Title: The Road Less Travelled

Author: Milliecake

Fandom: X-Men: First Class

Category: Angst/Adventure

Rating: T

Warnings: AU, bromance (new word of the month!) possibly slashy (I've been told) lots of spoilers for the end of the movie, including shameless dialogue theft

Disclaimer: Do not own, but if I did I'd make a sequel. And possibly make them do naughty things. For box office ratings.

Summary: What if Charles had been at Erik's side during the final confrontation with Shaw, would history be irrevocably changed?

Author's Notes: Currently this ends at, well, the end, as there's some other XFC stories I'd like to explore. XFC DvD and Blueray out in Sept!

OoOoO

Irrevocable, funereal silence. The solemn closing of a door. Then, bizarrely, laughter errupting from the one remaining source of thought.

Charles, within Shaw's mind, curled his lip in furious resentment and it was Shaw's laughter, who had clapped wunderbar! to Erik, his protege. Shaw who still laboured under the illusion that Erik, the prodigal son, had finally come home. He didn't yet realise what Erik intended, what terrible thing Charles had only but glimpsed within his friend's mind.

Charles tried to take a faltering step towards Erik, to tear loose that detestable helm, but felt his hold on Shaw abruptly begin to slide and he quickly stilled himself, realising that physically he was in as much a captive as Shaw was. He had trapped them both.

"Don't do this Erik!" Frustration tore at the words. Sounding them aloud cost him too as it became less and less likely he would have the power to wipe Shaw before Erik took his vengeance. He just needed time.

Erik disregarded him, as if the helm were keeping out not just thoughts, but all else. Watching through Shaw's wide eyes, he saw Erik slowly pace towards the man he had once known as Schmidt, an unconscious imitation of his enemy's earlier movements. He came to stop just inside Shaw's reaching hand, the immobile palm almost a parody of a caress against his face.

His voice dropped, adopting those same, soft, intimate tones as he regarded the other man, strangely earnest. "If you're in there I'd like you to know I agree with every word you said. We are the future."

And Shaw exulted.

You see, boy, Shaw's voice was a reptilian whisper, slithering over Charles' thoughts and trailing corruption in its wake. It's inevitable. We will rule this world. Release me. Join me. An insubstantial hand was proffered across his psyche and Charles sensed with shock that Shaw was sincere.

Shaw was a man who had come into his mutation so very long ago, who had seen his powers, his immortality, as gifts not to aid, but to destroy and plunder and take, as a child that knows no consequences. He envisioned himself once more, adulated as a god among gods. Standing at his right hand was Erik Lensherr.

And at his left, Charles Xavier. The most feared and adored of them all.

You fool, Charles savagely thought back, twisting away from imagery that a man like Shaw believed seductive, feeling the other mutant's anger surge at his refusal

Shaw shook at the bars of the cage Charles had errected with such force a bead of sweat broke out, rolled down features already damp with a strain and a focus that was slowly fraying under the effort. Shaw pushed at Charles' control with the same brute force of his powers and it was by sheer dint of stubborn will that Charles refused to crumple.

"But," and suddenly Erik was turning away, turning his back on the one he had named creator, his voice strangely, disturbingly flat, "unfortunately you killed my mother."

Charles felt that first real flash of uncertainty run through his captive, a feeling that was old, aberrant.

Sebastian Shaw was a man who had not known fear in a very long time.

An image of a Jewish woman, gaunt, respectful, fearful, whispering alles ist gute, the same gentle woman from Erik's memory celebrating the sabbath in the Warsaw ghetto. The crack of a bullet in a quiet office made Charles jump, then...ineffable sadness. A boy began to weep.

Erik, still this? Shaw clucked, sounding...disapproving. She was nothing. A means to an end. And look where it has brought you, how far you have come!

The thoughts were despicable, those of a murderer who had executed a harmless woman for his own selfish ends. Shaw's regard for humanity was nothing more than a heaving mass of weak flesh, to be used and discarded at will for his purpose and pleasure, broken, eradicated. Charles had no intention of relaying the sickening message to Erik, no intention of hastening the horror he could see fast approaching them all.

Brought before Shaw's riveted eyes was a coin, the silver Reichsmark innocuous enough yet its meaning...tremendous. Charles felt himself press the freshly minted metal into a child's hand, knew it for one of Shaw's memories and not his own.

Charles had seen that coin, albeit rarely. The banned symbol, the stolen wealth and suffering and death behind its creation, he hadn't needed to ask Erik why he carried such an abombinable item. He had witnessed all too clearly in terrible memories the damage that single coin had done.

"This is what we're going to do." Erik's face was blank, impassive, as unreadable as his mind.

Shaw had suddenly fallen silent. Watching.

"No. Please Erik no." Charles managed to bite out the words, his mind torn between his own and Shaw's, knowing what was coming. A heinous act.

And Erik...Erik was to make a murderer of him.

"If I were to release him..." Charles threatened, through trembling lips, chest heaving with the effort of containing Shaw, legs barely holding him now as he pressed his fingers so hard into his skin he knew there would be bruises.

Erik did pause at this, washed out eyes sliding to the side but never quite reaching Charles' strained, dishevelled features. After a moment, "No. You won't." That same, soft, dead tone.

And he was right. Goddamn him, he was right. If it were only Charles' own life at stake...

But it was more than that, much more. The threat of nuclear war, nuclear winter, genocide, hung over billions of lives.

"I'm going to count to three and I'm going to move the coin," Erik continued, in that same detached voice. The coin floated upwards from his hand. "One."

Shaw raged. He threw himself against Charles' mind, furious, battling against the young mutant's grip, the mental restraints that bound him to an phantasmal chair of execution.

"Please Erik." The tumbling plea was near broken, shuddery and breathless, but it was all that Charles had left as tears sprang to his eyes at his friend's cold, merciless disregard. Don't do this.

Without his powers, Shaw could be killed as easily as a cockcroach. But this method...it would destroy any goodness within Erik. It would destroy Charles.

His entreaty fell on a hardened heart of iron.

Shaw was still fighting him, fighting for his life, but the whispers in his mind were begging, cajoling. You don't want to do this, son, and Charles couldn't be sure if the words were aimed at Erik or himself. He saw images of power and wealth, skyscrapers of towering metal and human slaves bent in worship, the telepath Emma Frost, Charles himself, naked, beaten and broken amongst crumpled sheets of red. Shaw's desperate bribes, constructs of degradation and hedonistic gratification flashed through Charles' mind, thankfully too fast to gain anything but a glimpse of Sebastian Shaw's sickening promises as the megalomaniac came slowly came undone.

Shaw could offer anything humanly possible and more. Everything except the one thing he had taken.

Erik's mother.

And Charles could see all too clearly that in just one instance of freedom Shaw would direct his power at the telepath, would destroy him in a searing instant, then unleash his might upon an unsuspecting world.

And Erik...Erik would know the wrath of a god.

"Two."

Charles tensed, fought to breathe through his silent struggle, feeling the hideous anticipation of agony within each heaving shudder. And then the coin was slowly spiralling towards him, a captive within Shaw's body, a witness through the condemned man's eyes. This was to be no quick, easy death.

His mantra Don't do this Erik, had turned to a plaintive, How can you do this? But neither thought would ever reach his friend.

Didn't Erik realise what this would do to Charles?

Caught between minds, unable to relinquish Shaw to his own fate, Charles could only prepared himself, his own body braced. He would not be spared the agony, he had no choice but to experience, and become both victim and murderer in one gruesome, drawn out act. And with each breath he drew, each brief inhalation like a man about to feel the water close over his head, he hated Erik.

In that moment, he hated him with every fibre of his being.

"Three."

As the silver Reichsmark pressed through his/Shaw's thin flesh, began to grind through bone, Charles could only open his mouth and scream.

OoOoO

The scream was not Shaw's.

Erik blinked, the sound pricking at the cold, indifferent shell that had crystallized about him. He had imagined this moment for so long, the satisfaction, the triumph of long awaited justice finding its mark. But watching Shaw die by these means, by the very same power the man had caused him to bring forth, Erik Lensherr felt only emptiness.

And a familiar pain, one that had shadowed him since his mother's death, its presence ever a constant, even now. He knew then, in that moment, it would never leave him.

Shaw was not screaming. In fact his face was marbled flesh, eyes wide. The shock in them would be indelibly etched into Erik's memory.

Once passed the bone, the coin slipped more easily, with an unpleasant wet suction that did not move Erik, did not bring him satisfaction.

The scream continued, raw and hard, the agony within resounding uncomfortably against Erik's ears, attempting to distract him from the moment.

There was no pleasure to be found in this, no peace, no relief. Just...finality. He would never be that boy again. He would never be weak, never be at the mercy of those who would do him and his kind harm.

But the scream...

Unwittingly, Erik's glance flicked to his right. A man in yellow and black, hair unkempt, mouth wide, taunt and screaming, his entire body arched in a rictus of agony.

Listen to me very carefully my friend. Killing Shaw will not bring you peace.

The coin slowed.

There's so much more to you than you know, not just pain and anger. There's good too, I felt it.

And faltered.

You're not alone. Erik, you're not alone.

Then stopped.

Charles...

His glacial composure suddenly shattered, dispassion evaporating under a terrible realisation and Erik swung towards his friend, fists clenching, abandoning Shaw without a moment's consideration.

"Charles," he said, uselessly, unable to raise his voice beyond an unsteady whisper. "What have I done..." Had he been so utterly blinded by his anger and pain that he had not seen, not fully realised what his actions would do to the younger man? "Charles, forgive me," he tried to say, but Charles had not ceased to scream, eyes blind and unseeing, full of suffering and pain, enough for an entire lifetime.

In sudden comprehension, Erik realised his transgression, an unforgivable act. One committed against a good man, a decent man, who had shown him nothing but kindness and trust. Charles had been inside Shaw's head as Erik had slowly executed the man. And Shaw still hung as a marionette, which meant Charles was even now holding onto him, still trapped in the horror of feeling a man die.

Erik looked into a pair of blue eyes turned black with torment and grabbed his friend's arms with enough force to leave bruises, resisting the urge to shake him. "Stop. Charles stop!" He had no experience with the telepath's gift, no idea how to break him from the link he had with Shaw's dying mind. He grasped the back of Charles' head, pressing their foreheads together, as if he could force his thoughts into his friend's tortured mind, then realised its futility when he recalled what separated them.

The helmet.

The scream came to a faltering, juddering halt. But there was still no recognition in Charles' eyes, the pupils unseeing, dilated, distress swallowing their colour, lips curled in a grimace, his face twisted in a pain that roiled off him like waves. He was still trapped within a hell Erik had consigned him to, where the trauma was slowing driving him to insanity.

Erik released him, took a steadying breath, then struck out, letting his instincts make the decision. His fist connected sharply with the younger man's lower jaw, snapping his head to the side. In an instant, Erik was at his side to catch him, lower him no less gently than he had on the Blackbird, the older man desperately cupping Charles' face to the light, searching his friend's eyes for a semblance of reason.

Behind them, Shaw's body dropped in a tangle of unresponsive limbs, a grotesque puppet whose strings had finally been severed.

Erik's relief was palpable as he felt Charles' gloved fingers curl around his wrists in slight strength. A sudden heaving breath as if it were the telepath's first, that familiar furrowed brow, a tincture of azure beneath tousled hair...

"Forgive me, my friend," Erik whispered once more and bowed his head. He had done a great many things which would cause other men to falter under the weight of the guilt, but never since the death of his mother, his failure to save her, had he felt such shame.

But then Charles was batting against him, struggling with wild cat fury and Erik released him as if scalded, jerking his hands away, palms outward to show he meant no harm. But Charles wasn't fighting him. He was grappling for the helmet, gloved fingers digging under the sharp corners in as he furiously tried and failed to prise it from Erik's head, anguished tears clouding the blue of his eyes at each futile attempt.

Erik firmly caught his wrists, stopped his frantic movements, aware of unshed tears obscuring his own vision. Then he carefully reached up and removed the offence himself.

Charles' hand flew to his own temple, his presence in Erik's head instantaneous thereafter, but with a heavy heart Erik realised the bright quality that signified the younger man's intrusions was not there.

Whatever Charles had been desperately searching for, he suddenly found and his hand fell. He slumped exhaustedly against the wall, his panicked breathing slowing, quieting, dragging a gloved hand across his cheeks to wipe away the sweat and tears. Strangely silent.

After a moment, Erik joined him, arm resting on one drawn up knee, staring across at Shaw's body, the ugly gash that oozed a trickle of blood, the wide, unseeing eyes.

Beside him, Charles ran his hands through his hair then turned his gaze heavenward, throat working as he convulsively swallowed. "He's not dead."

Erik tensed and slowly turned to regard his friend.

"I can still sense his mind," the younger mutant continued, lowly. He looked distinctly queasy as he stared fixedly at the ceiling.

The coin began to reverberate at Erik's call, awakening deep within grey matter that still fired neurons.

"His powers are no longer there. His mind, too, is...is senseless. Destroyed." Said with an almost desperate clinical detachment.

Erik didn't glance at Shaw but suddenly Charles' hand was gripping his wrist, fierce and afraid and Erik felt fine tremours through the touch. Direct and unflinching blue eyes met grey. "Schmidt, Shaw...whatever made him...is gone my friend."

Now Erik did allow himself to turn, to look again upon his enemy, the empty husk, a breathing corpse.

"Can it be enough?" was quietly, fervently demanded of him. Do you have it in you to allow this Erik?

Charles in his head, twisting his words back to him.

The shot in a quiet office was loud in Erik's memory and the coin shifted.

She wouldn't want this for you. An image of his mother, stroking his hair, smiling through severe hardships, the love that carried him through no matter the dirt on his clothes, the hungry twisting of his belly. "You can honour her memory in far better ways, my friend."

The last was said aloud with quiet affirmation. He felt Charles' desperate grip on his wrist as if a man drowning. Which of them was going under he didn't know.

It was what neither of them had wanted, had envisaged, had intended. Unsatisfactory, but an ending nonetheless. He had been right. Peace had never been an option.

Inside Shaw's brain, the silver Reichsmark remained, quivering, waiting.

Erik let it go.

END...FOR NOW