X-Men Fanfic: Charm Offensive

[andraste]

Sometimes when your brain is shaken loose by new canon, the thing that finally falls out is crack. So, um, here is some fanfic at last. So not the First Class story I was expecting to finish first!

Summary: Charles starts seducing Erik's recruits away from him. Literally.

Genres: Slash. Het. Utter silliness.

Characters: Magneto, Mystique, Charles Xavier, ensemble.

Pairings: Chales/Erik. Charles/Everyone. Various others in the background.

Rating: PG-13

Continuity Note: For the purposes of this story, I'm choosing to ignore Origins: Wolverine. (As if anyone cares.)

Thanks: To bride_of_lister, evilfuzzydoom, choclotographer.livejournal.com and lokisrose.livejournal.com for reading and laughing.



"It's not you, it's me."

This is what Angel says to Magneto the day that she packs her bags and leaves the Brotherhood for Charles Xavier's Westchester mansion. Erik is furious - he could stop her by force, but what would be the point? Followers who will mutiny on you the second your back is turned aren't useful.

"You're going to work for Xavier?" Angel was the first to go, even before Magneto left himself. Erik can't understand why she'd change her mind now.

"This isn't what I need. I get what you're trying to do, and I still agree with you about a lot of it - but Darwin came back from the dead. So, yeah, I had a talk with the Professor." For a woman whose clothes involved so little fabric, her case seems awfully large. "I was the one who got him killed in the first place. It just feels like a sign."

"A sign that you need to go crawling back to a milksop human apologist?"

Angel glares at him. "He's opened a school. He's got students. All we've done for two years is rob banks and build secret lairs."

"I'm sorry that the funds we need to achieve mutant freedom don't grow on trees. Perhaps I should have arranged to inherit a pile of Old Money?" He spent fifteen years searching for Shaw, and ensuring mutant supremacy will take much longer than that. Young people today have no patience.

"I think you're missing my point."

Every metal fixture in the room rattles, and Erik curses inwardly. It's been years since that happened without his meaning it to. "I can't believe you're going back to him!"

Angel gave him a hard look. "You know, someone here is completely obsessed with Charles Xavier. And it sure as hell isn't me."

With that, she picks up her enormous suitcase and leaves.

***

"You shouldn't worry," Raven says that night. Erik can't sleep again, and she appeared out of her own room to keep him company. She doesn't turn up naked in his bed any more, but he's yet to talk her out of giving him doe-eyed looks, and she always seems to know what he's brooding about. "Charles is still wrong. Angel will see that eventually."

Erik wonders. He knows that the school opened a two years ago, a year after Erik left the mansion for the last time. Charles has dozens of students now. While he'd like to recruit more Brotherhood members himself, Emma Frost isn't nearly as excited about finding new mutants as his previous telepathic ally. Not to mention that it's a lot more difficult without Cerebro.

"Charles can be very ... persuasive." His own resolve is firm, but he still spends too many nights pacing the floor and wishing things could be different.

Raven puts a hand on his shoulder. "You'll see. I'm not going anywhere."

Erik shakes her off. "I'm going to bed, Raven. Alone."

She looks hurt, as usual. As beautiful as she is, Erik isn't willing to complicate things with his subordinates that way, even if she weren't far too young for him and Charles's sister. Besides, he needs to stay focussed on his goals, now more than ever. Raven is a distraction he can't afford.

***

"It's not me. It's you," Emma says, when she comes back to the base to reclaim her extensive collection of corsets, garter belts and impractical shoes.

"What?"

"You! And Xavier. And Shaw. All of you. 'Brotherhood' this and 'X-Men' that. It's just reinforcing the patriarchy. What kind of a new world order is that?"

"You're going to join the X-Men?" He has no idea what's the matter with Emma lately. She's been doing a lot of reading, and frowning at everybody except Raven.

"Are you deaf? I said that I met with Xavier and he wanted me to join the X-Men. He actually had the nerve to ask me while we were having sex!"

"You slept with him?"

"Well, yes, but that's not the point. You're both going about this completely the wrong way. I'm going to get my education degree and open a school of my own."

"A school?" His brain is still attempting to process the idea that Emma has had sex with Charles.

"Yes, a school for mutants. Where female mutants learn to do something other than fetch ice for you."

"I've never asked you to fetch me ice!"

"Do any of you ever listen to yourselves talk? You're all as bad as each other! Can you believe that Xavier actually offered to make me a house mother at his school? Obviously he couldn't possibly make a woman vice-principal."

"This ... was while you were ...?" No, Erik's mind is still not absorbing this at all.

Emma shrugs. "He told me we had a unique opportunity, since two telepaths had probably never had sex with each other before. It was an experiment."

"An experiment?"

She shrugs again. "I've had better."

This time, he can feel the window frames pulling away from the walls. "I can't believe you let him seduce you onto his side!"

"Arrrrgh!"

Erik dodges sideways at the last second as Emma flings her copy of The Feminine Mystique straight at his head. After that, he just lets her storm out.

"You know, she's got a point," Raven says, looking thoughtfully at the book with her new name on the cover. "I mean, Brotherhood of Mutants? Don't you think that's a little ..."

Erik makes sure to burn it at the first opportunity.

***

"Look, I wouldn't take it personally. You do realise he'd slept with half of Oxford before you met, right? Including three of his professors and our landlady?"

Erik is pacing up and down, and Raven is sprawled on the couch. There's plenty of room, since they're down to only four members. Especially since Riptide and Azazel seem to spend all their time drinking in exotic locations.

"He's doing it to get at me." Since Emma left, he's become convinced that Charles must have recruited Angel in the same way.

"Or because he can't help himself. I mean, you do have eyes, right? Angel and Emma are beautiful. Even if Emma is a colossal bitch. Who wouldn't want to have sex with them?"

There's something in Raven's voice when she says 'beautiful' that he hasn't heard before, but he ignores it. "I thought, since -" he pauses. None of them have talked about the other thing that happened on the beach that day.

"I think you're confused about why people have sex with Charles. A couple of times his dates overshared with me, and it wasn't about what he keeps in his pants."

Erik had to admit that she had a point there. Charles had a perfectly nice cock, but it was ... well, it was a perfectly nice cock. It wasn't as though it was a prodigious or remarkable example of anatomy that you would choose to represent cocks everywhere. Even if it might not be functioning as it had previously, it was the things Charles could do with his hands, and his mouth, and his mind that ... well.

Erik went to take his second cold shower of the week, and fumed.

***

If he was angry at Charles for sleeping with Emma, Erik is incandescent with fury a year later when he manages to lure Azazel and Riptide away at the same time. It takes him months to even track them down, but he's not a man to give up on a trail easily. Eventually he finds them in a tiny coffee shop in Cartegena. It seems that they are the joint owners.

Erik has trouble imagining Azazel and Riptide spending their time doing anything other than killing people and stealing expensive clothes. (Both of them had resisted any attempt at designing a Brotherhood uniform, and with Raven going naked Erik had given up on the idea. He can't help but be irritated that the X-Men are by far the better fashion co-ordinated during their clashes.) And yet, the coffee shop seems to be buzzing with activity. Riptide is serving the customers, and he assumes that Azazel is in the back room where he won't frighten anyone away. Erik waits until late into the night for them to close and the humans to get out of the way. He can't believe that they're peacefully selling flatscans hot beverages. It must be a plot. Which Charles must have come up with.

"Oh, for the love of -" Riptide says, exasperated, when Erik stalks in. "What are you doing here? We left a note!"

"I'm here to find out how Charles Xavier persuaded you to abandon our cause."

"Xavier? What does it have to do with him? Did you even read the note?" This is more words together than Erik has ever heard Riptide say before, and it's slightly disconcerting.

Erik doesn't know if Azazel heard him or if Riptide has some concealed means of communicating with his partner, but the room fills with the stink of sulphur. "What is he doing here?" the devilish mutant asks in his heavy accent.

"He's asking about Xavier." Riptide rolls his eyes.

"Inevitably," Azazel says. "Look, we told him no as well. We're retired now."

"Xavier did talk to you, though."

"Yes," Riptide agrees. "He came to see us here, two weeks ago."

"And you had sex with him."

Erik knows. The two mutants look at each other.

"That's not the point," Azazel says at last. "We've spent enough time getting beaten up by his students, and I have no interest in fighting with or against either of you any longer. We told him to get lost."

"You know, he's really pretty nice," Riptide says, "and he actually listened to me talk, which is more than you ever did."

Erik regards Azazel for a moment. The devil shrugs. "He sucked on my tail."

This is unbelievable. Charles is unbelievable. But he barely has time to blink before Azazel grabs his arm and teleports them both into middair. Erik thinks that he says "and don't come back" before he vanishes again, but he's too busy stopping himself from falling to his death to be sure. It's just as well that he's getting better at flying.

By the time he realises that Azazel has left him in Siberia, he's decided not to bother finding them again.

***

In the next year, they lose two more recruits. Unus and Avalanche don't bother to come back for their things or leave forwarding addresses, so he can't be sure Charles had anything to do with it. Erik isn't going to waste any more of his precious time going after them. He knows in his gut that his nemesis and his seductive charms are to blame for the loss, though.

"How is he doing this?" he asks Mystique one evening. Destiny is lying down with one of her migraines, and it's a rare chance to speak to her away from her new lover. "He's not that handsome." The last time Erik had caught a glimpse of Charles, his hair had definitely been thinner.

Raven shrugs. "You should know it's not about that. Charles has this way of making you feel as if you're the only important person on the planet."

Erik snorts. "And with that, he's managed to convince more than half of my followers to leave me?"

"It worked on you, didn't it?"

There's a distinct trace of bitterness in her voice, even after all this time, and it makes him wonder. "Did you ever-?"

Mystique gives him one of the withering looks she's becoming ever more adept at. "I'm his sister. I'm immune to his charm. And I remember when he had acne and spent three hours locked in the bathroom every day."

"Three hours?"

"He used to take his copies of Nature and The Lancet in there. Charles was a weird kid."

A weird kid who has somehow managed to reduce his followers down to two. Speaking of which ...

"You aren't worried that he's going to steal your lady love away next?"

"Irene's a lesbian."

"Are you certain about that?"

Raven pauses for thought. "I'll just have to make sure that I never let her out of my sight."

***

Erik feels a sense of grim triumph after recruiting Toad, Sabretooth and the Blob. He knows that Charles will never, ever sleep with any of them. Not because of their obvious physical mutations, but because all three of them are crass, unpleasant people. Azazel might have been a vicious killer with the aspect of the Devil, but he had an impeccable sense of style and at least he'd bathed. Erik misses him whenever Sabretooth scratches the furniture.

It's almost a relief to get away from his newest recruits, so when Mystique demands a day out in New York for herself and Irene, he's happy enough to go with them. Mystique has lost all interest in buying clothes for herself since she spends all her time naked, even now when she appears to be clad in a smart dress and three-inch heels. They leave Irene in Bloomingdales - how a blind woman is going to buy clothes, Erik doesn't know - and Mystique comes with him to find somewhere with less noise and fewer shoppers so he can buy some new shoes. Unfortunately, Sabretooth seems to have chewed up several pairs. It irks Erik that they're still dependent on human society for so many things, but until mutants have time to be cobblers instead of freedom fighters they're just going to have to make do.

He's almost relaxed, except that when they walk into the ridiculously expensive shoe store Mystique recommended, Charles Xavier is sitting there in his wheelchair. He knows that it was stupid of him to come this close to Westchester without his helmet, but she had convinced him he was just being paranoid. In future, he will remember that his paranoia is his best defence.

"What are you doing here?" Erik says stupidly, into the awkward silence.

"Buying shoes," Charles replies, gesturing toward his sock-clad feet. The assistant gives them all an odd look, and then his face goes blank. He puts Xavier's shoes back on for him and disappears into the back room without another word. "I've always shopped here."

Erik turns his glare on Mystique, who looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "Oh, please. As if I knew he'd be here today. If I had, I wouldn't have come."

Charles smiles at them, tentatively. "Look, can we have a civilised conversation, for a change? This is my favourite shoe shop, and I'd rather you didn't destroy it in the name of mutant supremacy. There's a cafe down the street that makes excellent scones."

Mystique shrugs. "Well, OK. You're paying, though."

Charles grins at her as though they haven't spent the past five years estranged and at war. Both of them are good at pretending. "Of course. My treat."

Erik doesn't really want to destroy all the nice, overpriced shoes. "One civilised conversation," he says. "There's something I want to speak to you about anyway."

***

They eat the excellent scones. Soon, Charles's knife is sitting in a puddle of cream.

Charles and Raven have talked about nothing - which is to say, about how Hank is and about how Emma is studying at Harvard now and about Charles's new student who is blue, but not the same blue as Raven. Erik has sat in stony silence.

"You're very quiet," Charles says eventually, as he licks crumbs off his fingers provocatively. "Didn't you say that you wanted to talk to me about something?"

Erik unclenches his hands from around his cup and takes a deep breath. "I thought you should know that I don't appreciate you using your powers of persuasion to lure my Brotherhood members away."

"Don't be ridiculous I wouldn't use my telepathy to get your followers onto to my side, Erik. If I was willing to do that, do you think that you and Raven would be sitting there now?"

"That isn't what I meant, and you know it. First you seduced Angel, then -"

Charles has the gall to look shocked. "I've never laid a finger on her! Not that she isn't a very attractive young lady, but it wouldn't be appropriate. She and Alex and Armando and Sean and the students are under my protection."

"And Hank?" Raven chimes in, noticing the same oversight Erik did.

"Henry is very mature for his age."

"You ... slept with Henry McCoy," Erik said. Well, he'd had time in between stealing Brotherhood members.

Charles runs his tongue up the side of the knife, lathing every bit of cream off. The other utensils in the room tremble slightly. "I sleep with Hank McCoy. Present tense. I don't think that's any of your business."

"And how does Henry feel about your sexual recruitment drive on the side?"

"He's not possessive, and I - what recruitment drive?" He actually looks confused.

"Erik thinks you've been seducing Brotherhood members away from him," Raven says.

"He has," Erik interjects, fist clenching as every piece of metal in the room rattles. "Even if you didn't have sex with Angel, there's Emma, and Riptide and Azazel, and -" Well, he doesn't have any proof that Avalanche and Unus ever met Charles at all, but it seems obvious enough.

Charles laughs, loudly enough that people at other tables start looking at them. "Erik, do you have any idea how many people I've slept with in the last five years? Twenty-seven. Only three Brotherhood defectees. I think you know that I'm not so amazing in bed to be able to convince anyone of anything that way. I'm surprised it hasn't occurred to you that there are other reasons they might have wanted to leave."

Now Raven is giggling as well. "See, I tried to tell him you're just a huge slut, but he wouldn't listen to me."

"I'm not a slut! I'm sex-positive. Wilhelm Reich said -"

"Oh, please. You've been using that argument since the fifties. I'm not going to listen to it again."

"Because you're such a shining example of heterosexual monogamy yourself?"

Raven smiles pushes her chair back. "No. I have to go find Irene before she buys anything puce, and I think you two have something to talk about." She bends over and kisses Charles on the cheek as she leaves.

"Twenty-seven," Erik says leadenly, once Raven has swanned out the door and left them staring at each other over the empty plates. Charles has stopped laughing.

"If you think about it, it's only just over five a year," he says, swallowing the last of his tea. "An average of 0.45 of a person every month. Not that I've ever slept with 0.45 of a person. Lower than during my university days, but I don't have as much time now that I'm in charge of the school."

"You were proving a point." With twenty-seven people.

"I was enjoying myself. I happen to find sex entertaining, Erik, and I'm not done with it. I love you, but I'm not going to sit by the window pining because you chose to leave."

It doesn't escape his attention that Charles used the present tense again. His hand reaches across the table to rest lightly on Erik's. Suddenly he does feel as if he's the only important person on the planet. However stupid that is.

"I thought -" he doesn't know what he thought. When he heard that Charles would never walk again, he couldn't help regretting all of the other things he'd never do. And it wasn't true at all.

As ever, Charles isn't shy about intruding into his thoughts. "You didn't ruin my life. Or even my sex life. Although I'm starting to worry that you ruined yours." His fingers run up and down Erik's wrist.

Erik pulls his hand away. "I'm not going to change my mind."

Charles sighs. "I know that. Can't we just ... play chess or something?"

If they leave here together, they're not going to play chess. As he wipes his mouth and stands up, Erik finds that he doesn't care.

***

"So," Erik says, some hours later. "Number twenty-eight."

"Um, it's possible that you're number twenty-nine," Charles replies, wriggling around so his head is resting in a more comfortable position against Erik's bare shoulder."Technically speaking. Depending on how you count. Does it really matter?"

"No." Here, now, in an overpriced hotel room that Charles convinced the desk clerk to give him for the night with no notice at all, Erik doesn't care at all. He doesn't even care that he warped all the nails in the wooden bedframe and it's probably going to fall to pieces if they try to climb out of it. The sex wasn't the same as it had been before, and nor was Charles, but that hadn't made it and him any less overwhelming.

"You know," he says. "I'm starting to think that you have a point. Maybe I would get more recruits if I tried what you suggested."

"You can't possibly be serious," Erik says.

"Well, since I'm currently four for four on getting Brotherhood members into my bed ..."

Erik pushes him down against the mattress, which sways alarmingly, and kisses him hard. For once, he doesn't mind losing the game at all.

The End

While I was working on this story, my .mp3 player decided to play The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails followed by I Want You Back by the Jackson Five three times, despite being on shuffle. I took this as a sign from the universe. A sign of what, I'm not entirely sure.