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X
ONCE UPON A TIME, not to be confused with yesterday, last week, or even that one time at your cousin’s wedding, there lived a strapping young lad with the bluest eyes in all the realm who resided in a large house at the edge of the quaint little village tucked up against the side of a mountain.
His eyes were truly the bluest. Poets would write odes about them, comparing them to a midsummer’s afternoon sky, or perhaps the glimmering waves of the ocean. Some would say they were purer than a mountain spring, and others would add that they were more reflective than the surface of a placid lake. All would agree that they were unequal and unmatched, even by the finest sapphires.
“Oh do shut up,” Charles mutters, rolling his aforementioned eyes so hard that several fair maidens are suddenly dizzy and swoon on the spot, “I’m trying to read.”
All of his features are striking, but the only other thing that is perhaps on par with his eyes are his lips, ruby red and plush as a fluffy down pillow, utterly tantalizing and no doubt delectable.
Charles heaves an exasperated sigh.
Ahem.
Charles spends most of his days reading, slipping out the back door of the house to avoid his brutish stepbrother and taking short, wandering forays through the forest that longues across the side of the mountain like a particularly green and leafy cat. This is how he comes to know Raven, a blue forest spirit who upon seeing him for the first time, mistakes him for a bandit and dumps the entire contents of a small pond on his head.
Despite their initial misunderstanding, the two become very fast friends after Charles picks all the algae out of his wavy brown locks. Henceforth it becomes a daily routine for the two of them to meet at the base of a large, old oak, Charles with a book and Raven unabashedly scaly and naked, sprawled out and relaxing together beneath the boughs, Raven content to flick acorns at Charles while he reads until he’s distracted enough to give up and pepper her with questions about forest spirits and magic.
Today so far Charles has been alone, waiting patiently for Raven to appear as he works his way through the latest book he’s filched from his stepfather’s study. It grows later and later in the morning, however, and Raven still has yet to arrive.
He’s trying to decide whether or not he should get up and go looking for her when a gorgeous silver unicorn steps out from the bushes. For a moment, all Charles can do is stare in awe, shocked by such ethereal beauty and grace, its shiny pelt glittering dazzlingly in the midmorning sunlight.
Then the unicorn opens its mouth and says in a tone of voice one would normally associate with the gruff old man who lives up the street, “The fuck you looking at, bub?”
Charles gapes, and then quickly pretends to look somewhere else over the unicorn’s shoulder. “What an amazing toadstool over there, don’t you see it?”
This fools a grand total of absolutely no one, which unfortunately for Charles includes the unicorn. It looks distinctly unimpressed with everything that Charles is and chooses to be, which is a quite an impressive feat if you were to ask any of the village maidens. “You Charles Xavier?”
“If I say yes, are you going to impale me with your horn?” Charles answers hesitantly.
The unicorn snorts. It is not at all the kind of sound one would expect to come from a unicorn, as it sounds like a troubling cross between a dying grizzly bear and a cow with a bad cold. Charles is slowly getting the feeling that this unicorn in particular is a long line of unexpected things in general. “You should be so lucky,” the unicorn says, derisive enough that Charles is almost offended, “I’m only here to deliver a message, bub. Raven sent me.”
“Where is she?” Charles asks at once.
“She’s feeling ill today, so she won’t be coming to see you,” the unicorn says, and then turns and clops back into the bushes. “That’s it. Bye.”
“Wait!” Charles calls, jumping up to his feet. “Does she need any help?”
“Do you need any help?” the unicorn says snidely, displaying a fascinating sense of humor on par with an eight-year-old child, and then it’s gone, disappearing back into whatever fantastical and mythical place that all unicorns go when they’re not trotting around making a show out of themselves.
And this is how Charles decides to hike up the mountain and bring Raven provisions. It’s sort of a poor choice, seeing as there is a huge thunderstorm building on the horizon and Charles has no idea where Raven lives, but he clearly isn’t going to let that stop him.
“Oh, shut up,” Charles says with another roll of his lapis lazuli eyes, “it’s going to be fine.”
These are, the narrator would like to point out with mysterious foreshadowing, famous last words.
X
Charles is lost.
No, a correction—Charles has been lost. Charles has been lost for the last three point five hours, but he would like to have mention of the fact that he didn’t start out lost.
He started out rather well, actually. He nipped back to his house, returning his book to the study and collecting a large wicker basket, raiding the pantry to fill it with all sorts of things he hopes that a sick forest spirit might like. He even tucks a blanket inside on top, to further shelter the food and also to hand off to Raven when he reaches her home, because Charles knows that he likes all forms of creature comfort when he’s feeling under the weather.
He even paused on his way out the door, and upon seeing the ominous-looking thundercloud drifting slowly but purposefully towards the forest, snagged his raincoat off its peg. His raincoat is a miraculous thing all on its own, because someone somewhere, in a true display of color and pigment mastery, managed to dye it the same cornflower-cerulean-azure blue color as his eyes.
He does don it a bit snootily, though, flipping the hood up over his head and hair before setting off back into the forest and up the mountain.
Things go well at first. He’s on a path, skipping merrily along despite the increasingly inclement weather and making good headway in what he thinks is the correct direction Raven usually comes from, but then he reaches a fork in the road.
Picture this—Fork A, which branches off to the right, and is bright and clear, with wild daffodils growing alongside the well-swept path, and even has the last few rays of sunshine gleaming down on it while the soft melodies of birdsong drift down from tall, straight trees. And then there is Fork B, which is dark and gloomy, surrounded by sketchy-looking mushrooms and gnarled old trees, and what appears to be a rabbit carcass sitting in the middle of the path.
“Ha,” Charles says haughtily, “is this the best you can do? This is too easy.” Then he heads down Fork A without a backwards glance.
As an aside note, the narrator would like the reader to know that unfortunately, while Charles is literally heading up a mountain, this is the point in which things figuratively begin to go downhill. Had he chosen Fork B, he would have suffered on a strange path for only five minutes before rounding a craggy-looking boulder and stepping through a small, magical wormhole on which the other side lies Raven’s front doorstep. As it is, our brave and wise hero has chosen, shall we say, the long route.
So our brave and oblivious hero continues on for three point five hours, at which point the path has run out completely and Charles officially decides to categorize himself as lost. Then, because what’s a good fairy tale without a small sense of irony, that thunderstorm that’s been mentioned a few times up until this point breaks and it begins to rain.
“Perfect,” Charles says to no one, or at least he thinks he does, “just perfect.”
Because little does he know, he’s being watched.
And this is the point where the narrator goes on a bathroom break, just to leave you all hanging and wanting for more. It’s called dramatic effect, look it up.
X
When it truly begins to pour, Charles finds himself running nearly blinding through the trees, stumbling over stones and slippery wet leaves as he searches for any form of shelter. He’s come too far to turn back, and he’s not entirely sure that he could even find his way back right now in the first place. He clutches his basket of food tightly to his side and is supremely glad he’d had the cognizance to wear his denim-cobalt-periwinkle blue raincoat too.
For the sake of this plot moving along, he soon stumbles across a towering old tree with an enormously thick trunk, the base of which is hollowed out into a bona fide thunderstorm shelter, conveniently convenient. Without an ounce, cup, pound, liter, gallon, or your preferred choice of measurement of hesitation, Charles streaks for the entrance of the tree trunk and tumbles inside.
He lands on the exact place you all want him to land, which is the specific lap of someone who is tall, dark, and handsome and whose first name usually begins with the letter E. If at this point there is anyone making the astounding leap of thought connecting this man to Charles’ mysterious watcher from before the bathroom break, congratulations, you are the next Albert Einstein.
“Hello,” the man purrs in a voice like smooth dark chocolate, delicious but with a dangerous undertone all at once. “This is a surprise.”
Spoiler: it is not a surprise at all, at least for him. Charles, on the other hand, is quite taken aback.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize this tree trunk was taken!” he says, abashed. He looks around, attempting to see about removing himself from the admittedly warm and comfortable lap, but there’s just no spare room to be had, what with the stranger’s long legs taking all of it up. “I’ll just try someplace else, have a wonderful day—”
“No, do stay and chat awhile,” the stranger says, putting an arm around Charles’ middle to hold him in place and prevent him from dashing back out into the rain with pure mortification, “the storm may not let up for some time yet.”
“If you’re sure,” Charles says, making a try at seeming hesitant and apologetic, while meanwhile he is inwardly jumping for joy on account of catching sight of the stranger’s face in a well-timed flash of lightning—and honestly, have you seen those cheekbones? “I’m Charles, by the way.”
“I’m Erik,” Erik says, and smiles with enough teeth to put the tooth fairy well into retirement with excellent benefits and enough left over to buy a vacation home in Antigua. “What’s in the basket?”
“Food for my friend Raven,” Charles answers promptly, because this is the kind of fairy tale where the main character is prone to immediately trusting every stranger who happens across their path unquestionably, “she’s a forest spirit. A very crude unicorn told me that she was feeling ill, so I decided to bring her enough provisions to get by on while she rests and recovers.”
If Erik finds any part of this odd, he doesn’t mention it. “How very noble of you.”
“Yes,” Charles agrees, because he has always been of the opinion to give proper credit where proper credit is due. “And what are you doing all the way out here in the middle of a storm?”
“I’m a forest bandit,” Erik answers, completely honest and very self-satisfied. “I’m lying low and keeping out of the sheriff’s sights until I decide who my next target is to pillage from.”
“Well I hope it isn’t me,” Charles says matter-of-factly, “because I’m sitting on you so you wouldn’t make it very far if you tried to make off with my basket.”
“Don’t worry,” Erik purrs, making Charles shiver, “I can think of far more interesting things to do to you.”
“Can you,” Charles says, in the tone of voice of someone who very much wants to know more.
Unfortunately for Charles, this is the exact moment that the storm chooses to subside, the rain turning from torrential downpour to light drizzle in the blink of an eye. There could be a hidden lesson in this phenomenon that has something to do with life not being fair, but Charles chooses to pointedly not acknowledge it in the slightest and instead sulks for a moment before sighing.
“I’d better be getting on,” he says, even though leaving Erik’s lap and having the warm weight of Erik’s exquisitely long-fingered hand removed from his belly is the last thing in the entire world that he wants, “now that the rain’s calmed a little. I really do want to reach Raven.”
“Yes, of course,” Erik answers easily with a sly smile, and Charles is relieved that he doesn’t seem offended. “I hope your friend feels better soon.”
“Thank you,” Charles says as he climbs awkwardly to his feet, though slightly on purpose as it gives him a brief chance to stick his ass in Erik’s face for a brief moment. He’s not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is, but Erik doesn’t express any semblance of complaint. “You should consider pillaging from only people who deserve it.”
“I think that’s the wrong fairy tale,” Erik replies, though not without amusement, “but I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good,” Charles says, and abruptly runs out of anything more to say as he stands out in the rain, drops pattering down on his royal-cyan-ultramarine blue raincoat as he gazes in at the roguishly handsome bandit who reclines back in the hollow of the tree and watches him back. “Goodbye,” he blurts, and then dashes away.
Little does he know, Erik waits only a few moments after he leaves before he gets up and stretches, and then sneaks off in the opposite direction.
X
An indeterminable amount of time later, Charles finally reaches Raven’s house. He’d gotten lost twice more (or at least this is what he tells himself, though the fact of the matter is that he really never became unlost in the first place), and had finally had to stop and ask directions from an alarmingly large caterpillar who was smoking a very questionable substance, who only pointed him in the right direction after multiple times of asking Charles who he was and nearly driving him to having an existential crisis.
He’s still rather proud of himself, however, as his basket of food is still fully intact and his Colombian-Persian-electric blue raincoat has kept him quite dry despite the persistence of the rain.
Raven’s house is small and quaint, made out of a rather large snarl of twisted branches but otherwise looks quite homey. Charles knocks on the door but when no one answers he tries the knob and finds it unlocked, so he takes the liberty of showing himself in.
Once inside, Charles finds that despite how small Raven’s home looks from the inside, it’s actually an ideal size for a young, independent forest spirit. It’s not too big, nor is it too small. It’s just right.
“That’s definitely the wrong fairy tale,” Charles says exasperatedly.
The narrator shuffles their feet sheepishly.
“Raven?” Charles calls into the cozy abode, setting his basket down on a small but sturdy table and passing through a neat and tidy sitting room with furniture made from fallen logs and leaf-stuffed cushions towards a doorway that he assumes leads to the forest spirit’s bedroom. “It’s me, Charles. I brought you some things to help make you feel better.”
He comes to a stop in the doorway in surprise, because lying in the comfy-looking bed is someone who is not Raven at all.
The actual Raven, for those of you who are concerned, had left the house some hours ago when she’d initially passed her message for Charles off to the grumpy unicorn. Her friend Beast, a large mountain spirit who closely resembles a blue furball, is an expert in brewing remedies for a plethora of ailments, so she had wisely decided to pay him a visit. She would’ve been back by now but then the storm had hit and Hank had invited her to stay for dinner as well, and right now they’re currently immersed in a highly competitive game of Egyptian Ratscrew.
Charles clears his throat, unfreezing from his spellbound shock of seeing the last person on earth he’d ever expected to see again (he’d hoped, of course, but he’d imagined the chances were slim). “My, Raven,” he says, taking a step towards the bed and feigning innocence, “what big grey green gunmetal steel morning meadow covered in dew stormy sea knife blade eyes you have.”
Erik smirks, leaning back against the pillows with his arms folded behind his head. The bandit, who knows the forest far better than Charles does, had made the trip to Raven’s house in less than half the amount of time it’d taken Charles to get there. Needless for the narrator to say, he’d been exceptionally pleased to find the forest spirit absent. “All the better to see you with, my dear.”
“Oh,” Charles remarks, unfastening the buttons of his damp powder-Oxford-baby blue raincoat and letting it slide down to the floor as he moves closer to the bed, “and what big teeth you have, too.”
“All the better to eat you with, my dear,” Erik replies, with an exaggeratedly lewd wink to make sure Charles understands just what kind of eating is going to be taking place very soon.
Charles climbs up onto the bed, crawling across the coverlet towards Erik and then swinging one leg over him, straddling him and sliding right up into his lap. A very specific part of Erik’s anatomy makes itself known, and Charles is deeply impressed despite himself. “And what a big cock you have.”
“All the better to fuck you with, my dear,” Erik growls, nothing but pure lust in his gaze, and this fairy tale instantly graduates from a children-safe PG to a very children-unsafe NC-17 when he pulls Charles down and does just that.
X
Three rounds of extremely athletic and satisfying sex later, Raven returns home after the storm has completely cleared away and feeling much better thanks to Beast’s miraculous cure-all, and finds two naked men in her bed.
“Either let me join you or get out,” she says flatly, pointing out the door.
Charles is too utterly sated to be embarrassed for long, lingering only long enough to redress before kissing Raven on the cheek and expressing how glad he is that she’s feeling well again, before taking Erik by the hand and dragging him off. They only manage to make it as far as the next open, grassy clearing before giving in to carnal sin and having two more rounds in the warm sunshine (fortunately Erik does not display any disquieting traits such as glittering skin or weirdly supernatural strength and speed).
If there is a moral to this story, it is quite lost to the narrator and probably doesn’t matter anyway. What does matter is that Erik follows Charles’ advice and starts stealing only from the rich to give to the poor, and the next time Charles runs across the world’s most misanthropic unicorn they actually do manage to hold a lovely conversation about the merits of impaling people versus those of trampling people.
Most importantly, however, they live happily ever after for the rest of their days.
THE END.