Title: Places I Never Meant to Be
Author: pocky_slash
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Characters: Charles/Erik
Rating: PG13
Length: ~4900
Warnings: Vague mentions of past child abuse, repression that could be taken as internalized homophobia.
Summary: Modern, non-powered AU. Erik doesn't know what the things between him and Charles is, but he knows it's dangerous. He knows he's better off without it. (At least, that's what he keeps telling himself.)

Notes: For the "School" challenge at fan_flashworks. The fic is heavily influenced by short story called "Something Which Is Non-Existent" by Norma Klein, a homage in honor of the recent Banned Books Week. Title from the book of short stories in which it's collected. Endless thanks to pearl_o and littledust for their beta skills. They made the story better.


Erik is sitting on his trunk, waiting for a taxi.

It's not the way he wanted to leave. He can still feel his anger welling up inside, twisting through his chest, lighting his veins on fire. The heat leaves him with potential energy that's manifesting as a persistent throb in his head, beating in time with his heart. If it were up to him, he'd storm off campus in the same manner that he packed his belongings, but he has too many things, things given to him by his parents, things he can't leave behind, so he's forced to wait for a taxi, disgustingly idle.

At least there's no one to see him. At least he's been granted that respite, either by fate or by design.

He lets the anger simmer as he strains to listen for the sound of a car's engine down the road. He wants to leave while he still can, while he's still mad, before he looks back. The weather, at least, is appropriate. It's grey and the air is heavy. The budding trees still look barren and scabby. In the dull light, the new growths look more like deformities. He takes it all in almost viciously; this is the last memory of this place that he wants, one of dank, heavy air and grotesque scenery. When he thinks back on his time at this school, he wants to remember ugliness. He wants to remember disgust. When he's back at his foster home, waiting for them to send him back like all the others have, he wants himself to believe that this year has been a waste. They've all been nothing but a waste, all the families that have tried to make him feel welcome and then decided he wasn't what they expected, all the people so sure they could undo the damage done by Shaw, as if years of pain and degradation can be erased by family vacations and game nights.

As if they're not a part of the same system that left him with a man who was allowed to ruin him, unchecked, for four years.

The taxi still hasn't appeared. Erik shifts on his trunk. It's too chilly to be comfortable in just shirtsleeves, but it's too humid for a jacket. He's sweating despite the chill, uncomfortable in every possible way and cursing internally in his mother tongue. There's nothing redeeming about his day. Nothing redeeming about his time here at all.
He lets that lie bounce around his head. He lets it linger. Maybe if it stays long enough, he'll believe it.

***

There's a boy in his class who's better than Erik in every subject in which he excels. Erik barely notices him except to notice that he has dark, unruly hair, the bluest eyes Erik's ever seen, and the sort of smile that charms all the teachers. Erik keeps his head down and does his work and stares at the notice board frowning every time grades are posted.

English is Erik's worst subject, which is not to say he's bad at it. He carries a steady B in the class, but English is his third language and it's the first of every other boy in his class. English is the only B on an otherwise solid transcript of 95s and above, and he swallows his pride and asks his teacher for advice on pulling it up on level with the rest of his marks.

"It's English grammar," his teacher says. "I hate to take off points for every misplaced comma considering your writing is nearly as good as, if not better than, your native-speaking classmates, but rules are rules." The man closes his briefcase and says, thoughtfully, "Charles Xavier is looking to pick up a few extra credit points after a slip-up on a test. Why don't you ask him to read your papers before you hand them in?"

Erik has a certain level of pride. Erik's pride, some days, is all he has left. But he thinks of his mother and the way she used to encourage his studies and he goes to the library to find Charles Xavier and his unruly hair and his bright blue eyes.

***

The wind picks up before the taxi comes. Erik considers donning his blazer, but his shirt is sticking to the small of his back and the idea of looking like he belongs here turns his stomach. He looks down at his trunk and drums his fingers against it. Taking it into town wouldn't be the most challenging thing he's ever had to do. He might even meet the cab along the way. Most importantly, he won't have to sit out here for one more humiliating minute.

He stays where he is. Hauling the trunk up the road, turning into the lower class peon that most people already think he is, is possibly more humiliating than waiting for a car to come escort him off of the grounds.

***

Charles Xavier is more than happy to help. Charles Xavier greets Erik with a smile and immediately shakes his hand, babbling as he does so about how brilliant he thinks Erik is, how he's always wanted to introduce himself, how he's been slightly intimidated by Erik's taciturn nature. He's still shaking Erik's hand as he says all this, until Erik clears his throat and looks down at their hands pointedly.

Charles flushes and drops Erik's hand, taking a step back. Erik wonders, belatedly, why he stopped Charles in the first place.

Charles agrees to help Erik with his English grammar, and, for some reason, takes his assistance as an open invitation to talk to Erik whenever he's like. Erik's not voluntarily spent time with anyone for the entire four weeks of the school year, but suddenly Charles is everywhere and Erik has a scant few moments a day to himself. Charles takes his meals with Erik, studies silently with Erik in the library, appears in Erik's room to talk his ear off about genetics or politics or whatever is crossing Charles' mind at any given moment. Charles acts like a simple request for assistance is the golden key to friendship, and after the first week, Erik doesn't have the heart to chase him off.

If he's honest with himself, he doesn't really want to. He's warming to Charles quickly; for all that they seem comically disparate, they have many things in common, and even the things they disagree on make for stimulating debate. Charles gets into Erik's personal space, picks apart all of Erik's ideas and forces Erik to make them stronger in retaliation. The next time grades go up, Erik's not surprised to see that he's pulled even with Charles' scores, tied for top of the class in everything except English and Biology.

It's strange, caring about someone. Erik doesn't, if he can help it. He cared about his parents and they were taken from him. He tried to care about Shaw and that care left scars up and down his back, scars he was sure he deserved. He likes to think he knows better now, but sometimes there's still Shaw in his head, telling him he's worthless, drowning out his mother's insistence that there was something wonderful inside of him waiting to be awakened.

He shouldn't let himself be pulled into someone else, someone he'll inevitably poison, but he can't stop himself. He wonders where Charles is when he comes back from class to an empty room, finds his own frowns deepening when Charles looks upset. A frown looks foreign on Charles' face, which is made for the kind of radiant joy that makes his eyes light up and his mouth curl upward. For the first time, Erik encourages laughter in another, smiles, comfort. Each victory hollows his chest of its rage, fills it with something indescribable instead.

***

Erik just wants the car to come before classes change. He wants to be gone before he becomes a public spectacle. His gut floods with sharp heat; it's unlike him to back down from a fight, to avoid confrontation, but this is different. It's not shame, exactly, not embarrassment, but something worse. Disappointment. He's not sure who he's disappointed in--everyone, it feels like. His parents, for leaving him and starting him down the road that led him here. The headmaster, for tossing him out like the trash everyone thinks he is. Himself, for letting these things affect him. Charles, for....

He'd say it's all Charles' fault, but Erik started it. He poisoned it. Blaming Charles leaves him nothing to do with all of the resentment he's built up inside, all of the self-loathing. He wants to be angry at Charles and Charles alone, but he can't quiet the voice in his head that says, You did this. You did this. You did this. Sometimes it sounds like Charles and sometimes it sounds like Shaw, but no matter which ghost is whispering the words, it always leaves him paralyzed.

He's paralyzed now, staring at the bare, distorted trees swaying in the wind, when he hears not a car, but the creak of hinges and the sound of polished shoes on a brick path.

"Go away," he manages to say around the lump of emotion in his throat.

"You weren't even going to say goodbye," Charles says, not even a question but an observation, an accusation. Erik doesn't turn around, but that doesn't stop Charles from approaching.

***

Charles has other friends, though Erik doesn't know how they manage to spend any time together, given how often he's in Erik's orbit. He introduces Erik to people, though, other boys at their school and a handful of girls at the school across the lake, people he genuinely seems to know about and care about. Erik doesn't mind. He doesn't care enough to call them his friends as well, acting more as a silent, hulking presence in the room than bothering to engage much in the conversation, but he goes along with Charles to parties and study groups, secure in the knowledge that none of these people know Charles like he does and none of them ever will.

It makes him feel good, thinking about that. It makes him feel something like relief.

Neither of them go home for winter break. Erik has no home to go to and Charles' eyes go dark when anyone mentions his family. They're the only students in their year on campus and there aren't more than a dozen altogether. They don't see the other boys when they're eating or in the library or walking along the grounds, and Erik likes it that way. He likes thinking this is a place only for them. The illusion feels freeing. He thinks he'd answer honestly to any question Charles asked of him in this fragile, empty world. He thinks he'd let Charles crack him open and see all of his secrets. He thinks he'd encourage it.

They're passing a blunt back and forth when it all starts to go to hell. It's not a particularly potent mix and Charles has a surprisingly good tolerance, almost as good as Erik's. They're relaxed, though. They're warm and loose and sprawled across the grass in the lower sports fields. It's dark, they're surrounded by trees, the ground is cold beneath them, the stars are winking above. Charles is talking about something. Charles' head is resting against his hip, warm and solid and grounding. Erik likes it. He likes the weight. He likes the way something hot is lazily weaving its way down from his chest, twisting through his stomach and fanning out lower and lower. He's not thinking about it, not focusing too hard, and he opens his eyes and slides his fingers into Charles' hair which he's always wanted to do and he looks at Charles and the gentle fanning flames spike into something Erik has been blind to this entire time.

Charles stares at him. His eyes are wide and he's stopped talking and his hair is so soft, so thick and smooth and a perfect length for Erik to flex his fingers.

He does. Charles makes a noise that makes Erik's skin feel even tighter and he can see it, he can see it perfectly in his mind's eye. He can see himself tugging Charles by his hair, pointing Charles' wet, red mouth inward. He can see Charles' mouth stretched around his cock, sucking him off here in the field, see himself reaching into Charles' trousers and--

It's hard to let go of Charles, to get to his feet, but he manages it. It's harder, still, to walk back to his dorm while he's so hard that every brush of his fly against his cock is agony. The hardest part, though, is listening to Charles call after him, confused and broken and desperate and ignored as Erik walks faster and doesn't turn around.

***

"I've apologized," Erik says.

"I didn't ask for your apology!" Charles says. "Not about that. Not about--not like that."

An apology was part of Erik's punishment. Expulsion for the rest of the school year. A chance to make up his grades in summer classes. A review by committee in August, at which point they'll decide whether he's fit to come back for his senior year in September.

"Don't worry," his English teacher had assured him after the ruling. "Boys will be boys--we all know it. It's typical, really. You were just letting off some steam. You're a top student and I'm sure they'll let you back in once the Xavier family has had time to cool off."

He'd wanted to punch the man--who had admittedly been nothing but kind to him in his months at the school--just to show how typical this was not, how much more it was than just roughhousing gone wrong. Instead, he'd barely nodded and broken eye contact.

"I apologized for the rest of it," Erik says through clenched teeth. He squeezes his hands into fists, relishes in the pain of his nails cutting into his palms.

"I don't want an apology!" And Erik can't turn, he can't look at Charles, he can't he can't he can't.

He needs the taxi to come. He needs to leave. He's done with this. He's done. He's not coming back, even if the review board lets him in. All that's left here for him is ashes.

***

Charles is sitting at their usual table at their usual time when breakfast comes around. He looks like he hasn't slept. Erik wants to rub the furrow in his brow until it disappears.

Instead, he sits at his usual place and says, "I think we should finish up the last of the Latin today."

Charles is torn between warring emotions that Erik can't decipher, but relief wins out. He smiles tentatively.

"I was thinking the same, actually," he says to Erik, and sips his tea, the tension between them melting away.

Except, no, that's inaccurate. It's less tense, yes, but the tension is replaced by something else. The other boys come back and Erik catches Charles looking at him, constantly, like he's waiting for something. Life continues as normal, as it always has. They spend their time together. They study and eat their meals and continue to come out on the top of the class. Charles drags him to more social functions and Erik goes and lingers in corners while Charles talks and laughs and Erik's stomach churns. He drinks more than he should, but so does Charles, and they never talk about Charles' staring or how they don't touch the way they used to. They don't talk at all, not on the long walks back from the illegal parties and school-sponsored mixers. They walk side-by-side and they can't even look at each other.

It's spring. The snow has melted. Everyone's cheerful in anticipation of what's to come.

Charles kisses a girl at a party. Erik leaves early and punches a hole in the wall of Charles' dorm room.

***

When Charles' hand grasps his shoulder, it's solid and warm. Maybe Erik's wrong. He's thought, this whole time, that he's the one burning everything in his wake, but maybe it's Charles, who is incandescent and has scorched his way through Erik to his core. Charles' hand is searing, pressing the thin fabric of Erik's uniform shirt against his damp skin. It burns him the way the very thought of him burned Erik on that night in the lower field, the way the anger burned Erik two nights ago as he systematically destroyed Charles' possessions. His skin prickles and sings and he needs to do something but, fuck, he's afraid of what that something is.

He stays still, or as close to still as he can manage with adrenaline pumping through his veins and leaving his muscles vibrating with the need to flee.

"I don't want an apology for that," Charles says, his hand squeezing Erik's shoulder. "I don't care it's just stuff, I don't--it wasn't--"

Erik wants to tell him that he knows, that he understands, that it wasn't Charles' decision to kick him out, that it was Charles' parents, that Charles begged to let him stay. Erik was shamed on his behalf, horrified that Charles lowered himself to begging for anything, let alone for Erik.

"You can't have it all!" Charles shouts, his frustration palpable. His grip on Erik's shoulder is strong enough to bruise. "I waited for you, Erik! I waited for you for so long!"

***

It courses through Erik as he kicks Charles' chair to pieces, as he pulls books off his shelf. It's regret and anger and derision. The girl only laughed at Charles' jokes to get his attention, not because she understood them. She didn't know him. She hasn't memorized his freckles and she doesn't know how he likes his eggs. Charles is nothing more than a pretty face to her.

The rage aimed at the girl burns out fast--there wasn't much fuel there to start with. But the rage against himself takes over, and it's been enough to keep him warm for the past ten years with plenty to spare. There's ample fuel for him to tear through Charles' drawers, to smash his lamps, to break his windows. He's stupid. He's confused. He's not good enough. This girl is going to know things about Charles that Erik never will and the very idea of that makes him feel sick.

The occupant of the room on the other side of Charles’ calls security. By the time they arrive, Erik is sitting with his back against the wall and his head hanging between his knees. By the time Charles gets back from the party and sees what's happened, Erik is already in the headmaster's office and Charles' parents have already been called.

"Oh, Erik," Charles says quietly when he arrives. They're the last words Charles speaks to him until he spies Erik waiting for his taxi.

***

"You shouldn't have wasted your time," is what Erik manages to say. The words taste wrong. "You had better things to do."

"I didn't have better things to do!" Charles says. He sounds the way he does when they're debating over history or art or any of the other things that Charles frequently wants to amicably argue about. He's always cheerful until he realizes that Erik's opinions are wildly different from his own. Erik doesn't know why--he obviously goes into it expecting a healthy debate, but every time he seems flummoxed that Erik could believe something so fundamentally different than what Charles believes. It's a deep frustration, an almost comical shock that would offend Erik if it came from anyone else.

Nothing Charles says offends Erik the way it should.

"My god, Erik!" Charles says. He lets go of Erik's shoulder, finally, and Erik resists the urge to look up at him. "I wasn't wasting my time and I don't want to hear that you're sorry! I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry that this--I'm not sorry that I feel the way I do. I'm not sorry that you do. I never could be."

"Maybe you should be," Erik says. "Go away, Charles."

"You don't get to tell me what to feel," Charles says. He's moving, his shoes are dragging against the gravel and Erik wants to stare at the ground, but his mama raised him right while she could. It's bad manners, manners that even Shaw couldn't beat out of him, manners that are just a spark of good deep down inside of him. His mother's teachings are all that's left of the wonderful person she thought he was hiding under his skin, but they're enough for him to tip his chin up.

Charles is furious. It lights up his face and makes him seem almost ethereal. Erik wants to touch him, but he can't, he knows he can't. He swallows and stares, memorizes Charles' face. Uses it as a reminder of why he can't get any closer.

"I'll hurt you," Erik says. The words don't sound the way he wants them to sound. They're quieter and they softer Charles' face. They take away the rage, but leave him no less beautiful.

"Why would you say that?" he asks. "We haven't even--that's not true."

That just shows how little Charles understands this. Erik shakes his head.

"You need to stay away from me," he says. "I'm dangerous."

"You're not," Charles says, sitting on the edge of the trunk next to Erik.

"I ruin things," Erik manages to say. His heart is thudding so hard his ears are buzzing. His throat is dry. The words sound rough and quiet. Charles just leans closer into his space.

"You don't," Charles lies.

"I'll destroy you," Erik says, and that's it, that's the secret, that's the thing that's been lurking over Erik's shoulder, whispering in his ear, keeping him far, far away from this. Erik doesn't do happiness, he doesn't do nice, he doesn't do contentment. He doesn't know how to have affection for something, let alone how to show it, and given enough time, he'll destroy Charles--beautiful, smart, patient Charles--the way he so easily destroyed Charles' room. It's wrong. The whole thing is wrong because Erik wasn't meant to work this way. Erik wasn't meant to be like this.

Charles doesn't seem to understand that.

"You're wrong." The words are whispered on a breath, so quiet that Erik would think he'd imagined them except Charles is so close Erik can feel the words brushing against his jaw on Charles' breath. He knows he should react, but he's frozen again, stuck in place as Charles' fingers skate across his jaw, as Charles' mouth presses up against his.

It's not what he wants, what he expected, but it's better that way. It's surprising, the way Charles' hands are so gentle, the way the kiss isn't hungry or nervous or tense. It's none of the things that Erik's felt lingering between them these past few weeks. There's certainty in the way Charles kisses him, and that's unexpected.

Charles pulls away before Erik can decide if he wants to push him away or greedily cling to something he could barely admit he wanted.

"You're not a thing," Charles says. He hasn't gone far. He's still close enough that Erik can count his eyelashes, feel his breath. "You're not some terrible thing that's going to ruin me and I'm not a doll you can break or a helpless idiot who will let you trod all over me. You don't get to decide that I can't have this for my own good. That's not how this works."

Erik opens his mouth to protest, to shout. He wants to shove Charles off the trunk and onto the ground. He wants to shove him until he bruises and hurts and understands, but he's frozen again, rigid and motionless as Charles' fingers continue to stroke his jaw less than ten minutes before the bell rings, when everyone will see. Erik is no good. Erik is useless, something out of control that leaves everything it touches cinders and dust.

He clenches his jaw, but Charles' fingers are gentling and hot against his skin. Charles' eyes are serious and calm.

"I don't even know what this is," Erik says, finally. "I don't understand it."

"I can help you understand it," Charles says. "I can--Erik, we can learn it together. All you have to do is come back. They'll let you--they said. You can take summer classes. You can catch up. And we can--we can have all year next year. And then we can have the rest of our lives."

He leans forward, but not for another kiss. Disappointment and relief war in Erik's gut. Instead, Charles presses his forehead against Erik's and closes his eyes. Erik thought he would be relieved when Charles' eyes closed--they were sharp and pinning him in ways he never wanted to be laid bare. Instead, he finds himself missing them. He suddenly can't get the color quite right in his head.

"Charles," he finally manages to say. Charles' other hand comes up, pressing against Erik's other cheek.

"You can't decide we can't have this before we even know what it is, Erik," he says. "You can't stop yourself from--you're allowed to have good things. I don't know who broke you and made you think--you're allowed to have good things. You're allowed to want them."

It's too much. He can't think. He can't concentrate. He doesn't know what he's doing, he can't imagine what Charles wants him to imagine, can't see himself three months three years three decades from now. He can hardly see himself three minutes from now, putting his trunk in the taxi and driving off and then it fades and blurs into the fog of his future. Charles so close to him, Charles' body and his beautiful hands and the smell of him, the heat of him--it's too much. His promises are too much. Erik can't breathe.

He pushes Charles away. Not hard--not like he imagined before. He pushes Charles back, though, back far enough that air finds its way to Erik's lungs, that his head stops spinning.

"I can't," he tells Charles. "I can't. Charles--it's--"

He doesn't know how to explain it, but maybe Charles understands, because he doesn't push back. The wind whips the empty trees back and forth, whistles through the branches, but Charles remains still, as if he's afraid of spooking Erik into backing further away.

"I'm sorry," Charles says. "I'm sorry, I've--that was a bit strong, maybe." He smiles then, almost bashful with cheeks red from a mixture of embarrassment and the chill. "I just--we can figure it out together. We can, Erik, truly. It doesn't need to be right now, you just need to come back. Say you'll come back?"

Distantly, Erik hears the crunch of gravel. Below that, softer, is the hum of an engine. The taxi is finally arriving.

Erik glances down the road. Then he glances at Charles.

"There's something wonderful inside of you," Charles says. "I want to be the one to help you find it."

Erik thinks again about his mother and her dreams for him. He wonders, if Charles did crack him open, would he find the burned husks left behind by Shaw or the potential that his mother insisted was hidden there?

He wonders, as the cab finally turns the corner, if he has it in him to find out.

"Just say you'll come back," Charles says. He puts his hand on Erik's, but doesn't try to hold him still.

"I don't know," Erik says. He looks at the school and the fields and the trees and the lake. He looks down at his scuffed shoes and his trunk. He looks at the cab and then at Charles' hand on his. He looks up at Charles and commits the color of his eyes to memory. "I'll--I have to think about it," he says, and Charles must hear the lie because his face lights up as the cabbie kills the engine.

"You will?" he asks. His fingers squeeze Erik's. Erik's skin burns.

"Maybe," Erik lies.

"I'll be here," Charles says. "I'll be right here. I'll stay right here."

That's a lie, too. Charles will be home and at camps. Charles will spend the summer swimming and riding horses and reading books and learning things. He'll travel and swim and the sun will bring out the freckles on his face, the ones that disappeared around last Halloween as the days got shorter.

It's a lie and it's not, though, because Erik can see it now, suddenly, in his mind's eye. He can see himself getting out of a cab instead of getting into one. He can see Charles right on that very spot, waiting to greet him and trying not to grin, smug in his conviction that Erik would return, fighting not to gloat that Erik's caved to his request.

Erik doesn't know when the fog lifted from his future.

Distantly, the bell rings. The cabbie puts the trunk into the car and Erik climbs into the back to sit next to it. Charles doesn't kiss him again or touch him or even say anything else. He stands right where Erik left him, unmoving as the car starts, unmoving as the taxi starts to pull away, as students pour out of the front entrance.

He's still standing there as the taxi turns down the road and when Erik looks away, he can believe that when he comes back down this road next, Charles will be there waiting for him.