Of a Man Who Was About to Fly (But I Stayed Down with My Demons)

 

Charles/Erik, some kind of AU but they have powers
Angst, pure depressive artsy angst
Trigger warning: death, murder, broken hearts (because I am cute :3)

The title was inspired by this song: { The Nationals - Demons }

{ credit:me }

There was a bird made of lead once upon a time. This bird of lead has been circling above a wise, sky-high oak tree for a long-long time, never-never rested, and the top of the tree has always-always been leafless and rotten. Then the day came when it rested ‒ this is how it happened: on a frosty day in January the bird of lead flew on a branch only metres above the ground, and the wind became harsher, and all the green leaves became brown and fell down, and the people screamed mutely; and then the tree spoke: “When you have ceased to destroy, / you will be destroyed.” The bird started falling towards the ground ‒ but in the end, human feet touched the earth.

Erik is sitting on an ornate chair in the dark library room smelling of candle smoke, fidgeting with his lead ring on his finger, and on the table in front of him are three spent candles, like symbols. He stares at the wax layers on the surface of the table with a hostile look for a long time, then he leans forward, the metal legs are pressing against his shins, and starts to scrape aggressively; at some spots he scratches the wood, at some spots it tears with the wax, and he doesn’t care. Finally, he leaves the torn, naked table on its own in the dark room, and shuts the door behind himself.

Back then (feel) the gold sun shone and the happy birds chirped, and in a scarlet robe Charles stepped out on the balcony and wrapped his arms around the man standing there from behind. Erik turned around and greeted Charles with that charming, cheeky grin of his that always made the man’s legs go weak. They ate their rich breakfast in Charles’ fancy dining room, then Charles headed to the campus and Erik to work, and after, they met halfway and walked home together while talking about their day. At home, Erik could finally push Charles to the bed (or the couch, or the table, or any surface that was on the way), and they made love, lustfully and in sync, then lay and cuddled there until dinner.

Now (feel) it seems as if the sun was grey and the birds were dead, the light is darkened by its storm clouds, and Charles can’t find Erik in the morning, vainly scanning through the house, the garden ‒ but then he’s there, and he’s irresistible, and they have sex, fiercely and chaotically. Erik disappears again, and he doesn’t show up until the evening but he looks satisfied and it makes Charles briefly see his old Erik. It makes him fall in love with him over again and even more, and they laugh on sweet little nothings. Sometimes Erik gets home earlier though, and most probably after an unsuccessful mission because he’s distant and tense, and Charles feels alone in his company.

But Erik is trying, however it may seem, his number one has always been and always will be Charles. He attempts to explain: “They took everything from me,” he grunts, “surely, you can understand why I hold a grudge, Schnucki.”

Charles understands the why, how could he not, and he’s just as angry ‒ he can’t accept the how, however. “Why are the deaths of these people just when the same deed feels so unjust from your point of view?”

Depending on his mood, Erik makes a joke or becomes angry because he feels like Charles is protecting them. Charles is, in both cases, left alone with his powerlessness.

And Erik, once disciplined, yet cheeky young man, now endlessly roams the dark streets under the starless sky, like a bloodthirsty ghost ‒ only when his revenge is fulfilled can he find peace.

Charles watches the rampage of his beloved Erik from inside his dimly lit room. His fingers on his temple, he bends in his wheelchair, and he doesn’t know this man ‒ or rather: what has become of the man he’s known? Whose malevolence was dwarfed by such great potential for goodness, how could have that man grow so resolutely vengeful?

And Charles had tried many times to turn Erik back to the path he thought to be the right one, not one time had he succeeded. Then at one point the forever optimistic Charles gave up.

The story was this: Charles has saved Erik because that was what Charles did. They were happy, in love, young and unharmed. Then all that, or at least most if it changed ‒ because humanity viciously keeps eradicating itself in the most horrible ways (but my dear Erik, really…) ‒, and they were neither happy, young, nor unharmed. Nonetheless, they were still ‒ and will forever be ‒, eagerly, almost naively, in love.

It started on a hot summer day, like this:

Without a calming breeze, the trees were motionlessly drying, the sweat-smelling air vibrated in the heat. All living things were lazing in the shadows for nothing could be done in this hotness. Humen, however, bound with duty, slaved all day; Erik sweat like hell. Sometimes, when it was absolutely necessary, he stopped his work to quickly wipe his sparkling forehead with his wood-dusty arm. The weighty metal saw sliced the lath underneath easily, obviously with Erik’s help. He worked wood with metal equipment, and plastic, of course, because nowadays everything was made of plastic (he hated this). His palm was callused, fingertips rough, splinters crawled under his skin here and there; that’s what you get with this kind of job.

He grabbed the lath, and set it by the previous ones on the other end of the garden. He got a direct view of the back door of the mansion from here. He hasn’t met the owners yet, the staff hired him for building the fancy garden pavilion some days before but he definitely imagined them as filthy rich and somewhat snobbish. That’s why he grimaced every time he looked at the house (eh, castle).

Today, however, the back door opened, and a young man walked out to the broad steps. He stretched out his arms, looking like someone who just woke up. When he spotted Erik, he waved with disgusting happiness.

“Good morning!”

Erik groaned back politely: “It’s eleven.”

The other, ignoring Erik’s tone, glowed cheerfully on him, about to say something but suddenly a taller man showed up behind him and kissed his neck. The overly pumped up man turned around, and Erik tore his gaze from the scene.

He measured the laths to each other, and when he found everything well, he headed back to saw a new one. While doing so, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing in the door’s direction: the happy man’s boyfriend was heading towards the street across the garden. The happy man himself was heading towards Erik.

“I’m Charles Xavier,” he extended his white hand elegantly. “I’m the one living here.”

Erik rubbed his hand in his pants, and rumbled reluctantly: “Erik Lehnsherr.”

“Oh, what a wonderful name! German, is it?”

“It is.”

“And how well you’re speaking the language!”

“Did you come to that conclusion based on two words?”

“Four.”

“Two of which were my own name.”

“Well, Erik, let’s just say I felt it, what do you think?”

Erik hemmed, and started measuring the next piece of wood with a measuring stick.

“It’s not a problem that I’m calling you Erik, right? I thought we must be roughly the same age…”

Erik looked up and down the man skeptically; the man definitely seemed younger than him. He nodded.

“Wonderful, it’s much easier this way. What are you working on?”

“The pavilion.”

“Oh, the pavilion! I thought that was merely an idea. Nonetheless, I’m happy to have you here, Erik. Don’t be afraid to let me know if you need anything, please!”

The man went back in the house with a big smile, and Erik stared at his back, frowning. Sure. If he needs something, he’ll yell at the wall of the golden palace. Maybe a djinn would pop out.

At lunch time, Erik threw himself at the foot of the spreading oak tree in the garden, sipped from his flask filled with now warm water, and peeled the napkin from his poorly stuffed sandwich. That was when he caught sight of Charles: the man was heading towards him with a tray.

“I brought some food,” he announced in a tinkling voice, and placed the tray in front of Erik. He, too, dropped beside it.

Erik eyed the lined-up, yummy-looking snacks, then his pathetic little sandwich, and, well, it took an embarrassingly little amount of time for him to decide. He reached out for one of the forks, and dipped it in a pile of something white.

“Delicious, isn’t it? My cooks are sent from God, I must say.” Charles grabbed the other fork and started eating.

And Charles chattered, he was pretty good at it, and Erik listened, hemmed and hummed, because he wasn’t so good at it; for some reason, however, the man seemed interested in him. Erik was only interested in one thing at the moment, really, and he tried to ask about it in the least obvious way possible. He probably didn’t succeed, as Charles knowingly grinned at him (he had a soft, kind grin), and he said:

“Oh, that man is not my boyfriend. We met yesterday night, and I doubt we’d do it again. I don’t even know his name.”

Erik was satisfied. Charles asked back. He replied he was single too.

Their lunches together kept on happening, Charles brought something tasty every day to the garden, they ate together under the oak tree, and Erik was getting to know the man more and more, and he was getting more and more interested in him.

This is how it started:

On a cloudy, muggy summer day when the wind was playfully dragging the twigs of the trees, the sun was teasingly appearing and disappearing, the birds were flying low, and Erik has been working at the lot for a week, his experience said there was going to be rain soon, nevertheless, he tried to get as much work done as he could. On this cloudy, muggy day, Charles came scantily clad, with the tray in his hands, and Erik’s gaze got caught on the man hungrily, then they argued about humankind. Charles got labeled naive and optimistic, and Erik got called radical and little of faith.

Then the sky fell down. Charles grabbed the tray, Erik covered the laths with the plastic film he had prepared beforehand, and they rushed to the back door of the mansion. Charles opened it with his elbow, and nodded to Erik, signaling to follow him.

The man slalomed comfortably through the spacious rooms, Erik was slower, he spectated his surroundings curiously ‒ it’s not every day a man can enter a palace, after all (especially not a man such as himself). Charles put down the tray in the kitchen, low-key praised the cooks to the skies, then he touched Erik’s waist briefly as he gestured forward with his arm, signaling “that way.” At the end of that way they reached a smaller, comfier living room where Charles vanished behind a door, then came back with towels and dry clothes.

And yes, it started like this: the leather couch sticking to Erik’s naked butt, and the orchid wallpapers echoing Charles’ moans.

Yes, the relationship started there, maybe, truly; the building process of the pavilion was going slower than it would usually but it seemed like Charles didn’t mind, in fact, he was delighted he could steal Erik in the most unpredictable times, lure him in the house, the bathtub, the floor even, or the pool, because, as it turned out, there was a pool ‒ of course there was a pool ‒, and Erik enjoyed every single Charles-blessed moment. So it happened that he stayed with him more and more often after work, he spent his nights there, and they went on dates.

As the Indian summer came along, Erik started structuring the metal frame of the pavilion. He barely touched the material but it reacted to his will willingly; Erik has been aware of his power since he was a child, and not once did he brag about it, in fact, he was hiding it ‒ but when nobody could see, he often practiced.

Except this time Charles did see. And Erik didn’t know how to explain it, he tried to disguise it as an accident, coincidence but Charles was obviously very enthusiastic. Then he heard Charles’ voice inside his own head: he rambled excitedly about mutations, genes and whatnot ‒ Erik didn’t understand most of it. He listened to the monologue in his head quietly, smilingly, and watched the man whose eyes were shining and mouth closed; he stepped closer and kissed him deeply. There were two of them. Two of them against the world.

The leaves of the oak in the garden were turning colorful slower than the other trees’: the branches were starting to bloom only on the threshold of winter (which definitely brightened up the gloomy view of the garden). It was the end of November when Erik suddenly disappeared for days; these days seemed awfully long, Charles worried and Erik craved, and they both missed each other. When Erik came back, he only said:

“My mother has fallen ill.”

“That’s terrible!” Charles whined and touched Erik’s hand in support. “Really, if there’s anything I can do‒”

“Come on, Schnucki,” Erik dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, I know! I’ll find the best doctors to treat her, of course.”

“Please,” Erik hissed, “I wouldn’t accept it.”

Although Erik tried to talk him out of it in many different ways, Charles was intransigent. The most convincing reason proved to be when he grabbed Charles’ wrists, pushed them above the man’s head, while thinking his pants down from him, and he dipped his fingers into his lover’s round butt.

Erik had to give up his nights at Charles’ as he had to stay with his mother at home, so Charles started to go to his place instead. When he first entered the small flat, he was completely amused, and started to observe the details curiously, all the indications to Erik’s life. He lifted a dusty photo from the top of the cupboard in the corner.

Erik scratched his neck. “Oh. That’s Magda. My ex. Old story.”

Charles smiled at the woman. “Beautiful.”

“Hates me as hell.”

“How could you be hated?” Charles purred, throwing his arms on his lover’s shoulders.

Erik grinned awkwardly as he caressed the man’s waist. “I might have got her pregnant, then left. But to my defense, it was an accident.”

Charles’ eyes widened. “You have a child?”

“Godforbid, no. She aborted it.”

“I want children,” said Charles. “I would adopt a few.”

“A few?”

“Like five, six‒”

“I’m glad that my one doesn’t exist,” Erik mumbled, shocked.

It continued with Erik finding a doctor for her mother he was able to afford, Dr. Shaw. (The man basically volunteered, and he dropped his prices significantly.) Just in time, the doctor said, these harsh winters are not safe for a woman as ill as Erik’s mother.

And then it also continued with Erik standing in front of Charles, well after their first New Year’s Eve kiss, and saying in complete shock:

“Schnucki, do you remember when I told you Magda had an abortion?”

“Yes.”

“Well, as it turns out, she didn’t. And it’s not one. They’re twins.”

Charles low-key glowed up. “Oh but this is just wonderful! Are you going to meet them? You must meet them!”

Erik met them. Their names were Pietro and Wanda; the boy’s hair: silver, the girl’s: scarlet red. And Magda still hated him.

And this is how everything was ruined:

On a beautiful spring day when golden trees blossomed and birds were chirping gleefully, Erik’s mother died. Dr. Shaw vanished. Erik became suspicious.

A few weeks later Magda died too, and Erik ‒ who practically moved in to Charles’ mansion while grieving his mother ‒ took custody of the twins. Charles offered them two separate rooms but they wanted to share one. Nobody understood Magda’s death, she was in perfect shape ‒ they said it was a workplace accident but the twins didn’t believe that, and Erik believed them. Charles too.

Pietro was an early bird, Wanda a night owl.

At one breakfast, Pietro was impatiently pouring milk into a bowl while unwrapping the box of cereal (Charles presented multiple other options to him but Pietro stuck to cereal), and he was looking at Charles and Erik.

“Really, my dear Erik, you must try to form a bowl, if not else, for the sake of the experiment.

“For the experiment, obviously, not for you.”

“Well, you know I’d never make you do anything you don’t want to‒”

“Nooo, you’d never,” winked Erik teasingly.

Charles cleared his throat and motioned towards Pietro with his head, who was already eating his breakfast hastily.

“Oh, come on,” Pietro hemmed, “not that I don’t know.”

Charles blushed. “You’re a smart boy, no doubt.”

“Uhm… I have eyes.”

Wanda, holding herself straight, walked out to the kitchen, and first of all, brewed coffee. The two men watched her cautiously. Both children were affected by their mother’s death, naturally, but it seemed as if Wanda was having a harder time with accepting it.

With a mug of coffee, she faced her audience, and rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on.”

Charles and Erik tore their gazes from her.

Outside the window, the world was swallowed in darkness and summer rain was splashing on the glass. Pietro blinked sleepily and lay down on a couch as he listened to Wanda’s soft murmuring. She was leaning over a table, reading a thick, worn book in the library room. This was her favorite place in the house.

And then: bamm. Pietro was by Wanda’s side in a blink of an eye, kneeling worriedly next to the girl on the floor. He didn’t have time to yell; her body was already floating just above the ground, arms pushed back, her palms and eyes wide open, and Pietro felt as if scarlet red energy was surrounding her.

Just a moment later Wanda dropped back to the floor, opened her eyes, and slowly got up on her elbows.

“That weird thing happened again,” Pietro informed her.

“It must be something I read in that book,” the girl said.

And this is how everything was ruined: on a cloudy summer day Pietro disappeared but Wanda knew, felt that it happened against his will. Charles tried everything to locate the boy ‒ he didn’t succeed.

The next day Shaw invited Erik and Wanda to meet but it was a trap, really, and the two of them had to watch powerlessly as the man killed Pietro. All along, the man was bragging about how he killed Erik’s mother and Wanda’s mother. Then he said he did all this for Erik, he can surely see now that he must join him, and Erik was suddenly filled with disgust and anger.

Days passed and Wanda ran away ‒ she left a letter, she wrote about her power and that she wanted to learn to use it on her own.

Charles was disappointed.

Erik was immensely furious. He swore and planned revenge; and yes, that’s how it happened that Erik pushed away the sweet Charles.

Because Charles, the forever optimist Charles gave up, he couldn’t support Erik anymore on this; oh but it was hard, truly hard, as he loved this man ‒ nevertheless, he had to… One day, Erik came home to Charles not being there. He left a note, he kept apologising but he was confident in his decision. He also wrote that Erik could stay in the house, and let him know when he’s given up on revenge ‒ until then, however awful it was to write this, he was alone.

Back then (feel) ‒ the gold sun shines and the happy birds chirp,

Now (feel) ‒ the light is darkened by its storm clouds,

It might happen like this:

Erik finally conquers Shaw and his two associates: on an autumn day (maybe it was winter already, ‒ maybe summer yet?) he avenges the deaths of his loved ones. He sends a letter to Charles, and they meet. When the man smiles at him, suddenly everything falls to place, everything is alright, and‒

Or like this (Erik saw it like this):

Erik finally conquers Shaw and his two associates: on a neutral day (not important, this is not what’s important) he avenges the deaths of his loved ones, and sends a letter to Charles, they meet but the man just keeps smiling at him painfully. He calls him “dear friend” ‒ as if they were ever just friends ‒ and Erik’s heart breaks into two and Erik marks it: X ‒ his heart had been here, ‒ and feels, this is the end, he realizes he’s alone: his mother dead, his son dead, his daughter ran away, and his lover, Charles, Schnucki ‒ well, he’s been with him persistently all along but Erik, without meaning to, despite all his efforts, pushed him away.

Alone, in the dark library room smelling of smoke, three spent candles on the table…

The only source of light are three candles on the table: Erik bends over a piece of paper and scribbles. “Dear Charles,” he begins, and he doesn’t know what to write, what to say to this man, what could he possibly‒ “I have defeated my enemies,” he inculcates finally, “if you would like to meet me, I’ll be at our old spot at 2pm on Wednesday”

He doesn’t put a period and doesn’t sign it; he drops the heavy ‒ light as a feather ‒ metal pen.

Maybe another time, maybe later it would be easier ‒ yes, so it will be: they will meet on a rainy day (the storm clouds have burst, and they see each other in the middle of the storm, and they will stay together when the storm ends), the rain soaks Erik’s grey hair, and Charles holds an umbrella in his wheelchair, and Erik will say to him: “All those years wasted, to have a precious few of them back…” And Erik won’t be able to stop himself from leaning down to Charles and kissing him, and they will once again be inseparable. Because that’s how it is with the first true love, they say, it never passes, and the two of them will be working on finding their way back to each other, consciously or subconsciously, until the end of times.

Erik is sitting on an ornate chair in the dark library room smelling of candle smoke, fidgeting with his lead ring on his finger, and on the table in front of him are three spent candles, like symbols. He stares at the wax layers on the surface of the table with a hostile look for a long time, then he leans forward, the metal legs are pressing against his shins, and starts to scrape aggressively; at some spots he scratches the wood, at some spots it tears with the wax, and he doesn’t care. Finally, he leaves the torn, naked table on its own in the dark room, and shuts the door behind himself. On the table is an unfinished letter beside an unaddressed envelope, “Schnucki, I have defeated my enemies, if you would like to meet me, I’ll be at our old spot at 2pm on Wednesday”

The bird of lead, in human form now, looked up at the sky-high oak tree, squinting and seeing its top. Without the bird, the top of the tree blossomed; however, its roots were thin and powerless. Feeling the lead in the legs and the fulfilled goal in the spirit, the bird wanted to fly back, lift up with the wind, abandon all the burdens; but the tree didn’t allow ‒ and as the soft breeze stroked the leaves, the tree whispered: “And you are made to dwell alone / in the midst of the land.”

(The quotes at the beginning and the end:
Isaiah 33:1 and Isaiah 5:8)