moonlettuce | Rambling January Day 10

trobadora asked for "Erik and Charles and their OTP-ness."

Oh my god, Charles and Erik, where do I start?

Okay, so handy bullet points for those who have never read the comics:

Charles Xavier:
- Professor X
- Telepath (one of the world's most powerful)
- Started the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters as a haven for mutants
- Founder of the X-Men
- Played by Sir Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy in the movies
- Either walking or in a wheelchair depending on which bit of canon you're in at the time
- Believes that the way forward with human-mutants relations is via peaceful resolution and believes that humans will ultimately understand that everyone can get along.

Erik Lehnsherr:
- Magneto
- Control over the electro-magnetic spectrum, and manipulation of metal at the molecular level
- Declares Genosha a mutant haven after the United Nations cede control of the island to him
- Founder of the Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants. They dropped the 'Evil' further down the line. Maybe they thought it gave people a bad impression of them.
- Played by Sir Ian McKellan and Michael Fassbender in the movies
- Either an adult, a young man, or an infant depending on which bit of canon you're in at the time
- Believes that the way forward with human-mutants relations is for mutants to retaliate with all of their power and that humans will, ultimately, always hate and try to destroy that which is different.
- Was interred in Auschwitz as a child, from where he eventually escaped after playing dead after being thrown into a pile of bodies and crawling out from the corpses when everyone had gone.

Firstly, the set-up of Charles and Erik appeals to me. I'm drawn to two people who know they shouldn't be together, but who can't stay apart. People on opposing sides, who will fight against each other, but still give everything to touch each other.

Charles/Erik was one of the first OTPs I ever had, and it very much set the scene for many of my later OTPs - Fox Mulder / Alex Krycek, Methos / Kronos, Chris Argent / Peter Hale.

From that side alone, I was drawn to these two.

It helps that, in the comics, the vast majority of X-Men writers also buy in to the fact that these two are almost two sides of the same coin; that they can't exist without the other.

In fact, if you look at the various universes and timelines, Charles and Erik are, almost without exception, drawn to each other from the moment they meet:

The overriding regret both of them have through their storylines is that they can't persuade the other to join them. But through it all, they never give up on each other:

And the thing that weighs most heavily on each of them, is if they see a perceived failure of the other one in themselves:

Each of them has had ample opportunity to kill the other and they never have. I honestly don't think they can.

In fact, when we've had universes where one of them has died, the other is shown, not in stoic grief, but as distraught:

They can't let the other die. To do so would be unquestionable:

Through out the comics, both of them admit that the happiest times of their lives were the moments they spent together, that they are two halves of the same whole:

Even though Charles is one of the most powerful telepaths the world has ever known, he still doesn't need that power to read Erik. He's never needed his powers to read Erik:

(And we all know how easily you read Erik's body, Charles...)

They even have a child together! Well, okay, they have a dark psionic lovechild created from parts of their souls merging together. (No, really.)

Hell, even other people view them as acting like a married couple:

And they still get to be sassy with other:

I mean, how many other people get away with teasing Erik about his helmet...

I think it's telling that, even though Charles is used to shielding himself, to stopping the thoughts of the people around him from drifting into his brain, when this happens:

This is the outcome:

Erik called and Charles answered. In a world of seven billion people, a world that Charles Xavier shields himself from constantly, Erik Lehnsherr can still reach him.

For me, there are three seminal moments that define Charles and Erik's relationship.

Firstly, Charles gives Erik the School. When they are fighting on opposite sides, and Charles gets taken into space by Lilandra, he gives Erik the School. The one he trusts with his life's work, with his students, with his family, is Erik:

And Erik does it. he becomes Headmaster of the Xavier School. Even though his words are that he isn't worthy of Charles' trust, he does it anyway. Because Charles needs him to. (And he takes it under the pseudonym of Michael Xavier, Charles' cousin. You know. Cousins. Like Achilles and Patroclus.)

Secondly, God Loves, Man Kills.

Now, I willingly admit that, for me, God Loves is the best graphic ever written. It's why I have issues with the second X-Men movie. It's based on God Loves, but changes what I feel are bits that are central to the entire message God Loves tries to get across. It's a case of 'keep your fucking hands off my book, if all you're going to do is change it so much it barely fucking resembles the storyline any more.'

There's a bit at the end of the story, four panels that kill me every time I see them. Where Erik just reaches out to Charles and asks him to join him. And Charles is so close to saying yes, so close to taking Erik's hand. And there's part of me that knows that, if the team hadn't been there, he would have joined Erik.

Thirdly, Genosha. AKA: Erik and Charles move in together and raise mutants.

So, info dump coming up: the UN cede Genosha (an island in the 616!verse to the north of Madagascar) to Magneto, who declares it a mutant haven. Sometime later, the island is attacked by Sentinels, leading to the death of 16 millions mutants. During this, Erik, apparently, is killed. After this, a masked mutant, Xorn, arrives at the Xavier School and becomes a teacher. Xorn is later revealed to be a not-dead Magneto, who then attacks Manhattan in retaliation for the Genoshan massacre. During the battle of Manhattan, Xorn!Magneto kills Jean Grey (what, it's not like she won't be back) and, in turn, is decapitated by Wolverine. Charles decides to return Magneto's body to Genosha for burial.

Wolverine accompanies Charles and pretty much spends the entire trip berating Charles for putting Magneto above the X-Men, for placing giving Magneto a burial above the fact that he killed Jean.

When they land on the island, Wolverine gives Charles an ultimatum: stay on the island and bury Magneto or come back with him, the implication being he wouldn't be welcomed back if he stayed.

Charles stays.

At the end of that issue you're left with the knowledge that, when faced with a choice between Magneto and the X-Men, Charles chose Erik.

Now, it turns out that Xorn!Magneto was actually an imposter and a still alive Erik has been living in the ruins of Genosha ever since the Sentinel attack.

So, what we're left with now is that Charles stayed because he knew Erik was alive, and there are only two ways he could have known that. Either he and Erik are still mentally connected with each other, or Charles had so much faith in Erik and who Erik is, that he knew that Erik wouldn't attack Manhattan.

The thing that hits is the palpable horror on Erik's face when he thinks, for that moment, that Charles may actually believe him capable of such an act.

They decide to stay on Genosha and help the mutants who survived the attack.

What follows is pretty much 'Scenes of a Domestic Life With Charles and Erik.'

Seriously. There's a reason why the tagline for Excalibur, volume 3, is pretty much "Charles and Erik live together and raise babies."

So, in a world of weddings and divorces and death and marrying-the-clone-of-the-woman-you're-actually-in-love-with-but-thought-was-dead-only-to-find-out-she-was -at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-recovering-in-a-pod-and-the-person-that-actually-died-was-a-celestial-avatar-who-took-her-form, you look at all of the pairings that form and that break down, at the ones that claim they'll love forever, only to be snogging other team mates 27 issues later, and the one relationship that stays true through it all is Charles and Erik.

The X-Men is ultimately a love story. It's a ballad written for Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, and an enduring connection that cannot, that will not, be broken. You've just got to open your eyes to see it.