crack_van | A Confession by Alara (R)

Fandom: X-MEN COMICS
Pairing: None
Author on LJ:

alara_r
Author Website: Alara's Happy-happy Text-only Page
Why this must be read:

The X-men comics are obsessed with the question of what happens when Xavier Goes Bad. Because he's the essential good guy: He's *Charles Xavier,* the founder of the X-men, the man whose dream all these characters are fighting for. The X-men follow his morals, respect him more than pretty much anyone else, and many of them see him as their father figure.

So what happens when Charles' strict morals slip? Or what if he never gained those morals in the first place? Man, many authors, both in fanfic and in canon, have dealt with this issue, but alara has written the Dark!Xavier AU that, for me, just hits home and makes me shudder and shiver and want to go read fluffy kitten fic to counteract the chilling, haunting premise of this fic.

The scariest thing about A Confession is that it just makes so much *sense.* Xavier's line of thought here isn't, at first glance, drastically different from the conclusions he came to to form the X-men in canon. He's not insane, he's not a stereotypical psycho comic villain. He *feels* to me *exactly* the way canon Xavier feels, and damn if that just doesn't make a shiver run down my spine.

Many years ago-- twenty-five or thereabouts-- I was young and nanve, traveling the world to see its wonders. And I met a man who was evil.

You see, I'm a telepath. I can read minds, and influence them, and kill with a thought. At that time, I never had; I would have considered it horrible, reprehensible. I still do, but of course, back then I thought I was a good man.

I met this other telepath in cairo. He was ruler of the underworld, a killer, rapist and enslaver. He controlled people to do his bidding. And when I would not join him, he tried to kill me. He failed.

That was the first.

A Confession