clarasteam: Erik and Charles with text "The point between rage and serenity" (point)
clarasteam ([personal profile] clarasteam) wrote in [community profile] fan_flashworks2015-08-15 10:43 pm

X-Men Days of Future Past: Fanfic: Unannounced, Uninvited

Title: Unannounced, Uninvited
Fandom: X-Men Days of Future Past
Length: 1000 words
Content notes: mostly comic treatment of canonical kidnapping, including references to consensual sex
Summary: Charles is seriously annoyed when he looks up from his work to find Magneto floating outside his window, uninvited, at ten o'clock at night.
Author note: thanks to [personal profile] smallhobbit and [personal profile] badly_knitted at [community profile] ffw_social for encouraging me to write this.



Charles is seriously annoyed when he looks up from his work to find Magneto floating outside his window, uninvited, at ten o'clock at night. A man is entitled to some privacy in his own bedroom, and just because Charles happens to be going over his teaching plans for tomorrow that doesn't mean he couldn't have been doing something more intimate. Erik's absurd outfit (honestly, what is it with supervillains and asymmetrical capes?), and his offensively brand-new helmet only make it worse.

“What the hell do you think you're doing here?” Charles snaps.

“Good to see you too, old friend,” Erik says.

Charles is as sure as he can be that Erik's deliberately quoting himself, trying to make Charles feel bad for punching Erik the first time they met after a decade apart. Which is rich, given that the last time Erik floated into view, he dropped a fucking stadium on Charles...

“Don't give me that old friend bullshit,” Charles says nastily. “What do you want, Erik?”

“You,” Erik says, and promptly kidnaps him.


The best that can be said about this incident is that Erik has been thorough in his planning. The Brotherhood's secret lair has obviously been built or adapted with a wheelchair user in mind. Also, the sex is surprisingly good, given that it's punctuated with furious arguments about the future of mutant-human relations. (By tacit agreement, both of them keep off the subject of the past.)

Erik returns Charles to the mansion three days later, mostly unharmed but with a conspicuous love-bite on his neck that means Charles has to wear a silk scarf for several days. It's August, and Westchester is having a heatwave. Charles is not pleased.



Erik becomes more discreet about the marks he leaves on subsequent occasions, or at least allows himself to be indiscreet only in the colder months when Charles won't mind wearing a scarf. Charles has an uneasy feeling that everyone knows what's going on between them, scarf or no scarf, though nobody says so.

Hank does mention the possibility of installing ceramic bars on the bedroom window after Erik's third or fourth float-by kidnapping. That might be sensible, but Charles says he doesn't want to feel like a prisoner in his own home. He ignores Hank's obvious mental eyerolling about Charles's apparent preference for being a prisoner in someone else's home, at least on a recurring temporary basis.


It's not regular enough to be a routine, or so Charles tells himself. But it happens often enough that he feels vaguely uneasy when the gap between kidnappings is unusually long. He's annoyed at himself for being relieved when Erik finally shows up outside his window again, grumbling about having had the flu.


Erik doesn't threaten him with a haircut after the first time, but he makes his appreciation very clear when Charles shaves off his beard and gets Hank to cut his hair. Charles appreciates Erik's way of showing appreciation almost enough not to mind the smugness radiating from him when he says “I told you the hippie look didn't suit you, Charles.” This from the man who briefly grows the worst moustache in human and/or mutant history. (Charles quite likes the way the moustache tickles, but he's adamant in his view that it's the only thing that could make Erik's appalling get-up look worse than it already does. Erik duly shaves it off.)


And then there is the time when William Stryker kidnaps Charles, and it's not fun at all. Charles is surprised when Erik shows up at Stryker's research base with the rescue party from the mansion, though by the look of things not as surprised as the rescue party themselves.

Erik doesn't appear outside Charles's window for a long time after that. Naturally this is a matter of complete indifference to Charles, and if his grading of his students' work is more stringent than usual there is no need for anybody (Hank, for example) to jump to conclusions about the cause.


The thing about being in a relationship with a supervillain with a string of secret lairs, especially a relationship that mostly consists of him kidnapping you out of your bedroom window, is that you can't get in touch with him. Charles supposes gloomily that if anything really bad happened it would be on the news, or he'd hear about it somehow. Erik will turn up sooner or later.

Meanwhile, he trains himself in patience, as much as he trains the children. Seeking a more creative outlet for his frustration, he becomes unexpectedly good at knitting, and makes the best baby shoes ever (fine black wool embroidered with a multicoloured DNA spiral) for Raven and Azazel's little one.



Charles has grown so used to finding Erik floating outside his window in that ridiculous costume that at first he doesn't recognize the man in the well-cut suit, fedora and dark glasses, walking up the path to the open front door. He's carrying a small attaché case, and he's so beautiful that Charles can hardly breathe.

“Well hello, Magneto incognito,” Charles says, because if he doesn't make a joke out of it he thinks he might lose control altogether.

“Hello, Charles,” Erik says. He sounds uncharacteristically nervous.

“What's in the case?” Charles asks.

“Clothes,” Erik says. “Toothbrush. Razor.”

Are you planning on staying awhile? Charles sends him, mind to mind, because speaking feels impossible.

As long as you'll have me, Erik answers, rough but sincere. Underneath the thought he's projecting, there's the memory of rescuing Charles from Stryker's laboratory, fear and anger and a fierce protectiveness all wrapped up together in Erik's mind, not losing you again.

Charles blinks hard and clears his throat. He can sense Hank approaching down the hall, and he doesn't feel up to dealing with concerned enquiries right now.

“If you've got a helmet in that attaché case, so help me - ”

Erik shakes his head and grins his sharkiest grin. “Let's go to your room,” he says. “I'll show you everything I've got.”



schmerica: (Default)

[personal profile] schmerica 2015-08-15 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
I liked this very much. <3
teaotter: (Default)

[personal profile] teaotter 2015-08-16 12:56 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, this is so very much them.
desireearmfeldt: (Default)

[personal profile] desireearmfeldt 2015-08-16 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
Hee hee hee. :) And also, aw. :)

(I haven't even *seen* these movies! but apparently I've read enough fic to have all the context I need for reading fic. :) )
desireearmfeldt: (Default)

[personal profile] desireearmfeldt 2015-08-17 08:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Ain't it the truth? I finally saw Captain America (the first one) and confirmed that yeah, pretty much anything I needed to know in order to understand fic, the fics had taught me. :)
slightweasel: (Default)

[personal profile] slightweasel 2015-08-16 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
Ahhhhhhhhh I love this soooooooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch kidnappings YES. <3333333333
slightweasel: (Default)

[personal profile] slightweasel 2015-08-18 01:41 am (UTC)(link)
lol awwwww! (I definitely don't mind when people pinch from me though. :P)
mrkinch: Erik reaching back for Charles as they walk a park path in late autumn (Erik and Charles)

[personal profile] mrkinch 2015-08-16 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
Ahahahahahahaha, I love it! I don't know what I laughed at more, Charles's "indifference" or his knitting skills, and then I wasn't laughing because Erik did the Right Thing.*sniffles*
badly_knitted: (Jack - Big Smile)

[personal profile] badly_knitted 2015-08-16 09:54 am (UTC)(link)
Love it! So glad you wrote it, it's funny, touching and sweet. =)
badly_knitted: (Default)

[personal profile] badly_knitted 2015-08-17 08:50 pm (UTC)(link)
You're welcome =)
brooms: (Default)

[personal profile] brooms 2015-08-16 01:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Which is rich, given that the last time Erik floated into view, he dropped a fucking stadium on Charles...

ASDFGHJK a year later and i'm still not over it. ugh, erik.

this was darling, tho!
smallhobbit: (Default)

[personal profile] smallhobbit 2015-08-16 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I am delighted to have encouraged you to write this. I'm still very taken with Erik floating outside Charles' window in a ridiculous outfit.
kalypso: Eighth Doctor - Bring me knitting! (Knitting)

[personal profile] kalypso 2015-08-17 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
I am particularly touched by the baby shoes with the DNA spiral!
dariaw: Sunflower in foreground, with a sun-drenched field of sunflowers and the horizon in fuzzy focus in the background (Default)

[personal profile] dariaw 2015-08-21 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
This is delightful

I love the total denial, the everyone knowing (especially Hank), the ending, all of it <3