Mirror Mirror -- Charles:Erik

Fandom: X-Men First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Summary: A Cerebro accident temporarily turns Charles into a living Mirror of Erised. (Done for a 1stclass-kink prompt, link below.) [light slash warning]


Cerebro is being a little odd today for reasons Hank can't explain, and he fiddles with the controls for several minutes before he'll let Charles put on the helmet.

"Okay, don't know what that was about, but it should be fine now," Hank mutters as he reaches for the switch. "Just tell me if anything—"

There's a sudden pounding on the door, making them both jump, and Hank shouts "What do you want?" just as his hand stutters on the switch.

Charles's brain lights up like a strobelight, goes dark again, and the next thing he's aware of is Hank's frantic babbling voice and his hands propping Charles up by the shoulders. He's sitting on the steps of the Cerebro platform, head between his knees.

"Charles, Charles, oh God please say something—"

"I'm all right, Hank," Charles says weakly, "though I've one gobstobber of a headache—" He squints up at Hank and the room is swirling lights and he seems to hear his own voice saying "What do you want?"

And Hank's mind answers, involuntarily, sending Charles a bright, colorful image of Hank himself and Raven, in her blonde form — a series of images, actually, moving snapshots of their wedding, their sweet little cliché honeymoon at Niagara Falls, their return home to a sturdy little brick house with a no-joke white picket fence. Charles feels the vision reflect back from his mind to the sender, infused with a happy glow of approval and yes, Hank, you can have this, this can happen for you that Charles did not intend to put there. Not that he particularly minds if Hank marries Raven, assuming Raven doesn't mind, but it's not something he decides to do, it just happens anyway.

"How did—" Hank has gone a little pale. "What are you — oh. Oh. It's a feedback loop, Charles, let me check the readout—" He scrambles back to his machines, leaving Charles to stagger woozily to his feet alone. "Yes, this energy spike here — I always wondered what would happen if — gosh I'm sorry Charles, this is going to have some pretty weird aftereffects, the good news is it ought to wear off in a few minutes, maybe an hour..."

"I think I need to lie down," Charles says carefully.

"Yes, yes, that's an excellent idea. Let me help you." Hank takes his arm and they make their unsteady way back to the rooms the mutants are occupying in the CIA base. Charles's balance improves after a minute but he stills feels odd, and Hank keeps looking at him in this wondering, overly-happy way... not at him, Charles realizes, but at the vision he's still reflecting at him, his dream-come-true with Raven.

"Sorry," Hank says, blushing when he catches him staring. "I know it's not—it's just the feedback loop. But it sure is nice to see, anyway. Um… I'm really sorry. I know you probably don't, um, like anyone thinking of your sister that way…"

"Don't worry about it, Hank," Charles mutters. "The idea of a sweet, honest boy like you marrying my sister is not exactly nightmarish." He can't help adding, "But I will be glad when this wears off."

He'd hoped to make it to his own bedroom without encountering anyone else, but they pass Raven's room and the door is open, Raven reading on the bed, and when she looks up in concern he feels it happening again.

What do you want?

And a vision of Raven, bare and blue-skinned, walking with her head high through a room crowded with people, every one of whom pause as she passes to nod with approval and delight. Reflected back from his mind to Raven's with an added gloss of yes, it could happen, Raven, this is how it could be.

Hank is already babbling explanations again, and Raven's alarm at this inexplicable event is replaced by wonder and curiosity. She takes Charles's other arm and they head toward his bedroom, and though her concern for him is real, he can feel that she also just really wants to keep seeing that.

Armando and Alex are in the little common room they've been given, playing pinball, and they look up in alarm when Charles passes, supported by Hank and Raven, and oh here we go again, What do you want?—

Alex playing baseball in the backyard with his father and brother while his mother cheers them on, setting out a picnic on the wooden table

Armando in a well-tailored suit, standing before a podium with a huge American flag behind him, "—and I want to promise the people of America that I will repay their trust with the very best I can give them, that I will protect them from threats foreign and domestic, that I will see that this country becomes all the glorious and admirable things it can become—"

And now they're following him, too, wide-eyed, and Armando is laughing at himself when Hank explains but Alex looks heartbroken and Charles wants to tell them we'll find your brother, Alex, and you shouldn't laugh, Armando, you'd be a better President than anyone I can think of but his head is spinning too much, he'll tell them later.

"What the devil is going on?" Erik demands, and before Charles knows what's happening, he's sent the others scurrying away shame-faced and has Charles's arm over his shoulders, half-carrying him down the hallway.

They pass Sean's closed door, and Charles's determined mind peeks through and asks What do you want? but Sean is asleep and his only reply is a warm, fuzzy image of tacos. Lots and lots of tacos.

You can have as many tacos as you like, Sean, Charles says, and the boy smiles in his sleep and turns over.

They finally finally arrive at Charles's room and Erik drops him down onto the bed.

"Do you want some water? A wet cloth or something?" Erik asks. "You look terrible."

And Charles has been trying so hard to rein it in, he knows how much Erik values the privacy of his mind, but there it goes, can't hold it any longer. What do you want?

And in his mind he sees the young boy Erik, standing between his mother and Dr. Schmidt, and on three he does move the coin, all the way through Schmidt's forehead, and he and his mother leave the room unmolested, hand in hand.

"Stop it, Charles! You've no right!" Erik shouts. "Just stop that, it didn't happen, it never will happen and it's cruel—"

"I'm sorry, Erik, I'm sorry, I can't help it, I'm not doing it on purpose!" He reaches for Erik's arm, which is probably a mistake because Erik doesn't like being touched…

…except when he does, apparently, because the moment Charles touches him the vision he's reflecting changes profoundly and it's not Erik's mother he's seeing now but himself, himself and Erik and a whole lot more touching.

And that's the moment the feedback loop or whatever it was chooses to wear off. Charles's head is suddenly completely still and quiet.

Erik steps back from Charles's hand, mortification and anger and terror boiling from him. "You had no right," he says hoarsely, "no right to see that."

Charles stands up, unsteadily, though that's no longer Cerebro's fault. "Is that really what you want, Erik?"

Erik backs away. "You don't—I would never have said anything, Charles, just ignore it. Disregard it."

"But it is what you want." Charles steps closer.

Erik swallows and doesn't say anything, but with that expression on his face he doesn't have to.

Charles steps forward again, until they're nearly touching. And this time it's completely deliberate when his mind reaches out to Erik's, yes Erik it's all right, you can have that, things can really be that way for you.

He tilts his head up to kiss Erik who kisses back with the force of a hurricane, and he hears the door lock all on its own and just has time to think Cerebro needs to malfunction more often if this is what comes of it before he loses all capacity to think at all.

-end-