Chapter Text
When I was a boy, I did not believe in love at first sight. To tell the truth, I did not much believe in romantic love at all- I did not see any reason for it, and certainly there were no examples I could attend to. I did not know my father; I did not know if he had ‘loved’ my mother. I did not know if she had loved him- our concerns had been greater than that. Of course, I remembered the fairytales. When I had been very little, my mother had read them to me before bed. Children’s and Household Tales. Even then, I do not believe I cared for them. I certainly did not ever take their contents to be true. There were no beautiful princesses and handsome princes in the cold streets of Germany- at least not for the Jews.
(I believed in the love a mother has for her child. I have always believed in that.)
Love at first sight? No, even when I was a man, when I escaped that place, the numbers permanent on my skin, the memories permanent in my mind-
-escaped that place, but did not escape Shaw, for like Frankenstein’s monster he had made me and I was bound to him until he died-
-I found no truth in this. Lust, attraction, these were different matters, ephemeral and meaningless and easily forgotten. Desires of the flesh paled in comparison to desires of the mind.
(And of these I had only one: revenge.)
No, I did not live life like the hero of a story, falling in love with the pretty people on the street, or in my bed. How could there be such a thing as ‘love at first sight’- how could anyone be captured by something so momentary as the glimpse of a face, the glitter of a pair of eyes, the turn of a head? It was the worst kind of fiction, a fiction that had nothing to do with reality.
Or so I had reasoned to myself.
After all, what is stunning to me even now, is that I was wrong.
(Though perhaps my love had not come at first sight, so much as first touch.)
I remember how it had happened very clearly. I had been so close. So damnably close- the thing my life had been formed around was right within my grasp, it lay ahead of me in a distance composed of mere moments, as opposed to weeks- month- years. Shaw. Revenge! I saw him before me, no different than he had been when I was a child, just as smug and self-assured and patronizing. How I hated him. How ready was I for him to die. A climactic project, brought to an end at last.
After all, he had killed my mother.
(“I will count to three...and you will move the coin.”)
This haste- my thirst for it- fogged my mind, and I underestimated them, his gaggle of associates. He slipped between my fingers, like so many grains of sand from the beaches I had never played at as a child, and the water closed over my head.
It was then that I fell in love at first sight.
In those moments, the entire world was alight. Time had no meaning, as there was no room left for its conception in my mind, a mind that was too full, reeling. I had seen Shaw- I had seen him for the first time in many, many years- I had nearly had him- and there were others like me! Others on that boat! I was not alone- had they been tortured by him as I was, had he made them too?- he was getting away, and the water was so cold my bones ached but I barely noticed, and I couldn’t breathe, and he was still getting away, and I had been so close, and, and-
-erikyouneedtoletGO-
-and I felt something I had never felt before. A thought fluttered across the forefront of my mind, and despite its urgency it was as light and soft as a butterfly. I knew instantly that something impossible had occurred- that the thought was not mine.
Arms wrapped around my chest. They were not strong arms. I could have fought him off, if I wanted to, this man whose chest I felt against my back, this man who was inexplicably in the water with me. But I did not do that, for I felt it again- his touch. Like a feather drifting through the tunnels of my memory, a place that I had not realized until just then was aching from all that had been sewn into it.
-iknowhowmuchthismeanstoyoubutyouregoingtodie-
He was so gentle.
I let go.
(He told me I was not alone.)
On the American ship, afterwards, we were both placed into a little room with no windows, given hospital clothes to change into and thick, plastic-smelling blankets. Treatment for shock and hypothermia, which I did not really need. I was able to look at him. He looked...not innocent, perhaps, but rather unblemished. What startling blue eyes. What soft-looking red lips. How he shivered in his own blanket, like the exertion of what he had done was unusual for him. I realized fully then what had happened- a complete stranger had jumped into the ocean after me, to save me from drowning. He had not even seen my face, and yet he had thrown himself into the water for me. I almost couldn’t believe he was real.
“My name is Charles Xavier,” he said, holding out a hand for me to shake. I did. God, his palms were soft, too. An upper class English accent. I did not think for a moment that it was anything but his native tongue.
“Erik Lehnsherr,” I replied, and he smiled at me.
“I know,” he said lightly.
“You are…” I almost didn’t even have a word for it. Was there truly a word in any language for what he had done, what I had felt inside of me? “...a telepath.”
“Yes,” he replied, and still he was smiling. “I do not think there is a common name for your marvellous gift, Erik. It is uniquely yours alone.”
For a moment I thought lightning had struck me. I had never felt anything like this, this flood of orange heat that bloomed in my chest. It shocked me to my core. Some others came into the room where we were recovering, and Charles (his name was Charles!) turned to speak to them, but I could not look away. What power he had. What insane, unspeakable power. In an instant, he had read my mind, and known everything about me. He had placed himself inside my head. What in the world could it be like inside his? This was something that could barely be imagined, and certainly not comprehended by the men and women of the world (myself included) whose minds were trapped within the contents of their own skulls. This man possessed the stuff of deities- a horrifying, godlike, obscene power.
And he was so, so beautiful.
And I, who had not thought myself capable of such folly, had fallen in love with him instantly.