Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind.

Author: lore_liee
Rating: PG-13 (one tiny cuss word but it's so hidden it beggers belief.)
Pairing: Erik Lensherr/Charles Xavier (XMen First Class)
Word Count: 2,962
Summary: Telepathic chess and a conversation that been on the horizon for too long.

A/N: Truly must stop writing angst. Every time I try and write something happy, it becomes extremely (at least to me) OOC and that just isn't something I approve of. So have some more angst while I try and solve my OOC issue. Apparently, despite how much I adore them, I cannot approve of their happiness. It appears that they need to be miserable. I'm such a cruel author. However, through sheer willpower and an unforeseen ending, this may just be a rather happy ending resulting in an AU story for me. (Goes off singing Take That in joy...) Although, part of this is inspired by Erik as played by Ian McKellen at the end of XMen 3: The Last Stand. If you haven't seen that, it truly doesn't matter, but some of that performance particularly at the end of the film spurred on some of my thoughts for this. It might not be obvious but that's not the point (if this is AU then XMen 3 didn't happen). I just know that that's the case.

I sent this to my beautiful beta and she understood it so I'm hoping it's not as crazy complicated as I felt it was when I wrote it. Please, god, please, let me know if it is.

The quote for the title is by a chess player called Bobby Fischer and I thought it was weirdly appropriate for these two men.

As always, if you don't like this, don't read it. I don't appreciate flaming in any shape or form. I do however welcome any constructive criticism, or positive comments. If this isn't your cup of tea, turn away now and go and watch something else, make a coffee, read a different story – don't hurt me. I write this for the pleasure of others, not for the pain of myself.

PS. I adore favourites, reviews... like any writer. It's nice to hear what you think. However, I know from myself that I hold you under no obligation to leave them. Do what you prefer and I will be happy regardless. Just knowing you are reading it is a nice enough feeling.

Like countless nights before, sleep escaped Charles Xavier again as he lay in his bed, staring idly at the ceiling. His brain was teeming with voices from all the nearby students but not a single voice interested him. He tried to blank out the dreams and errant thoughts floating around his mind but he couldn't as when he tried to block the noise inside his brain -"...scream and you'll fly. Psh, like he has ever flown, the... ", "...maybe if I alter the ratio of nucleic acids to cell space..."-, he thought of the one person he refused to even consider.

Accidentally then, his mind started to reach out for him, the familiar, comforting head of one Erik Lensherr, otherwise known as Magneto, leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants and owner of one hell of an infuriating helmet. If his disability had allowed it, Charles would have rolled over and screamed in his pillow without once thinking of the slightly female connotations. Regardless, he couldn't reach out that far from his bed in Westchester, New York. According to Hank, Eri- Magneto was last spotted in Peru. Without Cerebro, Charles couldn't hope to find him even with the helmet.

Then, his mind wandered to thoughts and memories of his once beloved sister, Raven. Once in a while, her thoughts would cross his path - never words but emotions of concern and worry. He always thought about selfishly asking her about Erik but never could. He never wanted her to realise the extent of his pathetic pining.

He knew then that sleep was a long way off and instead just began to project his own frustrations subconsciously as he counted the marks in the ceiling. Suddenly, he felt the edge of his reach brush against a familiar place of anger, rage and affection. He suddenly desperately tried to strain his telepathy, pushing the tendrils of his brain as far as he could. But, furiously, frustratingly, he felt the mind slipping away.

" No!" he screamed uselessly, projecting the thought around his mind and reaching hopelessly around for someone, anyone to answer him. The fingertips of his telepathy flailed frantically for something to cling to but came up short every time, trying to grasp anything.

" You're not pushing yourself, Charles. If you don't practice what you preach, well then, it just isn't worth us trying, is it?" came the final response from a mind on the periphery of his telepathy. Charles roamed in the direction of the voice and found the mind of the man he had thought he'd never feel again.

" Erik?" he questioned tentatively feeling stupid when it so clearly was.

" The very same. What are you doing up so late, Charles? Playing chess into the night are you now?"

"Never played chess quite the same, my friend. Not since... well, Cuba."

"How about we play now? Oddly enough, I have a set just here and I know you will. You even had one in Raven's room and she didn't know a pawn from a rook."

"White or black?" For fear of angering him, Charles just began setting up the pieces on the board nearest his desk. Instead of listening to his protesting heart, he allowed himself to indulge in this moment. He was a true glutton for punishment.

"Dare I need answer?"

"Pawn to e4." So, the game commenced. Besides the movement of pieces, they barely spoke of anything. Charles had questions bubbling on his tongue but he hid them behind a large metal door in his mind to avoid the pain of the inevitable end of this connection.

"I always thought you were intelligent, Charles. I can see that door you know," Erik's lilting Irish laugh swirled around the door and pressed heavily, trying to get in.

" Why don't you have your helmet on? By the way, knight to c5." The first of many questions.

A pause began to stretch out across the desert of their minds. As Charles started to panic that it had broken and he couldn't feel it anymore, an answer ghosted past, "I missed you. I see your X-Men enough but I never see you. So I thought I would see how you were doing. I realised, rather foolishly, I'll admit that I didn't know if you were still looking for me. I naturally cannot make you look or predict if you are, I just had to hope you would be. Fortunately for me, you were. Oh and pawn to c5. That was silly, friend."

" Silly isn't in my vocabulary, Erik. Rook to b1, check. I always think about looking out for you, but you need to be close and you need to have the helmet off. I realised early on the odds of those two events coinciding were slim."

" King to e2. It was spur of the moment, I can guarantee you that. I just... are there days when you wonder if you've made a huge mistake in your life? Like you're living a life based on a decision you made in a second?"

Charles sat, his hand hovering over the chess pieces and his mind whirring. Instead of lying himself out there, vulnerable and naive, he decided to push Erik further. This friendship, partnership, brotherhood rested with Erik because it was he who chose his life, never Charles. Diplomatically, he responded, "this doesn't sound like you, my friend. Bishop to h6. Also, for your information, my life was decided by a choice - but not one that I made."

" Ah, the crux. We are both miserable yet I am the one with the brunt of the problem. You see, I can change my decision but ultimately we will never be happy. Pawn to f5. I will, could, would, shall destroy you. We'd spiral into a pit of misery and despair because we could never be content. However, is that possible future enough to cancel out the happiness we would have in the interim period? While waiting for the burning of Rome, shouldn't we bask in the riches and then light the fire? I just don't know, Charles."

" Are you asking me my opinion, telling me the future like a quack with a crystal ball or dangling possibilities in front of me to take them away again later? Cruelty to others yes, but to me, old friend? That wasn't something I imagined. Pawn to f5."

" I'm tired. I'm tired of fighting with no end. I'm tired of hunting with no drive. I'm tired of being alone when I know how easily I, myself, can fix that."
"I can sense the 'but' a mile away even without my telepathy," Charles jokes to stop his beating heart which is threatening to betray his thoughts and hope for the impossible.

"I care for the Brotherhood but when they fight and fail, it feels more like a service, a duty, rather than a great loss to me. I've seen death at so many hands, my own, others where it has been both warranted and unwarranted. I've seen the death of innocents and bastards and yet I cannot bring myself to truly care for anyone if they died. Yet, you Charles. You're a loophole I never foresaw. When I felt that bullet enter your body, the metal ricocheting off my hand, it was as if my stomach collapsed. How do you explain that? The prospect of being with you lights a foreign joy inside of me and you are the solution to a problem I didn't know I had. Loneliness is devastating but I didn't know that until I wasn't anymore. Yet, in a war where neither side shows signs of winning, dare I take something so fragile that I could lose? Living without you but knowing you're alive is painful but manageable. To have you and lose you, either at my own hands or another's? I don't know how to grieve such a loss. I've done it once and I daren't try again. Such a conundrum. Rook to a4. Also, our view points are too different. I want to fight a war that makes me tired, and feels endless. You want to educate in a world that is tired and limited. I'd lose you for that and that's heartbreaking enough. I say again, we'd destroy each other as much as someone else could destroy us. Maybe we are better as we are, managing but barely."

Charles lay back in the chair, unable to speak let alone think clearly. He had no answer, neither of them did. They were stupid, young fools determined to achieve world peace in two madly different ways. Apart, they were wonderful in their fields but together, they would be unstoppable, driven by love, adoration and desire. Yet, they would need to change. Something neither of them was ready for, too headstrong in the face of power.

" My friend, you have the answer. You have always had the answer. Yet through fear and rage, you daren't look for it. I have told you before, there is goodness in you which you deny. War will never be the answer because human nature dictates it so. I hold my head high and say that neither is education as they are too stubborn to listen. But by protecting the new generation of mutants, by educating them, we together can show the world truly how to be the better men. We can help them prepare for a world of tolerance we might not see in our own lifetimes. The cards, the chess pieces, the words, I place them in your hands, Erik. What you, we, do next is entirely up to you. I am where I always have been, always where I shall stay. This home has, like it was that day, always been yours as much as mine. Bishop to e3 and check mate."

With that, Charles shut the door in his mind, placed his own metal shield around his thoughts to prevent him trying to look for Erik and pondered truly what had happened. It felt complete, as if they'd finally closed a chapter in their lives. Yet, conversely, something felt new, and fresh. Charles rolled back over to his bed and heaved himself up to lie down again. He stared at the ceiling, and with thoughts of chess pieces, he drifted into an exhausted sleep.

Days passed and Charles didn't hear from Erik again. He spent most nights with his defences down and searching the area for that familiar mind. After a week had passed, with a heavy heart, he decided to give up. There appeared to be no reason to waste any more time on a future that would never happen. He now needed to focus on his students, helping them to be the best that they could be and forget about a dalliance that would never come to reality.

That thought made his lungs increase several sizes while his throat shrunk. Air became impossible and his heart beat double time as his hope, the hope he'd desperately tried to avoid, swallowed him whole and threatened to choke him. His mind flashed red, the angriest red as his telepathy flailed out longingly, irately. He slammed his hands to the table and gripped onto the wood uselessly, his fingers sliding off.

Suddenly, the door to the study began to vibrate madly. The metal hinges started melting and the door handles shook wildly. Charles stared worryingly at the door. His mind had officially snapped.

The doors flew open and there stood Erik Lensherr, his helmet on his head. He was dressed like he always had been; simple slacks and a black turtleneck. Charles stared, his eyes shot wide, but slowly, his breathing returned to normal as he drunk in the sight of the man stood in the doorway.

"I will take the helmet off if you promise to leave my mind alone," Erik spoke, smiling.

"It is not a promise I can always keep but it's a promise that I can try to," Charles said as he gripped the armrests of his wheelchair.

It appeared though that Erik found the answer satisfactory as he reached up and lifted the metal helmet from his head. Charles felt the familiar brush of his mind on the periphery but he refrained from getting too close.

"You've become more forthright since last we spoke, Charles. I didn't expect that reaction from you," Erik's smile weakened.

"I was told on a beach in Cuba that someone wanted me by their side and then left me with two legs that didn't work. It affects the way you see the world," Charles responded wryly.

"I told you then and I told you recently, two different view points. You said it yourself."

"Then I ask you again, why are you here?"

"A fool's errand."

"If you are here to leave me again, after saying things that frankly, confuse and derailed me, the door is where it has always been. Don't let it slam, the wood is old and I've done a good job so far keeping it pristine even with uncontrollable mutants around and I would like it to remain thusly."

"You see, I'm not sure if I am to leave you. I don't lie. I didn't lie. I'm not done with this, us. I can live without you, yes but I might be over that now, as long as I can be sure I won't lose you, which I am not. I am however weary of the life of bloodshed I have chosen. I fear I am becoming the man I despised and that is frightening. You spend so many years following someone hellbent on their death because they are a bloodthirsty killer responsible for the loss of people you hold dear and then you become the heir to their legacy? That was never something I anticipated."

"You, my friend, are complicated. My life is simple and this, this confusion? I don't need it. I can't need it. Most importantly, I don't understand. I'm trying to understand if you are telling me that you're here for me, or not."

"I have come to ask for your forgiveness. I have to come to ask if maybe, after all this time, it's okay for me to stop running and be here with you."

Charles looked at his hands gripping the chair and then looked up at Erik's face, so open and honest, more like Erik and less like Magneto.

"What is to stop you leaving again? As I've told you before, I've seen inside your head. You never stay around for very long and what is going to keep you here in Westchester when you get bored or when you feel hungry for a fight again? You will be giving up so much to stay here. I just, I can't believe it."

Erik walked forward and put his hands open on the table, "you can look into my head, Charles. Do it. You'll always see what's coming, what's happened, what I say to be true. You'll know before I know whether I'm going to leave. You'll be ahead of me and that is the only gift I can give you."

"I can't help but feel I'm falling in a hole of deceit and hurt."

"If I knew you were over this, over us, I'd give my campaign up, but I never lied. I want you by my side, and being apart from you has just confirmed that. I give you all the chess pieces back."

"How can I be over us when you fascinate me more than anyone I've ever known?"

"I've been hoping that that would be the case."

Charles chose then to take control and lay his heart onto the table, open and vulnerable. For it to break now would be soul destroying but better than living with Erik and losing him later, "You ever leave and that is it, you will never be allowed back. I won't take it, I can't take it. I'm not done with this but if you decide that you are, you will break me. You've told me before, you have the power to destroy me and you know that you do. If you ever abuse that, I will do whatever is in my power to break you into more pieces than you ever broke me. I promise on everything I will shatter you if you hurt me. That is my one and only stipulation to this. Any hint that you want to leave, I will be done."

"That is better than I could have expected."

"You said it yourself, I've become more forthright. I'm not scared of going for what I want, under my own control of course."

Erik stepped around the table and allowed Charles time to position his chair so that they turned face onto each other. He bent down and took Charles' hands carefully, "I don't think I'll ever be over you, Xavier."

He lent forward, gingerly, clearly giving Charles time to back down if he wanted, and pressed his cold lips to Charles'. The kiss was bittersweet, loving but filled with unknown melancholia, like it couldn't last. Like they couldn't believe it was happening and that someone somewhere would come and steal it away. Happiness felt fleeting but they were going to try and enjoy it while they could.

Charles pulled back first and squeezed Erik's fingers, "I believe you said something about enjoying the riches before Rome burns? Do you want to start now?"

He felt a pressing force in his mind and opened the floodgates, a ghosting whisper floating inside, "I'm hiding the matches because I shall not let Rome burn. Not for you."

Charles Xavier slept extremely well that night.

~FIN.

A/N: I told you, psuedo happy!