Armistice (1/?)
Title: Armistice
Pairing: Erik/Charles
Rating: PG-13 now, for violence and war? Later NC-17.
Genre: WW1 AU
Summary: 1917. Craiglockhart, a mental hospital in Scotland. Erik Lehnsherr is a Siegfried Sassoon-esque World War I poet, and Charles Xavier (Wilfred Owen) is a fellow patient at the hospital who turns out to share more than Lehnsherr's gift for poetry. Everyone's still a mutant, but the origins of the mutations are a peculiar form of shellshock, and (given the dates) major hunks of folks' backstories are different.
A/N: What? You didn’t want a World War I poets AU? Well, don’t read this! This can be one of those things like camels doing ballet. You know the story of the camel who did ballet? It was terrible! And everyone was like, “Camel, what the eff, man?” and the camel’s like, “Hey, I do this for my own enjoyment!” I know I'm usually more of a straight-up smut fairy, but I just really wanted to try something different, and it may suck, in which case LA LA LA CAMELS LA LA.
That being said, I hear AUs are in these days, and I promise that there will be smut later, because hey, it’s me. And if you know WWI poets, maybe these parallels that have been eating me alive for ages have also been eating you alive! And if you don’t, there will be smut. Also Mac and Fass look so fetching in their yes i know non-ww1 period uniforms that something had to happen. Maybe someone else already wrote this in which case I will kill you and marry you in some order that we can determine later.
Uh, there will also be World War I poetry. It won't be written at the time that the author actually wrote it, but if that's your biggest concern, and not the fact that Siegfried Sassoon can bend metal with his mind, you ought to consult someone.
Crossposted at A03
Prologue
The Kiss
TO these I turn, in these I trust-
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal,
I guard her beauty clean from rust.
He spins and burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my praise;
But up the nobly marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.
Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this:
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.
(Siegfried Sassoon, 1918)
There was a hole in the sky.
Erik went stumbling along the bottom of the trench, half-drunk on the haze of battle, Tommy’s bulk warm and definite in front of him like the lowest note in a piece of music, giving solidity to the rest. Tommy always had that effect on him; soothing and calm as the clasp of Tommy's large warm hand, his puzzled lop-sided grin.
"Too much Greek, Lehnsherr," Tommy said. "Write me something I can send the old girl."
"Hilda?"
"That's the one."
Erik nodded, glad at the contact of their shoulders through the sturdy trench coats, carefully erased Tommy's name and penciled in HILDA, grimacing a little, and said, "How's this?"
Tommy listened to him read, eyes shut. "Magic, Lehnsherr," he said. "That's the real stuff. Just like mother makes it."
"Your mother's a poet?"
"Yours en't?"
Over the top.
A whizzbang shrilled overhead, tearing a bright rent in the smoky air. The men lumbered along in their helmets, moving sullenly forward. He had lost all sense of autonomy. Footsteps followed footsteps. He was nothing now - a nub of instinct, the raw beastly desperate need to survive. The sky was alive with light.
Fritz knew they were coming. The clatter of deathly wings, the shrill screaming of hell-cats, bright flash of the artillery. Darkness and chaos, and then a shrill sudden scream, as though some malign physician were probing into the choking fog to find a nerve of pain.
They were on the lip of the German trench.
The wire wasn’t cut. He stared at it. It was a definite obstacle, emerging like a familiar word in a soup of strange consonants and vowels. Someone was shouting something. It was impossible to formulate a plan. Survive. Lie down. Survive. No hole in the wire. Don’t try to - Life clawed at him desperately. Get down. Get down. He flung himself into the dust in time to see Tommy attempt the wire.
“No!” he shouted.
Tommy heard nothing. The world seemed to slow to a crawl.
He was not accustomed to praying. This desperation cut deeper than prayer. It felt as though his mind were trying to slip the confines of his skull.
One step. Another. Half-way through.
A shrieking through the air. The shell missed but illuminated them like a flash-bulb; Tommy’s silhouette against the wire, cut out from the dark material of the night with the shell’s bright scissors. Sullen thud of lead kissing flesh. Tommy’s head lolled to the side.
Erik did not realize that he was screaming.
Around him, the world seemed to inhale. Had to get him down. Had to. Had to. The air had altered. This was an atmosphere that only he could breathe; his senses sharpened, sharpened to the point of pain, sharpened past the point of pain to pinprick awareness stretching across the air of the body in the wire, the wire in the body - the wire -
He could feel the wire.
He pulled. Tore. Suddenly the wire unspooled itself, stretched towards him, hooks retracting - beaten into ploughshares - letting the body fall, senseless and heavy - hooks extending, beaten into swords -- and a tornado of metal burst along the line, catching up bodies and squeezing, choking them - now snake, now whip, now whirlwind again - and flinging them down -
It was impossible. It was happening. That was this war all over. Now he would destroy the world. Tommy was gone and he would destroy the world.
Men were running and screaming, whites of their eyes flashing like cattle.
Another flash. Erik knelt beside Tommy and fumbled for his tags. The metal clung to his hand.
Chapter 1
Pairing: Erik/Charles
Rating: PG-13 now, for violence and war? Later NC-17.
Genre: WW1 AU
Summary: 1917. Craiglockhart, a mental hospital in Scotland. Erik Lehnsherr is a Siegfried Sassoon-esque World War I poet, and Charles Xavier (Wilfred Owen) is a fellow patient at the hospital who turns out to share more than Lehnsherr's gift for poetry. Everyone's still a mutant, but the origins of the mutations are a peculiar form of shellshock, and (given the dates) major hunks of folks' backstories are different.
A/N: What? You didn’t want a World War I poets AU? Well, don’t read this! This can be one of those things like camels doing ballet. You know the story of the camel who did ballet? It was terrible! And everyone was like, “Camel, what the eff, man?” and the camel’s like, “Hey, I do this for my own enjoyment!” I know I'm usually more of a straight-up smut fairy, but I just really wanted to try something different, and it may suck, in which case LA LA LA CAMELS LA LA.
That being said, I hear AUs are in these days, and I promise that there will be smut later, because hey, it’s me. And if you know WWI poets, maybe these parallels that have been eating me alive for ages have also been eating you alive! And if you don’t, there will be smut. Also Mac and Fass look so fetching in their yes i know non-ww1 period uniforms that something had to happen. Maybe someone else already wrote this in which case I will kill you and marry you in some order that we can determine later.
Uh, there will also be World War I poetry. It won't be written at the time that the author actually wrote it, but if that's your biggest concern, and not the fact that Siegfried Sassoon can bend metal with his mind, you ought to consult someone.
Crossposted at A03
Prologue
The Kiss
TO these I turn, in these I trust-
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal,
I guard her beauty clean from rust.
He spins and burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my praise;
But up the nobly marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.
Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this:
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.
(Siegfried Sassoon, 1918)
There was a hole in the sky.
Erik went stumbling along the bottom of the trench, half-drunk on the haze of battle, Tommy’s bulk warm and definite in front of him like the lowest note in a piece of music, giving solidity to the rest. Tommy always had that effect on him; soothing and calm as the clasp of Tommy's large warm hand, his puzzled lop-sided grin.
"Too much Greek, Lehnsherr," Tommy said. "Write me something I can send the old girl."
"Hilda?"
"That's the one."
Erik nodded, glad at the contact of their shoulders through the sturdy trench coats, carefully erased Tommy's name and penciled in HILDA, grimacing a little, and said, "How's this?"
Tommy listened to him read, eyes shut. "Magic, Lehnsherr," he said. "That's the real stuff. Just like mother makes it."
"Your mother's a poet?"
"Yours en't?"
Over the top.
A whizzbang shrilled overhead, tearing a bright rent in the smoky air. The men lumbered along in their helmets, moving sullenly forward. He had lost all sense of autonomy. Footsteps followed footsteps. He was nothing now - a nub of instinct, the raw beastly desperate need to survive. The sky was alive with light.
Fritz knew they were coming. The clatter of deathly wings, the shrill screaming of hell-cats, bright flash of the artillery. Darkness and chaos, and then a shrill sudden scream, as though some malign physician were probing into the choking fog to find a nerve of pain.
They were on the lip of the German trench.
The wire wasn’t cut. He stared at it. It was a definite obstacle, emerging like a familiar word in a soup of strange consonants and vowels. Someone was shouting something. It was impossible to formulate a plan. Survive. Lie down. Survive. No hole in the wire. Don’t try to - Life clawed at him desperately. Get down. Get down. He flung himself into the dust in time to see Tommy attempt the wire.
“No!” he shouted.
Tommy heard nothing. The world seemed to slow to a crawl.
He was not accustomed to praying. This desperation cut deeper than prayer. It felt as though his mind were trying to slip the confines of his skull.
One step. Another. Half-way through.
A shrieking through the air. The shell missed but illuminated them like a flash-bulb; Tommy’s silhouette against the wire, cut out from the dark material of the night with the shell’s bright scissors. Sullen thud of lead kissing flesh. Tommy’s head lolled to the side.
Erik did not realize that he was screaming.
Around him, the world seemed to inhale. Had to get him down. Had to. Had to. The air had altered. This was an atmosphere that only he could breathe; his senses sharpened, sharpened to the point of pain, sharpened past the point of pain to pinprick awareness stretching across the air of the body in the wire, the wire in the body - the wire -
He could feel the wire.
He pulled. Tore. Suddenly the wire unspooled itself, stretched towards him, hooks retracting - beaten into ploughshares - letting the body fall, senseless and heavy - hooks extending, beaten into swords -- and a tornado of metal burst along the line, catching up bodies and squeezing, choking them - now snake, now whip, now whirlwind again - and flinging them down -
It was impossible. It was happening. That was this war all over. Now he would destroy the world. Tommy was gone and he would destroy the world.
Men were running and screaming, whites of their eyes flashing like cattle.
Another flash. Erik knelt beside Tommy and fumbled for his tags. The metal clung to his hand.
Chapter 1