sakura_no_miko | Archived fic recs - Never Too Late to be Who You Might Have Been

Title: Never Too Late to be Who You Might Have Been

Fandom: X-Men First Class / X-Men 2 / House of M

Rating: PG-13 to a light R, more for violence and off-screen horrors

Pairing: Charles/Erik

Warnings: child abuse (physical, and committed by a family member), mutant phobia, imprisonment, psychically turning someone into a vegetable, allusions to Holocaust atrocities

Other notes: time travel, alternate universe, fix-it fic, a bit on the fluffy side

Length: 20k

Summary: Erik wakes suddenly and takes a deep breath, and realises that there is nothing.

My thoughts:

I’ve been in a melancholic mood this week. (I blame the post-vacation doldrums and my lingering, strength-sapping cold.) So indulge me with a bit of–well, I don’t know if I’d technically call this fluff or hurt/comfort, even though there are elements of each.

Stripped down, this is a fix-it fic where young Charles and Erik see their future selves and are horrified that they drifted away from each other, that they let things get so bad, that they forgot their love for each other and their allies.

There’s a lot of horror here, I’d say. It’s fascinating that, faced with their futures, Erik’s steely resolve goes towards compromise, while Charles is pushed the brink of committing a terrible vengeance. Still, you have them meeting a mutant child, beaten and abandoned by her family; the initial scene of innocent Erik awaking in Magneto’s prison–all horrible, and yet I find this to be an oddly comforting fic, mostly because of Charles and Erik’s interactions.

Like, when Erik wakes up in prison, he has this horror at being alone, at not having or feeling Charles’ mental presence and it hurts him as keenly as the separation from metal does. And Charles forces himself to become increasingly aggressive, willing to use his powers to keep Erik at his side. It’s horror, but at the core, there’s this deep bond, this love driving both of them, and it’s one of those emotional relationships where you look at it and simultaneously think, “that’s an amazing bond or love, support, and affection” and “that’s a terrifying amount of closeness and willingness to do anything for each other.”

I suppose love is like that, though. Makes you amazingly strong and amazingly afraid of losing it.

Ah, there’s my melancholy going off again. Maybe this wasn’t the best fic to chase it off, hmm.

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Originally posted on tumblr on 01/12/13