Fic: Divergent
Author: Ashley
Divergent
Warnings: light slash
Summary: He doesn't feel at home, even now.
Disclaimer: the words are mine, the characters belong to Marvel.
Author's notes: Well, in the past two weeks I've written more than I have in months. I have met some of the nicest, friendliest, smartest people here and one of them has a birthday tomorrow, er, today in my time zone. ;) This is for the lovely abbichicken for being awesome and for having a birthday. I hope you like it, and any and all feedback is loved.
He’s running and running through the fog and around the ghostlike mansion, not sure of the time, even as the smoke that swirls from the black sky hides the place oh so effectively. The sweats he’s wearing are baggy but he ignores his clothing, ignores the slight ache in his side and ignores the slapping sound his shoes make on the concrete - gravel - concrete.
The moon hasn’t dared to show its face; Erik would pull it from the sky and drown it in the sea perhaps that would have been the better place to end up were he able. The fog seems to hiss in his ears as he allows the memory Charles had pulled from him earlier in the day to surface and to choke him - tears and all. He’s alone, after all, and he’s still “Magneto” - he’ll have to have a word with Raven about that - and there is nothing and no one he can’t bring down.
And yet he can’t find Shaw long enough to butcher him as the other man did Erik and he can’t seem to find a bit of the calm he so desperately won’t admit that he needs. Wait - fuck calm. He’s spent his whole life in a spy thriller, chasing after a man who seems one elusive step away from him every time, and gods damn it but who is it but Herr Doktor? The man may be a mutant - one of Erik’s own, which on good days makes Erik grin with skull-like mirth - but he’s just a man, still, and capable of dying. Erik just has to find the way, and he will, with or without Charles’ or anyone’s help.
He sprints back toward the cliffs that surround the mansion, the satellite dish dark and cold now (he’s sure the scientists are working feverishly to fix something they had NO idea of how it happened; again, another laugh). The lamps that light the paths near their home Charles’ home, not his, he’s got no home save the one he barely remembers from his youth, Mama and Papa there and him are heavy, industrial strength things, and he stops, panting, slipping forward, his hands on his cloth covered knees.
The lamp nearest him begins to bend, and he turns to it, cocking his head, sweat slowly beading on his forehead and drying as he wonders where the flash - a burning hot poker, the coal heat in his eyes, Schmidt telling him again everything will be alright power to move the thing is coming from.
He lifts his left hand and without a struggle at all the lamp post folds in half with a tiny shriek, giving up its life before Erik knows he’s asked for it. The gas leaks from the blown out torch inside, sparks lighting from the glass housing. It twists and writhes painfully on the ground as Erik approaches it, his hand curled and then straight. The pole buckles and ties itself in a knot. Ausgeseischnedt! Creaking and messy but it’s done.
Charles steps into Erik’s view, one foot kicking at the bent lamppost. “You don’t need to destroy my home in order to get my attention, Erik.” He smiles at Erik, who is suddenly tense - tenser than he had been. Anger surfaces from that close boiling point, the one that he’s found a way to hide better inside recently.
“Your home? Isn’t it ours, Charles?” he bites off, the rage filling him, Charles’ insufferable calm not what he needs to see - the other man’s blue eyes are perfect orbs, filling Erik’s mind and (heart) body with something he doesn’t care to have in this moment. He needs the rage, no matter what the other man says, no matter what the telepath says that Erik can do without it. It’s served him well for many years.
Charles narrows his eyes and his mind brushes Erik’s, briefly, tangibly, softly. Erik growls; he doesn’t need or want soft right now, he wants pain and anger and the things he’s familiar with. He is the monster, this man in a grey sweat suit, slender and unaffecting and terrifying - power hidden by grace and apparent charm.
Charles is not fooled. He touches Erik’s arm, and does not flinch when Erik jerks out of his grasp. “You were fine with sharing it with me. I want you here; I wouldn’t have asked, otherwise.” I need you to help me, Erik. You and I together…what can’t we be?
“Accepted?”
Erik spits the word and turns back to the dead lamp at Charles’ feet. He straightens his body and lifts his hands - hand, he only needs the left one - and the lamp uncoils as his teeth clench and the hatehatehateiwilldieforwhatibelievein powers his control. He raises it back to a standing position, and it shudders to a halt, sparking and dangerous.
A good description, he thinks.
“Better?”
Erik cocks an eyebrow, all traces of the tiny memory (the brightest corner of your memory system) gone now; he stares at Charles, who is looking at him as well, unflappable, a slight smile on his cherubic (charisma for days) face, trusting, what a fool.
The fog wraps its way around both of them; Charles takes another step toward Erik, a wrought iron bench between them now. “We can be the predominant form of life on this planet, Erik. We can help them, help them to see what we can do is wondrous and the next stage in evolution! With you and I as spokespersons, the whole world can see the brilliance of science and what is to come.” He reaches out a hand, serious, absolutely dead on belief in his cause. Erik doesn’t have to be a telepath to know that; Charles radiates honesty and the strength that comes from that power. Which is a gift in and of itself that he wonders if Charles knows he possesses.
Erik is laughing before Charles even finishes. He leans over the back of the bench, the thing’s metal back rest pushing into his thighs, almost painful, and clasps his hands together, the extreme widows peak of his hair casting a dramatic look to his sharp features - angular and focused, and familiar and wanted he hears whispered through his aching mind. He shakes his head. “You are a fool, Charles. We may have been part of them, once, but they will never accept us, never love us or trust us as we are. Experiment on us, touch our insides to see what makes us tick,” he brushes a hand over his gut, scarred and tight, “but we will never speak for anything save fear and difference.”
Is that what you feel here? Is that what you feel with me?
Charles kneels on the bench, facing Erik, his face solemn but there’s that spark, the eyes, so bright and trusting. Erik is suddenly -kindness, rarely shown, and the chocolate the nurse hands to him is a welcome treat. A touch, an extra piece of bread, a night when the Doktor is not around - unsure and he hesitates, hand rising, trembling, the power he’s used to calling with a struggle unexpectedly there again, smooth and no anger. A pinpoint, focused. He slides his eyes closed, then open again. He’s still and unbroken, water with no wave, and without raising a hand or moving at all he pulls Charles by the metal of his belt toward him, the clinking of the thing against the bench loud in the deathly quiet, the fog hissing passed them both, curling and hiding and tucking Erik and Charles into a place Erik’s only half dreamed about - it’s too much and he can’t be there. But he can’t not either, and so he goes.
He does raise his hands this time, except they clutch at Charles’ cardigan, not able to slip any closer, the serenity and memories and happiness too unfamiliar and too new for him to keep much longer. He leans forward and touches his mouth to Charles’, the other man’s red lips pictured in his mind, full and calloused and used often - the other man’s gift of word fitting the power of his mind so well.
The anger floats around Erik, battering at his calm, wanting in, needing in. He knows it should be there, knows he wants it, is used to it, but something isn’t quite right - Charles makes a noise that isn’t so much a noise as it is Erik’s name, whispered onto his lips and into his mind - and Erik moves closer, the bench in the way. The dank fog seems warm even as Erik is cool, Charles is cool - his brain is like thunder in Erik’s head, but not pounding, more a balm, a breeze, a needed thing that pushes away the hurt and drama - and -
He kisses Charles like he’s unable to do anything else right, like he wants nothing but this, and the lamp beside them teeters a bit - rage rage there like a refrain, but it’s time for the verse now, damn it - and Charles’ strong, slender hands grip the sides of Erik’s head and he gives as good as he’s getting.
Soothing, tender, he needs, oh how Erik needs.
He’s never needed anything.
The lamp twists and breaks again and shatters against the ground, and he’s shoving Charles away, the back of his hand going to his mouth, swollen and cold and “What did you just do to me?”
The question is soft and too quiet. Charles shakes his head, his face confused, reaching, not sure of Erik’s meaning. He unfolds his legs from the bench; Erik can see he’s trembling a bit, his hair in disarray as he steps around the lamp and stretches out fingers, reaching for and brushing Erik’s shoulder. Erik wants to move, but he’s frozen in place, delicate, shaking, love, my friend ricochets through the tiny world that is just he and Xavier now.
And Erik bursts open with the rage and he’s the storm at sea and the lamp is flying through the air, landing in a screeching heap at his feet. The moon finally breaks through the fog, and Erik’s thankful - the warmth was too close and too -
“What did you do, Charles?” he roars the question, the bench shaking, the change in the other man’s pockets jingling, any metal in a 20 yard radius threatening to quit this life. His hands clench and his heart squeezes and did Charles just…but that’s not like him.
“I wouldn’t,” Charles answers, no quarter given; he’s as forceful as Erik without having to move a damn him muscle. His eyes search out Erik’s through the haze of pain and fury. “Why would I? You are I are more powerful together than alone, my friend. I need you - I want - ”
Ah. “You need me. To amplify what you already can do, is that it?”
Not to make you full or complete. But to show the world your gift.
Charles winces; he touches his left temple, his eyes gone soft suddenly, the big blue depths shining and something else that Erik can’t identify. He’s lost the ability to see what others so willingly give of themselves - his mother’s death took that from him. He’d thought he could maybe, just maybe-
The lamp rocks once, twice. He steps over it, and comes around the bench to where Charles is standing. They are opposites, bright and dark, innocence and brokenness, trust and suspicion. But they could also be something else, so much else.
The coin in Erik’s pocket (it’s always there, reminding, taunting, never forget) floats to his hand and he opens his palm, showing it to Charles. He knows the other man is aware of it, but to his credit hasn’t said anything. Luckily, so luckily for him.
“This is what I am. What I can do. What I will do. And I don’t have the time or the wherewithal to stand with you on some petty war that the humans will destroy us to win.” No matter what you’ve said or told me or lead me to believe. To believe in love - in trust - in something I’ve forgotten existed. He pockets the thing. “I need you, too, Charles. But I think I need you in a different way than you need me.” He stares at Charles, not sure where the words came from, unafraid to say them, but if he let himself feel what he was speaking…no. Charles shakes his head again, denying, gripping at Erik’s hand briefly, oh, too briefly. He fully believes he was doing no harm; Erik reads it in his expression and in the thoughts Charles projects. I want you here, Erik. Not just for that. For you. Charles steps in front of Erik and places his palm, flat side down, on Erik’s chest.
Erik is sure Charles can feel his heart through his shirt, pounding, screaming, searching for that something that he wants, despite the fear he won’t be strong because of it.
Erik turns, letting Charles’ hand drop away from him (the icy patch on his chest won’t go away for some time) and follows the gravel path, shoes crunching, sweats blending him with the grey of the weather. He can feel Charles behind him; did the other man not even know what he was doing, digging into Erik like that, controlling without meaning to? Charles has been practicing his gift since he was a child; he’s not been training like the other, not like Erik, not being a dancing monkey for the amusement of the children. Was he even doing it at all??
A thread of doubt strips the rage from his mind momentarily, as though he’s a balloon that’s been popped. He trusts Charles, believes the other man, listens to him - I thought I was alone.
His eyes shut and he swallows the trust down as he falters once on the path, torn between going back and walking on. There’s a gate ahead of him, a large iron one, shut for the night.
He pops the lock, leaving the twisted thing on the ground, and walks and walks and empties his mind as surely as if he were the telepath and Charles a figment of his imagination, the hope and possibility painful slashes of knife wounds in his gut, a knife he himself wields before handing it to Charles to gut him with. He licks his lips and tastes Charles there, letting it linger as the sun rises, burning away the fog that’s been the shadow he can slip in to, can belong in.
He tucks away the calm, letting the familiar world he knows settle over him, comfortable, a gorgeous suit made for him that he can live in, can sleep in, can eat and breathe in. The calm is an anathema, but he cannot banish it directly. Instead it goes to that lockbox with his mother and father and you’re not alone.
Day breaks and the dawn is too bright.
Divergent
Warnings: light slash
Summary: He doesn't feel at home, even now.
Disclaimer: the words are mine, the characters belong to Marvel.
Author's notes: Well, in the past two weeks I've written more than I have in months. I have met some of the nicest, friendliest, smartest people here and one of them has a birthday tomorrow, er, today in my time zone. ;) This is for the lovely abbichicken for being awesome and for having a birthday. I hope you like it, and any and all feedback is loved.
He’s running and running through the fog and around the ghostlike mansion, not sure of the time, even as the smoke that swirls from the black sky hides the place oh so effectively. The sweats he’s wearing are baggy but he ignores his clothing, ignores the slight ache in his side and ignores the slapping sound his shoes make on the concrete - gravel - concrete.
The moon hasn’t dared to show its face; Erik would pull it from the sky and drown it in the sea perhaps that would have been the better place to end up were he able. The fog seems to hiss in his ears as he allows the memory Charles had pulled from him earlier in the day to surface and to choke him - tears and all. He’s alone, after all, and he’s still “Magneto” - he’ll have to have a word with Raven about that - and there is nothing and no one he can’t bring down.
And yet he can’t find Shaw long enough to butcher him as the other man did Erik and he can’t seem to find a bit of the calm he so desperately won’t admit that he needs. Wait - fuck calm. He’s spent his whole life in a spy thriller, chasing after a man who seems one elusive step away from him every time, and gods damn it but who is it but Herr Doktor? The man may be a mutant - one of Erik’s own, which on good days makes Erik grin with skull-like mirth - but he’s just a man, still, and capable of dying. Erik just has to find the way, and he will, with or without Charles’ or anyone’s help.
He sprints back toward the cliffs that surround the mansion, the satellite dish dark and cold now (he’s sure the scientists are working feverishly to fix something they had NO idea of how it happened; again, another laugh). The lamps that light the paths near their home Charles’ home, not his, he’s got no home save the one he barely remembers from his youth, Mama and Papa there and him are heavy, industrial strength things, and he stops, panting, slipping forward, his hands on his cloth covered knees.
The lamp nearest him begins to bend, and he turns to it, cocking his head, sweat slowly beading on his forehead and drying as he wonders where the flash - a burning hot poker, the coal heat in his eyes, Schmidt telling him again everything will be alright power to move the thing is coming from.
He lifts his left hand and without a struggle at all the lamp post folds in half with a tiny shriek, giving up its life before Erik knows he’s asked for it. The gas leaks from the blown out torch inside, sparks lighting from the glass housing. It twists and writhes painfully on the ground as Erik approaches it, his hand curled and then straight. The pole buckles and ties itself in a knot. Ausgeseischnedt! Creaking and messy but it’s done.
Charles steps into Erik’s view, one foot kicking at the bent lamppost. “You don’t need to destroy my home in order to get my attention, Erik.” He smiles at Erik, who is suddenly tense - tenser than he had been. Anger surfaces from that close boiling point, the one that he’s found a way to hide better inside recently.
“Your home? Isn’t it ours, Charles?” he bites off, the rage filling him, Charles’ insufferable calm not what he needs to see - the other man’s blue eyes are perfect orbs, filling Erik’s mind and (heart) body with something he doesn’t care to have in this moment. He needs the rage, no matter what the other man says, no matter what the telepath says that Erik can do without it. It’s served him well for many years.
Charles narrows his eyes and his mind brushes Erik’s, briefly, tangibly, softly. Erik growls; he doesn’t need or want soft right now, he wants pain and anger and the things he’s familiar with. He is the monster, this man in a grey sweat suit, slender and unaffecting and terrifying - power hidden by grace and apparent charm.
Charles is not fooled. He touches Erik’s arm, and does not flinch when Erik jerks out of his grasp. “You were fine with sharing it with me. I want you here; I wouldn’t have asked, otherwise.” I need you to help me, Erik. You and I together…what can’t we be?
“Accepted?”
Erik spits the word and turns back to the dead lamp at Charles’ feet. He straightens his body and lifts his hands - hand, he only needs the left one - and the lamp uncoils as his teeth clench and the hatehatehateiwilldieforwhatibelievein powers his control. He raises it back to a standing position, and it shudders to a halt, sparking and dangerous.
A good description, he thinks.
“Better?”
Erik cocks an eyebrow, all traces of the tiny memory (the brightest corner of your memory system) gone now; he stares at Charles, who is looking at him as well, unflappable, a slight smile on his cherubic (charisma for days) face, trusting, what a fool.
The fog wraps its way around both of them; Charles takes another step toward Erik, a wrought iron bench between them now. “We can be the predominant form of life on this planet, Erik. We can help them, help them to see what we can do is wondrous and the next stage in evolution! With you and I as spokespersons, the whole world can see the brilliance of science and what is to come.” He reaches out a hand, serious, absolutely dead on belief in his cause. Erik doesn’t have to be a telepath to know that; Charles radiates honesty and the strength that comes from that power. Which is a gift in and of itself that he wonders if Charles knows he possesses.
Erik is laughing before Charles even finishes. He leans over the back of the bench, the thing’s metal back rest pushing into his thighs, almost painful, and clasps his hands together, the extreme widows peak of his hair casting a dramatic look to his sharp features - angular and focused, and familiar and wanted he hears whispered through his aching mind. He shakes his head. “You are a fool, Charles. We may have been part of them, once, but they will never accept us, never love us or trust us as we are. Experiment on us, touch our insides to see what makes us tick,” he brushes a hand over his gut, scarred and tight, “but we will never speak for anything save fear and difference.”
Is that what you feel here? Is that what you feel with me?
Charles kneels on the bench, facing Erik, his face solemn but there’s that spark, the eyes, so bright and trusting. Erik is suddenly -kindness, rarely shown, and the chocolate the nurse hands to him is a welcome treat. A touch, an extra piece of bread, a night when the Doktor is not around - unsure and he hesitates, hand rising, trembling, the power he’s used to calling with a struggle unexpectedly there again, smooth and no anger. A pinpoint, focused. He slides his eyes closed, then open again. He’s still and unbroken, water with no wave, and without raising a hand or moving at all he pulls Charles by the metal of his belt toward him, the clinking of the thing against the bench loud in the deathly quiet, the fog hissing passed them both, curling and hiding and tucking Erik and Charles into a place Erik’s only half dreamed about - it’s too much and he can’t be there. But he can’t not either, and so he goes.
He does raise his hands this time, except they clutch at Charles’ cardigan, not able to slip any closer, the serenity and memories and happiness too unfamiliar and too new for him to keep much longer. He leans forward and touches his mouth to Charles’, the other man’s red lips pictured in his mind, full and calloused and used often - the other man’s gift of word fitting the power of his mind so well.
The anger floats around Erik, battering at his calm, wanting in, needing in. He knows it should be there, knows he wants it, is used to it, but something isn’t quite right - Charles makes a noise that isn’t so much a noise as it is Erik’s name, whispered onto his lips and into his mind - and Erik moves closer, the bench in the way. The dank fog seems warm even as Erik is cool, Charles is cool - his brain is like thunder in Erik’s head, but not pounding, more a balm, a breeze, a needed thing that pushes away the hurt and drama - and -
He kisses Charles like he’s unable to do anything else right, like he wants nothing but this, and the lamp beside them teeters a bit - rage rage there like a refrain, but it’s time for the verse now, damn it - and Charles’ strong, slender hands grip the sides of Erik’s head and he gives as good as he’s getting.
Soothing, tender, he needs, oh how Erik needs.
He’s never needed anything.
The lamp twists and breaks again and shatters against the ground, and he’s shoving Charles away, the back of his hand going to his mouth, swollen and cold and “What did you just do to me?”
The question is soft and too quiet. Charles shakes his head, his face confused, reaching, not sure of Erik’s meaning. He unfolds his legs from the bench; Erik can see he’s trembling a bit, his hair in disarray as he steps around the lamp and stretches out fingers, reaching for and brushing Erik’s shoulder. Erik wants to move, but he’s frozen in place, delicate, shaking, love, my friend ricochets through the tiny world that is just he and Xavier now.
And Erik bursts open with the rage and he’s the storm at sea and the lamp is flying through the air, landing in a screeching heap at his feet. The moon finally breaks through the fog, and Erik’s thankful - the warmth was too close and too -
“What did you do, Charles?” he roars the question, the bench shaking, the change in the other man’s pockets jingling, any metal in a 20 yard radius threatening to quit this life. His hands clench and his heart squeezes and did Charles just…but that’s not like him.
“I wouldn’t,” Charles answers, no quarter given; he’s as forceful as Erik without having to move a damn him muscle. His eyes search out Erik’s through the haze of pain and fury. “Why would I? You are I are more powerful together than alone, my friend. I need you - I want - ”
Ah. “You need me. To amplify what you already can do, is that it?”
Not to make you full or complete. But to show the world your gift.
Charles winces; he touches his left temple, his eyes gone soft suddenly, the big blue depths shining and something else that Erik can’t identify. He’s lost the ability to see what others so willingly give of themselves - his mother’s death took that from him. He’d thought he could maybe, just maybe-
The lamp rocks once, twice. He steps over it, and comes around the bench to where Charles is standing. They are opposites, bright and dark, innocence and brokenness, trust and suspicion. But they could also be something else, so much else.
The coin in Erik’s pocket (it’s always there, reminding, taunting, never forget) floats to his hand and he opens his palm, showing it to Charles. He knows the other man is aware of it, but to his credit hasn’t said anything. Luckily, so luckily for him.
“This is what I am. What I can do. What I will do. And I don’t have the time or the wherewithal to stand with you on some petty war that the humans will destroy us to win.” No matter what you’ve said or told me or lead me to believe. To believe in love - in trust - in something I’ve forgotten existed. He pockets the thing. “I need you, too, Charles. But I think I need you in a different way than you need me.” He stares at Charles, not sure where the words came from, unafraid to say them, but if he let himself feel what he was speaking…no. Charles shakes his head again, denying, gripping at Erik’s hand briefly, oh, too briefly. He fully believes he was doing no harm; Erik reads it in his expression and in the thoughts Charles projects. I want you here, Erik. Not just for that. For you. Charles steps in front of Erik and places his palm, flat side down, on Erik’s chest.
Erik is sure Charles can feel his heart through his shirt, pounding, screaming, searching for that something that he wants, despite the fear he won’t be strong because of it.
Erik turns, letting Charles’ hand drop away from him (the icy patch on his chest won’t go away for some time) and follows the gravel path, shoes crunching, sweats blending him with the grey of the weather. He can feel Charles behind him; did the other man not even know what he was doing, digging into Erik like that, controlling without meaning to? Charles has been practicing his gift since he was a child; he’s not been training like the other, not like Erik, not being a dancing monkey for the amusement of the children. Was he even doing it at all??
A thread of doubt strips the rage from his mind momentarily, as though he’s a balloon that’s been popped. He trusts Charles, believes the other man, listens to him - I thought I was alone.
His eyes shut and he swallows the trust down as he falters once on the path, torn between going back and walking on. There’s a gate ahead of him, a large iron one, shut for the night.
He pops the lock, leaving the twisted thing on the ground, and walks and walks and empties his mind as surely as if he were the telepath and Charles a figment of his imagination, the hope and possibility painful slashes of knife wounds in his gut, a knife he himself wields before handing it to Charles to gut him with. He licks his lips and tastes Charles there, letting it linger as the sun rises, burning away the fog that’s been the shadow he can slip in to, can belong in.
He tucks away the calm, letting the familiar world he knows settle over him, comfortable, a gorgeous suit made for him that he can live in, can sleep in, can eat and breathe in. The calm is an anathema, but he cannot banish it directly. Instead it goes to that lockbox with his mother and father and you’re not alone.
Day breaks and the dawn is too bright.