Chapter Text
"The world is already rebuilding its arsenals,” Charles said quietly, looking in on the room where Raven (no, Mystique, he needed to remember that) was speaking with the other students. They all looked so eager- some excited to play with their gifts, others simply anxious to please. He wasn't surprised anymore, that it had come to this.
“It’s human nature, Charles,” said Erik, the words accompanied by a small collection of fluttering thoughts: ‘still the same- affection, exasperation- he looks tired.’
“I still have hope,” Charles said, looking up at the other man curiously. “I was right about Raven. I was even right about you.”
Erik turned to him, and as always the pressure of those hard eyes moved something inside Charles- even after all this time, after everything that had happened, he felt on the edge of breathless when Erik looked at him like that.
“What about the rest of the world? Doesn't it ever wake you up in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day they'll come for you…you, and your children.”
“It does indeed,” Charles murmured, holding that gaze. It wasn't a challenge, not really- they had moved beyond such things.
“What do you do when you wake up to that?” Erik asked him, and Charles knew it was an honest question. ‘Don’t understand- so vulnerable- I’m right and I know it!' Charles smiled faintly at this.
“I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul that comes to my school looking for trouble,” he said simply.
Erik blinked, surprised, and Charles smirked, enjoying the little rush of Erik’s emotions: pride, and a fondness, both inexplicably strong, and also something else, Charles couldn't quite make it out- he would have thought desire, before, but that didn't make much sense now.
“Will you stay?” Charles asked him, and Erik waited a while before answering- Charles didn't pry, he had learned enough patience for this, but he still felt a faint stirring of turmoil in Erik’s mind, something of worry and guilt and that powerful decisiveness of his all rolled into a ball.
“For a few weeks, at least,” Erik told him. “I...I just need to get back on my feet.”
“You’re welcome to stay for as long as you need,” Charles said.
~
The initial week with Erik staying in the manor was slightly awkward, but not terribly so- most of the students seemed to have assumed him deceived by En Sabah Nur, given that he had switched sides to help them in the end, and his controversial history (dropping a stadium on the White House) was a topic for debate amongst them, rather than condemnation. They all admired him in one way or another, even if said admiration was slightly tinged with intimidation. Peter, for his part, had yet to reveal his secret- Charles was not going to reveal it for him, even if it was all he could hear whenever Peter was in the room with Erik, a steady and anxious repeat of the same words: ‘my father- my father- my father.’
(He wasn't going to ask Erik about that, either. It was hardly any of his business- they had only been lovers for those few wonderful, shining months before Cuba. After that, well, they had been…nothing, he supposed. Fucking once in the back of a plane, high on drugs, right before Erik tried to kill his sister was hardly evidence of some long-lasting sentiment. Erik had clearly moved on more than once- there was no reason to let on that Charles never had.)
As the weeks grew longer, though, things became more comfortable. Erik fit in well there, even though he thought he didn't (Charles heard this loud and clear and as always, didn't comment). He also didn't agree with all of the principles of the school, but he kept this to himself, assuming he was there on borrowed time. Charles knew he would leave eventually.
Even if it had once felt like it, they had never been destined to be together.
~
Charles was in a good mood, discussing the progress of the students with Hank and Erik (the former, because he worked there, the latter because he had tagged along) as they made their way down to Cerebro. Since the mansion had been rebuilt, most of the younger children had begun moving back in, and interest was growing worldwide in ‘The Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters’. It seemed that things were beginning to look up again.
Charles moved easily on the smooth floor in the electric wheelchair, spinning cheerfully in circles as he spoke with his companions, and a thought of Erik’s suddenly stood out to him:
‘Pretty- he’s so cute- Beast made that thing well.’
A swell of protective satisfaction, and surprising pleasure.
Charles stuttered in his speech, and felt Hank’s confusion, so he closed himself off a little more tightly than he usually did, making nothing of it. He shouldn't be so loose around others anyway- since Erik had returned, Charles had gotten back into his bad habits, allowing the low-level hum of everyone’s surface thoughts wash over him without actively straining (as he had to) to block them out.
Still, he stopped spinning in the chair. He was being silly.
~
Charles was headed back from a training session in the field with Scott- a target practice, bittersweet. It was so easy to see that he and Alex were brothers. Part of all of Charles’ sessions with Scott now were about grief- helping him clear his heart as he focused his powers. There was a long way to go yet, but…
Erik met them on the path back to the mansion, and Charles stopped, as always disarmed by Erik’s appearance- in summer-white and sunglasses, he looked like an actor, like that 'James Bond’ character from the movies. Effortless. Charles was already hot from the weather, and wheeling himself back from the field wasn't easy, so he couldn't help but feel annoyed at his own dishevelment. He hated that sweat made his shirt cling to his chest.
“I’ll just, uh, I’ll go then, Professor,” said Scott- he was somewhat nervous around Erik, and Charles supposed he also wouldn't mind getting out of the session early. As a young man, he had to slow himself to walk by the cripple, a fact that Charles usually took advantage of to work some words out of him once the technical side of their training was done. But there was no helping it today.
“Alright, Scott,” he said, and the boy darted off. “Check in on Jean for me, will you?”
“Is he afraid of me?” Erik asked as he approached, casually stopping on the path by the chair. Charles shrugged. He heard Erik’s thoughts, projected loud and clear due to their urgency: ‘is it him- no, knew the brother- can’t be him.’ What was meant by this, Charles didn't ask.
“You are a little intimidating,” he said instead, teasing to ease the atmosphere, and after a moment Erik grinned at him. There was that pleasure again. Charles still didn't really know why.
“I thought you could just push a button for it,” Erik continued, gesturing at the manual wheelchair. The armrest was missing the control stick present on the electric version.
“Oh, no, that one only works indoors,” Charles said mildly. “It has to be on a very smooth surface.”
“Ah,” Erik murmured, and somehow his hand found Charles’ shoulder, fingers brushing lightly there. Helpless, Charles flushed. “You must have become very strong then.”
“Right,” Charles muttered and, finding he quite disliked all of this, he resumed pushing himself back to the house. Not that this helped- Erik was now forced to follow his slow, rocky pace, to watch Charles struggle when he himself could fly.
Though, Charles couldn't help but notice, he didn't seem annoyed. Charles didn't try to read his thoughts, but the only emotion he could feel from the man beside him was a faint, almost guilty kind of happiness.
~
It was late at night, a few too many brandies had been consumed, and sitting at the chessboard before the fire it seemed like all of the years between Erik and himself had disappeared. It was as comfortable to speak with him now as it had been before the accident in Cuba- before Erik had left. They were on a second game, Charles had won the first, and was very nearly about to win again.
“I think this suits you,” Erik told him as Charles considered the board, reassuring himself of his traps.
“Mm?” Charles replied, even as he already heard the answer: ‘headmaster- schoolteacher- rich and settled.’
“This place,” Erik continued. “I think it's good, what you’ve done with it- making it a home for our kind.”
“I believe there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Charles murmured good-naturedly, and he claimed one of Erik’s bishops.
“We don't need to talk about the ‘but’ now,” Erik replied, and he looked back down at the board. With satisfaction Charles felt his little stab of irritation- check in three, with no practical escape- and Charles gave him a smirk before taking another sip of his drink. He felt very warm like this- how terribly easy it was to fall back into his old mistakes.
“Better like this than as it was,” he said, thinking of that time during Vietnam, when he had been...a wreck, there was no better word for it. Pathetic, and a wreck. Back then, the house had been empty- a castle for one man to drink in.
He felt Erik considering him, and then to his surprise the other man stood, shifting around the board to kneel at the feet of Charles’ chair.
“...you aren't going to move?” Charles asked dimly, his upper body tensing at the sudden proximity shift. Erik was still very handsome- indeed, the decades had done nothing to him but make him moreso, and Charles couldn't help but want to lean away. He didn’t look into Erik’s thoughts at all, for fear of what he might let slip if he did so- though many didn't realize this, telepathy was always an exchange.
“You’ve already won,” Erik told him, and his gray eyes caught all the colours of the fire, and just as Charles remembered- they had done this before, or something quite like it, in that perfect world before Cuba- Erik closed the distance between their faces and kissed him.
Charles flinched at first, but then allowed it, though it was a conceit to assume he could push Erik away over something like this. But in truth, he didn't know if he wanted it or not- he had assumed this part of their relationship was long over.
Thankfully, Charles didn't have to think too much about it. It was only a gentle kiss, as slow and careful as any extension of the olive branch.
“I thought you had died,” Erik whispered against his lips when he pulled away, and the admission sounded pained. “When the jet went down- I thought you had been killed.”
Charles felt it then, a sudden shock that Erik was surely pushing at him- horror and despair and overwhelming grief, an understanding that Erik had reached: 'I can't, not without him.' It was a surprise. Charles blinked, and turned slightly away.
“Kurt is very talented,” he began, and Erik suddenly kissed him again, this time with more passion. ‘No- he doesn't understand- he has to understand- I love him.’
“I used to dream of hearing that,” Charles murmured when they were apart again. Erik’s eyes burned into him, full of that same furious passion they had possessed when Erik had seen him for the first time, after he had been pulled from the water. Charles wanted to shrink away. He couldn't match that, not anymore.
Erik was surely confused. It wasn't his fault- he had been married, married to a wonderful woman with a wonderful daughter, and they had been very cruelly ripped from him. Charles could still feel that wound in Erik’s heart, if he looked close enough. How terribly he had suffered…
“So did I,” Erik told him, and he pressed his face into the crook of Charles’ neck, breathing deeply. Charles felt it all, for a flash- passion and remorse and a deep, possessive love- and then he pulled himself back inside his own skull, straining every telepathic muscle to do so. Still, he did not move away physically- he probably couldn't, he had a feeling Erik had locked the wheels of the chair in place. Instead, he ran his fingers through Erik’s hair, sighing faintly.
For a while, they sat embraced like this- Erik relaxed and Charles grew tense.
~
The next few days were uncomfortable, on Charles’ part- he kept busy, because of course he was busy, they all were- but whenever Erik was around he felt those pulses of barely restrained ardour. It was terribly like it had been before Cuba- even the setting and circumstances were the same. Charles knew Erik had loved him deeply back then, had loved him practically since the moment they had met, and all with a passion Charles had been too helpless not to return. Of course, it had been impossible not to be swept up in such a love, to find oneself embracing it, especially given the way Charles had been back then- that had been the love of a lifetime. But things had changed- the world had changed, their relationship had changed, and of course Charles had changed as well. He wasn't as he had been.
That night Erik came again to the lounge, though Charles hadn't asked him to, and sat carefully in a chair by the fire. Had he begun to sense Charles’ reticence? He was looking at Charles like he was water to a man dying of thirst, and Charles didn't understand why.
“Your hair hasn't begun to grow back,” Erik said and, surprised, Charles ran a hand over his own smooth skull.
“No,” he agreed, and then he felt a flash of his own embarrassment, and annoyance. “I’m beginning to fear it's stuck that way. It was always a possibility- my father was bald before he died.”
“...I didn't realize what he was going to do to you,” Erik said quietly, and Charles felt a touch of self-directed anger from him, a faint bitterness and disgust. He spoke, of course, of En Sabah Nur- the body thief. “I thought...I suppose it doesn't matter what I thought.”
Charles shrugged, looking away.
“It wasn't your fault,” he said simply. This was true- there were many things to be upset at Erik for, and this wasn't one of them.
“How do you feel?” Erik asked him. He opened his mouth to say ‘fine’, or ‘better’, as he had to everyone else- but Erik shook his head before he could, as though he were the mind reader. “No, really, Charles. You were nearly…”
‘Possessed- destroyed- consumed.’
Charles smiled slightly. For Erik, all of these things were worse than death.
“I don't know,” he said out loud. “...I’m afraid at times that there’s still some part of him inside me. I think I can feel it. Bloodthirst, and pride…”
I feel dirty, was what he didn't say. Spoiled.
Erik took his hand, and Charles managed not to cringe away this time. However, he didn't speak, and when Charles kept quiet too he shuffled closer once again. Without any effort at all Charles could see his intentions- there was heat on the forefront of his mind, heat and something unbearably gentle, and Charles was moved by it. But he couldn't accept it, not really, not when he was like this...then, an idea came to him.
Erik was leaning in to kiss him again, and Charles created an illusion, something simple- only a small expenditure of his strength. He pulled on Erik’s memories of him, spinning them out into the air where they could take form, and placed himself ever so slightly behind Erik’s eyes, so he could see it too.
The illusion stood from the chair, leaving it by all appearances empty and taking Erik’s hand to make him rise. Erik was completely shocked, Charles couldn't help but feel it given his current position, and he offered Erik a clever little smile- a smile on the face of the body he had created.
It was, of course, his own- Charles as he had been twenty years ago, before the beach. Young and able-bodied and terribly pretty- he had heard Erik say as much many times back then, out loud and in his head. He could feel the same sentiment now, that and wonder, both bursting to life at the front of Erik’s mind- Charles pulled him in for a kiss, and his control over his ability was impeccable, for to Erik every part of it felt real.
“How,” Erik began. “What-?”
Charles didn't let him finish the question, wrapping ‘his’ arms around Erik’s neck, insisting that the other man’s fingers run through his hair, across his body, under his clothes. It didn't take much to achieve an enthusiastic response. In a moment Erik was clutching him back, kissing him deeply and with single-minded determination, and Charles heard his love like it was a shout.
“For old time’s sake,” Charles whispered in his ear, and he led him away, taking him from the lounge to the bed. Erik followed, blind with his own passion, and- what was that?- relief. Charles understood, and didn't pry any further. Of course, it would be better like this. Erik would prefer it.
That night, Charles stayed in the lounge as he had sex with Erik, all the while tailoring the construct he had made for Erik’s mind so that every touch and sigh felt as real as...well, as reality. It was difficult to maintain at times, only due to the strength of Erik’s feelings- resting in his cerebrum like this meant that he heard every thought and emotion, with no hope of blocking them out.
Not that there was much that was coherent. Erik really did love him, that was clear. How strange- it felt almost as though he had never stopped.
“Come for me, schatz,” Erik insisted, his mind on fire with the pleasure of being buried in the false heat that Charles had made for him. “Let me feel it…”
Charles arched his back and wrapped his legs around Erik’s hips, crying out just the way he would have, making his body pulse- but he only really felt it when Erik did, his lover’s climax replacing his own.
When it was over, Erik buried his face in the crook of Charles’ white throat, kissing him there. There was only one thought in his head: ‘Charles- Charles- Charles.’
Charles stayed there a moment, giving Erik the sensation of having fingers run through his hair, of an out-of-breath young body lying against his, warm with sweat and shivering from the aftershocks of the pleasure. Then, ever so softly, he encouraged Erik to fall asleep- it wasn't an imposition, Erik had wanted to do so anyway, Charles only made it so that he wouldn't be startled when he left.
The illusion disappeared as Charles moved back fully into his own head. He had to blink a few times, adjusting to seeing through his own eyes- Erik even had clearer vision than he did. He looked back at the fire, and tried not to dip into the resting mind in his bed a few doors down.
He ended up staying there all night, drifting asleep in his chair- he didn't know why. He supposed he didn't want to wake Erik.
~
The next day Erik managed to catch Charles alone sometime after lunch, sorting through papers at his desk.
“How are you?” Erik asked, leaning against the doorway in a terribly handsome way, and Charles offered him a quick smile.
“Oh, alright,” he said. “I was just talking with Jean. She’s been having some trouble since the battle.”
“I saw,” Erik replied. “She’s very powerful.”
Charles frowned at him now-
‘That’s not the point!’
-and Erik held up his hands with a smile of his own, a sign of surrender. He sat down in the chair opposite Charles, and didn't seem uncomfortable in the slightest. He was looking at Charles quite intently, and Charles wished he would stop- there was no way he could compare. As Erik had pointed out, his hair wasn't even growing back in.
“You weren't there when I got up,” Erik murmured, and Charles caught from him a flash of hot memory- a memory of the Charles that had been in his bed last night, muscles shifting under pale skin that shone in the lamplight.
“Oh, I woke early,” Charles told him. “Lots of work to do- I didn't want to disturb you.”
(A white lie- Erik didn't need to know that he hadn't returned to the bed at all that night, or that he had, disgracefully, used telepathy to keep Erik asleep while he went through his long and awkward morning routine- the very last thing Erik would want to see.)
Erik hummed to acknowledge this, and then to Charles’ surprise reached out, picking up a selection of the papers.
“Then let me help you with it,” he said.
~
That night, when Charles heard Erik approaching his bedroom, he didn't even bother with the pretence- he rolled away into his study and, sitting in the dark there, recreated his construct so that it appeared on the bed the moment Erik opened the door.
“Charles,” said Erik, sounding surprised, and the young Charles smirked at him, stretching his whole (nude) body out on the bed.
“You want to play, don't you?” He purred in his most sinful voice, and he felt Erik’s arousal suddenly flood to life. With the first kiss, the little flicker of reluctance in Erik’s mind disappeared, replaced only by flattery: ‘so beautiful- Charles- missed him- love him so much.’
“I missed you too,” Charles murmured to him, and he was telling the truth.
~
The afternoon started out bright, and so all of the practical lessons were taken outdoors- ‘training’ for the younger students really consisted of games, frisbee and football (actual and American) and track. Challenges both to use their powers to their advantage, and to not use their powers at all- a way of learning control. On early summer days like this one, the activities were enjoyed by all.
Charles wheeled between groups, encouraging and complementing and offering suggestions as was needed. He even pitched a frisbee himself, quite poorly, laughing with the children as his attempt dive-bombed into the earth. It was then that Charles saw Erik- he was standing by himself under one of the larger trees, arms folded across his chest. Most of the younger children were scared of him, of course, so they took a wide berth, and Erik was left in a wide circle of space all alone.
Charles rolled up to him, cautious- he could feel even from afar some kind of roiling tension at the forefront of Erik’s mind, something like distress, the source of which he wouldn't pry telepathically in order to pinpoint.
He was still curious, though. Charles surreptitiously followed Erik’s gaze, and found at the end of it a group of the young children playing with Kurt across the field, plucking at his tail and chasing him as he teleported from place to place. Among them was a girl with long, straight dark hair. Even without really looking, Charles knew it was she who Erik watched so closely.
“Good afternoon,” Charles said to him, and Erik startled slightly, turning away at last. “...everything alright, my friend?”
“Yes,” Erik said, even as a spike of negative emotions confirmed the opposite. “I’m just…”
‘She would have loved it here.’
“...leaving,” Erik continued out loud. Charles hadn't been meant to listen. “I shouldn't be here.”
This last admission was muttered, bitter, Charles heard it more in his mind than with his ears, but he didn't have a chance to say anything in reply- Erik was already striding away, his mind turned as cold as ice, looking back at neither Charles nor the girl. Charles wondered if that was it- if by ‘leaving’, Erik meant forever. After all, he had already stayed longer than Charles had thought he would.
Charles didn't reach out to discover this on his own, instead watching that retreating figure until he couldn't anymore. Was there anything he could have done, to make it stay? Of course, he knew the answer to that- Erik had left him even back then, before, on the beach. In the end, Charles would always be left.
When Erik had vanished Charles looked up at the sky, and was surprised to find a summer thunderhead encroaching on the castle- there was going to be a storm.