#i played matilda in a local production when i was ten (it was magical)

[star-lights-up]

I'm having thoughts again (it's a very dangerous thing, thinking is): Cherik matilda au, with Jean as matilda. Honestly, it'd probably be a jean-centric fic, background cherik, because i mean miss honey doesn't have a love interest in the original lol. (Oh, right, Charles = miss honey. Erik also kind of = miss honey. they're sharing the role.)

ALSO i'm basing this on the book and the original movie, not the musical and musical movies. I love all incarnations of matilda but I am too tired to work in the whole premonition story thing.

So Jean is just chilling. She's like two years old and already she can cook and clean and pretty much be self sufficient. Her parents are self-absorbed assholes who don't really pay her any mind, and her brother is a little shit who's older than her and never home anyways.

She goes to the library, and she reads. She expands her horizons. She learns. She develops a yearning to see the world outside of her lonely little life -- she may be self-sufficient, but it doesn't mean she doesn't want any friends.

Now, when she's six, she tells her parents that she really should've started school already, and her dad makes a deal with this terrifying man to send her off to Hellfire Elementary (sounds like a great place for kids, amiright?)

There she meets Ororo, who's funny and nice, and then there's Logan, this older kid who's absolutely TERRIFYING (at least he thinks he is, jean's calling his bs). He warns them about the headmaster -- Shaw. The truly terrifying one.

Shaw in this isn't really the kevin bacon shaw. He's like if shaw lost his fucking marbles and became a really buff lunatic. He throws a girl wearing her hair in pigtails over the fence. It's insane.

Then Jean goes to her class. The first years have two teachers -- Mr. Lehnsherr and Mr. Xavier, who tells them just to call him Charles as long as Shaw's not around.

The classroom is kind of amazing. They've got art by students hanging everywhere and cute little posters and vases of wildflowers, the doors opened to the school grounds and filtering in the last of the warm summer air. To Jean, it feels magical. She's finally at school. She finally feels like she's going to get to be in the world. She chats with Ororo and some kid named Scott before the bell rings.

(Now for teaching duo cherik! I'm thinking for them, this is an established relationship fic. )

They've both been hurt by shaw (more on that later) to the point where they've become more muted versions of their personalities.

Charles is kind, as he always is, but in this he's very soft-spoken and stuff. Even as he smiles warmly at the kids, checking on the girl with the pigtails, Jean notices this deep sadness in his eyes.

And then there's Erik. He's quiet, very matter-of-fact when he does speak up, methodical. He's very gentle with all of the children, though, and Jean sees him tracking Charles with his eyes, as though he's sure something awful will happen to him as soon as he lets him out of his sight. Again, his eyes hold some deep sadness, some hidden pain.

As the lessons begin, they're shocked by Jean. Her reading, her writing. Her incredible math abilities.

( found this cute little line from the original book, and i wanted to adapt it (very erik-core):

"It's not fair," Ororo says, "How can she do it and we can't?"

"Don't worry, Ororo, you'll soon catch up," Mr. Lehnsherr says, lying through his teeth. )

After class is over, Charles wants to talk to Shaw, try and get Jean in a more advanced grade. Erik doesn't want him to go. They go together, and Shaw pretty much yells at them and threatens them until they leave.

They decide to think of another way to go -- they can't have jean just sitting in class, learning how to spell r-a-t when she's read shakespeare already.

Back at home, for another week or so, Jean's life continues much the same as it always does. Her parents: the assholes. Then her father takes her and her brother into work one day, telling his son he needs to learn the family trade. Jean's just there.

He shows them all sorts of illegal things he does to the cars before he sells them -- sawdust in the engine, running the miles backwards until the car seems barely used. It's not legal. Worse, it's not safe.

Jean speaks out and gets yelled at.

So she finds some superglue and glues his stupid hat to his head the next day. And so starts her rebellion.

Charles and Erik decide that perhaps it's best to speak to Jean's parents directly. Cue creepy CGI cherik from the last stand. No, no, I'm kidding. They just show up there, try to talk to the greys, who really aren't having it, and before they leave Erik sneaks a book behind a coat rack, Jean smiling at him from where she's hidden on the stairwell, having listened to the whole thing.

Jean plays another prank on her parents for treating her teachers so bad (blabbermouth parrot in the chimney. Mrs. Grey is convinced they've got a ghost).

Meanwhile, at school, Charles and Mr. Lehnsherr give her all these workbooks with more difficult math and language and science, apologizing that they can't instruct her directly or get her into a more advanced class but promising to help if she has any questions (she doesn't).

Anyways. Then we get to the interesting part.

It's been a while, and Jean's seen the horrors of Shaw. He made a boy eat a whole cake in front of the school. he throws kids out windows. And there's this terrible thing called the chokey.

Shaw comes into their classroom to teach his monthly class -- Charles and Mr. Lehnsherr quickly hiding all the art and decorations in the room.

Ororo sneaks a newt into shaw's water. Pandemonium breaks out. Shaw starts targeting poor scott, of all people, who's not capable of breaking a rule.

Something in Jean snaps. And the glass tips over, sending the newt right onto shaw and shaw right out of their classroom.

After class, she explains it to Charles and Mr. Lehnsherr. She shows them what she can do. With just a little bit of anger, she can push the glass over.

The two teachers glance at each other (after being quite shocked, of course), then Charles asks if she'd like to have tea, and talk about this more, if her parents wouldn't mind.

Jean knows that they most certainly don't care where she is, and agrees.

Charles and Mr. Lehnsherr bring her to a small cottage, surrounded by wildflowers. The walls are whitewashed. There are two little windows. Charles spreads cheap margarine on the toast. Mr. Lehnsherr pulls two chipped mugs out -- there doesn't appear to be a third. The kitchen is just a shelf, really, with a little portable stove.

Charles asks Jean if she'd be willing to get them some water from the well out back. She has a wonderful time doing so, never having drawn from a well before.

She and Charles have tea and toast, sitting on the crates that are the only furniture in the whole of the tiny cottage. Mr. Lehnsherr sits cross-legged on the floor, leaning against Charles's crate a little and not eating or drinking anything.

Jean, as a small child -- because, yes, no matter how smart and independent she is, she's still a small child -- asks a few questions that might be a little too personal, inquiring about just how poor their salaries are to live like this.

"Why shouldn't you ask?" Charles says, after Jean apologizes. "You were bound to ask in the end. You are much to bright to not have wondered. Perhaps... Perhaps we even wanted you to ask."

Erik nods his head, saying his solemn voice, "You're our first visitor, after all."

Quietly, a little sadly, Charles begins to tell Jean a story. He once lived in a large brick house in town. His mother passed when he was born, and his father was absent until he died, leaving him in the care of an uncle. The uncle brought with him a ward, Erik.

The uncle was an unkind man. He forced them to work around the clock, doing the household chores and the cooking and anything else he could think of, like they were servants and not young children. He would beat them if they disobeyed -- and even when they didn't.

They managed to go to the teacher's college about forty minutes away when they both turned eighteen. They could've gone to university -- but the evil man wouldn't allow it.

"How did you get away?" Jean asks, equally riveted and in deep sympathy for her kind teachers.

They tell a story of being forced to sign away their salaries to the uncle, since apparently they "owed him thousands" for being just barely fed and clothed for ten years. With the little that they got to keep, it seemed they would never get a place of their own...

But Mr. Lehnsherr, on his early morning walks, stumbled into a small, empty cottage. He went to find out who owned it, and the farmer, after insisting he didn't want to live there, agreed to rent it out for ten pence a month.

Charles and Mr. Lehnsherr (who, at a point, sighed and told Jean just to call him Erik since they're not at school) quietly packed their things, informed the evil man that they'd rented a house, and rushed out the door.

While Jean is happy for their triumph, she's aghast of the idea of the evil man still living in Charles's old home. He says that his father's will was apparently destroyed ("no prizes for guessing who," Jean says, and Erik huffs a laugh) and his uncle produced a piece of paper saying the house was to go to him -- Charles is sure it was counterfeit, but there's nothing he can do.

"He still owns my family property a town over, too," Erik says quietly. "Won in much the same fashion." His hands are balled into fists, his face mournful and angry. He doesn't elaborate, and Jean and Charles are smart enough not to push.

Jean asks who the evil man is.

With a glance at his partner, Charles says the name "Shaw."

After the initial shock, the conversation changes, and Jean eventually excuses herself to go home. Charles and Erik apologize for keeping her so late, walking her to the end of the dirt road and back to the sidewalk.

Before they part, Jean asks a few questions: what did Charles's father call him before he passed? Charlie. He hated it. What did charles and Erik's parents call Shaw? Sebastian. His first name. And what did he call their parents? Brian, Charles answers. ...Edie, Erik whispers after a moment of hesitation.

Jean practices her new gift at home. It's not long until she can lift things at whim, pointing at them or staring at them or just thinking of it. She plots. She plans. She practices what's needed for her plots and her plans.

The next time Shaw comes into their classroom, he's startled by the whiteboard chalk floating into the air, beginning to write a message:

Sebastian, give my Charlie back his house. Give him and Erik their wages. Give Erik his land. Then get out of here. If you don't, we will get you. We will get you like you got us. We are watching you, Sebastian.

There is a great commotion as Shaw passes out on the floor in shock. He's carted out of the school. He leaves the brick house within a day. Reportedly, Brian Xavier's will turns up. Charles and Erik move into the great house. Charles is appointed headmaster of the newly christened "Big Friendly School." (Note: this is taken from the source material. I don't think charles would name something after himself in this au tbh). Jean is a welcome visitor anytime.

Then, one day, arriving back from the brick house in the evening, she finds her parents packing up the car. They're moving to spain, they say. Her father has been caught, which they don't say, but is clear.

Jean runs all the way back to Charles and Erik's house. Jean begs them to let her stay -- she doesn't want to leave, and she certainly doesn't want to be trapped with her parents forever in a foreign country.

Charles and Erik come with her back to her house. She takes some adoption papers out, which, funnily enough, she's had since she was tall enough to use the copier at the library! Boss move, Jean.

her parents don't fucking care, so they sign the papers. Charles and Erik are pretty much about to cry. They're parents, now, something they never thought they could be. They hug Jean, something her own parents never did, and don't bother to watch them leave.

Now, they all live in the big brick house together, and it's a house full of reading and laughter and life, all three of them, daughter and her fathers, finding a kind of happiness they never thought they'd be able to have.

and that's it. Why did I spend two hours writing this. 😂