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She won’t stop talking about Erik Lehnsherr.
She’s at breakfast talking about Erik Lehnsherr. At the bureau talking about Erik Lehnsherr. At dinner time talking about Erik Lehnsherr.
She’s lying in bed next to Charles and it’s almost midnight and she’s still talking about Erik Lehnsherr. She’s talking about how they’re going to bring him down -- him and his mob. How Melvin Purvis and his boys up in Chicago are working on John Dillinger and his gang. She’s saying that if Lehnsherr, or any of them, and there are five others, slip up, just one time, then the Bureau of Investigation will be on them like a dog to a bone.
Charles is looking at the ceiling, thinking that the sooner they catch this guy and the sooner Moira shuts up about him, the better.
She turns on her side, and she says how they barely have any idea of what the guy even looks like.
The next day, when Charles decides he’s bored enough to play office lackey, he’s handing out sheets to agents and making coffee and fetching snack orders. He’s handing a coffee to Jonathan Stryker -- Stryker senior.
Stryker senior offers thanks to Charles before he turns to his son, William Stryker, Stryker junior, and says, “That Armando that Lehnsherr has with him is black. Can tell it just from the kid’s name. Witness accounts say the same, too,” he says, shaking his head and sipping his coffee. “Lincoln was a damned fool to get rid of that slavery business they had going.”
Charles does not like Jonathan Stryker. He does not like William Stryker.
He passes out some sheets to Moira, and in this building she’s Moira MacTaggart. Special Agent MacTaggart. She’s talking to John McCone, head of this department, Special Agent in Charge of the New York City Bureau, and she’s saying, “Got more witness details on both Makarov and Howlett,” and McCone is nodding, gesturing for her to go on, and she says, “Makarov is almost definitely Russian -- according to all eight accounts he has a Russian accent. There is the slim possibility he may be from the Ukraine. Howlett, however, is said to have a Canadian accent.”
There are letters on the frosted glass of the office room’s door, backwards from where Charles is standing, looking at them. All capitals, the letters shout, DETECTIVE BUREAU, LEHNSHERR DIVISION. They’re sad-looking and they’re peeling, and they’ve been there for months now.
Moira comes over to him, sat at an empty desk and looking at the corkboard nailed up into the wall.
“That’s all the information we have on Lehnsherr’s mob and their movements,” she says. Charles nods. Moira’s analysing the papers tacked into the cork, names and numbers and pencil drawings of men who don’t resemble men at all, and she says, “We’ve had some details given to us that will hopefully lead us to them tomorrow.”
She says that Lehnsherr is supposed to be hitting some bank in Queens, one that Charles doesn’t recognise the name of, but why should he.
She says that what they’ve been given is pretty solid, wormed out of some lowlife apparently linked to the mob. Friend of one of the three youngest members. All early twenties, she tells Charles. She tuts, one hand on Charles’ shoulder, and she says how it’s such a shame that boys feel the need to be whisked into the scum of men like Lehnsherr.
When they get home, a big old brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, Moira asks Charles to prepare dinner whilst she draws a bath.
They’d taken to the whole Christian thing. No sexual intercourse before marriage. No sexual activities at all before marriage.
She hadn’t wanted to. Charles wasn’t even Christian.
He’s stirring soup and he’s never touched a woman before in his life and he never wants to. He kisses Moira and it’s not right, not after seven years of the same lie. Her mouth is soft and she’s pretty and she’s smart and she’s any man’s equal, but that doesn’t mean Charles wants to marry her.
“We’ll have to push back the wedding until this whole Lehnsherr fiasco is dealt with,” she says, and her whole life revolves around work, these days. Sometimes Charles is glad for it. She sighs.
She’s fiddling with the engagement ring that he bought for her, and his stomach is uneasy.
He says, “That’s okay,” and then he says, “I can wait for you,” because she’s got these big brown eyes that are smiling at him, and he can’t bear to hurt those eyes.
He’s a fraud. He’s a million dollar fraud, but he’s a fraud all the same.
When she leaves early the next morning, six thirty am, off on a mission to take down a notorious bank robbing gang, she kisses his forehead and leaves him in bed.
She’s a sweet woman. He wonders why she chose him. Back in university, when he’d been studying genetics and psychology, a double, because he was smart enough and wealthy enough, she’d been studying psychology and criminology, because she was smart enough and wealthy enough.
Their parents had been thrilled. Her mother and father did not hide how pleased they were that their daughter was marrying into the Xavier family.
The Xavier family worth an estimated ten million dollars.
He’s twenty eight years old and he’s living the life of a thirteen year old boy. He’s frustrated and he misses prohibition. It was easier to go into pansy clubs in the twenties because no one gave a damn who you fucked, just as long as you were looking for a drink.
He’s thirteen years old again and trying to convince his erection to go away because it’s barely seven am and he’s tired.
But it’s not like he has work or things to do because he’s financially secure. He could spend the whole time Moira was out masturbating.
If he was lucky, she’d be out until late. He could go across to Manhattan.
She isn’t out until late.
She storms in at six pm and Charles is reading the newspaper, something boring about baseball, and she is livid.
She’s throwing her coat onto the floor and she’s saying, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing in Queens and then we get the message that they tore ten thousand dollars out of some place in Brooklyn. Unbelievable.”
Charles walks over to her and offers her a hug, but she bats him away and walks towards the stairs. She’s angry and this isn’t the first time that this has happened. It isn’t the second, either.
When she tells him about it that night she’s tired and she’s got bags under her eyes, but she’s still telling Charles how the team hid out near that bank for almost ten hours. Almost ten hours before someone came running and told them that it was no good, that Lehnsherr had hit up some bank on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Got ten grand.
“Just wait until William gets his hands on that little rat of an informant,” she says, curling into Charles’ side.
They say goodnight soon after, and Charles is unsettled. He can’t sleep for what Moira said and for the thoughts of what Special Agent William Stryker will do to a man who lied to protect friends. Allies. He’s heard Stryker junior at work before. The interrogation room so close to the office that they could hear shouting and screaming, and now Charles can’t sleep.
He’s so sick of hearing of BoI work and he’s so sick of taking calls from Chicago to hand over to McCone or whoever’s closest. Sick of calls from Melvin Purvis; sick of Moira’s unabashed hero worship for the man. Shot and killed Pretty Boy Floyd, that one had.
He’s so sick of it all, all the talk of public enemy numbers one and two, and he tells Moira that he’s going out tonight with his half sister.
Moira kisses his cheek before he leaves, all dressed up in a grey three piece suit and white shirt, black tie loose at his collar.
“Have fun, sweetheart,” she says, kisses his mouth. “Don’t stay out too late, I know how you and Raven can get in those jazz clubs.”
Charles smiles and squeezes her hand. He isn’t going to any jazz clubs, and Raven is at home with her husband.
He hails a taxi which takes him through Brooklyn and over the bridge into Lower Manhattan. The cabbie takes him two streets away from the Back Yard Club and Charles tells him to stop and pull over, that this is exactly where he wants to be.
The fee isn’t pretty, but Charles has no room to talk.
He hasn’t been to the Back Yard Club in over two weeks, and the doorman, a Manhattan native named Gregory, welcomes Charles back with a smile; calls him Charlie-boy.
It’s more of a ballroom than a club; reminds Charles of the Dreamland that he and Moira had visited in Chicago years ago.
It’s a wide open space with a stage at the north end, not too big but not too small. Some days there are drag artists, men dressed as women with make-up and feathers in their hair, but today there’s a blues band playing.
Charles makes his way over to the bar on the west, slides himself nice and easy and familiar onto a stool, feet stationing on the rest. He asks the bartender for three fingers of eighteen year old Glenfiddich Scotch. One thing he does not miss of prohibition.
“Always the best choice, Charlie,” the bartender says, handing over the small glass. He’s called Frank and he’s half-Italian. Charles thanks him; nods and passes him his money.
He’s sat with one elbow resting on the bar, turned sideways to half watch the band and half eye up the men sat and stood around the tables on the east side of the room. The lights are low but he can still make out the figures and faces. He orders another three fingers.
He’s spent most of his time drinking. He’s hazy but he’s not drunk.
Usually he’d pick out the first man who’d give him a passing glance. Usually he’d be taken to one of the back rooms in the first half hour and he’d be back to Moira at a respectable time. But tonight Charles is spending far too much time looking at his damned engagement ring and thinking about the woman to do much else but knock back Scotch that scratches a pleasant taste down his throat.
He sets his fourth glass on the wooden bar top, and he’s been drinking whisky far too long for it to be taking too hard of an affect.
He’s been there over an hour before he notices the man eyeing him across the room. Charles watches the man look away, talking to some drag act in a bad blonde hair piece, tacky fishnet tights clinging to the muscles of their calves. He’s with some other man, too, stood to his right. Charles looks him up and down; tall and big and burly. His face is bracketed with bushy sideburns.
But Charles prefers the man shooting him glances every now and then. His eyes will slide back to the drag queen and he’ll laugh or nod at something they’re saying.
The weight of Moira is hanging heavy on Charles and he turns back to fully face the bar.
He asks for three more fingers, and Frank gives him a stern look.
Charles hands over dollar bills and says, “Just give me the damn drink, Frankie.”
He’s rubbing the ring on his finger when a voice says, “Does your wife know how good you look in that suit?”
He glances to his side; sees the man who’d been talking to the drag act. He’s long and he’s lean and he has the accent of a European. Charles huffs a sarcastic laugh and he says, “Fiancée, actually. And yes. She saw me off tonight.”
The man tilts his head. He’s got his elbows on the bar and he’s leaning back against it. He hums.
“So she doesn’t know how good you look at this bar,” he says.
His jaw is strong and set with a day or two’s worth of stubble and his hair is caramel brown. Charles is interested, and he says, “No. She doesn’t.”
The man turns to lean on one arm, so if Charles looks his way he’ll be met straight on.
He says, “You here for a good time, sweetheart?”
Charles finishes his glass. He checks his watch and it’s almost quarter to ten. Moira likes him home before half past ten, so Charles nods, says, “Yes,” and raises his eyes up and to the side to meet those of the man, and he asks, “Are you?”
He’s met with a smirk. The man’s mouth is wide and shines with shark teeth.
“Very much so,” he says. He grabs Charles’ forearm, and Charles steps down from his stool. “Got a name, British boy?”
Charles doesn’t appreciate the endearment, and he’s being led towards the back rooms, he says, “Yes. Charles,” and the man is handing an employee a wad of notes, and Charles raises an eyebrow. He asks, “Do you?”
“Hm,” the man says, dropping Charles’ arm when they’re in the room. It’s all red and it’s tacky as hell and Charles hates these rooms. The man makes his way over to the bed, a double with cheap red sheets, and he says, “Yeah. You can call me Max.”
He sits down with his back against the headboard, patting the space he makes between his thighs. Charles walks over to the side of the bed, asks, “That your real name, Max?”
Max’s mouth purses in a tight smile, pats his hand harsher against the sheets, “Yes and no,” he says. Charles scowls. “Here.”
Neither of them want to get their suits dirty. Charles is in Max’s lap, hands on the man’s face and in his hair and he’s rubbing their crotches together, panting into Max’s open mouth, he’s saying, “Can’t get anything on my clothes,” he says, “Fiancée -- she’ll see.”
He shrugs out of his jacket, hands at the button of his trousers, and Max moves his mouth to Charles’ ear, hot and heavy, he says, “Guess we’ll both have to swallow then, won’t we?”
Charles lets himself be pushed and manhandled; lets himself be pawed at until he’s on his back with his head at the wrong end of the mattress, Max between his open legs saying, “Gonna give you the best you ever had,” pulling Charles’ trousers and boxers down to his knees.
He shucks Charles’ shirt and open waistcoat up his stomach, and Charles isn’t in the mood to be kept waiting, has to get home and pretend this never happened, says, “Get on with it if you’re going to do it.”
Max looks up with a toothless smirk, keeps his eyes on Charles’ when his mouth slides down over the head of Charles’ cock, hands on Charles’ hips to pin him down because all Charles can think about is thrusting up further into the heat.
“Jesus,” he says, Max’s tongue lapping into the slit of his cock, and he’s got one hand curled into the red sheets and the other in Max’s hair, slick with Brylcreem.
Max moves to pull off, but Charles shoves his head back down, has no spare time for games, has still got to return the favour and get the cab home, and he moans, Max’s mouth slipping further down his cock.
He keeps one hand in Max’s hair, tugs at it when he’s learnt that it makes the man groan, head bobbing up and down and Charles’ toes curl when he feels the tip of his dick at the back of Max’s throat.
“’M close,” he says, legs drawing up around Max’s crouched body.
Max slides his hands from Charles’ hips and round to the tops of his thighs, fingers meeting at Charles’ buttocks and he pushes up, encourages Charles to thrust into his mouth.
Charles’ breath catches, eyes squeezed shut because Max’s mouth is so warm and wet and Charles pants out Max’s name, spare hand joining the other in Max’s hair.
He bites his lip and whines as he comes, side of his face pushed into the mattress as he keens and his hips stutter.
He’s being licked clean and put back inside his underwear and trousers, buttoned and zipped up and Max is hovering over him, lapping at Charles’ lips and Charles lets him in, lets him kiss him and he can taste his own semen on his tongue, lets Max bite and pull at his bottom lip, say, “Your turn, Charles.”
Charles reciprocates, makes Max sit back against the headboard and doesn’t waste time, tugs down the clothes in his way and gets his mouth on Max’s cock.
Max barely makes any noise. He grunts when Charles’ tongue slides around the head, licks and laps at the cock in front of him, long and cut and Charles moans, moves off far enough to say, “Easily the best cock I’ve seen here,” and then he’s trying his hardest to take as much as he can; uses a hand to curl around what he can’t.
“Good,” Max says, fingers tight and sharp in Charles’ hair, and Charles can’t complain.
He lets Max come down his throat, forces himself to swallow the bitter taste, and then he’s edging off the bed, letting Max kiss him one last time, filthy and it makes Charles want more, more of what he can’t have. He leaves Max in the red room, and the man says, “See you next time,” and Charles blows him a sarcastic kiss and orders another Scotch to wash away the taste of semen.
When he gets back home it’s ten thirty five, and that’s good enough.
Moira is in bed because she has to be at the bureau early and she’s been working too hard lately. Charles is torn between wanting Lehnsherr to never be caught and wanting them to catch him tomorrow. He’s torn between never wanting to marry her and wanting the best for her.
She’s peaceful when she’s sleeping, her hair across her slack face. He changes into cotton pyjamas and crawls under the covers. He smells of alcohol but it’s better than smelling of sex.
At the bureau, she isn’t so peaceful.
Charles’ head feels like it’s caving in on itself but she makes him come with her to work, says that she wants to brief him on all they’ve got on Lehnsherr and his mob so far, and Charles really couldn’t care less but she’s so excited about it that he can’t say no.
He’s sat at one of the desks, the one at the end row by the window, and Moira is stood next to him, pointing at different bits of paper and explaining what everything is to him.
“This is the basic info that we have on Lehnsherr and the other five,” she says, pushing sheets towards him. “See, Lehnsherr was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1901 under a different name. He changed his name to Erik Lehnsherr when he came to the United States in 1930. If we can trust the informants, that is.”
She says, “It seems that only the three young members are US nationals. Lehnsherr is German, Howlett Canadian and Makarov Russian.”
Charles is nodding, and she’s smiling, so he humours her, asks, “You getting any closer?”
Which was apparently a bad thing to ask, because her smile drops and Charles drinks down the rest of his cold coffee before she can start ranting and raving, complaining about how the public of New York City seem to see Lehnsherr and his boys as some sort of Robin Hood characters. She says, “Thing is, when he robs those banks, he and his gang also seem to be quite good at also ripping up things such as mortgage papers.”
She says, “The public love these criminals so much that they’re willing to harbour them in their homes. They’re willing to protect them, and it’s just making our jobs a lot harder than they need to be.”
She sighs, and Charles pats her hand.
He tries to comfort her, says, “It’ll all work out. They’ll get justice. Just like that Pretty Boy Floyd. You’re doing good work, love.”
Pretty Boy Floyd’s name brings up Melvin Purvis’ name, and John Dillinger’s name, and Moira says, “You know, the only reason the BoI can go after Lehnsherr is because he drove a stolen car over state lines in April. It’s the same thing that Dillinger did in February that allowed Melvin to pursue him further.”
Melvin Melvin Melvin. Charles is hoping that maybe she and Melvin Purvis can meet up one day and ride off together into the sunset.
She tells Charles about how Lehnsherr’s gang first started off in Philadelphia. How they made their way up and through Trenton and into New Jersey.
Charles doesn’t care, and he spends the whole week watching the BoI chase after their own tails.
Moira comes home on a Thursday evening, and she says, “He robbed a casino in the Bronx today.”
Her voice is flat and she hangs her coat up, and Charles moves to make her a cup of tea.
She says, “Seventeen grand. He’s getting greedy, moving onto casinos as well as banks.”
Charles hands her a mug of Earl Grey and kisses her cheek, and she kisses his mouth, tries to get some response out of him but he can’t do it. He pecks her lips, once, and says, “He’ll slip up. You know he will. They always make a mistake when they get greedy.”
He settles down on the sofa and she fits herself into his side. She tells him how tired she is and how much she just wants for it to be over. She wants the gang to be caught so that everything will quieten down and so that they can get married -- take a honeymoon somewhere nice and hot like Cuba or Costa Rica. Then they can go vacation in England and Charles can see the places where he used to live.
“I’ve told you,” Charles says. “I don’t mind waiting.”
Back at the Back Yard Club the night after, Charles is drinking Scotch after Scotch to forget Moira’s voice -- Moira’s voice saying, “They’ll execute him, Charles. They’ll put Lehnsherr up against the wall and the Lord knows we all want to see it happen.”
He’s drinking to forget William and Jonathan Stryker laughing and saying how they’re going to worm something out of the scum they’ve got in for questioning and Charles is drinking to forget that Moira ever joined the Bureau of Investigation.
He’s at the bar watching some drag act and big band do some Duke Ellington track when someone takes the seat by his right side, slides it up real close and says, “Well, if it isn’t British boy.”
Charles is drunk from nine glasses of Glenfiddich, and he pats his hand over Max’s on the edge of the bar and says, “Well, if it isn’t -- somewhere in Europe boy.”
He moves his hand off to wipe the back of his mouth and push his hair back over and off his forehead.
Max laughs. He says, “You know, I like you. Better than the other filth in this place.”
Charles hums. He’s too drunk for anything apart from more drinking, and he’s saying to Max, “That’s very kind of you to say. Thank you.”
He presses the palm of his hand to Max’s cheek, and Max grabs his wrist, looks at him with hard eyes and a hard jaw and he says, “How about I buy you dinner? Did you know they do dinner here? Come on,” he says, pulling Charles down from his stool. Charles stumbles, legs wobbly from Scotch and Max holds him up, says, “I’ll get us a table at the back. Nice and quiet so that we can talk.”
Charles just hums again, pressed up close as Max pulls him across the ballroom. He watches from sidelines when Max whispers something in a man’s ear, makes the man’s eyes go wide and he scurries away, up and out from his chair that Max then turns and offers to Charles.
“You know him?” Charles asks. He lets Max push his chair in.
“No,” Max says. He sits down across from Charles, says, “You’re British. You’ll want steak and chips, no?”
Charles narrows his eyes, but Max quirks his mouth in a smirk.
Half way through a sirloin steak, Charles is saying, “Oh, god,” swallowing back half a glass of Pinot Gris, saying, “My parents are visiting tomorrow.”
Wine dribbles down his chin, and his mother is an ugly woman, and his stepfather is an uglier man.
“You don’t like them,” Max says, cutting up fillet steak. He chews it and watches Charles play with his glass, circling the wine left in the bottom.
Charles shakes his head. He’s talking with his mouth full of ten ounce well done steak, and he’s telling Max that his mother is a foul woman and that his stepfather is a money grabbing bastard. Max is grinning at him the whole time and Charles is drunk and elated and he’s babbling about running away as a teenager and getting lost in New York City, and he’s saying, “I don’t like my parents.”
The end of the night, when it’s eleven pm and Charles should have been home thirty minutes ago, he’s up against the bricks of the outside of the club and down a back alley, and Max’s mouth is on his.
“I need to get in my cab,” Charles says, Max pulling at his bottom lip with his teeth.
Max cages him against the wall, says, “I need to see you again.”
“I’ll be here next week,” Charles says, hands on either side of Max’s wide jaw, says, “Need to see you again, too.”
Max huffs, pushes his face into Charles’ neck, says, “I suppose if we’re going to make a habit of this you should know my real name.”
Charles is still tipsy, hands on Max’s shoulders, he says, “Yes, that’d be -- that’d be nice,” and Max is pressing kisses to his neck, and the cabbie honks his horn from the end of the street. Charles says, “’M Charles Xavier. X--Xavier.”
His name gets repeated against the lobe of his ear and Max pulls back to look at his face, hands cupping his cheeks, says, “My name’s Erik Lehnsherr.”
Charles blinks. He says, “What?”
Max smiles and goes in to kiss Charles again, but Charles shoves at his chest. His head is spinning and he’s too loud when he says, “What?”
Max, or Erik Lehnsherr, or whoever, says, “You’ve heard of me, then?”
The horn goes again and Charles looks to the end of the alley, and he says, “Don’t. Don’t -- you’re not Erik Lehnsherr,” he laughs, a hiccup in the back of his throat, he says, “Stop it.”
He gets pushed further into the wall, body pressed into his and he’s wide-eyed and he shouldn’t mix Scotch with wine and steak, and Max says, “I was born in Dusseldorf, 1901,” and all Charles sees is Moira at the bureau, and he breaks away from Max -- Erik Lehnsherr, and the man’s saying, “Name used to be Max Eisenhardt, and my father died serving Germany in World War One,” almost yelling after Charles because he’s backing away and towards the taxi, “Started robbing banks in Philadelphia, British boy. You better believe it.”
When Charles gets home he strips out of all his clothes and throws up into the toilet bowl.
Moira is sound asleep and Charles’ skull feels too small for the pounding of his brain and he pukes up five dollar steak, hands pushing his hair away from his sweaty skin.
He barely sleeps the whole night and it’s too warm for an August in New York.
He wakes up sticky and Moira’s already left for work, but she’ll be back by one pm because it’s a Saturday and because Charles’ parents are visiting.
He showers and gets dressed in one of his best shirts and he shines his damn shoes and then his stepfather is asking, “Gosh, Charles, when are you finally going to make a wife out of this wonderful young lady?”, sipping Darjeeling tea out of a porcelain china cup.
Charles wants to throw his tea in his stepfather’s face. Kurt Marko’s face. Instead, he says, “Well, any day now. We are engaged, after all,” and then, because he can, he asks, “How’s Cain and his wife?”
His mother shoots him a look and Moira gets up to bring through more cakes, little Victoria sponge fingers.
Marko sits back in his chair, gets himself comfy, says, “Cain and his wife are well,” and that’s apparently all Charles is going to get on the subject of stepbrother Cain Marko and his wife Elizabeth. He doesn’t particularly care.
Moira gets talking about her work with the BoI and Charles’ mother is terrified, asking, “Will they come after us and our mansion?”
Charles rolls his eyes and Moira pats his mother’s hand where they’re sat next to each other on the sofa. Moira says, “I doubt so, Sharon. Lehnsherr and his gang seem content with banks and casinos, for now. You and Kurt should be perfectly safe.”
Erik Lehnsherr.
Charles says, “Anyone for some wine?”
His mother frowns, it’s only three pm, but he gets up and heads for the cabinet, asks, “Kurt? Wine? Whisky? Port? Sherry? Brandy?”
He’s grabbing crystal glasses down from a shelf and Sharon Xavier is saying something to Moira about watching that boy, you don’t want an alcoholic for a husband, and then she’s asking Moira to tell her more about fugitives and outlaws and Charles pours himself a shot of single malt and downs it.
Kurt’s eyeing him carefully when he turns to lean back against the cabinet counter, but he says, “I’ll have some brandy, my boy.”
Charles pours him a glass of cognac and hands it to him, trying to block out Moira talking about Erik Lehnsherr and John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd and god damn Melvin Purvis and J. Edgar Hoover.
She’s saying, “We don’t have any photographs of Erik Lehnsherr yet. We do, however, have photographs of the three youngest members of his gang -- Alex Summers, Armando Munoz and Sean Cassidy. All we have on Lehnsherr and the other two are witness accounts.”
Charles has some more whisky.
“He’s said to be around six foot -- tall but not gangly. More lean, think like a runner or an athlete,” Moira says when Charles’ mother asks to describe Erik Lehnsherr, just in case she sees anyone acting funny around the mansion about forty god damn miles from the city.
Charles is too warm and he takes off his jacket and unbuttons his waistcoat, a steel grey thing with a black back panel and silk lining; a gift from his mother last Christmas. He pours a wine glass full of whisky and watches it swirl as Moira keeps talking.
“He has light brown auburn-y hair that he keeps quite long-- longer on top and shorter at the back. He usually has it pushed back, and also sideburns. Most reports have told that he is clean shaven, although some have said that he had a few days worth of stubble on some occasions.”
Charles thinks he’s going to be sick again so he swallows down half of his glass and pinches the bridge of his nose.
Kurt is looking at him and Charles offers a weak smile.
Bastard.
Moira says, “No tattoos or obvious scars. He is said to be handsome, though,” she says, laughs, pats Charles’ mother’s knee. She looks high strung and her laugh sounds forced, so she stops, says, “He’s said to have blue-grey eyes with high cheekbones and a long curved nose. A strong square jaw and quite thin lips, as well.”
He’s going to hell.
He’s a homosexual and he has had sexual relations with Public Enemy Number Two. He excuses himself to use the bathroom, and Moira gives him a soft smile before turning back to his mother.
He’s sweaty and clammy and he has to sit down on the lid of the toilet seat and shove his head between his knees to stop from hyperventilating. He’s barely even down from last night’s alcohol and he’s barely eaten anything all day and his head hurts.
His mother and Kurt are telling Moira stories from his childhood when he comes back. After he’s splashed his face with cold tap water and stared at himself in the mirror, Kurt is only half way through his tiny crystal glass of brandy, and he’s saying, “Never did get on with my Cain, your Charlie didn’t.”
Charles bites his tongue and sits in the spare armchair.
Kurt is saying how when he and Charles’ mother first got married and he and his son moved in with them, Charles was ten years old and Cain Marko was sixteen years old. Charles wants to get another drink and Cain Marko was a bully. Cain Marko is a bully. Like father like son.
Sharon Xavier laughs, says, “Oh, Charles, remember when you locked yourself in your rooms and wouldn’t come out for days?”
“Yes,” Charles says. “As I remember it Cain had decided it would be good fun to see how close he could come to suffocating me. Jolly good fun,” he says, crossing one leg over the other.
“Oh, come off it, boy,” Kurt says. Charles glares at him and Moira’s looking at him with big eyes because she doesn’t know this bollocks, and Kurt says, “The only reason Cain did that was because you decided to run off to the city and get yourself lost.”
Charles had been fifteen and gangly and thin and Cain had been twenty one and it’s not like Charles had any chance in the world to do anything but stand there and get the lights beat out of him.
By the time his mother and stepfather leave Charles is ready to either shoot himself or drown in English whisky.
And then Lehnsherr and his gang go quiet for over a week, and the Bureau of Investigation don’t know whether to cheer or to cry.
McCone’s banging his fist on his desk at the front of the room and he’s saying, shouting, “God damn it. If we don’t catch these son of a bitches before someone ends up dead we’ll be a laughing stock.”
Charles is sat in the corner drinking coffee to keep himself alert so as not to scream whenever someone says the name Lehnsherr, and McCone says, “Next week every single one of you field agents is to be issued with their own Thompson submachine gun, 351 Winchester semi-automatic rifle, and six round hand pistol. No more games. I want each and every one of you to be searching for informants. Find out who’s harbouring Lehnsherr. Find out who his friends are. I want information and Lord knows I will do everything in my power to get it.”
The day after McCone’s rant everyone gets their guns. Moira is tired from the firing range all day and Charles tells her he’s going out to a jazz club for a drink with Hank, Raven’s husband. He tells her he might be back later than usual and not to wait up for him.
Truth is that Charles is going to the Back Yard Club to suck off some stranger and drink until he forgets about it.
The cab takes him to the usual spot and he can see Gregory let in two other men, one of which Charles wouldn’t mind sucking, and he’s three buildings away before he’s being grabbed by the arm, a hand over his mouth and he’s being shoved and dragged into an alleyway.
He tries to scream out but he can’t and he’s pushed up against brickwork, has a forearm up against his throat and someone’s saying, “I’ve been waiting for you for eleven fucking days,” and Charles’ eyes widen and he’s met with Erik Lehnsherr, saying, “Do you know how much money I could’ve taken in that time, British boy? Do you?”
Charles grabs at Erik’s wrist and pulls the hand away from his mouth, tries to force the man away from him but Erik stays where he is, looking at Charles down his nose, and Charles glares, says, “Get off me.”
Erik smirks at him, and Charles tries moving again, but Erik steps closer, has his body flush against Charles’ and he’s saying, “You ran off.”
“No shit I ran off,” Charles says, hands curled in Erik’s trench coat, ready to push at him and run, says, “You’re a damn bank robber-- Jesus Christ, bad enough to be a pansy, let alone a fugitive sucking pansy.”
Erik’s eyes narrow, like he’s scrutinising Charles, and Charles is tempted to spit right in his face. But Erik laughs, short and sarcastic and he’s shaking his head; moves his arm from Charles’ neck to cup Charles’ face in his hands, and Charles jerks his chin up and away, but it’s no use.
Erik says, “You can’t run off,” and Charles scowls at him, he says, “If you’re going to be my boy, you can’t be running off like that again, you hear me?”
Charles huffs and raises an eyebrow, incredulous, says, “Who said I want to be your boy? Who the hell do you think you are?”
He’s about to start shouting at Erik Lehnsherr to get the hell away from him, to leave him alone and to go find someone else, but then Erik’s kissing him, trying to kiss him, holding his jaw in place and pressing his lips against Charles’ and Charles is stock still.
“Oh, I think you know fine well who I am,” Erik says, eyes flicking up to meet Charles’. He slides one hand into Charles’ hair and licks the seam of Charles’ lips, has him boneless against a wall in his best damn coat, says, “And I think that you love it. Love the thrill of it, don’t you, Charles?”
“No,” Charles says, a mumble, trying to shake his head. Erik grins at him, too close up but Charles can see it spread up his cheeks, can see it crease his eyes.
“Yes,” Erik says, kissing the corner of Charles’ mouth, then the other, says, “I know who you are, Charles Xavier,” and Charles looks up from where he’s trying to see Erik’s lips, “Cooked up in that big old house. You ever get to rebel, Charles? Ever get to tell your parents to sit on it? Hm?”
He’s rubbing his nose up the side of Charles’, and Charles breathes, says, “No,” and he’s wondering what his mother and Kurt Marko would do if they knew he was stone cold homosexual; he’s wondering what sort of gun Erik could use to kill him if he tried to get away. He breathes, says, “No.”
“I didn’t think so,” Erik says. His feet are shuffling to get closer and he’s got Charles’ head in his hands, thumbs at Charles’ cheekbones and he’s saying, “Who are you, British boy? Huh? Are you your mama’s or are you mine?”
Charles frowns, his eyes harsh, says, “Neither.”
Erik laughs, presses his forehead against Charles’ so Charles has nowhere to go and he’s scared and his dick is hard against Erik’s thigh, and Erik says, “Oh, that’s right. You’re your fiancée’s, aren’t you? Yeah? She blow you as good as I do? She suck you whilst you picture she’s a man, Charles? Does she?”
“No,” Charles says, spits. His hands are trying to move Erik away from him, but he isn’t going anywhere, and Charles doesn’t know whether he likes that or not.
His head’s aching where it’s being held against the wall, and then Erik’s saying, “You say the words and I’ll show you real living. Would you like that? I’ll show you what living is all about. What it’s like to be who you are and get what you want, Charles Xavier,” he says, teeth biting at Charles’ lips, and Charles’ chest aches from barely breathing, Erik says, “Just tell me you’re mine, liebling. I won’t run off from you.”
Charles closes his eyes and tries to breathe. Erik is heavy against him and it feels as if each breath Charles takes is from Erik’s mouth.
He’s wondering what Moira would do if she found out.
He’s wondering what Erik could show him.
He’s wondering how the Bureau of Investigation will find him and torture him to get information out of him.
He’s biting the inside of his cheek and then he’s pushing up on his toes and pressing his mouth to Erik’s, warm and open and desperate and he can feel the pull of Erik’s lips from where he’s grinning, hands curling in Charles’ hair to move his head to a better angle.
Charles’ hands are still at the lapels of Erik’s coat and he pulls rather than pushes; gets his fingers wrapped in the material and clings on, and Erik says, “Let me take you to a place I know.”
Charles pants, shakes his head, “I can’t -- I have to get home to my fiancée,” and he’s fully aware of how pathetic he sounds, and Erik raises an eyebrow, and Charles says, “We can use the club’s back rooms.”
“Oh, come on,” Erik says, hands sliding down Charles’ neck, “Just a ten minute ride away. You deserve better than those awful rooms.”
Moira’s not expecting him home until late, later than usual, and one of Erik’s hands moves to cup against Charles’ cock, curling and pressing and Charles whines, nods, “Okay, okay.”
He ends up spread out on a hotel bed; queen sized with colourful pillows and a thick duvet that’s been tossed to the floor.
Erik’s on top of him, two tan leather gun holsters on the vanity table. He’s in-between Charles’ legs and Charles is buck naked, Erik still in his undershirt and his boxers as he works his way down Charles’ chest.
“Erik,” Charles says, gasping and pulling on Erik’s hair when he gets his teeth around a nipple. He’s kissing it and sucking it and Charles has his head thrown back against a mountain of silky cushions.
“Anyone ever have you like this before?” Erik asks, his voice a mumble from where he moves to Charles’ belly; nudges his nose into the softer skin he finds.
Charles cants his hips up and huffs when he doesn’t meet any friction against his cock, says, “No.”
He whimpers when Erik’s teeth nip where his navel ends, meets Erik’s smirking eyes when he sits back on his calves to pull his undershirt up and off. The lines of his torso are long and Charles has his fingers brushing the muscles he finds at Erik’s chest and stomach, thumbs at the softer parts at Erik’s ribs and Erik is watching him with lidded eyes.
Lips parted, Erik says, “Want to fuck you.”
Charles blinks up at him, hair falling over his face from where it should be pushed back, and half of him wants to know what the time is so he can get back home before it’s too late and the other half wants to stay in this hotel until Erik Lehnsherr has done everything he wants with his body.
“Will you let me?” Erik asks, one finger trailing up the underside of Charles’ cock, “Let me be the first person to fuck you?”
He’s not thinking straight because Erik’s fingers are curling into a fist around his cock, sliding slow and loose and Charles pants, says, “Yes. Yes. Please.”
Erik grins; kisses Charles and Charles lifts his head to chase it when Erik pulls back again; leans up on his elbows when Erik slouches off the bed and picks up his coat.
He’s got a tin of Vaseline in one of his hands and he’s stepping out of his boxer shorts, letting Charles see the pull of his muscles and the curve of his arse as he works his cock with his spare hand.
“Get on your hands and knees,” he says, stood at the side of the bed. Charles frowns, and Erik says, “Come on. It’ll be better like this.”
Charles has no experience so he can’t say otherwise. He follows what Erik says; repositions himself on the bed and watches Erik climb behind him over his shoulder.
His mind is racing. He’s thinking about being fucked by a man; being sodomised by Public Enemy Number Two, and he lets his head hang down and concentrates on breathing, knows that Erik won’t hurt him because he wants him.
He hears the small creak of the tin opening, and Erik says, “This is going to feel odd,” and Charles doesn’t have time to ask what before Erik’s shoving a finger into him, blunt and slick with Vaseline and Charles chokes on nothing; groans when the finger crooks and drags.
Erik’s got a hand on one of Charles’ arsecheeks, is spreading him apart and is asking, “You like that? You want more?”
Charles nods his head; drops down to rest on his elbows and push his face into his forearms when Erik pushes another finger in. He’s rubbing Charles’ arse and shushing him, and Charles is biting his lip so hard he thinks it might split.
“Relax, liebling,” Erik says, and Charles doesn’t know what that means.
Erik’s fingers stay still inside of him, pushed in as far as they’ll go and Charles takes a shaky breath.
It stings but it’s fading, and he says, “Okay.”
He doesn’t know what he’s saying okay to, and Erik moves his fingers, curves them and scissors them and Charles pants, feels full up but wants more; wants Erik’s hand wrapped around his cock whilst he fucks him.
“It’s gonna feel so good,” Erik says, his voice low, heel of his palm against Charles’ skin as he pushes his fingers all the way in just to drag them back out again, “Going to have you begging to be mine, Charles Xavier.”
Charles whines when Erik takes his fingers away, his hair sweaty and clinging to his skin.
He’ll have to shower before he goes home. He’ll have to wash everything away and crawl back into bed with Moira after he’s been sodomised by the man she wants dead.
There’s no warning when Erik pushes the head of his cock into Charles.
Charles cries out and his hands grab at the sheets. It feels like he’s burning and Erik’s too big; so much thicker than his fingers and Charles can feel the tears prickling at his eyes.
“Shh,” Erik says, hands gripping Charles just below his ribcage, thumbs rubbing at his skin.
He wants to say stop, that he can’t do it because it hurts, but Erik groans, a low rumble when he pushes in so that the head of his cock is sheathed inside of Charles’ arse.
He’s shaking his head, and Erik says, “Relax, damn it.”
Charles huffs; tries to let himself get used to the size and the stretch of Erik’s dick inside of him. It’s a stinging that Charles doesn’t recognise; doesn’t know whether it’s supposed to be there or not.
When Erik starts moving, Charles moans.
“That’s it,” Erik says. It feels good but it burns -- still has Charles’ eye itching with salt, but his cock is definitely interested. Erik says, “So tight, Charles. Jesus-- you’re so tight.”
Charles takes it that that’s a good thing when Erik starts moving his hips faster, thrusting his cock into him quick and harsh.
It has Charles panting, reaching down to tug himself off with Erik’s movements.
He almost chokes when he feels Erik’s cock press against something; moans out loud, too loud, and he turns his face into the crook of his elbow.
Erik laughs, brackets Charles’ shoulders with his arms and presses his mouth to the back of Charles’ neck, says, “You like it, don’t you? My cock inside you?”
Charles nods, tries to move his hips so that he can push forwards into his fist and push backwards onto Erik’s cock.
Erik wraps a hand in Charles’ hair, pulls his head back so he can mouth at Charles’ throat, right beneath his jaw. He says, “Say it. Tell me.”
“I like your cock inside me,” Charles says.
His voice is hoarse and quiet and he’s letting out these noises he’s never made before, little ah sounds when Erik thrusts into him, and Erik pulls his head around to try and kiss him, sloppy and harsh; Erik biting at the side of his cheek.
He can feel his orgasm building; the tight feeling at the bottom of his stomach. Erik’s groaning beside his ear, his torso slick with sweat and pressing against Charles’ back.
He comes with a groan when Erik’s cock nudges that spot inside of him; pushes him over the edge and Charles bites his hand to stop himself making too much noise, come spilling over his fist. He feels boneless and his eyes are squeezed shut; his legs wanting to fold under him.
“Gott,” Erik says, and Charles makes a whimpering sound when he thrusts harder, moves away from Charles’ back and holds Charles up by his hips. “Are you mine, Charles?” he asks, and Charles is still coming down from his orgasm, and his toes are curling, and Erik is rough, repeats himself, “Are you mine?”
“Yes,” Charles says; lets Erik use his body to bring himself off. “Jesus, I’m yours,” he says, because he is, now. He’s property of Erik Lehnsherr.
By the time Erik lets him use the shower, it’s eleven pm.
He’d been pressed up against Charles’ back after he’d come, and Charles could feel it, could feel Erik’s cock pulse inside of him. He’d had his arm wrapped around Charles’ waist, spooning him, his cock still inside. It was uncomfortable but Erik was talking to him, telling him all the things they could do together.
Charles didn’t know anything about him, so Erik had said, “What? You want a brief history?”
Charles hadn’t said anything, and Erik had sighed, said, “I was born and raised in Dusseldorf. My name was Max. My father died fighting in World War One when I was sixteen. I was arrested for holding up a convenience store and stealing twenty marks worth of food when I was eighteen. I served five years. For six years after that I was a brick layer. In 1930 I robbed a bank in Dusseldorf with a gang of eight others and used the money to move my family to America after the rise of the anti-Semitic Nazi party. It wasn’t safe for us there. My mother and my seventeen year old sister live in Boston.”
His voice is bored and flat and he tells Charles that he met up with Logan Howlett and Azazel Makarov a few months after he arrived in Philadelphia. Then they met with Alex Summers, Sean Cassidy and Armando Munoz. Been robbing ever since.
Charles washes the sweat from his hair and he can feel Erik’s come between his thighs.
Erik kisses him goodbye at the hotel room door, doesn’t want to let Charles go, but Charles has to. He doesn’t tell Erik who his fiancée is.
“Meet me Friday night,” Charles says. “I can meet you at the Back Yard Club then.”
Erik shakes his head, pecks Charles’ lips, “Can’t,” he says, “Not Friday. I can do Saturday.”
Charles doesn’t ask what he’s doing Friday. He can probably guess. Instead, he says, “Okay. I’ll meet you there for half eight, but I’ll have to be home for half eleven.”
Erik says that Charles should leave his fiancée and come be with him and the boys, and Charles thinks it’s a joke; hopes that it’s a joke, because he shakes his head and kisses Erik one last time before he leaves.
His arse is sore and he hopes that he isn’t limping when he gets home for quarter to midnight.
He doesn’t play office lackey the next day. He tells Moira he doesn’t feel too well, maybe he ate some bad snacks at a bar with Hank last night. She says that she’ll keep him up to date with anything new when she gets home, like he cares, and she tells him to read the New York Times today, that there’s a two page spread that might make him feel a little better.
It doesn’t.
Across two pages there’s a headline that’s screaming WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE.
Charles stares at it.
There are terrible little artist’s sketches of what Erik Lehnsherr and his gang are supposed to look like. The NYPD are now offering ten thousand dollars to anyone who hands them a member of the Lehnsherr gang, and one thousand dollars for any information that leads to their arrest.
Charles swallows down his tea and blinks, drags two fingers over the awful image of Erik. It doesn’t resemble him at all, save for the hair and the jaw. Charles is glad for it.
He’s at the bureau Friday afternoon when they get the call that Lehnsherr has hit a bank in Yonkers, breaking his almost two week silence.
McCone is on the phone, screaming at what is probably some terrified police officer, screaming, “Are you fucking joking? Tell me you’re joking. They got out with twenty five thousand and you idiots didn’t even get a shot at any of them? What the fuck are you playing at? No, save it. Goodbye.”
Moira’s face is stern where she’s stood beside Charles, arms folded across her stomach, she looks like she wants to hit something. The whole room looks like they want to hit something.
McCone says, “I want all of you on this case. Whatever the hell else any of you are doing, get rid of it. Every agent in this room is now after Lehnsherr and his gang, and I want results.”
He rants on about how important the Bureau of Investigation’s work is. He rants on about the results other bureaus across the country have seen, for example, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Charles wants to throw himself out the window at the mention of Melvin Purvis.
He calls, later on. Melvin Purvis. Charles answers the phone to a southern accent that’s saying, “It’s Agent Purvis. I need to speak with Agent McCone regarding techniques.”
Charles doesn’t even question it. He hands the phone over and picks at his nails, thinks about how he’s meeting up with Erik Lehnsherr tomorrow night in some pansy bar in Lower Manhattan.
That night Moira curls up to him. She has her head on his chest and her arm across his waist. He has to keep an arm around her to stay comfortable, and she says, “I want them dead, Charles. They’re filthy pigs. They’re greedy, filthy pigs and I want them dead.”
He doesn’t know what to say. He stares up at the ceiling and there’s a pull in his gut at the thought of Erik Lehnsherr up against a wall. Of Erik Lehnsherr in an electric chair.
He forces himself to say, “They’ll get what they deserve, love.”
She sighs, says, “We’ve been after them for months and we haven’t even come close. Sooner or later somebody’s going to get killed.”
Charles chews his lip.
She says, “We’ll get them,” her voice more confident than before, she’s nodding her head against his chest and she’s saying, “We’ll get them all.”
At the Back Yard Club, Erik has got them a table, and he says, “We can have dinner or we can have sex.”
Charles is thinking how he doesn’t know how much time he has with Erik Lehnsherr before he gets a bullet through his brain, so he grabs the glass of complimentary wine already at the table and downs it, says, “You can suck me off. Then you’ve had dinner and sex.”
Erik pulls a face, looks like he wasn’t expecting that for an answer, and Charles grabs his coat sleeve and pulls him towards the back rooms.
He’s got his back against the door and Erik’s down on his knees in front of him; got his trousers and his underwear down past his thighs and Erik’s holding the base of his cock, wiping it across the seam of his lips, and Charles rolls his hips, makes his cock slip against Erik’s cheek and he moans at the sight of it.
Erik makes a growling noise at the back of his throat, grabs Charles’ hips and pushes him against the door.
“You’ll take what I give you,” he says, twisting his hand up the length of Charles’ cock. Charles tips his head back and whines. “You’ll take what I give you and you’ll damn well like it,” Erik says, taking in the head of Charles’ cock and holding him in place.
Charles groans, shoulders slumping against the wooden door. Erik hollows his cheeks and takes in more of Charles’ cock with each bob of his head until he’s got his nose up against Charles’ pubic bone; keeps his head there and sucks, uses his tongue along the underside and Charles is breathless, swearing and blaspheming, he says, “Oh, god-- Erik,” his hands cupping Erik’s jaw.
Erik drags his lips back down and grabs Charles’ cock with a hand, pushes it into the side of his cheek until Charles can feel it against his palm, can see the outline of it; stares at it with a slack mouth.
He locks eyes with Erik as he licks his tongue into the slit, uses his spare hand to push at Charles’; to grab one of Charles’ wrists and place his hand onto his hair.
Charles comes with Erik’s fist pumping up and down his cock, his mouth open at the head of it, bottom lip at the glans and Charles comes in Erik’s mouth and across his face, moaning Erik’s name and tugging at his hair, panting at the image of Erik’s face marked with his come.
“When am I seeing you again?” Erik asks, both of them slumped together against the door. Erik’s dick hangs out of the opening of his boxers and trousers, soft and limp from where Erik had pushed Charles’ head down and fucked his mouth.
Charles leans into Erik’s shoulder, says, “I don’t know. I could see you during the day when my fiancée’s at work.”
Erik hums, “I’ll meet you Tuesday. There’s a restaurant a few blocks from here called the Hudson,” he says, a hand reaching up to play with Charles’ hair. “I’ll buy you a nice lunch, British boy. We can be two businessmen. Get to know each other a little better, yes?”
Charles nods his head, yes, because he’d like that.
Only on Monday, Erik and his gang rob another casino.
They get away with ten thousand dollars and a federal agent is killed. Agent Eubank, his name was.
Moira looks like she’s going to cry and a secretary, Lillian, is already in tears, but Charles thinks that that’s only because they were fucking. Charles is more troubled by the fact that this shoots Erik and his gang even higher up the priority list, and now J. Edgar Hoover is sticking his greasy nose in and demanding answers from his office in Washington D.C.
Agent Eubank is the first person to be killed in one of Erik’s robberies.
When Charles sees Erik stood outside the Hudson in his trench coat and sunglasses at the start of god damn November, he marches up to him and grabs him by a lapel, says, “Why’d you have to go and kill that agent? For god’s sake, Erik, why?”
Erik frowns at him, eyebrows tugging down beneath his circle lenses, says, “That wasn’t me.”
Charles glares at him and lets go of his coat. He says, “You’re an idiot. Do you even know how serious this is? Do you?”
Erik straightens out his clothes and pockets his sunglasses, turning towards the restaurant. He walks away and leaves Charles where he is. Charles wants to punch him in his stupid face and follows, hit by the overwhelming stink of cigar smoke and grilled meats as he walks into the place.
“Reservation for two for Hoover,” Erik’s saying to the maitre d’. Charles stares at him.
The maitre d’ nods, signals for them to follow him to a table in the back corner.
“I’m fully aware of the situation,” Erik says, folding his napkin onto his lap. “The agent wasn’t supposed to die. He got in the way. He shot at us first.”
“I don’t give a damn who shot at who first,” Charles says, his voice hushed. “You don’t kill a federal agent, Erik. You’re on the shit list now, genius.”
Erik scoffs, “Since when were you the boss of me?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “You see me going out there shooting anyone and everyone? No. I’m not a murderer, Charles.”
“You are now,” Charles mutters. When Erik goes to argue, Charles says, “No, don’t. Even if it wasn’t you who made the shot, it’s going to get pinned on you.”
A waiter comes over, asks if they’re ready to order, and Charles hasn’t even looked at the damn menu, says, “Yes. I’ll take a glass of your most expensive wine for now. My business associate here would like just a glass of water, thank you.”
Erik’s scowling at him when the waiter nods and walks away, says, “Fuck you. Why do you care so much anyway? What, was that G-man your lover or something?”
Charles rolls his eyes. He says, “Yes. That’s exactly it. It’s not as if I’d actually be worried that the Bureau of Investigation is going to have all of its beady eyes on you, you prick. It may not have occurred to you, but I’m not too happy with the idea of you dead.”
Erik’s expression softens, and Charles sighs.
“Look,” he says. “I’m no good with relationships. I’m a damn closet homosexual engaged to be married to some poor woman. I’d like for what we have to actually mean something, and it sure as hell won’t mean anything if you’re dead or in jail.”
They go quiet, and then Charles is given his wine and Erik is given his water.
Erik sets his elbows up on the table, leans close and says, “Who says I’m going to jail? Huh? Who says I’m going to die?”
“No one needs to,” Charles says. He looks at his wine. “We both know how this ends.”
“No,” Erik says, shaking his head. “No, we don’t both know how this ends. Those G-men are yet to come close to me and my boys. They’re not quick enough or smart enough. They’re chasing after smoke.”
Charles laughs, pathetic and choked back, and he says, “They got Pretty Boy Floyd, didn’t they? Thought he was pretty good, didn’t he? They got him. They shot him right in the back.”
“Pretty Boy Floyd was a god damn idiot,” Erik says, jaw clenched. “He was a trigger happy fucking lunatic, that’s why they got him. I’m not that stupid, Charles. I don’t go round killing people for fun. We take our money and we leave. Haven’t you heard?” he asks, smirking, “The public loves me. They hide me out in their houses and according to the New York Times, the Bureau of Investigation are furious about it.”
He’s right. They are.
“Now,” Erik says, leaning back in his chair. “I’m going to go see that waiter over there and I’m going to order us both some nice steaks. You are going to stay here and calm the fuck down,” he says, standing up. He pats a hand on Charles’ shoulder as he walks past.
Charles hunches himself over the table and sips at his wine, deflated. He’s a joke. He’s a god damn joke.
“Here,” Erik says, putting a plate of steak and salad down in front of Charles. Charles blinks at it. “What? Erik says, setting a similar plate down on his side of the table. “You want chips? Fries?”
“No,” Charles says. “This is fine. Thank you.”
Erik sits back in his seat, says, “I mean it, Charles.”
“What?” Charles asks, pushing the meat around with a fork. He looks up and Erik is staring at him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Erik says. His foot nudges Charles’ ankle beneath the tablecloth. “I’m not. I want you, British boy,” he says, and Charles looks down at his plate. “No, look at me. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m going to look after you, you hear me?”
“I don’t need you to look after me,” Charles starts to say, but Erik interrupts him.
Erik says, “I’m going to show you everything you’ve ever wanted to see. We’re going to grow old together, you and me. I’m going to run this country dry and we’ll move to somewhere nice.”
Charles is caught between telling him to fuck off and telling him to keep on talking.
Charles just says, “Okay,” and cuts up his steak.
During the next week, three things happen.
Erik and his gang take twenty six thousand dollars from a bank in Freeport.
Erik takes Charles to a five star hotel in Lower Manhattan and fucks him.
Baby Face Nelson is shot and killed in Illinois by Melvin Purvis and his agents.
They get the call at the bureau at eight the next morning, and everyone in the room cheers.
Charles is left standing awkwardly in the corner, forcing a grin onto his face as McCone stands at the front of the room and says, “See, boys and girls. It can be done. Keep up all your good work on Lehnsherr, and it’ll be him and his boys dying at the roadside soon enough.”
Delightful.
They say it was some shootout between Nelson and some other Chicago gangster against Purvis and four federal agents in some field by the side of a country road. Two agents were killed, but so were Nelson and his friend.
Purvis had been tipped off as to where Nelson was hiding out. Some little rural hotel by some forests with John Dillinger and John Hamilton. They got away.
When Charles tells Erik who his fiancée is, they’re arguing, Charles sat on the bed in one of the Back Yard Club’s back rooms, Erik stood a few feet away, saying, “It’s not your job to worry about me getting shot in the damn head by some god damn G-men. It’s my job. It’s my job to worry about my own skin and to look after you, alright? So just stop bringing it up.”
“You don’t think past next week,” Charles says, elbows resting on his knees, “You don’t think past tomorrow, Erik. You’re not invincible. If they can get Floyd and Nelson, then they can get you, too,” he says, “And fuck you. Of course it’s my job to fucking worry about you, you arsehole. We’re in a relationship, it runs both ways.”
Erik knots his fingers behind his head and blinks at the ceiling. Charles can see the muscles in his jaw clenching. He looks down at Charles and says, “Who made you the expert on this? What, did you open some fortune cookie that said ‘Erik Lehnsherr will be shot in the face by a federal agent’? Huh? Or do you know something I don’t?”
Charles bites his lip and looks at his hands.
That day at the bureau they’d brought in a new informant. Had him kicking and screaming in shackles and shoved him into the box room they use for interrogation.
Charles says, “I want you safe.”
Erik sighs, says, “I am safe. They can’t be at every bank. They can’t be at every casino.”
“They have informants,” Charles says, holding out his hands in a desperate gesture, “You may not know it, but they have people working with them,” he says, closing his eyes and breathing. “Sooner or later, you’re dead or you’re in jail, and I don’t want to be there when that happens.”
Erik stalks forward and grabs Charles by his shoulders, shakes him and Charles stares at him, eyes wide, and Erik says, “What? What do you know that I don’t, Charles? What? You working for them or something?”
“No,” Charles says, grabbing Erik’s sleeves, “No, stop it. Stop it,” Charles shouts, standing up and pushing Erik away from him. “Is that what you think? That I’m letting you shove your cock in me to get some info on you and your boys?”
Erik’s eyebrows pull together, confused, and Charles pushes at his chest again, angry, he yells, “You want to know how I know that? Not that it isn’t common knowledge, or anything, you giant piece of shit, but guess what? My fiancée, the woman who I am engaged to be married to, is Moira MacTaggart. You know who that is, hotshot?”
He sags, flops back down to sit on the edge of the bed and pulls his hands through his hair.
He doesn’t look up, and Erik says, “Special Agent Moira MacTaggart.”
He sits down beside Charles, hands clasped together between his legs. He says, “I’ll be fine,” and Charles scoffs. “I’ll be fine,” he repeats. “If we ever get split-- if something happens-- if we ever have no way of contacting one another, we meet here. We meet here at eight. Every night we come here at eight. And we wait until the other turns up.”
Charles turns and kisses him; gets his hands either side of Erik’s head and holds him there.
On Tuesday the eleventh of November, the Lehnsherr gang hit up some bank in Upper Manhattan.
The informant that the BoI had dragged in had tipped off the feds, and now Charles is sat at the bureau with Lillian, the god damn secretary, and he’s praying to a God or Allah or Vishnu that Erik gets away safe.
There’s banging and shouting when the cars pull up, big black Buicks, and Charles watches from the window. Watches the Strykers drag in some kid in shackles, a bullet wound to his shoulder; McCone, Moira and Ray Levine behind them, Tommy guns in hand.
Armando Munoz. They’ve got Armando Munoz.
He watches them drag the boy in, tall and strong and kicking and screaming, blood damp on his white shirt and Charles can’t move.
“Get the bastard in the interrogation room,” McCone’s yelling, “I want him questioned and I want it done properly. No holding back.”
Charles feels his stomach drop.
The noises he hears from down the corridor are the sounds from a horror picture.
Armando is screaming. His cries make Charles feel sick and he can hear William Stryker shouting, his voice booming, “Where are they? Where the fuck are they?”
“They’re torturing him,” he says to Moira. She doesn’t look at him. He frowns, says, “They can’t do that.”
He stands up and moves to walk towards the room, but Moira grabs his wrist, says, “Leave it, Charles. It’s none of your business.”
He pulls his arm away, points a finger in the direction the noises are coming from and says, “They cannot do that to a human being. I don’t care who he is.”
She’s telling him to stop, to leave them to their work but he’s out of the office and down the corridor, has to stop what they’re doing because it’s not right. Because that’s Erik’s friend. Like his younger brothers, Erik had said. That’s what he’d said about the three young men in his gang.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” McCone says, stood in the doorway. Charles looks past his shoulder, sees Armando strapped down to a metal table, William Stryker’s hand ready to put pressure on the bullet wound just below the collarbone.
Charles says, “You can’t do this,” shaking his head. “You have to stop.”
William Stryker spits in the boy’s face, gets right up close when he shouts, “Tell me where they are, you piece of scum. Tell me or you’ll get another bullet right to your fucking brain, maggot shit.”
“You have no authority here,” McCone says, the same time that Armando opens his mouth for blood to dribble down his chin, his skin shiny with sweat; the same time that Armando manages to get out, “I don’t know.”
Charles has to look away when Stryker worms a finger into the wound.
He can barely hear himself over the noises Armando is making, the noises of an animal caught in a snare, scared and in unknown agony, and Charles says, “You’re going to kill him.”
“No,” McCone says. “If he gives us what we need, we’ll give him what he needs.”
“I’ll let the doctor see you when you tell me where the gang’s holed up,” Stryker yells, slapping Armando across the face. There’s blood seeping out of his wound like a dirty river and the movements of his chest as he tries to breathe are making it worse, and Stryker’s yelling, “Where’s Lehnsherr? You tell me where Lehnsherr is or so help me you’ll be sucking my dick with no teeth, you hear me? Where’s Lehnsherr?”
Charles wants to be sick, says, “He’s suffering, god damn it. You can’t do that to a person.”
“If you interfere I will arrest you,” McCone says, hand on Charles’ chest when he tries to move closer.
Armando’s crying out the same thing over and over, saying I don’t know I don’t know and Charles almost wretches with the thought of William Stryker doing this to Erik. He stares at McCone with disbelief on his face that this is allowed to happen. That this is happening in god damn America. Land of the free. Oh sweet liberty.
“Tell me where he is,” Stryker screams, holding Armando’s face with his thumb digging into one cheek and his fingers digging into the other. He shakes Armando’s jaw and screams, “Tell me.”
Armando’s left arm goes out and smacks off the wooden drawers by the table, his hand trying to grab onto something as he cries over and over as Stryker applies pressure to his wound, pushing his thumbs together around the ragged hole.
“Stop it,” Charles says. His voice is pathetic and his eyes are burning like he’s going to cry because this is wrong. Stryker keeps shouting, asking where Lehnsherr is, where Makarov is, where Howlett is. He’s even shouting about John Dillinger, and Charles yells, “Stop it, Stryker, you son of a bitch. You can’t do that to a person.”
He’s ignored. Stryker senior is using his fingers to force Armando’s eyes open as his son screams at him. Armando can barely shake his head, whimpering, saying, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know where they are.”
Charles tries to push past McCone, knows it’s no use anyway because he won’t be able to stop both Strykers, and McCone grabs his bicep and shoves him back, says, “Get out, now. If you don’t like it, get out. You shouldn’t even be in here. Leave.”
He wants to leave so he won’t have to see it anymore. Armando is gasping and heaving and there’s a hand around his throat and another pushing onto his shoulder. Onto his wound.
He doesn’t want to leave because he wants it to stop.
“Please,” Charles says. “He doesn’t know where they are, he would’ve said so by now if he did, damn it.”
McCone laughs, says, “You don’t know anything. This boy will tell us exactly what we want to know or he will bleed to death on that metal slab. If you don’t want to see that happen, then leave.”
Charles looks from McCone’s big nose and his stupid glasses to Armando, whole body trembling from the pain.
“You’re sick,” Charles says. “Is this what Melvin Purvis was talking about when he wanted to talk to you about techniques? Techniques? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Listen, Xavier, I don’t care who you are,” McCone says, right in Charles’ face, snarls, “I don’t care if you’re MacTaggart’s fiancé or how much money you have in the bank. You do not interfere in the Bureau’s work, do you understand me?”
Charles takes a step back. His shoulders slump and he winces at the noise Armando makes.
“He needs a doctor,” he says. He looks at his shoes and then back up to McCone, says, “He won’t be much use to you dead, will he?”
McCone stares him down, says, “Don’t make me have you removed by force. This is none of your business. Now get the hell out.”
Charles wants to spit at him. He wants to tell him that he’ll regret this, but he doesn’t. He bites his tongue and he says, “Fine.”
He walks out and ignores Moira trying to talk to him; ignores her trying to grab hold of his sleeve that he pulls away from her.
When he throws up he makes sure to do it right outside the front doors.
Two weeks later, Erik takes him to Miami, Florida.
It’s too warm, even for the end of November, and Charles spends all his time in the hotel room with the air conditioning on and the windows open.
Erik’s there meeting with some business associates, and Charles had told Moira that he was going to visit a family friend for a few days. She’d apologised to him about what had happened with Armando Munoz, and how she should’ve warned him to leave before they started because she knows how much he hates violence, and he’d told her to forget about it.
He’d told Erik what the Bureau of Investigation had done to Armando.
Erik said how he didn’t want to leave the kid there. How he got shot, and how there was so much blood and how he didn’t know what to do. How Armando had told him to get in the damn car before he got shot, too. How Erik couldn’t get shot because he had to look after Charles. How they’d driven away and left the damn kid there to either bleed out or for the Bureau of Investigation to get their dirty hands on him.
It’s almost nine pm when Erik gets back from his meeting.
He’s in his best suit and he takes off his trench coat and his jacket; hangs them on the back of the door. The light brown of his gun holsters stands out against the black and white of his shirt and his waistcoat, and when he turns to see Charles, he says, “Take your clothes off.”
Charles raises an eyebrow, and Erik glares at him, pulls off his holsters and unbuttons his waistcoat and says, “Didn’t you hear what I said? Take your clothes off. Now.”
“Must’ve been a bad meeting,” Charles says, back against the headboard. He pulls his undershirt up over his head and throws it on the wooden floor.
Erik stops fiddling with the buttons of his shirt and looks up, and Charles is guessing that that was the wrong thing to say, because Erik marches over, shuffles on the bed until he’s straddling Charles’ thighs, one hand on Charles’ chest and the other at his throat, says, “No. You don’t talk about that. Not you.”
Charles frowns, shoves Erik’s hand away from his neck, says, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What the hell is wrong with me?” Erik says, holding Charles’ hand in his, too tight, pinning it against the velvet covered headboard, says, “Armando is dead. You know what that means? Dead. D-E-A-D. Dead.”
Charles blinks up at him, pulls his hand out from under Erik’s, and Erik just puts his back against Charles’ throat, right up under his chin to hold him there.
He says, “The kid’s dead. The god damn Bureau of Investigation killed that damn kid, and now these damn Midwest bastards are too scared to make a deal with us, because they don’t want any of their boys dead. Do you hear what I’m saying, British boy? Armando is dead.”
He has his other hand in Charles’ hair, fingers rubbing at his scalp and he says, “Now take your fucking clothes off.”
He moves off the bed, tugs his half unbuttoned shirt over his head and toes off his shoes and his socks.
Charles sits and tries to breathe, wide eyed and staring at his lap.
When Erik straddles him again, he’s still in his boxers, and Erik’s setting the tin of Vaseline down by their sides and he’s kissing Charles’ neck, thumbs rubbing over his nipples, saying, “You’re still wearing clothes.”
“Sorry,” Charles says. Not for the clothes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them.”
Erik looks up, hands at the waistline of Charles’ underwear. His eyes look soft but his jaw is tight, and he says, “We’re not talking about that anymore.”
He drags Charles’ boxer shorts down to his knees, and Charles kicks them off the rest of the way, lets Erik hold his face and kiss him, messy and open mouthed and desperate, hips rolling to push their dicks together. Erik says, “Going to fuck you so many times while we’re here,” lips trailing across Charles’ cheek so he can bite at his earlobe, say, “I’m going to prep you, and then you’re going to ride me. You know what that means?”
Charles pants, one hand splayed at Erik’s ribcage and the other at the nape of his neck, pushing his face closer to his skin. He says, “Yes. Yeah, I-- I know what that means.”
Erik grins against the side of Charles’ face, lifts his knee up so they can reposition, Erik between Charles’ legs.
He preps Charles slow and long; gets three fingers in him and drags it out, gets him begging and shoving his face in the pillow and saying, “Erik, please. Please.”
“You ready?” Erik asks, tongue lapping at the dip in his collarbones. Charles nods, and Erik pulls out his fingers, rubs Charles’ hole with the tips of them, and Charles whines, needs it.
Erik lies beside him, head propped up on a pillow, and Charles looks at him, breathless and sweaty, and Erik raises his eyebrows, motions down his torso and to his dick with a hand.
He says, “You said you knew what it meant.”
“I do,” Charles says. He sits up, loose and ready and Erik slides a hand up his dick, slicks it with more Vaseline, and Charles sets his knees either side of Erik’s hips. He feels Erik’s cock, right where he wants it to be, and he says, “I do know what it means.”
Erik groans when Charles slides down, nails scratching into Charles’ waist where he’s grabbing hold of and biting his lip, saying, “So you do.”
Charles smirks, tips his head back when he rolls forward and back, feels Erik’s cock sliding out a little and then back in, moaning at the full feeling and the stretch of it.
He uses one hand to balance himself, palm flat on Erik’s stomach. He can feel Erik’s muscles tense when he tries to thrust upwards, plants his feet on the bed and makes tiny shallow movements with his hips. He uses his other hand to jerk himself off, matches the shift of Erik’s cock with the slide of his fist around his own.
Erik moves them after a few minutes, rolls them over so he’s on top, says, “Need it faster,” and Charles hooks his ankles around the backs of Erik’s thighs, pulls him in deeper, and Erik says, “Gott, fuck,” and his mouth is back on Charles’ as he thrusts, harsh and fast as he holds himself up with hands either side of Charles’ head.
Charles is panting. He’s gasping and his fingers are slipping at Erik’s back, trying to find something to grab onto.
“Harder,” he says, and Erik bites at his mouth, and Charles wraps a hand around his cock again, says, “Harder. Fuck me harder, Erik.”
“You want harder?” Erik asks, straightening up. Charles looks up at him and nods, lets Erik grab hold of his legs and put them over his shoulders, his cock slipping out of Charles.
Charles whines because of it, feels too empty too soon, and Erik makes a noise like a growl, hands at Charles’ lower back to hold him up, says, “You’re going to get harder.”
“Oh, god,” Charles says, staccato little gasps coming out of him every time Erik thrusts forward, skin slapping against skin. Charles bites at the back of his spare hand, keeps himself quiet so that nobody says anything; so that nobody puts in any complaints about the two queers fucking next door.
Erik grins, hands pressing bruises into Charles’ upper thighs, says, “So glad I got you, British boy. Gott, so good,” his face going slack as he closes his eyes and moves faster, makes Charles’ teeth clamp down on his wrist as he loses rhythm, fucks Charles good and proper and Charles loves it.
Erik moans out Charles’ name as he comes, over and over again, his come hot and dripping out of Charles as he pulls his cock out. He slumps over Charles’ body, breath against Charles’ ear, and Charles is still tugging at his dick, can barely get any movement because of Erik on top of him.
“Oh,” Erik says, and Charles pulls his hand out of his mouth to grab Erik’s hair and pull. Erik smirks against his neck, bites it light enough to leave no mark, says, “Let me help you with that.”
He bats Charles’ hand out the way, sits up and slides down until his lips are at Charles’ balls.
His fingers find his own come, and he reaches them around until they’re at Charles’ hole, his tongue giving tiny kitten licks at his balls and up the length of his cock, and Charles moans, too drawn out and so close to coming, says, “Do it, fuck sake,” and Erik stops, and Charles lifts a foot to kick his side, says, “Please.”
“Hm, so polite,” Erik says, two fingers pushing back into Charles at the same time he takes the head of Charles’ cock between his lips, already slick from pre-come, and Erik sucks. He mouths at the side and Charles is so close he doesn’t care who hears.
“Yes,” he says, gasping and gripping Erik’s hair, shoving his mouth further down his cock, and Erik lets him, fingers curling, and Charles squeezes his eyes shut, says, “Yes. God, yes. Oh. Fuck, Erik,” when he comes, feels Erik swallow around him and he can’t stop moaning, sweaty and wrung out in some five star hotel’s king sized bed in Miami, Florida.
At about four am, Charles can’t sleep.
He turns around and looks at Erik, his face soft with sleep, and Charles says, “Are you awake?”
Erik doesn’t open his eyes, but he says, “I am now.”
He stretches out his legs and his torso; blinks his eyes at Charles, and Charles is just looking at him.
“What?” he asks, stroking at one of Charles’ hands where their arms are tucked between them.
Charles chews the inside of his cheek, his skin hot and sticky where Erik’s got a leg over his, and he asks, “Why did you first start doing this? Robbing banks, I mean,” he says when Erik frowns at him. “I know you said you did that one in Dusseldorf to get to America, but why did you start doing it here?”
Erik pulls a face, says, “You do realise what time it is? I’m not writing you an autobiography in the middle of the night.”
“I’m not asking for an autobiography,” Charles says, scowling. They’re both being childish, and Charles is far too warm, and he says, “I was just wondering.”
Erik sighs and rolls over onto his back, and Charles moves into him, his chin resting on Erik’s shoulder, and Erik says, “Fine.”
He says, “I guess the one in Dusseldorf gave me the taste for it.”
He says how when he came here, to America, he had nothing else to do. He had to look after his mother and his younger sister, and they were in Philadelphia, and he met Logan and Azazel.
“They’re bastards,” Erik says. His voice is fond. He says, “But so am I, I guess.”
He tells Charles that he did good in Dusseldorf. That he was good at robbing banks and it brought in cash; enough for him to send his mother and sister to live in Boston, away from it all. So when Logan and Azazel propositioned him, he said yes. And then Sean, Alex and Armando had turned up.
Charles wraps an arm around Erik’s chest when Erik says, “Kid was twenty three. Now he’s dead.”
Erik shakes his head, and he shrugs. He reaches a hand out to grab his watch from the bedside table, and he shoves it at Charles’ face. Charles blinks at it, and Erik says, “It’s five in the morning. I rob banks because I can and because I’m good at it. And it isn’t so bad,” he says, putting his watch back. “It’s exciting. Back in Germany, I’d just be some other Jew. Here, I’m-- what was it the New York Times called me?”
He’s smirking, and Charles rolls his eyes. Charles says, “The Bad Boy Who Oozes Sex Appeal,” and then he says, “Why didn’t they give you a nickname like Pretty Boy or Baby Face? I don’t know, you could be-- Big Dick Lehnsherr? Yes, yeah, I think that would get people’s attention.”
Erik shoves at him, and Charles laughs. Erik says, “What would that make you? My partner, Cock Suck Charles?”
Charles purses his lips in an attempt to hide his smile, and he digs his nails across Erik’s chest, just below his nipple.
Erik hisses, says, “Okay. It’s time to go back to sleep.”
He keeps his word whilst their on their trip. Erik does.
They fuck five times in three days, and Charles is worn out.
He’d been fucked in the bed and in the roll top bathtub and on the sofa and up against the wall.
He’d had his back pressed up against the peeling poppies of the wallpaper and his legs wrapped around Erik’s waist. He’d had his hands in Erik’s hair and Erik’s mouth at his neck and hands at his arse to keep him up.
Erik kisses him outside of his house when the taxi driver isn’t looking, and he says, “Meet me at the club Saturday night.”
Charles nods and squeezes Erik’s hand, says, “Thank you for the trip.”
The Wednesday before the Saturday, Erik and his boys take thirty grand from a casino, and the Bureau explodes.
McCone’s yelling about how pathetic all of the agents are; yelling about how they’re not doing their jobs and how they should be out there finding more informants and getting closer to Lehnsherr, not sitting on their god damn asses in the office all day every day.
Moira downs five cups of coffee in two hours and she looks twitchy, and she says to Charles, “We’re gonna get him. I can feel it. And then we can get married. Gosh, Charles, after all this time we can finally get married.”
Charles smiles at her and gives her a one armed hug; kisses the top of her head.
She hasn’t told him about Armando. There’s this itchy guilty look on her face.
More and more, Charles is wondering if Moira really is as sweet as he used to think.
Only it all goes wrong, on Saturday, though.
Erik takes Charles to the hotel, and he’s more drawn out than usual; takes all the time he can in pinning Charles into the mattress and kissing him. Takes his time to make Charles squirm and moan before he finally fucks him, slow and languid, and Charles can’t feel or see or think anything that isn’t Erik.
He catches himself wondering if this is what making love means.
Erik leaves first this time. He pulls on all his clothes and buttons up his shirt, says, “I’m sorry I have to leave. Believe it or not, I now have a curfew.”
Charles grins. He’s laying under the bedcovers because it’s not too late yet; because he’s tired and Erik cups his face before he goes, says goodbye, goodnight, that they’ll meet again on Monday, eight pm.
He kisses softer than an infidel should. Charles doesn’t want to let him go.
And it’s only half an hour later when Charles is naked and on the edge of sleep that the brutish hands and feet of the Bureau of Investigation are knocking the door in, kicking at it with their shined brogues, and everything in Charles sinks.
He’s staring wide eyed at William Stryker and Ray Levine, and they’re staring back; Stryker with a Tommy gun in his hand pointing straight at Charles’ head.
William Stryker yells, “Where’s Lehnsherr?”, and Levine is off to the bathroom, Browning pistol pulled up to his eyesight, and William Stryker screams, “You tell me where he is right now or so be it you’ll have a face full of hot lead.”
Charles’ hands are shaking and he’s not sure what’s happening. He’s still got semen stuck between his thighs and he’s staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Tell me,” Stryker barks, and Charles’ eyes flick from the barrel to his face.
Charles says, “I-- he’s gone. He’s gone.”
Stryker laughs; laughs harsh and empty, and he says, “The receptionist tipped us off ten minutes ago. He can’t have gone far in that time, you fucking queer.”
Oh, there it is.
“Moira know about this?” Stryker asks, stalking around from the foot of the bed to the side, and Charles sits up further, raises his hands in the air. Levine’s back, stood warily behind Stryker, and Stryker says, “What exactly is this? Hm?”
He moves the gun barrel up and down the length of Charles’ body, and Charles swallows, says, “Nothing.”
He’s a poor liar and he knows it. Knows it by the smirk on Stryker’s face. Knows it by the hands around his throat at sixteen years old.
He’s being forced into his clothes at gunpoint. He's being yelled at, the barrel of a Thompson submachine gun shoving into his back when Stryker says, “Oh, I don’t believe for one second that this is nothing, Xavier. What are you, Lehnsherr’s fuck toy? He pay you for this shit, pansy boy? Get him in the manacles, Levine.”
Charles glares, his wrists being forced behind his back and cuffed together. He spits, “No. This is the first time I’ve met him.”
Stryker huffs, and Charles is having more slurs thrown at him. He’s being bundled into the back of a Buick at eleven pm on a week night, but it feels like everyone’s eyes are on him. Like the whole city’s come alive again just for him being taken away.
And he knows what comes next.
He’s chained to a wooden chair. They’ve called in Moira and McCone and Stryker senior. They’re not there yet.
Moira Moira Moira Moira.
He’s sweating and he’s looking at his lap; doesn’t want to look up at William Stryker when he says, “Listen here, you cocksucking piece of shit.”
Except he’s forced to look up by a hand in his hair at the back of his head, pulling tight and harsh until Charles has no other option but to look up at the face that’s spitting at him. Young but wrinkled all the same.
“You listening to me, Charlie?” Stryker asks.
He throws Charles’ head back down when Charles says, “Yes.”
He paces in front of Charles in the interrogation room, and Levine is guarding the door. No one else is here.
“You know how this works,” Stryker says. He stands with his arms folded in front of Charles, and Charles is looking at the leather of his shoes and the pinstripes of his suit. He grabs Charles’ chin, squeezes his cheeks together with the force of it, and Charles’ fists clench against the arms of the chair when Stryker says, “You can either start talking now, or we can bleed it out of you.”
Armando is dead. They did this to Armando and he’s dead.
Charles wonders where Erik is, if he’s with his boys, his family, and he says, “I don’t know anything. I met him at a pansy club earlier tonight.”
Stryker shakes his head, huffs a low laugh that ends in a whistle. Charles watches him pull something from the pocket of his trousers.
The blade of a flick knife pops up, and Charles’ teeth bite together.
“I’m going to forgive you for lying seeing as it’s so late,” Stryker says. Charles can feel bile rising in the back of his throat, a stinging in his skin that makes his toes curl, and Stryker slaps him across the face.
It’s harsh and has Charles’ head snapping to the side, mouth open in a gasp for air as he glares up at Stryker, a disgusting grin on his slimy face.
Stryker places the knife down on the table beside them, and he says, “We’ll work our way up to that, shall we? See if we can’t pull what we want from that pretty queer mouth of yours before we pull it from your teeth, yeah?”
Charles doesn’t say anything.
“That’ll be a yes then,” Stryker says. “Now, you are going to sit there and tell me exactly how you know Erik Lehnsherr. You’re going to tell me every single scrap of information you have on that man and his associates.”
He sets his hands around Charles’ forearms and leans on them, his weight a dull throbbing at Charles’ bones, and Stryker gets close, says, “Hopefully we can get this over with nice and clean. It’s going to be hard enough for Moira to know her fiancé’s a cockslut-- Lehnsherr’s cockslut of all people. Let’s not make it so she has to see you covered in your own blood and piss, too.”
Charles sits up as straight as he can when Stryker moves away, says, “I’ve told you. I met him at a pansy club tonight. We went to the hotel.”
Stryker looks at him, eyes narrowing in consideration. He says, “When exactly did he tell you who he was?”
Charles blinks, makes it look like he’s thinking, remembering, and he says, “After we’d…engaged in sexual activities.”
He’s not getting jailed for breaching sodomy laws, and the look that Stryker gives him is uncomfortable. Charles chews back the smile at the small victory.
“Tell me how he approached you at this pansy club,” Stryker says. He pulls up a chair in front of Charles, sits on it backwards. He folds his arms on the backrest and raises an eyebrow, waiting.
Charles says, “He bought me a drink.”
Stryker blinks.
Charles says, “He bought me a drink and asked if I was there for a good time. I said yes. He took me to the hotel.”
“I don’t believe you,” Stryker says. He rises from his chair and kicks it behind him, and Charles braces for the slap or the punch that he knows is coming.
William Stryker is a violent petty man who thrives on humiliating others.
Today was just Charles’ turn. His numbers have come up, and now he’s being punched in the mouth hard enough to smack his skull against the wall behind him.
He’s coughing up blood; spitting and dribbling it down his chin. It’s sticky at his lips like hot tar where it clots and clings, the taste of burnt out copper on his tongue making bile wretch up and onto his lap from where he hunches over.
“Pathetic,” Stryker says. He grabs Charles by the front of his hair and pulls his head up, says, “Can’t even handle one hit? Oh, boy, Charlie. You’re not in for a very fun night at all, are you?”
It turns out that no, he’s not.
Charles is forced to go into detail in how he sucks off Erik Lehnsherr. He gets slapped across the face so many times he loses count, and maybe that’s for the better. He’s demeaned and his face is dripping with blood like a wet dog, and then the others arrive.
Everything goes quiet when Moira walks in.
Charles’ mind that was racing with keep Erik safe keep Erik Safe Keep Erik Safe keep your mouth shut goes silent when he looks up through itchy eyelashes and sees her stood in the doorway.
The clock on the wall says twelve thirty nine, and Moira says, “Tell me this isn’t true.”
The other agents leave the room. They’re just outside the doorway, Charles knows, but Moira stands with her arms folded across her chest and that sad look in her big brown eyes and Charles is torn because he never wanted to hurt her but she’s always wanted to hurt Erik.
All Charles says is I’m sorry, and Moira slaps him, too.
She stares down at the blood on the palm of her hand and blinks up at Charles.
“How long has this been going on for?” she asks. She’s shaking, and so is Charles.
“It was just tonight,” Charles says.
It’s coming up to Christmas, so it’s been four months.
He’s been lying to her for seven years, and he’s guessing that this is his holy repayment.
She shakes her head, her eyes wet, and Charles wants to reach out and touch her, only he knows he can’t. The metal of the manacles rubs and scratches at him when he tries to move his hands, and she’d only push him away, anyways.
“Was it me?”
Charles looks at her with his eyebrows pulled together and his eyes soft; as soft as they can be surrounded by sweat and tears and tracks of dried blood.
“No,” he says. “I love you, Moira. I really do,” he says, and he does. But not like that. Not like married couples. “But I’m not in love with you, dear. I never could be.”
She swears, then, something she never does, she says, “Fuck you. Fuck you, Charles. How many years of my life have you wasted? And what for? What for?”
“I’m sorry,” Charles says. He can’t offer her anything else.
She shakes her head again, scoffs, “You’ve ruined everything. We were going to be happy.”
Charles can’t argue, and she straightens herself up, says, “I have nothing more to say to you. I hope they damn well break you, Charles Xavier. I hope they break you good and proper.”
She walks away, and Charles is left wanting to pull his hair out. He can’t. He curls his hands into fists and presses his feet hard against the tiled floor.
William Stryker comes back in, this time with his father and McCone, and Charles closes his eyes.
He closes his eyes and thinks to himself that this will be over soon and that they’ll let him go and everything will be fine.
“So,” William Stryker says. Charles keeps his eyes scrunched closed. “You like sucking dick, huh? Do you think your boyfriends would prefer it if you sucked them with no teeth left in your skull?”
Charles is brought back to watching Armando, and his eyes open just to glare at Stryker.
It only gets worse when he refuses to answer their questions.
It’s true that he doesn’t know where Erik or his boys live or hide out or reside, or any of the words the agents are shouting at him.
He’s hit across the face; cuts at his cheekbones and across the bridge of his nose by the metal of wedding rings.
William Stryker pulls out pliers, and Charles’ mouth is covered with Jonathan Stryker’s hand as he screams and cries as they pull the nail from his index finger.
It’s a burning that he can’t describe and Jonathan Stryker slaps him when he pulls his hand away, tells him to man the hell up, and Charles’ hand won’t stop shaking. He’s looking at the end of his finger, a horrible red-pink mess of weeping skin and he’s struggling to breathe as he tips his head back and squeezes his eyes and clenches his teeth.
His finger is buzzing with a pain that’s almost electric. It’s a fire that’s taking too long to die out, and William Stryker says, “Tell me, or you’ll have no fingernails left by the time we’re through.”
“I don’t know,” Charles says. It’s a mixture of a sob and a shout and a plea, and all Charles wants is Erik. Charles wants Erik and a drink that will make him forget everything. “Please, I don’t know. It was a one night stand. A mistake. It was a sin and I’ve paid for it, please,” he’s begging, a pathetic shard of the millionaire academic he was hours ago.
“Oh no,” Stryker junior says. “Nowhere near finished with you, sweetheart.”
They let him go almost two days later.
It’s four pm Monday evening, and Charles is kicked out of the Bureau of Investigation with no charges on his hands because they can’t prove anything and they’ve already had their fun.
They let him go with two broken fingers and seven fingernails left.
His whole face hurts and his ribs are aching and he’s cradling his right hand to his chest as he tries to walk down the street and away.
At the hospital, he pays the nurses enough money not to ask questions. He’s wiped clean and stitched up and his two fingers are set straight with splints. The mangled ends of the three others, two on his right hand and one on the left, are cleaned with an antiseptic that has Charles hissing and tears bubbling at his eyes again. They’re bandaged and the nurses say he’s suffering from shock. They tell him he should be kept in overnight for monitoring, but Charles discharges himself.
Only, it seems that he has nowhere to go.
He gets a taxi home, and Moira answers the door; doesn’t even look at him as she kicks the suitcases and bags at her feet and says, “You’re not welcome here anymore. Don’t you dare come back.”
He’s thrown away years of friendship, and he’s shouting at the taxi driver to wait and help him get his bags in the car.
It’s seven o’clock, and Charles remembers that he’s supposed to be meeting Erik at the Back Yard Club at eight.
He tells the driver where to go, doesn’t make him park two streets away, because what does he have to lose, now.
Gregory stares at him when he walks up, struggling with two suitcases and a beat up face, two messenger bags thrown over his shoulders.
Charles says to Gregory, “Is there a place I can leave these? Can they go in the coatroom, or something?”
Gregory nods, still staring at Charles’ face as he says, “Yeah. Yeah, Charlie. Sure. I’ll help you with those, c’mon.”
Charles gets changed into fresh clothes in a bathroom stall and looks at himself in the mirror. He’s got six stitches in the cut at the hollow of his right eye and four stitches along the cut in his right eyebrow. He’s bruised, but he still has all his teeth. They ache.
Erik sidles up to Charles at the bar at three minutes past eight, and Charles has had too much to drink.
Erik’s got that same little smirk on his face that he always has when he sees Charles.
It drops when he blinks and takes in what Charles looks like. Run over shit.
“Jesus, liebling,” Erik’s saying, and Charles makes a disgusting hiccupping noise as he slides out of his stool.
He wraps his arms around Erik’s waist and pushes his face into his chest, his bruised skin against the soft material of Erik’s white shirt, and he’s a pathetic pansy queer that should learn how to be a man, but not right now.
“Hey. Hey,” Erik says, and Charles’ cuts sting and itch with salt as Erik gets his hands at Charles’ head, strokes a hand through Charles’ hair and looks at him. His eyes are darting all over, and Charles watches him flicker through emotions, eyes a mess of worry and anger and hurt. “Who did this to you?”
Charles shakes his head; wraps his hands tight in the back of Erik’s suit jacket, even if his fingers are screaming at him not to. He gets his face against Erik’s neck and breathes. Erik’s fingers massage at his bruised scalp, soothing him.
He’s being mollycoddled by Public Enemy Number Two, one of the most dangerous men in the United States, and Charles doesn’t care. Feels at home.
“Who did this to you?” Erik asks, again. His voice is a bitten back growl, but his hands are gentle, and he says, “Charles. Schatz, tell me.”
Charles feels his stomach turn with the German endearment, and he chokes out, “The Bureau.”
Erik’s hands stop moving and his whole body tenses. Charles knows people will be looking, but he doesn’t care. His fingers are aching and burning but he doesn’t want to let go.
Erik says, “I’m getting you out of here.”
He grabs Charles’ arms and pulls them down from around him, and then he’s looking at Charles’ fingers. Charles says, “No. No. We can’t go to the hotel, they’ll be-- they’ll be watching for us.”
He’s still looking down at the bandages and splints at Charles’ fingers; holding Charles’ wrists in his hands, and he looks up halfway through saying, “We’re not going to the hotel. You’re coming with me and you’re getting some sleep, and then you’re telling me what happened.”
Charles can’t say no. It feels like the beginning of the end, and he tells Erik that his bags are in the coatroom. Because Moira kicked him out.
Erik looks at him with big eyes and a flat-line mouth, and he bundles Charles into the back of a taxi with his things in the trunk, says to the driver, “If you take us to Middletown and don’t ask any questions, there’s one hundred dollars in it for you.”
It’s a two hour drive. Erik moves Charles so he’s settled down with his head on Erik’s thighs and tells him to try and sleep. Charles looks at the back of the front seats and tries to remember how to breathe.
He falls asleep when he sees the city lights come to an end.
He wakes up when Erik’s carrying him bridal style up the garden path of some dilapidated three story house. The windows are all boarded it up and it looks like it’s waiting for demolition.
Erik’s shouting at someone to get the bags out the back of the taxi, and Charles turns his face in towards Erik’s chest and closes his eyes again.
Erik says, “It’s okay. It’s okay, now.”
He lays Charles down on a bed after a flight of stairs and kisses the top of his head; unbuttons Charles’ shirt and pulls it off of him, his fingers and eyes lingering over the eggplant purple of Charles’ ribs.
Charles looks up at him, sat at the edge of the bed and taking off Charles’ shoes and Charles’ socks.
His face is tight and Charles tries not to think what’s going round in his head. He finishes undressing Charles, and Charles says, “Come to bed with me.”
Erik looks at him, and Charles says, “Please.”
“I’ll be ten minutes,” Erik says, a hand on Charles’ hip.
Charles grabs at it, like a needy child; grabs and holds at Erik’s wrist, and he says, “Please.”
Erik looks down at him. “Okay,” he says.
He strips down to his boxer shorts and lies behind Charles, nose at Charles’ hair and mouth at the nape of Charles’ neck.
Charles groans when Erik’s arm wraps around him, a warm weight against his bruises. Erik goes to pull back, but Charles holds his arm where it is, says, “It’s fine. Just-- just hold me, alright?”
He hasn’t slept properly in days. He hasn’t slept in a bed for days.
When he wakes up there’s a dull light coming through the curtains. A dirty yellow that exposes the dust particles, and Charles wakes up alone.
The house is freezing and he wraps the duvet cover around himself, wincing at the ache and the sting in his fingers as he shuffles out of the room.
Everywhere he looks is torn apart. The carpet is soggy with rainwater and worn down from footsteps so that the splinters of wooden floorboards can threaten to stick and cling to Charles’ bare feet. There are rusty nails and ripped wallpaper, and downstairs there’s the sound of dogs barking.
At the bottom of the stairs, Charles comes face to face with some blonde kid.
“Oh,” Charles says. The boy folds his arms across his stomach and raises an eyebrow, and Charles goes to say hello, but he doesn’t get the chance.
“Erik,” the kid yells, turning his head to the right. He looks Charles up and down and grins around a cigarette, says, “Your boy’s awake. Looks pretty rough, too. What’d you do, fuck him within an inch of his life?”
Charles frowns.
Erik comes over, his face a blunt scowl as he looks at the kid. He shoves him by the arm and says, “Shut your mouth and go take a shower. You stink like a pig.”
The kid just smirks, and Erik rolls his eyes. He looks to Charles with a softened expression, reaching a hand out to help him walk down the last step.
“Are you okay?” Erik asks, holding Charles’ hips underneath the duvet.
Charles nods, says, “I’m fine.”
He can hear shouting coming from down the hallway, and Erik takes his left hand and pulls him into one of the rooms. It smells of damp and the walls creak. Erik sets them both down on one of the sofas; its springs gone and the floral-patterned material unforgiving under Charles’ bruises.
“You cold?” Erik asks. His fingers play with the edge of the duvet, and Charles nods his head. “This place is disgusting,” Erik says, getting up and poking at the fireplace. He grabs a box of matches that sit by the fire’s side and sets the kindling alight, says, “That should make it better. I’m not promising anything.”
Charles offers him a smile. He holds his duvet open, and Erik sits beside him, wrapping them both in it.
Charles curls into Erik’s side and draws his legs up under him, says, “Who did I just meet?”
“Alex,” Erik says, arm around Charles’ shoulders. “He’s a cocky prick with a dirty mouth. He’s young,” he shrugs. “He’ll learn.”
“He doesn’t care that you’re-- we’re…you know,” Charles says, waving a hand.
Erik shakes his head, “If he did there’d be a bullet in his face.”
Charles grimaces, and it pulls at his stitches and his bruises. Erik turns his head to grin at him.
Charles is looking at the scar above the right side of Erik’s lip. It’s more obvious where stubble doesn’t grow over it, and he says, “I’m scared, Erik.”
Erik sighs. He takes Charles’ right hand and holds it in the palm of his, and Charles bites the inside of his cheek when Erik brushes against one of the bandages.
He strokes along Charles’ thumb, says, “Are you going to tell me what happened? Or do you want to do that later?”
There’s a bang down the hall, and more shouting, and Charles looks at their hands, says, “Are you going to stop?”
“Stop what?” Erik asks.
He’s frowning, and Charles says, “Robbing banks. Casinos. Whatever.”
“Not this, Charles,” Erik says. “Not right now.”
Charles takes his hand away and looks at the fireplace. There’s grime growing over the Victorian tiles, and Charles ignores Erik’s fingers at his side.
“They were looking for you,” Charles says. He feels sick remembering William Stryker’s face. “They were looking for you, Erik, and they found me. In that hotel room.”
His hands are shaking and it’s aching his broken bones. Erik’s tightening his grip around Charles’ shoulders, and Charles is wondering what exactly the point in all this is.
He tells Erik what happened. He tells Erik what Stryker did to him and all the questions that were yelled in his face. He tells Erik that it was the same agent who tortured Armando. He tells Erik that he was hit and slapped and punched and he tells Erik that he had the nails pulled from his fingers with pliers because Erik robs banks. Because Erik robs casinos.
Erik’s face goes blank. He says, “This was my fault.”
Charles stares at him.
“Are you kidding me?” Charles says. Erik raises his eyebrows. Charles huffs, says, “They kept me there for almost two days. They made me piss in a bucket and put a gun to my head whenever I did so. I ache everywhere, Erik. It hurts just to sit here talking to you, and you’re making this bollocks about you?”
“You’re making it about me,” Erik says, his voice raised, and Charles isn’t in the mood for this. He wants to go to bed for the next week because his partner is a nationally renowned criminal. He wants to go to bed for the next week because he knows they’re all just waiting for the man with the big gun to find and shoot Erik in the head.
Charles sags. He says, “Forget it. I just thought that maybe this would give you some god damn perspective.”
He looks up at Erik’s face, says, “Is it really that important to you? Taking other people’s money?”
“You know it’s not like that,” Erik says. He shakes his head, says, “You know it’s not, so don’t start.”
Charles sighs. He says, “I don’t want to argue with you.” He says, “I want to know what this is to you.”
He likes to think that he already knows the answer. He wants to think that he already knows the answer.
Erik frowns, “What? What what is to me?”
He likes to think that if he was there just to be fucked, he wouldn’t be there. Not in this house.
He likes to think that if he was there just to be fucked, he wouldn’t know everything that he did about Erik Lehnsherr and he wouldn’t be sat with Erik’s arm around him in a house that smells of mould and creaks like an old ghost.
He says, “What I am to you.”
His chest hurts, and he says, “What we are to you.”
Erik’s eyebrows pull together, and he’s confused, and he says, “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve lost everything, Erik,” Charles says, desperate. “I’ve lost my fiancée and I’ve lost my home. Once my parents find out I’ve lost them, too. You and this pissy building and these stitches in my face are all I have left.”
He sighs, looks at his mottled hands and says, “I need to know.”
He needs to know whether or not this was worth it.
His answer comes as a kiss to his temple, and Erik says, “Do you know what schatz means?”
Charles shakes his head, and Erik’s hand snakes up Charles’ stomach and chest to cup his face and turn it further towards him.
He grins, slow and easy, and he says, “It means love. It means love, schatz.” He says, “You mean the world to me, British boy.”
Charles’ eyes flick down to Erik’s mouth, and it’s stupid, he knows, but he asks, “Enough to stop? To stop stealing?”
Erik doesn’t move, his face stays the same, and he says, “Enough to keep you safe.”
“But not enough to keep yourself safe,” Charles says.
He should be happy. To know that Erik cares.
He should be happy, but he can’t be happy. He can’t be happy when there’s this constant throbbing in his head that reminds him that everyone is out to get Erik Lehnsherr, and that one day, he’s going to end up dead.
Erik tries to press his mouth against Charles’, but Charles turns his head upwards.
“I should ask you the same,” Erik says. Charles glances at him. “What is this to you?”
Charles glares, says, “What do you think?”
He lets Erik kiss him, this time. He lets Erik hold his face in his hands that are too big but still soft at Charles’ sunken skin, and he lets the argument slide, again.
Over the next few hours, Charles meets all of Erik’s boys.
He’s still curled up in the duvet with Erik when Alex Summers comes barrelling into the room, Sean Cassidy right behind him. The kid’s got bright ginger hair and a pale face, and the smirk he gives Erik has Charles grinning at his hands.
Erik had shouted at them to get the hell out and stop messing about, to go do something useful like wash their god damn rancid clothes.
He gets angrier when Azazel Makarov comes in, carrying a tray of drinks and saying, “Only the best for Erik’s mal’chik, ja, Erik?”
“Get out,” Erik says. Charles offers Azazel a smile, takes in the scar down over the man’s left eye, and Erik says, “I swear, Azazel. Get out.”
When Logan Howlett walks in, Charles is halfway onto Erik’s lap, hands at his hair and mouth at his neck, and a gruff voice says, “Wow, dinner and a show. How about that.”
He’s got two plates of what looks like a roast dinner in his hands, and Charles looks up like a deer in headlights.
Erik’s shuffling Charles off him, a scowl on his face and his fists clenched, and Logan’s saying, “Hey, don’t stop on account of me, boys.”
“What do you people not understand by keep out?” Erik asks, leaving Charles wrapped in his duvet and grabbing the plates from Logan. “Are you all stupid? What, do you have amnesia or something?”
Logan raises an eyebrow, and Charles recognises him as the man that Erik was with the first night at the club. He says, “Just bringing you your dinners, bub. No need to act all menstrual on me. Although, that is normal behaviour for you.”
Charles laughs, and Erik turns to glare at him. Logan smirks.
“Just get out,” Erik says. “If I wasn’t hungry I’d throw these bastard plates over you. Out. And tell the others to piss off while you’re at it.”
“Alright, calm down,” Logan says, palms up. “Sheesh. See you later, Chuck.”
Charles waves a hand, and Erik shouts out, again, kicking the door shut behind him. The hinges rattle and dust flakes down from the ceiling, and Erik puts their plates down on the rotting wood of the coffee table. Charles wonders about the woodworm itching their way around the house, and Erik settles back down beside him.
He says, “This house is a god damn circus.”
The weather turns to snow in the next week, and Christmas comes and Christmas goes, with Erik and his boys staying quiet over the festive period.
They’d both agreed not to give each other gifts. Erik is Jewish and Charles barely leaves the house for the cold and the unfamiliar town.
The rest of them celebrate, though. There’s an eight foot tree shoved into the corner of the living room, covered in tinsel and glass baubles, and every time he sees it, Erik glares.
Logan had elbowed him and said, “Just think of it as a Hanukkah bush. Who knows, maybe Santa will get you laid this Christmas.”
Erik punched him in the arm.
Christmas morning, Charles’ bruises have turned an old purple-yellow and his bones are on their way to healing, and Erik’s got one hand around Charles’ cock and the other in Charles’ hair, tugging Charles’ face towards his as he tries to kiss him with an open mouth.
“Ah,” Charles says, whining as Erik rolls his hips; presses his dick further into him. Charles scrunches his eyes as Erik bites at the side of his neck, says, “Best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
Erik smirks, drags his hand slow up Charles’ cock, slides the foreskin up over the head before he tugs his fist back down, his thumb pressing against the glans.
It’s lazy and has Charles’ toes curling with each shift of Erik’s body behind his; his breath catching as Erik nips and sucks marks into his neck. He’s marking his territory in a house full of other men, and Charles would be annoyed if he wasn’t turned on.
He’s got more bruises along his neck and collarbones than he does across his ribs and his face.
“Erik,” he says, arm draping over Erik’s to grab at his forearm and dig in the four nails of his left hand. He arches forward with a moan when Erik thrusts harder, the movement jerking Charles and the bed frame.
“What?” Erik says, nose edging behind the shell of Charles’ ear, “What do you want, British boy? Huh? You want to come? That it?”
Charles groans and nods his head; lets Erik pull it back to rest against one of his shoulders, their mouths awkwardly slotting together as Erik’s hand speeds up along Charles’ cock.
His hips speed up, too; shallow jabs that have Charles panting against Erik’s lips, harsh enough to start the bed rattling, and Charles says, “Yes. Like that. God, like that.”
He comes over Erik’s fist and across his own stomach, body curving inwards as he gasps out Erik’s name, lets Erik fuck him hard until he comes, too, hot and sticky with his mouth at the curve of Charles’ neck, teeth clamped down to dampen the groans he’s making.
Charles is too hazy post-orgasm to feel the full of it, doesn’t care, anyway; Erik licking at the indents he’s made.
“Merry Christmas,” Erik says, pulling out.
Charles rolls onto his back, makes sure not to lean any weight on his splints. Erik grins and kisses him, softer, now, his fingers playing at the come on Charles’ belly.
“Happy Hanukkah,” Charles says, “Big Dick Lehnsherr.”
Erik jabs his fingers below Charles’ ribcage and smirks when Charles makes a high pitched noise.
It’s the best Christmas Charles has ever had, and he spends it in a house full of criminals that’s threatening to fall apart.
He watches the others opening their presents; badly wrapped tobacco and engraved lighters and hip flasks, and Sean hands Charles something heavy and wrapped in brown parcel paper.
It’s a handgun, and Charles stares at it.
They laugh at him, and he says thank you and leaves it on the coffee table.
When everything else is opened, Logan throws a small parcel that lands on Erik’s lap.
Erik looks down at it and casts a confused glance at Logan, who just shrugs, says, “From all of us. We hoped it might make you less grouchy.”
It turns out to be keys to a Harley-Davidson RL 45 that’s parked out the front, and Erik’s face is completely blank.
Boxing Day, Charles is clung to Erik’s back as the bike makes turns at seventy miles an hour. They’re not wearing helmets and the winter is cold against Charles’ face; shoved against the dip where Erik’s shoulder blades meet beneath his leather jacket.
New Year’s Eve nineteen-thirty-three sees Charles drunk on aged whisky and watching the two youngest boys set fireworks off in the backyard, two miles away from anyone in every direction.
Mid-January sees Erik and the gang starting up again.
“We’ll be fine,” Erik says. Behind him, the rest are piling into the car, a Duesenberg Model J, one of the fastest around, and Erik says, “We’ve been doing this a while, liebling. We know what we’re doing.”
Charles chews his lip, and Erik says, “You just take care of yourself, alright? The dogs are there to warn you of anything, and you’ve got your gun handy, don’t you?”
Charles nods, “It’s in the shoulder holster you gave me.”
Erik pecks Charles’ lips. Saxon the German shepherd is sat at Charles’ side, and Erik crouches down to stroke the dog’s ears, says, “And you know what your job is, don’t you?”
Saxon licks at Erik’s face and Charles smiles. It’s watery, but it’s there.
Logan’s honking the car horn and shouting, “Come on, lover boy. We’ve got work to do. You can touch each other when we’re done.”
Erik ignores him and stands, says, “Don’t worry yourself.” Says, “Kiss for luck?”
Charles gives an exasperated sound and reaches up to grab Erik’s face.
He doesn’t pay attention to the wolf whistles and the cat calls; just holds on for as long as he can before Erik’s pulling away and waving goodbye.
They all get back fine, this time.
Charles spends the hours they’re away with the dogs around him and Chopin playing from the gramophone in the corner.
He’s falling asleep to the crackle of a finished record with Copper the six month old beagle pup curled up on his lap when he hears the car engine and the slamming of doors.
Erik’s sweaty and riled up when he comes in, and Charles is desperate for the touch to know that he’s alive.
He’s desperate for it so he lets Erik bend him over the edge of the bed and fuck him until he’s a mess.
Lying beside Erik, Charles wonders how annoyed the Bureau will be after the month-or-so’s silence, and he laughs.
The next time doesn’t go so well.
Charles is waiting at the front window and watching as the car pulls up, and the look on Alex’s face is enough to tell him that something is wrong.
The fact that they’re a man down is definitely enough to tell Charles that something is wrong.
“What happened?” he asks, stood in the doorway.
Alex barges past him without a word, and Sean doesn’t stop but says, “Azazel.”
He glances after them before turning back to see Logan helping Erik out the back of the car.
The right sleeve of Erik’s white shirt has been torn off and it’s tied around his bicep, the length of his arm down to his wrist a rusted brown from trails and lines of smudged blood.
Charles’ eyes are wide and his throat tight, and he runs down the squealing wooden porch stairs and the cracked garden path, stopping a few feet away from Erik and Logan and saying, again, “What happened? Erik?”
Erik doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look at Charles but at the ground, and Logan looks between them.
“Azazel got shot in the head,” he says, and Charles looks up at him, and he shrugs, says, “Groucho here got it in the arm.”
Erik still isn’t saying anything and he still isn’t looking at Charles.
Charles glares at the side of his head and says, “Get him in the house and find me a first aid kit.”
He walks back up the path and the steps and says, “I’ll be waiting in the kitchen.”
It’s the cleanest room in the house but Charles still has to clear old plates covered in flaky leftovers and glasses of week old water from the dining table.
This time last week he was drinking vodka and Azazel was talking about Russia.
He sets a couple of towels over the wood and fills a bowl with hot water, and Erik and Logan are waiting in the doorway.
“Get on the table,” he says to Erik. Erik glances at him, and he says, “Now.”
“Where’d you want this?” Logan asks, waving the first aid kit in his hand.
Charles grabs it and says, “Unless you want me to yell at you, too, I suggest you leave.”
Logan holds up his hands and backs away, says, “No need for that, bub. I’ll go check on the kids while you two have your words.”
Erik’s sat on the table’s edge, legs hanging over it. Charles opens the kit and pulls out bandages and rubbing alcohol and tries his best to ignore how Erik’s hand curls and clenches on the table as he unties the sleeve from around his arm.
“Did you already take the bullet out?” Charles asks. He’s holding his nerve as he looks at the wound, a small hole that’s pushed up the skin around it into an angry flare. Blood starts flowing again and it trickles over the fingers that Charles is holding around Erik’s elbow.
Erik nods. “You have to pour alcohol over it.”
“I’m aware,” Charles says, uncapping the bottle from the kit. He wipes the blood from his fingers onto the towel, and he wavers before tipping the bottle over the wound. He says, “You know this will really sting, right?”
Erik looks up at him, his jaw set and his brow lowered, and he nods.
He tips his head back and squeezes his eyes shut as the alcohol flows over and into the hole. It washes blood away with it; turns it a light pink that swims down Erik’s arm to pool at his wrist and the towel around it.
Charles pulls back the bottle and recaps it; grabs a cloth and soaks it in the warm water before dabbing it around the wound.
The force of the entry’s peeled back skin that pulls and flaps as the cloth touches at it.
Erik’s breathing is stern, like he has to remind himself to do it, and Charles says, “Sorry,”, blood slipping out like tears.
“It’s fine,” Erik says, teeth biting together.
Charles switches back to the alcohol, pours it out onto a new cloth and dabs that at Erik’s arm. He can feel as well as see the muscles twitch, and that sets more blood off, staining the white cloth a dirty copper.
The room smells like a bad hospital. Like ethanol and the old metal of blood, and Charles unravels a bandage.
“What happened?” he asks, for the third time, tucking the material under Erik’s armpit before wrapping it around, not too tight.
Erik turns his head to watch, says, “We got twenty two grand from a White Plains bank. They had people waiting for us outside.” He says, “Between the door and the car, I don’t know how many shots were fired. I don’t know if we hit anyone. All I know is that they hit Azazel in the back of the head and all I saw was his face against the pavement.”
Charles finishes with the bandage and holds Erik’s hand. Erik doesn’t hold back, and Charles both hopes and doesn’t hope that it’s because his muscles hurt.
Erik says, “I stood staring for so long that it got me shot. God,” he says, rubbing the heel of his palm into an eye. “Have you ever seen someone with an exit would to the face?”
Charles looks at him with a frown, says, “No.”
There’s a red circle that started as a pinprick that’s building up on the cotton-y material of the bandage, and Charles lets go of Erik’s hand to pick out another from the kit.
“He’s dead,” Erik says.
Charles doesn’t know what to say. He wraps Erik’s arm until there’s no more red, and he says, “I’m sorry, Erik.”
“It was her,” Erik says. He rolls his shoulders and winces, says, “I saw her face before I was looking down at what was left of Azazel’s. Her brown hair behind a Winchester rifle and his eyes staring above the blown out hole that was his mouth and nose.”
He knows who Erik’s talking about before he says it, but when he does, it still feels like a punch to the gut.
For the next few days, Erik isolates himself. He sleeps on his good side facing away from Charles, and Charles is left spending most of his time with Logan or the kids.
“If you think this moping is bad, you should’ve seen him after Armando,” Logan says, smoking a cigar and sat on the sofa on Charles’ right. He closes the book he’s reading, Dracula, and he says, “After he came back from Miami. He blames himself, that’s his problem.”
Charles is rubbing at one of his fingers where the nail is beginning to grow back. He says, “It’s not his job to look after everyone.”
Logan snorts a laugh, “Try telling him that.” He blows smoke out of his mouth, says, “He’s the biggest Mother Hen that’s ever lived,” inhales more smoke, exhales it, says, “Maybe mother bear would be more fitting. Look, Chuck, what I’m trying to say is, he’ll do anything to protect what’s his. His friends, his family, whatever. You probably already know that.”
Charles nods and lifts Copper up onto his thighs from where the pup was sat watching him at his feet. He wonders what Erik’s doing as he strokes along the dog’s back.
“So,” Logan says, leaning over to the coffee table to tap ash into the tray, “When something threatens what’s his or something happens to what’s his, it’s his fault. I bet I can tell you what he’s doing right now.”
“What?” Charles asks, raising an eyebrow.
He’s half-expecting Logan to say something like crying into the toilet or writing in his pink little girl’s diary, but Logan says, “He’ll be out back with Tweedledum and Tweedledee. He’ll be teaching them how to fight, which is pretty useless, seeing as how everyone has guns these days, but he’ll be doing it anyway.”
Thing is, Logan is right.
Charles stands at the window in the kitchen that overlooks the back garden, Copper in his arms, and he sees Erik stood opposite Alex, palms held up in the air as Alex smacks his fists into them, alternating every two swings.
He wonders if Erik should be doing that with his injury still only days old.
He curls up to Erik’s back that night, has an arm over Erik’s waist and his forehead against the nape of Erik’s neck.
A week later, Erik’s mother bear instincts make another showing.
He’d been fine; had held hold of Charles’ hand that night after he’d been in the garden with Sean and Alex, and he’d been back to normal after that.
But then Charles gets the newspaper on a Saturday morning, the New York Times, and in big bold capital letters, the front page says, FEDERAL AGENT FOUND DEAD.
He stops petting the head of Atlas the Rottweiler and stares at the paper lain out on the kitchen table. The others are playing card games in the living room because it’s raining and no one wants to get wet in a house where you can’t get warm.
He follows the article with a finger, and he thinks he’s going to have a heart attack, because those few words definitely say Special Agent William Stryker, and those other few words definitely say was found dead Friday night.
Special Agent William Stryker was found dead in an alleyway in Brooklyn with one bullet in each knee. He was found with his tongue cut out and three fingers cut off and shoved into his mouth. He was found with a gunshot wound to his abdomen that had come close to killing him via bleeding out.
He was found shot in the head and there was a note stuck to him, stuck with hot fresh blood that said WARNING: DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS MINE.
“What the hell is this?” Charles asks, walking into the living room. They all look up from their game of pontoon, and he holds up the newspaper in one hand, yells, “What? What is this? Would anyone like to explain this to me? Hm? Erik?”
He walks over and throws the paper at the side of Erik’s head, and it drops to the floor beside him.
Erik uses his good arm to get to his feet, says, “Let’s talk about this outside.”
“Why?” Charles asks, and the others are looking at him like he’s crazy, “Why can’t we talk about it here? I think it’s a pretty important topic to go over with everyone.”
He’s not sure if he should be this angry or this shaken about it, but there’s someone dead because Erik doesn’t want people touching what’s his. He’s not sure whether he feels flattered or insulted, but either way, someone’s dead. It’s William Stryker, so there won’t be hundreds mourning, but he’s still dead.
Erik grabs his wrist and tries to pull him towards the hall, but he pulls back.
He picks the newspaper back up and waves it around in front of Sean, Alex and Logan, says, “This is not okay. You may think that it’s okay because you’re protecting your loved ones, but this is not okay. Does anyone know why this is not okay?”
Erik’s glare is burning into the side of Charles’ head, and Charles is looking at the others, waiting for someone’s hand to raise or for one of them to say something, but they don’t.
They just stare at him, and even Logan looks put out, and Charles says, “This is not okay because it gets you even further up the Bureau of Investigation’s hit list. It gets you even closer to Death by Federal Agent. Do you all understand?”
There’s no answer, so Charles just shrugs and dumps the newspaper down on the coffee table, knocks the deck of cards so they slide over, and he says, “Okay. Class dismissed,” and he walks out.
He hears Alex say something like what the fuck, and Erik follows him and slams the living room door shut behind them.
“What is wrong with you?” Erik asks, his voice low. Charles would bet five dollars that the other three have their ears to the door.
“What’s wrong with me?” Charles says. He scoffs, says, “Sometimes I have no idea who the hell you think you are.”
Erik’s chest rises with a breath, and he looks like he could punch through stone.
He says, “That man aided in the murder of Armando, and that man practically tortured you.”
“That didn’t mean you could kill him,” Charles says, incredulous. “Look,” he says, “Not that I don’t appreciate you caring for me, because I do, I just don’t appreciate violence at such extreme levels being partly attributed to me.”
“Why don’t you look at it as the universe levelling itself out,” Erik says. He’s taking the piss. He says, “Look at it like that if you want to. He was a bastard, so I was a bastard to him, and now he’s dead.”
Charles doesn’t even know where to start.
Actually, he does.
“If that’s how you want to play it, then that means that you’re next. You think of that, you idiot?”
“What, do you want me to say sorry?” Erik asks, spreading his hands out. The bandage at the top of his arm underneath the fabric of his shirt makes him look deformed. “Because I’m not saying that, Charles,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m not sorry for what I did to that man. He deserved much worse.”
“You’re not god, Erik,” Charles yells. “You don’t get to decide who deserves what.”
Erik practically explodes, shouts, “He hurt you, god damn it. If you don’t want to look at it like I hurt him because he hurt you, then don’t. Look at it like I hurt him because he hurt me. It hurt me to see you like that. I’m protecting what matters to me and letting everybody else know what will happen to them if they come near it.”
Charles is fighting a losing battle every time he heads into an argument with Erik.
He says, “Don’t you ever dare do anything like this again. Do you hear me? Because that’s your warning. Why you couldn’t just be an accountant, I don’t know.”
He walks away before Erik can say anything else and before he ends up punching Erik in the face.
He ignores when Erik climbs behind him in bed and kisses the back of his neck, says, “I’m sorry.”
He says sorry after every kiss; trails them down from Charles’ neck and up the rise of his shoulder. He’s kneeling and his mouth presses down Charles’ upper arm until it stops at the slight curve of his hip, but Charles doesn’t give any reaction.
He gives up, eventually.
He sleeps on his good side and Charles feels his hand resting at the small of his back; how it always curls into a fist while he’s sleeping.
Logan tells Erik that they’re taking a break. He says that they need to wait for Erik’s arm to heal at least a little longer; that they can’t risk the wound tearing open again during a job and having Erik at risk.
As it is, blood seeps through the bandage every so often and leaves stains on the bed sheets that won’t wash out.
It’s March sixteenth when they get back into it.
It’s March eighteenth when the two boys come into the living room, scratching at the back of their heads and shuffling on their feet, and it’s Alex who says it.
He tells Erik that they’re leaving. That they’ve had their time and that it’s been great and that they owe him so much for all that he’s done for them, but that it’s done. They’ve weighed up the pros and cons and after having both Armando and Azazel die, they want out.
Erik is upset and he hides it behind anger.
Because if the boys leave, he’s only got Logan.
Because if the boys leave, this chapter is over.
“He’s like the dad I never had,” Alex says.
“Yeah,” Sean says. There’s the click of a gunshot from where Erik is firing at trees in the garden. Sean says, “Except I had a dad. He’s like the dad that didn’t run off with my third grade teacher, Mrs Carver.”
Click click click click click.
Each of them has their own echo, and Charles really wishes Erik would stop.
“Those boys think the world of you,” he says, stood beside Erik as he takes aim and fires four straight shots into the same elm.
Erik pauses to shove more bullets into the revolver, and he says, “Then why are they leaving?”
He shoots twice at another tree; two little eyes.
“They weren’t going to stay forever, Erik,” Charles says. “Every kid flies the nest some day.”
Erik empties the rest of the round into the painted white target of the farthest tree. He says, “But they’re not just kids. They’re family. Family are supposed to stick together.”
Charles feels a tug at his gut. Erik turns and picks up a pistol from the rotten bench. He holds it in one hand and squints at the target.
“They’re scared,” Charles says. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his coat. “They’ve been through a lot, and they’re only twenty one. You have to let them decide what’s best for themselves, even if that does mean moving miles and miles away to Cuba.”
“They can’t leave,” Erik says. His hand is shaking and he misses the mark. He drops the gun back on the bench, and he sits cross-legged on the grass. He puts his head in his hands, and he says, “They can’t leave.”
Charles sits beside him, checks the ground for dog muck, and he grabs one of Erik’s hands and says, “You can’t stop them, sweetheart,” and he never uses endearments towards Erik, but he says, “I know you don’t want to let them go, but it’s what they want.”
He laces his fingers with Erik’s and squeezes, says, “You know what they said to me?”
Erik shakes his head, but he won’t look at Charles.
“They said you were like a father to them,” Charles says. Erik’s jaw stiffens, and Charles doesn’t want to upset him, says, “You may be a cranky son of a bitch sometimes, Erik. But they love you.”
Erik hugs the boys goodbye the next week when they’re ready to leave, and Charles knows that he doesn’t want to let go. Charles knows that Erik hates showing affection but he holds on for dear life, tells them to stay safe and to remember to wash. To go out there and meet some Cuban ladies and finally get laid.
Charles is sad to see them go. He hugs them and pats them on the back and says, “He’s proud of you.”
And suddenly, the house feels a whole lot bigger than it used to.
Logan starts bringing home girls, women, and Erik starts taking Charles out.
They go to dinners and they go to the pictures, and Erik kisses Charles in the backseat of the car in the middle of some empty parking lot.
It’s not romantic, not really, but it’s Erik, so Charles takes it.
They talk about Alex and Sean, sometimes. The three of them, Charles, Erik and Logan sit around in the living room with the dogs, and Charles listens to the stories of the kids, Armando included.
“Alex, the crazy bastard,” Logan says, swallowing a mouthful of beer. He says, “This one time, Erik here will remember, but this one time, one of the first times, the kid walks into the bank and is wound so tight he shoots a hole in the wall when I tap him on the shoulder.”
Charles smiles and leans into Erik’s side, lets Saxon rest his head on his feet, and Logan says, “God, and Armando. That boy could drink.”
They’re just this messy family that Charles has stumbled into.
He’s got Erik’s arm around him and he’s drinking expensive champagne from the bottle in a crappy old house that always smells like rain, and he couldn’t be happier.
But Erik still looks sad, sometimes, when Charles sees him wondering the empty third floor. He opens and closes the doors to the three boys’ rooms where their beds are still unmade from the last times that they slept in them.
Charles catches him talking to Logan in Russian one morning at the end of April, and Erik is losing everything just like Charles had.
To try and cheer him up, Charles suggests to Logan that they all go out to see the new Clark Gable picture. Go down to the city and make a day of it.
They sit right at the back of the theatre; right in the corner so that no one will pay them any attention.
Charles holds Erik’s hand throughout the whole thing, doesn’t even watch the film; just looks down at the veins and the marks on the back of Erik’s hand and thinks about how it’s been eight months. Thinks about how it’s been eight months and how he’s in love with this ridiculous man.
The film finishes.
But so does everything else.
They’re walking back to where Logan had parked the car, just two blocks away, and they’re in the crowd and the mass of the people, and they’re almost there.
They’re almost there, and there’s the sound of gunshots.
Everyone screams, and Charles is lost in it. He’s lost in the blur of running; the noise of shouting and the growl of a Tommy gun, and Erik’s yelling, grabbing hold of Charles’ hand and pulling him towards the car. He’s yelling for Logan to start up the engine and to just drive. As fast as he can. Anywhere. Home. Florida. California. Alaska. Just get us the hell out of here, he’s yelling.
Sat in the backseat of the car, Charles is dizzy.
His eyes are swimming and all he can do is hold onto Erik’s hand, tight as he can, and breathe.
They’re racing at eighty miles an hour out of Brooklyn. There’s the rattling of gunfire behind them.
Logan shifts up to the top speed of over one hundred and ten, and Charles feels like he’s flying out of New York City.
The back window smashes with a bullet, and Charles screams and ducks his head.
They lose their pursuers out on the busy streets surrounded by the sea of black taxi cabs. Their pursuers who could only be the Bureau of Investigation. John McCone, Ray Levine. Moira MacTaggart out for the man who stole her fiancé. Jonathan Stryker out for the man who murdered his son.
Charles laughs.
There’s wind blowing through the car and blowing his hair into his face, and he laughs.
“They can’t catch us,” he shouts, letting go of Erik’s hand to bang his fists on the front seats. Logan looks back and smirks, and Charles is grinning. He’s electric and he’s alive, and this must be how they feel after a robbery.
He feels brand new.
He looks to Erik with this big stupid son of a bitch grin on his face, because he gets it.
He gets it, now.
But he looks, only to see Erik slumped back against the corner where the door meets the back seat, and he’s got one hand where Charles left it, outstretched towards him, and the other is clutching at his stomach.
His shirt is stained red and the steel grey of his jacket is stained a dirty purple-brown.
His hand is almost black with the blood that’s spilling out between the cracks of his fingers, and his big blue eyes are sunken in with fear.
Charles’ throat tightens and he says, “Erik.”
No.
No no no no no no no no no.
He’s got a bullet in his gut.
The Bureau of Investigation put a bullet in his gut.
Erik looks up at him, the breeze just catching the hair at the top of his head, and Charles pants out a breath and crowds up to him; grabs his hand and places his other over the one on Erik’s stomach, and he says, “No. No, we got away. We got away, Erik.”
This is a mean joke that they’re playing on him.
It’s ketchup. It’s tomato sauce that Logan had helped store under Erik’s shirt.
The car lurches as Logan makes a turn, and Erik coughs.
Blood dribbles down his chin. It bubbles at the corners of his mouth, and he says, “I’m fine. I’m fine, schatz. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Everything’s going to be fine.
Their hands are sticky with blood and it smells like that awful old copper all over again.
“Stop it,” Charles says. He holds Erik’s face in his palms, gets big old monster prints of smeared crimson on Erik’s sun kissed face; hides the spring showing of freckles under too much blood, and he says, “Stop it, please.”
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
They had dinner and went to the pictures.
They’re going home and they’re going to go to bed and fuck. Make love.
They’re doing what every other couple in this god forsaken city does. Things like this don’t happen to happy couples.
He’s got tears running tracks down from his eyes to drip off over the edge of his chin and onto the collar of Erik’s shirt, and over the sniffling of his nose and the muddy sound of his heartbeat, he hears Logan say, “Chuck? What’s going on back there?”
There’s the sound of a car horn, too loud in Charles’ ears, and Erik’s crying, too.
“No, no, don’t do that,” Charles says, thumbs wiping Erik’s tears into a tarnish of soap pink. He hiccups a breath and kisses him; his mouth a taste of copper and salt and theatre popcorn, and this is all Charles’ fault.
He didn’t even watch the film.
He pulls back, and Erik reaches a hand to stroke through Charles’ hair and run his knuckles down the side of Charles’ cheek.
“You can’t,” Charles says, kissing Erik’s face. He kisses his forehead and his cheeks; takes away some of the blood that he’s left there.
He can’t.
Erik holds Charles’ face close to his, and he says, “Look at me, schatz,” and his eyes are big and wet and that ice-grey-periwinkle-blue they get when you look up close. He’s still got this hope in them. He’s all sanguine eyes, and Charles’ breath catches with a cry when he says, “I love you. I love you so much, British boy.”
“I know,” Charles says. His voice is strangled and his hands murmur with tremors, and he says, “I love you, too. I love you. Please.”
Please don’t do this.
Logan says, “Chuck? Erik?”
“Everything will be okay,” Erik says. His eyes scrunch and he pants, and Charles looks down to see him clutching harder at his side.
This isn’t happening.
Blood clings to Erik’s lips and falls into the tiny creases.
They’ll get him home and Charles will stitch up his stomach with dental floss and an old sewing needle.
He’ll be fine.
Everything will be fine.
“We were meant to grow old together,” Charles says.
They’ll die of old age in a house together somewhere in South America.
Venezuela. Columbia. Argentina. Somewhere ending in A. Bolivia. Guyana.
Erik will have a puckered little scar on his stomach like a cigarette burn, and they’ll remember the time the Bureau almost got them.
Almost.
But Charles is sobbing. He’s a wreck. He says, “We haven’t had enough time. You promised me this would be okay.”
We both know how this ends.
No we don’t.
Erik holds onto the back of Charles’ neck, cups his hand around it, and he’s got crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and he says, “I know. I know, Charles.”
Charles’ whole world is crashing down at one hundred miles an hour in the back seat of a Duesenberg.
He can’t talk for crying.
A disgusting pathetic catching of breath chokes him every time he goes to speak.
“I love you,” he says. “I don’t want this to be over,” he cries. “They can’t take you from me. They can’t.”
Erik kisses him, and it’s the end of the world.
All of a sudden, at the end of a theatre picture, the world is exploding.
“You make me come alive, Charles Xavier,” Erik says, their foreheads pressed together. Charles’ sobs catch on a smile, and salt curves around the creases in his face. “Ever since I first saw you. You and your red lips and your blue eyes and your British accent.
“I feel like I mean something when I see you,” he says.
Charles’ shoulders are shaking from the heavy breaths that he’s taking; like his lungs can’t get enough to counter how every other organ in his body feels like it’s shutting down.
It feels like he’s suffocating. Like his ribs are squeezing and his heart is at the bottom of his stomach and at the back of his throat at the same time. Like his body’s trying to stop everything. To stop everything and anything from happening, and Charles says, “Please, Erik. Please don’t leave me. Not like this.”
Not like this.
Not in the back seat of a fast car on a road out of New York City.
Not with a bullet from a federal agent’s rifle in the muscles of his belly.
“I’m sorry,” Erik says. “I love you. You’ll be okay, liebling. Schatz, I love you. I’ll see you again. I will, British boy.”
He grins at the damn nickname, and Charles has to grin back.
It’s going to be fine.
There’s blood climbing the cracks in Erik’s teeth, but it’s going to be fine.
Erik’s eyes close, and Charles says, “No.”
He pulls his head back and taps his palms at Erik’s face, a dull heavy weight in his hands, and Charles cries out, the wind whipping his hair into his sticky eyes, and he shouts, “No, come back. Don’t. Erik. I can fix this, please.”
He lets go of Erik’s face to pat at his stomach, gets his hands dripping wet with tacky blood, and Erik’s chin drops towards his chest.
His whole body is limp.
Charles can fix this.
His hand won’t hold Charles’ back.
Charles can fix this.
He didn’t watch the film.
He just wanted to make Erik smile, because Erik likes Clark Gable.
They bury him in the back garden.
In front of the tree with the two little bullet holes for eyes.
They buy a marble statue of a lion and place it just above where his head would be if he wasn’t six feet underground. They buy too many daffodils because it’s spring, and they plant them by the lion’s sides.
Charles didn’t think the house could feel any emptier, but it does.
Logan brings home a girl named Kayla, one day. She’s sweet and Native American and Logan says that they want to revamp the house. To bring it back to what it used to be before it turned into a dilapidated home for mould and wanted criminals.
It really is the end of a chapter. No more robberies by the Lehnsherr gang.
Some days, Charles wants to know what the Bureau is thinking about this. But he doesn’t want them to know what they did. He doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction.
Three weeks after he saw Erik for the last time, Logan gives him the address of a Mrs Edie Lehnsherr.
“It’s about a four hour trip,” Logan says. He claps a hand on Charles’ shoulder and he says, “Take the J. I know for a fact that that woman’s just dying to meet you.”
Charles sits beside the lion, careful not to crush the saffron yellow of the daffodils.
He holds the address in one hand and the car keys in the other, and he tells Erik that he’s going to visit his mother. And his little sister.
He puts down the things and pulls at the grass with his hands.
They could have had it all.
They were on top of the world and one bullet brought it down.
Logan was the one who wiped the blood from Erik’s face with a cold towel. Charles couldn’t do it.
“I miss you,” Charles says.
He wants to take back all the times he got mad about the things that don’t matter anymore. Never even mattered in the first place. He wants to take them all back because now it’s over he just wants to go back to the start. To Max Eisenhardt.
He pulls up at Edie Lehnsherr’s house at two pm on a Sunday.
It’s this big whitewashed cottage in a village a few dozen miles out from Boston. It looks like it’s been pulled straight from Charles’ childhood in the Lake District, and he can see Erik picking out this house for his family.
Edie Lehnsherr is a small woman in her late fifties, and when she opens the door, she’s got this frown on her face that Charles has seen so many times before.
She’s got the same straight eyebrows and the same cool eyes and the same thin lips, and her accented voice asks, “Can I help you?”
Charles is already battling down the lump in his throat.
He says, “My name’s Charles Xavier.”
And that’s all he gets to say before Edie’s face lights up and she’s pulling him in for a hug.
He can’t even think to argue when she says, “Oh, come in, mein schatz, come in.”
Schatz.
Her home is clean and full of beautiful furniture, and Charles hasn’t sat on a comfortable sofa in months.
Edie sits down beside him and grabs both his hands, says, “What brings you here, Charles? And where’s that boy of mine? I ought to spank him one, he hasn’t wrote me any letters in weeks.”
Charles laughs at that.
He’s never going to see Erik and his mother together. He’s never going to get to see Erik’s face when Edie tells him about Erik as a child.
His shoulders sag, and he has no idea how to tell her.
He looks up at her sweet face and the greying of her curled auburn hair, and he says, “I’m so sorry, Mrs Lehnsherr.” He bites back the curving of his mouth that’s willing him to cry, and he just says, “I’m so sorry.”
She pulls back one of her hands to cover her mouth.
Her son is dead.
Her baby boy.
Her stupid, stupid baby boy.
She sits with Charles and he holds her as she cries into his shoulder. He strokes her hair with a palm and shushes her, even though he’s got big fat tears rolling down his cheeks, too.
She tells Erik’s little sister, Ada, a beautiful seventeen year old girl with hair down past her shoulders and rosy cheeks, and it feels like the whole cottage aches with loss.
“Here, schatz, you take these,” Edie says, pulling out a photo album. She flips through some pages, and they’re all of Erik.
They’re all sepia tones and black and white, and some of them have Max written below them.
Charles can feel the squeezing of his ribs, and he says, “I can’t take these, Mrs Lehnsherr. He’s your son. I can’t take your photographs of him.”
She shakes her head and presses the album into his chest until he takes it. She says, “Oh, herzchen. The things that boy wrote about you.”
Mama, I found someone. You’ll like him. He’s British. He’s got these big blue eyes, mama.
“Don’t you ever doubt it, young man,” she says, “My son loves you more than anything. Even more than his silly old mama here.”
He doesn’t know whether he regrets coming.
Mama, I think I’m in love. What did love feel like for you and papa?
He’s got all these photographs of Erik. From when he was a child up until last year.
Mama, help. I don’t want to scare him away.
He’s met Erik’s mother and his little sister, but he’s so saddened by it all that he doesn’t know if it was worth it or not.
He says his goodbyes, kisses both the Lehnsherr girls on the cheek, and he’s got handfuls of Erik’s letters to his mother folded into his pockets.
“You write to me, you hear?” Edie says. “You’re my boy’s boy. So you’re my boy, and I want to hear from you.”
He nods, says, “Yes. Yes, of course I will. At least once a month. I promise.”
She smiles at him and hugs him, her grip so strong for such a small lady, but he holds on, too.
She says, “Don’t be a dummkopf. You go on and live your life, schatz. You’ve got the world at your feet, you’ve just got to figure out how to do it alone.”
He doesn’t want to figure our how to do it alone.
He has the world at his feet, but they had the world in their hands.
He reads the letters at the lion’s paws, and it’s dark, past eleven pm, and he has to use a candle, but that’s okay.
Logan and Kayla are watching him through the kitchen window.
They’ve done a great job with the house, so far. The ground floor no longer stinks like old pipe work and the basement isn’t flooded anymore.
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic sap,” Charles says.
The letters make his chest swell up like a rubber balloon, and he lays his hands out on the ground.
He strokes his fingers through the dirt, and they’re so close it’s like the metre and a half-or-so of soil between them doesn’t even matter.
He’d said, all those months ago, that he knew how this all ended. That he knew that this would happen. That Erik would be taken away. By bullet or by police car. But it still hurts. It hurts like a damn bitch.
Mama, I love him so much. I want him to be happy. I want to make him so happy that he forgets all the bad things. I want to make him so happy that he forgets that the world hates us.
It didn’t matter if they had the world in their hands or at their feet. Because the world hated them.
He packs his bags at the end of June.
June twenty-eighth. The two month mark.
It’s the hardest thing he’ll ever do, kneeling over Erik’s grave and saying goodbye.
He’s saying goodbye to bones and bugs, not the beautiful face of the pictures he keeps in his pockets, but he pulls out chunks of grass by its roots, and he says, “Goodbye. I know you’ll be with me. But--to where you rest, liebling. Schatz. Goodbye.”
Logan holds him in a big bear hug, and he says, “I want letters from you. You know the address of this shit hole, and I want to know that you’re out there somewhere-- alive, Chuck. He wouldn’t want you to fall to pieces.”
He folds the sheets of his and Erik’s bed, and he leaves.
He crosses the Atlantic and buys a three bedroom cottage a ten minute drive from Whitby.
It’s nice. The garden is south-facing and the floorboards creak and remind him of Middletown.
But it’s empty.
He wonders what Sean and Alex are doing some days, and the day after settling in he sends letters to both Logan and Kayla and Edie and Ada.
July twenty-second, John Dillinger is shot and killed by the Bureau of Investigation in Chicago, Illinois. Even the British newspapers are celebrating it, and there’s a quote from J. Edgar Hoover saying that with the deaths of Floyd, Nelson and Dillinger, their biggest target left is Erik Lehnsherr.
They don’t even know that they hit that target months ago.
The Bureau of Investigation is working its hardest to protect all Americans from the threats of those who don’t abide by the law, Hoover says. It’s all in black and white in the Guardian, and Hoover says, Although the Lehnsherr gang have been quiet for months now, we are still actively searching them out to pay for the crimes that they have committed against the United States.
Charles gets a letter from Logan a week after, and it says how he’d like to pull out J. Edgar Hoover’s whiny little nasal tongue.
It’s supposed to get easier with time. That’s what Charles’ mother had said when his father passed away. But it doesn’t.
He’s throwing stones off the edge of Whitby pier at the end of August, and he doesn’t know anyone in this town. He doesn’t know anyone this side of the ocean.
It hits the one year anniversary of when they met, and Charles is sat in bed flipping through page after page of the old photo album. He’s drinking straight from the crystal decanter and he’s got Erik’s expensive woollen coat next to him.
It feels like claws are pulling at his insides.
In the next envelope he sends to newlyweds Mr and Mrs L Howlett, he encases two letters.
The first is congratulating Logan and Kayla. They’d known each other only months, and Charles would have thought them foolish if he hadn’t been in those shoes.
The second is to Erik. To the lion that sits at his skull and bones.
Charles likes to think that even though Erik has wasted away below the ground, he’s still watching Charles in his little house in North Yorkshire. That he’s grinning with his big shiny shark teeth and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
He was a bank robber. But he was a good man.
He was Charles’ good man.
Erik, the letter says.
He’s walking barefoot along the beach at nine o’clock. It’s still light.
There’s no one around.
I miss you, it says. In messy fountain pen ink, it says, I think of you all the time. You’re all I think about. I’ve nothing to distract myself from the thought of you.
It’s low tide, but the waves wash closer to Charles’ toes each time they come back.
He smokes his first cigarette in years, and he coughs and coughs until the tobacco tastes as good as it did as a teenager.
You were an idiot, it says. I was an idiot. We were idiots. To think that we’d ever make it.
I’m not afraid of death, it says.
Charles picks up a shell and rolls it in his palm. It’s a periwinkle. He tosses it back to the sea.
Not really. I don’t fear death. What I fear is…nothing. Not nothing nothing. I fear nothing, Erik. I fear the end. I fear nothing because we are all…everything.
I have no experience of nothing, it says.
Charles sits at the sand and faces the shoreline.
And it terrifies me.
He blows smoke out to the North Sea, and it’s the little things that he misses the most.
He misses the way Erik was warm beside him in bed, even when the nights got hotter.
He misses the snarky little comments and the smirks.
He misses Erik’s hands holding his face and kissing him like nothing else mattered. Not even thirty thousand dollars from First National Bank.
Charles stands, and he flicks the cigarette to burn out on the beach.
The water reaches up to his knees.
The pale shadow of a nearly-night-time moon is just above his head as he steps further into the sea.
It’s cold even though it’s summer, and the waves push at him. They push at his chest and try to take him with them back to the shore.
They say you can’t die of a broken heart.
Always yours, the letter says.
But what you can die of is what a broken heart does to you.
Charles.