Chapter Text
“Some day,” Magda says, half-breathless as she lies on her back beside Erik, both of them completely spent, “we really should thank Charles for all the ideas we get from his stories.”
Erik huffs a laugh, half-turning to look at her. “I don't even know how he ends up in half those situations.”
“To hear him tell it, neither does he,” Magda says. “Though I can't imagine he's really that oblivious.”
“I don't know,” Erik replies, turning more fully onto his side, his hand splaying across her abdomen. “You know Charles; he can be pretty clueless when it comes to himself.”
“Pot, kettle,” she retorts, sliding her hand into his hair, pulling him closer.
“Oy,” Erik protests, half-heartedly, but this is an old, well-trod argument, and he satisfies himself with flicking her side. She laughs, curling her fingers and pulling, and then Erik is groaning and letting her drag him on top of her and bring his head down for a kiss. Or five. Or so.
“Seriously, though,” Magda says when they part, chest heaving in a way she can tell Erik finds it hard to ignore, “Charles has to know how attractive he is.”
“Really?” Erik pauses in sliding down her body to look back up at her. “You're going to keep talking about Charles now?”
“We’ve already established that talking about Charles in bed only leads to good things, haven't we?” she retorts, toes curling just at the memory of tonight's orgasms, and from the way Erik’s cock is stirring against her leg, he doesn't disagree. “And anyway, you can't tell me you don't think about fucking his mouth.”
“Anyone would,” Erik says defensively, flopping to the side, accepting that they're going to talk now instead of fucking again. Magda would apologize, but she feels like they've been half-dancing around whatever this conversation is for ages, and she wants to see it through. “Especially when he spends half his stories talking up how good he is at blowjobs.”
Magda hums thoughtfully, her hand absently tracing the muscles of Erik’s stomach. “You'd like to see him put his money where his mouth is, wouldn't you?”
She doesn't need to look at Erik to know he's flushing.
“I—” He sighs. “I mean—”
“It's okay,” she says soothingly, turning on her side to face him. “I would, too.”
She should be proud, she supposes, that Erik doesn't so much as blink.
"You're saying you'd like to see him use his mouth on me?" Erik says. "Or would you want to see what he can do with it on you?"
Well. "I mean...do I really just have to choose one?" Magda says. "Can't I choose all of the above?"
Erik looks like he wants to smile, and roll his eyes, and turn away from the conversation, all at once.
Magda watches him for a minute. "I wouldn't mind seeing you going down on him, either," she says carefully.
Erik twitches full-body—or maybe it's a kind of shiver. Either way his skin jumps under her fingers, warm and soft. "Magda."
"I know you've never done it before, but I could give you pointers."
"I hate you," Erik tells her seriously. "This is why I don't tell you anything."
"You tell me everything."
"Yeah, but I shouldn't."
"Don't be a baby," Magda tells him. She lets go of him to sit up in bed, tucking her legs underneath her to sit criss-cross as she looks down at him. Erik's gaze moves straight to stare at her boobs, because he's a boy and that's what he does. "I'm just thinking...I mean, I don't care what Charles says, I'm still not convinced 'accidental threesomes' are a real thing. But if they are, how come he's having them with strangers and not with us? We're awesome. We're hot. We care about him."
“We are so hot,” Erik agrees, focusing on the important point as always as he sits up, eyes still mostly fixed on her chest. “Anyone would want to have a threesome with us.”
Magda rolls her eyes and places her hand flat on his breastbone to hold him back as he tries to lean in. “Yes, okay, but that's not my point.”
Erik sits back and watches her, carefully. She meets his gaze steadily.
“You're serious about this?” he asks, after a long moment of silence.
“Aren't you?”
More silence. Magda can see Erik warring with the desire to get up and walk out of the room, and never actually have to talk about this. Finally, he admits, “I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it, but—” He trails off, looking to the side.
Magda snorts and reaches out to stroke his arm, grounding him in her touch. “Please. I don't need to be the telepath to see how much you want him to fuck you.”
Erik frowns, taking her hand in both of his. “You know I'd never.”
Magda waves her free hand. “Again, you're missing the point.”
He doesn’t say anything a moment, and just frowns down at her hand. Magda knows that look, the one that says he’s formulating an argument, and she starts talking again before he gets too far.
“You don’t think less of Anne-Marie or Logan for it, do you?”
“I couldn’t think any less of Logan, regardless,” Erik grumbles, but his frown is lessening.
“Well, he managed to sleep with Charles,” Magda says, squeezing his hand. Anne-Marie, too, and how that all worked has been no small source of curiosity (and, if she’s honest with herself, jealousy too) for Magda. “You know it’s not like that. It’s not saying anything about us.”
Erik hums to himself, clearly thinking it over. He gives her hand a squeeze in return, and for a moment she wonders if he’s still going to try and escape the conversation.
Then he grins up at her, that sharp smile that still makes her heart race after all these years.
“Except that we both have impeccable taste,” he says, and she laughs.
“Now we have to hope Charles does, too.”
Here's the thing about Erik and Magda: once they decide they want something, their commitment is laser-focused. (It's part of what makes them work, and also the source of some of their biggest arguments; lasers can cause a hell of a lot of collateral damage.) And so, once they've decided that what they want is Charles, they start planning. Intensely. Seduction schemes are proposed and discarded with impunity, ranging from the simple (“Charles, do you want to fuck us? At the same time?”) to the elaborate (“No, Erik, we are not renting out a club for a night just to make sure no one else hits on Charles.” “Are you impugning my genius strategist brain?” “I'm going to stab your chess buddies, I swear.”), and as a side effect, their foreplay becomes prolonged and amazing.
(It should maybe be concerning that Charles Xavier is one of the best things to happen to Erik and Magda’s sex life even when he's not directly involved in the proceedings, but then again, he's Charles. This isn't even remotely surprising.)
And while the sex has been increasingly fantastic even with Charles present as nothing more than a hypothetical partner (the things it does for Erik, just talking about Charles fucking him... Well, Magda would tease Erik for it, were it not for how fast she gets off to it when Erik’s fingering her and going on about Charles’s mouth), they’re sure of one thing.
Incredible as Charles may be as a hypothetical, he’s only going to be better in practice.
The problem is—as many brilliant ideas as there are out there to get Charles Xavier into bed—Magda and Erik can’t seem to agree on a single tactic. And a single tactic it must be, since there’s absolutely nothing that will put Charles off faster than thinking he’s about to break up a couple. Magda’s heard enough hand-wringing from him about some of his previous “accidental” threesomes (“I swear,” he says almost every other time they meet for drinks, “I just went there to talk. I don’t know how this happens to me!”) to last a lifetime. The last thing she and Erik need is to make Charles all cagey by coming on to him individually.
It’s enough to give her pause when, a few days later, she’s due to meet up with Charles for lunch. Alone.
(“I can’t do it,” she yells that morning as she’s making coffee, trusting Erik to hear her through the apartment’s comically thin walls.
“You have to,” he shouts back, over the spray of the shower. “He’ll know something’s up if you cancel. Just act normal.”)
Thursdays bring her out by the campus, where Charles works, so it’s been a tradition for her to meet up with Charles if he’s not tied up in meetings or research. Of course, he just had to be all caught up with his work this week, she thinks as she manages to cram the truck into the tiny sliver of parking still available. She locks up and pauses to check her blouse again in the side mirror—not too low-cut, she hopes, but the way most clothing designers act around curves leaves something to be desired—before rushing her steps to the cafe, already running late.
Of course he couldn’t be stuck grading finals, she’s still grumbling to herself as she pushes open the door. Of course she couldn’t feign illness, either, not when she and Erik have important Charles-related plans on Saturday.
And, as she steps around a crowd of college kids and makes her way to the back and spots him at one of small tables, of course he had to look stupidly good on a Thursday afternoon.
Ugh. She dodges around another pack of college kids. Why she keeps agreeing to meeting Charles out here, she’ll never know. It’s busy enough, she can’t help noticing, that someone’s already commandeered all the chairs of the table save for one; and Charles has that pulled up against his wheelchair, obviously trying to avoid people asking him for it. Why he won’t just use his damn powers sometimes is a complete mystery to both her and Erik.
“Thanks,” she says, leaning down to give him a quick hug (is that still okay, it has to still be okay, what if she blows this?) before moving the chair slightly (is that too far? Or too close? Oh god, what if she blows this?) and taking a seat. “Sorry I’m late, but this place—”
“Has the best reubens in town,” Charles interrupts. She rolls her eyes. Sadly, he’s not wrong.
(It's because all the sauerkraut is made in-house, Magda's pretty sure. Erik always likes to start his rant about "foodie-ism" and trendiness and needlessly fussing with simple cheap food and blah blah blah—the three of them have been coming here since they were all freshmen themselves, so it's easy to tune out the specifics—but even Erik usually shuts up right about the time their orders actually arrive.)
It takes Magda a little time to start to relax, but Charles is and has always been skilled at carrying most of a conversation on his own. Magda and Erik like to joke to him about how much he likes the sound of his own voice, but it's more like—well, Charles is just so enthusiastic about everything. There's always something to be excited about, and his default is to want to share it. And, true, a lot of those times it's boring genetic things that make Magda sort of tune out after the first sentence, but even then, it's still pretty endearing.
Magda and Erik have spent a lot of time this week (a lot of time) talking about how hot Charles is, but that's not all of it, really.
Her nervousness about ruining everything has faded down to just a vague tension in the middle of her chest, and she's nibbling thoughtfully on french fries and nodding occasionally as Charles starts to wind up his story, laughing a little at himself as he does it.
"And what about you?" Charles says finally. "I've barely given you a chance to talk today! And I—well, you'll forgive me for saying so, but I thought maybe you had an announcement to share…?"
Magda can feel her eyebrows raise up to her hairline. "An announcement?" she repeats. Charles and Erik text daily; did Erik ruin their plans by saying something earlier? But, no, that doesn't make any sense, not with Charles's expectant smile.
"Well, you seemed a little—" Charles waves a hand in the air in a vague gesture. "When you first came in. I figured maybe there was good news to share."
Magda bites her lip and counts to ten before she can trust herself to speak. She's not sure if she wants to laugh or what. "I'm not pregnant, Charles," she says after a moment.
“Oh,” he says, and his excitement deflates just the tiniest bit, invisible to anyone who hasn't known him for years.
Before he can ask what was going on, she preempts him. “I was just keyed up from traffic and parking, that's all.” She looks him straight in the eye, daring him to call her out on the lie; they both know she was nervous, not fuming to bring the place down the way she gets when she's stuck maneuvering around idiot student drivers and the even more recklessly stupid student bikers.
Charles gives her a look that says he isn't buying it, but doesn't press the issue. He smiles at her, picks up his barely-eaten sandwich, and says, “How has your week been?”
Magda immediately crushes down the urge to say dominated by thoughts about you, and starts telling Charles about what happened on Tuesday when the office coffee maker exploded for no apparent reason. He's perfectly attentive as she talks, making hums of agreement and horrified faces at all the right times, but she can tell he's just a little distracted, and she can't stop worrying that she's screwed this up, that Charles is now super suspicious. Erik would never forgive her if she did anything to mess up their plans—hell, she’d never forgive herself.
Seeing Charles today reminds her of all the things they've been talking about this week, all the reasons they want Charles, all the reasons why they want him to want them. The stakes are weirdly high, in a way they haven't been since she and Erik first started dating, and Magda knows they're probably making a bigger deal of this than it maybe needs to be, but it's...important. Charles is important, even—no, especially—when he's making a complete mess of his sandwich because Charles has never quite been able to figure out even the simplest of finger foods (and doesn't want to, his years-later rebellion against growing up eating pizza with a knife and fork).
Magda becomes half-aware she's staring when Charles blinks at her and lowers his sandwich. “What?” he asks, a half-smile on his messy lips. “I know I've got something on my face, but there isn't anything in my hair, is there?”
Magda snorts. “No,” she says. Ordinarily, she’d joke about putting something in his hair, but that would involve a lot of physical proximity that she's not sure she can handle right now. She sighs and finally tears her eyes away. “I'm sorry I'm so distracted, it's been a long week.”
She's not fully lying; work hasn't been the easiest, and while it's a funny story, the coffee incident didn't help, and the fact that she's been getting less sleep due to all the sex she and Erik have been having isn't helping, either.
“You're all right?” Charles asks, serious now, reaching out and resting his hand on hers, squeezing just a tiny bit.
“Yeah,” Magda says, with a small smile. “You don't need to worry about me.” She turns her hand so their palms are together, and squeezes back before gently pulling her hand back and distracting herself with some cold fries.
Charles snorts. “Just let me know if there's anything I can do to help.”
“This,” she gestures to encompass the cafe, their standing lunch date, “is good.”
Charles beams at her and picks up his sandwich, and Magda starts telling him about the new kid she met this week, how she can make things grow with just a touch. Charles is delighted, of course, asking infinite questions and gesturing expansively as he thinks of all the possibilities for this girl, and Magda finally, finally feels herself (almost) fully relax.
All fine, she texts Erik as she weaves through the parking lot to the truck.
I told you.
You did not, you just told me to act normal.
And you did, so everything's fine.
Magda rolls her eyes. Typical Erik, taking credit. Not because you told me to, asshole.
She doesn't need emoji to know Erik’s rolling his eyes, too. Love you, too.
The thing is, as long as there has been a Magda-and-Erik, there's been a Charles, too. Longer, really, since they both met Charles before they met each other—Magda and Charles were in the same history class first semester of freshman year, and Erik and Charles met that first day moving into campus, their dorm rooms right next to each other and even sharing a wall. They were already fiercely devoted to each other by the time Erik and Magda met at the party where they first hooked up, and though Magda's never been sure, she's always suspected it was Charles who nudged Erik into coming up to talk to her in the first place.
She knows Charles gave Erik tips before she and Erik lost their virginity to each other, because Charles admitted that to her once, drunk and fond, one of the countless nights they all sat around Magda and Erik's tiny apartment talking and playing cards. Erik had been in the bathroom at the time, and he'd returned to both Magda and Charles collapsed into giggles—he'd stood there eyeing them both suspiciously, which only made them laugh the more.
In the very back corner of her mind, a part of Magda has wondered if things might have been different if Erik's bisexuality revelation had happened just a few years earlier, before the two of them got together. If Charles would have had, well, dibs.
Maybe not, though. All the years they've all known each other, it's not as if Charles has had a relationship that's lasted more than a few weeks here and there. Lots of cheerful and frankly unlikely sounding sex, but not relationships, as such. Not somebody special to care about Charles and fawn over him and make him happy. Maybe nothing would have happened with him and Erik, either, or it would have been just another one-time thing.
It doesn't matter. The point is...the point is, it makes sense for her and Erik to be nervous about this. They're not just inviting anybody into their bed. Charles is their best friend, the best man from their wedding. This is a big deal, and they're going to get it right.
It might help if either of them had experience in seducing people, admittedly, but that's a minor quibble.
They finally agree on a plan of seduction (Magda refuses to let Erik call it a plan of attack, this requires a delicate touch) on Friday night. They both wear their most unsexy clothes so they won't get distracted, and drink wine while they come up with and abandon ideas in rapid succession. By the time they finish their second glasses, the floor of their small living room is already covered in crumpled-up balls of paper, to the point where it's getting in the way of Erik’s pacing. At some point, Magda realizes that the last time they did this, they were planning their wedding, and Charles was sitting on the couch, helping them brainstorm while also keeping them from killing each other. It's almost strange not to have him here, especially since he's the expert on seduction (even if he does claim it's “accidental” half the time, there is no denying that Charles is very good at getting whomever he wants).
By the time the bottle’s finished, Erik’s given up on trying to navigate the scattered debris on the floor, and he's leaning against Magda’s back, looking over her shoulder as she writes their plan down, just waiting for her to misspell something.
“You don't need to worry, no one else is going to see this, and anyway, most of the words in this plan are ‘sexy,’” she tells him dryly, after far too many seconds of him breathing on her neck.
“If this goes well, we’ll want to save it for posterity,” Erik says. Magda turns to give him a disbelieving look.
“Really, that's the part of this you're going to want to remember if this goes well?”
“All good strategies deserve to be preserved for future generations to learn from.”
“Come on,” Magda says, rolling her eyes and throwing down her pen with possibly more force than is necessary. “I’m married to Narcissus.” She snorts, holding up what she's written for their ‘plan,’ which consists of such true pieces of genius as “sexy clothes,” “sexy music,” “dirty talk,” and “alcohol, but not too much,” and, at the bottom, in big capital letters, “SEX,” and says, dryly, “I really don't think we, or anyone else, will have to work too hard to reinvent this.”
“The best plans are the simplest,” Erik replies, looking approvingly at the agenda at hand. Magda carefully says nothing, though not five minutes ago Erik was seriously arguing the merits of hiring kidnappers so they could “rescue” Charles. (“He’ll realize how much he wants us, then!” “Oh, he’ll realize something about us, all right.”)
Erik reaches for the paper and looks it over, as if he really needs to read the five point plan again. “Now,” he says, “we just have to decide where we place the field of battle.”
“This isn’t a war,” she says, for possibly the tenth time tonight. She twists to frown at Erik. “You think we should take him to a club?”
“Hmm.” Erik keeps glaring at the paper, his brow furrowing as he thinks it over.
Magda knows, one hundred percent, Charles does still go out to clubs. That, however, is something she and Erik don’t precisely excel at (house parties at the mutant rights collective in college were as hip as they will ever manage), and Charles knows it. Maybe they could act like it’s something they’d like to try. Or they could pretend they’re trying to go to a new pub, and when they get there, whoops, it’s a club. Or they could act like they’re indulging Charles, didn’t he ask them out to places like that before? So what if they’re five years late on taking him up on the offer.
She can almost see Erik’s mind working, going through and discarding all the same thoughts she has. When he comes to a decision, she’s pretty sure of what he’s going to say already.
“No,” he says.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Thought not.”
Way too many variables. Saying they go and surprise him, which clubs are actually accessible? It’s not like they can go and ask Charles. They don’t want him to get suspicious, and nothing could possibly make him more so than Erik pretending he’s about to tolerate drum and bass.
“We’ll just go to Toad’s, like usual. We can still do the ‘sexy clothes’ there.”
“And the ‘alcohol, not too much,’” she agrees. That leaves the sexy music and dirty talk, which—while Mort did put in an old jukebox a few years back—isn’t really the scene at the pub. But it’s not unusual for Charles to get carried away in conversation and follow her and Erik home, particularly when he’s had a few.
“Okay,” Erik says, putting the paper aside. “So. We’re doing this.”
Magda laughs as she stands up. She turns back and reaches a hand down for Erik when he protests. “We’re doing this. Come on, let’s make sure we actually have those sexy clothes before tomorrow night.” And that they still fit, if they do.
Erik grins, his eyes predictably focused on her chest as she’s slightly bent over, and takes her hand. “I think I have a few ideas,” he says, as he lets her tug him up.
“I’m sure you do.” Even if she’s wearing a stained and oversized t-shirt from a hospital she doesn’t even work at anymore, Erik’s looking at her like she’s already found—and is wearing—the perfect outfit for tomorrow.
“Knock it off,” she says, turning to head to their bedroom. “Clothes first, sex after.”
Finding the right clothes for Erik turns out to be slightly more difficult than they had anticipated. Magda is always the first one to acknowledge that her husband is a truly fine piece of ass, but he really does show to best advantage either dressed way up or dressed way down. But he can't exactly go out in public dressed in boxer briefs or a towel around his hips, and after a brief argument they both have to concede they can't think of a single excuse to explain to Charles why Erik might be wearing his very best suit to the corner bar.
The problem is, though, that most of Erik's wardrobe consists of his smart business casual work clothes or the ratty tees and sweatpants he wears to work out. None of those quite give out the right signals.
Magda has to pretty much empty out his entire dresser drawer before she finds a pair of jeans Erik hasn't worn in at least two years. The reason they've gone unworn becomes quickly evident as he tries them on: they're tight as all hell.
"Fuck," Erik grunts. "Maybe we should have waited until you were pregnant already. It might not be an option anymore after this."
Magda throws a pillow at him.
He catches the pillow against his chest. Thank goodness, she thinks; it’d be a crime to cover all that up.
“I don’t think I can even walk like this,” Erik complains. He takes a few experimental steps toward the bed, wincing the whole time.
Magda snorts, turning back to the dresser to look for the right shirt—one of the simple, soft t-shirts that shows Erik’s muscles off without distracting too much from, ahem—determined not to let herself be distracted.
“Walking, huh. How much walking are you needing to do, anyhow? Just into the bar then past Charles’s chair and that’s enough. Anyway,” she says, finding the perfect black shirt, “you’re wearing them wrong. No boxers tomorrow, that’ll get you more space.”
Tossing the pillow back on the bed, Erik walks back over to the dressers, putting his arms around her. “Magda... Charles already knows I’m Jewish,” he says, his voice low in that way that always does it for her. She’s not sure if Erik can get hard in these jeans, but she can feel him pressed up against her back, the heat of him intoxicating.
Good thing they’ve got his outfit all picked out. She turns in his arms, tilting her head up to him, and he leans down.
“Now,” he says, “Let’s see what we can find for you.”
“In a minute,” she says, and pulls him down those last few inches. They make out lazily for a few minutes, Magda taking full advantage of Erik’s tight, tight pants to run her hands over every inch of him, back and front.
“Not fair,” Erik breathes into her shoulder, with half a laugh, the second time her hand brushes against his crotch. “These are really fucking tight.”
“Helps you keep it under control, then,” she says, patting the bulge in his pants.
“Magda,” Erik groans, hands flexing on her hips. She grins. Teasing Erik is one of her favorite things.
“Fine,” she laughs, pushing him back slightly. “Clothes.”
Erik groans again, in an entirely different way this time.
“I hate you so much.”
“You just wish you did,” she says, pushing him back just enough so her ass brushes against him when she turns around to rummage through the dresser.
“Worst,” Erik grumbles, but he keeps his hand on her waist as she digs through the drawers, fingers teasing along the band of her sweatpants.
Magda’s wardrobe is, thankfully, slightly less devoid of any feasible option, because she almost never gets rid of clothes that still fit her—a long-standing argument between her and Erik that she wins today, because after five minutes of rummaging, she emerges triumphantly with a top she hasn't worn since college.
“I remember that shirt,” Erik says, eyes fixed on her as she pulls away and shimmies into it, wondering when the hell her breasts grew that much.
“I should hope you do,” she replies, as she turns to look at herself in the mirror. It is, after all, the shirt she was wearing to that party where they met, and if it was risqué then, it's positively scandalous now. Now she just needs to find something to wear on the bottom.
“I'm not sure how I feel about you wearing that in public,” Erik says, his voice low, as she walks over to the closet.
“It's a good thing it's not your call, then.” She tilts her head as she contemplates the closet’s contents. “Pants, or skirt?”
Erik walks over and steps in front of her, moving the hangers around with his powers before pulling one out and handing it to her. She blinks down at the miniskirt she forgot she owned, and then grins. “I thought the shirt wasn't fit for being in public.”
“Might as well match,” Erik says, matching her grin.
“You won't be too distracted, will you?” she asks as she takes it from him and sets it on the bed, slowly pulling down her pants, aware of his eyes on her ass.
“Isn't that the point?”
“Well, I don't want your brain to be too deprived of blood,” she says as she tugs the miniskirt up her legs.
“In these pants, that's not a problem.”
She snorts and turns to face Erik, striking a pose. The smile slides slowly off her face as she sees the dark look of want in his eyes.
“Shit,” he breathes.
"Good, then?" Magda says, aiming for innocent. "Not too slutty?"
"Just slutty enough," Erik says. "There's no way Charles can look at you like that and not want you. Nobody could."
"I think you're a little biased," Magda says drily, but she can't pretend the words don't still make her flush with pleasure and desire and pride all at once. "But I think we can cross 'sexy clothes' off the checklist, anyway. If this doesn't work on him, nothing will." She looks down at her own chest with a sudden thoughtful frown. "If I fall out of my top at the bar, do you think Charles will be willing to block it from everyone else? I know he hates using his ability against people, but I figure being a gentleman might outweigh that, right?"
Erik laughs, still in that low husky tone. "So does that mean I can take these off now?" he says, waving his hand at his lower body.
"That means I can take those off you now," Magda says.
"Even better," Erik says.
After so much anticipation, Magda is expecting Saturday itself to be endless as they count down the hours to meeting up with Charles.
In fact, the day isn't too bad, really. Erik has to log into work on his laptop for a few hours—the organization he works for is only a few weeks away from launching a new project, and this one is Erik's baby, one he's fought for fiercely from the initial stages. Magda and Charles could have sex without him three feet away on the couch, and Magda figures he still might not look away from his screen.
For her part, Magda invests her energy into cleaning the apartment. Ninety percent of the time her domestic skills might hover around "okay" to "decent," but the other ten percent of the time, she pushes nerves and excitement into housework. Her dorm room was never nicer than during finals, and the last few months leading up to the wedding, you could eat off the apartment floor.
As far as coping techniques go, she figures it could be a lot worse; at least they won’t be bringing Charles back to a living room scattered with papers. That alone probably wouldn’t phase him much—not too far off from his own condo, truth be told—but the fact all of them are detailing absurd seduction plans… Well, best Charles doesn’t find out about all that.
Especially the ones involving kidnapping.
For his part, while Erik can have tunnel vision when it comes to his work, he’s also clearly as anxious about their night. She’s vacuuming when he suddenly gets up from his laptop and decides to start four loads of laundry—the apartment may have thin walls, but at least they got enough washers in the laundry room—including all the sheets they own. Even the clean ones.
(“We haven’t decided on which we’re using, they have to smell fresh,” “You think he’s gonna be smelling the sheets?”)
She lets him to it, after offering up her opinion—anything but the magenta, how is this his favorite color?—and it isn’t all that long later that they’re folding their laundry, and then it’s time to get ready to meet with Charles.
Magda has the first shower, simply because it takes her hair longer to dry. She’s never been huge on makeup, and she’s certainly not going to try for anything too fancy now. Really, she thinks, adjusting herself in her bra, not like anyone will be able to focus anywhere much higher than her blouse.
She settles on a little mascara and some lip gloss. It's strange, Magda thinks, but it almost feels like...dress-up, maybe. Like this is a game she and Erik are playing, in a way, some sort of roleplay. She's been married since she was twenty-two, with the same guy since she was eighteen—there was never really the opportunity or the circumstances for something like this. Trying to be someone sexy and daring and exciting.
It probably wouldn't be nearly as much fun if Erik wasn't doing it too. She can't imagine it would be worth it for anything less important than this thing with Charles.
She can hear the water come to a stop in the bathroom. She's still gazing at her makeup supply thoughtfully when Erik steps into their bedroom, toweling at his wet hair.
"Hey," Magda says, lifting up a tube of eyeliner. "I have another idea."
Erik raises an eyebrow, slinging the towel over his shoulders.
“Do you, now?” he asks. He’s trying to be suspicious, but sounds distracted more than anything. Magda smiles. She’s still feeling a little strange, like she’s trying too hard to be someone she really isn’t—but it helps, seeing Erik. Even if it doesn’t work on Charles, at least there’s this, right? After seven years together, she often thinks he knows all too well who she really is, but still something like this can be… Fun.
“Yeah. You know, I’m not sure we look, well, easy enough…”
“I’m still naked, Magda,” Erik interrupts, picking up his t-shirt. She figures he must be saving the jeans for last, that he’s gonna be wandering around the apartment in a shirt and socks and nothing else until the second they’re ready to go. Ah, the perks of cohabitation. “I’m not sure how much ‘easier’ I get.”
“I mean for the bar,” she grumbles, gesturing him over now that he’s got his shirt on. “You look okay, but…”
“Oh, thank you—”
“Shut up. I mean you look good. But maybe we could…?”
She holds up the eyeliner, smiling optimistically.
Erik frowns.
“I thought we didn’t want Charles to get suspicious,” he says, but from the tone of his voice he’s at least considering it.
“You think he won’t be already? Look at me!”
“Oh, I am.”
Magda gives him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, I kinda noticed. Here, come on. Kneel down. It’ll be fun.”
Sighing, Erik brushes a hand through his hair, clearly thinking about it.
“Be just like being in high school for you, right? Think back to your innocent days as a sweet drama nerd…” She trails off, smirking.
“I’m going to burn all those albums, I swear,” Erik says, like his mom wouldn’t have all ten million photos of her two kids backed up on every device and network known to man. He glances at the eyeliner again, then back at Magda’s face.
“You think Charles will like it?”
Magda scoffs. "Of course he will."
Erik considers it a couple of seconds more. "Okay. Let's give it a go."
The truth is, Magda reflects as she begins to carefully apply the eyeliner, she doesn't really know if Charles will like it, not for certain. As they're approaching zero hour she's suddenly acutely aware of the fact that they don't really know what Charles likes. Thinking back of all the people she knows Charles has slept with over the years, she can't identify any specific type or pattern connecting them, no clues for them to follow. Whenever Charles has talked about people, it's always been...well, kind of abstract. Special telepath stuff, Magda has always figured, when he goes all purple about people's minds or thought patterns.
She's not going to tell Erik that worry, though. Not when her vain and self-assured husband just sounded that uncertain.
Well, if Magda and Erik don't have the right kind of sparkly brains, it's not like there's anything they can do about it now. At least they can look good.
"I could have just sat on the edge of the bed, you know," Erik says. He's doing an excellent job of keeping his face perfectly still.
"You know I like you on your knees, baby," Magda says.
Erik smirks, and doesn’t argue the fact.
There’s something overwhelmingly intimate about doing this, about holding Erik’s face and tracing the eyeliner on. Magda thought she’d memorized every square inch of Erik’s body years back, but now she’s not so sure. She’s certainly never devoted this much attention to his eyelids.
And for his part, Erik is so still and sweetly trusting. Of course, Magda trusts Erik, too… But all the same, she’s not so sure she wouldn’t flinch with someone drawing so close to her eyes.
All too soon, she’s done. Breathing out, she caps the eyeliner.
“Okay,” she says, ducking in to give him a quick kiss, “you can take a look, handsome.”
Erik rises to his feet, and Magda moves out of the way to give him access to the dresser mirror. He leans in closely, examining himself closely, with the same critical eye he gives everything.
"It looks sort of silly, doesn't it?" he says, after a minute.
"What? No." Magda shakes her head. Erik has pretty eyes, and the makeup draws attention to them, makes them pop in a different way. She likes it. A lot, actually.
Still, Erik's shaking his head. "It's too much. Charles will think it's weird."
It occurs to Magda that she's not the only one feeling these nerves and this uncertainty.
"All right," she says. "Go wash it off, then." She flashes him a smile. "I do like it, though. Maybe we'll try it again a different time."
Erik doesn't quite smile, but the corner of his mouth turns up a little. "We'll see," he says, which historically has always meant 'yes.' Good.
Maybe she'll put some lipstick on him next time, too.
There's not much left for them to do but wait, but luckily it's getting late. By the time Erik's managed to scrub his face clean and Magda's put on her shoes and fiddled with her hair another half-dozen times, it's just about time to go.
"You better get your pants," Magda says, when her phone beeps with an incoming text. "That must be Charles." She scans the text quickly. "Oh, good, he was able to get parking right across the street. We can go meet him downstairs and head down to Toad's together."
"Magda," Erik says.
She looks up from her phone to see Erik, jeans pulled up to his waist but still unfastened, staring at her with a stricken expression.
"What? What is it?"
"Magda," Erik says again, very seriously, "we didn't buy condoms."
It takes Magda a minute to remember why it matters that they don't have condoms, but then: “Shit,” she breathes, and then, for good measure, “Shit, shit, shit, fucking shittington shit.”
“Yeah,” Erik agrees. They stare at each other, half-panicked.
“Well, we can't not have them,” Magda says. “Are you sure we don't have any?”
Erik gives her a flat look. “If we can find them, they'll almost definitely be expired.”
“Okay, but that's just...a guideline, right? Like with drugs. You can still take expired Advil for months and it's fine.”
“You really want to take that risk?”
Magda makes a face, acknowledging Erik’s point. She sighs.
“All right, so you'll have to go get them,” she says.
“Why me?” Erik protests. “I can barely walk in these pants!”
Magda looks significantly at the still-open vee of said pants, then raises her eyebrows at him.
Erik rolls his eyes. “Magda,” he says, half-protest, but that means he's a quarter of a step from giving in.
“You were always the one who provided them when we used them,” she points out. “You have the expertise.”
“Fine,” Erik huffs.
Magda’s phone beeps again, Charles asking for an update.
“Come on,” she says, grabbing her tiny purse and throwing her lipstick into it. “Stop making faces about it, do up your pants, and let's go seduce Charles.”
“You're carrying the keys. And my wallet,” Erik says, levitating said objects over to her as he squints and does a hilarious little dance (with an equally hilarious expression on his face) to get his pants zipped.
“At least take the credit card to pay for the condoms,” Magda says, pulling it out and tossing it to him before putting the wallet and keys in her bag. Erik catches it without comment and slides it into his pocket, making yet another face as he follows her out of their bedroom.
Once they're in the entryway, Magda hesitates. Erik, with that particular familiarity bred from being with someone a long, long time, rests his hand on her shoulder and squeezes reassuringly, turning her to face him.
“This is ridiculous,” Magda mutters, letting Erik pull her into his arms, careful to keep her makeup from rubbing off on his shirt. “We shouldn't be this nervous, this is so ridiculous.”
Erik snorts lightly, his hands moving slowly up and down her arms, a gesture meant to soothe them both. “We haven't done anything like this, of course we’re nervous.” He pauses, then says, “And it's Charles.”
“Yeah,” Magda sighs, her hands finding their way to Erik’s waist. She looks up at him, and takes a deep breath. “But it's us, too.”
“Whatever happens, it'll still be us,” he murmurs, bending down to kiss her artfully messy hair. “We’re doing this together, every step of the way.”
“Except the condoms,” she laughs.
He harrumphs, his hands tightening briefly on her biceps. “Except the condoms,” he agrees.
They stand there for another moment, and then Magda’s phone beeps again, and then once more.
“Come on,” Magda says, gently disentangling herself and turning for the door. She reaches back, and she lets herself be comforted by the familiar feeling of Erik’s hand fully covering hers as he opens the door with a wave of his hand.
“After you,” he murmurs, and follows her out.
Charles is waiting in the lobby, idly playing with his phone. He looks up with a ready grin as they step off the elevator, then blinks twice in evident surprise.
"Sorry about the wait," Magda says. "We thought we were all ready to go, then at the last second Erik remembers an errand we forgot to do earlier." She rolls her eyes.
"Oh, that's fine," Charles says. "Although…I must admit, I feel as though I missed a memo on the dress code tonight. I was under the impression we were just going to Toad's?"
"We are," Erik says. "I know I've been looking forward to beer and wings and beating you at pool all week."
Charles raises his eyebrows in mock outrage. "First of all, my friend, when have you ever beaten me in a fair match—"
"Just last month!"
"That doesn't count, you had Magda helping!"
"Amazing how you always have a new reason why my victories don't count and yours always do," Erik says, crossing his arms, aggressive body language that doesn't match the delighted expression on his face.
"You know perfectly well we established years ago that Magda isn't allowed to play without at least a two-drink handicap."
"Which I still think is unfair, frankly," Magda butts in. "But considering that I'm pretty sure you guys can string this argument along for hours if you feel like it, maybe we should start moving?"
"Oh, fair enough," Charles agrees, half-laughing still.
They split up outside the front doors. The bar is down a few blocks on the left upon exiting the building; the drugstore almost next door, a block in the opposite direction.
"I'm just going to run down and—finish that errand," Erik says. "I'll meet you guys in a few minutes," he adds, before Charles can suggest they accompany him or think of anything he might need from the store as well.
"Sounds good," Magda says. Erik gives her a light peck of a kiss, and then squeezes Charles's shoulder tightly, before he turns and starts walking.
Charles watches him go for a moment before turning back to Magda. "So," he says, as they begin to make their way down the street, "what is the reason for the new style, then?"
Magda shrugs, smiling. "Oh, I don't know. Sometimes you want to try something new."
Charles hums thoughtfully and gives her that look, the one that says I know you're talking about your sex life but I'm pretending to be too polite to say so. He sweeps his eyes up and down in a half-mockery of a once-over, but even Charles isn't immune to Magda’s cleavage in this shirt, and his gaze lingers there for a moment before returning to her face. Good.
“I suppose it's too much to hope that ‘something new’ might extend to taking these outfits clubbing some time,” he says with a grin.
“We’re not that hard up for new things,” she says, with a gentle nudge to his shoulder.
“Hope springs eternal,” Charles quips, with an exaggerated sigh. Magda laughs.
“See, you've forgotten how embarrassing we are in clubs. You'd disown us immediately.” It's part of why she and Erik had decided against actually going to one tonight; the point is to be sexy at Charles, not to make him want to avoid looking at them. When Charles makes a show of disbelief, Magda reminds him, “Senior year, that random pub night where you finally convinced us to go with you.”
Charles pauses and makes a face. “Oh,” he says.
“See?”
“It really was quite bad, wasn't it,” Charles says, his tone mild, but his face still wrinkled in distress.
“So bad you suppressed the memory, apparently,” Magda agrees.
Charles laughs. “All right, fine, you've made your point. But next time you want to wear clubbing clothes to Toad’s, let me know; it's been ages since I wore anything more revealing than jeans and a t-shirt, and I do miss it every once in a while.”
“You do just fine with jeans and a t-shirt,” Magda says, her voice unintentionally low as she takes in the way Charles’s shirt is pulled tight across his chest, revealing every detail of his muscles. Charles gives her a sidelong look, half-questioning, but doesn't reply beyond a half-smile and a gentle press of affection into her head.
Magda is almost thankful for the beep of her phone, loud in the suddenly charged silence. Then there's another, and then another, and she rolls her eyes as she tries to pull out her phone without dislodging everything else in her purse.
They're all from Erik, of course: the first, which she scrolls past quickly to try to hide from Charles, is a picture of the condom display at the drugstore. Help, the second text reads. The third elaborates, somewhat unnecessarily: There are too many choices AND I have no idea what Charles’s size is!!
Magda glances aside at Charles—who is looking at her curiously—and back at the phone.
You want to make him suspicious omfg, she types, quick as she can. If autocomplete throws in a few typos, Erik’ll just have to figure it out. Get a box for yourself in case he wants 🍆 and a few boxes of normal.
Hopefully that’s the end of it. Magda makes the usual “ugh, Erik” face at Charles as she starts walking again.
She makes it one step.
Suspicious? 4 boxes of condoms won’t make him suspicious? and so much 💸💸💸💸 appear in quick succession.
Then don’t buy bulk packs!!! she types back. Erik always would, back when they used them, and that was great when they had the up-front money for a hundred condoms in one go. But whenever they were hard-up and just could afford a few, there was no end to it. Erik would go on for hours about the inflated price per condom and how it was clearly class warfare and blah blah blah. (Magda agreed, of course; but mostly she wanted condoms to get laid, not discuss capitalism).
Just get whatever and get to Toad’s, she types, glancing down again at a now concerned-looking Charles, Putting the phone back in my bag now.
Not waiting for his response, she does so. She and Charles would be standing out here forever otherwise, and there’s no way she can walk and text in these shoes.
“Everything all right?” Charles asks, as he puts his hands back on the wheels of his chair.
“You know Erik,” Magda says, walking alongside, “Everything’s all excitement, with him.”
"Excitement's one word for it," Charles says agreeably.
"Unlike you and I," Magda says, "who manage to stay one hundred percent chill, all of the time."
"That's one of the benefits of being friends with Erik," Charles says. "You feel so calm and collected in comparison."
One of the nice things about Toad's is that, even on Saturday nights, it never gets too busy, never so crowded Charles can't get around easily. They grab the same back corner table as always, and while Charles settles in, Magda heads up to the bar to order a pitcher of cheap beer.
Charles has the strangest taste in alcohol; for hard liquor he's an out-and-out snob, preferring brands with price tags that make Magda blanch to even think about. But beer is different: he's fine with swill. That's just as well, though, because Magda is a big fan, too—mostly because she's cheap, and it's what she's used to. Erik, on the other hand, is fond of his craft beers and microbrews, occasionally sulking that he hasn't managed to convert either of them over to his cause.
"Any exciting news since I saw you last, my darling?" Charles asks, as she returns to the table.
"Since Thursday?" Magda says. "Not particularly. Work. Cleaning." It sounds like very little like that, with the important Charles-centric bits edited out. Like it hasn't been an incredibly busy and full two days. "What about you?"
"I am almost done with the next chapter of the book," Charles says, lifting up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart, as if to demonstrate how close he is. "I gave myself a word count to fill before I could leave to come out with you both tonight. It was a near thing."
"We would have understood if you had to cancel," Magda says, which is at least three-quarters of a lie; they would have understood with the logical and rational parts of their minds, of course, but she's honestly not sure how well those parts are working at the moment.
"I probably would have come anyway," Charles admits. "I'm not always successful in carrying out my threats to myself. But the important thing is that at the time I fully believe I will, right?"
That makes no sense to Magda, but if it works for Charles, she supposes that's all that matters.
"I did have dinner with Moira last night," Charles adds.
Magda raises her eyebrows. "Dinner, or dinner?"
"Just dinner, thank you very much," Charles says pointedly. "You know she wouldn't have me even if she weren't engaged. It was lovely to see her, though, it's been ages. She told me to send her love."
"I haven't talked to her in too long, either," Magda says. "I should email her and see if we can get lunch sometime soon."
Moira is one of the few people who can really be considered one of Charles's exes—they were together for something like two months in college, which is nearly a record for Charles's relationships. Magda's always been quite fond of Moira, though Erik's never warmed up to her, for reasons known only to Erik's bizarre brain.
Once, on the way home from their only double date, Erik had been grumbling while he drove and finally came out with a comment that "she's not even a mutant" which had led to Magda's swift angry reply that she wasn't a mutant either and on from there to one of the biggest fights they've ever had.
It occurs to Magda now that it's quite possible that Erik's dislike for Moira might have dawned from something as simple as the fact that she was in a relationship with Charles, and he was jealous. Huh.
Of course, even now, Erik would never admit so much. Trial enough getting him to admit to bisexuality, let alone being jealous of Moira.
“She’d like that, I think,” Charles says, before he takes a long drink of his beer.
There's an air about him that's all too contemplative, Magda thinks. She doesn't know how much Charles and Erik talk about stuff like this, but she knows that breakup still stings a little for Charles. In fact, from what she's pieced together from her lunches with him… As much as Charles might enjoy a frankly perplexing number of hookups, he is, in many ways, lonely. It's something that's always confounded Magda, and Erik, too.
How could someone like Charles go single so long?
Not for the first time, she wonders if this night—if it goes well at all to begin with—could maybe become something more.
To hide her expression, she takes a long, appreciative swig of her own beer. She's considering what to say next, feeling a bit nervous about blowing her and Erik's chance, when she spots Erik making his way toward the table.
The walk was apparently long enough for Erik to figure out how to move in those jeans more naturally, stride not so far off from normal now. His legs look a mile longer than usual, and his face looks intent and focused and serious—which might be true, but Magda also is perfectly aware that's just what his face defaults to.
He looks good, and when Magda glances over to Charles to subtly check out his reaction, she manages to catch the tiniest glimpse of appreciation on his face before Charles closes his eyes and takes another deep swallow from his own glass.
"Hey," Erik says, sitting down heavily in the chair next to Magda's. He grabs her glass before she can stop him and chugs down the rest of it.
"Asshole," she says cheerfully, nudging him in the side. He grins at her in return.
"Did you manage to get the errand all taken care of?" Charles says.
"Um," Erik says.
Magda kicks him under the table.
"Yes!" Erik says. "It's fine. Great. Nothing to worry about."
Really, Magda should probably just be glad he dropped everything off at the apartment first instead of bringing the bags here with him.
"Glad to hear it," Charles says. He's still giving Erik an odd look, but he seems more amused than anything else.
“Yes,” Erik says awkwardly, and Magda kicks him again. Erik retaliates by using his powers to snap her bra strap, and she's about half ready to stab him with her very pointy heels when Charles, with the intuition born of knowing them so long, says cheerfully as he pours them both glasses, “So, Erik, how's that project of yours coming along?”
Erik brightens immediately as he takes his glass, immediately launching into a blow-by-blow of this morning’s work. Magda gives Charles a look that says he's not fooling anyone, but begrudgingly accepts her refilled glass. Charles smiles brilliantly at her, that no-butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth-whyever-are-you-asking smile, before turning the full force of his grin on Erik. To his credit, Erik doesn't even pause, just keeps barreling on about the initiative he's been spearheading for the past several months and how they're getting close, so close, his face slowly turning pink under Charles’s beaming regard.
Magda might almost feel jealous, for all the attention the boys are paying her, but she's known them long enough to feel fond when they get like this, rather than annoyed. It's reminiscent of all those nights she used to sleep over in Erik’s dorm room, slowly falling asleep on his bed to the sounds of him and Charles debating increasingly obscure subjects late into the night, and she lets herself zone out a little now, too, slowly calmed by the familiarity.
She comes back to herself when Erik nudges her gently.
“Oh, don't stop for my sake,” she says, grabbing her beer and taking a sip. “Charles is far more into all of this policy wonk stuff than I am, please tell him all about it and spare me.”
Charles laughs. “We can do that another time. The whole point of these Saturday nights is for all three of us to hang out together, and it'd be terribly rude to leave you out of the conversation for an extended period of time.”
“Always so concerned with propriety,” Magda teases.
“Lord, I hope not,” Charles replies, easily but with just the hint of an edge. “It would quite put a damper on my desire to disappoint my mother as thoroughly as possible.”
There's a half moment of silence, and then Erik says, in a blatant effort to keep Charles from throwing himself down the road of melancholy that thoughts of his mother always lead to, “So how was your week, Charles?”
“You know very well how my week was, given we texted all through it,” Charles says, but it serves the purpose; his face brightens instantly. “I see what you're doing here; you can't fool me.”
“You're a telepath, Charles, of course I can't,” Erik says lightly, but there's a hint of panic in the sidelong glance he shoots at Magda, which she returns; Charles can't mean—
“You're just trying to distract me for long enough so Magda will have two drinks and then be eligible to play pool with us and save you from another humiliating defeat,” Charles says, his eyes dancing. “My friend, if you wanted to forfeit, you only had to say so.”
“Fuck that noise,” Erik says. He stands and puts his hands flat on the table. “Let's go, you and me, right now.”
"Well, if you're sure you're up to it," Charles says, setting his glass down on the table with a clink. "You're on."
It's just as well that Magda's barred from participating; she's not sure she could lean over the table for her normal shots in a skirt this short, not without giving half the room a free show.
It's also true that watching Charles and Erik play against each other is often more fun than playing with them. They both have the same fault of being ridiculously, insanely competitive, which is more endearing when you're not the person they're aiming that competitive spirit against.
At least the pool trash talking isn't as bad as it gets when they're playing chess. And really—it's obvious how much they enjoy it, the flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, the intensity and concentration.
Magda's kind of getting turned on watching them, to be honest.
Charles wins, to loud crowing on his part and exaggerated sulking on Erik's.
"Poor baby," Magda says, patting Erik's hair, which makes Charles laugh more.
Charles excuses himself to the bathroom a few minutes later; as soon as he's out of earshot, Magda turns to Erik and says, "Did you see the way he was stroking his cue? If I had a dick, I think I'd be hard right now."
Erik comes near to choking on his mouthful of beer. "Fuck, Magda!" he hisses, once he's stopped coughing.
"Well, it's true!" Magda says, and then moves on. "Anyway, I've been trying to keep track, and Charles is definitely drinking faster than either of us are."
"Charles has a pretty insane tolerance."
"I know, but still. We don't want him to actually get drunk, so we should probably start shifting the party back to our place."
Erik nods thoughtfully, just as Charles makes his way back to the table.
Magda has to think quickly. Normally they’d have a bit more before heading out. She and Charles only split the one pitcher, Erik only got the one pint of “actual beer” besides, and she knows even their bartender will talk when she goes to pay up.
Not like he isn’t going to talk from what she and Erik have been wearing, anyway.
“Since you won, I think Erik owes you a prize,” she says, once Charles is within earshot. She knows without looking that Erik’s glaring at her, so she kicks at him lightly. “We’ve got a full bar at home, right? Maybe instead of ordering wings, we make him cook for us.”
As far as gambles go, it’s not that risky. Charles may love wings as much as the next fan of cheap beer, but he’s always been an absolute sucker for a home-cooked meal, especially when it comes to Erik’s cooking. Sometimes she feels a little guilty for stealing Erik from the dorms, but never for too long. After all, she has the artery-clogging wonders of the Lehnsherr family cookbook to distract her on a regular basis.
Predictably, Charles lights up at the suggestion.
"What about those potato things you made for Magda's birthday?"
"No," Erik says.
Charles frowns. "Why not?"
"Because they take three hours. And don't suggest that chicken dish, either, because that has to marinate overnight."
"You're putting a lot of restrictions on this for a losing party," Charles says disapprovingly.
Magda leaves them to argue about it while she pays; by the time she meets them outside, Erik has apparently also vetoed anything that involves deep frying, the ice cream machine, or him having to run out to the store for fresh vegetables.
She lets them bicker happily the entire walk back to the apartment, half-listening and half-caught in her own head.
It's funny. Now that it's so close, the nerves are gone. Part of that's probably the beer, she supposes, but not all of it. It's time now. Do or die. Que sera, sera.
She can't stop herself from grinning madly over at both of them, her dumb boys. Erik pulls her in closer, arm around her shoulder and tucking her in against him as the three of them reach the elevator.
The ride up, Charles and Erik are still arguing dinner, but Magda can tell Erik’s slowly winning Charles over to the idea of something quick to prepare. She wraps her arm around his narrow waist, smiling to herself as Charles acknowledges how good breakfast for dinner always is, as a meal concept.
By the time Erik’s waving open the apartment door, it’s already decided. Erik’s sold Charles on shakshuka, a dish she’s certain Charles only vaguely remembers from the dorms, and that he definitely thinks requires far more work than it actually does. Magda tugs Erik in for a quick kiss, congratulating him. None of them actually had any dinner, and she doesn’t know how much longer she can actually wait before just dragging these two into bed.
“Just not too much garlic,” she whispers, softly so Charles can’t hear. While his customary fifteen cloves are definitely a thing, she’s not sure it’s actually all that conducive to romance.
Erik smirks, letting her go to get his shoes off in the small entryway. “No backseat cooking,” he says, stalking off to the kitchen. She laughs, and toes gratefully out of her heels.
“Well,” she says, “Erik might be a terrible host, but I’m certainly not. Let’s see if I can’t find you a drink.”
Charles grins up at her, his face still a bit flushed from leaning down to get his own shoes off. She’s told him he has a pass on the no-shoes-in-the-house thing about a thousand times—not like he actually tracks anything in on those, not like they can ask him to take the wheels off his chair—but he never pays her any mind. This time, though, she can’t help thinking it’s awfully convenient.
One less thing to take off later, after all.
“I’d like that very much, indeed,” Charles says, and they head together to the kitchen.
Erik is already heating up tomatoes and peppers in a large skillet, the scent of spices delicious. Magda tries not to stare—Erik always looks so good like this, all his fierce attention against a hot stove—and opens up the cupboard that contains their paltry bar.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Charles winds up vetoing everything but the bottle of whisky he gave them for their wedding; and on principle, he won’t make her open that, either. (Thank goodness, she thinks. She and Erik haven’t the heart to tell him why it remains sealed, that they’d looked up the price of this particular bottle of Macallan and they would rather leave it as an alcoholic nest egg to resell on a rainy day). That leaves beer—which probably pairs better with dinner, as Charles points out—which is luckily in good supply.
Slipping past Erik to get to the fridge, she digs out the growler buried in the back.
“Sorry, Charles,” she says, “We’ll just have to drink this cloudy swill.”
Erik gives her a look. “At least it has alcohol in it,” he grumbles, before turning back to crack a few eggs into the skillet before transferring the whole pan into the oven. “If you guys don’t appreciate it, don’t drink my beer. Dinner’ll be done soon.”
“Hey, we appreciate it. We appreciate it’s got alcohol in it,” she says, grabbing down three glasses and making her way back to the table. She sets it quickly, letting Charles pour their drinks.
Soon enough, Erik’s floating the skillet over to the table, a trivet and a wood spatula in hand.
“All right,” he says, sitting down across from Magda. He raises his pint glass. “To the two most unsophisticated palates I know—”
“Hey, now,” Charles says, laughing. “Just because I don’t fancy tasting wet dog…”
“That’s hops! You’re drinking beer, you should taste hops! That’s the whole point—”
“Okay, okay,” Magda interrupts, raising her own glass and clinking it against Erik’s and Charles’s in turn. “To being unsophisticated,” she adds, shooting Erik a sly grin.
"To knowing what you like," Charles corrects them both, and they all drink.
She hadn't thought she was very hungry—too distracted by everything else, she suspects—but the food's as delicious as everything else Erik makes, and the first bite awakens her appetite, one forkful quickly followed by another and another.
If they're lucky, Magda figures, they're all going to need the energy.
"Mmm," Charles moans softly. "Fuck, Erik, this is good."
Erik coughs and takes a long drink. Magda lowers her right hand under the table, places it on Erik's hard thigh, and squeezes tightly. Usually that's the sort of thing Charles would notice, that would lead to him rolling his eyes or making fun of them, but if he knows it's happening now he doesn't show it.
She finishes the rest of the meal one-handed, not letting her hand creep any higher, but not moving it, either.
As soon as they're finished, Charles starts to gather the dirty dishes together on the table. Of course, Magda has to put a stop to that immediately.
"Nope!" she says, getting up from her chair. "Leave them! Erik has dish duty tonight."
"Oh, but he cooked," Charles says. "That's not fair."
"Thank you," Erik says to Charles. Magda ignores him.
"Erik might have cooked, but I am in the mood to dance," Magda explains. "We both know that Erik isn't going to dance with me, so he gets to clean up while you come with me."
"I dance," Erik says. "Under the right circumstances."
"And that's very useful, dear, if I ever feel like waltzing," Magda says. Erik and his sister took ballroom dancing lessons as children, for literally years. It's sort of weird, but as far as Magda can tell they both enjoyed it. "But in the meantime, have fun washing the dishes."
Charles raises his eyebrows at Erik, in classic what can you do? style. "Sorry, Erik, but it's what the lady wants…"
Erik waves them away, and Magda leads Charles back into the living room. She gives the coffee table a shove, closer against the couch, opening up the space a little. Her iPod's already in the speaker dock, ready with the playlists she spent an hour last night obsessively editing.
She hits play and sidles back over to Charles, her hips already swaying in time with the heavy beat pounding out of the speakers. Charles raises an eyebrow at her but obligingly places his hands on her hips as she grips his shoulders and leans in.
“I thought you didn't want to go clubbing tonight,” he says, very studiously looking away from her breasts, despite them being barely a foot and a half from his face.
“Not at a club,” Magda says, bending further forward to bring her face nearer to his. This close, she can see the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. “Too many people.”
“You can never have too many people for dancing,” Charles says. His eyes finally dart to her chest and stay there, watching her breasts swing back and forth as Magda continues to dance. Good.
“Oh, you definitely can.” Magda pulls back so she can straighten up and dance more freely, but she holds Charles’s hands in place on her hips. His grip spasms briefly as her skirt starts sliding up her thighs, but she presses her hands more firmly against his to keep them where they are. He's barely moving, eyes fixed on her rising hemline when they're not on her breasts. “Come on, Charles, loosen up and dance with me.”
“Magda…” He looks up at her, and she cocks an eyebrow (they all got in the habit in college; Magda and Erik blame Charles).
“Charles,” she returns, slowly bending her knees and twisting down to the floor, keeping hold of his hands and sliding them up her body, holding his gaze the entire time. He closes his eyes briefly and exhales loudly before his hands tighten on her shoulders and he starts moving them independently, just shy of truly feeling her up. Magda lets out a small gasp when his hands finally brush against her skin, playing along the edges of her shirt’s wide neck. There's a questioning look in his eyes belying the sure way his fingers play over her; she nods at him, and when one of his hands reaches the hem of her shirt, she takes hold of it and directs it underneath.
Now it's Charles’s turn to gasp.
“Magda,” he breathes, utterly different from the first time, and she grins at him. She feels almost light-headed. His hand stays where she put it, not moving, a hot press against her bare skin, and for a moment, they stay like that, utterly still—
And then the music changes.
Charles stutters a laugh as the beginning of “S&M” fills the living room. The hand that's not under her shirt clutches at her shoulder and pulls her up and forward so she’s half sitting in his lap, and Magda feels herself grow hot as she remembers just how strong Charles is.
“You know how I feel about this song,” he says, dark and low, as his hand slides around to the small of her back. She's never heard his voice like this before. She could stand to hear more of it.
“I do,” she says, her tone matching his. She settles more fully into his lap and leans forward, bringing her mouth to his ear and singing, quietly, “Come on, come on.”
There's a burst of arousal in her head that she doesn't think Charles meant to project, and then they're full-on grinding against each other, hands moving over each other’s bodies, and Magda is so turned on that it's all she can do to remind herself to keep breathing.
And then—
It happens so fast she almost misses it: one minute, they're staring at each other, hot and heavy, and then Magda’s lips are on Charles’s, and they're finally, finally kissing.
Charles freezes, and for a few terrifying seconds, Magda worries that she's screwed this all up, that she pushed too hard, that Charles is going to pull away and tell her gently but firmly that he doesn't want this. But then he relaxes, his lips moving against hers as he pulls her in closer, one hand on the small of her back and the other cupping the side of her face.
It takes Magda a few seconds to adjust and calm down from her moment of panic, and then another few seconds to worry about what the hell her hands are doing and whether her knees are digging in to Charles’s sides uncomfortably, but then Charles changes the angle, just slightly, and she lets herself get swept up in the actual experience of kissing him.
It's amazing, it's perfect, it's everything she imagined it would be, but better, because this isn't some dream or fantasy, this is Charles, solid and real and slowly, skillfully, turning her into jell-o with nothing but his mouth. She's known, academically, that he's a good kisser; but it's a different thing entirely to be experiencing it for herself. She hasn't kissed anyone but Erik for years, and Charles is a different style, a different taste, a different...everything, and Magda savors every moment, every detail.
And then, suddenly, Charles pulls away. Before Magda can reel him back in, or ask what's wrong (and something is wrong, she can see it on his face), Charles turns his head and says, tightly, “Erik.”
Even with Charles's agitation, she can't help but smile. Erik. The one thing missing to keep all of this from being perfect.
She turns her head to follow Charles's view, and yes, there he is, standing beside the chair: her husband looming over them with hooded eyes and parted lips (and, she can't help but note, a tight jeans situation that appears to have gotten even more awkward).
"Erik," Charles says again. This time she can hear it, the surprise and sudden guilt. Oh sweetie, Magda thinks, no need for that. "I—"
Whatever explanation Charles might intend to give, Erik doesn't give him a chance. He swoops in abruptly and catches Charles's open mouth in a kiss of his own.
Charles makes a startled noise, but it's not in any way a protest; Magda can see the way he relaxes into the kiss almost immediately, his eyes fluttering closed. It's a more careful kiss than Magda and Charles shared; Erik is a little shy, she thinks, a little nervous. When she places her hand on his back, she can feel the tension under his skin, the way he's almost shaking.
If kissing Charles was amazing, watching him and Erik kiss is just as good.
The hand that Charles had setting on Magda's face has fallen unused between their bodies. There are better uses for it. Magda picks it up and pulls it carefully up to her chest, pushing one breast against his wide palm.
Erik breaks off the kiss, turning his head to press his lips against the edge of Charles's jaw. Charles stares back at Magda with wide eyes.
"We've been thinking," Magda says, feeling breathless. "If you don't want to, that's fine, we can go back like nothing ever happened. But—"
But we want you. We want you so much.
She can't imagine he can't feel it, the force of the desire both she and Erik are feeling right now. There's nothing between the three of them, nothing to stop all of it from broadcasting directly into Charles's head.
"Charles," Erik says softly, against the delicate skin of Charles's neck. Charles sucks in a breath and his hand tightens deliciously on Magda's breast.
“Please,” Erik whispers. The word is no more than a breath against Charles’s skin, one that Magda wouldn’t be able to hear at all were she not currently straddling Charles’s lap.
For a half-second she almost considers scolding Erik. Begging from him can’t exactly be considered playing fair: she’s sure Charles has only heard that word from Erik a handful of times, over the years they’ve all known each other. But as Charles shudders under her, as his hand tightens again on her and she has to gasp… She can’t fault Erik at all, as long as it works.
She can feel Charles’s breath quicken. He feels so warm under her, as if the heat of his blush is radiating, and his eyes are dark as he glances between them.
When she first met Charles, she used to wonder—like, she expects, most non-telepaths—how much he read, how often he was in her head. It’s a lot less concrete of a power than Erik’s, that’s for sure. Even now, while she understands that telepaths have a natural low-level connection with pretty much everyone, she isn’t always sure what thoughts exactly Charles has picked up on. Sometimes, though, he’ll read them in this way he has, when he wants them to know he’s there. A sensation like fingertips tracing over skin shivers through her mind, and she can hear Erik’s breath hitch softly.
Whatever it is he picks up from them, it’s enough to make him surge forward to kiss her again, roughly. She doesn’t have time to react before he’s turning from her, pulling Erik into an equally short—but no less demanding, from the look of it—kiss.
“Yes,” he says, once he’s broken away. “God, I—of course, yes.”
Magda breathes out, grinning. When she looks over at Erik, he’s glancing back at her with an expression that she only hopes Charles can’t tell is incredibly relieved. It’s funny, she thinks. She didn’t think she felt that nervous, making out with Charles, but it really does make a difference. Hearing Charles say yes so clearly.
And hearing him so uncharacteristically speechless, too. Charles’s arousal is so heavy, almost palpable in the room.
“Yeah,” she agrees, leaning in to quickly kiss his unbelievable lips again before she reluctantly (and less than gracefully) gets back to her feet. Charles lets his hand trail down her breast and over her stomach as she pulls away. “Then, maybe we should…”
“Our bed will be a lot more comfortable,” Erik interrupts.
He’s not kidding anyone, Magda thinks. He just wants to get those jeans off.
Charles laughs, and puts his hands on the wheels of his chair. “I must confess, I’m as excited about the prospect as he is.”
Grinning, Magda turns to head to the bedroom. She doesn’t bother to tug her skirt back down, even though it’s ridden up to the point where it’s pretty much a belt. (Why should she? It’s coming off the minute she gets to bed, and she’s wearing a forty-dollar pair of underwear that matches her bra. It’s pretty much never that she gets to show off to someone who appreciates it, since Erik’s just as happy with cheap cotton bulk pack “lingerie” from Costco).
“I doubt it,” she says over her shoulder, “You didn’t hear him whining all last night, trying them on.”
“Hey,” Erik complains. She pays him no mind, since he probably felt the pulse of affection at that thought—that she and Erik had spent time planning this, that it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision—just as well as she did.
Their apartment certainly isn’t what you’d call large. Magda’s unzipping her skirt and pulling off her top and climbing into bed seconds later.
Setting the brakes of his chair, Charles shakes his head. “What if I had wanted to help with that?”
“It wasn’t covering much more, anyway,” she says, patting the mattress beside her. “Come on, I’m lonely here! There’s room enough for three, both of you, over here.”
She can’t help noticing that Charles glances up at Erik, as if for confirmation.
Erik, the loyal dumb boy he is, raises his chin as if that’s a personal challenge. “Magda and I are together in all things,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. At least being dramatic does nice things for his muscles, Magda thinks, sighing. She focuses on sending all her affection and reassurance through to Charles.
“Not all things, maybe, but definitely with this. It’s okay, Charles,” she says. “The only way you’re getting between us is physically. And that’s soon, I hope.” She gives Charles a little smile, and—thankfully—it works.
“Alright, then,” he says, adjusting to transfer himself onto the bed. “If you insist...”
“We insist,” she replies. While he’s distracted with the transfer, she shoots Erik a glare over Charles’s shoulder.
Erik rolls his eyes in return, as if to say he was being stupid. Which, yeah, Charles can be, a little. But the time to point that out definitely isn’t now.
Still, Erik isn't completely useless, she has to admit, watching admiringly as he shrugs easily out of his t-shirt. Charles turns his head as Erik's hands move down to the buttons of his jeans.
They're metal, of course, no hands necessary, but Erik's always been a show off and all three of them know it. Why not add some drama to the reveal?
It works, too, is the best part: his careful parting of the buttons and the way his dick springs out, hard and thick and bouncing up against his belly. It's right out of some kind of porn, and Magda doesn't have to see Charles's face to know he's affected by it.
So Charles likes big dicks, she thinks giddily. All the luckier for them.
Erik looks pleased with himself, the dork, but his hands are hesitating where they're holding his jeans. Erik isn't exactly body shy, but after a second Magda realizes the issue—after all, she couldn't stop laughing for a good five minutes last night after watching Erik wiggle those awkwardly down this thighs.
Magda grabs Charles's chin and drags him back to her for another kiss. He's reluctant to look away, she can tell, but he follows her lead anyway. By the time the kiss ends, Erik is naked, climbing on to the bed beside them.
"You have truly lovely tits," Charles says, reaching down to toy a little with Magda's nipple. Through fabric, the sensation is maddening; all she can think of is getting his mouth on her, now. "Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Not in those precise words."
Erik snorts, and Charles shoots him a smile before turning his attention back to Magda.
"You were thinking fairly loudly about my mouth before. Is that what you'd like right now?"
Magda can feel herself blushing, which is utterly ridiculous, completely unlike her. "I'd love that," she manages.
"Me too," Charles quietly, as if it's a secret between just the three of them. "Do you have any specific way you'd like…?"
"Anything," Magda says bluntly; in her experience, there's no bad way to get eaten out, and the more Charles talks (still teasing her, the lightest brush of his fingertip over her chest), the more impatient she's getting.
Erik makes a noise—unintentional, it seems, but Magda is pretty sure she knows what he's thinking. Erik does have a favorite position for this, one with plenty of good memories attached: Magda against a wall, Erik on his knees with his head under her skirt and her leg slung over his shoulder.
Charles takes in a sharp intake of breath. "Well," he says, glancing between them and licking his lips, "I may not be able to manage that position, but I think we'll do all right."
It takes Magda a second, still replaying the obscene motion of Charles’s tongue wetting his lips in her mind. How is he allowed to do stuff like that, she wonders.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure you’ll do okay,” she manages eventually. “But first…” she trails off, meeting Erik’s eyes.
He nods, clearly picking up on her thoughts. Charles is just way too overdressed.
“Why don’t you get a little more comfortable,” Erik says, reaching over to put a hand on Charles’s stomach. He brushes his palm up, slowly, making Charles’s t-shirt ride up. Magda’s never been terrific at resisting temptation—she goes ahead and takes advantage of that bared skin, trailing her touch over Charles’s abs.
He’s so warm. Magda’s seen Charles without a shirt a few times—roadtrips to the beach, hanging out with Erik in the dorms, swimming with Charles in the college rec center—she knows he’s pretty toned. She knows he’s broader than Erik (though, being fair, it’s a feat for anyone to have a slimmer waist than her ridiculous husband). She even knows how he’s freckled, all over his shoulders; she knows he’s got a handful of pale old scars from his time in children’s hospitals. Look, someone has to help with sunscreen, what’re friends for?
All the same, even if she knows what he looks like, sunning himself by the ocean… It’s so very different to him, here, in their bed. She pushes his shirt up a tiny bit more.
“Yeah,” she says, smiling briefly over at Erik, who’s taken to playing with the waist of Charles’s jeans. “You gotta be dressed for the occasion first, then you can eat me out.”
Charles laughs, and Erik makes a strangled little noise. “Magda—”
“It’s what he’s gonna be doing,” she says, flicking at Erik’s hand. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking about it.”
Erik makes a face but doesn’t argue the point.
“Have you, now?” Charles asks, grinning over at Erik. He shifts to sit up between them. “I suppose it’d be rude, then, to keep the two of you waiting.”
He tugs his t-shirt off, leaving his hair mussed in its wake. He tosses it aside, before reaching down to unbutton his jeans.
Both Magda and Erik scoot back to give him a little more room to push them off. For a second, Magda wonders—should they all talk more about this? Should they be working out what they all want to do, what works for them, what doesn’t?
She knows from about a million lunches and nights out with Charles, that’s often a feature in his accidental threesomes. “You’d think no one had ever discussed sex,” he’ll complain sometimes, or, “I just wish it weren’t all suddenly on me, just because I’m the guy with the ‘confusing’ body.”
But she knows, too, that Charles wishes sometimes for a little more spontaneity.
Or so he says, anyway. Magda doesn’t know what’s more spontaneous than ending up in a threesome while you’re shopping for books, which apparently is something that’s happened to Charles at least twice. And anyway, she thinks, watching his back as he strips… It’s not like Charles isn’t the worst ever at kiss-and-tell. Magda and Erik probably know a little too well what works and what doesn’t, when it comes to Charles.
When he’s tossed his jeans on the floor, he turns back to her. She can’t help noticing, he’s left his boxers on.
“We don’t want to distract Erik too much just yet, do we?” Charles asks, turning back to her. Magda shakes her head, laughing.
“No, I guess not,” she says. Charles is adjusting to lie on his stomach, and she feels her pulse start to race, because this is so happening now.
Magda’s not super shy about her body, but this is all still a little weird. She’s only ever slept with Erik, and Erik’s only ever slept with her, and well, the sex seems really great but… But what if they’re secretly the worst at sex? It’s not like they’d know! Charles has all this experience. What if she—
“Please, my dear,” Charles interrupts, his hands strong and gentling against her side. Erik shifts beside them, moving to sit cross-legged by her, where he can touch her and ground her, too. “Rest assured, neither one of you have anything at all to worry about.
“Now,” he continues, “Is this good, like this?”
She breathes out, shakily, considering. Her nerves and arousal are all mixed up, but other than that she’s good. Lying back against some pillows, Erik sitting by her side, Charles between her legs… Yeah, it’s pretty great, like this.
"Here," Erik murmurs, "let me just—"
He undoes the metal hooks of her bra without her having to move. It's always been one of Erik's favorite tricks, and watching from down the length of her body, Charles lets out a surprised and delighted laugh. Erik smiles, pleased at Charles's reaction, and Magda restrains herself from rolling her eyes again. She stretches her arms out and Erik lifts the bra off of her, using the metal of the underwire to float it across the room to their hamper.
"That's better," Erik says. "Proceed."
Magda reaches out to smack him on the leg, but he catches her hand instead, bringing it up to press a kiss to her knuckles before lowering it down to the bed again, tight in his grip.
It is better now, though. That was her fanciest-ass bra, designed for maximum cleavage and showing off and not at all for comfort. There are probably some marks where the band was cutting in too tightly into her skin. It's easier to breathe now, too, which is a good thing, because she feels the need to inhale a very deep breath to steady herself as Charles hooks his fingers into the waistband of her panties and begins to slowly pull them down her hips.
Magda has to shimmy a little to help him get them off; Charles tosses them out of the way on the other side of the bed, and then his hands are on her knees, pushing them further apart, wide open for him. She feels… exposed, kind of. On display for him. It's an odd feeling, but it feels sexy in its own way too. And now with her underwear gone, the cooler air of the room against her flesh—it's not surprising, when it seems like she's been aroused and on edge for hours now, but it's still something to realize just how wet she is, how soaked.
Charles slides one finger between her labia, getting it wet before bringing up to his own mouth to taste. "Mm."
He brings his hand back down, two fingers now, just dipping inside the entrance to her pussy but gone again as soon as she starts to clench down on him—but this time he extends his arm out, offering his slick fingertips to Erik.
"Do you want a taste, too?" Charles says.
Erik's hand on Magda's tightens almost painfully. He strains forward on the bed, an awkward stretch, until he can get his mouth on Charles's fingers. Magda can hear the sound of Erik sucking on them, and she thinks, very clearly, that she could literally kill them both at this moment.
"You're both assholes," Magda groans, throwing her free arm over her eyes.
Charles chuckles. "Oh, don't be like that," he says, much too cheerfully, which doesn't help at all. Talking is definitely not what he should be doing with his mouth right now, and she's about to say as much, when he finally moves again, and she feels the first touch of his wet tongue between her legs.
For someone who’s such a tease, Charles sure can be direct when he wants to be. Magda gasps as his tongue passes firmly over her slick entrance, as he lingers to suck lightly at her clit.
“Fuck,” she groans, tightening her hand around Erik’s. She’s even more on-edge than she thought, she’s hypersensitive and aching for the slightest touch. It’s not like Charles has to be any good at this, she’s going to come soon no matter what he does.
Suddenly, she remembers that she really wants her eyes open for as much of this as she can possibly manage, and she puts her arm down just in time to look down to see Charles pulling back again.
He’s smirking up at her, his face slightly flushed. His lips are shiny wet, and very, very red.
“I don’t have to be any good at this? Is that so?”
“Ugh,” she says, reaching down to push him back where he’s needed. “You can overhear that, you can overhear all the nice things, too.”
When Charles laughs this time, it’s a low, almost silent huff of air, teasing against her. She can’t help tensing a little, watching him now—he keeps his eyes on hers as long as he can, almost like he’s daring her to look away.
She can’t, this time. He is good at this, sure. Obviously, he’s experienced, but he’s also a quick study: all the more so because, she can tell, he’s looped in on her sensations. He knows almost instantly how she likes it, how frustrating-good it is to be licked open, how much and how hard she loves having her clit sucked.
But, while his mouth is exactly as good as she imagined it’d be, Erik’s sort of got oral sex with her down to a fine art. He’s crazy about going down on her, and after years of doing so, he can pretty much get her off immediately if he’s trying. This isn’t just about how experienced Charles is, or how amazing his ridiculous mouth is, or what it’s like to be fucking a telepath.
This is about Charles. She moans, her stomach tensing as he spreads her labia wide with his fingers, as he laps broad strokes against her exposed cunt. She can’t stop watching him, the way his back moves, the way his shoulders are flushed pink, the way his callused hands look on her body.
She can’t even bring herself to let go of him, now. She’s trying not to yank him around too much—probably he wouldn’t appreciate that quite like Erik does—but it’s just nice, his hair twining soft around her fingers, way longer than Erik’s.
As she gets closer and closer to coming, though, she struggles with that. She’d think this all would be more than enough—the way Charles is sucking and licking her off, the growing pulse of his arousal in her mind—but, frustratingly, it’s not quite enough.
Almost every time, whenever she and Erik do this… She always has played with her nipples a little, to push that little bit more. There’s something about it, even though her tits aren’t super-sensitive or anything, that just makes her come that much harder. But now, she’s faced with an impossible dilemma. Who does she let go of?
She groans again in frustration, gripping Erik’s hand tighter, tugging at Charles’s hair. She can’t choose, and Charles keeps licking and sucking at her, and the heat keeps coiling in her and she needs to come so bad—
The moment drags on and on, and she’s just hoping she’s not grinding against Charles’s face too hard or yanking out all his hair and trying to let go of someone when finally, finally Erik makes the choice for her.
He extracts his hand from her grip, and she’s about to go for her chest when he goes ahead and takes care of that, too.
“Need a little help?” he asks. He sounds obnoxiously smug—ugh, of course he does—but his voice is low and rough like he’s been enjoying the show. Magda would say something, except he’s moving to lean over her, to get one of her nipples in his mouth while one of his hands goes to pinch the other.
Now, all she can do with her freed hand is grab for her husband, desperately. She grips his hair as tight as she’s holding Charles, and it’s all she can do to hold on to them both as they drive her, shouting and shaking, over the edge.
It takes a few minutes for Magda to recover to the point where she can open her eyes. Her body is still trembling with the aftershocks, her chest heaving. Her fingers are half-tangled in the boys’ hair, and she loosens her grip, though she keeps her hands where they are, fingers stroking idly as she stares up at the ceiling, trying to catch her breath. Erik has thankfully moved off her to lie by her side so she can breathe fully, and after a minute or so, she starts to feel somewhat recovered.
Of course, then she looks at Charles to see him licking his lips (which, impossibly, look even redder than before), the lower half of his face thoroughly wet, and she's breathless all over again.
“Stop looking so smug,” she says, letting her hand slide off his head, gently shoving his shoulder with her foot.
“If you had the view I have, you'd be smug, too,” Charles says, sweeping his eyes up her body, his smirk broadening.
“Show me, then,” she retorts. There's a beat of hesitation, Charles’s self-satisfied expression faltering, but then Magda can't see him any more because her vision is flooded with…herself, from the vantage point of between her legs. Once she gets past the immediate disorientation—it’s almost like an out-of-body experience—Magda admits that she has to agree with Charles; she looks wrecked. Her hair is in utter disarray, what's left of her makeup is beyond messy, her entire body is flushed, and her breasts heave as she works to catch her breath. Erik, naked and hard by her side and watching them with hooded eyes, only completes the picture of debauchery. It's strange and heady, to see herself like this; she knows she's attractive—but right now, recovering from her orgasm, she's smoking hot, and she feels sexier than she has in her life. If this is what Erik sees when they have sex, she can't blame him for wanting it all the time. (Not that she's complaining, mind you.)
More striking than the image, though, are the feelings that accompany it. Charles has tamped down some of his emotions for Magda’s benefit, but he can't fully eliminate them, and what she does feel is overwhelming enough, Charles’s affection for her and Erik, his half-disbelief that this is happening at all, and—faintly, very faintly, so subtle that Magda almost missed it—his nervousness, his desire to make this as good as possible for them.
(She can tell she wasn't meant to see that last bit, so she doesn't comment on it. They'll just have to keep telling him how good this is, how amazing he is, until he can't help but believe them.)
See? Charles says. Magda sighs exaggeratedly.
“All right, fine, you can be smug,” she concedes. The words echo through both her ears and Charles’s, and wow, that's trippy.
She feels, then sees, Charles’s grin as he lets the vision fade. She blinks a few times to re-orient herself to her own perspective, and then grins back at him.
“That was…” She raises her hand to touch his face, run the tips of her fingers along the side of his face, through the drying wetness there. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Charles says fervently; they all know he isn't just talking about the sex. He turns his head to catch the tips of her fingers with his mouth, and her breath catches (beside her, Erik’s does the same), but there's no answering stir in any other part of her body, and after a few moments, she pulls her hand back, rests her palm against his cheek.
“Okay,” she says. “Your turn.”
Charles's gaze slides off to her side. "What about Erik? He's not even been touched yet."
Magda turns to look at Erik, too. He's shifted onto his knees, his hands resting loosely open on his thighs, and his eyes are half-shut, eyelashes fanning down on his cheeks.
Not that Magda thinks either his knees or his eyelashes, lovely as they are, are what's putting that hungry look on Charles's face.
Magda reaches out enough to drag her nails very lightly against the skin of Erik's thigh. Erik visibly restrains himself from jumping, but he can't help the way it makes his dick twitch and jump for them.
"It only seems fair," Magda says slowly, "I mean—you're the one who just gave me an orgasm, right? You should get to go next." Silently, just for Charles, she adds, I'll tell you a secret: I think Erik likes it better, waiting.
"Ah," Charles breathes out. His eyes on Erik change into something more considering as he looks him up and down. Is that how it is, then?
Erik shifts his weight. "I know you two are talking without me," he says. "It's rude, you know. I'm beginning to feel left out." He's trying for the same annoyed tone as always, Magda can tell, but it loses something from the hoarse rumble he gets when he's this aroused.
"I'm sorry, baby," Magda says. She soothes her fingertips down over the same stretch of skin she just scratched. "You shouldn't feel left out. You're the one who's going to be sucking Charles's cock, aren't you?"
Erik's groan is loud and sudden; it seems to take up all the air in the room. When Magda glances back at Charles, he's flushed from his hairline to halfway down his torso, and his eyes look wild and shocked and ecstatic—and she thinks, this time, they're locked on Erik's face.
Charles clears his throat. "I have—there's some Viagra in the car—"
Of course he does. He probably has a condom, too, which is a dumb realization to have now, hours after the emergency drugstore run.
Charles's car isn't parked very far away, but Magda is fairly certain that all three of them are thinking the exact same thing: namely, that the prospect of getting dressed again and leaving this bed, let alone this apartment, is terrible.
"I can go get it," Erik says.
Magda restrains herself from rolling her eyes. Erik is the worst choice to go get it, in the state he's in. There's nothing they could dress him in that wouldn't still be obscene in public.
"Or I could," Magda says firmly. A thought occurs to her, though. "That is...if that's what you want. You like it with a lot of direct stimulation, too, right?"
(It really is shocking they didn't think of this sooner, considering just how much they know about Charles's sex life.)
"Yes," Charles says, after a few seconds’ pause. "I do. Quite a bit. But it's not as easy...it might take quite a while, actually."
Magda is fairly certain Erik won't be averse to that, but she keeps her mouth shut. She's been doing so much of the talking for the two of them, and that's fine—Erik's better at doing than talking sometimes, especially when it comes to things that are really personal—but she doesn't want it to seem like this is all her, either, like she's dragging Erik along or pushing. Some things Erik has to be the one to say or do.
"I don't mind," Erik says. "I want to."
Something about how direct Erik’s words are—how clear and honest he can be with his desire—sends a little jolt of arousal through Magda, even if right now it’s not really directed at her. At least it works for the person it is directed at, too; she can tell not all the arousal thrumming in her mind is hers.
Charles licks his lips again before speaking, his startling eyes still fixed entirely on Erik.
“Ah,” he says, “I see.”
Erik smiles, just a little. Maybe he’s ridiculously turned on and hard enough that it’s a wonder he’s got blood left anywhere else in his body, but it’s true what she said: Erik loves to wait. Apparently he loves seeing Charles speechless, just as much.
“But I’m not sure I can suck you off like that,” Erik says, pointedly looking at Charles’s backside.
Magda laughs, and gets her knees under herself so she can get out of the way. Only so many pillows, after all, should Charles need them.
Charles moves himself up the bed, into the space Magda's left. He strips off his underwear with efficient, practiced movements—as much as Magda wouldn't mind helping, she suspects she or Erik would only get in the way, and they both wait, settled on either side of him until Charles finishes.
He fluffs up the pillows behind him one last time and then sits back. "All right," he says, with a little flourish of his hands. "I'm all yours."
Magda could swear that she sees Erik's face go red, flushing a little just at the top of his cheeks at Charles's words, but Erik turns his head away as he crawls down the bed and between Charles's legs. Magda shifts, too, turning onto her side and curling up next to Charles; she's out of the way like this, but still able to touch skin-to-skin, and still getting a pretty good view.
Erik's very still, staring down at Charles' dick. Magda can't blame him; she's staring too. Charles is still soft, of course—which obviously she knew to expect, but still feels odd, in the context of everything they've been doing, at least for the split second before she pushes it away.
No, what's really distracting is...well, Magda and Erik have plenty of experience with one dick in particular, and Charles's dick has an extra feature that one doesn't. Hell, even the porn Magda's seen has almost all been cut guys.
"It's just a foreskin," Charles says out loud, seemingly into the air. "It's not that unusual."
Erik makes a small noise, almost like an agreement, though he still doesn't look away from Charles's junk. He stretches out his hand and wraps it around Charles's cock, cupping the weight of it thoughtfully in his palm. He does glance up then, over to Magda, and she has just enough time to see the nervousness and determination in his eyes before he ducks his head down.
Erik's mouth isn't small; it doesn't look like it's any effort to get all of Charles in like this. His eyes are tightly shut and Magda can make out all the little wrinkles at the corners, the ones she likes to tease him about in the mornings. He's not sucking yet, it seems, just holding Charles's cock steady and still inside him.
He looks gorgeous like this. Magda can barely breathe, watching him.
A sweaty lock of hair's fallen down on his forehead. Charles reaches down to brush it away with his thumb, and at that touch of skin to skin, Erik moans, loud even through his full mouth.
“Erik,” Charles breathes, and Magda sees his fingers flex, just shy of gripping Erik’s hair. Erik moans again, quieter this time, and looks up at Charles through his eyelashes. Magda almost feels winded by the sudden burst of arousal that floods through the room, and she involuntarily tightens her hold on Charles’s side as if to steady herself. Charles barely even notices, so focused on Erik, and Magda would think about being jealous if she weren't so wholly unable to look away from him, too. She can tell Erik’s projecting something to Charles, and the fact that he's so into this, just holding Charles’s dick in his mouth, that he doesn't even want to release it to talk, is...fuck. She doesn't have the words for how much she's turned on by seeing Erik this hyper-focused.
Charles sucks in a sharp breath. “If you're sure,” he says aloud, still staring at Erik. Erik nods very slightly, and the movement makes Charles’s dick slide out a few centimeters, slick and shiny with spit. Charles exhales shakily and places his free hand on Erik’s head. He stays like that for a moment, eyes locked with Erik’s, and then Charles’s gaze intensifies even further and his fingers tangle in the short strands of Erik’s hair, tugging lightly.
Erik groans, his eyes sliding closed as he lets Charles pull him forward until Charles’s dick is fully seated in his mouth again. They stay like that for a moment, and then Magda can see Erik’s cheeks hollow as he starts sucking.
Now it's Charles’s turn to groan, his fingers spasming. Magda finally tears her eyes away from Erik to look up at him, and her chest fills at the wide-eyed look of wonder on Charles’s face as he stares down at her husband.
After a few minutes, though, Erik pulls off, breathing heavily, and frowns up at them. “I don't—it's not working,” he says, half-pouting.
Charles visibly stiffens. “I told you, it takes time,” he says. “If you'd rather we get the Viagra—”
“No, that's not what I mean,” Erik says, shaking his head, clearly frustrated. “I told you, I want to suck you, but I can't get my mouth to suck properly. It doesn't feel right.”
Magda has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She's told Erik, time and time again, that there's a steep learning curve with blow jobs, but he no longer remembers the early days of their relationship, where she was more likely to have to pull off of his dick coughing than to actually get him off with her mouth. And Charles isn’t even hard; Magda wonders how on earth Erik will balance his perfectionism with his gag reflex.
Charles, thankfully, is much more tactful, though Magda can tell he's amused, too. “It does take some practice,” he agrees, his tension all gone. He tilts his head. “Let me try something?”
“Sure,” Erik sighs. “It's not like I'm coming any closer to figuring it out myself.”
Charles chuckles. “You're trying too hard, darling.”
Erik flushes. “I just want—” he trails off, then says, again, “I want—”
He doesn't need to say it; he wants it to be perfect for Charles. The performance pressure is getting to him; Magda can sympathize. She reaches down and takes the hand he has resting on Charles’s thigh in hers, squeezing comfortingly. Erik shoots her a quick half-smile and squeezes back before returning his focus to Charles.
“Here,” Charles says gently, sliding his hand down to Erik’s face, placing two fingers on his bottom lip. “Try with these; you did so well with them, earlier.”
Erik hesitates for a moment. Then, visibly collecting all his determination around him, he opens his mouth and lets Charles slide his fingers in. His lips purse, his cheeks pull in, and then he starts sucking. Magda can see him relax after a moment, steadying himself on the bed as he really gets into it.
“That's it,” Charles says hoarsely, his voice half an octave deeper. “Now, try using your tongue.” Then he inhales sharply. “Yes,” he breathes, “exactly like that. Perfect.”
Erik moans quietly at the praise. Magda grins; he’s so predictable. Charles is clearly picking up on this aspect of Erik’s desire, too, petting him and quietly talking him through fellating Charles’s fingers, both of them growing more and more turned-on, until Charles breathes, “I think you've got the hang of it, now. Do you want to try—”
Erik doesn't even pause to answer, just slides back off of Charles’s fingers and lowers himself to his belly and takes Charles’s dick back in his mouth in one (almost) fluid movement.
For all the planning she and Erik have done, for all the thinking she's done about this, for all that she knew how much Erik wanted this—it's still something else, seeing it. Seeing a blowjob up close like this (and not from the driver's seat, as it were) is more fascinating than Magda would have guessed, just on its own. The fact that it's Erik giving it—the fact that it's Charles he's giving it to...
Well. It's definitely something.
Magda curls up even closer against Charles's side, chin resting on his shoulder. When she remembers, she brushes her hand over Charles's chest, tracing idle patterns with her nails and occasionally pinching at his nipple when she passes across it. But mostly she's too busy just watching to think of anything else.
Of course, whenever she does think to look away from the show long enough to glance over at Charles’s face, he's staring down at Erik, too. Every time. So somehow she doubts he can blame her.
He does rather put his back into it, doesn't he? Charles sends her. Even his thoughts sound a little breathless, which is immensely charming.
"Anything worth doing is worth doing right," Magda says faintly.
Each time Erik pulls off she can see the difference in Charles’s cock, harder and fuller every time it slips wet from Erik's mouth, just long enough to allow him to suck in a few heavy, loud breaths before he sinks down again.
It's obvious the moment it's grown too much to fit easily; Erik is coughing as he lifts his head. He kneels up again, grabs Charles's cock and begins jerking him off roughly while staring down. It's one of his looks that seems like a glare, but Magda knows (and she's sure Charles knows, too) is actually more considering than anything else.
Magda moves down the bed until she's sitting beside Erik. She can rub her hand up and down his back this way. His skin is hot, and slick with sweat.
From this angle, too, she can see matters from Erik’s perspective. Charles—by now mostly hard, that curious foreskin pulled back so the deep-red head of his cock is exposed—isn’t oversized, unlike some people she knows. But she can see where it’d still be a challenge, especially the first time in the driver’s seat.
She rubs Erik’s lower back slowly, trying to get him to relax.
“It’s okay,” Charles says, “you don’t need to—”
Magda can feel Erik’s back tense again, like he’s steeling himself for battle, and she’s quick to interrupt.
“Yeah, you don’t need to shove it all in there.” She brushes her hand down Erik’s arm, settling it gently on his, where he’s still holding Charles loosely. “May I?”
To tell the truth, in all her speculation about this night, this isn’t something that ever particularly came to mind. She likes going down on Erik, even takes it as a point of pride she figured out how to deepthroat him (though, big as he is, there’s almost no way to get him in all the way), but for some reason… She just never thought too much about sucking Charles off.
Probably because the idea of watching Erik try it was so distracting.
But now, confronted with Charles’s cock—and faintly curious what it’s like, giving head to someone else, someone uncut and manageably-sized—she figures, why not try? It won’t be for too long, anyway. Just a quick demonstration for Erik, and maybe after…
Erik hums, interrupting her thoughts, and sits back on his heels to get out of the way. Magda glances up at Charles for confirmation, too, and the burst of approval in her mind and the frankly poleaxed expression on Charles’s face make her grin.
She twists her hair up, getting it out of the way. “I don’t gag on you because I realize my mouth isn’t a foot deep,” she tells Erik, as she takes Charles in hand. He feels so strangely different than Erik, and Magda can’t help pumping him a few times, just getting a feel for the way his foreskin glides as she works his cock. She licks her lips. “Just take in what you can, and give that your all.”
Erik scoffs, sounding unimpressed for all of two seconds before Magda’s got Charles’s cock in her mouth.
She keeps her fist loose around the base of Charles's cock as she begins to bob, easy and slow. Much as she tries to concentrate on what she's doing, in the back of her mind she can't help making a list of comparisons—what's the same as doing this to Erik, what's different. But it is all the same basic principle, isn't it? Charles's cock is already so wet from Erik's efforts, and he's warm in her mouth, smells good, tastes like clean skin… He's appreciative, too, little sighs of approval and the warm bask of affection projecting out from him the whole time.
After a minute, Magda moves so only the head's left in her mouth. She dedicates a little extra attention there, licking at the slit, tonguing curiously at the edge of the foreskin.
She pulls all the way off then, pressing a final kiss to the crown before she turns back to Erik. "See? You can relax a little. Have fun with it."
Erik nods slowly, and Magda moves out of the way to let Erik takes his place again between Charles's legs.
She stays close, though, close enough to keep her hands on Erik, stroking his back and flanks again, and close enough to have a good view of what Erik's doing. Maybe the demonstration has succeeded in reminding Erik of other blowjobs he's received himself, because he takes some time before he sucks Charles down, licking up and down from the base of his cock to the head, and even spending a while attending to Charles's balls.
When he does take Charles back in, it's not any less enthusiastic than before, or any less vigorous, but there's a little more control, Magda thinks. He doesn't gag or choke again, at least, and he seems to find a rhythm that works for him. Charles's hands are in his hair, clenched tight enough that his knuckles look white—Magda can only imagine how much Erik is liking that. Both of them have their eyes closed, and she wonders if they're speaking telepathically, some private conversation she can't hear.
Oddly enough, she doesn't mind if they are.
"Stroking Erik's back" has slowly drifted down and transformed into "rubbing Erik's bony ass." When Erik grunts and widens his stance Magda takes it as the invitation it is. She lets her hand drift inward, just running her fingertips up and down his cleft. His skin is sweaty, and he makes these sweet muffled sounds when she starts rubbing more firmly against his perineum.
Mostly, though, she’s trying not to distract him too much. Lucky for her, his mouth is occupied; he can’t whine as much as he usually does, when he thinks she’s teasing.
There’s a difference between being a tease and taking your time, she says sometimes, even if Erik usually grumbles about that, too.
She takes her time pressing her fingers back upward, slowly trailing over Erik’s hole. He clenches a little under her touch, and groans again around Charles’s cock. Poor baby, she thinks, circling his ass a little. If only teasing him weren’t so fun—
Trust me, she hears in her mind, Charles’s mental voice still rough and strangely breathless, He loves it. It’s as you said… He does like it better, waiting.
Magda smirks up at Charles. He’s looking at her, but keeps stealing glances back down at Erik’s ruddy face. To tell the truth, Magda doesn’t need Charles’s gift to know that her husband is a sucker for being teased, but she keeps that fact to herself. It’s a good thing, she thinks back to him, because this wait was so worth it.
Somehow, Charles manages to turn even more pink at her words. As if he’s sensed the shift in Charles’s attention, Erik takes that moment to move one hand so he’s cupping Charles’s balls, and redoubles his efforts to swallow Charles down. Magda raises her eyebrows, impressed: it’s the deepest Erik’s been able to take Charles yet. It’s a great look for him, face red and lips stretched around a thick cock, and Magda can’t blame Charles at all for being distracted by him.
She can’t help wanting to reward Erik a little, too. With the boys so caught up in each other, she takes the opportunity to reach over to the nightstand.
Which, once she opens it… Well, she’s really glad Charles is so completely wrapped up in Erik, because their lube is completely hidden.
By condoms. A heap of condoms. At least there’s not thousands of them, thank goodness, so Erik didn’t buy his usual hundred-count packs—maybe forty or fifty total, in varying brands; one of which is very, very familiar from her pre-IUD days—but all the same, the assortment pack of contraceptives is Erik’s purchase to explain. She digs out the lube, and quickly closes the drawer.
Except in the early days of their relationship—when he hadn’t yet tried it—Erik’s never been all too shy about how much he loves butt stuff. Magda’s not stupid about that kind of thing, she knew enough about human sexuality at twenty to realize however much someone may enjoy anal, it doesn’t reflect anything on one’s orientation. Too bad, she thinks sometimes: maybe if she’d had some misconceptions back then and pressed Erik on it, he would have admitted to being bi a little sooner.
Oh well, she thinks. They’re here now, and that’s what matters. And—as focused as Erik is on Charles’s cock—he still reacts when she uncaps the bottle, his back arching a little at the familiar clicking sound.
Magda settles again beside him. “Shh, baby,” she murmurs, squirting lube out on her fingers, letting it warm a bit. “You’re supposed to be taking care of Charles, aren’t you?”
She’s not thinking too hard on what she’s saying, really, but that doesn’t seem to matter to either Charles or Erik. They both moan at her words, their arousal palpable in her mind. Her face feels hot. She talks a little dirty with Erik sometimes (okay, a lot of times, if one factors in all the sex they’ve had discussing the Charles situation), but this is so different. She can’t even think too dirty without getting flustered by the weight of Charles’s interest.
And when they both react so strongly… it’s a peculiar sensation. She feels powerful and shy and sexy and just so affectionate for both of them, all at once. Magda shakes herself, trying to clear her thoughts, and focuses again on her husband.
“I’ll take care of you,” she murmurs. Erik jumps when she finally strokes lube over his hole, and she swats his ass playfully. “Hey! No getting distracted, though!”
Erik huffs through his nose, more a complaint than anything else. When she glances briefly at Charles, though, he’s watching her, gaze so hungry she can barely breathe. Something to remember later, she thinks. She definitely doesn’t think Erik can suck cock and get spanked at the same time, at least not now. Maybe in a few months, if Charles is really as into the idea as he looks.
Now that Erik’s focusing on what he’s doing with his mouth again, Magda starts rubbing the lube into his skin, all around his tight opening. She plays with the outside of his ass for a while at first, letting him relax more and more, holding pressure with a fingertip now and then just to feel him thrust back and try and get her in.
She doesn’t let him, though. Not yet, anyway. He keeps bobbing his head on Charles’s cock, his ribs heaving as he pants through his nose. Magda pulls her hand back to get more lube on her fingers, and watches her husband work as she lets it warm, and then—when he’s on a downstroke, letting Charles fuck his throat—she gives him what he wants.
Just one finger at first, and Erik’s hungry for it, so it slides in easy. But he’s so hot inside, his hole clenching so tight once she’s inside. She knows she’ll never get used this, as many times as they’ll do it.
The first time she tried this with Erik, she wasn’t so sure she’d like it. It was one of those ideas that was kind of both of theirs. It had seemed to her that playing with his perineum and the outside of his butt was just a natural progression of blowjobs or jerking him off, like how Erik sort of let his mouth go wherever when he ate her out. And after she’d done that for a while… Well, one day, Erik asked for a little more.
Magda’s careful, thrusting her finger a little before giving him a second.
Definitely, Erik could stand her being rougher. She can even tell by his muffled grunts that he’s frustrated, that he wants her to, but she knows way better than that.
Because, while it seemed a little weird to her at first, Magda very quickly learned that first night how much she loves doing this. Fingering (or, later on, pegging) him is downright fantastic, simply for what it does to Erik.
With two fingers now, she thrusts gently, making sure she’s curving up, toward his tailbone.
The first time she did this, he lasted about two minutes, and she wasn’t sure she hadn’t broken him. Turns out, Mr. Stamina does have at least one weak point.
Erik mumbles something around Charles’s cock, his hips pistoning back against her hand. Magda pays him absolutely no mind. Long as he’s held out, she knows he’ll shoot his load the second she thinks of his prostate, and she’s not sure he wants to come just yet.
She keeps fingering like that, eventually slipping her ring finger alongside the first two. The stretch alone usually does good things for Erik, and after a while he seems to settle into it, visibly accepting the stretch is all he’s getting for now. He keeps sucking Charles off all the while, long enough that Magda’s jaw aches in sympathy for how hard he’s working.
The long lines of Erik’s back flex as he moves, sitting up to let Charles’s dick slide from his mouth. Magda doesn’t make any motion to withdraw, assuming he’s either getting his bearings now that Charles is fully hard, or just resting. Erik was definitely enjoying himself, that much she knows for sure.
She just won’t thrust too much while he’s struggling with his gag reflex.
Holding her fingers very still, she watches Erik’s face as he licks his lips. The way he looks—lips swollen and shiny, his face flushed, his eyes a little watery—it’s all she can do not to moan, seeing him so used. He clears his throat before speaking.
“You ready to fuck me, now?” he asks Charles, his grin sharp and bright.
Magda has to make a noise, then. Even caught up in Erik’s mind as he was, Charles obviously didn’t read Erik was about to ask that, and the desire that flares out from him is overpowering, feverish and wild. Magda clenches at nothing, her clit throbbing with the echoes of her and Charles’s want.
It’s a good thing she can be patient, too, she thinks. Because right now, there’s nothing she wants more than this, than what Charles and Erik so clearly want: to have Charles fuck her husband, now.
“I—” Charles tries, his voice breaking immediately. He swallows, his throat bobbing hard. “Yes?”
Erik laughs, low and husky, and Magda doesn’t stifle her own grin.
“Is that a question?” Erik asks, and okay, there’s smug and then there’s too smug. She flares her fingers out, stretching him, making him grunt in sudden pleasure.
“He’s more than ready,” she tells Charles, thrusting a little now, keeping Erik open. “At least, for the cock we usually use he is, you’re quite a bit larger than that.”
Erik makes a noise that’s somehow half aroused, half annoyed. Only Erik, she thinks.
“I’m ready. Of course I’m ready. You’ve had your fingers in me all day.”
"You only wish," Magda says sweetly, and Charles lets out a small, choked-out laugh.
"All right," Charles says, "all right—fuck, Erik, yes, I want to fuck you—" He's tugging on Erik's shoulders, pulling him down for a kiss, a sloppy dirty thing that makes Erik groan aloud. "I have a condom in my wallet," Charles says, practically still against Erik's mouth. Magda can barely hear him, so he must be projecting it, too, because she can still understand him perfectly.
"We have some," Erik assures him.
Magda removes her fingers, wiping them absently against the sheets, and Erik crawls to the edge of the bed, back to their table to open up the drawer.
Charles can't help but notice the overkill this time, of course, not the way his eyes are following every move Erik makes. He tilts his head at the sight. "You two still use condoms?"
"No," Erik says. The of course not is implied, even as he grabs a large handful of assorted brands and types and dumps them back onto the bed next to Charles.
Magda has to bite her lip against the sudden urge to laugh.
"Oh," Charles says. "All right."
"I don't know what kind you like best," Erik says. He slams the drawer shut again, turning to climb back and straddle Charles's thighs. "Pick whatever you want."
Charles does laugh at that, throaty and a little surprised as Erik throws a leg over. He reaches for Erik right away, condoms already all but forgotten.
“What I want is you,” he says, staring at his hands on Erik’s tiny waist.
Magda tries not to roll her eyes. She bets Erik doesn’t resist that impulse at all.
“That’s not very helpful,” Erik says, waving one arm imperiously at the condoms strewn on the bed. “Just pick one.”
Charles glances back quickly at Magda, smirking. “And if I asked for the one in my wallet…”
The face Erik makes at Charles then would probably send most people packing. Charles, on the other hand, looks downright pleased to be the target of Erik’s ire. All the same, he turns enough attention to the packages to grab one.
“I do apologize, my darling,” he soothes, ripping open the packet and making quick work of rolling the condom on, “I’d hate to think you’d wasted your time needlessly on your errand...”
“Not to mention the needless suffering, walking in those pants,” Erik gripes, without much heat. He can probably hear the affection in Charles’s voice, the accompanying spark of amusement and joy in his mind.
Magda can tell, now—connected as they all are—that Charles is amazed at even such a small reminder of how much she and Erik wanted this. That they planned for this (even if badly, in the case of the drugstore run). That they want him so much—as much, she senses now, as he wants them.
It’s well past the time to be shy. Magda squirts more lube on her hand and jerks Charles off a little, slicking him up before going on to get more on Erik. “You can’t say they didn’t serve their purpose, baby,” she murmurs against Erik’s neck.
“At the cost of my sperm count,” he complains, even as he arches his back slightly and moves his knees even further apart to give her better access. Her fingers slide in easily; she doesn't tease this time, just thrusts in and out a few times, still carefully avoiding his prostate. She spreads her fingers just to hear him moan and feel him clench around her.
“Magda,” Erik half-whines, shifting. Charles snorts.
“You should hear the things he's calling you in his head,” he says.
“Trust me, I'm sure I've heard them all, and worse,” Magda says, with a grin. She pulls her fingers out just a little, then pushes them back in—then pulls them out rapidly, before Erik can complain again. She pushes him forward gently. “Go on, baby, you can sit on Charles’s dick now.”
"Oh, shut up," Erik says, but if he's trying for his usual grumble he's not particularly successful. He bats Charles's hand away from his own dick, where Charles has been stroking slowly, keeping himself hard, so he can grab it instead.
Charles moves his hands immediately back to Erik's waist. He's staring up, mouth hanging open, at Erik's face—and Magda can understand that, because Erik looks unspeakably obscene right now, head thrown back, closed eyes and expression strained in pleasure.
But from where Magda's sitting, a little behind Erik and to the side of them both… She's not going to say it's a better view, per se, but it's a really compelling one right now: the absolutely perfect angle to watch Charles's thick cock slowly disappear into Erik's ass.
Slowly, but steadily, Erik pushing himself, both of them, further and further without pause. Magda can hear his huffing breaths, loud and harsh in the room over everything. For his part, she's not sure Charles is breathing at all.
"What did I tell you?" Erik says, when he's finally got all of Charles inside him.
"I didn't doubt you for a moment, darling," Charles says, sounding ridiculously sincere. Erik makes a grunt of triumph.
Magda rolls her eyes, but that's all right, because neither of them are looking at her.
Erik rolls his hips a little, leaning forward and then to the side, as if he's getting used to the feeling. He's searching for the right angle, and it's obvious to all three of them exactly when he finds it, between the sound that escapes him and the way his whole body jerks.
There's a pause; none of them move, and it feels like everything slows down, time stretching out as all of them narrow their focus to the point where Charles’s dick disappears into Erik’s ass—and then Erik places his hands on Charles’s shoulders and slowly levers himself up, until the tip of Charles’s cock is just barely inside him. He stays there for a second that feels like hours, and then, a little faster than before, he slides back down, gasping when he hits his prostate again. He repeats this a few times, picking up speed every time, until he's barely pausing between thrusts.
The air in the room is heavy with arousal, the slick sounds of Erik fucking himself on Charles and his loud, harsh breathing the only noises any of them make. Magda feels like they're on the edge of something, and then she realizes—she's feeling what Erik is feeling, all of them looped together through Charles’s telepathy, and Erik is the one who's on-edge, holding himself back from coming by sheer force of will as he moves faster and faster, until she can barely see Charles’s dick before Erik’s ass envelops it again. From her position behind him, Magda can just about see Erik’s dick, hard and leaking, leaving streaks of pre-come on Charles’s tight abs.
Charles himself is almost preternaturally still, staring up at Erik, his eyes wide and pupils blown, mouth half-open. His hands clench and unclench on Erik’s sides, as if he wants to use them but can't figure out what to do with them. Magda can't remember the last time she saw Charles truly speechless—and whatever or whenever it was, it definitely doesn't compare to this. Nothing does.
Erik keeps moving, faster and faster, and then, suddenly, he drives himself down onto Charles with a shout, back arching and his hands tightening on Charles’s shoulders as he comes all over Charles’s chest.
Fuck, Magda thinks, biting down hard on her lip—or maybe it's Charles thinking that. Maybe it's both of them. Watching Erik still shuddering through the aftermaths of his orgasm, Magda can't quite sort it out.
"Are you—" Charles starts to say, but his voice is scratchy and hoarse. He has to stop and clear his throat before he tries again. "Do you want to keep going?"
"Yes," Erik says, "of course, just...just give me one second…"
Charles smiles, bright and fond. "Of course," he repeats.
He pushes himself up from his semi-reclined position against their mountain of pillows, until he's sitting up straight, gently adjusting Erik's position in his lap. He runs his hand through Erik's hair, kisses Erik on the mouth for just a moment before trailing his lips across Erik's cheek, up to the corner of his eyes, the bridge of his nose, and back down to his mouth, Erik sighing all the while.
Magda feels—she feels like something's flowing out of her, unbearably strong. These two men. Her lovely, ridiculous boys. The fact that this worked, that this is something they get to have...
"Okay," Erik says after a minute.
"Okay?" Charles murmurs.
Erik nods, once, decisively, before he raises himself up and begins riding Charles again.
The rhythm's not quite as fast or hard as his beginning effort, but it's still intense, even just watching. Once again Magda can't look away from the actual penetration. When they've played with her strap-on in the past, it's always been hot, seeing Erik take the toy, but there's always been other things going on, too, to distract her. Like this, it's easy to focus on just that: seeing Erik take it, knowing the pleasure both of them are getting from it.
Honestly, Magda's getting pleasure from it, too. She starts to grope at her breast almost absent-mindedly, but the faraway pleasure from it leads her to more direct action, her other hand reaching between her legs to glide through her wetness. The first brush against her clit feels like a sudden jolt of electricity, almost-but-not-quite too much.
"Magda," Charles says.
The sound of his voice, husky and uneven, draws Magda's gaze away from their joining and back up. Charles is looking at her, but he looks like he can barely keep his eyes open. His arms are wrapped close and tight around Erik's back, and Erik's head is dipped so Magda can't quite see him—his mouth must be at Charles's ear, or maybe his neck.
"May I?" Charles says, flapping one hand vaguely in her direction. Magda blinks at him dumbly. "What you see," Charles has to clarify, "do you mind if I—"
He wiggles his fingers again, and this time Magda understands that it's the closest he can manage to his normal vague telepathy gesture.
All the same, it still takes her another moment to realize what he’s asking for, mainly because it’s so crazy he’s asking at all. They’ve shared so much over the years, she and Erik telling him a million times he needn’t be shy about his powers, not around them… And still he asks, now? At a time like this?
She breathes out, a bit too distracted by Erik’s ass to properly scold Charles, and nods.
“Yeah,” she says, her own voice just as wrecked as Charles’s. “Anything… Anything you want.”
Charles doesn’t waste any time. Magda can feel his mind pouring into hers, as if he’s consciously making sure she knows he’s riding on her sensations, and his reaction is immediate. Charles groans, low and throaty, seeing through her eyes: Charles’s cock, thick and fully erect, splitting Erik open.
Do you— Charles manages, his mind fuzzy and rough, more an impression than actual words. Magda’s started playing with her breasts again, idly pinching at her nipples, and when Charles finishes his thought, the effect is…disconcerting.
She freezes, both hands going still. It’s definitely interesting, feeling what Charles does—the sensation of her husband’s tight ass, the friction of him thrusting himself down over and over—and anytime else she’d be all for it.
But now, she shakes her head. She’s usually okay at multitasking, but really. She’d been getting into a good rhythm, and she can’t rub off and figure out how it feels to have a cock at the same time.
Too much right now, she thinks, trusting Charles to hear the edge of regret and future interest in it.
Charles recedes immediately. His presence is still there, the unshakable knowledge of him in her mind and watching through her, but what she can feel of his mind has pulled back from the overwhelming double vision to something strong and close and familiar. Magda lets herself float on it. That connection, and the sensation of her hands on her body, and the images in front of her of Charles and her husband joined—they ramp up her arousal steadily, higher and higher.
She reaches her second orgasm, clenching down hard around two fingers. She's not as loud as she was earlier, when Charles made her yell, but Erik knows exactly what those hitching breathy noises mean after all these years. He groans, too, muffled against Charles's neck.
"Fuck," Charles says fervently. Magda doesn't know if it's a reaction to telepathically hanging on to her orgasm, or Erik's pleasure, or maybe just the noises. It doesn't really matter, she supposes.
Vaguely she feels as if she should perhaps move closer, touch Charles more—his nipples are hot spots, she knows, and as far as she can tell Erik's barely touched them. But really, it's all she can do to keep her eyes open and focused and give him the sight of Erik's ass, still moving smoothly on his cock, for the last few minutes before Charles finally comes, chanting a string of soft curses.
His orgasm washes over all of them, connected as they still are; Magda’s cunt clenches down around the fingers she hasn't removed yet, getting impossibly wetter, and she can see Erik’s ass tighten around Charles’s dick as he moans quietly, his mouth still on Charles’s neck. Charles’s hands shake as he reaches up to lift Erik’s head off of his shoulder, and he stares up at him for a moment before pulling him down into a fierce kiss. It lasts both forever and for no time at all before Charles releases Erik and turns to Magda, reaching out a hand. She takes it, and lets him tug her forward gently into a kiss that's just as intense. When they break away, gasping for air, Charles places his hands on the backs of both Erik’s and Magda’s heads and pulls them forward until their foreheads are all touching, and it's almost too much, the echoes of his orgasm and the love they all share for each other mixing together and reverberating through all of them as they try to catch their breath.
“God>,” Charles says, his voice utterly wrecked. “You—both of you—” He closes his eyes briefly before looking at both of them, his eyes bright and impossibly blue. “Fuck,” he says again.
“Yeah,” Erik says, hoarsely. “That...yeah.”
Magda would tease her boys about their eloquence, but she isn't sure she can find even as many words as they have. She's frankly overwhelmed—in a good way, in the best way—and she doesn't even know how to describe what she's feeling. She drapes her arms over Charles’s and Erik’s backs and squeezes their shoulders, projecting her emotions messily over them both.
They stay like that for a few minutes, not quite ready to let go, their breaths syncing as they allow themselves to recover. Finally, Erik rocks back a little, wincing slightly.
“Sorry,” he says, shifting his weight slowly from side to side. “My knees are about to lock in place forever, I need to—”
Charles laughs, sounding just a little more like his usual overconfident self. “Yes, of course, darling,” he says, letting his hand slide back to his side. After a moment, he releases Magda, who backs up a little to give him and Erik some more room to maneuver. Charles reaches down and holds the condom in place as Erik lifts off of his now-soft dick with a light sigh and curls up by his side, opposite Magda. Charles removes the condom and ties it in a smooth movement, then looks questioningly at them.
In answer, Erik levitates the small metal bin sitting by the dresser over to them. Charles laughs again and deposits the condom in it, and then Erik floats it down to sit beside the bed for easier access next time.
And there will be a next time, Magda knows, can feel it in her bones as she tucks herself against Charles and kisses his collarbone. She meets Erik’s eyes, and she knows he feels the same way. They've barely even scratched the surface, and this is good, so good, so much better than they imagined.
They stay like that for a little while, just resting together. Just as Magda is letting her eyes slide closed, her two orgasms making themselves felt as her limbs relax into jell-o, Erik sighs and pushes himself up and slides off the bed. He walks over to the dresser, pulls out a few hand towels, and disappears into the bathroom; there's the sound of the water running briefly, and then he comes back out and hands each of them a damp towel.
“You can never just let it go, can you,” Magda sighs, blinking her eyes open and sitting up, pushing off of Charles to wipe herself off perfunctorily before dropping the towel off the side of the bed.
“I don't understand how you can,” he replies, fastidious as always as he cleans himself off carefully.
Charles snorts but wisely says nothing when they both look at him, instead focusing on cleaning Erik’s come off of his abs, with a clear pang of regret.
“There's more where that came from, you know,” Magda says, curling back up by his side.
“Oh, trust me,” Charles says, casting a hungry look at Erik’s cock, “I know.”
“Later,” Erik says, swatting at Charles with his towel. “I'm not fifteen any more.”
“I could help with that.” Charles smirks, wiggling his fingers by his head. Erik rolls his eyes.
“Incorrigible,” he says, his voice low and warm. He takes Charles’s half-forgotten towel and drops it on the floor with his own, then climbs back onto the bed.
“With the two of you, how can I not be?” Charles says, quiet but intent, looking between Erik and Magda.
Erik just shakes his head as he wraps his arm around Charles's middle and presses a kiss to Charles's shoulder.
Magda smiles at both of them, soft and warm.
The three of them should have done this years ago, she thinks. But better late than never, anyway. And who knows? Maybe if they had done it at the beginning it wouldn't have been this good, this perfect. They were all pretty dumb kids, after all.
Magda yawns, and then yawns again. It's becoming more and more difficult to keep her eyes open.
"I'm surprised she hasn't passed out yet," Erik says quietly to Charles. "More than one orgasm and she's usually down for the count."
"Nothing wrong with that," Charles says. His hand is in Magda's hair now, stroking it gently.
"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," Magda says, but she yawns again in the middle of the sentence, and Erik chuckles.
She stops battling the weight of her eyelids after that, and though Erik and Charles keep talking softly, she stops listening to what they're saying.