Yin and Yang

By Todd Fan

Disclaimer: "Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years"

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It has been promised, and here it is! A buddy-fic!. This one is about Magneto and Xavier (henceforth known as Erik and Charles for quite a bit) and how they meet and their friendship and such. Mostly it's a lot of random humour. Originally, the pair meet in Israel (meeting Gabby at the same time), but considering the way Evo is timed out (what with their respective kids' ages and everything) it doesn't seem to have worked that way, so here's my take. Enjoy!

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Chapter 1 – First meetings

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Harvard University, 1955

Erik Lehnsherr sighed as he stepped out of the taxi, looking up at the college campus. At twenty, he was going to be one of the older freshmen, but he didn't care. He'd worked hard to be able to get to this point, he sure wasn't going to let a couple of years between him and his peers put him off. He ran his hand through his long white hair, currently kept in place by a ponytail. He glanced at the paper with his room designation, stepping inside his dorm, following the hallway until he got to his, slipping the key in the lock and opening the door.

Inside, he was greeted with a mess of boxes….it seemed his roommate had moved his entire house with him. It certainly made Erik's small suitcase, which held all his meagre possessions in the whole world, more tiny than it already was.

"Ummm…..hello?", he tried.

He'd been living in America now for six years, and though his English had improved considerably, his Polish accent was still pretty strong. A bald head pocked out from behind a box, revealing a seventeen year old boy. What kind of self-respecting seventeen year old was bald? Maybe he had a condition. He gave Erik a smile.

"Hi", he said, then looked around sheepishly, "sorry about the…..umm…mess. I think you're bed's underneath the TV.

"…You have a TV?", Erik boggled, heck he'd only had glimpses of TV in his life.

"Well….yeah", he replied, shrugging as if to say 'doesn't everyone?', "I'm Charles Xavier by the way"

He paused, frowning.

"Not 'Charley', not 'Chucky', and certainly not 'Chuck'"

"Just like being called Charles, then, do you?", Erik replied, dryly, "I'm Erik Lehnsherr"

"Lehenzheer?", Charles tried

"……No, but close enough", sighed Erik.

He leaned over, mimicking picking up the TV, while it actually hovered a little in the air above his hands. He'd learned to hide his powers well, saved questions he couldn't answer. He put it on the floor, putting his suitcase on his bed.

"That's it?", blinked Charles, pointing at the case.

"I came to this country with nothing but the clothes on my back", commented Erik, "it's just luck I even have a case to put things in"

"Thought you had an accent", grinned Charles, "where you from?"

"Danzig", he said, then added for Charles' benefit, "Poland"

"Poland, huh? Yeah, we have a few immigrants from there after the…", Charles trailed off, then coughed, "oh…sorry. So you came from…"

"Auschwitz, yes", said Erik, frowning, "and yes, I lost my entire family there, and yes, it was horrifying and traumatic, and no, I do not wish to talk about it"

"Okay", blinked Charles, then squinted at him.

Erik blinked, did he attract weirdoes or something? He allowed the squinting to go on for a few moments longer before clearing his throat.

"Ummm…..why are you squinting at me?"

Charles coughed, looking a little abashed. He'd actually been trying to read the guys mind, but it was far less easy than it had been for him to get into this guys mind than it had been for anyone else he'd met.

"I was squinting?", he asked innocently.

"Yes. You were. At me"

"Sorry, I do that sometimes", said Charles lamely, folding his hands together, "It's a condition"

"…..A condition that involves squinting at people?", asked Erik, confused.

…..Damnit. This was why he really had to give words time to pass through his brain before going to his mouth.

"Yes"

"Riiiiiight", Erik arched a brow.

He gave Charles a look that one normally reserves for either old or crazy (or old and crazy) people then went back to unpacking, hoping it would give him a chance to ignore the odd American person for a while. Unfortunately, it took less than ten minutes for him to unpack, and that included the time he'd spent opening drawers, pondering if that's where he really wanted that shirt to go. When he'd taken as much time as he feasibly could in this activity, he put his suitcase under the bed, then sat down.

His roommate had once again vanished in the pile of boxes, the only sign that there was someone else in the room indicated by the occasional mutterings. There was shortly a thunk, followed by what sounded like a very nasty curse, Erik hadn't heard that one yet. He arched a brow.

"….Are you all right?"

There was silence for a moment.

"…..I think I'm stuck", came a sheepish reply.

Another long silence.

"Would you like me to help get you out?"

"If you wouldn't mind", said Charles, "The blood is starting to rush to my head"

Erik sighed, standing up, walking behind the boxes, blinking at Charles, who appeared to be resting on his head upside-down, his legs tangled in wire, the appliance it was attached to in the deep recesses of the box.

"…..Do I even want to know how you managed this?", he asked, arching a brow.

"I think it's best if you don't ask", said Charles solemnly.

Erik disentangled Charles, the younger of the two hitting the floor with a thud.

"Thank you"

"Why do you have so much stuff anyway?", asked Erik, looking at the boxes, "surely you don't need all of it?"

"It reminds me of home", said Charles with a shrug.

Erik blinked, picking up a blender.

"This blender reminds you of home?"

Charles looked at it for a moment, before nodding.

"Yes, definitely" (1)

Erik blinked once.

"…….You are very strange"

"So I've been told", said Charles, getting to his feet, "So, what're you studying, Erik?"

"Philosophy and Engineering", replied Erik.

"That's……an odd combination", said Charles, "Genetics and Psychology for me"

He coughed.

"Genetics is a….hobby of mine", he said.

"Baldness is hereditary", smirked Erik.

Charles looked at him, confused for a moment, before chuckling.

"Oh, right, no….that's something else", he said, "a trade-off, if you will"

"You traded your hair for something else?", asked Erik, the thought absolutely crazy to him, his hand going to his own.

"Not voluntarily, but I've learned to live with it", said Charles with a shrug, then arched a brow, "white hair's quite rare, you know"

"I know, that is why I plan to keep it just as it is", said Erik, "On my head"

Charles laughed.

"Fine by me, we balance each other out that way", he said, "like Holmes and Watson, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Laurel and Hardy"

"Woodstock and Snoopy", said Erik, with a smirk.

Charles grinned, throwing an arm around Erik's shoulder.

"Erik, I can see this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship"

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(1) – From Dead Man on Campus. Damn good movie.

And a legacy is born…..Gods help us all. The was originally supposed to be a one-shot…then grew into a full fledged fic. Oh yes. Do review. Until next time…