Title: Skin Deep by manic_intent
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Categories: AU, Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance, Supernatural, Mpreg
Length: Long
Warnings: I’m not sure how to warn for this since it isn’t technically mpreg in the traditional sense but please be aware that male pregnancy is involved, though the male is a female werewolf during the conception and birth (off-screen).

Author on LJ: n/a
Website: n/a

Review:
Erik happens upon a seemingly abandoned mansion in Westchester during a full moon and finds an insanely clueless werewolf living in isolation.

There’s been an absolute explosion of good fic popping up in this fandom lately, partly due to the number of really excellent prompts given out in its kink memes. Written for a ‘everyone-is-a-werewolf’ AU prompt, manic_intent has done a superb job of world-building without getting bogged down in, what could have been, a truly epic amount of werewolf-mythology and rhetoric – a feat in and of itself. Instead, the focus is firmly on Erik and Charles, and their inevitable love affair current situations – namely Charles’s cluelessness about werewolves and Erik’s (sidetracked) need for revenge.

I have to say that I really love both Charles and Erik’s characterization in this fic. This is to say, they’re both in character, but with the added bonus of being werewolves. A fact that is as much as a surprise to Charles, who thought he was completely alone, as it is a mild annoyance to Erik, who “doesn’t have time” to be teaching a clueless werewolf the ropes.

In the end, even though this is tagged as the first part of a larger series (a fact I didn’t realize when I first started reading it), it still reads as a terrific stand alone, one that is complete in and of itself, and can only be enhanced with any future installments.


Skin Deep