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icarusWriting is writing, right? So if I'm not working on the projects I should be doing right now, at least I'm writing? This is my rationalization at any rate.
I'm sure you all know by now that X-Men First Class is irresistible. Erik is irresistible. So is Charles.
I love the meta that's pouring out in this fandom already (seeseperis' post if you haven't already, though be aware it is one spoiler from beginning to end). There's another great post from an SGA friend who's also in the comic fandom and knows the original canon, but damn it, I can't find it. ETA: Oh, here it is, not quite meta, more review-plus-meta.
Fandom: X-Men First Class
Title: Playing The Hopeful Move
Author: Me, of course
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Thank yous: tomad_maudlin and to tzzzz for, respectively, making me post it, and telling me to make it a story. All mistakes are my own. By way of explanation, in chess, the hopeful move is the one that makes you vulnerable but can completely disarm your opponent.
Summary: Charles and Erik go on a road trip to find mutants and end up playing chess at 20,000 feet. "I'm not omnipotent enough to lie."
Playing The Hopeful Move
By Icarus
"A road trip's a great opportunity for us to get to know one another," Charles said with a jaunty smile that Erik didn't like. Charles almost patted him on the shoulder, but his hand swerved at the last moment and he let it drop.
'Road trip' was a misnomer. The CIA had its own fleet of private planes and one was at their disposal, or rather, the program director's disposal. Erik had been rather surprised at the expense lavished on this project, until he caught Charles' smug expression, a suppressed smile tugging at one corner of his lips. Erik approved. He leaned back in his seat, one forearm draped over the armrest. They had coordinates for dozens of mutants but had to move quickly: coordinates weren't the same as having an address and phone number. People moved about--especially mutants. The CIA said they'd have to do some detective work once they were on the ground, though Charles claimed he could sense any mutant once they were near enough.
There wouldn't be any for hours, of course, not unless one flew by. They were currently at twenty thousand feet and nursing colas. Erik drummed his fingers, then pushed himself out of his seat to the mini-bar. Charles followed him to the bar, where Erik poured himself another soft drink. Bored feds gathered at the other end of the plane, avoiding them.
"I thought you already knew 'everything' about me," Erik answered, imitating Charles' effusive everything. Late, but he never lost track of a conversation. Charles' bold claim had been a strange relief, for reasons Erik wasn't willing to examine.
"Oh, I know all the important things, to be sure," Charles said with breezy unaffected arrogance. Ice cubes clinked in his glass. "But plumbing the depths of a man's soul leaves out the little things, the social niceties and revealing intimacies that make us, well, civilized." That perky smile returned. "For example: what is your favorite color?"
Now that was important. Erik stared at him a moment before he realized it wasn't a rhetorical question. "Black," he answered, momentarily off-balance.
"Black's not a color," Charles said, a little too quickly, too prepared, like he'd expected, no--read the answer.
"Don't lie to me," Erik said turning away. His jaw tightened.
"No, no, no!" Charles walked around him till they faced each other again. "I didn't know it."
Erik tilted his head with a smirk. Few men could lie to him. He'd grown up surrounded by liars.
"Gah, you hold me to such a high standard. I have to be so honest with you! I don't know if it's going to drive me crazy or if it's good for me." Charles ran his hand through his hair, like he was going to tug on it. "Look," he said, capturing Erik's eyes. Charles' eyes were a deep blue, pupils dark.
He was afraid. What was he afraid of? Erik became interested in this man, rather than just the mutants and how they might be useful. Erik's eyes narrowed. Why should he be afraid of in such a simple conversation? What did he want? He searched Charles' face and read nothing there but kindness.
"I did read it," Charles explained carefully, "but not before you thought it. We think things moments before we say them. It sounds like ... mmm ... subvocalizing to me," he said, eyes going hazy and distant, fascinated, like he'd never attempted to describe his gift before.
It was interesting. Erik had never considered what another gift might feel like.
"Mine feels like ... muscles pulling, only it's muscles in my brain," Erik admitted. Sometimes it gave him a headache.
"Yes, we should work on that," Charles answered his thought, turning serious. "I'm sure that shouldn't happen."
"So then." Erik dipped his chin and took a sip. "You hear everything twice," he said, changing the subject. He wasn't sure he liked anyone reading his mind. "Subvocalized once, and then again out loud. Conversations must get boring."
"On the contrary, it's very confusing," Charles said with open frustration. "No one ever says what they mean--I mean, you do, and small children--but most people lie. The subvocalizing overlaps what they say and it's all very exhausting to sort out. Sometimes it's easier just to listen to people think and ignore what they say."
Erik was startled at the compliment, tossed out so casually, this claim that he was honest. Was he? He weighed it, and found it to be true. He nodded to himself. He did say what he meant. When he had to lie, he lied by omission.
Charles had continued to ramble about his parents' early fears that he was deaf, and what it was like to hear thoughts. "Sometimes I like to close my eyes and just listen to the thoughts like waterfall, let it wash over me without making any sense of it all...."
Erik half-listened. One comment he couldn't let pass. He interrupted with a little smile, "Did you compare me to a small child?"
Charles frowned, blinked, and stopped mid-sentence. Erik wasn't a mind reader but he could almost hear the mental rewind.
"I did, didn't I?" Charles cringed.
"Yes." Erik smothered the smile.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't worry. I'm not insulted." Amused, yes. And other feelings he couldn't identify. Intellectually stimulated, yes. Perhaps the beginnings of friendship, though it had been so long, his last friendship could be summed up with the phrase Would you like to borrow my toy truck?
He turned from his musings to find Charles' soulful eyes, brimming with compassion.
"Try not to bleed for me so openly," Erik said. He'd learned not to roll his eyes--that had been a fast way to get a rifle butt in the face--but he glanced aside.
"Well, when you say things like that, how do you expect me to react?" Charles asked.
"I didn't say anything."
"That makes it worse because I hear it more clearly." Charles pointed at his temple.
Erik set his glass on the bar, and braced both of his hands on the counter. "Your gift is inherently unethical," he said, pissed off at the sympathy. It opened wounds that had been cauterized by the deaths of many men. Nazis, not men.
"Yes, it is," Charles said with an emphatic nod. "Thank you for understanding. Raven doesn't get it, the constant ethical quandary I'm in. I can't lie, for one thing."
"Sure you can," Erik said with a sardonic smile.
"No, no, I can't. It gets too complicated too quickly."
Erik raised his eyebrows, entertained. He'd expected a moral argument. Charles Xavier was full of surprises.
Charles squirmed, shifting. "I had a ... a situation with Raven once, when she first joined our family. I thought I could just 'fix' my parents, make them believe they'd adopted her. And I did. But the neighbors didn't remember her. So I had to fix that." He heaved a sigh. "Then there came the rest of the family--and we had relatives who weren't near enough for me to fix. So I had to start all over from scratch, changed everyone's memory."
It was alarming. "Memory is a good part of what we are," Erik said.
"Shut up, I'm telling a story. I decided to have a big family party to welcome Raven even though she'd been there a month." Charles grinned. "Thought it was a nice touch." He shook his head. "I was young. I didn't realize there had to be paperwork, proof."
Charles took a deep breath and licked his lips. "When she started school, I saw lines of questions fanning out in all directions, involving people in other cities, towns, beyond my reach. I'd see the faces of government officials in the minds of the secretaries at our school, hear memories of telephone conversations that had already occurred--too late to fix them."
"What did you do?" Erik said.
"I couldn't do anything," Charles said. He sighed. "The more I changed the truth, the more inconsistencies there were in my parents' stories, the more trouble we were in. I almost lost her."
"Obviously you did something," Erik said.
"No. We had a good attorney. He liked Raven; had a grandchild her age. Thought we were decent people. I had to let simple human kindness take its course." A muscle in Charles' jaw twitched. He looked down. "He saved her."
Erik winced and wrinkled his nose at this transparent attempt to put humans in a good light. "Well-paid human kindness."
"Yes," Charles admitted after a pause.
Erik turned and studied Charles. He could see why Charles had told him, appreciated the explanation why Charles wouldn't force him to do anything against his will. A promise to be "good" would not have sufficed.
"Quite right," Charles answered his thought again.
Erik was getting used to having his mind read. It saved time. He examined his palm, and ran his thumb over his fingers. Sometimes they tingled with the magnetic forces around them. "You have to be subtle."
"I work with what people already want to do," Charles agreed. "Raven doesn't get it. She wants me to use Cerebro to make the world embrace mutants."
Erik blinked. "Could you?"
It was a brilliant idea. For a brief flickering moment, peace with humans seemed feasible.
Charles huffed in exasperation. "I thought I just explained why I can't. I'm not omnipotent enough to lie."
"Ah." Erik leaned his elbows on the bar. He dangled his glass between his fingertips. "She thinks you won't."
"Yes."
"Your ethics cut too close to her own dilemma," Erik observed.
Charles gave him a blank look. For a man with such insight and gifts, Charles could be awfully stupid. He understood Raven better than he did Charles.
"The constant lying," Erik added, folding his arms. "Hiding who she is."
"She is a shape shifter," Charles explained patiently, like Erik was a child. It was gentile arrogance, but it seemed a habit, rather than a conscious belief in his own superiority. Erik forgave him. "By changing shapes, she is merely expressing her nature."
"And you are a mind reader," Erik said with a sharp-eyed look. "By reading minds, you are merely expressing your nature."
"Touche." Charles' eyebrows knit together and he chewed his fingernail, thinking. He said in a rush, "You're right. It's unkind of me to discuss my ethical issues with her, for all that she's my friend," Charles said. "Thank you." He eyed Erik appreciatively, up and down. "You are a formidable debater."
Erik was used to being right most of the time. He wasn't used to anyone else admitting they were wrong. He realized Charles had just implied that he was treating Erik like Raven, like a friend, by confiding in him. He wasn't sure he was ready for friendship. But it was heady stuff, this trust. Addictive. It left Erik hungry for more, and not liking that he wanted anything. He had to be prepared to die.
"Do you play chess?" Charles asked over his shoulder as he walked to his bags.
"A little," Erik hedged.
To his dismay, Erik couldn't stop the thoughts. Victory after victory came to mind, a spooling montage of images spilling out between them. Winning against adults as a child. Winning games for money in Monte Carlo.
All in front of a mind reader. He tried to think of music, the Beatles, or count to ten, or something, but the images were much stronger. Erik suspected Charles of pulling some mental trick and cut a sharp look in his direction--but Charles shook his head, hands up, denying it, his eyes dancing.
The final image, of winning against a chess champion in East Berlin, the primary memory he was trying to suppress, fell out. Erik let the last wisp of thought go, mournfully. He had no control over his mind.
They both burst out laughing. The feds up front glanced in their direction. One man's hand went to his gun under his jacket, before he relaxed.
"I'm going to trounce you," Erik said with far more honesty. He traced Charles's steps back to the seats, glass in hand. It was empty, he realized, but decided not to fetch more.
"Guess again," said Charles, beaming. He removed a small magnetic folding chess set from his bags. He set the board on the seat between them. "And thanks for that, by the way. Now I'm going to have the Beatles stuck in my head all night."
Erick wiped his hand across his mouth, trying to erase his smirk. He set up the pieces with small clicks on the board. Magnets felt good, almost like they purred under his fingertips.
"It's been a hard day's night...." Erick hummed, with a flicker of amusement up at Charles. His voice was scratchy but effective.
"Stop it. I don't like them. They manage to be simultaneously shrill and bland." Charles sneered, priggish.
"I've been working, like a dog...." Erik squeezed his eyes shut like he was in front of a microphone on the Ed Sullivan Show.
"Oh, God."
Erik laughed. It occurred to him that he didn't have to sing out loud to annoy Charles. Could Charles turn his mental powers off? He didn't think so. After some deliberation, he settled on the whiny "Big Girls Don't Cry." How did that go? Oh, yes. It was awful from the first note.
Charles met his gaze across the chessboard, a smile in his eyes. "You're a bastard."
I'm sure you all know by now that X-Men First Class is irresistible. Erik is irresistible. So is Charles.
I love the meta that's pouring out in this fandom already (see
seperis' post if you haven't already, though be aware it is one spoiler from beginning to end). There's another great post from an SGA friend who's also in the comic fandom and knows the original canon, but damn it, I can't find it. ETA: Oh, here it is, not quite meta, more review-plus-meta. Fandom: X-Men First Class
Title: Playing The Hopeful Move
Author: Me, of course
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Thank yous: to
mad_maudlin and to tzzzz for, respectively, making me post it, and telling me to make it a story. All mistakes are my own. By way of explanation, in chess, the hopeful move is the one that makes you vulnerable but can completely disarm your opponent.Summary: Charles and Erik go on a road trip to find mutants and end up playing chess at 20,000 feet. "I'm not omnipotent enough to lie."
Playing The Hopeful Move
By Icarus
"A road trip's a great opportunity for us to get to know one another," Charles said with a jaunty smile that Erik didn't like. Charles almost patted him on the shoulder, but his hand swerved at the last moment and he let it drop.
'Road trip' was a misnomer. The CIA had its own fleet of private planes and one was at their disposal, or rather, the program director's disposal. Erik had been rather surprised at the expense lavished on this project, until he caught Charles' smug expression, a suppressed smile tugging at one corner of his lips. Erik approved. He leaned back in his seat, one forearm draped over the armrest. They had coordinates for dozens of mutants but had to move quickly: coordinates weren't the same as having an address and phone number. People moved about--especially mutants. The CIA said they'd have to do some detective work once they were on the ground, though Charles claimed he could sense any mutant once they were near enough.
There wouldn't be any for hours, of course, not unless one flew by. They were currently at twenty thousand feet and nursing colas. Erik drummed his fingers, then pushed himself out of his seat to the mini-bar. Charles followed him to the bar, where Erik poured himself another soft drink. Bored feds gathered at the other end of the plane, avoiding them.
"I thought you already knew 'everything' about me," Erik answered, imitating Charles' effusive everything. Late, but he never lost track of a conversation. Charles' bold claim had been a strange relief, for reasons Erik wasn't willing to examine.
"Oh, I know all the important things, to be sure," Charles said with breezy unaffected arrogance. Ice cubes clinked in his glass. "But plumbing the depths of a man's soul leaves out the little things, the social niceties and revealing intimacies that make us, well, civilized." That perky smile returned. "For example: what is your favorite color?"
Now that was important. Erik stared at him a moment before he realized it wasn't a rhetorical question. "Black," he answered, momentarily off-balance.
"Black's not a color," Charles said, a little too quickly, too prepared, like he'd expected, no--read the answer.
"Don't lie to me," Erik said turning away. His jaw tightened.
"No, no, no!" Charles walked around him till they faced each other again. "I didn't know it."
Erik tilted his head with a smirk. Few men could lie to him. He'd grown up surrounded by liars.
"Gah, you hold me to such a high standard. I have to be so honest with you! I don't know if it's going to drive me crazy or if it's good for me." Charles ran his hand through his hair, like he was going to tug on it. "Look," he said, capturing Erik's eyes. Charles' eyes were a deep blue, pupils dark.
He was afraid. What was he afraid of? Erik became interested in this man, rather than just the mutants and how they might be useful. Erik's eyes narrowed. Why should he be afraid of in such a simple conversation? What did he want? He searched Charles' face and read nothing there but kindness.
"I did read it," Charles explained carefully, "but not before you thought it. We think things moments before we say them. It sounds like ... mmm ... subvocalizing to me," he said, eyes going hazy and distant, fascinated, like he'd never attempted to describe his gift before.
It was interesting. Erik had never considered what another gift might feel like.
"Mine feels like ... muscles pulling, only it's muscles in my brain," Erik admitted. Sometimes it gave him a headache.
"Yes, we should work on that," Charles answered his thought, turning serious. "I'm sure that shouldn't happen."
"So then." Erik dipped his chin and took a sip. "You hear everything twice," he said, changing the subject. He wasn't sure he liked anyone reading his mind. "Subvocalized once, and then again out loud. Conversations must get boring."
"On the contrary, it's very confusing," Charles said with open frustration. "No one ever says what they mean--I mean, you do, and small children--but most people lie. The subvocalizing overlaps what they say and it's all very exhausting to sort out. Sometimes it's easier just to listen to people think and ignore what they say."
Erik was startled at the compliment, tossed out so casually, this claim that he was honest. Was he? He weighed it, and found it to be true. He nodded to himself. He did say what he meant. When he had to lie, he lied by omission.
Charles had continued to ramble about his parents' early fears that he was deaf, and what it was like to hear thoughts. "Sometimes I like to close my eyes and just listen to the thoughts like waterfall, let it wash over me without making any sense of it all...."
Erik half-listened. One comment he couldn't let pass. He interrupted with a little smile, "Did you compare me to a small child?"
Charles frowned, blinked, and stopped mid-sentence. Erik wasn't a mind reader but he could almost hear the mental rewind.
"I did, didn't I?" Charles cringed.
"Yes." Erik smothered the smile.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't worry. I'm not insulted." Amused, yes. And other feelings he couldn't identify. Intellectually stimulated, yes. Perhaps the beginnings of friendship, though it had been so long, his last friendship could be summed up with the phrase Would you like to borrow my toy truck?
He turned from his musings to find Charles' soulful eyes, brimming with compassion.
"Try not to bleed for me so openly," Erik said. He'd learned not to roll his eyes--that had been a fast way to get a rifle butt in the face--but he glanced aside.
"Well, when you say things like that, how do you expect me to react?" Charles asked.
"I didn't say anything."
"That makes it worse because I hear it more clearly." Charles pointed at his temple.
Erik set his glass on the bar, and braced both of his hands on the counter. "Your gift is inherently unethical," he said, pissed off at the sympathy. It opened wounds that had been cauterized by the deaths of many men. Nazis, not men.
"Yes, it is," Charles said with an emphatic nod. "Thank you for understanding. Raven doesn't get it, the constant ethical quandary I'm in. I can't lie, for one thing."
"Sure you can," Erik said with a sardonic smile.
"No, no, I can't. It gets too complicated too quickly."
Erik raised his eyebrows, entertained. He'd expected a moral argument. Charles Xavier was full of surprises.
Charles squirmed, shifting. "I had a ... a situation with Raven once, when she first joined our family. I thought I could just 'fix' my parents, make them believe they'd adopted her. And I did. But the neighbors didn't remember her. So I had to fix that." He heaved a sigh. "Then there came the rest of the family--and we had relatives who weren't near enough for me to fix. So I had to start all over from scratch, changed everyone's memory."
It was alarming. "Memory is a good part of what we are," Erik said.
"Shut up, I'm telling a story. I decided to have a big family party to welcome Raven even though she'd been there a month." Charles grinned. "Thought it was a nice touch." He shook his head. "I was young. I didn't realize there had to be paperwork, proof."
Charles took a deep breath and licked his lips. "When she started school, I saw lines of questions fanning out in all directions, involving people in other cities, towns, beyond my reach. I'd see the faces of government officials in the minds of the secretaries at our school, hear memories of telephone conversations that had already occurred--too late to fix them."
"What did you do?" Erik said.
"I couldn't do anything," Charles said. He sighed. "The more I changed the truth, the more inconsistencies there were in my parents' stories, the more trouble we were in. I almost lost her."
"Obviously you did something," Erik said.
"No. We had a good attorney. He liked Raven; had a grandchild her age. Thought we were decent people. I had to let simple human kindness take its course." A muscle in Charles' jaw twitched. He looked down. "He saved her."
Erik winced and wrinkled his nose at this transparent attempt to put humans in a good light. "Well-paid human kindness."
"Yes," Charles admitted after a pause.
Erik turned and studied Charles. He could see why Charles had told him, appreciated the explanation why Charles wouldn't force him to do anything against his will. A promise to be "good" would not have sufficed.
"Quite right," Charles answered his thought again.
Erik was getting used to having his mind read. It saved time. He examined his palm, and ran his thumb over his fingers. Sometimes they tingled with the magnetic forces around them. "You have to be subtle."
"I work with what people already want to do," Charles agreed. "Raven doesn't get it. She wants me to use Cerebro to make the world embrace mutants."
Erik blinked. "Could you?"
It was a brilliant idea. For a brief flickering moment, peace with humans seemed feasible.
Charles huffed in exasperation. "I thought I just explained why I can't. I'm not omnipotent enough to lie."
"Ah." Erik leaned his elbows on the bar. He dangled his glass between his fingertips. "She thinks you won't."
"Yes."
"Your ethics cut too close to her own dilemma," Erik observed.
Charles gave him a blank look. For a man with such insight and gifts, Charles could be awfully stupid. He understood Raven better than he did Charles.
"The constant lying," Erik added, folding his arms. "Hiding who she is."
"She is a shape shifter," Charles explained patiently, like Erik was a child. It was gentile arrogance, but it seemed a habit, rather than a conscious belief in his own superiority. Erik forgave him. "By changing shapes, she is merely expressing her nature."
"And you are a mind reader," Erik said with a sharp-eyed look. "By reading minds, you are merely expressing your nature."
"Touche." Charles' eyebrows knit together and he chewed his fingernail, thinking. He said in a rush, "You're right. It's unkind of me to discuss my ethical issues with her, for all that she's my friend," Charles said. "Thank you." He eyed Erik appreciatively, up and down. "You are a formidable debater."
Erik was used to being right most of the time. He wasn't used to anyone else admitting they were wrong. He realized Charles had just implied that he was treating Erik like Raven, like a friend, by confiding in him. He wasn't sure he was ready for friendship. But it was heady stuff, this trust. Addictive. It left Erik hungry for more, and not liking that he wanted anything. He had to be prepared to die.
"Do you play chess?" Charles asked over his shoulder as he walked to his bags.
"A little," Erik hedged.
To his dismay, Erik couldn't stop the thoughts. Victory after victory came to mind, a spooling montage of images spilling out between them. Winning against adults as a child. Winning games for money in Monte Carlo.
All in front of a mind reader. He tried to think of music, the Beatles, or count to ten, or something, but the images were much stronger. Erik suspected Charles of pulling some mental trick and cut a sharp look in his direction--but Charles shook his head, hands up, denying it, his eyes dancing.
The final image, of winning against a chess champion in East Berlin, the primary memory he was trying to suppress, fell out. Erik let the last wisp of thought go, mournfully. He had no control over his mind.
They both burst out laughing. The feds up front glanced in their direction. One man's hand went to his gun under his jacket, before he relaxed.
"I'm going to trounce you," Erik said with far more honesty. He traced Charles's steps back to the seats, glass in hand. It was empty, he realized, but decided not to fetch more.
"Guess again," said Charles, beaming. He removed a small magnetic folding chess set from his bags. He set the board on the seat between them. "And thanks for that, by the way. Now I'm going to have the Beatles stuck in my head all night."
Erick wiped his hand across his mouth, trying to erase his smirk. He set up the pieces with small clicks on the board. Magnets felt good, almost like they purred under his fingertips.
"It's been a hard day's night...." Erick hummed, with a flicker of amusement up at Charles. His voice was scratchy but effective.
"Stop it. I don't like them. They manage to be simultaneously shrill and bland." Charles sneered, priggish.
"I've been working, like a dog...." Erik squeezed his eyes shut like he was in front of a microphone on the Ed Sullivan Show.
"Oh, God."
Erik laughed. It occurred to him that he didn't have to sing out loud to annoy Charles. Could Charles turn his mental powers off? He didn't think so. After some deliberation, he settled on the whiny "Big Girls Don't Cry." How did that go? Oh, yes. It was awful from the first note.
Charles met his gaze across the chessboard, a smile in his eyes. "You're a bastard."
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Date: 2011-06-23 08:59 am (UTC)