Chapter Text
Oxford, England
June 21st, 1853
When the hours passed with no perilous sign that Charles would not recover, Erik allowed himself a reprieve from his vigil, though he did not dare leave the room even with the curtains drawn tight. He instead slept in the plush armchair which had been dragged to the canopied bedside. It was far from the most comfortable of arrangements, but Erik could feel nothing but gratitude since it made anything other than a light sleep an impossibility -- which was why he was pulled awake by the soft tread of feet on the intricately patterned rug.
His eyelids lifted and his stiff muscles shifted as he began to decipher the room in colorless shades ranging from white to black.
Erik’s pulse caught when he sighted Charles beside the casement windows.
The chair was bowled over backwards by the force and speed with which Erik threw himself from the seat, but even so he could not prevent Charles’ fingers from curling around the cloth and catching sunlight.
A sharp howl broke from Charles’ lips and he drew back, inadvertently flinging the curtain back just as Erik reached him and gripped his shoulders to pull him aside. He had not been able to spare Charles from scalded fingers, but the newly unveiled sliver of sunlight had blessedly not touched anymore of his skin.
Erik closed the curtains once more and fixed his attentions on Charles, presently cradling his right hand. Even in the gloom Erik could see the forming discoloration of his fingers, mottling in blackish patches.
“Erik...” said Charles, a search for answers in his voice, and Erik was unsure how to provide them.
“I’ll fetch a lantern,” he said and did so, lighting it and flinching at the suddenness though the thing was not overly bright. Still it allowed for the suggestion of color; a hint of redness to Charles’ lips and a trace of deep blue to his dressing-gown.
“Erik,” and Charles seemed to grapple with his thoughts, his mouth parting and pursing until he wrangled out a question: “What have you done?”
Erik found himself unable to answer, the weight of it, the intertwined remorse and rapture clogging his mind and twisting the words before he could even give them form. Charles was a vampire. Charles was kindred. He was no longer alone.
“Is it so terrible to be alive?”
Charles gave no indication that he heard the query. “It was you, Erik, the entire time... you’re the vampire of London.”
Remorse and rapture gave way to a defensive anger, his mouth forming a harsh line though he did his utmost to convey impassivity.
“I am,” was said sternly.
The admission had Charles gaping, his elongated cuspids catching the firelight and quickening Erik’s pulse. They were beautiful and suited Charles immensely, a keen reminder that Charles could not deem him a monster without also condemning himself. Erik was not entirely soothed, but he embraced the consolation.
“And you killed those men...”
“I did,” he said without remorse. He would not feel it nor its like for those men. Not ever.
Erik could hear Charles’ heart, no longer the weak flutter of the previous night, but loud and fast and possessing a similar conveyance of fragility and fear. And a more exact similarity to another heartbeat; one from a woman he loved, on a far away night, in a cabin he built. Erik clenched his jaw, and hardened his heart.
“They intended to do the same to us.”
“You could have stopped them,” asserted Charles.
“I did stop them.”
“No Erik, you murdered them outright, you did not have to kill them, you could have stopped them without slaughtering them!”
“And allow them to murder someone else?”
Charles fell silent to that, and Erik caught him thumbing his nightshirt where the dagger had been thrust. Quiet, but not peace, descended over them. The only sounds were the steadying beat of Charles’ heart and the swinging pendulum of the tall wooden clock tucked in the corner.
Charles averted his eyes and Erik’s followed them to the seared flesh of his hand.
“Here,” said Erik, setting the lantern on the floor and bringing his thumb and two of his fingers to his mouth. He dabbed them with saliva before gently massaging the injury; due care paid to each digit. That Charles did not withdrawal from his ministrations rekindled some hope.
That Charles remained silent dashed it.
The stillness reigned for minutes that stretched; until the pale hue returned to Charles’ skin and Erik had lit the candles spread throughout the room. It was at least more illumination than there had been.
“You changed me.” The words were spoken with some likeness to a question and some likeness to an accusation.
Erik turned, and regarded his friend, a term he realized may no longer apply. It brought a terrible agony upon him that Charles might feel hatred, the same hatred Erik had felt at his own sire.
“Only to save you, believe that.”
A half-sob, masked by a facsimile of laughter came from Charles’ throat. “Can I? All these years and you never told me.”
“I couldn’t.” Erik said simply.
“Do I know anything of you?”
Charles did earnest very well, his every feature painted with that mixture of pain and desperate curiosity. Erik grew incensed, and unable to bear the thought that Charles would walk out of his life as easily as he had stepped in.
“You know everything of me! Tell me, Charles, how have I changed? In what manner has my character deceived you? I am that same man that you have spent these past years with. If your only quarrel is that I did not inform you, let it pass for I have told you now!”
Erik watched as a sad sort of coldness took over Charles, soft faced still, but something in his eyes or the slant of his mouth gave the impression that he was far from swayed.
“Yes, you tell me now, now when you could have done so at anytime and prevented me from turning into--”
“Into a monster?”
Anger seized him and at once the urge to throttle Charles came upon him, not to end his life but to hurt him, to make him take back the words. When Charles did not respond, Erik found himself unable to let the matter drop.
“And still you ask me why I did not tell you.”
“You changed me into something I’m not prepared to be, you took away my choice.”
“Took away your choice? No, Charles, I gave you one. If this existence is so monstrous, and so immoral, then all you need is to stand before that window again.” Erik waited, and when no move was made he felt emboldened. “Go ahead, Charles, if you are so morally superior.”
“I...” Charles faltered, eyes flicking between the window and Erik. He wouldn’t, Erik could tell. Charles had a healthy love of self, and while he was at times reckless, it was never in such a way that could be construed as self-destructive.
“I should like to be alone,” he uttered. Quiet and deathly cold.
Erik hesitated, but made to leave, though not before giving Charles something else to consider.
“I thought I was a monster once, and then I realized... I’m just a stronger breed.”
---
Charles sat in the quiet of his makeshift room with his eyes on the window, closed to him for some indeterminate interval of time. It was difficult to not feel the loss, even if had never believed himself the nature-type. The thought that he could not do something was never one he was entirely comfortable with, and it was a bitter kind of sweet that being a vampire did not change that.
Truthfully, he did not feel very different. Physically, perhaps, the elongated cuspids were certainly new, but even now he hardly felt them. Though, his tongue still probed at them, sliding along each carefully and finding them quite sharp. Charles still felt very much himself, he was in full possession of his memory save the previous night was blurred, and his emotional responses did not seem dissonant.
He could still manage to say the absolute wrong thing to someone. Charles frowned. He had not honestly felt Lehnsherr a monster, the word had tumbled out in regards to himself and he had failed to consider that Lehnsherr was the same... creature. Entity? He huffed in the low candlelight. He had failed to consider that Lehnsherr was also a vampire.
For that was what Charles was now, and it was best to not dance round the issue. He did not wish to perish, even if he would have to do as hateful a deed as consume blood. He knew this of himself now, but, it was quite possibly vampiric influence. Perhaps as a human he would have chosen death. It was not as though Lehnsherr had consulted him on the matter.
Round and round Charles’ thoughts went, nuanced with despair and surliness, until Charles could no longer bear his own company. He rose from the bed and padded his way across the room, he pulled open the door latch and was more than startled to find Lehnsherr starring at him from the other side of the hall.
Lehnsherr seemed far less angry, his eyes wide and looking Charles up and down. Charles swallowed, and steeled himself.
“I want to know everything.”
Lehnsherr nodded his head once, and Charles stepped back from the doorway to allow him entrance.
“I’d like you to start with why you couldn’t tell me when I made my thoughts clear.”
Lehnsherr rubbed at the line of his jaw. “A number of things. But, I did not wish you to think me some wretched thing that needed your help.”
Charles found he had little to say in response to that. Eventually he reasoned, “You could have explained that to me as well. I would have understood.”
“Then because I was afraid. I did not believe you could be so accepting.”
Charles scoffed. “I was... I am your friend. Of course I would have accepted you.”
Lehnsherr turned his face and fixated on some distant point on the masonry. “My wife did not. I had no reason to believe that you would remain when even the woman who professed to love me would not.”
“I... I am so sorry. I--”
“Save your pity, it was a very long time ago.”
Charles could have argued that it clearly still affected Lehnsherr, but he had no desire to needle an old wound. It was difficult to find anger after that, and so he sat down and listened quietly as Lehnsherr explained every sordid detail of his life. He imparted to Charles every ounce of self-loathing he had experienced and forced back. He told him everything.
“And then I met you.”
Charles did not know what say, so he wisely refrained.
“What will you do?” asked Lehnsherr, and Charles understood the real question, the one hidden underneath.
Will you take your life?
“I don’t know.”
July 1st, 1853
In the preceding days Charles had done little more than sleep, Erik had been willing to believe it was a product of exhaustion and a shifting in his internal clock. Charles had at least managed to send a missive to his foster sister, conveying to her that he had taken ill rather suddenly and that a physician of repute had advised him to return to cleaner air so she needn’t worry herself or cut short her stay in the city.
Erik mused if she ignored the instructions and boarded a train for Oxford their pretense would not fall to shambles for Charles certainly appeared ill. His skin was a shade lighter than even porcelain and his eyes were more lackluster than Erik could recall observing. At once he recognized the symptoms.
Charles needed to feed.
“Come with me,” Erik said, some hours after the sun had gone down.
“Where?” asked Charles as he looked up from his book. Erik crossed the room and pulled the volume from his hands and set it gently on the night table.
“Just come, please.”
Charles gave him a surly look, but nevertheless drew himself out of bed and motioned for Erik to leave so that he might dress himself. Erik complied, venturing back into the hall and waiting. It was not a terribly long wait, and swiftly he led Charles into the balmy night.
“You need to hunt,” he explained. He stopped when he sensed no other movement.
Charles’ throat visibly constricted, warping his voice in something on the precipice of shrill, “No, I’m quite all right.”
“Charles.”
Silence save the chirp of crickets and occasional flap of wings.
“I can’t,” Charles admitted finally, “I can’t assault some poor chap I’ve not even met.”
Erik had feared this.
“You have to, and it will only hurt them for a moment.”
Charles averted his gaze and shifted his weight while wearing an expression of acute discomfort. Erik grimaced.
“Would you be more comfortable if I showed you?” he asked.
“What?”
Charles eyes were on him once more.
“I could show you that it doesn’t hurt. I’ll bite you, and then you can bite me so that you may know what it’s like.” Erik answered as though it was the simplest solution in all the world. Possibly it was.
Charles seemed to mull it over, but he did eventually undo his collar to expose his neck. Erik smiled and stepped neatly into Charles space, lining their bodies parallel to one another. A unique interplay of emotions went through him as he leaned down; hunger, anticipation, longing, and trepidation all warred for preeminence.
He inhaled deeply and ghosted his mouth over the flesh. Charles shivered.
“Are you going--”
Erik chose that moment to bite. Teeth penetrating quickly, and a sudden burst of flavor touched his tongue. He felt Charles head loll back and tried to ignore the perverse wash of pleasure.
He pulled back and allowed Charles time to recover his senses.
“Oh,” he said shakily.
Erik hummed in agreement and loosened his own collar. “Go ahead, Charles, try it yourself.”
There was greater hesitation on Charles part, as he leaned down with his mouth only a hair’s breadth away for an agonizing length of time. Erik had little idea what it felt like, he only knew that those he bit never found it disagreeable until after the fact.
“Go on,” he encouraged.
He felt a warm rush of air and then twin pin pricks that had him gasp. And then... Oh. Perfection. He tilted his head back, feeling pleasantly warm. His blood swirled as it rushed, leaving him tingling from the inside with only the soft, wet press of lips to ground him.
Charles jerked back, shaking and breathing heavily, fangs still descended as he panted. He looked stunning and Erik found that in the cobbled mess of emotions, longing had won.
July 3rd, 1853
“So... you simply push your will at the person?” asked Charles skeptically. Though he supposed he should not be so swift to judge with things as they were. He moved his rook five spaces to the right to prevent Lehnsherr’s queen from taking it.
“It is the best explanation I can offer.” Lehnsherr responded and seized the rook with his bishop.
“How difficult is it, and,” Charles positioned his knight, “check.”
Lehnsherr moved his king to safety and then answered, “It varies.” His expression lent itself to the interpretation that he had more to say and so Charles waited it out.
“I confess I did it to you, without meaning to.”
Charles sat up.
“You did? When?”
Lehnsherr stared at the board and would not meet Charles eyes.
“That night, with the rain. I... made you say things...” he paused to collect himself and at last looked up, “I have regretted it immensely.”
Charles was stunned for a moment, and then he laughed, his shoulders quivering with mirth. “Oh, my dear friend, I’m afraid that wasn’t you. I thought, well, I rather imagined you had the same tastes I have.”
“You mean...?”
“Yes. Unless you somehow enthralled me before having met me. I confess I was quite taken with you when met, and over the years...”
“Yes. I mean, I have felt the same, but I thought, I thought I had forced the feeling onto you...”
“And I thought you weren’t interested.”
Charles sat back and tried to process the new information, while Lehnsherr seemed to do the same. That same tiny piece of hope unfurled in his chest and he forced his breathing to be even.
“We would be hanged.”
As thought they weren’t already in danger of it, being what they were.
“I can keep a secret.”