With Erik, it has always been about keeping control.

Charles is at the bar, talking to a woman. Objectively, she's quite pretty, Erik is not so blind that he can't see that much. She has long brown hair that falls down her back and when she laughs- which is often- it moves from side to side like a windscreen wiper.

Erik would put his face in his hands if he wasn't in public. You were meant to compare women to summer days, he thinks bitterly, not windscreen wipers.

He takes another swig of his drink. It's something vaguely amber-brown, and thankfully strong. Charles had bought it for him when they entered the bar; as a sort of an apology Erik reasons, for abandoning him for the nearest woman the second he could.

Erik doesn't blame him. They spend enough time together- an endless cycle of mornings driving, finding the mutants, the constant stream of thanks-but-no-thanks from people who would prefer to be ordinary, and then they'd fall back into the nearest shitty motel and play chess. It's not like he's bored of this life, but he can understand how Charles would be. Charles went to University and spent his days with the brightest, most intelligent of them. Charles is a telepath and craves voices and light and warmth.
Erik gives him none of those things.

Charles leaves with the woman a little while later, throwing a wave to Erik as they go. She stumbles in a way that lets Charles hold her, support the small of her back with his hand. They are strangers and yet that is more contact than Erik and Charles have shared in the last few months. Erik continues drinking.

He is left alone for the night. He doesn't have to be a telepath to know that people are wary of him, that he sends off 'that' vibe. Sometimes 'that' vibe is merely a hint of danger, enough so that people still find it appealing, but tonight there is nothing attractive about the way he glowers at everyone and no-one in particular. He goes through glass after glass of vodka and coke- he's not so unaware of his surroundings that he would consider drinking vodka straight in a nice place like this- and the glasses litter his table like little translucent friends. No one has dared come by his table and pick them up, even though the service here seems to be generally good. He doesn't consider it a coincidence that in the constellation of tables that are dotted throughout the bar, his is the only one ignored, as if people are too afraid to go near the black-hole lest they be ripped to shreds by its very presence.

When Erik stands to get another drink he realises with a shock that he is drunk. This shouldn't be surprising but it is- he's disgusted by his actions, disgusted that the fact that Charles is cheerfully having sex right now with a delightful woman has driven him to this. Erik does not like being drunk. He sees it as a loss of control.

It is only when he reaches the motel that he realises that Charles might have brought his woman back to their room, that he may have presumed Erik would find another warm bed to stay in tonight. This may be the etiquette; Erik doesn't know, how is he supposed to know about these things?
He knocks lightly on the motel door, and then feels foolish and opens it. The room is dark and empty.

It could be have been worse. They could have been here and that would have been terrible.
It could be better, a small part of his whispers, the part he had tried to drown in vodka. Charles could be here, alone, smiling and saying that he'd walked the woman home but he wasn't in the mood and came back here instead and did Erik fancy a game of chess?
Erik cannot stand this part of him. He has stood in a camp where men have been marched into showers and gassed and burned because they too had little voices like that, and they had listened to theirs. Erik is all about control, and he does not listen to his demon.

They play chess the next night instead of going out. There's no table and chairs in this tiny motel room so they have put the travel chess board in the middle of Charles' bed. Charles lounges back against the pillows. His hair is wet from the shower and he is in clean clothes. It is obscene and yet not at all, really there should be nothing anyways remarkable about the image, and yet there is. Erik is highly aware of so many things; the hum of the metal bedsprings beneath him, grounding him; the way Charles rubs the pieces already conquered between his fingers and thumb as he considers his next move; the way Erik always chooses black because it just seems so fitting, because he is rotten and wrong to his core and Charles is not, Charles is white and pure and disgustingly beautiful. He is aware too that Charles is a telepath, and that all these musings are probably being listened in on, that Charles is probably laughing at Erik right now - mutant, jewish and gay? you got dealt a terribly unlucky hand my friend- he'd say with a smile that didn't reach his piercing blue eyes.

Erik tries to focus on the chess game. Somehow Charles has eaten through all of his perfectly lined defences, shields that have worked for him all his life, and now his King is nearly naked on the board, at Charles' mercy. Erik does not want to consider how this mirrors their real-life situation.

He feels sick, absolutely sick to his stomach and for a second he loses his careful control and the bedsprings lurch upwards, spilling their chess game all over the bed.

"How strange," Charles says, unreasonably calm as usual, and Erik is nearly sure that he is mocking him but not enough so he can call him out on it.

"Well I'm sure I can remember where they all were" Charles continues and begins to pick up the pieces methodically.

"No need," Erik says, pushing himself off the bed. He can almost feel the bedsprings' relief. "I'm going out."

"Out?" Charles echoes rather stupidly, and Erik considers that maybe, just maybe Charles hasn't been listening to his thoughts after all if he is caught by surprise by this. "Do you want me to join you?"

"No thank you" Erik says smoothly but coldly, steel in his voice and in his heart. "Don't wait up."

He sees a glimpse of Charles' face as he leaves the room, and an expression rarely seen on the other man's face, the one he wears when a mutant turns down their offer. Disappointment.

Erik has seen men burn because they felt what he feels for Charles, and Erik burns too; burns although the last camp is an empty shell now, burns although they do not kill you for feeling this way, not anymore, not outright.

He lurches into their shared room that night at an unreasonable hour. He had had difficulty getting the key in, but when he'd tried the handle, the room was unlocked. Such was Charles, leaving the door open for him, a silent way of saying welcome back. Charles was open as a church door at times, but that was easy for him because he had nothing to hide and no one could read his mind anyway.

Erik thinks that he should tell Charles how it is, how he feels, and then perhaps it would be easier. Even if Charles said sorry but I do actually like women you see, at least it would be out in the air, at least he wouldn't always be afraid of Charles stumbling upon a stray thought and finding out.

He should have told him then, but instead he thinks the other way. What if, he thinks, there was a way to block Charles? He considers Shaw's helmet and sees it as the only way. Because telling Charles would mean being at Charles' mercy, and Erik cannot have that. Having the helmet would let his mind be only his own. It is the only way to regain a semblance of power.

(Years later he considers the helmet, and the distance it has created between them. Charles would never have mocked me, he realises. Charles Xavier, the promoter of peace and understanding, belittle someone? But it is too little too late now, and he keeps the helmet, because now it is no longer about simply hiding a truth from Charles but stopping Charles mind-controlling him into backing down. Which they both know he would if Erik took off the helmet. It is too late now.)

ii.

Darwin had been one of their easiest recruits. He had smiled when they'd given him the offer and said he'd drive all the way to the base, no problem, that they could leave now.
Charles had had doubts. "What about your parents?" he'd asked, even though he probably shouldn't. "Will you not want to tell them you're leaving, say goodbye?"

Darwin had spun around from the driver's seat with a confident smile though his thoughts were nothing but hard and painful, tendrils that stung at Charles even though he wasn't actively looking for them.

"My parents? They won't even notice I'm gone," he said, and his thoughts formed back into a smiling mess that said with my power, what's the worst that can happen anyway?

Charles leaned forward, his seatbelt digging into him, about to protest. This could be dangerous, more so than the boy understood; and it was foolish to rely on his power the way he did. Charles saw it in the boy's mind - he thought he was invulnerable, invincible. Charles felt the need to say something more but Erik looked at him pointedly. All teenagers think they're invincible Charles. We have a long time to train him out of it.

(After Darwin died they went to his house. Charles was ashamed that they had never been there; that they had never asked his mother for her blessing before taking her son away and not keeping him safe. Why had they listened to the easy confidence of a boy?

She brought them in and made them tea and Erik didn't touch his but Charles did, he drank three cups and listened to this woman and her story. He felt they owed her that much.

Darwin had struck him as an unusually apt name and she had smiled when he'd asked, and told them with tears in her eyes that Darwin had nearly died as a baby, that the doctors had said there was no chance, but he had survived, and that Darwin just seemed right after that. My survivor, she'd thought, the grief so raw and fresh in her mind that Charles could not drown it out. My baby Darwin.)

iii.

Erik stands below, his eyes closed. He had refused to let Charles' blindfold him, but even this was a step.

Charles and the students are leaning out various windows. Charles holds up three fingers, then two, then one. He smiles in spite of himself.

Raven throws first, lobbying a coin at Erik. It hits him in the small of his back, and he rubs the spot but doesn't complain.
"Try and sense the metal and stop it before it hits you Erik!" Charles shouts from above, and then Sean hurls a pillow out the window. It smacks off Erik's head and his eyes snap open.
"There wasn't even any metal in that," he complains.
"It's pay back for throwing me off the roof!" Sean shouts back.

This is the kind of moment where Charles fears Erik will storm off and refuse to go on, but to his surprise Erik smiles and closes his eyes again. The students keep throwing things, with perhaps too much relish. Knives and forks, anything metal. Charles' mother would have fainted to see the good silverware being dropped out a window. This is why this particular exercise is so much fun.

When it's all over Charles walks down to where Erik is standing, various metal objects surrounding him like a silver halo.
"You did well today Erik," he says.
"But?" Erik says, glancing up at him.
"But by the end, even when you got the knack of deflecting them, you were just pushing them away from you."
Erik looks at him blankly. "So?"
"So if anyone was standing near you they could have got hurt. I'd like to see you be able to drop the objects mid-flight, instead of deflecting them. It is harder but I have faith you can do it."
"Tomorrow, maybe," Erik says.
Charles doesn't push it. It's difficult enough to get Erik to train at all, and really quite daunting to give the man criticism, even if it is deserved.

(When Moira shoots at Erik on the beach, Erik deflects the bullets because Charles had never got a chance to teach him to drop them, to make sure they weren't going to harm anyone else either. Erik pushes them away from himself because like Darwin, his instinct is survival. Charles knows that Erik never even considers that anyone else could have got hurt, but he did, and they can't change that. He never acknowledges it with Erik, never blames him, not truly, but like that training day Erik sees it as criticism, only this time he will not hear it. Erik thinks that Charles blames him for not being selfless, for not thinking about the team instead of just himself, which isn't quite true. Erik has been defending himself, and just himself for so long that Charles knows it wasn't anything but instinct. And yet Erik perceives it as criticism, as there being blame where really there is only sadness, and this drives them even further apart).

iv.

Raven walks away from Hank's lab and the poison, the poison in the needle and the poison in his words. She thinks that is too late to save Hank from his internalised hatred- he has never had a chance- but she can still save herself.

Once upon a time Charles had accepted Raven's mutation, and that little detail means she has not always hated her blue-skin, even if she is uncomfortable with it these days. Even now, Erik - usually so unemotional, uncomplimentary- tells her how unconditionally beautiful as she is, just as her blue-skinned and yellow-eyed self. It is easier for her to refuse the injection because of these reasons.

She believes in personal choice though, and she lets Hank make up his own mind.

(Sometimes she thinks of what would have happened had she taken the injection as well. She is already blue. What further damage could it have done, truly?

The so-called cure took timid little Hank and turned him into a blue, hairy thing. The others call him Beast and Erik actually thinks it's an improvement. But Raven knows that Hank doesn't agree, that if he hated his feet he must hate everything now, and isn't Hank's the opinion that should matter here?

Raven left him make up his mind but sometimes she wishes she hadn't. For his sake, she wishes she tried harder to convince him, like others had done with her. She wishes she had told him that he was beautiful, even with his feet, because even if Hank learns to accept the way he is now, he will never think that he is beautiful, or that he too is worthy of love.)

v.

Sean hero-worships Charles. Most of the children do- after all, he is the man who took them from their boring, average lives, and made them into something expectational. Even Erik has succumbed to it, because that is Charles, making people fall in love with him and trust him and follow him without him even realising.

Erik only first began to notice it when he saw how willing Sean was to jump off a roof, just because Charles said it would be okay. Erik had wanted to say I know Charles seems like a hero kid, but that doesn't mean he won't let you down. He's human after all.

Erik had pushed Sean off the roof for more than just the kick of it - it was an attempt to try and teach the kid a lesson- that you can't just trust people this easily, that some day they'll just let you down- even though he had had a firm grip on the metal in Sean's buckle nonetheless.

But Sean is still willing to be tested on and examined whenever Charles or Hank ask, and it's all fine now when it's just those two fooling around, making people specialised suits, but not everyone will have such high morals. Erik wants to tell Sean to make sure he knows what he's getting into, but Erik isn't eloquent and doesn't know how to say it without sounding paranoid, without insulting to Charles, and so he says nothing.

(Years later, when Erik is locked in his plastic prison and Charles' school is shut down, Sean is one of the first mutants to be experimented on by Trask.
Erik finds out afterwards that Sean had volunteered for the program, that he had probably thought it would be something like Charles' school. Raven tells Erik about the pictures, the corpses and the post-mortems.
Erik thinks that maybe if he had thought the kid a sharper lesson, if during all of Charles' training he had sat them down and taught them about trust, then maybe this wouldn't have happened.
Sean shouldn't have worshipped any of them. They all let the kid down.)