Chapter Text
.53.
In the morning, without Erik actually taking note of how he figured it out, it was clear that the news media now expected Emma to become the first (elected) Prime Minister of Genosha. Charles continued his circuit of various news programs and talked about his hopes for the legislative session and the like and Erik was just glad to not feel so conflicted about who he wanted as Prime Minister.
Emma's conferences talked bluntly about some of her and Charles' common ground, while also emphasizing the areas that she wished to press forward beyond Charles’ party’s positions. The rhetoric was... fiery, but gracious, and Erik was riding so high he wasn't even overly concerned with how annoying it was going to be now that they were an actual country and he would actually need to entertain diplomats instead of tentative diplomats.
And then... the ceremonies and the ceremonies and the ceremonies, because what was the use of establishing a constitutional monarchy in the twenty-first century if one didn't have horses and carriages and complete and utter ridiculousness.
Although, Erik supposed if your Parliament was full of people who could destroy the very foundation of your being by shattering your mind or could rip out their own femur and stab you with it, then maybe a little bit of formality was a good thing. And he supposed he could admit he enjoyed the cape just a little.
The Policy Address, written by Emma, slightly pared down and buffed up by Charles, and delivered by Erik, went off without a hitch. It was strange, standing there, MPs and bloggers and newscasters all watching him as he delivered the Address as coolly and impersonally as he was supposed to, and every time he said 'My Government' it was impossible not to think about the brilliance of Emma and Charles and every other mutant - and some humans - working together to make something that was going to last forever, he hoped. A country of mutants, protecting each other, making a safe home for each other, and a country that would stand up against the tide of degradation of mutants across the world.
It was a good day.
Erik had spent his whole life hoping he would eventually find half the peace he had right now with a country, with Charles.
Everyone was on their feet. Angel had told him that technically they should probably be staid and not applaud, but it seemed that the peanut gallery, and even some of the MPs, had an entirely different idea. Instead of quiet respect the whole damn chamber was full of thunderous applause. It wasn't bad, really.
Erik wasn't certain how he recognized one tiny movement in the sea of metal that surrounded him, buttons and zips and bracelets and necklaces and collars; he didn't immediately realize it for what it was, but the slow, shift of metal scraping against metal, metal parts sliding together, woke something primal and violent in the back of his mind.
"Get down!" Charles. Charles was shouting. The gun went off, maybe forty-five feet away - well within the range of the powerful handgun. Everything happened at once, screaming and diving and panic filled the chamber. Four more shots were fired before Charles yelled. "Stop!"
Erik's hands were in the air in a flash, two bullets pelted towards him, one he heard clatter against the diamond hard shell of his Prime Minister, and the fourth... or... no, the fourth and fifth were lodged in the faux-ancient wood paneling of the new Parliament chamber and one he had deflected had punched into Charles' chest.
"Charles!"
Whatever command Charles had managed to make, stemming the tide of bullets stopped when he hit the ground. Three more shots rang out, and Erik curved them towards the ceiling and he vaulted over the bench where Charles had collapsed.
"Charles?" Erik pressed his hand to the man's forehead. Charles twitched slightly.
Pain. Anger. Desperation. Guilt. Erik spun, face murderous, towards the man in the crowds. He grabbed the gun with his mind, bent it, curved it and wrapped it around the gunman's throat, starting to choke him. Between the onlookers and Erik he was well subdued, but Erik clenched his fist tighter, the metal squeezing, cutting off the air to the man's lungs, biting into his throat. This was his fault. His! Hishishis. Not Erik's.
"Erik..." Charles' voice was weak, too weak... "Not for me, please..."
Erik turned towards Charles, one hand threaded through the man's hair while his other focused on crushing the life out of the man who had done this to Charles. "Charles... you..." His heart was hammering - too fast, nauseatingly so - and his gut twisted, Charles was sprawled out under him, outward calm belied by the beads of sweat on the man's forehead. Erik brushed his thumb along Charles' brow to wipe them away.
He glanced down; an obscene amount of blood had started to pool just below his ribs on his crisp white shirt and dark blue jacket. Hand trembling, he reached out and peeled away the jacket from the wound. Too much blood...
"Hey..." Charles smiled, coughed just a little, no blood there at least. "Just a flesh wound, I'm sure..." He coughed again and winced, painfully. "Oh that hurts."
"Charles, I am so sorry..." He'd been into battle so many times before, and yet he had never done anything but deflect bullets, allowed them to arc around him, but this time... "I..."
"Erik..." Charles' voice slipped right into his mind. "Please be calm and... do not kill for me. Not even that man."
"Stop, talking about him." He released the hold he had over the man, the crowd had long since subdued him, police moving in. "We need to get you a doctor..."
"Already on the way," Emma answered, immediately. She was standing over both of them, diamond form sparkling wickedly in the sea of flashbulbs. "As fast as they can make it."
The gallery around them was crowded now, full of people pressed too close, looking at Charles, and Erik could hear photographs going off, camera phones and video recorders and they were acting like Charles wasn't bleeding on the damn floor! "Get back, damn it all!" He growled at every single one of them, his hands pressed into Charles' wound now, trying to stop the bleeding. "Make a hole!"
If they didn't get out of the way, whatever help was coming would never get there in time. As it was, Charles didn't look good, freckled-and-tanned skin was somehow growing whiter by the moment, and it took a great deal of effort for Charles to even reach up, to wrap his hand around the back of Erik's neck and cling there like that.
"I'm sorry." He had to say it again...
"Erik, please, there is nothing to forgive." His finger reached out, traced his ear slowly, the only thing he could reach and leave his hand on Erik's neck. "Calm, love..." How did Charles think he was supposed to be calm?! "Too many... voices... please... calm." His lips moved slowly. "Calm...."
And then... silence... nothing...
Charles was barely breathing, if that, now, eyes closed, too pale.
Medics arrived, finally, and Erik was shoved away, his hands completely covered in blood.
"Erik?" Emma's voice was barely audible over the blood rushing in his ears. "Erik?"
He turned towards her, ready to bleed the whole damn world if that was what it took. "Find out what the hell happened. I want to know everything about that guy, why, everything. Names, contacts, who the hell put him up to this. I want it through Interpol, everyone."
Emma nodded, and he could feel her fingers curl very lightly against his forearm. "Erik, you must keep your focus. What happens to Charles it out of our hands and we cannot let..."
"Do not finish that sentence, Prime Minister." If Emma told him he needed to keep it together for Genosha he was not certain what he would say.
"Your Majesty?" He felt a soft tug on his sleeve cuff, a woman, blood red eyes and milk-white skin looked up at him. "Please, we need to remove the bullet."
We. Him. Erik nodded and got down on his knees, there was some sort of blood mutant there, medic, maybe, he didn't recognize the others. "The bullet has fragmented."
"Can you sense any of his organs?" She asked him, and Erik shook his head in response. Only metal. She stared down at Charles for a long moment. "Get them out of him, we will deal with the damage organically."
Fine control was always hard for him - as was the most extreme gross control, and it took most of his concentration. Finding the balance to focus like this - with Charles there, under him, pale and deathly - was almost too much. Focus. Focus. Charles... his...
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and carefully started to move the bits and pieces that had lodged in Charles' gut. "Please... Charles... Please stay with me..." There were six pieces, some bits twisted and gnarled, others almost whole, and Erik brought them out and set them all - mostly - calmly in his own hand. He couldn't resist the urge to brush a finger across Charles' forehead, accidentally leaving a small smear of blood.
"... Anything else?"
The woman waved a hand shooing him away. He went five feet down the benches and sat, looking at his bloodstained hands and the bits of bullet that he was cradling in them.
"Your Majesty?" He turned and looked again... a man with a microphone and a camera. In his face.
He desperately wanted to scream, wanted to grab him, wanted to shake him and tell him to fucking back off because Charles, his Charles, was bleeding out on the damn floor and it was his fault. But Charles had said ‘not for me’ and he supposed that included strangling asshole reporters with no sense of propriety.
He took a deep, ragged breath, and it was all he could do not to shove the microphone through the man's mouth. He looked back to Charles, the telepath was there, breathing, but barely. He nodded, just slightly.
"Do you have any comments?" The reporter asked.
Erik was no telepath, but he felt Emma tense, half a room away. Erik looked down at the fragments in his hand, and then over to Charles. His voice was focused, and deadly calm. "We will find who is responsible for this, the shooter has already been taken into custody, and we will find anyone he may have acted with, who abetted him, and we will see that they are brought to justice. All of Genosha is with Charles - MP Xavier - today."
There was a hushed sort of silence over the room, the mutants by Charles still working frantically in a way that made Erik increasingly nervous. The reporter seemed reluctant to ask another question. "Do you think this will impact the reception of the Policy Address?"
"I believe..." Erik's eyes flicked towards Charles again. "MP Xavier wound not want anything to detract from the historic moment of the first Genoshan Policy Address. He would no doubt want to be there for the vote, however I am certain the rest of the Members of Parliament will keep his seat warm while he is recovering." Because he would recover.
The reporter cleared his throat, nervous. "I think it's safe to say that the entire world's thoughts and prayers are with Genosha, and MP Xavier."
Erik bit his own tongue to keep himself from saying something snappish, and to keep from killing everyone in the entire damn room.
.54.
Charles woke to the knowledge that he was horribly, viciously, and obscenely in pain, and yet his body didn't seem to mind. His brain was muzzy and he felt as though he had a half-dozen blankets over his brain, light dappled and barely visible through the material wrapped around him.
He was also dimly aware of someone being irritated four floors down from where he was, and one exceptionally worried little sister approximately two feet to his right. Charles moved his hand, just enough that Raven's head shot up, surprised.
"Charles?" She pressed a hand to his forehead. "Charles can you hear me?"
He opened his mouth and discovered it tasted a lot like iron shavings and an animal that had died in it and settled for using his mind. "Yes."
"Oww! Too loud, Charles, jeez. You need less morphine."
"That is the exact opposite of what I need, Raven." His voice was scratchy from disuse, and when he opened his eyes completely he saw that he was hooked up to a relatively nice set of medical equipment, oxygenation, blood pressure, heart rate were all happily beeping along on one side, more detailed heart rate monitors were stuck to his chest, a few more stuck at his temples. He was in the process of being made love to by a medical octopus apparently.
"Oh god, Charles, can you please stop thinking!?" Raven whined. "I can hear like... everything. You're leaking all over the place."
Unlike most human beings, when confronted with the possibility of projecting his every thought onto those around him he did not immediately think of all the horrible and embarrassing things he didn't want everyone to know; instead he started to do times tables... unfortunately he was relatively high on morphine so by the time he got to two times ten he was a bit lost and had to start back over at one times one.
Conjugating Latin proved to be equally fruitless, the only think he could remember was 'vini, vidi, vici' and that was not conjugating at all, that was something to do with salad dressing he thought... possibly babies...
His winding and rambling thoughts were suddenly stifled by Raven knocking slightly on his forehead. "Helloooo, stop that. One head full of thoughts is enough thanks."
"Raven, I am currently an invalid, be nice." He brought his fingers on the hand not currently hooked up to an IV up to his temple, using that to focus and concentrate more completely on his shielding. He was usually much better than that, but it wasn't surprising after that sort of trauma that he was a bit ragged. "Was I leaking before I woke up?"
"No. One of the mutants put you into a coma, or something, so your body could rapidly regenerate and so you were pretty out of it. You were fine before, you know..." Raven trailed off, and Charles wasn't certain what 'you know' meant, exactly. He saw himself through her eyes - almost like an out of body experience - as he bled out on the Parliament floor. It was a miracle he was awake again at all.
"What’s the damage, then, Raven?"
"The bullet was in your belly, and it nicked your intestines so there was almost some sepsis, or something, you were pretty infected. You've been on fluids and they weren’t going to consider a tube for a few more days, so probably no food. You can probably drink a little." Her yellow eyes were rather puffy, and he could see that even under the blue and the scales. She had been crying, possibly recently.
"I'm quite alright, love. How long have I been out?"
"A week."
"A week!?" He'd thought maybe a few hours, but no, one did not simply enter a medically induced coma for a few hours, he supposed. He had to sleep off a bullet wound, and some infection, and who knew what else. "Have we entered some sort of horrific military state while I was out? Parliament dissolved? Totalitarian leadership?" He was only slightly joking, Erik was... not the most levelheaded in his responses sometimes.
"Such faith you have in me, Charles." Erik's voice was wry, and a bit tired, but he looked the same as always, in his casual garb rather than that hideous thing he called a cape and the vestments of his office. He did look rather dashing, though.
Raven arched an eyebrow and he wondered if he'd said that out loud or just thought it very loudly. "Out loud," Raven answered.
He wasn't certain what was worse, but he supposed it was better than projecting all over the place. "Raven, would you be a dear and find me a toothbrush or at least some mouthwash? I may not have died but I'm afraid something took up residence in the back of my throat and did so."
She responded with a rather graphic yuck face before she kissed his forehead and headed out into the wild. As she passed by Erik she pressed her fingers into his shoulder and he responded by patting her hand in return. Charles scrunched his eyebrows; that was an unusual response from Erik, the man usually didn't care for much in the way of casual touching from anyone but himself and Emma.
"Just so you know, MP Xavier, the internet has decided that you and I are having a sordid affair." Erik was smiling, but Charles could see the touch of concern at the corner of his mouth and his eyes, his face a little too tight as he waited to hear Charles' response.
Charles' own heart skipped a beat and then thudded, both with a certain amount of joy, but also worry. He just laid his head back down on a pillow. “The last time there was an attack you nearly declared martial law. You can’t distract me with tabloid trivia, Erik.” He was high on morphine, not amnesiac.
Erik came all of the way into the room and took up the seat Raven had vacated, taking Charles’ hand up and running his fingers against the skin there. “I would say that one mutant didn’t carry the same weight as a hundred.”
Charles waited, even though he had an idea where this was going.
“It would be a lie.”
He smiled, and even though he did really feel quite gross, he tugged Erik’s hand to his lips and kissed him lightly, leaving his fingers to circle around Erik’s wrist. “That still doesn’t explain why we aren’t at war with whatever country the shooter was from.”
“America.”
"Oh, that's lovely."
"This guy named Platt sent you flowers and a CIA dossier on the guy."
"That was very kind of him." Charles yawned and wriggled back down into the sheets even though the last thing in the world he wanted was to drop off and go back to sleep. "I take it you're having Azazel corroborate it?"
“It wasn’t necessary,” Erik answered, piquing Charles’ interest just enough to fend off sleep. "Why is someone from the CIA sending you flowers?"
"As an apology for his country being stupid enough to pass a sub registration law," Charles answered. “Why wasn’t it necessary, Erik?”
Erik was not exactly hiding something, which would have taken a particularly concerted amount of effort to hide, but he was obviously debating something, even Charles’ drug-addled mind could feel that. He pressed a hand to Charles’ chest. “Do you remember a mutant by the name of Edward Mannings?”
Charles had to think about it for only a moment, he had... many students, who he had been close to, who he had worked with, trained, and helped to grow. Edward was one of his. “He went with you, as I recall, died during the final weeks of the offensive.”
Charles didn’t know the details. Well, he knew some of the details; he always considered it his duty to his children and students to know how they had fallen, to know their lives after they left his Institute, even if their lives came up a bit short.
Erik looked a bit crushed by the reminder. “It was my fault.” He sighed. “I don’t mean it in the way where I felt generally responsible for all the lives lost, no, Edward was my fault. Emma never even bothered with the placating comforts that it wasn’t my fault.”
Charles imagined that it was, at least partially, Edward’s own choice, as much as Erik blamed himself. He understood the guilt, though, and he realized that any assistance in working through that would be unhelpful at the moment.
“The man who shot you... the man who was trying to shoot me was Edward’s father.”
Charles’ mouth formed a silent little ‘O’. “I see.”
“It seemed that watching the man who led him to his death giving a speech in celebration of a new country was a bit much for him.” Erik took a deep breath. “And that is why we are not at war with America. I didn’t need to be telepathic to understand why he hated me.”
Charles reached out, and even though he imagined he didn’t exactly look or smell particularly desirable, Erik crawled into bed with him, slid between wires and chords and leads, and pulled him close. The two of them stayed like that for several minutes, and Charles gently scratched the back of Erik’s neck, soothing. It took some time, but Erik was slowly able to put away the emotions he’d dredged up with his memory.
“You did the right thing, Erik.” Charles didn’t know if Emma had told him that in the week that had come and gone since he’d been shot, but he had. “Even if we seem to be the focus of a tabloid affair?”
Erik latched on to the change in topic immediately.
"My Prime Minister informs me that my voice may have broken while discussing The Crown's desire for your speedy recovery during a press conference." Erik's nerves were flaring, Charles could feel them in the back of his mind, and he was not denying that there might have been some clinging. Charles couldn't remember precisely, but he remembered Erik's hands on him, eyes wide and panicked.
Charles just reached out and squeezed Erik's hand, running his fingers over the back of his hand. "And what have you said?"
Erik shook his head. "I haven't even bothered to neither confirm nor deny, they're just rumors, and..." Erik's thoughts devolved into a jumble and Charles found them impossible to follow even though he'd gotten used to them. "It's our decision, not mine."
And it was a decision they should make together, even though Charles had no firm idea of how he was supposed to fix this. He loved Erik, wanted him desperately, and he knew that Erik was more than a touch jealous when he couldn't stake his claim and make it clear that Celeste wrapping an arm around Charles' forearm was not welcome in the slightest. "When I'm up and about again."
"I'm glad you're alright, Charles." Erik reached out and ran his thumb down Charles' jaw, and Charles could feel the way that a week's growth was not nearly so impressive as he sometimes wished it would be, even if he never put much stock in beards and the like.
He yawned, in spite of the armful of monarch-sub-lover in his arms. "I was in a medically induced coma for a week, why am I tired?"
"Morphine, and comas are not actually restful." Erik brushed his fingers through Charles' hair, it was too long, falling everywhere, but Erik ran his fingers through it despite how horrible and unwashed it must have been. "You should sleep."
"Are you going to sleep with me and give the tabloids a real eyeful if they sneak in?"
Erik snorted. "There are armed guards at both ends of the wing and only Raven, Emma, myself, and some of your students are allowed through."
"Oh, good, no reason to avoid it, then. Do watch the morphine drip, though."
"You know you smell horrible, right?" Despite arguing, Erik climbed off the bed, walked around to the other side, kicked off his shoes and crawled back into bed, taking up a considerable amount of the small hospital bed, but Charles just curled up around him.
Charles was already asleep and he only barely heard Erik make some joke about cuddling and hospital beds and how Charles was very kinky when he was ill.
.55.
The very best thing about being king, Erik decided, was that no one gave him any shit if he wanted to lay around and cuddle a sleepy Member of Parliament for the day. Well, Raven did slightly, if only because His Majesty was hogging her brother. After Charles had napped for about four hours, the two of them managed to get Charles scrubbed, showered, shaved, and mostly presentable. Charles took to his tea, juice, and jell-o with aplomb and Erik thought Charles looked heavenly when he finally got outside into a small semi-private garden area for the hospital.
Genoshan weather - at least during the dry season - was wonderful, and they were just about to head out of the dry season and Erik was more than happy to see Charles enjoy the last sun they would get before the rains and storms started up for months. So the three of them sat there, Charles attempting to choke down more apple juice and forget about the world for a little bit.
"What happened with the Policy Address?" Charles asked.
Well, they had forgotten about the world for about a half hour, which probably was a record with Charles.
"It passed," Raven said, kicking against the stone pavers of the grounds. "Actually I cast your vote for you, since it was historical and everything, but it passed like seventy to ten."
"Good, I'm glad I didn't cause too much disruption." Charles snorted, obviously thinking the idea was at least a bit funny, but Erik glowered at him.
"Everyone was very worried about you, Charles," Erik snapped, regretted it instantly. Erik had been beside himself, Raven and Amy, too, Moira, everyone. His damn telepath had so many people worried about him and he thought that they would just... go forward with no thought about...
"Erik..." Charles held out his hand to him and Erik took it, squeezing a little too tightly. Charles winced. "I know it was distressing, but I am still glad it didn't cause a disruption. Genosha is very important to me."
Raven made a little coughing sound and wiggled her fingers in a way that Erik couldn't quite interpret. "Why don't you two, you know, whatever while I get you some more juice, Charles."
And then she backed away from the little garden, and Erik could swear he heard her thinking horribly lewd thoughts, and he wasn't the telepath. Charles snorted; Erik just hung his head.
"We do rather need to sort that out, but I'm afraid any decision making is quite compromised by the presence of painkillers and lack of sleep. I cannot for the life of me remember why it was a good idea to hide in the first place."
Erik threaded his fingers through Charles' good hand. "Because most countries don't have rulers... like me." A sub. Erik still had to admit he struggled with it, especially in the wake of Charles' attempted assassination and how rough and aggressive he managed to be, it was like old times, and he was calm and in control in a way he hadn't been since coming to Genosha.
"Ones that struggle to fulfill a particularly idealized perception of what it means to be a Dom," Charles supplied. "Yes."
Charles closed his eyes and leaned back in the wheelchair he was currently occupying. Erik felt his nerves spike, and then he tried to calm himself; being out of sorts was no use to Charles. The telepath put out his arm, and then Erik found himself, head pressed against Charles' chest, Charles' fingers curled through his hair, and Erik just hung on, arms wrapped around Charles.
He could feel Charles, fingers fluttering through his mind, touching, soothing, and just being there with him. "Are you happy like this, love?"
The question was a difficult one. Being with Charles had been the easiest, and the most challenging, relationship he'd ever had. A certain level of intimacy, previously non-existent in his relationships, was suddenly acceptable. But it was hard, Charles effortlessly seemed to command the people around him, and he found himself still worrying he'd lose everything if he let himself get swept up with anyone else, even someone who he seemed to fit with as well as Charles.
"I want to be with you. I want to belong... I want to belong to you, but I can't..." He couldn't stand the idea of losing himself.
"Erik, I'd like us to belong to each other."
Erik swallowed back the lump in his throat. Perhaps that was one of the advantages to dating a telepath - and perhaps also to having a telepathic sister figure who was in your mind more often than not - even if he couldn't quite manage to get the words out, Charles heard them anyway.
“No one else will see it that way,” Erik said, trying not to feel glum about it. “I do want us to belong to each other.” He wanted it all now. He could even imagine, in a few years, wanting a collar, wanting to be marked as Charles’. He knew Charles would be his in return.
Charles’ fingers reached up and brushed Erik’s throat, probably having sensed the tone of his thoughts. “I would sub for you,” Charles said, finally. “In public, collar, kneeling, proper consort.”
Erik shook his head. “Your career would be over before it started.” He could see from Charles’ face that he knew Erik was right on that. “Maybe if you were just going to be Professor Xavier, but you’re MP Xavier, maybe one day PM Xavier.”
“One day? I have my eye on the post for two years from now, Erik.” Charles laughed, winced from the jarring sensation it must have caused in his gut, but then smiled, sucking in air between pained and clenched teeth.
“The work you’re doing is too important.”
Charles’ lip quirked into a smile. A few weeks ago Erik had said that Charles wasn’t fighting for anything, wasn’t working for anything, and now he knew how wrong he’d been. They were both fighting now, on the same side, for Genosha.
“What do you want, Erik?”
“You’re my Dom.”
Charles sighed, but Erik meant it, he wanted them to want the same thing, to find some way to have it all.
“I want to prove the world wrong about subs and mutants. I want Genosha to stand for a thousand years. I want you by my side.” It was so nice to say.
He felt warm fingers press against his jaw as he leaned, only a foot away from Charles, maybe less, and the telepath was smiling at him, bright and toothy and over-energetic considering he’d really just been shot a week ago. “Is that all?” He asked, voice teasing. “We’ll make it happen, Erik, Your Majesty. One step at a time.”
Erik closed the distance between them, lips touching softly against Charles'. Charles still looked so pale, and Erik found himself worried he would break the man. Charles, however, seemed to have no desire to stand for that, and slung his arm around Erik's neck, pulling him closer. The kiss started slow and shallow, but not tentative; Charles was too familiar with Erik now, his body and his mind, to be tentative when it came to this.
Sitting over Charles in the hospital - hand threaded in Charles’ - had done nothing to comfort him and dispel the idea that he may have lost Charles forever. Having Charles there, touching him, fingers threaded through Erik's hair, did everything to push the thought away and Charles was surprisingly enthusiastic in taking Erik’s breath away.
They kissed like that for a long time, possibly minutes, but Erik couldn't have said if it had been hours. Charles' lips pressed against his, lazy and slow, slightly drugged, his hand sliding through Erik's hair and pinning them together. At some point, Erik gave up the idea of leaving space between them as a lost cause, and slid his knee onto Charles' chair next to his leg, pinning them even closer together, Charles' hand clinging to Erik's shirt to keep him close.
That was, of course, about the time when the media - informed of MP Xavier's recovery - decided to arrive, roughly in unison, and start taking pictures.
A jumbled array of thoughts that roughly sounded like 'shit' tumbled through Erik's mind, but Charles just held Erik close. "Your choice, Erik. I'm fairly certain they could forget this..."
"Don't want them to." Brave words, but Erik wasn't entirely certain he was ready to face what it would mean. He wanted the entire damn world to know Charles was his, but the rest of it... Erik broke their kiss, slowly, and rested there, like that, with his forehead on Charles'.
Charles sent a very warm and comfortable wave of assurance towards him, and Erik felt instantly better even though he was already beginning to dread what the decision might mean. "Leave... leave our dynamics out of whatever you say, Erik. It's really none of their business. As to the rest, I always find the truth works the best."
"I'm beginning to think you bring out the worst in me, Charles." Still, he leaned forward and kissed the man again squarely on the lips, stood, straightened his robes, and then headed off to take questions, because oh would there be questions. Charles was... incredible. He had no idea how to sort out this mess but he wasn't going to let Charles slip away.
The impromptu press conference, surprisingly, started with a few easy questions, how Charles was recovering, and if there had been any progress with the shooter's background. Charles managed to work up enough energy to wheel himself over to Erik's side and actually look somewhat alert.
"How are you feeling, sir?" One of the younger looking blogger-types asked Charles from near the front of the pack.
"Well enough, a bit shot, but I'm told I'm recovering well, and I should be back to work soon enough." Charles smiled, happily, and Erik was just so, damn, glad to see him like that, even if he knew that he must be exhausted.
"And a bit shagged?!" Someone yelled from the back.
Charles had a particularly withering look, however, that was apparently effective on both students and journalists. "I think there is very little of more import than what's happened here, this week. We have a new country here, newly minted, with a newly elected Prime Minister and His Majesty's government and a rather impressive number of MPs. The vagaries of who is shagging whom are not nearly so important, although I'm certain someone's paper will feel free to correct me on that point."
Erik put his hand against the back of Charles' neck, brushed his fingers against the skin there, and thought that Charles could sometimes be so astounding right, and so very wrong. Right now, to Erik, it was exceptionally important that he was shagging Charles, that they were each other’s, and at least for an hour or two, Genosha could wait.
Despite Charles' request that the hospital staff allow the king to stay, Erik was run out of the hospital late in the evening and ended up back in his own quarters. He wished that Charles were just a few floors away, instead of partway across the city. Kings probably shouldn’t be run out of their own country’s hospitals, but Charles obviously needed rest and he wasn’t going to get it with Erik there beside him. Emma arrived just a few minutes after he'd gotten home, a very soft rap on the door rousing him from where he was making himself a drink. He tugged the door open with a flick of the wrist and then went back to his drink.
"You're on all the blogs, you know," Emma said, rather than something more conventional. "Apparently it's quite nice to see a monarch let their hair down a bit - metaphorically speaking."
Erik tilted a martini glass towards her and Emma nodded, Erik mixed her one as well. "Well, good. Perhaps some of the ambassadors will stop looking at me like I am going to rip the blood out of their veins through their eyeballs." Which would be a bit of a shame, actually, but Erik would somehow manage.
"Have you and Charles given much thought to how your relationship is going to shake out, publicly?"
Martinis finished, Erik brought them over and handed one to Emma before landing in his chair. "Not as much as we should have. I'm certain Charles has given it more thought than me but..." He shook his head. "I suppose it's just a matter of giving it enough time to be nebulous so that no one thinks I'm unsuitable when we finally clarify it. I could pass for a few more months, maybe a year or two with two telepaths on my case."
Emma sat down beside him, her fingers pressed against his shoulder. "No doubt you could. Your little protective display - when Charles was shot and today - no doubt will help enforce the idea of you as in control."
"Right." Erik pressed his palms to his forehead, hung his head like that, eyes closed, relief, finally, washing through him. "God, Ems, I was so worried he..."
She just nodded, fingers rubbing lightly into his back.
A nervous chuckled bubbled out of his chest. "I didn't think it was really Genosha, that we'd really succeeded, until he woke up."
Emma might not have appreciated the sentiment, she didn't say, but she did seem to understand it. "Sometimes I feel as though it will never be quite right without Sebastian here." Her tone was matter of fact, and didn't invite sympathy or empathy. When she'd had dreams of Genosha, Sebastian had been a part of them.
"You miss him."
"I miss... the idea of him, yes." Emma gave him a very faint smile. "Less and less each day."
Erik took a sip of his martini. "You know you could find a---"
"Do not finish that sentence, Your Majesty. When I want, in my own time. Are we clear?"
He smirked, dragged her into a hug. "Of course, Prime Minister."
.56.
Charles was surprisingly distressed to find that he 'moved around like an old man' as Raven now put it. After a few days, he was nudged into making sure he could walk - which he could, although apparently even with a coma that accelerated the healing process he was still not particularly spry. Thankfully after three days of wakefulness and walking around and proving that he could, in fact, eat and it would manage to make it all the way through, he was allowed to leave. He was absolutely beat, and had trouble staying up for more than an hour or so before he was forced to seek refuge in a chair.
The one good thing to the entire mess was that he could now curl up with Erik at night, although somewhat conservatively as Erik had a tendency to squeeze in his sleep and Charles' middle region was still tender, to say the least.
"Back to work tomorrow?" Moira asked from the kitchen, where she and Darwin and Raven were working on dinner for the entire... mini-clan that Charles had apparently adopted to live in his quarters. Admittedly Darwin and Alex had relocated to the school, so they were only visiting, Amy had gotten her own apartment out by the beach where she was going to be living on her own, Moira and Sean lived at the school as well, so largely he was still living with Raven - who had not decided what, exactly, she wanted to do with herself yet - and Christopher, who would be leaving in another two days to return to the United States.
"Yes, I feel a bit behind the eight-ball, however. My sister has cast more votes in Parliament than I have." He wasn't even overly distressed; he was just surprised and a bit lost. He was certain he would get back into the flow eventually, but it was jarring.
"Charles, don't worry."
"I'm not worried, just a bit... tentative." Worried. He sighed and raked a finger through his hair.
Erik ended up not coming to dinner, which wasn't entirely a surprise, he spent a good deal of time with diplomats now, but Erik would no doubt be home before Charles fell asleep. Moira, however, took advantage of the opportunity to pull him aside after dinner.
"Are you happy?" It made sense that would be the way she broached the subject.
He nodded. "Deliriously. It could be the morphine, but... we fit, love."
She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and kissed him softly on the cheek. "I just worry about what it will do to the party, to your politics. Like it or not, people still think subs are weak, and... well everyone is going to assume one of you is a sub."
Charles had been thinking about exactly that, although for the opposite reason that Moira was suggesting. And he had to admit he was somewhat amused that she hadn't twigged to the truth of the matter. Still, he spent far more time with Erik than she did, so the little clues didn't have the same amount of time to settle. "Can't we be just two men in a slightly unconventional relationship?"
He knew the answer to that well enough.
"People might start to think you're a sub, Charles. I've seen the way His Majesty acts around you and people can see he's the one that's... possessive, aggressive. I know you say that those are neither necessary nor sufficient qualities for a Dom but..."
Her concerns were almost comical, but he knew she meant well. "I'm well known as a switch already; you know I don't mind people thinking I'm a sub, or that I sub for others, as long as it doesn't affect the way they interact with me. Will it under these circumstances? Almost certainly, but I am prepared for it." As prepared for it as he could ever be. He patted her knee. "Truly, Moira, what wouldn't you do for Sean?"
That was the right thing to say, and she nodded, because she was a good Dom, and she understood caring for your sub more than anyone in the world. She more than understood that. Sean could be a handful, and although Charles occasionally gave her a hard time for being a bit of a cougar she was good for Sean in a way that was obvious to anyone with eyes.
"He challenges me, Moira, challenges me and pushes me to be better. He's the reason we're here in a country that is going to mean something to the world, a home for the people who need it." Erik's faults and his strengths were the reason that Charles had pushed himself to where he was. "I will miss the school, I admit."
"We're barely five miles out of the city!" She knew what he meant, though. "Ororo and the American students will be here in a day or two, she'll take care of everything and you will be our Headmaster emeritus."
"I hear MPs actually don't do much work, just listen to their advisors and make them write legislation while they go and play golf, clearly I will be able to come to the school and do some teaching every now and again. If my relationship with Erik ruins my career in politics I could always come back and find very small children who think I am the most intimidating person in the universe."
"Charles, you have floppy hair. They think you are a puppy."
They laughed over that until Charles was - unfortunately - clutching his side and trying to slow his breathing down. When he finally caught his breath he groaned and laid back on the couch. "I will miss them, you know, seeing them every day, watching them grow up. That was always the greatest joy of having them all about, you know."
"Clearly you should get one of your own."
Charles tried to imagine that conversation. He and Erik had never really discussed it. Either way, he knew he would always have his kids, even if he only saw them on occasional weekends. The Institute had almost two hundred already, and he knew there would be more. Genosha was already starting to grow, even with him nearly being killed, people knew that Genosha was going to be safe. Safety in numbers. "I have a rather new relationship. You, however, promised me a niece or nephew ages ago."
"Charles Francis Xavier, you are shameless."
"Very guilty as charged, love." He leaned back against his couch, eyes closed, thinking about everything that was going to come. Cerebro would be up and running again in another week or two, he would begin his quest to locate new mutants again, perhaps with Jean spearheading it instead of him, but they would find them. Mutants would have no reason to feel they were alone, no reason to hide, not when there was Genosha, shining and full of people like them and humans who would support them.
He knew that he had by no means done it alone, Erik and Emma had started the journey years ago, and Genosha was barely a year off from the moment their soldiers had taken Genosha from the humans who were exploiting mutants. Now it was full of... politicians and humans and mutants and mutates and ambassadors and just... people, normal, ordinary people who grew bones out of their shoulders and could read minds and could spin fabric like an insect and it was... incredible.
"Are you happy?" He finally asked, because they had had so little time to themselves lately. He was used to telling Moira almost anything, they had been working to run the school together for years, ever since she'd left America to be with Sean after the ridiculous registration act, and here she was, surrounded by mutants again.
She nodded. "The kids... they needed somewhere like this. I know you love integration, Charles, and I think it's going to happen, it is, but..." These things took time. It pained him, it did, but she was right.
"I'm a mutant," he said, finally. He could say they were all human inside, and they were, but he knew he needed to stand here and scream it from the rooftops. Maybe he would be hated for that, and maybe be shot for that, but he was a mutant and... "And we needed a place for that, as much as I wish it weren't the case."
He and Moira sat like that, shoulders touching, for a long time as Charles tried to let go of the bits and pieces of his life that he was going to miss the most, his privacy, the school. Everything was in good hands, though, the best he could have put them in, and everything was going to be more than alright. He could admit, at least to himself, that he had a hard time letting go of the dozens of things he was used to handling, used to having be his purview, but he had two things that would have to be the most important to him from now on, Genosha and Erik, not necessarily always in that order, and that would be more than enough.
.epilogue.
James Rosen - the US Ambassador to Genosha - took in the beauty of the palace exterior. Since the official founding of the country five years ago, much had changed. The palace had actually become its own entity, a perfect sprawl out over one of the scenic overlooks above the shore of Hammer Bay. It was not overly large, in truth, but it suited the neo-modern style that had come to be known as Genoshan.
He exited the car he'd been driven in, his sub, Michelle, on his arm a moment later. It was hard to remember that only a few years ago the most opulent display of wealth the country could manage was fresh fruit canapés, and now instead there was an entire palace that seemed to have been etched out of a single piece of metal wrapped around wood and glass. He'd been there for some of the groundbreaking, the King himself dragging gold, silver, and iron around to make the supports and the decorative aspects as well.
The whole thing screamed... mutant. He'd written a book on the palace construction, actually, one that the King had called 'passable' and the Prince Consort had called 'absolutely marvelous'. James was certain that was something he would never quite be able to communicate to someone who had not lived and breathed Genosha. As his reign progressed, King Magneto had become particularly charmed with the arts, with the uniquely mutant ways that the people of Genosha could express themselves, and it was etched in every inch of the soil, now.
There was no one element that exemplified it, however, Michelle had always been particularly taken with the gardens, the entire grounds were tended to by one mutant who was responsible for taming shrubs, bushes, vines, and grass into an artistic tangle. Hedges that kept their shape without trimming intermixed with vines that whirled around and through stonework and never tangled the foot.
James and Michelle made their way through the entryway, and into the largest ballroom that had been set aside for the evening. Ambassadors were littered around the floor, interspersed with MPs and a few Genoshan VIPs that James would have recognized in his sleep. Ororo Monroe - Headmistress of the Xavier Institute, Moira MacTaggart - Assistant Headmistress, and MacTaggart's sub - Sean Cassidy, were scattered around talking with MPs and Ambassadors. Michelle headed over towards Cassidy, both of them were gossipers at heart and James knew he could get the pulse of the King, the Prime Minster, and the Prince Consort just by having Michelle chat up Cassidy.
The Prime Minster entered a bit later, decked out in perfect white finery, Raven Frost on her arm, they were dressed to match today, Raven's neck neatly circled by her diamond and crystal collar. He'd heard jokes before that the collar should be counted among the crown jewels of Genosha; it was finer than the ruby broach that King Magneto wore rather than a crown, or the matching bracelet-gauntlets the royal couple wore after their marriage.
Normally a Dom would wear the bracelet and the sub a collar, but the couple was nothing if not... unconventional.
James had actually enjoyed the stir they had caused, and the fact that they were responsible for the third court case to make it to the Supreme Court of Genosha. MP Celeste Vandermeer had put a complaint in not two weeks after the founding of a country, stating, definitively that MP Xavier - as a lover to the king - should not be allowed to hold a political office. The court had declared the whole thing moot - as Xavier was only a lover, not a spouse - and then had heard a case on human discrimination - found in favor of the human - and a case on... import taxes on apples brought by the head of the international and domestic police, Azazel.
To this day, no one had been able to adequately explain to James how the international police chief had standing to bring the case, or how the 'apple tax' affected anyone as far as he knew. Mostly it seemed to just make apples particularly expensive if someone wanted them.
When the couple had actually married a year or so later, the case had come up again, and the court was finally forced to decided and ruled that nothing in the Constitution barred it. The Prince Consort had taken no additional styling - although James had heard 'Duke of Xavier' thrown around, or 'Earl of Hammer Bay' - and the matter had been put to rest.
The royal couple, however, was still not in attendance, so he made his way over to the Prime Minster and exchanged greetings.
"Ambassador Rosen."
"Prime Minister." They exchanged the polite head-nods of people too well acquainted to stand on proper bowing. "I trust you're enjoying being back at the reins?"
"Oh yes, well Xavier did a marvelous job of PMing, of course, but I think we know the way the pendulum was going to swing with the changes in the United States." Emma was all smiles, but he saw the unsubtle tension in Raven's mouth from what the Prime Minster had said.
"I am not my government," he answered, as politically as possible. Truth to tell he wasn't pleased with it, the way the most recent President had swept in on a tide of anti-mutant propaganda. He was the only choice for Ambassador, however, especially with two telepaths so high in government - and any number more in the police force - he was one of the few career politicians out there who had never touched anything too deeply classified, and he also had a relatively clean opinion on subs and mutants.
"An honest response," Emma answered. "Rich with a certain amount of nuance, however. No doubt the King making a good show of polishing his saber in preparation for rattling it has made your government nervous."
James sighed, he couldn't deny the king had a point - perhaps that was a side effect of living in Genosha so long, he had come to get used to being surrounded by mutants and mutates, enough so that the idea that they were any more or less dangerous than any other sort of human seemed laughable. "I can't say it helped, but we would do well to remember the lessons of the revolution."
A hundred mutants had taken down a power structure of thousands, and now there were thousands of mutants, trained, many of them battle ready. He knew Prince Consort Xavier was not a proponent of war, but he was famous for doing what is necessary. If his government pushed too hard, it was possible they would find themselves mired in something messy.
Emma inclined her head, not voicing a response.
"Perhaps I could have His Majesty's ears concerning a state visit sometime in the future."
The Prime Minster sniffed, her variation on polite disdain. "Perhaps after your news media has stopped vilifying him. I think we know some of your fringe requires little provocation to do something... rash."
James wished she were wrong, but she wasn't. "Then I wish more non-Genoshans would take advantage of the tourist season. The whole dry season is lovely, nice beaches, lovely food..."
Raven smiled at that, crinkling her nose. "No one wants to be around for the wet season, though, not even Genoshans."
"Very true, Lady Raven." He certainly didn't like the wet season either, when they were more prone to get monsoons than beach weather.
"Oh, it's Their Royal Terrors," Emma interrupted, looking over her shoulder to find Prince David and Princess Anya running around and diving through legs.
The more surefooted - and familiar - Ambassadors and MPs knew exactly how to sidestep, but some of the newer arrivals had no idea what to do with the rambunctious pair. But it was finally Raven who stepped up and took them both by the collar with an impressive 'ahem!' before finally dusting and flattening out rumpled robes and tugging them straight.
"None of that," she told them both, and they nodded, solemnly. "Go to your places, your fathers will be out shortly."
James watched the pair nod again and head back towards the dais and stand half-stiff, half-bored.
Raven leaned back in towards James. "You didn't have children that age when you started your career, did you, Ambassador?"
"I did have children, but they were ten and fourteen, actually, and... I'm sure you'll forgive me for admitting it, but Michelle and I had more traditional roles. It must be a bit hard, having a King for a father and an MP and sometimes PM for a father as well."
"That is one of the advantages of having an entire house staff to attend to them, though," Emma cut in, her voice cool and James realized - rather belatedly - that he'd been being a bit Domish, and not in a terribly becoming way.
"Forgive me, Prime Minster."
And she nodded, graciously. It was... rather incredible, though. James had been to state dinners all across the world and that comment really would have garnered nothing more than a polite nod, not cool dismissal, but Genosha was a rather incredible feat of statecraft compared to many other countries.
"It seems His Majesty is about to make an appearance." Emma put out her arm and Raven took it, the two of them heading over to their more traditional place to greet the royal couple.
Everyone else took their cue without the need of announcement and moved to their appointed places.
Angel stepped out onto the head of the stairs, all eyes on her, and with graced them all with a flick of gossamer wings that quieted down the last chatter. "Presenting His Majesty, Magneto, King of Genosha, Defender and Servant of Mutantkind." The king entered a moment later, Prince Consort Charles behind him, unannounced - as was their slightly peculiar custom - but no eyes were on the Prince Consort today.
The king was...
James gawked. The king wore a collar. Magneto was half down the stairs before any of the few journalists on hand for the event managed to get a camera up to actually take a picture. The collar was beautiful, crafted in either platinum or white gold, studded with a few diamonds and rubies, but he doubted anyone was interested in the manufacturing pedigree, and the concern was actually to the fact that the King of Genosha was wearing a collar and the Prince Consort walked deferentially behind him, his own matching bracelets obvious against his blue robes.
He found himself in something of a fog while the King and Prince Consort worked their way to the dais and finally sat down. His head spun as Magneto gave what was no doubt an interesting - or at least uneventful - speech concerning the five-year anniversary of their country. There were no doubt cameras or microphones that were picking it up, would record it and nitpick it and consider it, but James could barely pay attention to the words themselves.
The king was in command, he spoke easily, the rallying speech was long since old hand to him and James didn't expect any stumbles but...
The King of Genosha was wearing a collar.
The Prince Consort sat, poise lazy, watching the king as he spoke, face unbelievably fond.
The King of Genosha was a sub.
And no one had realized for five years.
Oh there had been speculation, but it was never because of anything the king had done. It was a bit of a joke - who was the top, who was the Dom, who told who what was what. It was natural to be curious about royals, that seemed to be what citizens of monarchies - and citizens of countries who vaguely wished they were monarchies - did with their time, but this... this was bizarre.
Michelle squeezed his elbow lightly and he managed to stop gawking after that.
He could imagine the gossip now, wondering about Magneto's weaknesses, but James had been across from the man at the negotiating table and he was fierce, driven... perhaps a bit too hard sometimes but nothing untoward...
Life and chatter slowly came back up in the room, one of the entertainers - a mutant who could make trilling noises almost like a bird began to provide the musical entertainment, and the king got up, held his arm out for the Prince Consort, and the two of them slowly circled around, making their greetings.
James had almost an hour to collect himself properly, and for his own mind to be as collected as possible. When the King and Prince Consort came to exchange pleasantries it was easier than James had expected to keep his focus on Magneto. Most of his dealings were with the man anyway.
"Your Majesty."
"Ambassador, ma'am." He paused for a moment. "It's a pleasure to have you share the occasion with Charles and I."
They talked, James asked after 'The Royal Terrors' - oh, out loud he'd said 'the children' but the way the Prince Consort's lips turned up he knew he hadn't guarded that thought well enough - and somehow the world didn't end because he was dealing with a sub. His opinion had shifted, a bit, he couldn't avoid it, but the king was somehow still the same man he fought across the negotiating table with and... he really was impressed.
Hours later, he and Michelle were taking a break from the festivities inside, curled up on a wood-grown bench in one of her favorite parts of the park.
"Is it terribly rude if I sometimes like it better here than back home?" She asked him, an arm threaded through his, leaning up against his shoulder.
James considered the gardens, the palace, the beaches, the weather, and everything else that had shocked him when he'd come to Genosha five years ago. He shook his head. "It is pretty nice, isn't it? Mutatis mutandis." That was how they said it at the Xavier Institute, he supposed. Genosha - despite being the first home primarily for mutants - somehow managed to... make James consider exactly what he knew of humanity.
Today he felt a little bit Genoshan, and it was a good start.
.the end.