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(i.)
"Look," Erik said, the night he met Charles. When he'd held the knife to his pretty little throat without touching the handle and Charles looked amazed rather than afraid. In retrospect it should have been the first sign that something was deeply wrong.
"Look," Erik said, late that night in the woods where he'd followed the tracks of the pale, blue-eyed boy he'd known would be his the moment he spotted him, leaning against the tree as if he'd been waiting for someone to come along and mess his pretty face up. As if he'd been waiting for Erik. Little Red Riding Hood - his hoodie was blue, not red, but his lips made up for it. And he'd stared at Erik and disappeared, and Erik had chased after.
"Look," Erik said, because the blade was against Charles' throat and first blood was always the best, that faint trickle full of life, "It's not you. It's me. I'm sorry."
But of course he meant: It's entirely you. You're perfect.
And Charles said, somehow, because his lips weren't moving and Erik was watching so he'd have known if they were: I know.
Erik said that night, thought it with every fiber of his being: "I'm going to kill you," and Charles had said simply, "No." Added, as an afterthought, "You can hurt me if you want, though."
In the end all he did was push Charles to his knees, grab a fistful of his lovely hair and say, "Open up." Erik wasn't sure what had gotten into him that night, wasn't even certain what was going on, but then of course after a while it all made sense. Charles with his soft skin and his softer hands - a boy who'd never had to work hard for anything in his life, who whispered stop and go and move and do this and do that, and not only could you not say no, most of the time you didn't even know he was doing it.
"I will never tell you what to do, Erik," Charles whispered that night. On his knees, Erik's spunk on his face, and Erik knew he was lying then, but Charles told him not to care, and so he didn't.
(ii.)
Charles had a sister. This he told Erik, conversationally, and it occurred to Erik to tell him to shut up, but then he realized that Charles wasn't speaking to him but relaying the information, bright dizzying images of a girl who could change her form at will.
"I sent her away," he said sadly, and when Erik thought - he snapped, and it felt like a punch to the inside of his brain, "I would never. She's in boarding school, far away." Look, Charles said honestly, I know everything about you. It's only right you know everything about me too. And when Erik could speak again, when he stopped crying, Charles kissed his tears away and said, "You should fuck me now. You should - okay, Erik? Please. Please."
Desperate little pleas that tasted like bullets. Charles in his lap, and Erik didn't even know how he'd gotten there. Or how they ended up on the floor of that dirty motel room that was like every other dirty motel room, and Charles told him, "You're my first. I've been waiting for you. Please, Erik." And Erik, he believed every word.
(iii.)
Charles wore his bruises like a tattoo, proudly and without shame. In diners, Erik made spoons spin idly while Charles beamed at waitresses, "I'd like a chocolate milkshake, love. He'll take a cup of coffee." The waitress would stare at his battered face, at Erik's bruised knuckles, and nod her head mutely, forgetting the menus in her rush to get away until Charles gave them to her with that beautiful smile of his, unmarred by the bruises. Intensified by them. Charles was never more lovely than when he was bleeding.
"Do you know," Charles said, sipping at his chocolate milkshake while Erik nursed his coffee and a burgeoning headache. "She's more upset by the possibility that we're a couple of fairies than she is by you hitting me." He paused. "Should I make your headache go away. Poor baby."
"No," Erik replied gruffly, because he clung to the bits and pieces that were his now, even those that hurt. "Leave my head alone."
(iv.)
Erik makes breakfast utensils dance for his own amusement while Charles sits cross-legged on the bed, watching him with some consternation. "What," Erik says, and Charles says, "Parlor tricks, Erik. I expect so much more." Erik sends a knife hurtling in Charles' direction, stops it a hair's breadth away from his eye.
Charles blinks, and Erik feels a lash brush against cold steel.
"Interesting. But what if you could -" And Erik sees a plane crashing down at his command, a building torn from its roots and smashing great metal pillars onto the ground: people dying, en masse, all of their screams reverberating in his head - it's not how he likes to do it, it's not what he wants. His perfect, beautiful, human boys and girls and blood shining so very bright against metal. The knife arcs, dull blade sliding against Charles' cheekbone, leaving a thin red line in its wake. It's not what he wants, impersonal and distant and pointless: all that wasted life, all that wasted blood.
Charles shakes his head and tells him, you don't know what you want, Erik. You don't know what you're capable of. I can show you. Let me show you. The first trickle of blood starts to drip from his cheek, darkening already pinked skin.
Shut up, Erik says, and drags Charles off the bed with the force of every piece of metal on his body. Drags him close until he's on his knees, and the knife is safely back in Erik's hand. I want you, he says. I want this, and I want you, and nothing more. Charles presses his cheek to Erik's thigh and hugs him, mouths wet nonsense words against the fabric of his pants. But I can make you see, he says, and he sounds like a child wanting to proudly show off some accomplishment: Look what I can do, please.
"Later," Erik says, and pulls Charles up to kiss him, tastes the blood on his lips.
(v.)
A cop flashes his lights, they're going too fast. Erik doesn't bother playing the game, tells Charles: Make him go away, but Charles, he's in a mood and he makes Erik pull over. "I'm sorry officer, was I going too fast," not particularly caring. Make him go away, he repeats, but he blinks and the man's still there.
"What fun would it be if I just fixed the entire world for you," and Erik frowns, because isn't that exactly what he was promised. But Charles has a plan, he always does, and this man, this boy, Erik corrects himself, his face goes blank and he stares at them for a while before he says, "You're free to go."
It's too risky, Erik insists, even though he's already half hard with anticipation and the boy's face is imprinted onto his mind. You think too small, Charles informs him smugly, and Erik wants to backhand him. He gives in to the urge, and when Charles is done wiping blood off his lip Erik hauls him up by the collar of his sweater and demands: What did you do.
Patience, Charles says, and just like that the boy drives up to their motel room, out of uniform and in a nondescript car. Just waiting to bleed, and afterwards Charles says, using words, and oh, Charles hasn't used his words in a while so this must be special, "Given enough time, I could make everyone that ever loved him forget he existed. Just a Scott-shaped hole in the world."
Erik starts. He never bothers to remember their names, but Charles, Charles knows them all. "Could you," he asks, grabbing Charles by the throat and pushing him down onto a bed still soaked with blood.
"Yes," he manages to gasp out before Erik tightens his grip, and all the metal in the room starts to shimmer, and his mind shudders, look what you've done to me this is not who I am this is not - but then it's gone, and the world makes sense again.
"Yes," Charles says again, and Erik says, "Don't let me stop you."
(vi.)
Erik has nightmares, blood and tears and metal and Shaw, always Shaw, and it always hurts and it never stops except the one time when he opens his eyes and Charles is next to him, staring into his eyes, and he goes: Just tell me you want them to stop, Erik. Erik thinks: But I don't know who I am without them, and Charles frowns as if it's the most illogical thing in the world, as if Erik should already know: But you're mine, and when Erik feels the scream building, this delicate house of steel and pain he's built start to crumble, Charles nods his head and goes knowingly, "But there's so much more to you than -"
Erik puts his hand to Charles' mouth, even though Charles isn't speaking at all. "Shh," he says. "You'll ruin the romance."
He keeps his memories, and he keeps his nightmares. Charles doesn't fight him on it, even though he wakes up crying too, but then maybe all that means is: this is what Charles would rather he not forget.
(vii.)
"I had a sister," Charles says in the car. "I was going to visit her. And then I was going back to college. And I was supposed to get a ride but it was early yet so I decided to take a walk. And then I felt you. Heard you, in my head." He pauses, sounds utterly lost. "I don't remember much after that."
"Isn't that my line," Erik tells him, because it has to be. It has to, or else. "You saw me, and you led me here."
"No, that's not how it went," Charles says, and now he's frowning, and Erik feels everything wavering apart, so he jams on the brakes, turns to Charles and says, "No, no. Don't break this, it's perfect."
And Charles stares at him, bright and perfect and perfectly understanding, and says, "I will never leave you alone, Erik. No matter what. So just forget," and Erik does.