𝕎𝕖 𝕎𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕣𝕟 𝕊𝕚𝕔𝕜 : 𝔻𝕖-𝕒𝕘𝕖𝕕! ℂ𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕜 𝔸𝕌
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𝟙𝟡 𝕪𝕖𝕒𝕣 𝕠𝕝𝕕 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝔼𝕣𝕚𝕜 𝕨𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕦𝕡 𝕚𝕟 𝕒 𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕝 𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕞 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕟𝕠 𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕘𝕠𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖. 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕟𝕠 𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕒 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕤 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕘𝕠𝕟𝕖, 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕣𝕦𝕟 𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪 𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣. 𝕆𝕟𝕝𝕪 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕞 𝕚𝕤: ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕘𝕠 𝕒𝕟𝕪𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕤𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕓𝕒𝕓𝕪 𝕤𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥.
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─✰ Rating: Mature ─✰ Contains: Hurt/ Comfort, Amnesia, Mutual Pinning, Malfunctioning Powers, Codependency, Re-Falling in Love ─✰ Content warnings for mild sadism, references to abuse and genocide, Non-Sexual Nudity, and Period Typical Homophobia ─✰ Word Count: 2.5K
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Erik knew something was wrong as soon as started to regain consciousness. For one, he was warm. The plush bedding that surrounded him felt like a cloud cradling his aching muscles. He hadn't been given soft, clean sheets like this in ages. The ceiling above him was cracked and mildly water damaged with a yellowing overhead light. Erik squinted and sat up to avoid it shining into his eyes. He rubbed absently at a bruise under his rib as he tried to take in more of his surroundings. Shabby was the word that came to mind. A word Dr. Schmidt used when he entered a home that was adequate for living but by no means lavish. Erik never understood the word. In comparison to the concert box he called a bedroom, shabby was to die for. This room had carpet. It was gray with odd discoloration here and there but he bet it felt better on cold feet than tile. The metal that held the door together was rusty and loose. He tightened them just to be safe. There were suitcases neatly set upon a lumpy couch. A closed door off to the side was likely a bathroom by the feel of the pipes. Sun poured in from the thin fabric acting as curtains for a window. Birds chirped from outside. Erik rubbed his eyes with his hands. Something was definitely wrong.
The sheets next to him rustled and groaned when he tried to stand up. Erik froze in place until it stopped. Was he drugged, he thought to himself. How could he have not noticed another body in the bed with him? Erik cautiously pulled back the sheets to reveal a boy about his age drooling into a pillow. The boy was beautiful to Erik. It felt shameful to even think it but the longer he looked, the more the thought solidified itself in his mind. The boy had rich, brown hair that fell in waves onto his pillow. His dark eyelashes cast a shadow on his round, rosy checks and his impossibly red lips hung slightly opened as he breathed. The boy's features felt other worldly. Erik was so used to seeing the gaunt, gray faces of those that surrounded him that he almost forgot people could glow like this. How could he have forgotten bringing someone such as this to bed? How could he have snuck the interaction past Schmidt long enough to make it happen? This boy had to belong to someone greater, far greater than Erik would be allowed to meet. Schmidt forbade him to speak with his wealthier clients. The people he usually bed with were just as lowly as him and nowhere near as compelling.
The boy next to him shifted again and groaned in a way that made his stomach feel tight. Men were even more forbidden than the rich. Schmidt didn't need to teach Erik that. He remembered the fear in the eyes of the men who wore the pink triangle. He knew what they had done to earn it. "Sins of the Flesh" is what his mother called it. "Disgusting" is what everyone else did. Erik found hypocrisy in it. He's seen men of status with their male 'secretaries". He knows there's a reason Janos is kept cleaner than everyone else, just the same as Emma. Though it didn't matter much what he thought. Erik knew that rules apply solely to those at the bottom and given he is as low as he could get, he knew to keep his affinity to himself. No need to bring more trouble into his life when women were just as satisfying.
Erik watched as the boy squeezed his eyes a few times before finally opening them. Even clouded with sleep, he has the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. They were like the paintings of the ocean he'd seen in Schmidt's entertainment room. Maybe even brighter. The boy blinked himself awake and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. Erik just sat still and waited for the boy to react. Perhaps he knew more than Erik did?
"Who are you?" The boy grumbled in a voice thick with sleep and a distinctive British accent.
Perhaps not.
"I should ask you the same question." Erik responded in his best English.
"I'm called Charles. Charles Xavier." Charles sat up himself and looked around the room the same as Erik just did.
Erik pondered whether he'd met any Xaviers. He hadn't.
"Where the hell are we?" Charles whined while rubbing at his temple. "And where the hell are your clothes?"
Charles squinted skeptically at the german and in that moment Erik registered that he was in only his boxers. He also noticed that Charles was in a similar state of undress with a nightshirt that was barely buttoned and hanging over his freckled shoulders.
"I am not sure. I woke up here the same as you."
Charles scrutinized Erik even more so.
"You're not the ambassador's son, are you?"
"Huh?" Erik wasn't sure where the other had got that idea. "No, I'm…Erik"
Charles stared at him in the eyes like he was picking apart his answer. Something must have click for him because the other suddenly relaxed and leaned back on his palms.
"Right. Well, cheers, I suppose." Charles reached a hand out and Erik took it cautiously. A hand shake. How odd.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Charles continued once they broke contact.
Erik was sure to sugarcoat it for the boy in front of him. "I was sleeping off my workout."
"I was hiding from my parents' party. They always have far too many people over at once."
"I was definitely not attending any party."
Charles hummed and nodded. "May I ask where you are from? I can't quite place your accent."
"Germany. Nuremberg originally but we…had to move." Erik figured that was a nice enough way to put it.
"Really? That's a hell of a move. New York is across the world from where you're from; How did you make it here?"
"Where?"
"New York? As in, America?"
"Ah!" Erik nodded in understanding. "America? I have no idea. Maybe a teleporter?"
"I beg your pardon? A what?"
Erik felt the blood drain from his face. It was like all his survival instincts kicked back in at once. He hadn't considered the possibility that Charles was a human. Stunningly beautiful or not, Erik thought he could trust himself enough not to pick up a non mutant in whatever intoxication event caused him to wound up here. But maybe he hadn't ended up here of his own volition? Maybe much more than a night of passion took place here? Erik didn't want to believe it. The one promise Schmidt had kept all his years of torment was to never leave him alone with a human. His throat burned with rage. He didn't know who to blame. Was it Schmidt who threw him into the siren's lake? Was it his frown fault for falling for Charles or was it Charles who seduced him? Could he be like Emma? A tempter to lull him into a false sense of security?
"Erik?" Charles reached for him again and Erik flinched so hard he almost knocked himself off the bed. Though quick as he did, he recovered and threw himself purposely from the covers to take a stance.
"Whoa!" Charles threw his hands up in a surrender. "What's going on?"
"Who are you? Really? Do you work for Schmidt? Is this one of his tests?" Erik yelled at him in German. The boy just looked confused, innocent, but Erik wouldn't take a chance. He reached to grab Charles by the front of his shirt and trap him in a death grip.
"Answer me!"
What happened next was hard for him to describe. It felt like his thoughts had been dialed up like a radio. They came to him loud, fast and panicked. It felt as if his skull would explode from the buildup. The excruciating pressure made his knees buckle, sending him to crash into a kneel on the carpet. Once every thought he'd ever think in his lifetime crossed his mind in the span of a second, it stopped. The pain disappeared as quick as it came. He settled into the same dreamy stupor as when he first awoke and the fight in him drained away. Erik's body swayed. He wiped a trail of blood from his nose and stared at it staining his hand like it held the answer to his bewilderment. When it didn't tell him, he looked up to meet Charles' gaze again. This time though, his wide eyes were filled with remorseful guilt rather than fear. With that one look, one more thought was able to cut through the fog.
Definitely not a human.
"I'm sorry," Erik forced out. It sounded slurred even to his own ears. "I had to be sure."
The other boy's pinched face wrinkled his chin in a way Erik found endearing. The pale skin exposed by his tousled night shirt revealed flushed flesh in the shape of Erik's hand. He felt a pang of unexplained possessiveness at seeing where he had marked him. Erik blinked hard and shook some more of his dizziness away. He needed to focus.
"What was that?" he chose to ask.
"Something no one would believe if you told them." came Charles' answer back. The snap of the statement had the intention of intimidation but the boy's voice still swam too much to truly hit the mark.
"I have no intention of ousting you. I just want to know what you do." Erik pressed some more. He heaved as he finally willed him limbs to help him stand and drudged back over to the edge of the bed.
"I don't do anything! You're mad!" Charles yelled at him but also backed further away from him into the opposite end of the bed.
"I am not angry with you." Erik unnecessarily reassured. "How about a show of good faith?"
Charles shook his head. "I don't know what that means."
"Just watch."
Erik closed his eyes, held his hand forward and curled it into a fist. In response, the maze of pipes behind the walls began to tremble. The bed frame under Charles rattled and the boy held the wall to steady himself. Small scatterings traveled first. Change from under the couch and screws that weren't sturdy enough to resist were attracted to Erik now reopened palms and fusing together into a ball. A knife from the dresser draw flew out and narrowly missed Charles head. He yelp when Erik stopped it midair and dropped it to the floor.
"Okay! Okay, you can stop!" Charles called out as a pipe burst in the bathroom and furled out from the wall like spikes.
Erik allowed to metal to forget his commands. The hunk of alloy dropped from where it floated a inch above his palm. The old bones of the room settled. He tossed the ball over to Charles who caught it in both his hands.
"My god! What was that!" Charles looked from the evidences of Erik's demonstration with a blinding smile. His bright eyes sparkled in amazement and curiosity as he scooted himself forward.
"My trick. My mutation." Erik wasn't sure of the English word for it.
"Mutation?"
Charles tried to form his mouth around the new word.
"A gift from creation. Something in my blood with makes me different. Stronger. Like you."
Charles looked down at the metal in his hand and back at Erik with wonder.
"I knew we weren't alone." Charles whispered.
"We?"
"My sister and I. She has a mutation, too!"
Erik cringed at the pronunciation but nodded at the clarification. Charles continued to sing his praises.
"That was magnificent! You're magnificent."
"Metal Manipulation." Erik explained simply.
"Wow."
Charles tilts his head to the side making his bangs fall into his eyes. His expression held a sincere fascination that Erik wasn't used to seeing. When it came to his mutation, he usually was met with fear or harsh corrections. The best reaction he had yet to receive was from Schmidt's company applauding at him like a circus animal who just finished a trick. The attention was making his head hot so Erik was quick to direct it somewhere else.
"I hadn't been knocked over that easily in a while. What's your power?"
Charles' smile faltered. He sat up a bit and shifted like he was suddenly uncomfortable where he sat. Erik felt a worry in the back of his mind at how easy the boy was to read. That couldn't be safe at all.
"You can tell me." Erik insisted as more of a demand than a reassurance.
Charles looked away to answer.
"I can go into people's minds. Sometimes if I enter too quickly it can be painful for them."
"A telepath then. I know a woman like that."
"Really?"
"Yes. You can't turn to diamond, can you?"
"Pfff-no. Does she?" Charles snorts.
"When the mood strikes her."
That joke seemed to pull some of the softness back into Charles expression. He let out a ghost of a laugh and flicked up his gaze to meet Erik's again.
"Do you know a lot of people with…gifts?"
"I do."
"What are they all like? It must be so welcoming."
Erik's bubble of calm burst as he remembered Schmidt. The pure hatred that radiated from the German boy made Charles gasp.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed."
Erik forced himself to swallow down his rage. No need to scare the other again over a memory. No matter how traumatically horrible the memory may be.
"Its okay. You were just curious. I'm sorry to disappoint. They aren't good people."
"Oh."
Erik wished he could tell Charles differently, that he could affirm the fantasy of mutant comradery he had in his heart, but Schmidt only collected predators. People who were stripped of their innocents long ago and now cursed the world. Children who he broke and remolded to only know survival. The mutants in his life were either slave or jailer, neither of which being someone anyone should want to meet.
Erik felt his heart beat with sympathy he hadn't felt in year. He grabbed at Charles harshly to make it cease.
"You shouldn't project so much. You may keep your pity to yourself."
Charles flinched at his words and Erik experienced a shiver of fear run up his own spine.
"Stop it, I said!"
In an instant, Erik felt Charles retreat from him mind. With him left the remnants of brain fog that clouded his head. The idea of Charles hiding away in his mind from perhaps the very moment they met was not ideal. His clear head brought abhorrence toward the boy in front of him.
"Better." Erik acknowledged. "You do not follow directions well."
Charles looked down with newly formed tears in his eyes. "Sorry."
"I don't want to fight with you." Erik sighed, trying to brush off his own prejudice. "Your gift will be most useful while we figure out what's happened here. But for now, don't forget yourself. Keep out of my mind."
The young telepath nodded mutely, eyes still downcast to his lap.
"You're a pretty crier." Erik commented, reaching his hand out to brush away some of Charles' tears. "I have no intention of hurting you further if I don't have to."
Charles pushed Erik's hand away with a humorless laugh. " I don't think you hear yourself when you speak."
"Gentleness doesn't come naturally to me." Erik shrugged. "Does that frighten you?"
"It does, in a way," Charles admitted. "Your face is blank and your words are harsh but I don't believe you are aiming to be unkind."
"What makes you so sure?"
"I saw into your mind. I heard your worry, your protectiveness. I saw you make an effort to spare my feelings and soften what you know is cruel for my comfort. I think… that is the kindest thing someone can do."
The two shared an intimate stare. Erik mentally reinforced the walls Charles was expertly scratching at.
"You don't know me just from digging in my head. I could be dangerous. I am dangerous"
"I don't doubt that. But there is a reason I'm here with you now. I must have trusted you then, why not trust you now?"
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A/N: This is just a taste of my ongoing story on AO3! I'm in love with de-aged and age swap stories so it was bound to be written lol p.s I made the banner!!










