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hitchhikerjedi · 3 years ago

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death always wins-part five

Emma Carstairs/Julian Blackthorn

Chapter wordcount: 3,549

TW: Minor swearing, light horror, mild violence, panic disorder

Part 1 I Part 2 I Part 3 I Part 4

Read on Ao3

so much more

“Kill me.”

“No can do, bud. I just watched Emma absolutely destroy a swarm of Shax demons, and I don’t wanna be next.”

Julian opened his eyes to see Steel kneeling above him, smiling wildly despite the ichor dripping from his chin that had to burn. White dots clouded his vision and a black curtain threatened to close around him. He felt numb. So numb it scared him. The room spun, blurring the mural into a whirlwind of color that made his stomach flip, but Steel’s hands were holding him firmly to the earth.

He closed his eyes again, and he saw Livvy watching from a beam in the L.A. Institute’s library. She was kicking her feet, her saber laying across her lap — the tip red with his blood. The edges of her shimmered and shifted, she was so washed out Julian thought he could see right through her.

“LIVIA, KILL ME, DO IT, KILL ME!”

Julian screamed. Hysterical. Desperate. Violent. His throat was dry, his voice cracked, he could taste blood in his mouth; but he called her name louder and louder, hoping she’d hear him begging through the haze.

“Livvy, please.”

“Julian, I need you to calm down so I can see your wound.”

He felt Steel’s hand brace his shoulder and tear his gear jacket. He thrashed under the touch, pushing and shoving with everything he had. He didn’t want to be healed. Maybe if the poison creeping through his veins killed him, she could still live. It was her blow after all.

“LIVVY!” She tilted her head at him, her frown deepening as he kicked and screamed against the dirt.

S-L-E-E-P L-O-V-E

Julian stilled. The letters were a lullaby on his skin, soothing and quiet as he drifted between states of consciousness. He felt the slight burn of a stele on his neck, a gentle caress of a hand against his cheek and the delicate brush of lips against his forehead.

“Please, Livvy, please,” he whispered one last time before the curtain fell and the world faded to black as the image of Livia rippled and vanished.

— — —

Julian blinked awake, his eyes unable to fully adjust to the darkness around him. His shoulder throbbed dully underneath the heavy bandages. His whole body ached, his limbs heavy and sore as he flexed them against the bed — no, a cot. He was definitely in an infirmary. There was the bitterness of antiseptic mixed with the rusty stench of blood that made Julian wince.

The glow of a street light trickled through the curtains just enough for him to see Emma tucked into a chair at his bedside. Her knees pulled up to her chest, her head resting on her hand, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled around her face, and Cortana wrapped gently in her arms.

Julian’s heart constricted in his chest.

Emma moved through life at an unnatural speed that he’s tried his best to keep pace with since they were toddlers. She was lightning striking the earth and shaking the ground. Blinding, beautiful, dangerous and quick. It was only in these moments, when she drifted into sleep, that her momentum ceased and the world settled. She looked at peace in a way Julian could only hope he’d find for himself.

Guilt choked him as he watched her and the events of the day flooded back. He was so willing to die, to leave her after all they fought for. He remembered her crawling into his bed for the first time after the Dark War with a tear-stained face and runny nose. Back then, she was fitful and upset even in sleep— they both were—, and he couldn’t bear to think of her going through that again, but this time all alone.

Julian was restless with remorse. He threw his legs over the side of the cot and stood, silently thanking Emma — at least he hoped it was Em — for putting him in clean clothes. He thought about waking her up, but her nose wrinkled and she let out a tiny content sigh, and Julian couldn’t pull her from whatever pleasant dreams she was having behind those fluttering eyelids just to burden her with theories.

A screen illuminated on the bedside table and he quickly scooped up the phone. Emma must’ve found it tucked in his gear. He scrolled through the list of notifications, mostly Snapchats from Dru but some missed calls and unread texts. It felt like Livvy’s saber was still poking at his chest, the tip piercing the skin just enough to bleed.

He tugged on his boots, scribbled a note on a stray bandage and softly kissed the top of Em’s head before slipping out of the infirmary.

— — —

“I swear on the fucking Angel, Auggie, if you’re coming up here to bum another slice of pizza from me, I’m cutting off your hand and tossing it in the Seine.” Ivory’s back was turned as she sat on the edge of the roof, her bare feet dangling in the air and an open pizza box on her lap. She wore an all black sweatsuit with the number 412 across the back of her jacket in bumblebee yellow.

Julian considered turning around. He wasn’t ready to address what happened in the Catacombs. He was still putting together the pieces, figuring it out for himself, making a plan. He knew Ivory would want answers. Everybody always wanted answers.

“Oh, it’s you,” she turned to stare at him, setting down the dagger she was holding. “Do you want a slice? It’s Pizza Hut. Just pepperoni, because Steel is a basic bitch.”

“They have Pizza Huts in Paris?”

“Yeah, you know, No One Out-Pizzas the Hut,” she said between bites. “Take a slice. Those nourishment runes soothe your stomach, but pizza soothes your soul. And I think you definitely need some soul soothing after today.”

“Is it going to cost me my hand?”

“First one’s free, second one I take the hand,” Ivory held out a slice, and Julian accepted it as he sat beside her.

The crowd of tourists wasn’t as thick as earlier. Only a few mundanes mulled around the cathedral with cameras. The city was ignited in lights around them, from warm golden glows to screaming neon streaks that reflected color across the river’s rippling surface. He wished he’d brought his sketchbook with him.

“Which one is Livia?” Julian hadn’t noticed his thumb was tapping the phone screen, lighting up the background photo of the six Blackthorn siblings.

Six. Not seven. Just six.

It was a group photo taken on the beach after Magnus and Alec’s wedding — Tavvy on Julian’s hip, Ty leaning into his shoulder and Dru sticking out her tongue in front, while Mark and Helen hugged them all from either side.

Julian tried not to think about the empty spot next to Ty or how his little brother left the perfect space for Livvy out of habit or how there’d always be that emptiness that couldn't be filled.

“This was taken after.” He didn’t have to explain further. Ivory just nodded with a sad faroff look.

They sat in silence as they ate. She was right, the pizza did make him feel better. Soul soothing may’ve been a stretch, but he did feel the tension in his stomach start to ease.

“You still don’t trust us,” Ivory said plainly, never pulling her eyes from the river below. She was tugging at a stray string from her sweatpants, winding the thread around her finger and letting it fall loose repeatedly. “You almost got my brother killed today, and you don’t trust us?”

Julian didn’t know what to say, so he stayed quiet. It’s not that he didn’t trust the twins, it’s that he didn’t trust himself to trust anybody but Emma lately. But he couldn’t tell Ivory that.

“You’re lucky Steel found you first because I would’ve rubbed Catacomb dirt in your open wound,” Ivory said. She didn’t sound angry. She always spoke with an air of casualty and reassurance, as if nothing ever bothered her and it shouldn’t bother you either. It made Julian nervous. Indifference was more dangerous than rage. He definitely deserved rage. He abandoned his fellow Shadowhunters in battle.

“I’m sorry,” he said. It was an empty statement that meant so little for an offense that could’ve put him to death in the eyes of the Clave.

“Don’t be. It’s hard to stay mad at a guy you watched beg his dead sister to kill him,” she pointed her limp pizza at him accusingly as he flinched from her bluntness. “But you owe us information.”

“Information?”

“Yes, information, you jagoff.” Julian stared blankly at her as she huffed at his lack of understanding. “You ran the Los Angeles Institute for years. Did you ever receive anything from Pittsburgh?”

Ivory finally turned to look at him. The unsettling darkness of her eyes melted into the night sky as they swam with what Julian knew was a dangerous hope.

It all clicked.

In the Shadow World, information was just as precious as Adamas. It kept people alive and it got people killed. It was currency in your hands, if you knew how to use it. But what Ivory was asking for wasn’t the type of information that people drew blood over, it was the information that you didn’t really want to know but couldn’t sleep at night without. It was a question where you knew the answer before you asked but prayed to be wrong.

“No,” Julian said with finality. He thought about lying, about telling her he’d seen a stray letter, but it was better for her to know the truth. He was certain the Pittsburgh Institute no longer existed. “There was a file in my father’s office, but nothing came after the Dark War.”

She turned her head away and sighed against the wind, ”I knew it.”

“How did you get out?” Julian was always told that the Blackthorn kids were the only survivors of Sebastian’s attacks before London.

“We didn’t. We were in school.”

“You didn’t train at the Institute?”

“We went to mundane public school, where the real demons are,” Ivory answered. “After our dad died, the High Warlock of Pittsburgh helped mom raise us. Tony Steel, a real tough guy, but definitely not Italian and definitely not 800 years old like he told everyone,” Ivory’s usual smile resettled on her face as she put on a thick Italian accent to imitate the warlock.

“He forged papers to get us into middle school, because ‘you were born to wield a blade, but you are capable of so much more’. He was all about that sappy bullshit. Even made us do community service as if killing demons wasn’t enough.” Ivory trembled with a broken laugh. She was trying to hide the tenderness in her voice with a combination of agitation and sarcasm, but her heart bled through as they tended to do when they were broken.

“One day he signed us out early, and we were so excited that we didn’t have to take our geography test that we didn’t think twice when he made a portal instead of walking us to the T-train. He took us upstate, told us we couldn’t go home. Our mom was dead, our older sister was dead, our baby brother was dead. Our whole family was gone, and we didn’t know why,” her voice was low, barely a whisper as if each word knocked the wind out of her.

“Tony hid us until the Dark War was over, then he shoved us through a portal to Idris with nothing but each other and a promise to him not to say where we’ve been. It was suddenly just us. Me and Steel against a whole world that was set ablaze without us even knowing. Our uncle refused to take us in, so we were sent to the Academy where we learned our worth was tied to how well we could wield a seraph blade after all.”

There was a quietness that settled between them. Julian wanted to say sorry again. To tell her the Dark War stole so much from him, as well. To tell her that in this endless war between Angels and Demons, it was always the children that lost the most. It was always the children who were forced to pick up the pieces of a broken world and mop up the blood left behind by the ignorance and arrogance of the adults meant to protect them.

But he also knew how apologies only rubbed salt in the wounds of loss that never really healed.

“How old is he?” Ivory tapped Julian’s phone screen to point at Tavvy.

“Eight, but he’ll be nine at the end of the month.”

“What’s his favorite color?” It was an odd question, but Ivory looked eager — desperate even — as she waited for the answer.

“Green. Not just regular green, but dark green, like pine.”

“His favorite food?”

“Pancakes.”

“Does he like music?”

“Sure, he likes dancing. Em used to dance around the kitchen with him while I cooked.” Each question came quicker than the last, and Ivory drank up each answer like it was water in an endless desert.

Did he like reading? Was he interested in fighting yet? What was his favorite movie? What games did he play? Was he talkative? Did he tell jokes and were they any good?

And finally, “Do you love him?”

“Of course I love him. Tavvy’s my baby,” Julian hadn’t referred to Tavvy as his baby in so long that it was jarring to hear himself say it aloud. But he couldn’t force himself to correct it either.

“Make sure you tell him. … Harlow was only three,” Ivory wiped at her face with an open palm, no longer hiding the tears and not caring that she smeared marinara across her cheek. “I’m not trying to make this the Trauma Olympics, but, at least you got to fight for your siblings, ya know? I would’ve washed my hands in blood every day to protect Harlie. Same with Silver. And I never even got the chance.”

Julian remembered crushing Tavvy’s face against his shoulder in panic as they ran through the streets of Alicante, praying silently for the Angel to save his baby brother from seeing the horrors around them. And he remembered every single time Tavvy woke up screaming from nightmares that raked his tiny shoulders with sobs to the point where all Julian could do was hold his baby tighter and tell him it was going to be okay — even if he wasn’t okay himself.

Those nights were some of the hardest in his life, but he couldn’t imagine a world where his arms were empty all those years.

“That’s enough trauma dumping for me tonight,” Ivory stood with an exaggerated stretch and tossed the pizza box onto Julian’s lap. “You can have the rest. On the house.”

She patted his shoulder awkwardly and turned, “By the way, we told Vi that you fell on your own dagger. Steel’s not good at lying, then Emma went along with it and there was just no backing out once those two got rolling.” With just the hint of a smile and a shoulder shrug, Ivory melted soundlessly into the shadows.

Julian stared out into the Paris sky, perhaps looking for answers among the muddled stars or maybe just trying to rid himself of the empty void in his stomach that the pizza didn’t fill. He focused on the bands of red and green lights from the Christmas markets, the way the afternoon rain had turned the cobblestone plaza into a mirror for moonlight and how this city whose streets were once washed with the blood of revolution was now the City of Love and Lights.

“Is that Pizza Hut?” Emma appeared beside him, her feet shoved haphazardly into untied boots, her legs bare with the hem of his hoodie brushing her thighs and the sleeves pulled past her hands. Her eyelids were heavy, blinking through the light to focus on the pizza box in his lap. A white sheet from the infirmary was draped around her shoulders and dragged across the roof as she shuffled forward.

It was hard to believe she was the same warrior who cut down a dozen Shax demons just hours ago.

“Ivory gave me it. Though it may cost me a limb down the road,” Julian put the box aside and pulled Emma into his lap, tightening his arms around her torso until he could feel the rise and fall of her chest against his. His shoulder burned from the strain, but he held her tighter and shut his eyes, letting the scent of eucalyptus and dirt wash away his uneasiness.

“Jules?”

“Hm?”

“You need to tell me what happened today,” Em wiggled free of his embrace and pulled his sketchbook and pencils out from under the hoodie, setting them carefully in his hands. “And you need to share that pizza with me.”

“It’s all yours, love,” he helped her scoot off his lap and handed her the box. She settled beside him, her head resting gently on his non-injured shoulder as she double-fisted slices with a quiet content.

Julian flipped through his sketchbook, passing dozens of drawings of nightmares and demons and the different Institutes and the landscapes around them, but mostly they were of Emma — Emma giving him two thumbs up as she surfed the coast of Valencia, tipsily raising a frosted mug of Guinness in celebration during Oktoberfest, smiling as she lifted a crystal champagne flute to her red-stained lips at The Bone Chandelier with silver liquid dripping from locks of her hair, down her face, her neck, her collarbone and onto the crimson sequins of her dress.

“That … was a religious experience,” Emma said, carefully maneuvering her pizza away from the pages. Blood rushed to her cheeks with the memory, and Julian leaned forward to kiss both before finding a blank page.

The scuffing of pencils against paper was therapeutic as he sketched, letting his heart pull his hand across the pages. He drew the closing walls of the Catacomb tunnels, the flash of fear on Steel’s face when his seraph blade sputtered out, Ivory and Emma spattered with ichor and fighting back-to-back with their swords illuminating the darkened cavern, and Livvy glaring down at him pained and helpless with her saber poised at his heart.

“Mors vincit omnia,” Emma whispered thoughtfully as he slid the pencils back into their box. “Do you think it's actually her?”

It’s what Julian had been asking himself since he woke up and didn’t have an answer to. He still felt the weight of her foot on his bleeding shoulder. How solid it was. How real it felt.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “But an Eidolon wouldn’t have let me live.” He pulled down his shirt collar to reveal the thin white line above his heart where Livvy’s saber punctured the skin. Emma traced the mark, her fingers dancing over the spot his parabatai rune once occupied, making him shiver.

“And she was … she was Livvy. She had her saber, her clothes, her voice,” Julian cupped Emma’s face in his hands, pleading for her to believe him with a desperation that bubbled in his chest and burned his throat. “You didn’t hear her, Em. I would know her voice anywhere. Plus, the poisoned dagger was from home. It had the Blackthorn crest on it.”

“The dagger wasn’t poisoned,” Emma interjected.

“What?”

“You weren’t poisoned,” she clarified. “You tore a muscle when you ripped the dagger out. Maybe we need to take a first-aid class or something, because you love to recklessly tear sharp objects from your body and it’s becoming a fucking problem.”

Julian’s hands fell to his knees. He remembered the burning sensation leaching through his veins after pulling the dagger free. He knew what he felt. It lit his blood on fire. He was so sure it was poison.

“JULIAN! EMMA! LIBRARY, NOW!” Violette bellowed from the plaza below, her gear a mess of black goo and scarlet with Léolove’s small frame slouched against her shoulder as they stumbled across the cobblestones together.

“What are the chances this has nothing to do with us?” Em asked, setting a half-eaten slice back into the box.

“You and I both know it’s zero.”

“Do you think she’ll be offended if I bring the pizza with us?”

“I think she’d be offended either way,” Julian said. “Maybe she’ll be hungry, and we can use it as a peace offering.

“Good plan,” Emma gathered her blanket back around her shoulders and balanced the pizza box carefully against her arm. She stopped to give him a knowing smile over her shoulder, “Oh, she thinks you fell on your dagger, so play along.”

“So I heard,” Julian sighed. “You couldn’t think of anything less humiliating?”

“No, not really. You know I suck at lying,” Em laughed, a sweet and genuine chiming that almost made him forget they were walking toward what was most likely more terrible news.

More terrible news.

More questions without answers.

More blood on their hands.

If I learned anything in college, it's that pizza bring everybody together. Also I may have written a bonus part inspired by The Voicemail of Magnus Bane ...

taglist: @amchara @julescarstairs

let me know if you want added/removed moving forward :)

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hitchhikerjedi · 3 years ago

Note

Cherik angst!

Ooooh the angst!! The cherik fandom has an abundance of angst fics and I could probably make a list of hundred fics to recommend, but these are some of my favourite angsty cherik fics. I should warn you though, some of these require tissues.

Cherik Angst

Everyday Love in Stockholm – tahariel

Summary: Magneto is the ruler of the posthuman world.

His only secret? Charles Xavier, the human he's kept locked in his bedroom ever since his right-hand woman, Mystique, came to him pleading for mercy for her stepbrother, who accepted her mutant form and protected her as a child. The human he started fucking after Mystique was killed in battle, despite the guilt he feels at contaminating even this last promise to the woman who was integral to his life's work and happiness.

Boden’s Mate – kaydeefalls

Summary: "Shaw has information that we need, and we need him alive to extract it," Moira says, and there it is: the job is on the table. Extraction.

XMFC/Inception fusion AU. Erik is an extractor, Alex is his point man. They're assembling a team to go after the most dangerous mind in dreamsharing: Sebastian Shaw. But unless Alex and the team can keep him in check, Erik's desire for vengeance might just rip the whole job apart around them -- and then there's the shade that haunts his dreams...

Ritual Self-Torture – TurtleTotem

Summary: Shaw is King, Charles is his royal consort and Erik is a Knight/Lord. Shaw is sterile but his kingdom can't find out, so he asks Erik to impregnate Charles.

He doesn't know Erik and Charles are in love.

The Winter of Banked Fires – Yahtzee

Summary: Charles Xavier has returned from the dead -- but is lost within his own mind. Rogue has cast aside her own power and doesn't know where she fits in the world any longer. The production of synthetic Cure means mutantkind itself is newly at risk. And Magneto, turned human against his will, is in despair until the day he feels a familiar consciousness tugging at his own

Us – Pangea

Summary: “Charles,” Erik says, and if his voice hits a pleading note then who can really blame him, “Charles, it’s me.”

It takes several longer moments before Charles musters up the strength to answer, breath stuttering horribly as he tries to breathe. He’s shaking, entire body trembling.

“Erik,” Charles says, his voice cracking, “Erik, I want to die.”

Enigma – Yahtzee

Summary: Erik dies, or finds a reversey-time mutant, or a magical time travelling device, and wakes up in the past. This time, though, it's before he ever met Charles - in fact, it's before his mother died.

He can save his mother that one time (thanks to his mastery over powers carrying back), but what does Erik do after that? Does he stick around, or escape and run to find Charles again (and hope everything doesn't go wrong)?

By Faint Indirections – kianspo

Summary: Erik is in his ~50s, and lonely and bitter. He survived the Holocaust and was only ~14 when the war ended; and even ~40 years later, living in a country that helped to end WW2 and the Third Reich, homosexuality is still a taboo topic. Then one day, he stumbles over Charles, who is young(early 20s) and bright and smart and cheeky and full of energy and beautiful. And moving in the same street where Erik lives.

Lonesome on the Shelf – ikeracity

Summary: After three years of marriage, Charles has to admit that his relationship with Erik has significantly cooled off. These days, they're barely ever home at the same time and it seems like every conversation they have turns into an argument. Charles misses the way they used to be, misses the spontaneous dinner parties and the surprise morning sex and the wake up calls in the early mornings to catch the sunrise. But it's going to take two of them to fix this marriage, and some days, it seems as if all Erik wants is to be rid of him.

A fic about rekindling marriage.

When the Spell Breaks – kianspo

Summary: Erik, a high-profile lawyer with a successful career, meets a 21-year-old grad student in a bar, and within a few short months marries him. He and Charles are blissfully happy, until Erik's boss runs a background check on Charles and discovers he's been cheating on Erik. Charles denies everything, as there was no affair, but Erik doesn't believe him and throws him out. As Charles tries to figure out how to survive and stay at school that he can no longer afford and makes a lot of bad if not plain dangerous choices, Erik has to fight his own battle of discovering the truth and winning Charles back.

The Tower and the Hurricane – dreamlittleyo

Summary:(Post-movie AU.) Five years after Shaw's death, Erik's predictions prove painfully accurate. Violence rages on both sides of the human/mutant conflict. In a world ravaged by war, it doesn't really matter who's more at fault. Charles struggles to teach his students a better way, but what choices will he make when peace really isn't an option?

The Attempt – Yahtzee

Summary: Charles knows everything about Erik, knows how obsessive and self-destructive he is, how Erik would do anything, give anything, in his quest for vengeance against Shaw. But he also knows that Erik loves him in ways that aren't exactly platonic.

I'd like to see a completely straight!Charles, out of pure love and care of Erik, initiate a romantic relationship with him. It can be because he wishes to give Erik something positive in his life or because he thinks it might help change Erik's mind about Shaw, the reason is up to author. Also, while Charles finds intimacy with Erik strange and awkward, he does enjoy the new, non-romantic layers that have developed in their relationship.

Apple Seeds – pprfaith

Summary: Charles, Erik, apple seeds and Shakespearean love affairs.

Ashes, Ashes – winterhill

Summary: Post-apocalyptic AU — When the bombs fall, and mutually assured destruction occurs, it turns out that Shaw was right and radiation does enhance mutant powers. Snapshots of the XMFC main ensemble in the time after the bombs: Erik decides to stay, Moira thinks she might be the only human left, Raven is having trouble sleeping, and Charles is losing his mind.

Warnings: nuclear holocaust: death (death in general, not a specific character), cancer, burns, medical procedure, mutant powers gone awry

Five Bullet Points – Sperare

Summary: It was supposed to be Erik locked away in a prison one hundred stories below the ground.

Charles was never supposed to be there with him.

Tequila on a spaceship – faerie_ground

Summary: In 2014, Charles Xavier gets brutally murdered and Erik Lehnsherr spends the rest of his life mourning his death.

In 3014, Captain Lehnsherr and CMO Dr Xavier are colleagues, best friends and maybe a little more besides that aboard the Magneto I.

The Tower and the Hurricane – dreamlittleyo

Summary: Post-movie AU.) Five years after Shaw's death, Erik's predictions prove painfully accurate. Violence rages on both sides of the human/mutant conflict. In a world ravaged by war, it doesn't really matter who's more at fault. Charles struggles to teach his students a better way, but what choices will he make when peace really isn't an option?

Simple and Uncomplicated – Pookaseraph

Summary: Erik and Charles had been fuck buddies for some, but when Charles is in an accident he figured their relationship would be over. Erik's visit to his bedside in the hospital changes his assumptions even as he has trouble believing Erik is sincere.

Lazarus – Clocks

Summary: Erik is 19 when he says ‘I love you’ for the first time.

It would take five long years before Charles says it back.

Broken Eternity – CractasticDispatches

Sumnmary: It starts with being alone. It shouldn’t, perhaps, but it does because, of course, alone is what no one ever wishes to be.

Shout it Out Loud – dreamlittleyo

Summary: (Movie-Concurrent AU.) When Charles forges a telepathic link between himself and Erik, the two men find themselves bound together by more than just destiny. With the world on the brink of war, Charles and Erik struggle to cope with a psychic connection that may well be permanent.

Call Me By His Name – sinuous_curve

Summary: Charles wakes from the absence of noise.

There is an empty space in his room, beside his bed. Not quiet as in an abandoned room, but utterly, featurelessly blank. Like a box made of unblemished, impenetrable metal and Charles knows before he opens his eyes.

The Longest Word – septicwheelbarrow

Summary: "I'm Charles Xavier," he says, smiling from ear to ear. Then he gestures to his wheelchair. "Terminal spinal osteoblastoma, reaper due to collect in a year."

After some time, the man gestures at himself with a sardonic smile. "Same, one year. Lung." And then, reluctant, as if trying to keep his name to himself, "Erik."

I reject your reality and substitute my own. Doesn't really work that way, both ways.

Copy – chantefable

Summary: Charles wakes up without his memory. His sole caretaker, Erik, claims to be his husband, and tells him he's recovering from a car accident on their honeymoon.

Slowly falling for Erik again, Charles begins to regain his memories. He starts to notice strange things about his body, Erik, and their secluded mansion.

Myosotis – SomeCoolName

Summary: When Charles got back from Cuba, he lost the two things which made him stand: his legs and the love of his life, Erik Lehnsherr. Charles can get used to the wheelchair but he won't ever be able to get pass the loss of Erik.

"I wish I never met him" is something Charles says one night, maybe a bit drunk, absolutely wrecked for sure. It's a bit silly but Charles figures out his only solution is to use his own powers to erase Erik from his mind, progressively.

Except one day Erik comes back to the Xavier mansion to win him back. And even if Charles doesn't want to stop forgetting about him, Erik will do anything he can to convince him otherwise.

Das Haus am See – sareyen

Summary: The Lake House AU:

Erik is an estate planning lawyer who takes some time off to get away from the big city after his marriage fell apart. He lives in a picturesque lake house by Chautauqua Lake for almost two years, before moving back to New York City. This is in 2019.

Charles is a famous but very private author stuck in a creative rut, and moves to his lakeside estate for a short while to try and find a reason to write again. This is in 2017.

By magic or fate, Charles and Erik discover that the letter box at the lake house has the ability to send letters through time, between Charles in 2017 and Erik in 2019. Through letters that transcend the barriers of time, Charles and Erik fall in love. Charles vows to find Erik two years in his future, and Erik promises to wait for him. Two years - just two, meagre years.

But, fate is fickle, and time waits for no one.

Appropriate Boundaries – Yahtzee

Summary: Charles has been having serious problems with back cramps in the year and a half since he's been in a wheelchair. His doctor prescribes massage therapy. But when Charles meets his masseur, Erik, in some ways they begin to heal each other. So how do you cross the boundaries between professional touch -- and the personal?

Unbound – Cesare, helens78

Summary: Thousands of miles apart, Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier form a soulbond. But when that bond is severed five years later, they have to spend the next ten years trying to rebuild their lives alone.

Do You Love Me – cgf_kat

Summary: Charles and Erik have been married for 25 years, thrown together by a mandatory post-apocalyptic pairing system attempting to increase and strengthen the population. They have seven children. They have never spoken of love, but change is on the horizon.

A Quiet Riot – cloudstroke (aQuired)

Summary: Erik can't stand the fact that his father has brought home a boy less than half his age.

But mostly because he's madly in love with Charles Xavier himself.

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