Work Text:
I know what your boy like
Skinny tie and a cuff type
He go and make breakfast
You walkin' round naked
People say that it’s a bad idea to be friends with your ex. People say that it’s an especially bad idea to be friends with your ex, if your ex is Erik Lehnsherr.
Unfortunately for him, Charles is an optimist. Unfortunately for him, Charles believes he can make friendship work with anyone. Unfortunately for him, Charles believes no one is beyond repair. Fuck, he’s such an idiot.
Well, at least the sex is good.
Erik is putting on his trousers as Charles pants through the aftermath of the earth-shattering orgasm he just had. His boyfriend will be home in half an hour and Charles still has to shower and change the sheets and pretend Logan doesn’t already know anyway, but Erik is taking his time. He’s messing with his hair, adjusting his jeans so they show just enough skin but no underwear and deciding whether to skip a button on his shirt so everyone knows what they just did. It’s unbearable but somehow also… sexy. Really sexy.
I might just text you
Turn your phone over
When it's all over, no settlin' down
My text go to your screen, you know better than that
Suddenly, Charles just wants to plant his head in his pillow and scream that he took the bait again. He knows that whenever Erik texts him ‘come over’ he can respond with nearly anything but ‘Logan isn’t home’. He’s smarter than that - he has a fucking PhD and is on the track to getting tenure before he’s 30 - but he still texts Erik ‘Logan isn’t home’.
“You need to leave,” Charles says irritatedly, finally catching his breath and common sense in the afterglow. He starts gathering his clothes, tearing off the sheets. “Logan’s gonna be here soon.” He gathers it all to his chest, thinking of how he did this exact same thing just a week ago and then gave Logan a handjob and pretended to fall asleep when Logan tried to repay the favor, and looks away from Erik as he sighs and says, “we need to stop this.”
Erik scoffs, still checking the hickeys on his neck in the mirror. He pulls aside his shirt so they’re on full display and leaves it like that - asshole. “You know, this is always just as much your fault as mine,” he mentions, a slight glare directed towards him, “don’t act like you didn’t have a choice in this.”
Charles bristles, fury rising in him so quickly, in a way Charles didn’t even know was possible before he met Erik. “I never said it was your fault,” he protests and dumps the mess of fabrics into the laundry bin, “I just said we need to stop this.”
“Yeah, you say that every time. I never promise that back because I’m not delusional and then we get into a fight. Can’t we just skip all that?” Erik is still checking himself out in the mirror but the metal frame bends out of shape a little, like Erik is expecting a blow.
Charles frowns instead, “do we really fight after everytime we fuck? That can’t be true.”
“We did it when we were together too,” Erik shrugs, as if that’s normal and mundane - not extremely unhealthy - finally turning away from the mirror to take his phone and sunglasses off the bedside table. He’s still not looking at Charles. “I’ll see you at trivia night, alright?”
Charles watches as Erik leaves and follows him out of the room. He still needs to shower. He still needs Erik. Erik is chugging the coffee they left abandoned in the living room and is heading to the door. “Wait,” Charles says and Erik stops. He has no idea what he’s going to say until he says it, “sex was better when you didn’t shield.”
Um. What the fuck?
I can't find you, the girl that I once had
But the sex that we have isn't half bad
Erik glares at him, and Charles is pretty sure he’s just shut off the electricity in his neighbor’s apartment. Not an unfair reaction - but why punish his neighbors? “Have telepathic sex with your boyfriend,” Erik spits at him and then slams the door behind him hard enough that the picture of Logan and Charles falls to the floor and shatters.
Well. Apparently, they really do fight after everytime they fuck.
I come around when you least expect me
I'm sittin' at the bar when your glass is empty
Erik definitely thinks breaking up was the right choice - Charles wanted a partner who was steady and couldn’t end up in jail for his activism and Erik wanted a life dedicated to the cause and a partner that accepted that. Doesn’t mean everything between him and Charles right now is just sex - if it was, everything would be a lot less complicated.
It’s the championship of the mutant trivia tournament, just the X-Men against the Brotherhood, and Erik needs to win. Winning is the only thing that makes him feel better about seeing Logan whispering in Charles’ ear and the way Charles beams at it. He needs to win and he needs Charles to see it.
So he makes it to the bar early, to go over his notes.
“Let me guess,” a girl says from above him, “you’re in the Brotherhood.”
Erik can smell a human from a mile away, and when he looks up, the brunette, brown eyed, brown skinned girl is very clearly a human. But her smile is surprisingly charming for one. Still, trust really isn’t Erik’s thing. “What of it?” he says coldly. What was a human doing in a mutant bar?
Her smile falters slightly, but she doesn’t seem intimidated, “nothing - I just bet my friend that you would win this time.”
“Oh,” Erik says, and looks back at his notes. That’s all she wanted to say, surely. End of conversation as far as Erik is concerned. “Okay.”
The girl doesn’t leave. “You better not lose me my money,” she jokes and Erik looks up from his notes once again, irritated. Charles would think he’s being rude, but well. Charles left him - he doesn’t give a fuck what Charles thinks.
(Lie. Lie. Lie. Why would you shield otherwise? )
“I’ll try my best,” Erik answers dryly and the girl laughs throatily, making Erik frown and wonder when he made a joke.
“My friend thinks I only choose you because Xavier is not my type,” she tells him, humor in her eyes, “I think she only chose him because she thinks Xavier is hot.”
“He’s taken,” Erik spits out. Not by me, though , he thinks bitterly and thank god this girl is human and not a telepath.
“Yeah, we know,” she dismisses, unaffected by his moodiness, “anyways, I genuinely think you’re going to win. You’re way more passionate about all this than Xavier.”
Erik blinks, “most humans think I’m more intense than passionate.” Most people, actually.
“Most humans are idiots,” she says and that causes Erik to genuinely laugh. This human... This human gets it.
“I’m Erik,” he says, gesturing for the girl to sit in the booth next to him.
She sits down, flashing a charming grin, “Magda.”
I need to be alone like the way you left me
You start callin'; you start crying
I come over; I'm inside you
Charles cried when he broke up with Erik. Erik thought it was pretty unfair, given that he was the one getting dumped - still, everytime Charles sobs, Erik just wants to make him feel better in any way he can, if only to stop that horrible sound and the sight of those glassy eyes.
Such is the case right now. He’s hanging out with Magda, lightly making out as they watch some horrible new netflix film with “mutant representation”, when his phone lights up with Charles’ name.
Erik hesitates. He still hasn’t told Magda that Charles and him used to date - he’s not sure how long she’ll last when Erik tells her that. “You can answer it,” Magda says, “I’ll write down my insults.”
Erik snorts. “I’ll be right back,” he says, answering the phone and heading to the bedroom. He clicks the door closed softly. “Charles? I’m kinda busy right now…”
Immediately, sobs hit Erik’s ears and he drops down to the mattress, forgetting he promised Magda he’ll be right back, forgetting he has an almost-girlfriend, forgetting that he and Charles are over. “It-it’s not fair,” Charles tells him, “h-he left me and you ha-have a girlfriend .”
Erik feels like he’s been slapped. “Logan left you?” he asks in bewilderment. Thank fuck. He kind of thought Logan was a massive jerk. “Fucker,” he mutters.
Charles laughs wetly on the other side of the phone, “I was the o-one cheating on him.”
“Fucker,” Erik repeats because that’s how he feels. If it was up to him, he would never have let Charles go, even if Charles was cheating on him, even if Charles was in love with someone else, even if Charles told him he hated him every single day. He wouldn’t have been the one to let go - he would’ve taken everything he could have had of Charles.
Magda is outside.
“Can you come over?” Charles pleads, sniffling, “I know you have a girlfriend and… we don’t have to do anything.” They both know that’s a lie if there ever was one. “I just miss you,” he says, broken and affectionate and miserable.
Magda evaporates from his mind as he says, “yes.”
Logan and Charles get back together a week later. Erik gives Magda a key to his apartment. Erik and Charles keep having sex. Erik and Charles fight after every time.
I'm a ghost, and you know this
That's why we broke up in the first place
The thing is though, that despite how they are - fighting and fucking and competing - Erik and Charles are genuinely friends. Best friends. They play chess. They debate mutant politics. They help each other out. They listen to each other when they have a bad day.
They just happen to be having sex too. Cheating, overwhelming, hot sex.
Sometimes Charles thinks he should just break up with Logan, beg Erik to come back to him, live like this everyday, without having to pretend he has any real feelings for Logan, without having to pretend he has no real feelings for Erik.
But then Erik leaves the bedroom to make it in time for a rally and Charles remembers how it used to be like when they were together.
So we fuck 'til it come to conclusions
All the things that we thought we were losin'
They’re both drunk that day. They went out to celebrate a new mutantphobic bill not passing, and predictably, it ended with Charles riding his cock, Erik keeping him on his lap with his hands on Charles’ waist. This time though, their shields are down. They’re projecting and receiving and sending and feeling and thinking and fuck, feeling again, with such an intensity that Erik isn’t sure if the love he feels is his or Charles or both of theirs or some kind of wishful hallucination. It’s so intense that he’s pretty sure he and Charles are one being at one point. It’s so intense Erik isn’t sure if he needs Charles’ mind more or the sex more. It’s so intense that when Erik comes he sees stars and Charles’ moaning voice.
It’s so intense that Erik feels empty when it stops.
“That was…” Charles gasps.
“Yeah,” Erik agrees.
They both lie in the bed together, side by side, not an inch of them touching together but each other’s heat radiating everywhere as if they are pressed together. His mind feels like mush and his emotions feel like… oh.
“You love me,” Erik states, a fact, but a sad one. Fuck, Charles loves him.
Charles doesn’t say anything, but doesn’t bother denying it either. “I haven’t done this with anyone but you,” he confesses, cuddling into Erik’s side for a minute, “I missed it.”
Erik doesn’t know what to say to any of that. So he just curls an arm around Charles’ shoulders. He missed this too.
Are we datin'? Are we fuckin'?
Are we best friends? Are we somethin'
In between that?
I wish we never fucked, and I mean that
“I wish we never fucked,” Erik says, miserable, staring at the ceiling and thinking of how he doesn’t love Magda and still lied about it yesterday. He turns his gaze towards Charles, towards the person he really loves and can’t have.
“Me too,” Charles says, equally as despondent, and then looks at Erik too.
But not really
You say the nastiest shit in bed, and it’s fuckin’ awesome
They start round two five minutes later.