A/N: Title is a Placebo song, in case you were wondering. And yeah, it's French. And yes, it simply means, "protect me."

Based off of the events of the X-Men: First Class film, naturally. In Erik Lehnsherr's POV. Contains (rather obvious) hints of slash.

I just wanted something having to do with the theme of protection, since that is always a reoccurring theme. ;P

Protection: by basic definition off the top of anyone's head, they know that it's keeping something safe and unharmed; it's preventing harm from coming to something precious.

I've never been very good at protection.

I would give anything to be better at protecting what is dear to me, and it's pathetic, because I don't possess much to protect in the first place, my own life being on the bottom of the list.

I seem to consistently fail, and it twists and torments me inside, as if my failure to protect has become a physical entity, something vile and toothy, like a lamprey eating out my innards, gnawing greedily, painfully.

I try so incredibly hard, however. I try to be the protector, I try to make things right. And perhaps it's my nature that things will go wrong instead, and perhaps that is something I will learn to embrace, but for the moment, I wish it weren't so.

Because I couldn't protect my mother, nor keep my abilities a secret, and I couldn't protect myself from Shaw, and in turn, couldn't protect myself from immersing myself in the concept of revenge, as well as avenging. Avenging my mother's death, and getting my revenge on Shaw became a mixed goal of essentially the same thing, and it because my purpose in life.

That is, I suppose, until I met a rather persistent professor who quite literally crashed his body into mine to protect me from drowning, because at some point, I was so obsessed with my goal that I didn't care if I died in the process, as long as I did something.

I wrestled with the young man not terribly much younger than myself, and I tried to break free and continue on, but he kept saying – and it couldn't have been spoken, because we were underwater, and that didn't quite fit – that I need to calm my mind and drop the submarine, else I will die. And I was aware of that, but I couldn't seem to let go.

Until the man dragged me to the surface and repeatedly called my name, telling me to calm down, and finally, we were treading water and the submarine was out of sight, and he was looking at me, and I felt naked, broken open, exposed, laid out to dry, and all because he was seemingly staring into my very core, and I wondered how he knew my name, and I wondered how he had spoken directly into my mind (mutant?), and I wondered how much about me he knew.

As it happens, not much. He only pried my mind with his gift deep enough to know my name and use it when he spoke to me.

And, he informed me, his name is Charles. Charles Xavier. And, he assured me, I am not alone in being different from regular humans.

It came to be a mantra I said to myself in comfort. You are not alone. You are not alone, Erik.

I didn't realize until later that it was because I had Charles as an (at first) unwilling friend, but later, I had him as something precious to protect.

XxX

The jet is going down.

It's a flipping whirl of a downward spiral, frightening and nauseating, loud in my ears, and all my body wants to do is brace for impact.

But Charles is staggering in front of me, and I can tell by the churning horizon through the small windows (so much like clothes tumbling in the dryer at a Laundromat) that we're about to make impact. And I can't let anything happen to Charles – I just can't.

So I dive for him, pinning him to the metal, covering his body with my own (not an unfamiliar feeling). I shield him from the worst of it, tucking his head under my chin and holding onto him for dear life. I need to protect him.

The jet crashes, and from my hold on the submarine, it does the same seconds before. We're on Cuban soil, it seems; the beach of an island, at least, and Cuba is the only island near all those ships out a ways in the ocean.

I shudder, feeling jarred, but mostly uninjured. I slowly pick myself up off of Charles, peering down at him and touching the side of his face to examine it. "Are you all right?" I demand to know, but I'm sure he can see the true concern in my eyes.

He nods numbly, scrambling with me to stand. I stabilize him, and simultaneously, we glance out from the wreckage at the other vessel.

I swallow shallowly. The first real step toward the destiny I've crafted for myself is in that vessel. If I can just get in there, I wouldn't need much to murder Shaw. Just that blasted coin would be enough. I can feel it in my clothes, where I put it so that I wouldn't lose track of it.

I turn to Charles, and with the others' help, we formulate a plan.

…But I don't intend on following every last step of it.

XxX

Charles has Shaw frozen. It's perfect, now. He is like a sitting duck, perfect for the shooting. I speak in a low, careful tone to him, and my face is hard and stony. Charles can see my actions the way I'm planning them in my mind, my thoughts no doubt a jumble to him – kill Shaw kill Shaw kill him kill him use the coin through his skull as easy as scissors through paper just kill him do it do it – as I stand before the man who has haunted and ruined my life.

I pick up Shaw's helmet. I can't have Charles in my head right now. I only pray he continues to freeze Shaw despite the blockage.

I am so sorry for this, Charles, I tell him before I place the helmet over my hair, Because I know you will feel what he feels, but it must be done. Forgive me. And as soon as the helmet is in place, I keep a single, vague thought to myself: I love you, Charles.

And the thought is incredibly vague, because I hardly remember thinking it the second it breezes through my mind. In the next moment, I hurl the coin, and I can only imagine the worse-than-a-mere-migraine pain that must be shooting through poor Charles' head at the moment as Shaw dies right before my eyes, and I nearly feel like grinning at my victory.

That pain is one thing I couldn't prevent, couldn't protect Charles from, and for that, I truly am sorry. But killing Shaw… it needed to be done. For my sanity, and even perhaps for humanity, because while my thoughts are not as drastic as Shaw's, they are still somewhat… similar.

I march out of the submarine again, and prepare to face whatever befalls me next.

XxX

I'm not prepared for it.

It comes in a rush of events, one after the other.

Missiles and other projectiles hurtling toward all of us on the beach. Moira trying to call it off before the fire, using a broken (or perhaps function, yet they choose to ignore her?) radio. My powers halting every last weapon in place to hover in the air.

Charles screaming at me to stop, to be the better man.

For a split second, I screw my eyes shut, and I'm nearly ready to listen to him. My hands shake, from the force and magnitude and multitude of what my gift is accomplishing as I turn the missiles to face the other way, but they are shaking, too, because I can feel the hint of a doubt, the presence of hesitation, the flicker of panic and worry in my gut, surging up through my arm.

Fingers twitching, mind wavering inside the helmet, I distantly wonder why Charles doesn't tackle me (or something of the sort) to get me to stop. And I realize: it's because he trusts me. He trusts me completely, and thinks I still might make the "right" choice.

I'm sorry to let you down, Charles, I think to myself, But this is something, too, that I must do.

The following series of events occur too quickly for my brain to process. It's like a miniature battle on the beachfront, everyone (of our men, anyhow; Shaw's lackeys could care less) trying to force me to spare the lives of the humans aboard the far-out vessels. But what importance have they?

"There are good, innocent men out there, Erik! They're only following orders," Charles tries intensely to remind me, but to no avail.

I think of the Nazi soldiers in my mind's eye, think of how they did unspeakable things to people and killed them just because they were "following orders."

And so I imply this, telling Charles how sick and tired I am of men "only following orders." I won't let it happen, never again.

And that's when things turn horribly sour.

It's stop and go, stop and go, the missiles' flight path back to their senders. Distractions come in waves; Charles, Moira. It all doesn't quite matter to me, as long as some of those weapons reach their owners.

I think this, that is, until Moira fires at me with her CIA standard handgun.

I can deflect the bullets; that isn't an issue. I could care less if she shoots at me.

It's when I deflect a bullet, altering its course, until it flies into the base of Charles' spine that it becomes an issue.

There's a scream of horror in my mind, horror and rage, and it sounds like my child-self when my mother died. I race to Charles' side, all the while mentally apologizing to him, because this is all my fault, I couldn't protect him in time, I wasn't thinking, I caused this, and I need to fix this.

I remove the bullet, and it's perfectly flattened. I know it must have hit his bone dead-on, even through the thickness of his bodysuit. But the fact that the bullet is whole helps; it means no shrapnel, it means that his bones might not be shattered, and it means there might be hope, if at least that he will live.

I gaze down at him, and his eyes are full of pain. Despite my previous thought, he looks as though he's dying, so I hold him close; or as closely as I can without wounding him further.

I glare up at Moira. "You did this!" I accuse, and I aim to choke her with the dogtags around her neck, my face in a pained scowl. I know it was my doing, but that won't stop me from trying to pin it on someone else. I can't – I refuse to have Charles think that I did this to him, that I would ever harm him like this, intentionally or not, because I never would.

My heart aches beneath my breastbone, and I hear Charles croak, "No, Erik. You did this."

And he knows. Even without reading my mind, he knows whose fault it was, and I drop Moira's necklace and gaze at him sorrowfully. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry, of God, Charles, believe how sorry I am running through my head as quickly as lightning.

"Please, Charles," I murmur, although I'm not sure what I'm asking for. Him to forgive me? Him to not leave me and die right here, right now? I'm not sure. I swallow thickly. "You know, this is what they want," I say with a hint of a tremor to my voice, "Us turning on each other; that's what they want. I tried to warn you, Charles."

I pause, and he gazes up at me, blue eyes clouded with tears and searching for something. I grasp him tighter, touching what I can feel as I support him with one hand, the other trying to measure his heartbeat. He doesn't say anything, maybe because he's in too much pain, but I have the sinking feeling it's because he's disappointed in me for saying what I had.

My tone is strangled like my heart as I tell him, "I want you by my side." I mean this figuratively and literally; I want him to remain my friend, close to me, and I want him to live, and I want him to be somehow perfectly healthy again, despite whatever damage has been done to his spine from that blasted bullet. "We are brothers, you and I." You are not alone, Erik, I recall faintly. I struggle to go on, "All of us together, protecting each other. We want the same thing."

Protecting each other, as I had failed to do for him in the most crucial of moments. Protecting each other, as I had wanted all along. Because mutants are precious; we are rare, no matter how many of us there might be out there as Charles no doubt seen with Cerebro, and aside from that, we will become extinct by human hands (human weaponry by human hands) if we do not protect one another.

Charles' head trembles, a sort of shake, and he lets out a sputtered breath akin to a nervous, hysteric laugh. "Oh, my friend, I'm sorry, but we do not."

He wants peace and harmony with the humans, and all I want to do is perserve our mutant way of life by defeating the lesser beings. Two different sights of the world, and I should have known that it was doomed from the start, he and I.

I swallow again, and suddenly, I can't take it any longer. Not his wounded expression, not his pity for my ideals, not his blue eyes, not any of it. So I step away and let the people with the same opinions as him come to his side and replace me.

Replace me, because I am not deserving any longer. I failed him in more ways than one, and I know it.

So I gather up a troupe, gaze at Charles one final time with regret and sorrow (and love), and then disappear in a puff of red smoke from Azazel's transporting powers.

XxX

I think, all along, I should have been protecting myself instead of others. At least then, if I protected myself from what I wanted – revenge, humans cowering at mutants' feet, Charles – I think everyone would have been better off, myself included.

If I hadn't gone after revenge, however, I might not have met Charles Xavier, and perhaps Shaw would have taken over the world after all.

But if I hadn't wanted other things, perhaps certain events wouldn't have occurred. And perhaps that all would have been for the better.

I act like it isn't so, and I act as though I have everything under control, but in truth, I live a life of regret and I am falling apart at the seams.

It is only a matter of time before I lose myself completely, and any protection I might have to offer is cast by the wayside.