looked at Hank, mildly taken aback by Hank’s exuberance. “And? What can we do Hank?”
Hank seemed oblivious to Charles’ reaction, continuing on quickly, “Maybe they could build one at the machine shop in the physics department. They build things for experiments over there all the time. It probably wouldn’t be that difficult for them to build something like this. It couldn’t be much harder than a vacuum chamber right?”
“That’s a decent idea Hank,” Charles nodded, “I suppose the worst case is that they can’t do it and we order one anyway.” He picked what was left of the crumpled box frame off the floor. “I’ll take it over to the physics building on my way to class then. If you could carry on?”
“Sure thing professor. I’ll just clean up this glass and work on graphing the results from last week.” Hank gestured vaguely at the mess on the floor as Charles left, already absorbed in his own thoughts. He was an excellent lab assistant and the most promising graduate student Charles had ever had but Hank seemed to exist in his own world most of the time.
After three wrong turns and a rather embarrassing incident with a tour group and an impromptu photo session, Charles eventually found the physics department. He consulted the directory and found his way to the room labelled “Machining”. Relieved to have found where he was going, he opened the door and walked into the shop. He found the immediate cacophony of machines and the strong smell of metal and oil to be rather unpleasant.
Wanting to leave this overwhelming environment as quickly as possible he approached the person closest to him, a man working with his back to Charles. Shifting his destroyed box in his arms, he tapped the man on the shoulder, shouting “Excuse me,” above the noise.
As the man turned around the first thing Charles noticed was his bruised face and swollen nose, followed by a charming but rapidly fading smile as Charles found himself lost in the same captivating eyes of the man he’d seen beaten unconscious two nights before.