Chapter Text
Even after all this time, Erik remembers Charles’ mind.
Granted, he remembers everything about Charles, but especially his mind, warm and honey gold and brighter than anything he could remember. It was the most beautiful thing about Charles, and most things about Charles (those eyes, that smile) were beautiful to begin with, so that was saying something. It was certainly the first thing about him that Erik fell in love with.
Erik once asked what his own mind was like, and received a wholly unsurprising, “Metal.”
“But,” Charles had continued, with a smile, “No one sees metal quite like you do, my friend. It’s – fluid and utterly variable and really, completely impossible to describe.” He laughed a little at his own ineloquence, and grinned. “It’s really quite amazing.”
There are times, more often than he’d like to admit, when Erik wonders what would have happened if he had done what he wanted to that night, which was to abandon their game of chess and kiss Charles breathless: would it have changed anything, in the long run? Or would it simply have made it hurt that much more?
Emma’s mind is cool and glittering white, but what she leads him into a pale shadow of the vibrancy he had come to associate with Charles. And Erik finds himself on a familiar beach through wholly unfamiliar eyes, which is possibly the last place he wants to revisit.
Do I really need to see this? he asks – or rather, directs a thought at Emma. I was there.
You weren’t Xavier. I found it very illuminating.
Illuminating is one way to put it. Torturous might be more applicable.
Emma – or rather the shimmering essence representing Emma – focuses on him. For this brief, shining moment, I have Charles Xavier’s best interests in mind. You should probably cherish it.
She takes him through the next year, murmuring beneath the memories, You need to understand what happened. Xavier didn’t just have a mental breakdown, though he was probably due for one of those too.
It makes sense. It also doesn’t change the fact that Erik, at the moment, hates her. He hates her for making him watch Charles fall apart, hates Charles for still affecting him so much, hates himself more than anything for leaving.
They end up in a place that feels more like his mind than Charles’ ever should.
This is what he was blocking out, so he’s somewhere in there. She hesitates, for a moment, and then looks at him again. You’ll need to go in alone.
What?
I didn’t mean to come out before. I’m not sure if it’ll happen again, and if it does it’ll take you out too. She gives a shrug, or at least the impression of one. I’ll be here if you need me.
This seems like the worst idea Erik can recall hearing.
We don’t have a lot of options, and Xavier needs you. Go.
He goes.
And he had thought it hurt watching Charles fall apart.
This is so much worse; it makes him feel hollow and aching in a way he hasn’t felt in – a year – but no, that’s not true, because even before he finally killed the man that killed his mother, even before that, there was Charles, with his bright mind, and the beautiful memories Erik had forgotten he had, and the traitorous thought that perhaps peace had never been an option before simply because he hadn’t met Charles Xavier.
Because Charles had made him a better man, a stronger man, told him, “There’s so much more to you than you know”, and in that moment Erik had wanted nothing more to find out what sort of person he could become if – even just for a moment – he let himself believe in Charles’ vision of a better future without bloodshed. But Erik had been self-centered enough to think the only way someone could have such blind optimism was because they had never truly suffered, that while Charles may have seen all the worst in humanity – the darkest part of anyone’s mind – he had never honestly been touched by it.
He had thought Charles arrogant. He had thought Charles naïve.
Erik hated being wrong as much as the next man, but he had never hated it quite so much as he did right now.
It was just Charles; of course it was just Charles, stupid, beautiful Charles, who less thought he could change the world as he simply, absolutely had to try. Erik feels like he’s going to scream.
At this entire situation; it never should have happened, no fucking part of it –
– at himself, for being so blind, for hurting Charles, for leaving him –
– at Charles, for being so idiotically wonderful but incapable of asking for help, and for letting Erik leave him broken on a beach because if Erik hadn’t made himself go at that single moment, still seething with anger and power, he never would have been able to go at all.
And Erik is going to make it a point to yell at Charles eventually, but first Erik’s going to find him, and tell him he doesn’t have to be strong on his own anymore. He’s going to pull Charles out of this, and then Erik is never, ever going to leave him again, not just because Charles needs him, but because he needs Charles just as much, and they’re stronger together than they ever would be apart.
Beyond the memories (and there are so many, too many, God, Charles…), Charles’ thoughts cling to him like spider webs.
… look at yourself, what makes you think you can lead anyone, falling apart? …
… could have said anything, you could have stopped him, but you said that, you stupid, stupid man, you deserve everything that happened, everything…
… please, Erik, please don’t leave me, love you, not like this, please not like this, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…
… never understood, I was never ashamed, only scared, scared for her, because I’m a coward, not like her, my beautiful sister, they would hurt her, they would take her, best to hide until the world changed…
… only ever held her back, would only have held him back, best that they left, that they’re together and you’re alone…
And here, where it’s worst, where it crawls under his skin and makes him ache, because there is nothing but that, endless and awful because an insidious voice whispers he knows it’s true, all true –
There is Charles.
Still golden and warm, even in this place, and Erik presses forward, curls around him, within him, saying his name until it is all Charles can hear, until he realizes there is something else there, something besides his own hateful thoughts and awful memories. Erik, he whispers, clinging close. Erik, Erik, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, he says, soft and broken, and Erik wants to cry.
Charles, you don’t have anything to apologize for. The idea of artificiality is a joke. This – them, together, this is intimate in a way that makes the word seem clumsy and inadequate, and they bleed together at the edges, where they are both nothing but I love you, I missed you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s terrifying in a way that should be awful, but it’s wonderful instead, and abruptly Erik realizes why that helmet had hurt Charles so much.
There’s a shivering, breathless sigh along his nerves. Yes, Charles murmurs, and Erik feels the ache of loss, just as bad as the day Charles had watched them leave hand-in-hand, a wound deep inside that had never healed, but festered instead, until it became this blackness, because he wasn’t strong enough, because he was never strong enough –
No, Erik gasps, and somehow, impossibly, he finds a way to get even closer, pulling Charles back before he could be dragged away again. Stop, Charles, no. We’re leaving this place.
That gets Charles’ attention, and there’s a shiver of fear, No, I’ve tried, I can’t, I’m not –
You’re the strongest man I’ve ever known, Erik tells him, and he can feel Charles’ surprise at the vehemence. Even if you weren’t, Erik pulls them both away from the black, though it still drags at Charles. You’re not alone. I’m here. And I’m never going to leave you again. It’s beyond sincerity, it’s beyond a promise; it is the only possibility. Come on.
And Charles goes.
When they wake up, the memories, that horrible grasping blackness – that will still be there, and there will be no sealing it away behind walls again. And even after, Charles and Erik will still be two very different men, with very different ideas about how the world works, and what they should do to secure their future. They will be foolishly in love, incomplete without one another, but there will still be fights, probably a lot, and some of them most likely severe.
But when they wake up, it will be together. And that’s exactly how it should be.