Fic: Let Freedom Ring 7/19
Title Let Freedom Ring 7/19
Fandom X-Men: First Class
Pairings Erik/Charles, past Erik/Raven, mention of Hank/Raven, sort of brief Raven/Angel, references to future Scott/Jean
Beta cicero_drayon
Word count of chapters 7082
Word count of entire fic approx. 115 000
Ratings/warnings NC-17. Sexual situations, past physical and mental trauma, discussion of genocide, period transphobia, homophobia, ableism and racism, brief mentions of rape and suicide
Spoilers X-Men: First Class, X2 and (to a lesser extent) X-Men: The Last Stand. Some comic canon thrown in for good measure.
Disclaimer Marvel owns it, I don’t.
Summary Two arrivals to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters coincide - Jason Stryker, a child branded a freak because of his psychic powers, and Erik Lehnsherr, wanted terrorist and old friend of the professor. Jason is there as his father wants him cured - Erik claims that he has gone rogue from his own renegades. As tensions rise between mutants and humans, as well as between the suddenly reunited friends, who can truly be trusted?
Author’s note The quotation in this chapter is from the 1992 edition of the translation by Ralph Manheim (p.277), and is slightly rewritten. (I'm consciously not giving title and author here, as that would be a spoiler.)
Betsy had strong views about a lot of things, and one of them was spying. Of course, not actual, wartime spying. That was all very well, and quite exciting. From what she had heard, her mother had done undercover work in France during the war, and she hoped that at some point, she would have an opportunity to use her psychic powers for something like that, although wishing for war was another thing she had strong views on.
No, what she did not like was snooping, and that was just what she had ended up doing now, peering up over the balustrade together with Susanna, Scott and Ororo, into the French windows.
‘I still can’t get over it,’ Susanna muttered.
‘That we’re doing this?’ Betsy suggested.
‘No. Mister Lehnsherr,’ she explained, sounding dreamy. ‘Just look at him.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Scott asked, perplexed. Betsy sensed how Susanna just about restrained herself from sticking her tongue out at him, knowing it would be childish. Betsy sighed inwardly and decided that if Susanna had put her in this situation, she might as well make the best of it. From where they crouched, they had a fairly good view into the professor’s study. He and Mister Lehnsherr seemed caught up in some amicable discussion. She could see the professor gesturing to make a point, and Mister Lehnsherr nodded and offered a reply.
‘What are they saying, Betsy?’ Susanna asked and poked her in the ribs.
‘I can’t hear any better than you can,’ she reminded her friend.
‘But you could...’
‘Are you suggesting I read the professor’s thoughts?’ she asked, aghast. ‘Are you insane? He’d notice!’ Susanna looked disappointed.
‘Oh. What about Mister Lehnsherr, then?’
‘No, I wouldn’t want to,’ she admitted. Something about their new teacher unsettled her, and no amount of good looks changed that. Susanna was too infatuated to see that, of course, and seemed about to insist. ‘Considering how good friends he is with the professor, he probably has proper mental shields,’ she added. ‘Besides, it doesn’t work very well when I’m not in the same room.’ Susanna shrugged, resigning herself to it.
‘I think Betsy’s right,’ Ororo said. ‘We shouldn’t use our powers against our teachers.’
‘Thank you, Ororo,’ Betsy said and concentrated on peering through the French windows. To her own annoyance, there was a thrill to all this. Now, Mister Lehnsherr leaned against the desk and took out a cigarette. The professor was stuffing his pipe, and Betsy noticed the other teacher watching him as he lit it. That was unsettling too, but not quite in the usual way. There was just something about his eyes which she could not name or describe, but still was terribly familiar - instinctive, even. The professor raised a match, and Mister Lehnsherr leaned into it to light his cigarette. The gaze continued, and Betsy started feeling frustrated at not understanding it, like a child being told she would get it when she was older. Beside her, Susanna bit her lip as Mister Lehnsherr dragged on the cigarette.
Then, suddenly, his pale eyes were on them all. Half-crouched on the other side of the balustrade, their heads sticking up above it, they must have looked quite comical, because a crooked smile tugged at his lips.
‘Damn,’ Betsy breathed, just before:
Shouldn’t you be doing your homework with Mister Cassidy?
As soon as the professor’s mental voice had appeared, it disappeared.
‘Come on,’ Betsy said, her mind still tingling from having been touched by such a powerful telepath. She took Susanna’s hand and grabbed Scott by the collar and pulled them away from the balustrade. When she looked over her shoulder to check that Ororo was following them, she saw Mister Lehnsherr watching them from the window, cigarette between his fingers and a knowing look on his face. Then he turned away and pulled the curtains.
****
However inappropriate the comparison was, to Charles the following fortnight felt much like he imagined it must feel like being newly-wed. Ororo’s weather manipulations had seemed coincidentally symbolic, because the lightness of heart the first snow of winter brought with it, when the dark nights were lit up by the sparkle of the snow-crystals, was much like the feeling of their new-found love. The feeling remained even when the snow melted. It made the most tedious task worthwhile. The previous oppressive atmosphere had been lifted, and everyone seemed to understand that something was different, even if not everyone knew why.
Both Erik and Charles had a more or less subconscious need to make up for lost time. They took up playing chess daily and had long conversations after dinner, smoking and sipping scotch together, as they had when they had been training. But now they did not part ways after that, but went to bed, occasionally just for comfort, often for more carnal pleasures. In the next two weeks, Erik left a series of sublimely painful bite marks on Charles’ body, and quite often hickeys of varying obviousness. Charles was more careful with leaving marks on Erik, because if there were signs that also he had a mistress, awkward questions would soon be asked about this coincidence.
The most serious consequence thus far was that Erik had slept on Charles’ arm and made it a little stiff. All it meant was that every so often, he had to stop and flex his wrist to try to loosen up the joint, careful not to do himself an injury when wheeling himself around the mansion. In the afternoon, most of the stiffness had worn off. Charles was on his way to his study, thinking about how glad he was that he had interrupted Erik’s class preparations of some boring prose text he was making his German class read the previous night. He stopped and flexed his wrist, allowing himself to reminisce.
The other mind in the corridor seemed to launch itself into his with sudden force. His memory of last night’s tryst was interrupted by the thought: they’re going to kill us all, kill us all, every single one, and we can kill them back but they will still win... The turmoil of that thought swelled within him, and for a moment he felt that other person’s despair in the roots of his soul. When he looked up, he saw no-one there.
‘Hello?’ he called and wheeled slowly forward. Now when his mind was not elsewhere, he heard something - the unmistakable sound of a child crying. Quickening his pace, he headed for the doorway it was coming from. There he was, pressed against the wall, as if trying to hide.
‘Jason?’ Jason did not look up, but only hugged his knees, his shoulders shaking. Pictures of death were swarming his mind. ‘Jason, what’s wrong?’ Charles rolled a little closer and touched his shoulder. Now, Jason looked up at him, mismatched eyes shining with large tears. Strands of hair, long enough to make him look entirely like a girl now, hung over his face, and, self-conscious despite his distress, he pushed them back behind his ear. ‘What’s upset you?’ Charles asked solicitously and reached out both hands towards him. Sniffing pitifully, Jason put his hands in the professor’s and was helped to his feet.
‘We’re all going to die,’ he whispered, before his voice broke and he started crying anew. His sobs almost made what he said next inaudible. ‘I won’t even be able to scare them away, because they’re already so scared and it won’t hurt them to be more scared.’ As the boy gasped for breath between sobs, Charles’ initial sympathy became real concern.
‘There, there,’ he said and, seeing little else to do, pulled Jason into a hug. To his surprise, he put his arms around his neck and cried against his shoulder. Had it not been for the fact that Jason would feel him reading his thoughts, he would have drawn the answers he wanted directly out of his mind, but now, he simply patted the child’s hair and hushed him. After a minute or two, Jason calmed down enough that he dared to let go of him. ‘Now tell me,’ he told him, still holding his hand - he looked like he needed the support. ‘What’s made you so upset?’
‘They’re going to kill us,’ Jason answered, suddenly sounding angry, as if it frustrated him that his teacher did not understand.
‘Who is going to kill us? And us - mutants?’ Charles pressed. The boy nodded. ‘No-one’s going to kill anyone,’ he told him and looked him in the eyes. ‘We’re safe here.’
‘That’s not what he told us.’
He looked at the boy, surprised. Fighting off his first assumption, he asked:
‘Who told you all this?’ Giving a sob which was more of a hiccup, Jason spoke.
‘Mister Lehnsherr.’
Jason’s hand fell out of his teacher’s grip. Charles felt himself going cold, but found the calm to press Jason’s shoulder and say:
‘You know what? Mister Summers is in the garden on the back. See if you can go help him with his chores, eh? I’m sure you’re wonderful at gardening.’ Jason bit his lip, and did not look convinced.
‘I’m scared,’ he finally confessed.
‘You’ll be safe with Alex,’ he told him. ‘Go now - it’ll all be fine.’ Jason hesitated for a moment longer, then he nodded and left, heading for the back door. Charles waited until he was out of sight before he let out the breath he had been holding. Then, composing himself, he set off.
He found Erik in the drawing room, deep in concentration on the Baudelaire he was reading. When he heard Charles’ approach, he looked up, and a smile spread over his features.
‘Hello.’ Noticing Charles’ grave face, he frowned and closed his book. ‘Charles?’ The headmaster made his way across the room to him and looked him in the eye.
‘What have you been telling my students?’ The amity in his eyes went out.
‘What are you referring to?’ he asked stiffly.
‘I just found one of the children crying in the corridor,’ Charles said and pointed in the direction he had come, trying to keep his temper. ‘He said that you’d been telling them that “they’re going to kill us all”.’ No acknowledgement could be seen in Erik’s face, but neither was there any refutation there. ‘Well?’ Charles asked brusquely. ‘Did you say that?’
Erik sighed and put aside his book.
‘I seem to have been misquoted.’
‘“Misquoted”?’ Charles repeated. Erik looked up at him, with that look of combined anger and disappointment, as if he thought that he missed some crucial part of the puzzle. ‘Let me see what you said,’ he urged and raised two fingers halfway to his temple. Erik stared at them, as if aware what a powerful weapon that mannerism was part of. Despite his sigh, he nodded.
‘Very well.’
Charles put his fingers to his temple and plunged.
‘Prose, sir?’ asks Susanna and looks up at him as he hands her the sheet.
‘We’ve spend almost three weeks on Goethe,’ he explains, speaking as he handed out the texts. ‘You should read some prose also - and learn that not everything is of the quality of Goethe.’ He glances at the text in distaste and adds: ‘But the literary value of a text is not always what makes people read it.’ As he returns o the desk, the scraping of pencils and the whisper of dictionary pages can be heard. He takes his usual place, leaning against the desk and watching the class. Many of them seem to struggle with the text, but a few already look disturbed. He cannot help smiling, not trying to conceal its bitter edge.
The translation takes longer than it usually does, and the children’s voices are not as strong as when they usually read their translation.
‘“He has always lived in the states of other peoples, and there formed his own state, which, to be sure, was often under the disguise of ‘community’ as long as outward circumstances made a complete revelation of his nature seem unwise.”’
‘“But as soon as he felt strong enough to do without the protective cloak, he always dropped the veil and suddenly became what so many of the others previously did not want to believe and see.”’
‘“His life as a parasite in the body of other nations and states explains a characteristic which has caused him to be called the ‘great master of lying’.”
‘“Existence”, eum...’
‘“Impels.”’
‘“...impels him to lie, and to lie always, just as it compels the inhabitants of the northern countries to wear warm clothes.”’
‘“His life within other peoples can only endure for an length of time if he succeeds in arousing the opinion, that he is not a people but a 'community', though of a special sort.”’
‘“This is the first great lie.”’
‘“In order to carry on his existence as a parasite on other peoples, he is forced to deny his inner nature.”’
‘“Things can go so far that large parts of the host people will end by seriously believing that he is really a Frenchman or an Englishman, a German or an Italian.”’
Ten pairs of wide eyes stare up at him. Their pale faces speak of innocence.
‘Well?’ he asks. ‘Whom does this text speak of?’ The children look at each other, until one of them dares to put her hand up.
‘Is it about mutants?’ He smiles, despite himself. If only he could protect their naivety, he would, but there is no way.
‘No.’ He stands up and looks out over them. ‘It’s about Jews.’ The shock in their faces grow, as if they can already anticipate the conclusions he is about to draw. ‘But it makes little difference,’ he admits and starts walking up and down in front of the backboard. ‘The rhetoric used is much the same. Hate is nothing new. It has existed, it exists and it will exist in countless forms. And hate is born out of fear - for that which is different, or for that which is stronger.’
Charles broke the link between them. For a long while, he simply stared down in his own knee, wishing what he has just witnessed not to be a real memory, only a few minutes old...
‘My God,’ he finally said and forced himself to look up at him. ‘You gave them an excerpt of Mein Kampf to translate. Why would you do such a thing, Erik?’ He simply stared back at him, face unmoving, until:
‘They need to know what awaits them.’
‘What “awaits” them?’ Charles repeated, bewilderment turning into anger. ‘Awaits them!? Nothing awaits them!’
‘If you think that, you are fooling yourself, Charles,’ Erik told him. ‘You have stayed shut up in this mansion for years - you do not know how the rest of the world treats us.’ Breathing in at the accusation, Charles answered:
‘I know enough. I know what people think.’
‘So you know that there are places where anyone suspected of being a mutant is attacked, sometimes killed,’ Erik answered, his face the grim mask of an agitator. ‘Anyone under suspicion is evicted from their home and fired from their job. Do you know, Charles, that there are mutants - dozens of them - hiding in the sewers of New York, because they cannot live on the surface? How long until there are hundreds of them? How long until the government makes what is already an informal strategy an official policy?’
‘That won’t happen,’ Charles said, but Erik shook his head violently and jabbed a finger at him.
‘It is already happening, Charles. They hate us. You know that - you have felt it. And mark my words, they will act on that hate. You are simply in denial, because it does not fit into your naive way of looking at the world. You keep telling yourself that the little mutant boys and girls will be able to join hands with the little human boys and girls as sisters and brothers, but it will not happen, and if we are not prepared, they will not stop until they have wiped every last one of us off the face of the earth.’
‘I appointed you as a teacher on the explicit condition that you taught in accordance to the ideological beliefs of this school,’ Charles said, fighting to keep himself from shouting. ‘I will not have you spread mutant supremacist propaganda!’
‘Listen to yourself, Charles,’ Erik shouted. ‘I try to tell them the truth, and you brand it an unacceptable, extremist stand-point, which I am not allowed to tell them. You may not even realise it yourself, but because you do not protest, you have become the lackey of this oppression.’
‘How dare you?’ he retorted. ‘I protect my own - that is what this school is about...’
‘And you teach them to love those who would kill them, as if it might subdue their hatred, when in fact, it will lead them to their death, if they are not forewarned,’ Erik added. ‘Humanity is kept alive by bestial acts - turning the other cheek will not change that.’
‘I will not train children as soldiers!’ Charles shouted. ‘They need to be allowed their childhood...’
‘Allowed their childhood?’ Erik repeated, as if the idea was preposterous. ‘We are facing a war, Charles!’
‘That changes nothing,’ he told him. ‘You have behaved despicably. You’ve upset my students. Why do you not understand, Erik, how young they are? They are only children!’
‘So we should lie to them? he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. ‘There is no time for innocence now.’
‘The oldest child in your class is fifteen - the youngest only ten,’ Charles said and stared him in the eye. ‘How can you think that telling them such things...?’ The sensation of Erik’s anger transcending its own limits and becoming rage hit Charles, and the fire in his eyes made him fall silent. When Erik spoke, his emotion was only betrayed by the tremble of his voice.
‘When I was eight years old, younger than any of the students, I saw our entire street destroyed, every window smashed. I watched as they trampled our scriptures underfoot, as they burned the temple to the ground. I saw them beat people beyond recognition and arrest men for the destruction they themselves had caused.’
‘Erik...’ Charles said, but he pressed on.
‘When I was fourteen, I was strapped to a table and tortured, every day for a year, until my captors were satisfied with my tricks. Did they take into consideration, that I was a child? Did Schmidt and his men even spare it a thought? It did not save me - had it not been for that twisted gate, they would have led me to the gas-chambers at once, but even that would not have kept me alive in the long run. All that saved me was that the doctors fled before the Red Army reached the camp. As soon as Schmidt had broken me completely, all I would be to them was interesting dissection material. Do you imagine, Charles, that it will stay the mutant-haters’ hand, if their victims are children? Will they not want to get rid of them as soon as possible, before they can spread their genes any further? And if they keep them alive, what will stop the humans from doing to them what was done to me, things that make death look like a desirable alternative? And despite all this, you are telling me that these children, in this sheltered place, should not know about this threat?’
Charles searched for something to say, but in vain. He simply closed his mouth and swallowed, feeling with sudden acuteness how he had let his emotions override his sense back in September.
‘You’re not fit to be a teacher, Erik,’ he told him, calmer now. ‘I should have realised that before. You must understand, this isn’t about you and your trauma...’
‘No, it is not about me - that is precisely the point,’ Erik said lividly. ‘It is about what is happening now, and what will happen to the children you take in and then keep isolated, without contact with the real world, telling them that they have nothing to fear...’
‘They should not have anything to fear!’
‘But they do,’ Erik exclaimed. ‘Is this naivety speaking, Charles, or simply wishful thinking?’
‘I’ve heard enough,’ Charles announced and unlocked the wheels.
‘No,’ Erik said, his voice forceful, and reached out, grabbing his shoulder. Mixed in the anger, there was something else - a wish that Charles would understand, or at least listen. ‘We need to have this discussion...’
‘Well, I’m not interested,’ Charles said, shrugged his hand off and started wheeling himself towards the door. ‘I know everything you’re going to say, and I am not going to stay here and be lectured by someone so incapable of putting things into perspective...’ Suddenly his chair stopped with a jolt, and for a moment he completely lost his bearings, almost falling forward. The brakes had been flicked as the wheels moved. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw Erik lowering his hand. ‘Don’t ever do that again!’ he shouted at him, unlocked the wheels again and left the room.
***
Charles settled on not leaving his room for the rest of the afternoon. He had wanted to check on the students, but he did not want to risk running into Erik. Instead, he settled by his window and toured the minds of his students, looking for signs of disquiet. Where he found it, he smoothed it over, leaving the quiet assurance that they were all safe.
But were they? A nagging worry that perhaps Erik had a point started to grow. His words had hurt; the notion that Charles lived in his own, privileged world where oppression of mutants did not penetrate made him angry, as did the accusations of naivety and hypocrisy. Erik’s standpoint was certainly not uncompromised. His childhood had made him develop an idée fixe about the horrors he had witnessed, and it was not surprising that he feared that it might happen again. Then again, Charles knew that reacting with anger made it less likely that he would take the criticism to be relevant.
Perhaps he should listen to what he had to say. In reality, he did not know how the government would end up handling mutants. Their position this far had been vague, while the public’s had been harsh. He had considered taking the debate with them, but protecting the school had felt more important. But the school housed only a fraction of the mutant population. He was doing little to help those others. The children he had taken in needed protection, sometimes even from their own parents, but was he using that small fact to cover up his other failures and to keep his conscience clean? But what else could he do? Their situation was precarious at best, and the risk of being revealed was too big.
He replayed the secondary memory of the lesson. Now when the initial shock was gone, it all seemed much less dramatic. What Erik said of the theory of hate were all things he agreed with, but when he spoke of hate against mutants, the constant implication of the inferiority of humans was there. His words were passionate, but he never became personal. Not even when he spoke of Auschwitz did he speak of his own experiences. Still it could never be a historical event to him, and he could never treat it as such. He would never be so emotionally detached, and Charles knew by now that to Erik, that was crucial. If he stopped feeling it, he felt it would be denying it, and he would lose the pieces of himself from before the war too. But for all Charles’ insight into his friend’s psyche, it did not change the fact that he had upset the children. If he was right or not was beside the point. When they had discussed the Goethe poem about death, it had worked. This time, he had crossed the line.
But all the same Charles knew that he too had acted unprofessionally. He had told him that he was not fit to teach, and that he was spreading propaganda, and worse things. Thinking back, he was appalled at how patronising his words sounded. Everything had been so wonderful the past weeks, so that he had almost forgot about their many disagreements, and now when they confronted him, he had treated Erik - his friend, his equal, his brother - like a petulant child with a silly obsession, with none of the respect and care he deserved.
A knock on the door roused him from his thoughts.
‘Come in!’ Hank stepped in. Charles knew that he was there to announce that dinner was ready, but instead of letting him speak, he said: ‘Come closer, Hank.’ Hank did, with an obedience Charles had never reflected on before. It was only Erik who did not act like that around him. The Beast stopped beside his chair, and an awkward silence settled.
‘Is anything the matter, professor?’ he asked finally.
‘Isn’t always something the matter?’ Charles answered and sighed. He looked out of the window, not certain what he wanted to admit to. They were silent for a long time, and just when he felt Hank grow restless, he broke the quiet. ‘Why is everything so damned complicated, Hank?’ He opened his mouth and then closed it again, obviously lost for words. ‘Everything seems so simple on paper,’ Charles explained. ‘Then in reality... it’s all just a muddled grey. I don’t think I can tell what’s right and wrong anymore.’
‘It’s all a question of definition, I expect. It is all in the eye of the beholder,’ Hank said. Charles smiled joylessly. Hank’s approach to anything was philosophical; he was well-read, but did not yet have the experience to use it properly. Still, his opinion was valuable.
‘Hank, do you think I’m a hypocrite?’ Hank looked shocked at the question.
‘No,’ he said, surprised. ‘Of course not. You of all people...’
‘Well,’ Charles said, refraining from pointing out that Hank may just have seen one side of him. Instead he asked: ‘How are the children?’
‘They’re fine,’ Hank answered, perplexed at his differing questions. ‘Why... why wouldn’t they be?’ Charles shook his head at the question.
‘Their safety goes before everything else, doesn’t it?’
‘Why, yes.’ Hank was starting to look properly bewildered now.
‘Even over personal... predispositions,’ Charles stated. He knew that was true - the children came first, then Erik. He must not let himself lose sight of that. Turning again to Hank, he said: ‘You’ll keep an eye on them, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Hank stuttered.
‘And would you please lock the gates and the doors and activate the security systems now at once?’ It would not keep Erik in, but it was worth a try.
‘If you’d like me to. But why...?’
‘Do it,’ he told him.
‘Professor, there’s dinner...’ Charles shook his head.
‘I won’t be coming down to dinner tonight, I think.’ Now Hank’s eyes narrowed.
‘Are you really alright, professor?’ he asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said and forced another smile. ‘I just feel rather too tired to go through the formalities of the dinner table.’ Refraining from answering that there were very little formalities at dinner, Hank stepped back and nodded.
‘I’ll bring up a tray for you,’ he told him and, backing away respectfully, left. When the door had closed, Charles closed his eyes and placed his fingers against his temple. The next breath, he was inside Erik’s mind, and felt the turmoil of his thoughts as he walked around his room, collecting things and throwing them into an open suitcase.
Charles broke the contact, letting his hand fall. What he had seen made him feel sick. He’s leaving, and it’s all my fault... He should do something, but he did not know what. He could of course just make him stay, as he had promised that he would not do that night he had tried to leave the CIA building, but where would such manipulation end? Before he knew it, he may end up forcing him to love him through those same means. The most obvious course of action would be to just go to talk to him, but he did not dare. So he settled on watching from afar, zoning in and out of his mind to make sure that he was still there.
When the clock on the mantlepiece struck eleven, Charles had become restless enough to decide to leave his room, still with no real objective. He passed through the corridors, careful to avoid anyone who was still awake. His unplanned meanderings lead him past the student dormitories. The dreaming minds lay like cotton-wool against his, and a sudden urge to see the children struck him. As silently as he could, he opened the door of one of the dorms and went inside. The room was dark, and the shapes in the row of beds were all still. Closest to the door was Ororo’s bed. She lay with her hand under her cheek, the dream of flying high over the mansion tugging at the corners of her mouth. The sheet had ridden down over her shoulder, and carefully, Charles pulled it up over her again. What was this violent need to protect these children? Had he really become so personally invested in the school? His injury meant that he would never have any children of his own, but suddenly, sitting in the dark, quiet dormitory, it seemed not to matter. Each and every one of these children meant that much to him - they were his sons and daughters by virtue of their shared gifts.
But he could not keep them safe on his own. He tried to imagine going back to how things were before Erik returned. Just the thought of it made his chest contract. No, he could not let that happen. He wanted (needed) him to stay - if it came to it, he would beg. Time to face the music, Charlie, he thought and gave an inward sigh. Casting a last glance at the sleeping children, he left the dormitory.
All the way to Erik’s room, he tried to find a way to compose himself, but his nerves were getting the better of him. When he gathered his courage and knocked on his door, the knock sounded weak, as though he were half hoping that he would not notice it. That did not happen; the doorknob turned and the door opened. Erik was standing on the other side of the room, his hand raised, controlling the metal.
‘May I come in?’ Charles asked.
‘You usually help yourself,’ Erik said curtly. Charles entered, and stopped just a little way in.
‘Erik, I’m sorry that I...’
‘Watch out.’ The door shut suddenly, and the only thing which stopped it from smashing into the wheelchair was Erik flicking two fingers so that it rolled out of the way. Charles grabbed the armrests instinctively, deciding to leave it to another time to tell him how much he disliked when he controlled the metal in his chair, if there would be another time. As if he was not there, Erik continued putting books in piles on his desk.
‘Erik, the way I spoke to you... it was unacceptable. Please forgive me.’ Erik’s movements stopped.
‘You know that forgiveness does not come easily to me, Charles,’ he said gravely. His voice sounded weary, and his eyes remained turned away. Charles took in his distinctive accent, the set of his shoulders, the hands resting on the books in front of him. Love swelled inside him, threatening to give birth to desperation. This can’t be how it ends between us - not so soon. Not after everything we’ve been through - not after all that waiting...
‘I’m sorry that I offended you,’ he said out loud. ‘I said some awful things. I was very inconsiderate. I’m sorry.’ Erik looked down at his hands, as if wanting something to look at which was not Charles. The pose signaled that he did not want Charles to be there, but there was conflict in his mind. ‘Please don’t leave,’ Charles whispered, voice trembling. Erik held out a little longer, then sighed and seemed to relax a little more.
‘It’s funny,’ he said, still not looking at him. ‘I have heard so much abuse, but somehow, it never touched me.’ He started walking around the desk slowly, then stopped by the window, hands in pockets. ‘But when it comes from you... it hits home. You are the only person who can offend me, Charles.’ Now he turned to him and looked at him earnestly. ‘How is that possible?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, sounding choked, even if they both knew the answer. Charles was the only one who was truly close to him. “Brother” implied “family”, and family was the thing Erik valued highest. Longing for those mutual bonds had been what had lured him back. For the first time for hours, he allowed himself to hope that he would not leave after all.
‘So you came here to tell me that you’ve changed your mind?’ Erik asked. Whatever he had said about forgiveness, his anger felt less prominent now.
‘I still stand by what I said,’ Charles told him. ‘But I regret the way I said it.’
‘Then what did you not mean?’
‘I didn’t mean to imply that you acted because of a compulsion, or that you are of unsound mind.’ Erik shrugged.
‘Under the circumstances, both those opinions would not surprise or offend me when coming from a doctor,’ he said simply.
‘But from me? I’m more than that to you, after all.’ Erik glanced up at him. He looked almost amused. ‘What I mean was that I didn’t intend it to sound patronising,’ he said. ‘I believe that it rather sounded so.’
‘But you stand by that I should not have taken up the issue,’ Erik stated. Charles sighed, in two minds about it.
‘The way you spoke of hate directed at mutants was polemical - you can’t disagree on that,’ he finally said. Then he admitted: ‘I’ve asked so often, but I think I’m starting to understand. Why you returned, that is.’ Now, Erik truly smiled.
‘You are a fool, Charles Xavier,’ he said.
‘And you’re an egoist.’ Silence fell. ‘Where would you go?’ It came out hushed, and sounding much more timid than he had wanted. Erik looked down in the floor and then, slowly, started approaching him. When he sat down on the bed, so that they faced each other, he still looked uncertain. I have nowhere to go.
‘I think...’ he said slowly. ‘It may have been a... rash decision.’ For a moment, a sliver of hesitation lingered, but then it went out, and Erik raised a hand. The suitcase lifted and scattered clothes over the floor. Charles laughed, and as he did so, the tears which had been in his eyes fell. Erik leaned in and kissed his cheeks, lapping at the trails they left. Then he moved so that they were nose to nose. They glanced up momentarily, the eyes so close becoming a blur of colour, before they kissed. When they broke the kiss, they kept their faces close a moment.
‘Don’t you feel like you’re caged in?’ Erik asked quietly. ‘That thing makes it difficult even to put my arm around you.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Charles sighed. ‘Budge up, then.’ Erik did, and Charles moved onto the bed. There was a few moments when they tried to figure out how they fitted together, as if the argument had made them forget, but finally they settled, Charles with his head on his chest and Erik with an arm around him.
‘I care for them as well, you know,’ Erik assured him. ‘After all, they are the beginnings of a new species as much as we are, and they will be more glorious than us, given time. I didn’t plan that class for any self-gain. I believe that they need to hear it, to strengthen them.’
‘Just don’t do it again,’ Charles asked. ‘At least not without talking to me before - and try to be a little more sensitive.’
‘The children aren’t porcelain dolls, Charles,’ Erik observed and stroked Charles’ hair.
‘It doesn’t mean you have to try to break them to prove it.’
‘There will always be things which we do not agree on,’ he observed. ‘Despite everything, I... treasure that. I think it strengthens us.’
‘And exhausts us,’ Charles said and chuckled. ‘At least we don’t smash the china. That would be pathetically domestic.’
‘No, let’s not start breaking things,’ Erik agreed.
‘You’d tear down the house,’ Charles said. ‘In all seriousness, though, I’m glad that no-one else saw us shouting at each other in the drawing room.’
‘Not the best place for it.’ They were silent for quite some time, until Charles felt himself start to drift off.
‘I’m sorry, Erik, I’m going to fall asleep here and now if I’m not careful,’ he said, propping himself up. ‘I should get back to my room...’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Erik told him and pulled him back down. ‘Stay here.’
‘But...’
‘I want you to.’ Charles sighed, resigned but very pleased. His eyelids were rapidly growing too heavy, and he surrendered, letting himself slip into oblivion.
***
The heat from the ovens hits him in waves. His hand rises. The metal tugs at him, and he at the metal. If only he can grab that sensation, he can stop all this, but he is held back, strapped down, trapped...
Charles woke with a start. Beside him, Erik was writhing and gasping, torn between sleeping and waking.
‘Erik,’ he said and pulled him closer. ‘Erik, it’s alright. Calm down. It was just a nightmare.’ As he stroked his hair, Erik’s breath grew calmer.
‘I never seem to get used to it,’ he said and drew back, rubbing the tears out of his eyes with the heel of his hand. Charles drew himself up to a sitting position, watching him with worry. ‘Did you see?’ Erik asked, voice guarded.
‘I dreamt it,’ he admitted. ‘It’s one of the things which happen when I sleep close to someone else.’
‘You’ve been seeing my dreams for two weeks?’ Erik asked. He sounded vexed, which Charles could not really blame him for.
‘I can’t control my telepathy when I’m asleep,’ he explained. ‘Besides, it’s usually fairly passive. I’m aware of them, but they’re never a strong as my own dreams. I’m sorry that I can’t seem to help to intrude.’
‘It is very like you, Charles,’ Erik sighed. ‘I am sorry that you have to see those things. For both our sakes.’ Charles reached out to cover his hand with his, and Erik looked up at him. An angel passed. Charles was just thinking of moving closer to kiss him, when a sudden knock interrupted them.
‘Erik! Erik! Wake up!’ Hank was on the other side of the door, banging it so hard it shook. ‘It’s an emergency!’ They looked at each other, surprised.
‘You’d better take that,’ Charles whispered, and Erik got up.
‘Erik! It’s important - wake up!’ Hank was still shouting when Erik made it to the door and opened it.
‘What’s the ruckus?’ From the bed, Charles could not see Hank, but he could sense his agitation. He answered so quickly that it became just a stream of words.
‘It’s the professor - he’s not in his room - he’s not in the house.’ He paused to draw a shaking breath. ‘I should have realised something was wrong! He acted so odd last night - didn’t come down to dinner, asked me to lock the doors, told me to look after the children. Jesus Christ...’
‘Hank, I think you’re overreacting,’ Erik said, sounding reasonable.
‘Don’t you see how this looks?’ Hank exclaimed. ‘Erik, we have to look for him! He could be hurt - he could be...’
Erik, move the wheelchair, Charles thought. Unblinkingly, Erik flicked his hand and the chair unlocked and rolled away from the bed. As soon as he heard the breaks click into place again, Charles shouted:
‘Hank, I’m here!’ Erik stepped away from the door, and gave Hank a clear view of the room. When he spotted the professor half-lying on the bed, his yellow eyes grew and his mouth fell open.
‘Professor!’ he exclaimed, crestfallen. ‘What... what are you doing on Erik’s bed?’
‘It’s all rather embarrassing,’ he said, giving him a charming smile as he projected a plausible cover-story into Erik’s mind. ‘Erik and I were having a late night chat...’
‘We’d had a bit to drink,’ Erik added helpfully.
‘And, well, I fell asleep,’ Charles concluded.
‘I didn’t want to wake him by taking him back to his room, so I let him sleep on my bed, and I slept in the armchair.’ Hank looked from Charles to Erik and back.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right. I’m... I’m sorry, professor.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said quickly. ‘Be a good chap and fetch me an aspirin.’
‘Sure,’ Hank said and disappeared. Erik closed the door slowly, exhaling.
‘Do you need an aspirin?’ he asked and returned to the bed to throw himself onto it beside Charles.
‘No, but it added to the impression that I was dead drunk yesterday,’ he answered, ‘which is much better than what he thought before, which seemed to be that I had gone loopy and pitched myself into the duckpond.’
‘He believed us?’ Erik asked, and when he received a nod, said: ‘Well saved.’
‘A little narrowly, though,’ Charles sighed. Hank was not stupid, and eventually, he must figure it out. They were already becoming careless.
For a moment, Charles felt the quarrel from last night hover between them, threatening to start anew. But he was intent on keeping it all together - the school, his own morals, whatever it was that he and Erik shared. In the end, he was the one to give in, letting it go in favour of domestic peace. He settled on concentrating for that which they could unite against, instead of the things they disagreed on, trying to push the disappointment in himself to one side.
Next chapter
Fandom X-Men: First Class
Pairings Erik/Charles, past Erik/Raven, mention of Hank/Raven, sort of brief Raven/Angel, references to future Scott/Jean
Beta cicero_drayon
Word count of chapters 7082
Word count of entire fic approx. 115 000
Ratings/warnings NC-17. Sexual situations, past physical and mental trauma, discussion of genocide, period transphobia, homophobia, ableism and racism, brief mentions of rape and suicide
Spoilers X-Men: First Class, X2 and (to a lesser extent) X-Men: The Last Stand. Some comic canon thrown in for good measure.
Disclaimer Marvel owns it, I don’t.
Summary Two arrivals to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters coincide - Jason Stryker, a child branded a freak because of his psychic powers, and Erik Lehnsherr, wanted terrorist and old friend of the professor. Jason is there as his father wants him cured - Erik claims that he has gone rogue from his own renegades. As tensions rise between mutants and humans, as well as between the suddenly reunited friends, who can truly be trusted?
Author’s note The quotation in this chapter is from the 1992 edition of the translation by Ralph Manheim (p.277), and is slightly rewritten. (I'm consciously not giving title and author here, as that would be a spoiler.)
Betsy had strong views about a lot of things, and one of them was spying. Of course, not actual, wartime spying. That was all very well, and quite exciting. From what she had heard, her mother had done undercover work in France during the war, and she hoped that at some point, she would have an opportunity to use her psychic powers for something like that, although wishing for war was another thing she had strong views on.
No, what she did not like was snooping, and that was just what she had ended up doing now, peering up over the balustrade together with Susanna, Scott and Ororo, into the French windows.
‘I still can’t get over it,’ Susanna muttered.
‘That we’re doing this?’ Betsy suggested.
‘No. Mister Lehnsherr,’ she explained, sounding dreamy. ‘Just look at him.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Scott asked, perplexed. Betsy sensed how Susanna just about restrained herself from sticking her tongue out at him, knowing it would be childish. Betsy sighed inwardly and decided that if Susanna had put her in this situation, she might as well make the best of it. From where they crouched, they had a fairly good view into the professor’s study. He and Mister Lehnsherr seemed caught up in some amicable discussion. She could see the professor gesturing to make a point, and Mister Lehnsherr nodded and offered a reply.
‘What are they saying, Betsy?’ Susanna asked and poked her in the ribs.
‘I can’t hear any better than you can,’ she reminded her friend.
‘But you could...’
‘Are you suggesting I read the professor’s thoughts?’ she asked, aghast. ‘Are you insane? He’d notice!’ Susanna looked disappointed.
‘Oh. What about Mister Lehnsherr, then?’
‘No, I wouldn’t want to,’ she admitted. Something about their new teacher unsettled her, and no amount of good looks changed that. Susanna was too infatuated to see that, of course, and seemed about to insist. ‘Considering how good friends he is with the professor, he probably has proper mental shields,’ she added. ‘Besides, it doesn’t work very well when I’m not in the same room.’ Susanna shrugged, resigning herself to it.
‘I think Betsy’s right,’ Ororo said. ‘We shouldn’t use our powers against our teachers.’
‘Thank you, Ororo,’ Betsy said and concentrated on peering through the French windows. To her own annoyance, there was a thrill to all this. Now, Mister Lehnsherr leaned against the desk and took out a cigarette. The professor was stuffing his pipe, and Betsy noticed the other teacher watching him as he lit it. That was unsettling too, but not quite in the usual way. There was just something about his eyes which she could not name or describe, but still was terribly familiar - instinctive, even. The professor raised a match, and Mister Lehnsherr leaned into it to light his cigarette. The gaze continued, and Betsy started feeling frustrated at not understanding it, like a child being told she would get it when she was older. Beside her, Susanna bit her lip as Mister Lehnsherr dragged on the cigarette.
Then, suddenly, his pale eyes were on them all. Half-crouched on the other side of the balustrade, their heads sticking up above it, they must have looked quite comical, because a crooked smile tugged at his lips.
‘Damn,’ Betsy breathed, just before:
Shouldn’t you be doing your homework with Mister Cassidy?
As soon as the professor’s mental voice had appeared, it disappeared.
‘Come on,’ Betsy said, her mind still tingling from having been touched by such a powerful telepath. She took Susanna’s hand and grabbed Scott by the collar and pulled them away from the balustrade. When she looked over her shoulder to check that Ororo was following them, she saw Mister Lehnsherr watching them from the window, cigarette between his fingers and a knowing look on his face. Then he turned away and pulled the curtains.
****
However inappropriate the comparison was, to Charles the following fortnight felt much like he imagined it must feel like being newly-wed. Ororo’s weather manipulations had seemed coincidentally symbolic, because the lightness of heart the first snow of winter brought with it, when the dark nights were lit up by the sparkle of the snow-crystals, was much like the feeling of their new-found love. The feeling remained even when the snow melted. It made the most tedious task worthwhile. The previous oppressive atmosphere had been lifted, and everyone seemed to understand that something was different, even if not everyone knew why.
Both Erik and Charles had a more or less subconscious need to make up for lost time. They took up playing chess daily and had long conversations after dinner, smoking and sipping scotch together, as they had when they had been training. But now they did not part ways after that, but went to bed, occasionally just for comfort, often for more carnal pleasures. In the next two weeks, Erik left a series of sublimely painful bite marks on Charles’ body, and quite often hickeys of varying obviousness. Charles was more careful with leaving marks on Erik, because if there were signs that also he had a mistress, awkward questions would soon be asked about this coincidence.
The most serious consequence thus far was that Erik had slept on Charles’ arm and made it a little stiff. All it meant was that every so often, he had to stop and flex his wrist to try to loosen up the joint, careful not to do himself an injury when wheeling himself around the mansion. In the afternoon, most of the stiffness had worn off. Charles was on his way to his study, thinking about how glad he was that he had interrupted Erik’s class preparations of some boring prose text he was making his German class read the previous night. He stopped and flexed his wrist, allowing himself to reminisce.
The other mind in the corridor seemed to launch itself into his with sudden force. His memory of last night’s tryst was interrupted by the thought: they’re going to kill us all, kill us all, every single one, and we can kill them back but they will still win... The turmoil of that thought swelled within him, and for a moment he felt that other person’s despair in the roots of his soul. When he looked up, he saw no-one there.
‘Hello?’ he called and wheeled slowly forward. Now when his mind was not elsewhere, he heard something - the unmistakable sound of a child crying. Quickening his pace, he headed for the doorway it was coming from. There he was, pressed against the wall, as if trying to hide.
‘Jason?’ Jason did not look up, but only hugged his knees, his shoulders shaking. Pictures of death were swarming his mind. ‘Jason, what’s wrong?’ Charles rolled a little closer and touched his shoulder. Now, Jason looked up at him, mismatched eyes shining with large tears. Strands of hair, long enough to make him look entirely like a girl now, hung over his face, and, self-conscious despite his distress, he pushed them back behind his ear. ‘What’s upset you?’ Charles asked solicitously and reached out both hands towards him. Sniffing pitifully, Jason put his hands in the professor’s and was helped to his feet.
‘We’re all going to die,’ he whispered, before his voice broke and he started crying anew. His sobs almost made what he said next inaudible. ‘I won’t even be able to scare them away, because they’re already so scared and it won’t hurt them to be more scared.’ As the boy gasped for breath between sobs, Charles’ initial sympathy became real concern.
‘There, there,’ he said and, seeing little else to do, pulled Jason into a hug. To his surprise, he put his arms around his neck and cried against his shoulder. Had it not been for the fact that Jason would feel him reading his thoughts, he would have drawn the answers he wanted directly out of his mind, but now, he simply patted the child’s hair and hushed him. After a minute or two, Jason calmed down enough that he dared to let go of him. ‘Now tell me,’ he told him, still holding his hand - he looked like he needed the support. ‘What’s made you so upset?’
‘They’re going to kill us,’ Jason answered, suddenly sounding angry, as if it frustrated him that his teacher did not understand.
‘Who is going to kill us? And us - mutants?’ Charles pressed. The boy nodded. ‘No-one’s going to kill anyone,’ he told him and looked him in the eyes. ‘We’re safe here.’
‘That’s not what he told us.’
He looked at the boy, surprised. Fighting off his first assumption, he asked:
‘Who told you all this?’ Giving a sob which was more of a hiccup, Jason spoke.
‘Mister Lehnsherr.’
Jason’s hand fell out of his teacher’s grip. Charles felt himself going cold, but found the calm to press Jason’s shoulder and say:
‘You know what? Mister Summers is in the garden on the back. See if you can go help him with his chores, eh? I’m sure you’re wonderful at gardening.’ Jason bit his lip, and did not look convinced.
‘I’m scared,’ he finally confessed.
‘You’ll be safe with Alex,’ he told him. ‘Go now - it’ll all be fine.’ Jason hesitated for a moment longer, then he nodded and left, heading for the back door. Charles waited until he was out of sight before he let out the breath he had been holding. Then, composing himself, he set off.
He found Erik in the drawing room, deep in concentration on the Baudelaire he was reading. When he heard Charles’ approach, he looked up, and a smile spread over his features.
‘Hello.’ Noticing Charles’ grave face, he frowned and closed his book. ‘Charles?’ The headmaster made his way across the room to him and looked him in the eye.
‘What have you been telling my students?’ The amity in his eyes went out.
‘What are you referring to?’ he asked stiffly.
‘I just found one of the children crying in the corridor,’ Charles said and pointed in the direction he had come, trying to keep his temper. ‘He said that you’d been telling them that “they’re going to kill us all”.’ No acknowledgement could be seen in Erik’s face, but neither was there any refutation there. ‘Well?’ Charles asked brusquely. ‘Did you say that?’
Erik sighed and put aside his book.
‘I seem to have been misquoted.’
‘“Misquoted”?’ Charles repeated. Erik looked up at him, with that look of combined anger and disappointment, as if he thought that he missed some crucial part of the puzzle. ‘Let me see what you said,’ he urged and raised two fingers halfway to his temple. Erik stared at them, as if aware what a powerful weapon that mannerism was part of. Despite his sigh, he nodded.
‘Very well.’
Charles put his fingers to his temple and plunged.
‘Prose, sir?’ asks Susanna and looks up at him as he hands her the sheet.
‘We’ve spend almost three weeks on Goethe,’ he explains, speaking as he handed out the texts. ‘You should read some prose also - and learn that not everything is of the quality of Goethe.’ He glances at the text in distaste and adds: ‘But the literary value of a text is not always what makes people read it.’ As he returns o the desk, the scraping of pencils and the whisper of dictionary pages can be heard. He takes his usual place, leaning against the desk and watching the class. Many of them seem to struggle with the text, but a few already look disturbed. He cannot help smiling, not trying to conceal its bitter edge.
The translation takes longer than it usually does, and the children’s voices are not as strong as when they usually read their translation.
‘“He has always lived in the states of other peoples, and there formed his own state, which, to be sure, was often under the disguise of ‘community’ as long as outward circumstances made a complete revelation of his nature seem unwise.”’
‘“But as soon as he felt strong enough to do without the protective cloak, he always dropped the veil and suddenly became what so many of the others previously did not want to believe and see.”’
‘“His life as a parasite in the body of other nations and states explains a characteristic which has caused him to be called the ‘great master of lying’.”
‘“Existence”, eum...’
‘“Impels.”’
‘“...impels him to lie, and to lie always, just as it compels the inhabitants of the northern countries to wear warm clothes.”’
‘“His life within other peoples can only endure for an length of time if he succeeds in arousing the opinion, that he is not a people but a 'community', though of a special sort.”’
‘“This is the first great lie.”’
‘“In order to carry on his existence as a parasite on other peoples, he is forced to deny his inner nature.”’
‘“Things can go so far that large parts of the host people will end by seriously believing that he is really a Frenchman or an Englishman, a German or an Italian.”’
Ten pairs of wide eyes stare up at him. Their pale faces speak of innocence.
‘Well?’ he asks. ‘Whom does this text speak of?’ The children look at each other, until one of them dares to put her hand up.
‘Is it about mutants?’ He smiles, despite himself. If only he could protect their naivety, he would, but there is no way.
‘No.’ He stands up and looks out over them. ‘It’s about Jews.’ The shock in their faces grow, as if they can already anticipate the conclusions he is about to draw. ‘But it makes little difference,’ he admits and starts walking up and down in front of the backboard. ‘The rhetoric used is much the same. Hate is nothing new. It has existed, it exists and it will exist in countless forms. And hate is born out of fear - for that which is different, or for that which is stronger.’
Charles broke the link between them. For a long while, he simply stared down in his own knee, wishing what he has just witnessed not to be a real memory, only a few minutes old...
‘My God,’ he finally said and forced himself to look up at him. ‘You gave them an excerpt of Mein Kampf to translate. Why would you do such a thing, Erik?’ He simply stared back at him, face unmoving, until:
‘They need to know what awaits them.’
‘What “awaits” them?’ Charles repeated, bewilderment turning into anger. ‘Awaits them!? Nothing awaits them!’
‘If you think that, you are fooling yourself, Charles,’ Erik told him. ‘You have stayed shut up in this mansion for years - you do not know how the rest of the world treats us.’ Breathing in at the accusation, Charles answered:
‘I know enough. I know what people think.’
‘So you know that there are places where anyone suspected of being a mutant is attacked, sometimes killed,’ Erik answered, his face the grim mask of an agitator. ‘Anyone under suspicion is evicted from their home and fired from their job. Do you know, Charles, that there are mutants - dozens of them - hiding in the sewers of New York, because they cannot live on the surface? How long until there are hundreds of them? How long until the government makes what is already an informal strategy an official policy?’
‘That won’t happen,’ Charles said, but Erik shook his head violently and jabbed a finger at him.
‘It is already happening, Charles. They hate us. You know that - you have felt it. And mark my words, they will act on that hate. You are simply in denial, because it does not fit into your naive way of looking at the world. You keep telling yourself that the little mutant boys and girls will be able to join hands with the little human boys and girls as sisters and brothers, but it will not happen, and if we are not prepared, they will not stop until they have wiped every last one of us off the face of the earth.’
‘I appointed you as a teacher on the explicit condition that you taught in accordance to the ideological beliefs of this school,’ Charles said, fighting to keep himself from shouting. ‘I will not have you spread mutant supremacist propaganda!’
‘Listen to yourself, Charles,’ Erik shouted. ‘I try to tell them the truth, and you brand it an unacceptable, extremist stand-point, which I am not allowed to tell them. You may not even realise it yourself, but because you do not protest, you have become the lackey of this oppression.’
‘How dare you?’ he retorted. ‘I protect my own - that is what this school is about...’
‘And you teach them to love those who would kill them, as if it might subdue their hatred, when in fact, it will lead them to their death, if they are not forewarned,’ Erik added. ‘Humanity is kept alive by bestial acts - turning the other cheek will not change that.’
‘I will not train children as soldiers!’ Charles shouted. ‘They need to be allowed their childhood...’
‘Allowed their childhood?’ Erik repeated, as if the idea was preposterous. ‘We are facing a war, Charles!’
‘That changes nothing,’ he told him. ‘You have behaved despicably. You’ve upset my students. Why do you not understand, Erik, how young they are? They are only children!’
‘So we should lie to them? he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. ‘There is no time for innocence now.’
‘The oldest child in your class is fifteen - the youngest only ten,’ Charles said and stared him in the eye. ‘How can you think that telling them such things...?’ The sensation of Erik’s anger transcending its own limits and becoming rage hit Charles, and the fire in his eyes made him fall silent. When Erik spoke, his emotion was only betrayed by the tremble of his voice.
‘When I was eight years old, younger than any of the students, I saw our entire street destroyed, every window smashed. I watched as they trampled our scriptures underfoot, as they burned the temple to the ground. I saw them beat people beyond recognition and arrest men for the destruction they themselves had caused.’
‘Erik...’ Charles said, but he pressed on.
‘When I was fourteen, I was strapped to a table and tortured, every day for a year, until my captors were satisfied with my tricks. Did they take into consideration, that I was a child? Did Schmidt and his men even spare it a thought? It did not save me - had it not been for that twisted gate, they would have led me to the gas-chambers at once, but even that would not have kept me alive in the long run. All that saved me was that the doctors fled before the Red Army reached the camp. As soon as Schmidt had broken me completely, all I would be to them was interesting dissection material. Do you imagine, Charles, that it will stay the mutant-haters’ hand, if their victims are children? Will they not want to get rid of them as soon as possible, before they can spread their genes any further? And if they keep them alive, what will stop the humans from doing to them what was done to me, things that make death look like a desirable alternative? And despite all this, you are telling me that these children, in this sheltered place, should not know about this threat?’
Charles searched for something to say, but in vain. He simply closed his mouth and swallowed, feeling with sudden acuteness how he had let his emotions override his sense back in September.
‘You’re not fit to be a teacher, Erik,’ he told him, calmer now. ‘I should have realised that before. You must understand, this isn’t about you and your trauma...’
‘No, it is not about me - that is precisely the point,’ Erik said lividly. ‘It is about what is happening now, and what will happen to the children you take in and then keep isolated, without contact with the real world, telling them that they have nothing to fear...’
‘They should not have anything to fear!’
‘But they do,’ Erik exclaimed. ‘Is this naivety speaking, Charles, or simply wishful thinking?’
‘I’ve heard enough,’ Charles announced and unlocked the wheels.
‘No,’ Erik said, his voice forceful, and reached out, grabbing his shoulder. Mixed in the anger, there was something else - a wish that Charles would understand, or at least listen. ‘We need to have this discussion...’
‘Well, I’m not interested,’ Charles said, shrugged his hand off and started wheeling himself towards the door. ‘I know everything you’re going to say, and I am not going to stay here and be lectured by someone so incapable of putting things into perspective...’ Suddenly his chair stopped with a jolt, and for a moment he completely lost his bearings, almost falling forward. The brakes had been flicked as the wheels moved. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw Erik lowering his hand. ‘Don’t ever do that again!’ he shouted at him, unlocked the wheels again and left the room.
***
Charles settled on not leaving his room for the rest of the afternoon. He had wanted to check on the students, but he did not want to risk running into Erik. Instead, he settled by his window and toured the minds of his students, looking for signs of disquiet. Where he found it, he smoothed it over, leaving the quiet assurance that they were all safe.
But were they? A nagging worry that perhaps Erik had a point started to grow. His words had hurt; the notion that Charles lived in his own, privileged world where oppression of mutants did not penetrate made him angry, as did the accusations of naivety and hypocrisy. Erik’s standpoint was certainly not uncompromised. His childhood had made him develop an idée fixe about the horrors he had witnessed, and it was not surprising that he feared that it might happen again. Then again, Charles knew that reacting with anger made it less likely that he would take the criticism to be relevant.
Perhaps he should listen to what he had to say. In reality, he did not know how the government would end up handling mutants. Their position this far had been vague, while the public’s had been harsh. He had considered taking the debate with them, but protecting the school had felt more important. But the school housed only a fraction of the mutant population. He was doing little to help those others. The children he had taken in needed protection, sometimes even from their own parents, but was he using that small fact to cover up his other failures and to keep his conscience clean? But what else could he do? Their situation was precarious at best, and the risk of being revealed was too big.
He replayed the secondary memory of the lesson. Now when the initial shock was gone, it all seemed much less dramatic. What Erik said of the theory of hate were all things he agreed with, but when he spoke of hate against mutants, the constant implication of the inferiority of humans was there. His words were passionate, but he never became personal. Not even when he spoke of Auschwitz did he speak of his own experiences. Still it could never be a historical event to him, and he could never treat it as such. He would never be so emotionally detached, and Charles knew by now that to Erik, that was crucial. If he stopped feeling it, he felt it would be denying it, and he would lose the pieces of himself from before the war too. But for all Charles’ insight into his friend’s psyche, it did not change the fact that he had upset the children. If he was right or not was beside the point. When they had discussed the Goethe poem about death, it had worked. This time, he had crossed the line.
But all the same Charles knew that he too had acted unprofessionally. He had told him that he was not fit to teach, and that he was spreading propaganda, and worse things. Thinking back, he was appalled at how patronising his words sounded. Everything had been so wonderful the past weeks, so that he had almost forgot about their many disagreements, and now when they confronted him, he had treated Erik - his friend, his equal, his brother - like a petulant child with a silly obsession, with none of the respect and care he deserved.
A knock on the door roused him from his thoughts.
‘Come in!’ Hank stepped in. Charles knew that he was there to announce that dinner was ready, but instead of letting him speak, he said: ‘Come closer, Hank.’ Hank did, with an obedience Charles had never reflected on before. It was only Erik who did not act like that around him. The Beast stopped beside his chair, and an awkward silence settled.
‘Is anything the matter, professor?’ he asked finally.
‘Isn’t always something the matter?’ Charles answered and sighed. He looked out of the window, not certain what he wanted to admit to. They were silent for a long time, and just when he felt Hank grow restless, he broke the quiet. ‘Why is everything so damned complicated, Hank?’ He opened his mouth and then closed it again, obviously lost for words. ‘Everything seems so simple on paper,’ Charles explained. ‘Then in reality... it’s all just a muddled grey. I don’t think I can tell what’s right and wrong anymore.’
‘It’s all a question of definition, I expect. It is all in the eye of the beholder,’ Hank said. Charles smiled joylessly. Hank’s approach to anything was philosophical; he was well-read, but did not yet have the experience to use it properly. Still, his opinion was valuable.
‘Hank, do you think I’m a hypocrite?’ Hank looked shocked at the question.
‘No,’ he said, surprised. ‘Of course not. You of all people...’
‘Well,’ Charles said, refraining from pointing out that Hank may just have seen one side of him. Instead he asked: ‘How are the children?’
‘They’re fine,’ Hank answered, perplexed at his differing questions. ‘Why... why wouldn’t they be?’ Charles shook his head at the question.
‘Their safety goes before everything else, doesn’t it?’
‘Why, yes.’ Hank was starting to look properly bewildered now.
‘Even over personal... predispositions,’ Charles stated. He knew that was true - the children came first, then Erik. He must not let himself lose sight of that. Turning again to Hank, he said: ‘You’ll keep an eye on them, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Hank stuttered.
‘And would you please lock the gates and the doors and activate the security systems now at once?’ It would not keep Erik in, but it was worth a try.
‘If you’d like me to. But why...?’
‘Do it,’ he told him.
‘Professor, there’s dinner...’ Charles shook his head.
‘I won’t be coming down to dinner tonight, I think.’ Now Hank’s eyes narrowed.
‘Are you really alright, professor?’ he asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said and forced another smile. ‘I just feel rather too tired to go through the formalities of the dinner table.’ Refraining from answering that there were very little formalities at dinner, Hank stepped back and nodded.
‘I’ll bring up a tray for you,’ he told him and, backing away respectfully, left. When the door had closed, Charles closed his eyes and placed his fingers against his temple. The next breath, he was inside Erik’s mind, and felt the turmoil of his thoughts as he walked around his room, collecting things and throwing them into an open suitcase.
Charles broke the contact, letting his hand fall. What he had seen made him feel sick. He’s leaving, and it’s all my fault... He should do something, but he did not know what. He could of course just make him stay, as he had promised that he would not do that night he had tried to leave the CIA building, but where would such manipulation end? Before he knew it, he may end up forcing him to love him through those same means. The most obvious course of action would be to just go to talk to him, but he did not dare. So he settled on watching from afar, zoning in and out of his mind to make sure that he was still there.
When the clock on the mantlepiece struck eleven, Charles had become restless enough to decide to leave his room, still with no real objective. He passed through the corridors, careful to avoid anyone who was still awake. His unplanned meanderings lead him past the student dormitories. The dreaming minds lay like cotton-wool against his, and a sudden urge to see the children struck him. As silently as he could, he opened the door of one of the dorms and went inside. The room was dark, and the shapes in the row of beds were all still. Closest to the door was Ororo’s bed. She lay with her hand under her cheek, the dream of flying high over the mansion tugging at the corners of her mouth. The sheet had ridden down over her shoulder, and carefully, Charles pulled it up over her again. What was this violent need to protect these children? Had he really become so personally invested in the school? His injury meant that he would never have any children of his own, but suddenly, sitting in the dark, quiet dormitory, it seemed not to matter. Each and every one of these children meant that much to him - they were his sons and daughters by virtue of their shared gifts.
But he could not keep them safe on his own. He tried to imagine going back to how things were before Erik returned. Just the thought of it made his chest contract. No, he could not let that happen. He wanted (needed) him to stay - if it came to it, he would beg. Time to face the music, Charlie, he thought and gave an inward sigh. Casting a last glance at the sleeping children, he left the dormitory.
All the way to Erik’s room, he tried to find a way to compose himself, but his nerves were getting the better of him. When he gathered his courage and knocked on his door, the knock sounded weak, as though he were half hoping that he would not notice it. That did not happen; the doorknob turned and the door opened. Erik was standing on the other side of the room, his hand raised, controlling the metal.
‘May I come in?’ Charles asked.
‘You usually help yourself,’ Erik said curtly. Charles entered, and stopped just a little way in.
‘Erik, I’m sorry that I...’
‘Watch out.’ The door shut suddenly, and the only thing which stopped it from smashing into the wheelchair was Erik flicking two fingers so that it rolled out of the way. Charles grabbed the armrests instinctively, deciding to leave it to another time to tell him how much he disliked when he controlled the metal in his chair, if there would be another time. As if he was not there, Erik continued putting books in piles on his desk.
‘Erik, the way I spoke to you... it was unacceptable. Please forgive me.’ Erik’s movements stopped.
‘You know that forgiveness does not come easily to me, Charles,’ he said gravely. His voice sounded weary, and his eyes remained turned away. Charles took in his distinctive accent, the set of his shoulders, the hands resting on the books in front of him. Love swelled inside him, threatening to give birth to desperation. This can’t be how it ends between us - not so soon. Not after everything we’ve been through - not after all that waiting...
‘I’m sorry that I offended you,’ he said out loud. ‘I said some awful things. I was very inconsiderate. I’m sorry.’ Erik looked down at his hands, as if wanting something to look at which was not Charles. The pose signaled that he did not want Charles to be there, but there was conflict in his mind. ‘Please don’t leave,’ Charles whispered, voice trembling. Erik held out a little longer, then sighed and seemed to relax a little more.
‘It’s funny,’ he said, still not looking at him. ‘I have heard so much abuse, but somehow, it never touched me.’ He started walking around the desk slowly, then stopped by the window, hands in pockets. ‘But when it comes from you... it hits home. You are the only person who can offend me, Charles.’ Now he turned to him and looked at him earnestly. ‘How is that possible?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, sounding choked, even if they both knew the answer. Charles was the only one who was truly close to him. “Brother” implied “family”, and family was the thing Erik valued highest. Longing for those mutual bonds had been what had lured him back. For the first time for hours, he allowed himself to hope that he would not leave after all.
‘So you came here to tell me that you’ve changed your mind?’ Erik asked. Whatever he had said about forgiveness, his anger felt less prominent now.
‘I still stand by what I said,’ Charles told him. ‘But I regret the way I said it.’
‘Then what did you not mean?’
‘I didn’t mean to imply that you acted because of a compulsion, or that you are of unsound mind.’ Erik shrugged.
‘Under the circumstances, both those opinions would not surprise or offend me when coming from a doctor,’ he said simply.
‘But from me? I’m more than that to you, after all.’ Erik glanced up at him. He looked almost amused. ‘What I mean was that I didn’t intend it to sound patronising,’ he said. ‘I believe that it rather sounded so.’
‘But you stand by that I should not have taken up the issue,’ Erik stated. Charles sighed, in two minds about it.
‘The way you spoke of hate directed at mutants was polemical - you can’t disagree on that,’ he finally said. Then he admitted: ‘I’ve asked so often, but I think I’m starting to understand. Why you returned, that is.’ Now, Erik truly smiled.
‘You are a fool, Charles Xavier,’ he said.
‘And you’re an egoist.’ Silence fell. ‘Where would you go?’ It came out hushed, and sounding much more timid than he had wanted. Erik looked down in the floor and then, slowly, started approaching him. When he sat down on the bed, so that they faced each other, he still looked uncertain. I have nowhere to go.
‘I think...’ he said slowly. ‘It may have been a... rash decision.’ For a moment, a sliver of hesitation lingered, but then it went out, and Erik raised a hand. The suitcase lifted and scattered clothes over the floor. Charles laughed, and as he did so, the tears which had been in his eyes fell. Erik leaned in and kissed his cheeks, lapping at the trails they left. Then he moved so that they were nose to nose. They glanced up momentarily, the eyes so close becoming a blur of colour, before they kissed. When they broke the kiss, they kept their faces close a moment.
‘Don’t you feel like you’re caged in?’ Erik asked quietly. ‘That thing makes it difficult even to put my arm around you.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Charles sighed. ‘Budge up, then.’ Erik did, and Charles moved onto the bed. There was a few moments when they tried to figure out how they fitted together, as if the argument had made them forget, but finally they settled, Charles with his head on his chest and Erik with an arm around him.
‘I care for them as well, you know,’ Erik assured him. ‘After all, they are the beginnings of a new species as much as we are, and they will be more glorious than us, given time. I didn’t plan that class for any self-gain. I believe that they need to hear it, to strengthen them.’
‘Just don’t do it again,’ Charles asked. ‘At least not without talking to me before - and try to be a little more sensitive.’
‘The children aren’t porcelain dolls, Charles,’ Erik observed and stroked Charles’ hair.
‘It doesn’t mean you have to try to break them to prove it.’
‘There will always be things which we do not agree on,’ he observed. ‘Despite everything, I... treasure that. I think it strengthens us.’
‘And exhausts us,’ Charles said and chuckled. ‘At least we don’t smash the china. That would be pathetically domestic.’
‘No, let’s not start breaking things,’ Erik agreed.
‘You’d tear down the house,’ Charles said. ‘In all seriousness, though, I’m glad that no-one else saw us shouting at each other in the drawing room.’
‘Not the best place for it.’ They were silent for quite some time, until Charles felt himself start to drift off.
‘I’m sorry, Erik, I’m going to fall asleep here and now if I’m not careful,’ he said, propping himself up. ‘I should get back to my room...’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Erik told him and pulled him back down. ‘Stay here.’
‘But...’
‘I want you to.’ Charles sighed, resigned but very pleased. His eyelids were rapidly growing too heavy, and he surrendered, letting himself slip into oblivion.
***
The heat from the ovens hits him in waves. His hand rises. The metal tugs at him, and he at the metal. If only he can grab that sensation, he can stop all this, but he is held back, strapped down, trapped...
Charles woke with a start. Beside him, Erik was writhing and gasping, torn between sleeping and waking.
‘Erik,’ he said and pulled him closer. ‘Erik, it’s alright. Calm down. It was just a nightmare.’ As he stroked his hair, Erik’s breath grew calmer.
‘I never seem to get used to it,’ he said and drew back, rubbing the tears out of his eyes with the heel of his hand. Charles drew himself up to a sitting position, watching him with worry. ‘Did you see?’ Erik asked, voice guarded.
‘I dreamt it,’ he admitted. ‘It’s one of the things which happen when I sleep close to someone else.’
‘You’ve been seeing my dreams for two weeks?’ Erik asked. He sounded vexed, which Charles could not really blame him for.
‘I can’t control my telepathy when I’m asleep,’ he explained. ‘Besides, it’s usually fairly passive. I’m aware of them, but they’re never a strong as my own dreams. I’m sorry that I can’t seem to help to intrude.’
‘It is very like you, Charles,’ Erik sighed. ‘I am sorry that you have to see those things. For both our sakes.’ Charles reached out to cover his hand with his, and Erik looked up at him. An angel passed. Charles was just thinking of moving closer to kiss him, when a sudden knock interrupted them.
‘Erik! Erik! Wake up!’ Hank was on the other side of the door, banging it so hard it shook. ‘It’s an emergency!’ They looked at each other, surprised.
‘You’d better take that,’ Charles whispered, and Erik got up.
‘Erik! It’s important - wake up!’ Hank was still shouting when Erik made it to the door and opened it.
‘What’s the ruckus?’ From the bed, Charles could not see Hank, but he could sense his agitation. He answered so quickly that it became just a stream of words.
‘It’s the professor - he’s not in his room - he’s not in the house.’ He paused to draw a shaking breath. ‘I should have realised something was wrong! He acted so odd last night - didn’t come down to dinner, asked me to lock the doors, told me to look after the children. Jesus Christ...’
‘Hank, I think you’re overreacting,’ Erik said, sounding reasonable.
‘Don’t you see how this looks?’ Hank exclaimed. ‘Erik, we have to look for him! He could be hurt - he could be...’
Erik, move the wheelchair, Charles thought. Unblinkingly, Erik flicked his hand and the chair unlocked and rolled away from the bed. As soon as he heard the breaks click into place again, Charles shouted:
‘Hank, I’m here!’ Erik stepped away from the door, and gave Hank a clear view of the room. When he spotted the professor half-lying on the bed, his yellow eyes grew and his mouth fell open.
‘Professor!’ he exclaimed, crestfallen. ‘What... what are you doing on Erik’s bed?’
‘It’s all rather embarrassing,’ he said, giving him a charming smile as he projected a plausible cover-story into Erik’s mind. ‘Erik and I were having a late night chat...’
‘We’d had a bit to drink,’ Erik added helpfully.
‘And, well, I fell asleep,’ Charles concluded.
‘I didn’t want to wake him by taking him back to his room, so I let him sleep on my bed, and I slept in the armchair.’ Hank looked from Charles to Erik and back.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right. I’m... I’m sorry, professor.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said quickly. ‘Be a good chap and fetch me an aspirin.’
‘Sure,’ Hank said and disappeared. Erik closed the door slowly, exhaling.
‘Do you need an aspirin?’ he asked and returned to the bed to throw himself onto it beside Charles.
‘No, but it added to the impression that I was dead drunk yesterday,’ he answered, ‘which is much better than what he thought before, which seemed to be that I had gone loopy and pitched myself into the duckpond.’
‘He believed us?’ Erik asked, and when he received a nod, said: ‘Well saved.’
‘A little narrowly, though,’ Charles sighed. Hank was not stupid, and eventually, he must figure it out. They were already becoming careless.
For a moment, Charles felt the quarrel from last night hover between them, threatening to start anew. But he was intent on keeping it all together - the school, his own morals, whatever it was that he and Erik shared. In the end, he was the one to give in, letting it go in favour of domestic peace. He settled on concentrating for that which they could unite against, instead of the things they disagreed on, trying to push the disappointment in himself to one side.
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