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2016 was going to be, quite possibly, the year in which Erik Lehnsherr spontaneously combusted unless constantly chaperoned. Charles would have said that it was exhausting, if he didn’t end up agreeing with the other man most of the time. He just didn’t usually agree at quite the same volume level, which was apparently unacceptable.
“How can you not be angry about this?” came the latest rant, snarled from the other side of their dorm room, while Erik paced the length of it for the umpteenth time. It had gotten to be such a habit that Charles honestly wondered if he was going to wear a rut in the carpet. “How can you just sit there?”
“Easily. I’m saving my strength. You should, too, my friend.” Flopping back on the bed, he exhaled a sigh. “Don’t waste all your energy on that idiotic windbag, he’s not worth it. It’s surely not possible for an entire nation to be insane enough to elect someone that stupid.”
“Your faith in humanity is hopelessly naïve! Of course an entire nation can be insane! Don’t you remember Italy? Spain? Germany? They’ve all elected Fascists on racist platforms! Dictators have risen to power in stricken countries who needed propaganda for decades – centuries! That’s how it’s done! I just don’t see how you can be so – so – calm!”
“I have a final in the morning, Erik. Go to bed.”
A moment later, he found himself looking up into stony gray eyes, accompanied by a furiously fixed expression. This was the face of a man whose mind was made up. “Charles, he’s going to win, and then we’re going to be herded like animals, don’t you see? Registration is a step toward horrors! He practically told the country he wanted to intern mutants!”
There was nothing for it, then. Charles leaned up, grasped hold of the back of his neck, and yanked Erik down into a kiss, holding on long enough to make his point quite thoroughly. Sometimes, all was fair in love and war, and the only way to shut up a revolutionary was to use a dirty pull like shutting him up in mid-thought like this.
When he pulled back, Erik tried to glare, but didn’t succeed.
“Come to bed. I really do have an exam in the morning, and on the off chance that I’m allowed to finish my education under a pro-mutant president, I’d like to graduate top of my class.”
With much grumbling, Erik slid in beside him. “I still have no idea how I’ve fallen in with such a wide-eyed dreamer,” he muttered, turning into Charles’s shoulder.
“Well. I really am very pretty, I suppose.”
“What did I tell you? WHAT DID I TELL YOU?” Erik stared, wide-eyed at the television, which bore the worst news any of them could possibly imagine. The man none of them had wanted elected was winning, had won, was going to be running the country by year’s end. And Charles honestly couldn’t fathom how.
Well. He could fathom how. He’d been catching snippets of thought from the people around him, the kind of discontent which had run this campaign: People were angry, they were frightened, they needed someone who seemed as though he was going to upset the entire apple cart. But he’d run on such a hateful platform, told the entire country that mutants were a dangerous threat, should all be forced to register – and now he had won.
Erik was going to have some sort of stroke. Reaching out, Charles rubbed soothing circles into his wrist. “We’ll weather this. We’ve weathered worse. You know how to protest, don’t you? Though do try not to make me go on the run from the law this time, I’ve had enough of avoiding policemen for one lifetime.”
That, at least, got him a soft laugh. “All right. I’ll do my solemn best not to get you arrested for any felonies.”
“Or misdemeanors,” Charles added firmly, eyebrows raised. He knew how Erik thought, after all. This got him the best imitation of an innocent look that his companion could muster.
It doesn’t count if we’re not caught, the thought was already winding its way through his friend’s head, and he exhaled a sigh, knowing he was in for something.
True to his word, three nights later, they were running frantically through the streets, at the head of a protest which included burning the president-elect in effigy – which must have been Erik’s doing, because the construction of the float itself was impeccable, and withstanding attempts by policemen to take it down.
“Destruction of public property!” hissed Charles, into Erik’s ear, hand clasped firmly around his companion’s as he shielded their group from view, ducking past a storefront. “Reckless endangerment! Disturbing the peace! You call this doing your best not to get me arrested?!”
“We haven’t been arrested yet, have we?” The grin he received was manic, broad and full of teeth. “I trust you to keep us safe, Charles. Now come on. They’re gaining on us.”
Rolling his eyes, Charles starting running again. “I’ve fallen in with a lunatic!”
“And you love every minute of it!”
“What is she doing here?” Erik jabbed a finger in the direction of the woman perched casually in Charles’s desk chair, chewing on a pen as she pored over his notes. “She’s baseline.”
“I do have a name, you know.” Looking up, she offered Erik a sweet smile that had an edge of sharpness to it, head cocked slightly. “I’m Moira. I represent The Sinister Coalition.”
For a moment, he blinked, trying to process this totally foreign combination of words, and then asked, “What on earth is that?” while Charles leaned back on the bed, doing his best not to laugh. It was best not to ruin the moment, not when Moira had it so utterly in hand. She studied Erik calmly, fluttering her lashes.
“Well, you know that the next president favors mutant registration, don’t you?”
Erik’s eyes narrowed. “You’re pro-registration?” And then he rounded on Charles, anger bubbling up further. “You’re friends with a pro-registration human? I can’t believe you! You’re a traitor to your own people!”
“You have a short fuse, don’t you?” Moira grinned at him. “No, I’m not pro-registration. What I meant was that the next president favors mutant registration, but the legal definition of a mutant is hard to pin down. So The Sinister Coalition is a group of us who’re planning to register ourselves.”
Now confusion was plain on Erik’s face. “But you’re baseline.”
“A lot of things count as genetic mutations, though. If I had two different colored eyes, or I was ginger, that would make me a mutant. I could register. Or, if I was, say… left-handed? Which is what we are. The word ‘sinister’ comes from the Latin word for left, and it was used to refer to left-handed people once upon a time. So we’re The Sinister Coalition. Do you get it yet?”
He deflated, which was an effect rather like watching a human balloon pop, as he dropped down to sit next to Charles. “So you’re expressing solidarity, is that it?”
“Exactly. Fuck registration, and fuck this guy.”
After a moment, Erik’s gaze drifted from Charles to Moira and back. Then he nodded, extending a hand to her. “Amen to that. Pleasure to meet you.”