xmen_firstkink

(PROMPT AND FILL RE-POSTED FROM THE OTHER MEME)

I'd like to see some lone-ranger!Erik and good-townsfolk!Charles.

So the town is the kind that gets constantly raided by bandits, and they keep promoting new sheriffs which get killed within a week. Charles works some innocuous job like... being the town preacher... and Erik is some stranger that wanders in all dark and mysterious.

Erik wants nothing to do with the townsfolk cause he's intent on his own mission/quest for revenge/he's too jaded/something and he just wants to pass right on through.

Then - because there's no one left who's brave enough - Charles takes up the job of Sheriff.

Maybe Erik still leaves (but obv, he's gonna come back ;D), and maybe Shaw is the big bad bandit, maybe Hank or Alex or Sean can have jobs as deputy or black smith or whatever. Raven could be a bar wench or bar maid or something - it's up to anon!

But you know you want this.

Lone-Ranger!Erik & Gunslinging-Preacher!Charles

(AN: reposting this from the other meme, just in case things are shut down over there! Meep! Hopefully this is okay!

NOW WITH A BRAND NEW TITLE! ....that I stole from Mumford and Sons and their song "dustbowl dance")



THE ONLY SON



~~I'll go out back and I'll get my gun,
I'll say you haven't met me, I am the only son.~~


The day Erik arrived in Redemption was the day the Sheriff died.

The town of Redemption was the just the same as any other he had weaved in and out of over the past few months, traveling the long, endless road of his vengeance. Brown buildings of sagging wood, dusty porches and muddy streets, a saloon, a bank, a post office and a whore house, and all of the people that resided in these buildings like weary ghosts. Down trodden people, hard people, faces lined with years of hardship under an unfailing desert sun.

Erik’s horse had gone lame five miles outside of town, and when he felt up behind the foreleg, had cursed when his fingers felt the swollen lump of an abscess. A lame horse meant holing up in this god-forsaken town for an interminable amount of time. Mag snorted and butted her head against his, and as he rubbed his hand under her brown forelock, between her eyes, he tried to forgive her.

Erik hated the drowning, smothering morass of remaining in one place for any length of time. He constantly felt the itch; the relentless need to push on, to move as swiftly and ceaselessly as the westward wind. He wondered, hoped that maybe once he had carved out the bloody end of his revenge, he would be able to rest, and to be at peace.

His face creased in a grim smile as he thought, probably not. Peace had never been an option for Erik. Shaw had made sure of that.

Erik had walked the remaining five miles into Redemption, Mag limping behind him. The main street had seemed deserted on his arrival, but as he made his way inwards, he saw a crowd gathered at what must be the town center, marked by a large brown stone fountain in the Mexican style. He tied his horse to the hitching post outside the saloon, and climbed onto the covered expanse of porch.

From his vantage point, he could see the crowd, strangely silent, had gathered around the fallen body of a young black man with a large gaping gunshot wound in his stomach, blood slowly leaking out and pooling red into the dirt beneath him.

Erik leaned against the weathered wooden column next to him, and pulled out a hand rolled cigarette and matches. He watched as a tall, skinny boy with glasses and the white apron of a doctor knelt next to the body and inspected his wound, lit his cigarette and inhaled slowly as the young doctor hung his head and announced quietly,

“He’s dead.”

A murmur of discontent rose up in the crowd. Erik folded his arms across his chest. He could see on the dead man’s chest the bright Silver Star that denoted him as Sheriff. Odd enough that this town had made a black man Sheriff, they also seemed genuinely remorseful about his passing.

The liberal attitude didn't concern Erik as much as the void his death left behind. Erik knew enough, had been around enough to know that when there is no Sheriff in town, things tend to get out of hand, and quickly. He slowly breathed out tobacco smoke, allowing it to obscure his face. He would have to be on his guard.

“Is there a problem here?” The voice was resounding, and echoed across the small courtyard that marked the town’s center. Looking upwards and across the street, Erik could see a man standing on the second floor balcony of what could only be the whorehouse, painted women in lurid coloured corsets and skirts leaning over the railing next to him. He was tall, and broad with a stomach that had run to fat, but he spoke with authority and the anxious, muttering rabble was silenced at his words.

He watched as a man pushed forward from the crowd, and shouted,

“Someone has murdered the Sheriff—“

“Then you best bury him.” The man in the balcony spoke sharply and stared down at the man on the ground, and something passed between them, unspoken, but the tension broke when the man in the balcony laughed, loudly and with cold malice, as he said,

“Before he starts stinking up the whole town!” There were men with rifles who flanked him on the balcony, Erik noted, more on the roof, and on the ground floor of the whorehouse, and all of them joined in on his heartless laughter. This was the man in charge, he thought, not the Sheriff. It was painfully obvious as the young doctor and some of the other townspeople began to lift and carry his corpse away as the laughter echoed across the town, and the rest of the crowd silently dispersed.

Erik watched as the other man who had spoken up stood rigidly beneath the balcony, his body twisted and coiled as if preparing to spring into action. A young woman with long yellow hair approached him, placed her hands on his shoulders as she spoke into his ear, and then gently pulled at him until he relented.

They turned together and crossed the street, and as they approached the saloon where Erik stood, he saw that the man was actually quite young, and very handsome, in a well-bred, tender and useless kind of way. The Wild West had not much use for pretty men with wide blue eyes and soft brown hair, full lips and uncallused hands. Erik couldn’t help but smirk at him when they reached the top of the steps and passed him on their way through the swinging saloon doors.

“Better that you stood down son. Don’t think you’d be much use in a gun fight.” The young man froze, stood still for one tense, rigid moment, before moving past him to walk inside. The girl threw a venomous glare at him before following, and Erik only smiled wider at her, before picking a fleck of tobacco off of his tongue.

Maybe this town wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

Above the Saloon are a series of rooms that act as a boarding house. There is a woman behind the bar with dark hair, pretty, though she tries to hide it behind a high-necked, dowdy dress of black lace. A few hard words from her and a key procure him a room for the time being.

“I’m Moira.” She says, doing her level best to stare him down. “If you need anything, let me know.” He nods, and as he turns to go she says, “And mister, I don’t tolerate fighting in my bar, or women in my rooms. You want that, you can head across the street.” He smiles at her over his shoulder, sharp, and she twitches, but holds his gaze.

Tough broad, he thinks. Probably has to be to run a place like this. He nods at her again,

“I won’t be any trouble, ma’am.” She narrows her eyes at him, but he’s already heading up the groaning wooden stairs to his allotted room.

Once alone, he locks the door and allows himself to relax, slightly. He takes off his gun belt and strips to the waist, washing his face and chest with water from a chipped ceramic bowl. He feels his fingers run over white puckered scar tissue, bullet wounds and knife scars, road maps to past violence and brutality. Each one was earned, and he wears them all with pride, like badges of honor.

The water dries quickly off his body in the dry desert heat, and he pulls his only other shirt out of his saddlebags. He travels light. He has no possessions to speak of anyways. He has been alone and on the road for years now, never stopping, never slowing down, following whispers and choked out information and the setting sun.

He hasn’t stopped moving since that day fifteen years ago. The day he lost everything in an explosion and a snap of gunfire, in a puddle of blood in the dirt.

He takes his guns apart on the bed, cleaning them piece-by-piece, wiping away the grit of sand and stone and boiling sun. He reloads the ammunition, taking care to set aside that one particular bullet, the one polished to a glistening silver shine. That bullet he places in the pocket over his heart, where it stays, always, where it has worn a faded groove into every shirt he has owned since he was thirteen years old.

That bullet is meant for one man only.

That bullet has one name on it.

And Erik intends on putting it directly through Sebastian Shaw’s head.

***

Armando is dead.

Charles feels shaken, breathless, down to his very core. Armando was more then a good Sheriff, and a good friend. He was the only semblance of integrity and authority left in town. He was the only one willing to stand up for justice, to face down the tyrannical rule of those who see themselves as holding power over Redemption.

And the most frightening, unsettling thing is that they do hold power over Redemption and over it’s citizens. Over Charles.

He pushes that thought away and swallows another mouthful of whiskey from the glass in front of him. Over the rim he can see Raven raising an eyebrow at him, her lips pressed tight together in frustration. He knows she wants a drink as desperately as he does, but she shouldn’t even be in the saloon, and he thinks he’s let her push him far enough.

He can’t shake the bone deep sickness he felt standing in the dirt by Armando’s body, looking up into Kurt Marko’s sneering, sweaty face, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

Kurt Marko. Even the name makes him sick.

He shudders slightly, and sets down his glass. Raven breathes in and out, deeply, one great calming breath, before she opens her mouth to speak.

“Charles—“ He sighs,

“I know what you’re going to say, and—“

“Do you?” She’s angry now, though she doesn’t raise her voice. Instead she leans forward, lowers her voice to a harsh whisper. “Do you really Charles? Because if you know what I’m thinking then you won't be stupid enough to go through with it. What happens to me if—“ He leans forward he as well, biting out,

“I’m doing this for you. I’m doing it because somebody has to, for you, for everyone—because no one else is going to.” They stare each other down, and she breaks first, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest,

“You don’t even know how to shoot.”

“I’ll learn.”

She opens her mouth again to speak, but is distracted by a low, sardonic laugh from the table next to them, nestled into the corner. Charles looks over and sees the man from the morning, the tall stranger who mocked him, leaning back in his chair, his face swathed in smoke from his acrid cigarette.

“Can we help you?” Charles asks, unable to stop the question from coming out sharp, and pointed. The man’s smile is slow and wide and severe, and not really a smile at all. It glints out at them from the shadows and smoke, all teeth, and he leans back farther to throw his long legs up on the table, spurs jangling as he crosses one boot over the other.

“I really don’t think you can help me.” He says, his voice deep and level, the hint of a foreign accent layered in amidst the rough consonants. He is still smiling, still laughing at them, and it rankles Charles in a way he is unaccustomed to. “With those pretty hands, I’m not sure you can even help yourself.”

Charles looks down at his hands, smooth and pale and unfamiliar with hard labor. Teacher’s hands. It fills him with indignation, and shame, this complete stranger’s assumption of him, of his life, based solely on one part of him.

Raven snaps out,

“Excuse me, sir, I’m sure you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure I do. Seems like your young man here thinks he can become the new Sheriff.” Raven’s eyes go wide for a moment, and flicker over to Charles, and it’s enough. The man’s smile grows wider, and more mocking.

“That’s what I thought.” He tips his head back and downs the last dregs of brown liquor in his glass before slamming it on the table next to his feet. “Best leave it. Takes a certain kind of man to be Sheriff.”

Charles can felt Raven shift in her seat, can feel the sudden rage pouring off her, and he appreciates it, but he doesn’t want to start a fight with this man. For all his ridicule and scorn, he is right. Charles is no gunfighter. However,

“Unfortunately, there are no other men, my friend.” He glances at Raven, and sees her mouth twist, her expression harden as she stares him down. He knows they will have words, later. The stranger snorts his derision as he lights another cigarette.

“Saw more then one man on the street this afternoon.” Charles allows himself a smile and shakes his head.

“No man willing to stand up to Marko. Or his men.” He looks over his shoulder, pointlessly. The saloon is empty. “No one willing to stand up to Shaw.”

When he looks back, the man’s face is frozen, his body rigid. His expression is indecipherable, but definitely tense, and through the smoke his skin looks almost grey. Charles feels another wash of curiosity rush over him. Who is this man, with all his questions, his is superior attitude and eyes that belie his flippant, disdainful words?

There is a moment of silence where they simply stare at each other, before the man speaks again,
“And you’re the man for the job, are you?” The tone is so changed, so at odds with his previous manner, that Charles can only nod in response, before he summons up some words, swallows and chokes them out.

“As I said, there is no one else.”

The man swings his feet off the table, his boots landing on the floor in a solid thump, the steel of his spurs rattling against the sagging wood. He stands and looks down at him, and Charles is struck by his height, by the long, lean line of his body, the polished guns slung low on his narrow hips.

“Good luck to you then,” and his mouth quirks slightly before he continues,

“My friend.”

***

Shaw.

For all his inquiries, all of the plotting and mapping, and following the trail of burnt ground and dead bodies, for all of the endless beaten trails Erik had been following for years and years, how strange to stumble upon him when they both would least suspect it.

How fitting to find him in a town called Redemption.

He walks out of the saloon, doors swinging in his wake, and pulls his hat low on his forehead. Night has fallen over the town, and while Moira’s Saloon is empty and unoccupied, the whorehouse across the road is bursting with colour and light, music and laughter, shattering glass and riotous clamouring noise pouring out onto the street.

Marko must have been the man he’d seen earlier, and if he ran the whores, he ran the money, and the town, and if he were the big man in charge, Shaw would be there with him.

Shaw is close. So close. He is only a footstep away. As he reaches into his pocket, finding that particular bullet and loading it into his gun, Erik takes a moment to breathe. The night air on his face is sobering and cool, and he feels all the pain and anguish and driving rage swell inside him, coalescing together in this singular moment. The moment he has been waiting for, searching for, endlessly, for years. The moment that stands before him now, to take, to squeeze and make bleed.

He steps forward.

He crosses the street and enters the building before him. If Shaw is indeed inside, only one of them is going to leave this building alive.

Inside the air is smoky, and the atmosphere is garishly festive. There is a stage where girls are dancing, whirling skirts and gartered legs flashing in the air, men gross and leering beneath them, drowning in booze, flicking silver coins beneath their turning, stomping, black-laced boots. A small girl with smooth brown skin stands on the piano, her shoulders tattooed, her full mouth belting out a crass, bawdy tune as men grasp at her skirts over the shoulders of the red-haired, freckled piano-playing youth beneath her.

More girls are draped over men at the tables, who are drinking and gambling, smoking and cheating behind thinly veiled masks. More then one fight will burst forth like bonfire tonight. Erik smiles grimly to himself. He won’t be the only one to shed blood in this house of sin.

He takes in the tall Mexican man behind the bar, and the blond boy clearing empty glasses from the tables. Both are young, but both could be potentially problematic. He takes in the entire room in a glance, assessing danger and escape, weapons and potential threats. He absorbs all of this in a moment, and moves between tables, around chairs, over the sprawled limbs of drunken men, unassuming and calm, not drawing attention to himself.

There is no sign of Shaw.

Past the stage there is a wide, curving staircase winding upwards toward a second floor. The top floor is a series of rooms off a red carpeted balcony that wraps around the entire building, and allows patrons a bird's view of the ground floor rabble and dancing girls. He climbs the stairs and follows the balcony around, past closed doors concealing the gratuitous moaning and groaning and creaking beds indicative of whore plying their wears.

He knows where he needs to go. Marko’s office will be at the front of the building, leading out onto the balcony overlooking the street, where Erik had seen him that very morning. That is where he heads now, all the noise and song and dance from beneath him fading away into a dull muted murmur at the back of his mind. His vision narrows and focuses on the distant doorway, coming closer and closer with every step.

He is ready.

He stands before the door at last, leans forward to listen and hears the quiet mumble of voices from within, definitely more then one man, but no more then three.

He breathes in, and out, unsnaps his holster, and wraps a hand around the handle of his pistol. His palms are dry. He feels the rage, the incandescent anger and hate like a burning flame within his chest. The moment has come at last.

He opens the door.

Charles shakes off the lingering strands of intoxication and bends over to finish hitching the team to their rough wooden cart. It’s late and the day seems to have stretched on forever, drenched in grief and bitter memories and bad whiskey.

Raven is quietly chatting with Moira on the front porch of the saloon, their faces awash in the glow of the brimming festivities across the street. Soon enough there will be drunk men stumbling through the mud, sloppy and mean, thrumming with brash, misdirected anger, putting knives and bullets and fists into each other’s flesh. And Kurt Marko, and Cain, and Shaw, all looking down from their lofty perch, lording over the mayhem with smiles on their faces, money in their pockets.

He intends to be gone before that happens.

He can see the silhouette of people in Marko’s rooms, imagines the kind of wheeling and dealing and bloody plots they’re coming up with. Some new misery for the people of Redemption, perhaps. Some new horror for Raven and himself if he’s really unlucky.

Raven is bidding Moira goodnight, hugging her briefly before stepping up to the cart, hoisting herself onto the driving bench next to Charles. He waves at Moira, who smiles sadly and waves back. He likes Moira, is glad to have another acquaintance so brave, and strong willed, and good-natured in town, but he fears she will not last long because of those very reasons. There are very few of them left. The rest are dead, or driven out.

He is about to snap the reigns, to urge the horses into motion, when the quiet of the street is broken in a gunshot, a shattering of glass, and splintering wood. The horse spook and rear back, and Raven shouts in alarm, her knuckles white where they grab Charles’ arm, and the wooden seat beneath her.

Charles is frozen, staring in shock as the body of the man from earlier, the stranger, bursts through the glass window of Marko’s office, stumbles back violently through the railing of the balcony and falls, his arms wheeling, his body landing in a sickening thump in the mud of the street below.

In an instant Charles is out of the wagon, tossing the reins of the restless horses at Raven, rushing forward and falling to his knees on the ground next to him. The man groans, coughs weakly, and Charles can see a spreading stain in his side, sticky and red. Gunshot wound.

He glances up, and he can hear laughter, the razor-sharp bark of Shaw, the drunken rolling guffaw of Kurt, and something higher, lighter—one of the whores maybe? It doesn’t matter. What matters in that they are still inside, that they are not paying attention, and that soon they will send someone out onto the street to put a bullet through this man’s head.

He looks down at the stranger who wheezes in discomfort, who’s head lolls back and forth, his mouth pinched shut in pain, his forehead creased, his eyes distressingly rolled back to white.

“Moira!” He calls out, pitching his voice quietly enough that it won’t carry into the brothel. She’s at his side in an instant and he looks at her in desperation. She knows already what he plans, and she’s shaking her head,

“Charles, no—“

“Please.” He pleads, and when she looks at him, she softens slightly, curses coarsely under her breath, and relents.

Together they lift the man, and he groans slightly and struggles, but Charles murmurs softly to him, bent over him as he lifts him under the armpits,

“Calm yourself. My friend, keep calm, everything will be alright.” Soft words, banal and meaningless, but they seem to sooth the wounded man, and he relaxes enough for them to slide him into the back of the wagon.

Charles climbs in next to him, and leans over the side to speak to Moira, keeping one eye on the broken balcony, the smashed window. Marko and Shaw are still inside.

“Get Hank, Moira, send him out to the house.” She nods, her face white and pinched, her hands dirty from holding the stranger’s boots, mud spreading as she wrings her fingers together.

He leans back and looks at Raven, whose look of surprise has melted into something, hard, and determined. He hopes she understands, but she lived with Marko too, so he thinks she does.

She clicks her tongue and jostles the reigns, and the horses snap too and begin to trot out of town. Charles looks down at the stranger, pulls off his coat, fine and tailored, and something he’s sure this man would have mocked him for only hours earlier. He presses it to the wound in the man’s side and watches as it darkens with blood.

He only hopes they are not too late.

***

Erik dreams.

He is adrift in hazy memory, his mother kneading dough with floury hands, his father sowing seed in furrowed fields with careful footsteps. Laughter and sun, water pulled from a deep well and trees groaning forward under the weight of ripe apples.

He twitches and shifts and feels sharp burning pain rush through him. He remembers then cutting anguish and a scream, sun-baked blood running into his father’s vegetables, his mother’s flowers. He remembers the knife’s edge smile of a man with pitted eyes, a man who touched his head like a blessing, like a curse, like the brand of the devil, and then years of solitude, and desert, and driving rage.

It flows over him, and he doesn’t know whether he cries or shouts, but his throat aches, his body screams out and burns, and he doesn’t know how to breathe, or which way is up, or where the surface is anymore.
There is a voice coming from above, soft, smooth, accented, rolling over him like sweet honey, like a balm, and he feels it settle in his bones, feels himself calm, and relax.

The voice lulls him to sleep, and all is blessed shadows and darkness for an interminable amount of time.

***

When Erik wakes, truly finds consciousness for the first time in an unknown amount of time, he finds himself lying underneath a handmade quilt, soaked through, in a whitewashed room lit by a kerosene lamp set on a table piled high with books.

There is a chair in the corner next to more books, worn and sagging, and two more low chairs in front of a fireplace with a low fire burning within. It is a comfortable room, and he feels bizarrely safe, though he has no idea where he is, or how he got here, or who brought him.

He tries to pull himself upright, but stops when pain ratchets through his side. Pulling the sheets up, he can see yards of white bandages wrapped around his torso, and it is then that the memories flood back to him.

Marko. The whore. Gunshots and broken glass. Failure and a fall through wood, into mud.

Shaw, alive, laughing at him.

He feels his heart clench at the thought, and the wordless, torturous rage rush through him, and he almost vomits.

He can remember it now in painful clarity. He had entered the room and smiled when they all looked at him in surprise. The man he assumed was Marko was there sitting behind a desk to the left, fat and red-faced with alcohol. Another man leaned against the wall in front of him, huge and hulking, wide forehead creased over heavy black eyebrows. Enough resemblence to Marko to be his son.

And then to his right, leaning back in a chair, black trousers, black vest, black hat tipped back on his head, a growing smile on his face like the devil himself. Shaw.

And he had said to Erik,

“I know you, don’t I?” Erik hadn’t thought, had only felt the anger well inside him as he turned, as he drew his pistol lightning fast. As he prepared to end it all with one well placed bullet.

There had been a click, and then the telltale pressure of cold metal against his throat.

In his blind rage, his tunnel vision, his supreme focus in the face of Shaw, finally, at last, he had missed her. The woman standing behind the door as it swung open.

“Put it down sugar.” She had said, her voice sweet, laced with frigid malicious iron. He felt his entire body tense, and he thought for a moment that he could shoot anyways, that he and Shaw would leave the world at the same time. It would have to be enough.

But then Shaw was getting to his feet, saying,

“You better listen to her son. Emma won’t ask you twice.” And he was distracted, mesmerized by the smooth flow of poison language spilling from this man’s hated mouth. Suddenly the other man, the stranger in the room was taking his gun (his gun, his constant companion, and the bullet meant for Shaw) and pushing him back.

He saw her then, the woman, and she was striking, one of Marko’s whores he suspected, white corset and stockings, blond hair piled in curls and white feathers on her head. She smiled at him, and he saw if for the mask it was. Shaw rose, sauntering over and wrapping an arm around her cinched waist.

“Alright then,” he said, turning to look at Erik, and he looked amused that bastard. Entertained. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

Erik remained silent. Seething. This was so far away from how he had fantasized his eventual reunion with Shaw going, and he felt himself drowning in wretched anger, and twisting sorrow and hate.

There was silence in the room for a pervading moment, and then Shaw had sighed.

“Alright, I’m bored now.” And quick as a flash he had drawn his gun, and fired.

The explosion was loud, but familiar in his ears, and they were standing so close that the force of it threw him backwards violently. He felt his body collide with window in an explosion of glass, and he felt the wind in his hair, and the pain blooming through his side in a devastating rip and tear.

And then the ground had rushed to greet him and he remembered nothing else but snatches of memory, good and bad, pain and sweat and hazy confusion, and churning sickness. Flashes of light, of hovering faces, muted voices floating over his head, one in particular soothing, an offered solace penetrating deep into his subconscious, dragging him out of nightmare and into the light again.

And so here he is, in this cozy country room, alive but battered, crushed and sickened with failure and disappointment. But as he lies still and solemn, he feels his heart beat in his chest, feels the pulse of blood rushing and flowing through his body, his lungs breathing, his hands curling into fists. And as his body thrums with life, he can feel the slow growing rise of his anger within him.

It still burns as bright as before. He is still alive. Shaw’s biggest mistake will be not killing him for good.

***

Charles is exhausted.

For days now, he has been watching over the strange man who burst through a window and tumbled into his life in a shower of glass. He has been rinsing out blood soaked cloth, and wiping down feverish skin slick with sweat, and checking, checking, checking to see if the stitches had torn as the man thrashed and kicked with delirium.

The day after Charles had brought him home, the man had fallen sick, infection setting in and festering in his wound. For three days and three nights the man had raved, had muttered incoherent threats and violence, had struck out so many times with his long arms and legs that Charles had eventually banned Raven from entering the room.

Charles had taken the brunt of it, bruises on his chest and arms to prove it, and in the sanctuary of his own room he looked at them in the mirror and remembered similar injuries from a time past, before he shuddered and repressed the memories once again.

Hank had come and gone as often as he was able, which wasn’t very often. He was the town’s only doctor, and consequently found himself at the beck and call of Marko and his men and whores after their nights of drinking and fighting. He was nervous, and agitated whenever he crept into their home, always looking over his shoulder as if he suspected Marko or Shaw to be standing behind him with a smile and a sharp knife, but they never were, and when Hank sat down to stitch or suture or inspect the stranger’s wound, his hands were always steady.

Hank was someone Charles and Raven had come to count on, and whom they called a friend. Charles was never more thankful of this friendship, and every time Hank left their home with a wave over his shoulder, Charles worried about him, and wished he could stay, for his own selfish reasons, for Raven’s sake, and Hank’s, and for the stranger’s most of all.

There is something about this strange man in his house, this man whose name remains a mystery, who calls out retribution into the dark, who fights with more teeth then anyone Charles has ever come across, including his own tempestuous sister.

This man who had teased him, and smiled and then flickered recognition at the name “Shaw,” who suddenly sobered and bid them farewell, and went off into the night to conduct violent business. Who was Shaw to this man, that he would attack him so brazenly?

Many times during the nights of sickness and fever, Charles had wiped cool water across the man’s forehead and felt a flicker of something like hope within his chest. Maybe this is the answer to all of their prayers, this stranger, this gunslinger. Maybe he will be the one to help them bring Shaw, and Kurt and Cain to justice…

And there is something else about this man, something Charles tries to ignore. A certain fluttering in his stomach as he looked down night after night at the stark handsome features of the stranger, contours of his cheekbones, his sharp jaw, cast in candlelight and shadow. As he ran his hands over the muscles of his chest and stomach, over his hipbones and legs as he changed soaked sheets and drenched underclothes and cooled feverish skin and rewrapped the long, jagged scar running down his side.

Charles didn’t know this man, but he was sure that if his thoughts were revealed, the quick flashes of shameful fantasy that he couldn’t quite suppress, he was sure this man would most likely kill him. What man wouldn’t? Charles went to church every Sunday with Raven, sat through sermons of hellfire and damnation, and still couldn’t believe that his nature, his true nature, was an abomination. Still, that didn’t mean it would be accepted, especially not out here in the wild, hyper-masculine world of the western frontier. So Charles carefully tucked his lustful thoughts away, certain that they would reappear in future nights of solitude and loneliness, in his thoughts and dreams, as he lay alone in bed.

Now though, Charles is exhausted.

The man’s fever had finally broken sometime in the night, and Charles had left him sleeping, left a roaring fire in the grate, and had stumbled off to collapse into a few fitful hours of sleep.

As he lies in bed, however, he can’t help but think about this strange man who has fallen into his life, the danger they’re in merely by hiding him here, and maybe, possibly, the chance that this man might be the solution to their problems…

If he’s willing to help, that is.

***

Erik dozes on and off throughout the rest of the night, and when he wakes again, it is to the same young girl with yellow hair he had seen in the saloon the night he had gone to confront Shaw, opening the door to his room.

When she sees he is awake, she stands frozen for a moment, her mouth ajar, her hands full of a delicately painted ceramic washbasin brimming with water, a number of clean bandages slung over her arm. He remembers her face, though it had been twisted in a frown the last time he saw her, and he remembers too the handsome young man that had been with her. And if she is here that means…

“Charles!” She shouts, leaning backwards out the door, “He’s awake!” She turns to face Erik again and graces him with a hesitant smile for the first time as she walks over to his bedside.

As she sets the basin down on the wooden sideboard that occupies the space next to his bed, the young man from the saloon, ‘Charles’ evidently, bursts into the room. He is wearing a white shirt rolled to the elbows and a black vest, and both are rumpled as though he has been sleeping in them.

Indeed, his brown hair is in disarray, his fair cheeks are lined with pillow creases and he stumbles a bit when he enters the room, exhaustion evident in the contours of his body, but he smiles widely at Erik when he sees him, and then strides confidently into the room.

“Hello!” He says, cheerily, “Good to see you back with us.” Erik pulls himself up gingerly and leans back against the headboard of the bed, saying nothing, eyeing this man, this stranger who has let him into his home, has apparently taken care of him for many days, warily, and with caution.

There is a silent, awkward pause after Charles makes an aborted movement to help him sit up, and then stops when Erik shoots him a glare. Once Erik is settled, Charles smiles that seemingly irrepressible smile, and extends a hand,

“Charles Xavier.” Erik shakes it, and when he doesn’t respond, Charles releases him and gestures at the girl, saying, “This is my sister, Raven.”

He feels something in him ease at that, though he doesn’t care to look into why. He had thought they were married, and they’re not. There’s nothing of importance for him in this new information. The girl nods at him and he nods back, answering finally,

“Erik Lehnsherr.” Charles’ smile grows and he sits down on the stool next to Erik’s bed with an easy familiarity that points to many nights sitting in that very spot. Erik knows he owes these people his life, but he’s always been on his own, taking care of himself, never in debt, never beholden to anyone and it makes him uncomfortable. He clears his throat awkwardly, and then forces out,

“I guess I should thank you.” Charles waves him off, but Raven snorts in a decidedly unfeminine manner.

“Yeah, you should.” Her expression tightens and her hands on the sodden cloth now in the basin twist angrily. “Do you know what we risked bringing you here?”

“I didn’t ask you to—“ He begins, before she turns to him, anger sparking to life on her face.

“What we were suppose to leave you there in the mud to die? What were you thinking going in there? Don’t you know—“

“Raven.” Charles cuts in, and she huffs out a frustrated breath before turning back to the washbasin, her hands plunging back into the water with a splash.

Charles turns back to him and gives him an apologetic smile. Erik shakes his head and looks down at his hands on the worn quilt pulled over his lap, his fingers picking at a loose thread.

“I’m sorry if I brought you trouble.” He says finally. He’s usually never so forthcoming or apologetic, usually so much more uncompromising, and closed off. But there is something about Charles’ wide-eyed gaze, an earnestness in his blue eyes that points to something like understanding, and maybe absolution. It makes him want to make amends and stirs something like protectiveness in his chest.

He looks at the two of them, so pretty and soft, so untried and unburdened, living out in the desert like cactus flowers, something delicate in a hard place. It angers him at the same time it pangs in his chest and makes him want to stay, and shelter them. The boy especially, with his easy smile, his fluid voice that Erik recognizes from his dreams.

He pushes the thoughts away, blames them on his sleep addled mind, or residual delirium, and realizes Charles is speaking again,

“…I’m glad to see you up,” he’s saying, “and on the mend. I’m sure you know, you came quite close there to…” He falters, and bites his lip as though physically stopping himself from misspeaking. “Well,” he continues with a rueful smile and a light tinge of blush on his cheeks, “I’m just glad to see you feeling better. You may stay as long as you’d like, Erik.”

Raven makes a choked noise at this, and Charles turns to look at her. The two of them hold a silent conversation with their eyes, but Erik is more interested in the bruises on Charles neck and chest that are now revealed as the material of his shirt gapes open. Looking down at his exposed arms, he sees more bruises, like fingerprints, up the soft white skin of his wrists and forearms.

He reaches out and grabs the arm that is resting on the bed next to his hip. Charles startles and pulls back with a sharp movement, his happy disposition faltering into a slight, floundering panic that Erik makes a shrewd note of. While Charles is visibly composing himself, Erik asks,

“What happened to you?” Charles swallows, rolling his sleeves back down, re-buttoning his cuffs before saying,

“Oh, it’s nothing, you just, you were sick, and dreaming, and—“ He stops himself and puffs out a breath of air, and then looks up at Erik with a ready smile. “Sorry. It’s nothing Erik.”

Erik narrows his eyes,

“You mean I did this to you?” Charles shrugs and nods.

This shouldn’t bother him. This would never have bothered Erik before, and God knows, he’s hurt countless people on the road to Shaw. But there is something about Charles, and for the first time, he regrets causing another human being pain. For the first time since the death of his mother and father, the physical evidence of his monstrosity, of his violent nature, sickens him.

He feels suddenly irritated with Charles, with his weakness, but he knows that if he analyzes that feeling, digs a little deeper, he will realize that it is guilt he is feeling, and something else, something caring and something tender.

He shakes it off. He doesn’t care about Charles. He doesn’t care about anyone. He looks at Raven, who shakes her head at him before coming over to the bed and helping him to lean forward, to lift up the loose nightshirt and unwind the bandages.

Together, the siblings clean the wound, and Erik looks at it, so small in comparison to some of his other battle scars, but something that nearly ended him, an uneven line that reveals how close he came to the edge. He’ll wear it with pride now, though it is evidence of his failure, evidence of more pain Shaw has caused him.

They re-bandage him and ease him back down to the pillows. Raven leaves the room immediately, but Charles remains, chattering aimlessly as he tidies, as he strokes the fire and burns the bloody bandages. Erik listens to him until his mind begins to wander, and drift back into sleep.

As the world grows grey and hazy, and fades to black, Erik falls asleep with the rolling accented voice of Charles Xavier floating through his mind, lulling him into dreamless oblivion.

Over the next few days, Charles learns more about the mysterious Erik Lehnsherr, though he has to draw it from him in broken pieces. Erik is still weak and thin, sleeping in heavy doses, dozing through the drifting daytime heat. In between periods of rest, Charles is able to sit and talk with him, and though Erik is less then forthcoming, he does reveal some aspects of himself.

He has been on the road for a long time, that much Charles knows. He can see it in him, the life of lonely solitude, of iron will and desperation, of longing for revenge written on his face, in the clench of his hands as they itch for gunmetal.

It isn’t until the third day of his convalescence that Charles dares to ask the question that has been simmering in his mind since the very beginning. Erik has seemed to be more open these past few days, more easy in his presence, casually joking with Charles again in a more friendly echo of his mockery from their first meeting.

He feels closeness between them, a certain kinship, and so he allows his curiosity to flood over his caution, his best intentions. He asks, in the early morning light as Erik spoons porridge into his mouth, able to sit across from him at the worn wooden table in the kitchen for the first time,

“What is it about Shaw? Why did you go there that night?”

Erik freezes, spoon hovering close to his mouth, and Charles tries not to look at his lips, wet with milk and tiny crystals of sugar. He sets the spoon down carefully, and looks at Charles long and hard, grey eyes sharp and astute and piercing him straight through. Eventually, Erik must decide him worthy because he leans back in his chair and says,

“Shaw killed my parents.”

Charles has suspected as much, he knows Shaw, knows what kind of man he is, and no one in Redemption has been spared a bit of pain at the hands of Sebastian Shaw…

But to hear it spoken like that, plain and blunt, an open wound for Charles to see, an entire life history of pain and sorrow spoken in simple terms, it stuns him. He feels an overwhelming wave of empathy and compassion and tries to stifle it. He suspects Erik will not appreciate it.

“Erik…I’m sorry…” Erik shrugs and goes back to his breakfast.

“Nothing to be sorry for Charles. You’ve helped me more than anyone else in my life.”

They both know that’s not what Charles meant, but he lets it go. He wants to know more, so much more, he wants to know everything about Erik, but he takes what Erik offers him, and holds it close to his chest. He is patient. He lets the rest go.

“It wasn’t any trouble, my friend.” He smiles, “I’ve enjoyed having someone to talk to that’s above the age of fourteen.”

This isn’t fair to Raven, of course, but as a school teacher, and in a community isolated, and afraid, and unsocial, he really only ever had his sister to talk to at an adult level, and sometimes it just isn't enough.

He really has enjoyed talking to Erik, who is remarkably intelligent for a man who has seemed to spend the majority of his life on the road, trading barbs and twisting wit and dissecting books and history and politics into the late hours of the night.

Erik smiles at this, and Charles resolutely ignores the fluttering of his heart behind his ribs.

Erik has slowly been getting stronger, and as he begins to make his way out of his room, into the rest of the house, he starts to take his place in the slow, simple wheel of their lives. And as he grows closer to Charles, he slowly endears himself to Raven as well. Charles watches them, amused as they bicker like children, as Erik playfully bullies his sister, as he never had the heart to. She responds well, and with delight, eager to push back.

While he’s glad they are getting along, he is less enthused about Erik’s apparently willing encouragement of Raven’s more aggressive nature. He comes upon them one night in Erik’s room, in front of the fire, their voices low, but not soft enough that Charles can’t hear the words “bullets” and “guns” and “target practice.”

Something sinks low in his stomach, but he pushes it away. Erik isn’t well enough to walk on his own, much less fire a gun. He will have to deal with this eventually, with Raven and her anger, her blood-thirst, and her sudden kinship with Erik’s own vindictive and wounded spirit.

But not now. They have time, he tells himself, secure and comfortable in the fire-warm haven of Erik’s bedroom, Shaw and Marko and all the shadows of the night held at bay for the time being. They have time.

For now he shoos her away from the chair he’s claimed as his own, across from Erik, and set’s up a game of Chess on the low table between them.

Raven huffs and flops down on Erik’s bed, grumbling about how boring and old Charles is, but Erik is looking at him with amusement in his eyes, and it makes something light up inside him, and he grins back.

“Do you play?” He asks as he finishes lining the white pieces on his side of the board. Erik leans forward, carefully maneuvering around his wound, and says, eagerly,

“I guess you’re about to find out.”

***

It isn’t long before the oasis of safety, and convalescence, and slow growing familiarity they are building burst into a million wounded pieces. And they all knew it would happen; that eventually, Shaw would come looking for the man who set out to kill him, and then vanished, somehow.

Erik is tightening the belt on his pants, full of satisfaction at how his skin pulls at the wound with the movement, and hurts less and less with every morning, when Charles bursts into his room.

He pauses for a lingering moment, seemingly caught off guard by Erik’s semi-nudity, before he rushes past him, drawing the curtains closed with a snap of his wrists.

“They’re coming.” He says, breathless and on the edge of panic. Erik looks at him, hears the words, and feels only steel and resolve. He reaches for his gun belt and snaps it around his waist. He would have preferred more time, but if this is the moment in which he faces Shaw, then so be it.

Charles turns around and sees him, and his eyes widen.

“Erik, no—“ Erik reaches for his shirt and pulls it on, shaking his head.

“Charles, he’s coming—“ Charles reaches out and grabs one of the trailing shirt tails and hauls Erik towards him. Erik winces, and releases a long, pained hiss between his teeth. He glares at Charles, who gives him a pointed look.

“And you’re not well enough yet.” Erik opens his mouth to argue, but they hear hooves pounding into the dirt out front of the house, and the shout of a man’s voice, and Charles looks suddenly frantic, and pushes Erik backwards.

“There’s no time!” He says, and gathering up all of Erik’s meager belongings, he shoves them at him, propelling him toward the back of the room. Hurrying past him, he presses the top of one of the long, wooden slats making up the wall, and then bends over to press at the bottom as well. To Erik’s surprise, the board springs loose, and a section of the wall swings forward, revealing a small, hidden crawlspace.

Erik doesn’t want to hide, doesn’t want to stuff his head in the sand like a coward, but Charles is right. He isn’t ready. And taking action now might mean not only failure, but certain death for Charles and Raven as well. For the first time, he feels himself pause, and account for a life beside his own. He glances at Charles who eyes are all but begging him to stand down, to step into the shadows, to do nothing.

In the weeks he’s known Charles, he has never seen him so frightened. It makes him uneasy, and he knows in a moment, he does not want this man's blood on his hands. He releases a short, frustrated puff of breath and steps inside.

Charles looks relieved, and when he swings the door shut, Erik can see him through the slats, see him take a deep, calming breath, before he crosses the room in quick strides. He twitches the bedcovers to the side, straightens the pillows so that the bed looks fresh, and then leaves the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Time seems to stand still in the stifling cupboard; Erik’s body folded uncomfortably in the cramped space. Light threads through the narrow cracks between the wood, dust moats floating aimlessly through the shadows, and Erik watches them as he listens to the thump of boots coming through the front door, the murmur of voices, muted and intelligible through the floor.

He feels as though his whole body is vibrating, thrumming with a kind of manic energy. He feels as though, at any moment, he might explode, go running though the house, firing his guns off, splattering Marko and his son and their men across Charles’ good china and polished oak furniture.

And Shaw. He is so close. Erik imagines he can hear his spurs clinking off the hardwood even a floor away, tucked behind a wall as he was. He wants to tear him to pieces, but the throbbing pain in his side reminds him to stay put, grounds him. There will be time, he thinks firmly. He promises himself, it will be soon.

Soon.

His repeated mantra to stay still, to stay hidden, to breathe, is broken when the door to his room suddenly opens. He feels his body tense, his hands curl into fists, nails biting into his palms, his breath stutter in his chest. He leans forward and peers through one of the cracks in the door, sees Charles enter the room, the towering, broad form of Kurt Marko following him.

“I told you, there’s no one here.” Charles’ voice is sharp, and angry, but Marko merely smirks and saunters past Charles into the room.

“Just have to be sure.” He trails his fingers along the quilt on the bed, his dark eyes taking in the chairs by the fireplace, the books piled next to the bed.

“I think you have too much space here, Charles.” Erik sees Charles’ face tense, his mouth pull even farther into a frown.

“Oh really?” Kurt is facing Erik, and he sees the smirk on his face grown into something more, a glimmer of malice in the flash of teeth, the narrowing of eyes.

“Hmmm…you should move into something smaller.”

“We like it here, thank you.” Kurt drags his fingers across the sideboard, examining them afterwards for dust, or dirt.

“Yes, well Charles, how long can you afford the property on a school teacher’s salary?” He turns back to Charles then, and Erik can see Charles trying to school his face into a mask, grasping quickly for something that will hide his anger, his panic.

But Erik sees the fleeting emotions before the mask goes up, and Marko must too, because he steps in closer, like a animal scenting fear in its prey.

“How long do you expect your daddy’s money to last Charles?” Charles says nothing, merely stares at Marko as he steps even closer, looming over Charles, casting a shadow over his pale face. He says the next words quietly, meant for Charles only, but Erik can hear them clearly enough across the room, can feel them twisting inside him like maggots.

“My offer still stands. There’s always work for Raven down at my place.” Charles’ voice is hoarse when he finally speaks, but his response is firm, and solid, and ready.

“That will never happen.” Marko leans back, contemplating the smaller man in front of him, and Erik can see the sliver of smile crest across his face.

“Time may come when you don’t have a choice. But I’m flexible,” he reaches a hand out then and curls his fingers through Charles’ hair, tucking it behind his ear before grasping his jaw tightly, mercilessly, forcing Charles to look at him as he tries to twist away. “Sometimes customers want something other then women…Time comes, you can always come to me instead of your sister.”

Charles jerks his face away from him and steps back abruptly, choking out,

“Don’t.” His voice is low, shaken. Erik feels a sting of pain in his hands and realizes his nails have bitten deep; his hands were clenched so tight that he’s drawn blood. He’s barely breathing. He wants nothing more then to burst out of this damned closet and run this man through, to rip into him and lay him out, bleeding, on the floor. Anything to stop him from touching Charles again, from spewing out his poisonous, hateful words. His threats.

He almost does it too. He is a heartbeat away from springing out of the wall like vengeance himself and ending this man’s reign of terror over this godforsaken town, but the moment is broken when Cain Marko steps into the room, glancing at Charles in obvious disgust, before informing his father,

“The house is clear. There’s nobody else here.” Kurt nods at his son, and the two men leave the room, but not before Kurt lands a heavy hand on Charles’ shoulder. The younger man flinches, and Marko leans in close to whisper,

“Think about what I said Charles.” He looks down at him for a long, lingering moment before patting Charles on the cheek and striding out of the room.

Charles and Erik both remain motionless, Erik anxious to escape, Charles standing motionless by the door, his hand still on the brass door knob, fingers clenched white around it.

Erik waits for the retreat of footsteps, waits for the sounds of horses to disappear into the distance. Raven appears in the doorway, her eyes on Charles, and tells him breathlessly,

“They’re gone.”

Erik steps out of hiding, the hidden door swinging loudly in the silence of the room. Raven looks relieved to see him, but Charles startles at his reappearance, the look on his face horrified and miserable.

His eyes flicker down, and he swallows once, twice, and then looks at Erik again, wrenching his face into something like a smile, with no happiness, only teeth.

“I think we could all use a stiff drink after that.” He turns to go, and Erik can think of nothing to say, nothing that will make the tension ease, nothing that will erase the look of horror on Charles’ face in that one moment when he realized that Erik had seen one of his rotting skeletons laid bare in the morning light.

“Charles—“ He starts, but Charles is gone, murmuring apologies and something about breakfast under his breath. He looks at Raven, helpless for the first time in a long time. He’s forgotten what it was like to care about someone enough to feel their pain, to worry about them. It feels alien and uncomfortable, and weak.

Raven gaze follows Charles out of room, and when she turns back to Erik, she looks worried.

“What happened?” She asks, “What did Kurt say to him?”

Erik doesn’t even know where to begin.

“Who is he? Who is Marko to you?”

Raven smiles at him, her mouth stretched out and grim and full of sorrow.

“He’s our stepfather.”


TBC (more soon!!)

Stop terrorizing them, Marko! It's probably good that Erik heard that. Charles would never have told him about this problems and he could really use some support.

Looking forward to more!

Really liking this. :D

This. Just... THIS. Consider this fill officially stalked. Gosh I'm such a sucker for a western theme, Kurt Marko is such a slime ball and I can't believe he started checking him out, he's his STEP FATHER for fuck sakes.

...He didn't abuse Charles like that when he was younger did he? Because that would honestly break my heart.

I'm very much looking forward to the next installment!!!