Title: Red All Over?
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Rating: Mature
Length: ~850
Content notes: Alpha/Omega dynamics (nothing explicit, but a means for differentiation), unexpected nudity
Author notes: Written for a friend who asked for a M*A*S*H fusion with First Class, and if you've seen the movie, you'll know what this is about. This runs fast and loose with the prompt.
Thanks to kageillusionz and ninemoons42 for the quick beta help.
We’ll count this towards the following badges: beta boss, cracksmith, overseer of the au,
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr, one of many alpha doctors in a M*A*S*H unit wants nothing to do with his friend's strange obsession with Nurse Xavier's natural hair color.

“So Lehnsherr, do you really think Xavier’s ginger everywhere?”>

Erik both wanted to reply to his colleague and forget everything about Nurse Xavier. It was bad enough that this particular M*A*S*H unit was the only one set up for non-betas - both as crew and as patients - and Erik had hated that. He’d rather work with baselines than suffer the wrath of Xavier, who was head nurse. At least at a baseline unit, there would be proper equipment, along with nurses who followed orders without question, instead of pigheaded omegas who had axes to grind.

The man - omega though he might be - was far too no-nonsense for the farce that was this war.

“Why the hell should I care?” he asked Azazel instead. It was easier to pretend he didn't care about the nurse. It was bad enough to know that Xavier was a telepath who could find out all of Erik's secrets.

"Because you're curious and a doctor. Call it observational practices."

Erik was sure he couldn't argue with Azazel's logic, not when it helped to protect his disapproval. Secrets were hard to keep in a space like this, and Xavier's true hair color might have been one of the last one no one knew.

Erik’s own would the last, if he himself had anything to say about it.

-

In their tent, Azazel only talked about how he was planning on finding out if Xavier was a true ginger. It was maddening for Erik, but given that it only happened on the odd hours when they weren't elbow-deep in blood and guts, Erik let it all wash over him.

He really didn't care, or at least he could affect that kind of air. No one needed to know that he'd like to spend a night or two with the head nurse, so long as there was no talking involved.

Azazel kept talking about plans for the showers and as he did, Erik drifted off to sleep.

-

"Today's the day," Azazel said just after they finished in the mess. Breakfast was always a quiet affair before showers, and everyone knew it. Everyone must have been thinking of how much grime they would accumulate before water was available, Erik thought, because he never bothered to ask anyone else.

Alphas always went first, the better to avoid sensing any pheromones from the omegas later. The few unit baselines cleaned up after the omegas, just to be sure.

"All the best then, comrade," Erik said, still feigning disinterest.

"You want to see? Curiosity and cats."

Erik only gave his roommate a look, hoping it said enough as they dropped off their metal trays and walked back to their tent.

An eerie silence spread as they walked from the mess to their tent and then to the showers, which suited Erik just fine. He had grown tired of all of Azazel’s schemes, even if today would prove a failure or a triumph.

Minutes later, they were in the showers, making quick work of it with the nearly freezing water that was all they had at this time of the year. There were too many people around for Erik to try and warm all the pipes, so he washed hurriedly instead. Azazel did much the same, though Erik was sure that his colleague had other reasons for hurrying out.

Both of them finished around the same time, toweled off and pulled on boxers and fatigues without fuss.

The line of omegas greeted them as they left the tent and Erik gave a small nod towards Xavier and the other nurses as he walked past. Azazel had busied himself with something else, and looked as though he was about to forget the whole charade.

Only as soon as Erik was far enough away from the shower tent, Azazel turned around and gathered most of the unit alphas to his aid. They set up chairs in front of one flap of the tent, and Erik stood back as he watched the plan unfold in front of him.

No sooner had the water started flowing in all of the pipes than Janos yanked on a rope, pulling one side of the tent up to expose the people within. Xavier stood in the very front, naked as the day he was born, save for a few strategically-placed soap suds.

Just as Azazel had thought, though, Xavier sported not only the ginger beard with his brown hair, but ginger hair from his navel to his dick.

At least they all had the answer: Xavier was a ginger in more than one place. To go along with the ginger hair, however, Xavier blushed a deep red, mortified at being on display. There was little he could do to hide himself, but he turned away from the collected staff rather than keep showing them his front side.

Erik watched only as long everyone else before he walked back to his tent, having admired what Xavier had to show under his fatigues. He wasn't concerned about Xavier catching any stray thoughts from him - and now, Erik had quite a lot of those.