Chapter Text
Erik stepped off the train at King's Cross with the state of Madam Lucie's household still occupying his mind. Though Erik had little influence on popular opinion compared against those that had rallied against the injustice to her husband, Erik's influence on metal could at least ensure that clock work bombs did not enter the postbox alongside the vitriolic postcards against her husband and Jews in general. If not for the telegram weighing heavier the longer he lingered in France, he would've not had crossed the strait.
Swirls of brown smog palled the London morning. Smoke hung suspended in England's wet air, drawing the city into a surrealist painting, the edges blurred as if it could not bear its own existence. Erik circled around a puddle and bought the morning papers. The Conservative alliance and the Liberals were making their arguments, trade unionists and socialists relegated to the sensationalism corner. It should not be surprising. He had always known that the gradualists would compromise. It was a fool's hope that free education and temperance reform and Scottish nationalism et cetera et cetera could be gathered under a single banner. Everyman want different things. Yet confronting the ineffectiveness in black and white, no matter how expected, the idea that their political hope would be stillborn pricked like a thorn in his flesh.
Glancing at his watch, it would be still a hour before Charles made his way from his morning appointments. After long trips abroad, Erik had often stood on the same platform, reacquainting himself with the notion of seeing Charles again. The station looked little different. Perhaps the fashion of hats changed a little. Charles would know, like he knew all things.
After getting out of the cab, Erik ducked into the door of a small bookstore he knew, nodded at the shopkeeper. Behind the Montesquieu and Rousseau as well as the newer publications from the more respectable Fabian and the more incendiary and less named groups, he saw the old monographs by Prof. X. His hand lingered over the fading titles then went back out from among the stacks and purchased a handsomely bound copy of Italian sonnets. It should amuse, at the very least. The latest Strand magazine stood in a prominent on the table, still advertising the chronicles of the detective in an inappropriate deerstalker. Erik ignored the incredulous looks of the girl behind the counter and purchased a copy of The Blackwood as well as The Clarion.
By the time he made his way to the little door on Pall Mall it was nearly noon. The porter bowed and took his coat. Erik made his way up toward the main room. It was empty. He took one of the chairs in the nook with the chess table. At his other side he wrote a ticket for a glass of wine.
He was waiting. Charles was coming back. It was unthinkable he would not. The club looked exactly the same when he was here last. Surely it was the same man who sat and snored in the armchair in the corner.
Charles and Erik could lunch together. He had matters that would welcome Charles' scrutiny, not the least was himself. He himself wished Charles' eyes on him. Four years was a long time to live without. No matter how many more pleasant recollection he had of Charles, it was always the pain and fear in those eyes at their last parting that haunted him to sleep. Charles didn't even have his cigarette case when he fell. Erik sometimes woke in the mornings with the entire house's metal in the bed beside him and his landlady in hysterics about ghosts. Consequently, his rent was cheap and he had no neighbors.
Charles would've laughed. He had once told Erik how he and his sister had played joked on his mother's less savory guests by giving them a personalized experience of Dickens A Christmas Carol.
Erik had mocked him for using his abilities so casually. Early in the acquaintance, he thought Charles soft, a gentleman with a taste for rebellion and possibly rough trade.
Time turned all memories gentle. Now he looked forward to Charles' smile, always a little too sad to be truly tender, but so firm in its conviction for joy that Erik could not help to find it comforting. He needed, he thought, in this unpleasant weather, in this island of pale sharp people, a little comfort on this path they had chose to pursue in the wilderness. Charles owed him that, at the least. Charles could've gone home to Greymalkin. His family would've embraced their only heir and prodigal son. Erik had no such consolation.
There had only been his work. And then, Charles.
The room began to fill as the hour drew toward lunch. A menu had been discreetly placed by his side. The vacancy at the other side of the chess table remained, so Erik read through first the papers, then the magazine. When he looked up from them, the clock had already struck three and the room was nearly empty again except for several gray heads snoring in their chairs. He left the newspapers, but took everything else with him.
He walked up the street toward the St. James' side and then to Baker Street where he lingered outside 221B. The fog had dissipated, but a brown film clung to every surface. He looked up toward the window, but though the curtains were drawn, no one stood there to greet him. Mud had begun seeping into his trouser cuffs when he finally left without knocking. There could be other tenants. Mrs. Hudson should not have liked to see him. He did not wish to frighten her.
And he was being followed. A shadow had been trailing him. A man, or perhaps a woman in disguise. Erik's life didn't allow assumptions after meeting Irene Adler and her paramour. He had always been cautious until circumstances required otherwise.
The telegram in his pocket had merely said he's back. Perhaps Erik was wrong all along. It was not addressed to him; it had no sender he recognized; and it had only found him after a six month delay. Yet it was on the last he pinned his hopes. How could Emile Henry's circle of anarchists and the French communards know who Charles was and more importantly, what he meant to Maximillan Eisenhardt?
They never met wearing green carnations. Even socialist politicians and day laborers preferred gentlemen of the establishment to lead them and even anarchists had prejudices regarding the purity of soul of those who counted themselves among the number. Charles and he had always been careful. The rumours and reports from England had proved it to be a prudent choice.
Hungry, not knowing where Charles was and unexpectedly suffering from hope -- only Charles could live with such an endless agony--- Erik sat down at a non-discrete cafe and ordered a creamed bun and a coffee. At half-past five, he made his way to the Diogenes Club again.
Silence and newspapers filled the room behind the glass. And behind a particular set of newspapers, he could sense the specific metal filling, the gold watch and its chain, the silver tie pin of one of the most dangerous men in London, perhaps even the world. The newspapers did not lower to reveal watery gray eyes at Erik's entrance.
Erik unfurled his own papers. Aware, after a moment, that the goldwatch had left the room. Then a salver was placed on the table beside him.
Erik accepted the invitation to the Stranger's Room.
The older Holmes was immense as ever, a hulk-like presence among the antiques the British pirated and now considered their own.
"Mr. Lehnsherr, welcome back. You should be reading the Strand," Mycroft said. "I am told it is by far the more popular and so better reading."
"I don't have time for stories, Mr. Holmes," Erik replied, "especially ones written by politicians. I am particularly not interested in what is popular."
"You've made that admirably clear given your recent activities. However, you might care for someone who does mind popularity. Professor Moriarty, you should know, as he's based on a mutual acquiatance, is now the Napoleon of crime under Dr. Watson's pen which has a wide readership." Mycroft said mildly. "And Dr. Watson shies from political views."
Erik scoffed. What better to antagonize and invigorate sentiments of an Englishman then to call upon Napoleon. "Moriarty? I took it the Doctor was not pleased to be merely a conduit of your wishes? I suppose you can allow small rebellions, as long as they're in the form of Latin puns."
Mycroft's smile had a disarming quality, though the eyes belie the effect: the sharp, introspective look that reminded Erik painfully of the telepath he had come to find. "Suggestions, merely. I'm surprised you do not recognize an Irish name, Mr. Lehnsherr, given your own extractions, however temporary your sojourn there may have been. I am pleased that you are surprised at our industry. Though the Latin does not quite fit, does it?"
"I mean artifice. Art has nothing to do with it, and everything to do with how you cannot stand the thought that there were people who did not like to play by your rules."
Holmes ignored this. "And you are Col. Sebastian Moran. Son of a peer, Eton, Oxford, author-"
"You've promoted me," Erik muttered.
"I've had nothing to do with it. It is really remarkable. The doctor has a tendency toward sentiment. He named you Sebastian, after all, the name of a Christian saint"
"Before he damned me." Erik had known he would always play the villain in the eyes of society, regardless of his guilt, even as Capt. Dreyfus was. It was the lot of his people he would have changed. But to be made the enemy by Mycroft Holmes seemed worse. Professor Moriarty or Col. Sebastian Moran doubtless resembled the the truth just enough to obstruct their efforts. “What does Sherlock say of your interference in such an unfaithful chronicle?”
“You did give the doctor a shock,” Mycroft said. “And Sherlock did not welcome your interference in his private affairs, nor does he, as a rule, inclined to interfere with Watson’s literary efforts as long as it preserves the anonymity of his clients and associates. You should be satisfied on that account. No university named, no true address disclosed. Neither you nor Charles can be identified.”
“You know that your brother and I have deeper grievances than the trajectory of a bullet, which he would've felt but as a beesting. There is after all, Reichenbach.” Erik choked out the last word. Holmes, the younger, and Charles had agreed to meet. The constant evasion had wearied Charles, who went to Switzerland at Erik’s suggestion. Erik still did not know what had passed on top of that waterfall, only that Charles and Sherlock were both falling and then Charles was gone, but Sherlock somehow had survived, clinging to the rocks before the local police was on Erik and he had to leave him and before he could ascertain Charles' fate.
Three years later, Holmes came back to London without Charles and had found that Erik was pursuing him. Catullus, indeed, unless Watson wish only to reaffirm Sherlock Holmes singular bachelorhood. The metaljackets of the soft-nosed bullet had been intended to hurt, yes, though not permanently. “Whatever you think of me, Mr. Holmes, your brother’s private affairs cease to be private when he interfered with the fate and future of an entire people. I suppose Sherlock hasn’t yet told Watson the unique details of his resurrection.”
"Think? I know you. I also know why you’ve come back. I’m sorry that Sherlock is not at home today to answer your questions, but you will not find the professor here and England would do better with your absence than your presence. It would also be better if you are behind bars, though we both know how impossible that is. I’m surprised you let Scotland Yard hold you for the fortnight after your ill-conceived altercation with a wax statue.”
Erik had been waiting for Charles, who had come to rescue him as he did the first time. Charles, who had believed that Sherlock Holmes a logical and reasonable man, someone who could be convinced of the necessity of Charles’ efforts. The worst betrayal of all- that Sherlock Holmes was like them and Erik had believed Charles- that a Holmes could be sympathetic.
“I wonder that you do not have me executed.”
Mycroft sighed. “I am not without feeling. There are so very few of us already. Dr. Xavier’s death is an unfortunate accident and a great loss to science as well as a personal loss. I disagreed with his principles, but I will not deny the kinship that binds us beyond that of blood. We found his body, washed ashore miles down the river.”
There was iron in the fireplace. There was metal everywhere. Erik’s hands shook, but there was no comfort anywhere. Mycroft’s confirmation was worse than anything. Erik’s heart was shadow, his body air. Grief hollowed him. His voice echoed from a distance: “And you yet you would have his memory sullied by an villainous invention. Ms. Adler has told me that she has seen-“
“What Ms. Adler sees, Mr. Lehnsherr, is a matter of possibilities. I am tasked with knowing when each possibility must be realised, but foremost I am a servant of Her Majesty’s government.”
“And all you care about is the Great Game.”
“As you play yours.”
“Do you intend for us to hide forever? Do you intend to force us to hide forever? Are we to be fairies, ghosts, and changelings forever, to be killed by a mob because we are not men?”
“No, not forever, Mr. Lehnsherr, but it’s not the right time. A life of scholarship has rendered Prof. Xavier inflexible in noble intentions. The powers of heredity, of indeed, evolution itself, would’ve shown the peculiarities of mutations among men in time as natural phenomena rather than supernatural. Progress and reform will come gradually, without the violence inherent in forceful disclosures made in the present. As quickly as science marches, England is not ready and it will not be ready for a long time. For now, Britain’s role in history must be my primary concern. The stability and safety of the empire requires everyone to play his part, even me. Even Charles Xavier.”
Erik stood. “Goodbye, Mycroft.”
“Yes, goodbye, I suppose I should not speak to you again after you leave England.”
The last was undoubtedly command. Erik did not like to think of what Mycroft would do if he did not.
“No.”
Mycroft nodded then heaved himself up, surprisingly dextrous for his size.
Erik flexed his fingers. Metal answered. Silence would answer, but then Mycroft was gone from the room and Charles was gone.
Erik looked outside the window and observed that on the streets a dirty child seemed to be hesitating. One of Sherlock’s Irregulars? The boy leaned against the railing, then stood in front of the door again. A light drizzle began. The boy looked up, something in his hand caught Erik’s eye.
Erik ran down the stairs into the rain. The boy walked into him and handed him a card, folded in half.
There was a single scratch of letter on the card: “X”.
Erik could not suppress the flutter of pleasure seeing it.”Did he say when?”
“Eight, sir,” the boy answered, “and he said he wants to play black.”
Erik drew out his own wallet from the boy’s belt, and before the boy could protest or run, tipped him generously.
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