A/N: After a LONG conversation with my sister with she and I running with the idea form this fanart: morethnus(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7513009617

And thus, this fanfiction was born. Prepare for some angst and character death and dark!Charles and essentially some role-reversal, but with a twist. #smirks#

"She did this, Charles."

Erik, holding up the missiles in the air. A burst, flames everywhere, some of the missiles going off mid-air, too soon, and plummeting as shrapnel into the water, widely missing some ships and narrowly dodging others.

Charles, standing first, trying to talk Erik out of it, but then, crashing, colliding with the ground. A breath, more, gasps; and hands and arms and legs and feet, wrestling, kicking, all from the tackle Charles made, and it's all Charles can do to grab that helmet off, stop or distract Erik mentally from his attack on the humans at sea before them, and all Erik can do to pin Charles down and resist it.

No one moves. They watch like statues, numb and dumbstruck and anxious and questioning and lost. Shaw is dead, the Hellfire Club thinks. Our leaders are fighting, the teens think. No one can speak, no one knows what to do.

Erik gets up. Plows onward. Missiles flying, racing toward their targets, men in ships miles away panicking and accepting fate and holding their breaths and crying and clinging to one another.

Charles struggles to get up; he was hit bad, jaw aching, head buzzing. The sand is in his mouth. Tastes chalky, almost; powdery and dirty, grit between his teeth, and he bites down to hear the crunch of sand or maybe the crunch of bone; too similar to distinguish.

Erik is being fired at. Charles bolts upright, staring, blinded by the sun in his face. Moira. Moira, what are you doing? Moira, why are you shooting at Erik? And Erik, Erik – why are you turned toward the missiles like she isn't sending rounds of gunfire your way? Are you so keen on death and destruction that you can't –? Or do you not even notice through the blaze of rage and rushing sounds around your helmet that you're about to –?

Raven gasps, hands over her mouth, air like a silent scream caught in her throat.

Alex stiffens further. Sean grips Alex's arm. Hank huddles closer to Raven.

The Hellfire Club looks away, dismissing it, Angel acting like she doesn't give a damn, even though he was one of the ones who saved her from a life of being a stripper at a club she hardly liked to work at, but couldn't get by without the money from.

Erik shudders, a spasm of muscle, and drops to the ground like a fallen angel, guts and glory, his suit not entirely bulletproof, his legs tingling and losing sensation as they are racked with pain.

Erik! Charles' mind is screaming, and he scrambles up off the ground, sand flying from his boots, and he races to Erik's side, propping him up in his lap, cradling his neck for support, a hand on Erik's chest in comfort.

Blood is languidly trailing down from the corner of Erik's lips. He's breaking into a sweat, grunting and writhing, his breaths short. Charles' heart shatters with every beat. His mind goes haywire as tears trail down his face.

Erik touches the hand on his chest, fingers gripping Charles' fingers. He looks up, and Charles looks down, and they speak a lifetime of words through their eyes.

Erik's heartbeat through the spandex and leather is as light and delicate as a freshly feathered bird from an egg, gaining and losing strength in bouts.

"Charles…" Erik whispers hoarsely, and oh God, oh God, what can the telepath do? Is Erik going to die? Die, die, he can't die, there shouldn't be a death here, not one besides Shaw's, no one should die, least of all Erik –

And Charles breaks down, his mind weaving webs and swiping them away, because he is blank but reeling, and all he can do is look at Erik's face, the helmet tossed off to the side during the fall, and a trickle of sweat mingles with blood as it drips from Erik's temple to his chin and drops onto his collar.

"Erik, no, please –" And Charles is panting heavily, trying not to have a panic attack. He clings to his dear companion, and time stops as jaggedly as flesh tears under a serrated blade. "Erik, this isn't right, this shouldn't have happened – I should have stopped Moira with my mind, you shouldn't have paid so much attention to the missiles, we shouldn't have been attacked –"

Rambling. That's all he's doing: rambling with nerves, with trepidation, with dread and doubt. Everything sinking and cold and ugly, like the Titanic going down, but this is worse because this is happening right before Charles' eyes.

"Charles, listen. Listen to me, Charles –"

But Charles is too busy crying and saying, "I should have protected you! I need you by my side, Erik; we want the same thing, we –" And he chokes on his words. "I can't, I won't –"

"She did this, Charles," Erik tells him, and his voice is oddly flat and his eyes are losing focus, but he looks over at her, brows lowered darkly, and repeats, "She did this to me, Charles. Not you." And his grip, it tightens on Charles' hand, and he can feel Erik's heart skip a beat, and it makes something break inside him.

Literally break, like a rubber-band snapping. Charles' gaze darts upward, torn from Erik's face. Moira is shock-still. Moira looks terrified. Moira, with her pretty MC1-R gene and her CIA training and her dogtags tangling around her throat. She doesn't look like she regrets it, even as the missiles explode and teeter off-course and into the water in the distance and Charles can heart he roar in his head of everyone cheering.

They don't know that Erik just got shot in the spine from where he was turned. They don't know that Erik might die, spinal fluid possibly leaking out and mixing with his blood to poison him, drown his brain with excess liquids. They suddenly seem cold-hearted and hideous and disgusting. Charles scowls, his mouth a thin, tight line, his tears ceasing and barely making it down his face, and his brows are coming together.

"She… did this…" Erik murmurs on, and he sees Charles staring at her, glaring; and he looks back at her, and he wishes he had the strength to get back at her for doing this to him, because, shit, his back feels blisteringly fiery and he can't get the bullet out himself at this angle, and his legs are tingling with pins and needles as big as knife points.

Charles' mind has snapped, that click in his head truly a coil being sprung. He slowly glowers at Moira, and she starts to drop to her knees, hands clamped over her head, short grunts as breathy and thin as lace coming from her mouth. She cringes and screams and collapses in on herself, curling into fetal position.

"Charles, no! Charles, stop!" Raven is calling out, rushing forward, but Charles freezes her in place like he had Shaw, and he freezes everyone in place, rooted more-so than they had been, and they are all yelling in their minds for him to let them go, and they can feel traces of Moira's agony as Charles quite literally

Makes her heart stop

And

Forces her brain to wither up

And

Doesn't

Feel

Any

Remorse

About

Doing

So.

Erik coughs and jerks, bringing Charles partially back to himself once Moira is dead, her body smothered from the inside, nothing to bleed out or show any proof of physical damage. It was too easy, too fucking easy, to reach into her head

And

Turn off

The lights.

And Erik doesn't grin, doesn't applaud, doesn't show a sign of care. He closes his eyes, and Charles presses his forehead to Erik's, hands falling away from Erik's chest.

Charles is a new person, now.

Everyone unfreezes.

Raven backs up and away, suddenly horrified, even by her own brother.

Erik huffs a shaky exhale. Charles presses a kiss to Erik's mouth. The world is off its axis, and Erik is bleeding, bleeding. Charles trembles. He feels fresh, new, reborn; he had his first real taste of murder by his own hands – no, even better, his own mind – to avenge a loved one and bring an end to someone undeserving of life for their deed(s), and he finds that he likes it.

He understands Erik, now.

But Erik…

He's running out of time.

Charles delves into the teleporter's mind and forces him to come near. Charles makes everyone else walk near him. He uses Azazel's powers to transport everyone off of the beach. He takes Erik to a hospital, the man passed out cold – but still alive, thank the Heavens – in his arms.

Erik is paralyzed for life, his legs like useless, broken tools, heavy as five tons of lead. Each.

Charles is now his protector. He wheels Erik around the mansion. They establish a school, everyone's minds wiped of that day on the beach, and the Hellfire Club – Emma included, forced with false memories in the CIA agents' minds that she has done no wrong and belongs with Charles Xavier's group – has been erased mentally of Shaw.

Charles unlocks and uses his powers fully. He begins to craft the greatest mutant school the world will ever know, and the first they will ever see. He plans to make a chain of school across the country, and, eventually, across the globe. All for one and one for all, Mutants United. Schools for the Gifted.

Erik protests. Erik wants peace. He has seen destruction at its worst, felt its cruel hand upon him. He urges Charles to reconsider, to keep things small, to be the better man as Charles once told him to be. Erik is the better man, now; Charles is too far gone. Charles still blames himself for Erik's injury, even though Moira is dead and Erik's spine has healed up nicely years ago.

But still, Erik stays. And still, Charles takes are of him, looks after him, not because Erik is dependent, but because Charles goes into fits of stony silence or quiet rage unless Erik allows him to make up for the day that only they can remember properly.

Erik has never seen or met anyone like Charles, and he never thought Charles could be broken permanently like this. But having Erik injured and immobilized has made Charles a hard man. He is just as unfeeling as Erik had been, in regards to humans. Charles still loves and adores and his kind to his mutant students. But humans? He couldn't care less about them.

And Erik pities them. He still despises the humans, knows that they nature will lead to a second Holocaust but with mutants as the Jews if things are not handled very carefully, but he at least doesn't dismiss them the way Charles does now.

Things feel backward, flipped on a dime. Erik feels sick most days. Charles feels cold most others. But all that seems to get through is the idea that Charles does all of this, became all of this, out of love. Love of Erik Lehnsherr.

And it is the largest burden that Erik has even been bestowed with, because he knows that he trigged this with four words:

"She did this, Charles."