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into the night we shine
lighting the way, we glide by
catch me if I get too high
when I come down
It’s the day before Easter, and they’ve left the mansion to go and interview a potential recruit who runs, of all things, a fertility clinic. Erik doesn’t quite see the humor in this coincidence; Charles, on the other hand, had laughed for five minutes, and then proceeded, when they’d stopped for gas, to purchase two chocolate Easter rabbits and wave them in Erik’s face.
“See? Completely appropriate. It’s about springtime. Reproduction. Happiness. And other cheerful things.”
“Those are foil-covered chunks of poor-quality chocolate, Charles.”
“Yes, but they’re still appropriate. And delicious.”
“I am not eating chocolate in the car.”
“It’s my car. You can eat chocolate in it if you want to. I am.”
“I’m driving. What do we know about her, again?”
“Mmph…” We know she’s quite young, and we know the address, and she very definitely has a powerful ability…
“But?” When he tries to keep talking, Charles holds up the other chocolate rabbit, in front of his mouth. Erik glares at it, then at Charles, then gives in because those unfairly blue eyes are sparkling expectantly, and bites the head off.
Oh, how cruel!
At least it’s a quick death. Better than eating their limbs first.
That’s…incredibly disturbing, you know. Charles licks his fingers; Erik attempts, and fails, to not watch.
Unfair, he thinks again. No one person should be that mesmerizing. It’s not even as if Charles is his usual type, not that he has a type because, of necessity, all of those encounters have been both mercenary and brief. But he would never have guessed that his type includes an untidy academic who dresses in fluffy sweaters and chatters enthusiastically about Charles Darwin and can play chess with intricate genius, simplicity and elegant moves hiding all the sharp-edged strategy underneath.
Would never have imagined that he’d find himself looking for reasons to stay. For excuses to wander into Charles’s whirlwind of a study, picking his way between stacks of books with a sandwich after noticing that Charles has forgotten about lunch for the hundredth time, or because he’s thought of some new potential application of Sean’s mutation that he knows Charles will be thrilled about because Charles loves new possibilities, or just because he wants to hear Charles get excited about research and DNA and chromosome markers and evolutionary theory and more technical terms at which a nonscientist like Erik can only nod.
He loves hearing Charles talk anyway. Charles looks at the world with bright-eyed optimism, though not naïvely; Erik knows better than to think that, knows at least some of the childhood secrets Charles has entrusted to him on darkly comfortable nights, over shared martinis and the patient squares of a chessboard. But consciously hopeful regardless of all those secrets. And that’s amazing. Enticing.
“Enticing? Are you thinking about the chocolate? Because you’re right, you know, it isn’t really that good. But it is fun.”
“…what? No. Never mind. And no peeking.”
“Sorry, but you were being rather loud. In answer to your earlier question, I don’t actually know what her ability is. It seems to only manifest at certain moments, only when she’s in proximity to other people, and then it starts getting a bit hard to focus; I can’t quite tell who’s doing what.”
“Is that a problem with Cerebro?”
“Thank you for having faith in me. Mostly yes, I think. We just don’t have enough accuracy yet. Maybe in the future, though, if we come up with some sort of more advanced second version…”
“Building Cerebros in the air, Charles?”
“Oh, very funny. Yes, I suppose I am, but…why not? Shouldn’t we always be thinking of what we might be able to do next?” Charles grins at him; Erik lets himself smile, in return. Just because he wants to. Imagine that.
“We’re a couple of hours away,” he says, for something to fill the space. At least it’s better than I’d really like to kiss you now, can you please smile at me some more?
Charles raises his eyebrows, and Erik hopes that this is because they both already know how far a drive it is, not because Charles has inadvertently heard those sentences. “Yes?”
“Ah…do we have time for a rematch? If you want to make up for last night.”
“In under two hours?”
“Speed chess?”
“Fine. In my head, or yours?”
“Still driving. Yours.”
“All right,” Charles agrees, you can come in, and Erik blinks and can see the chessboard, the one that Charles likes to play with in their heads, old-fashioned and delicately shaped out of wood, lightly scented with spice and smooth as silk to his invisible touch.
In his own head it’s a metal board, and gleaming minimalistic pieces, which always makes Charles roll his eyes, but then Charles is a complete hedonist and imagines even a chess set like it’s some fabulous exotic luxury, indulging every one of his senses.
Every sense? I’m not licking the pieces, you know. Briefly, all the pawns turn into giant lollipops, and then back. Erik sighs, resolutely refuses to think about Charles licking anything, and moves a no-longer-candy-flavored pawn.
Your turn.
Hmm, Charles says, and settles down to the actual game, though he does turn Erik’s king into a chocolate rabbit near the end, just for fun, shortly before he wins. Erik sighs again, and pretends to mind.
The girl they’re looking for has short spiky hair and a pixie smile and says, when they walk in, “Okay, you two are probably better off adopting, you know?”
Charles laughs. “No, we’re not here about that, we—can you stop that, for a moment, please?”
Erik says, “What?” because he hasn’t noticed anything, and the girl looks surprised. “How’d you know it was—”
“I can sense these things,” Charles snaps, and Erik looks at him in astonishment, because since when does Charles lose his patience with potential recruits? “It’s incredibly distracting, so if you could—”
“I can’t! I don’t even know when I’m—who are you people?”
“Erik,” Charles says, “would you demonstrate, please?” and Erik obligingly makes her pen float up off the desktop and spin in midair, and then wonders why Charles isn’t playing along with the demonstration too.
“Charles, are you—”
“Would you mind,” Charles says, to the girl, whose nametag announces her to be Bridget, “if I tried to help you turn it off, for just a minute? I could—”
“No! I’m good at my job, okay? And what if you couldn’t turn it back on?”
“Well…that probably wouldn’t happen. I’m very good at what I do, as well, and—”
“No.” She contemplates Charles for a second. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? About the…well, you know. You should probably leave before it gets any worse. Usually the people who come in here kind of want these things to happen, you know.”
“Yes,” Charles murmurs, “unfortunately, not the case here…I will leave you our card, all right? Just…if you ever want to know that there are people like you, out there, that you’re not alone, you can call us. Any time.”
“Sure. Can I ask you something, though? Real fast.”
“Yes…quickly, though. As I think you’ve noticed, this is rather difficult.”
“Charles,” Erik says, because he can hear the shakiness in that voice even if no one else can, and he’s starting to get the feeling that he should be concerned, “what’s going on?”
“About you,” the girl says, and scowls at Erik, merrily scornful. “It’s not working on you, I can tell, how are you doing that?” and Charles says “He isn’t, I am,” and Erik says “What?” again because he still can’t feel anything.
She looks from Charles to Erik and back to Charles, and then starts to grin. “Oh. But it is working on you? Oh, that’s adorable.”
“Thank you,” Charles gets out, through gritted teeth, and Erik suddenly realizes that his face is pale, and there are lines of strain around the blue eyes. “How long is this going to last?”
“I, um, really don’t know. A day or so, usually. It depends on time, distance…whether you do something to, should we say, take the edge off…” She smiles. Looks at Charles speculatively. “I don’t usually offer, with clients, but I wouldn’t mind, you know, if you’d like to stay a while longer?”
Charles gasps, as if the words have physically connected, and Erik still doesn’t know what’s going on, exactly, but she’s hurting Charles somehow, and no one is allowed to hurt Charles, not ever, not while Erik’s still standing.
All the metal in the room shrieks as he grabs at it. Uses whatever he can find—pens, drawer handles, bolts from chair legs—to fling the girl to the floor, and pin her there. “What the hell are you doing to him?”
She coughs. Can’t answer, because one of Erik’s pocket paperclips has pressed itself against her throat. Reluctantly, he lets go, just enough.
“I’m not hurting him! It wouldn’t matter at all, except he’s fighting it! And he’s protecting you!” She glares at Erik as if this is in some way his fault.
“Stop it!”
“I can’t!”
“You can!” The paperclip tightens again. And then he hears a whisper of, “Erik, no, she can’t,” and spins around to see Charles attempt to take a step closer and then wobble on his feet.
Erik flings an arm around him, thanks every deity ever that he doesn’t need hands to threaten his target, and demands, “Are you all right?”
“Not exactly…but it isn’t her fault. Or, well, it is, but she’s not wrong about why it hurts. And she can’t turn it off, she’s telling you the truth, so if you’d like to stop intimidating her, I’d rather you get us out of here instead…”
Erik stares mutinously into blue eyes; but Charles, even in obvious pain, is stubborn, and so is Erik but Charles is in pain, and that has to take priority.
“Fine.” He releases the girl, and all the metal along with her. Glares at her one more time: he’s only doing this because Charles is asking. She’s lucky that Charles can still ask; if she hurts Charles any more, Erik won’t be responsible for the consequences.
“Erik,” Charles says, “please,” and leans more heavily against him, and Erik curses silently in every language he knows and then scoops Charles up, in his arms. And doesn’t hear a protest, which terrifies him somewhere deep down inside, in that small dark hidden space where his heart lives.
“I’m sorry,” she calls plaintively after them, and Charles lifts his head from Erik’s shoulder long enough to say “I know, it’s fine, it’s partly my fault in any case, I—” and Erik says “Charles, shut the hell up, please” and gets them both out the door and into the car, desperately.
“What do you need? A hospital, or—?”
“No.” Charles leans his head back against the seat. Shuts his eyes. “Just drive, please. Distance will help, I think. Not enough, but a bit. Thank you.”
“What happened?”
“Oh…well, she does have a fairly impressive ability. Just not one that’s going to be very helpful in a team-building situation, I’m afraid. Or…actually, I suppose it might be, if one is building a certain kind of team…”
“You do realize I have no idea what you are talking about.” That’s not an unusual occurrence, of course, but Charles still sounds a little too vague, thoughts not quite making sense, and sentences trailing off into silence. “Charles?”
“Still here! Sorry. I just—I’m having to do rather a lot right now, and I think I have a terrible headache, or I will have, when I let myself…”
“What does that mean? She said you were protecting me—”
“Oh…well, her particular mutation is…there’s a reason she runs a fertility clinic, you know, Erik. She projects…hormones, I think, or something similar…”
“She…makes her clients fertile?”
“Not just fertile. Also, um, willing. Very willing.”
“Oh. Oh. Charles, you—”
“To her credit, she doesn’t take advantage of them; she genuinely wants them to, er, be willing with each other…and yes, she did offer to, er, assist me, at the end, but she thought she might be helping. Probably would have, but I’m really not in the mood…well, mentally, anyway…”
“Charles—”
“I’m sorry about this, honestly. I did notice within a few seconds, which is how I knew enough to stop her from influencing you, but it was already working on me. I could’ve tried, but…with the, um, distractions…I don’t have enough concentration to keep up defenses for both of us. Just you.”
Erik can’t answer, for a second. Charles has chosen him to protect. Not himself. Erik.
He’s simultaneously shocked and unsurprised, and he can’t work out which of those emotions ought to be stronger. He’s unsurprised, because that’s such a Charles Xavier instinctive response: rescue someone else, always, regardless of personal sacrifice. But he’s shocked because no one, in Erik’s life, until Charles, has ever instinctively chosen to rescue him.
He’s lost track of how many times Charles has saved him, by now. From that first tumultuous shock of ocean water, to every laughing late-night chess match, and every time Charles looks at him or smiles and makes Erik remember how to smile too. And now.
“That’s why this hurts, by the way. I could just let it…” Charles waves a hand; Erik isn’t quite sure what that gesture is intended to mean. “But I think…there’s still…it lingers, sort of. If I stop shielding you I think you’ll still be affected…and I’m trying not to be, ah. Affected, either. Which is surprisingly difficult; but I can’t exactly—never mind.”
“What?”
Charles doesn’t say anything, and Erik doesn’t panic. He has too much self-control to panic. And therefore his sudden need for air, the rapid thunder of his own heartbeat in the confines of his chest, those aren’t panic, they aren’t. Decidedly not.
“Charles, are you still here?”
“Um…yes…”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing. What can I do to help?”
Charles lets out a small sound that’s not quite a laugh. “You don’t want to ask me that question, at this moment.”
“Why not? Charles, I—anything, please, just tell me.”
“Please don’t say any more things like that. I might—I’m trying very hard to stay in control of this, you realize.”
“But…you can—you are all right, for now?”
Charles opens his eyes, enough for a wry glance. “If I weren’t, Erik, you and I would be having sex right here, right now, in this car.”
At which the entire aforementioned car twitches, dramatically, and skids across the road.
“Ow!”
“Sorry!”
Charles rubs his shoulder, gingerly, where it’s just collided with the door; Erik winces, in guilty sympathy, and Charles shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said that out loud, should I? It’s just a bit hard to filter those thoughts, at the moment…You don’t have to worry, though; I’m really not planning to pounce on you on the spot.”
The first, and second, thoughts that pop into Erik’s head both revolve around the question why not? He shoves them down, firmly, and stacks other thoughts, concern for Charles and regaining control of the car and the lovely distracting hum of the metal all around them, on top.
“So…am I taking you home, then? Or…”
Charles shuts his eyes again; Erik’s heart skips a beat, unbidden. Idiotic internal organ, not knowing how to not panic, after all. “Ah…maybe not the mansion. I’d hate to—I mean, I think I do have things under control, but I don’t know for how long, and if I can’t—that’s probably not a good idea.”
“All right. Hotel?”
“I think so, yes. Can you find someplace? Don’t worry if I don’t seem very talkative; I’m just trying to concentrate. And I’m sorry again about the…”
“It’s fine! I mean…yes. I can. You just…do whatever you need to do. Please.” And maybe by the time they find a hotel, his own apparently uncontrollable urges will have faded away, too.
He wouldn’t mind having sex with Charles in the car. He likes this car. And he very definitely likes Charles.
He pictures Charles in the back seat, all pale skin and brilliant blue eyes against the backdrop of the leather. And then hates himself for contemplating the idea. For wanting, even momentarily, to take advantage of Charles like this, when he’s vulnerable and wouldn’t say no and would let Erik touch him, finally, just once.
Charles isn’t looking at him, and thankfully also isn’t listening in, no doubt too preoccupied with maintaining his own control. So Erik breathes in and out and reminds himself, not for the first time, that Charles is a good person and therefore out of his, Erik’s, reach. And drives.
They’ve been on the road for several hours when Charles stirs, blinks, and returns to the real world enough to look around. “Are we…are you kidnapping me to Canada? Where are we?”
“…I don’t actually know. But you said distance would help. Is this any better?”
“I…yes, I think so. Not entirely better, but not as bad as it was. Have you been driving all this time? Aren’t you exhausted?”
“No.” Which is only half a lie: he’s not exhausted from the driving. He looks at Charles again, quickly. Better, maybe, this time. Perhaps now all the screaming worry will leave him alone.
“You are. I can tell.”
“I am not,” Erik says, because clearly Charles can reduce him to the argumentative level of a five-year-old within one minute of conversation.
“You can pull over up here…a mile or two…there’s a hotel. And we should call Raven. She’ll be worried if we don’t make it home tonight. Oh, and Moira. And—”
“Fine.” He doesn’t ask how Charles knows about the hotel; he can guess, and it isn’t important. He personally could care less about whether the CIA, or anyone, feels the need to worry about them—he can take care of himself, and also Charles, and everyone should simply know that—but Charles wants to reassure everyone, because Charles cares how people feel, and is also terribly obstinate and capable of making Erik turn the car around despite himself.
Normally, at least. Erik glances at the noticeable lines around those ocean-blue eyes. Finds himself one hundred percent certain that Charles is lying about feeling better.
He drives a bit faster, even though it’s dark out and the road is poorly lit. Tries to think of what else, if anything, he might be able to do. Anything that might help.
The answer he keeps coming back to is the obvious one, and every time he looks over to see Charles in pain, he can’t help but consider it.
Charles will try to say no, of course. Because Charles is stupidly, ridiculously, wonderfully noble, and would rather remain in agony than ask for help, when he needs it, when he thinks that Erik might be unwillingly making the offer.
The key ring, dangling from the ignition, twists itself into a spiraling knot of futile frustration.
In his pocket, all the coins and paperclips coil themselves together, restless and ineffectual, and Charles doesn’t notice, and Erik makes a decision, and hopes that neither of them will hate him for it, in the end.
The run-down hotel looks like an advertisement for the nineteenth century, all loopily carved wood and stained-glass windowpanes; Erik wants to stop and stare at it, or perhaps back away slowly in case the swooping corner gables decide to pounce, but Charles wakes up again and contemplates the monstrosity with unnerving affection.
“You cannot possibly approve of this architecture.”
“Oh, I don’t. But you can’t keep yourself from liking it, a little. It’s trying so very hard. It just wants to be loved.”
“You’re not helping me not worry about you.”
“I think it’s happy to see us. That corner sort of looks like it’s smiling. Friendly.”
“It’s architecture, Charles. It isn’t happy to see anyone.” Although the curve of the roof, and the two upper windows, do kind of resemble an excitedly happy grin. Which thought has to be entirely Charles’s fault. Certainly it can’t be Erik’s own.
Even if he’s now hoping that it turns out to be a friendly hotel, after all.
Charles has managed to open his door, but is still sitting in the car, as if trying to recall how the process of standing up might apply to him; Erik walks around the car, determinedly continuing to not panic, and puts a hand under his elbow and gets him to his feet, at which point Charles blushes impressively.
“Sorry.”
“For what—oh.” Speaking of impressive things. He can’t help looking. He’s not superhuman—well, technically, he is, but Erik would like to see anyone, superhuman or not, resist looking, right then.
“Ah,” Charles says, “I think perhaps you should check us in. And call home. And—”
“Yes, all right,” Erik agrees, because he’s at the point of agreeing to pretty much anything Charles says, and tugs them inside and makes himself be polite to the taciturn and balding man behind the front desk, who grunts monosyllabic words in their direction and doesn’t even bother to look up when he hands over their room key.
“Here.” He hands the key over to Charles, who looks far too relieved at the prospect of privacy. “I’ll be up in a minute, all right? After I make your phone call.”
Charles starts to say something, but when Erik’s fingers brush against his, he stops, lips parted, and then just nods, and vanishes up the stairs.
Erik watches him go, and then starts looking for a pay phone, in what seems to be a wilderness of china figurines and lace doilies and elaborately carved wood paneling and gloomy paintings and every traditional decorating cliché in the world.
“They come here for the antiques,” says the man behind the counter, with shocking suddenness, and then goes back to reading, apparently assuming he’s answered Erik’s unvoiced question. Erik does not strangle the man with his own necktie, because Charles would not approve, but instead calmly asks to use his phone.
He tells Raven that they’re fine, just spending the night in the city because the meeting had been more tiring than expected—not a lie, not entirely—and she asks him if he’s the one calling because Charles is too busy enjoying himself at a bar, and Erik almost hangs up on her, because that couldn’t be further from the truth, Charles is upstairs and in pain and needs help, but just says “No” because he can’t come up with any actual explanations, not through all the concern.
At that, rather surprisingly, she doesn’t ask again. Just promises to tell Moira, and says “Sure” when he says that he hopes they’ll be home tomorrow.
He puts down the phone. Takes a deep breath. Then runs upstairs, two and three steps at a time, avoiding the china figurines and vases that loom eerily from curving corners, and taps on the bedroom door.
Silence, during which Erik examines the temptingly simple door lock and considers opening it anyway. And then, barely audible, “You can come in.”
He ventures inside. Charles is still dressed, mostly, though he’s lost the coat and vest and is standing there in shirtsleeves and bare feet and trying very hard not to face Erik.
He shuts the door behind him. It complains, noisily. Charles finds a smile, at the wooden-toned objections. “I feel like this ought to be some sort of haunted house, don’t you? All the wood carvings, the creaking door…that headboard…”
Said headboard looks as if some insane carpenter with Van Gogh-inspired delusions has been allowed near a captive forest. The patchwork quilt atop the bed tries, but fails, to compete.
“I thought you said this place was happy to see us.”
“It can be both. There can be happy ghosts. Though they might not be happy for long, if they’re going to have to live with that quilt forever. Is your room this bad?”
“Exactly this bad, in fact.”
“Wait…where is your room?”
“Here.”
“But this is my room.”
“And?”
“And there’s one bed in this room.”
“Do you ever become tired of pointing out the obvious?”
“But—no. Erik, no, you can’t—I’m so sorry, I must have—I thought I’d been keeping the shields up around you and—”
“You are.”
“Erik, please.” Charles backs up. Runs into the solidly immobile bed, loses his balance, sits down abruptly. “You don’t want this. I know you don’t want this, you’ve never—did I—oh god, I’m doing this to you, aren’t I? Projecting—”
“No, you’re not.” Erik sits down beside him, because Charles looks horrified, blue eyes gazing up in shocked guilty disbelief, and while Erik has never minded being intimidating in the past, he doesn’t want to loom over Charles right now.
“But—”
“You’re not listening, are you? You didn’t let her affect me. And you’re not projecting. I don’t feel any different. But I want to help. I’m offering, Charles. And it will help, right?”
“Yes…but…”
“Well, then.”
“But,” Charles says again, eyes wide and sincere, “you don’t want—you’ve never wanted—wait, since when do you even—”
Erik raises an eyebrow at him. “You said you knew everything about me.”
“Well…I might’ve been exaggerating. Even I can’t pick up everything in that amount of time, and most of it wasn’t very coherent—”
“I believe I ought to feel insulted by that.”
“You were drowning at the time!”
“Yes, and you saved me.”
“Of course I—”
“So you can let me help you now.” That should work; Charles has an overly-developed sense of fairness and optimism about the workings of justice in the world. And the entire room, the heavy hanging curtains, the clawfooted chair in the corner, even the complicated twists and knots and figures of the headboard, all pause to listen, expectantly, for the outcome.
And it does work, or at least gets Charles to stop arguing, for a minute, and just look at him, with those endlessly blue eyes.
Erik wants this to be consent, but it isn’t, not quite; Charles hasn’t agreed yet.
He looks back, as steadily as he can. Tries to project thoughts of his own, unsure whether Charles has enough fine control left to pick them up: yes, I do mean this, I can do this for you, please let me help. And buries, deep down, the quiver of excitement, the whisper that runs like the touch of precious metal along his veins: he might truly get to do this. To learn how that pale skin feels beneath his fingertips, how Charles moans when Erik gives him pleasure, how Charles might look when he loses that disheveled professorial persona and lets himself be free, completely.
Charles breathes in, abruptly. Not quite a whimper. Shuts his eyes, for a second.
“Are you all right?”
And Charles, eyes still closed, says, “No, I really am not, and this is your last chance to leave, Erik, so please, if you want to, you should go now, otherwise you’re going to have to stay.” And then he shivers, as if the thought, that thought, requires motion, action, the inability to sit still.
Erik shakes his head, realizes that Charles, who hasn’t reopened his eyes, can’t see the response, and then just leans forward and kisses him, there on the edge of the bed, surrounded by wooden paneling and avidly intrigued antique hotel furniture and the scratchy fabric of the horrible quilt.
Charles tastes like tea, and artificial chocolate, and pineapple—why pineapple?—and pain from where he’s been biting his lip, and Erik runs his tongue over those little wounds and attempts to heal them with a touch, and Charles moans into his mouth. And the sound is more perfect than anything Erik’d ever imagined it might be.
Please, Charles thinks, voicelessly, because his lips are occupied, and then it’s like a dam breaking, all the walls giving way, and Charles’s hands slide up under Erik’s shirt and tug at fabric and then pull both of them over onto the bed, Charles gasping when Erik makes efficient work of the rest of his suit and leaves him naked, sprawled lusciously across the cotton sheets.
Charles naked, eyes all enormous and glittering with desire, and so clearly aroused, so evidently needing Erik’s touch, looks like everything he’s ever wanted. Everything beautiful in the world, offered up for the taking.
Except it isn’t real. This is Charles intoxicated and influenced and made to want him, caused by someone else. And anyone could be here, right now, and it isn’t Charles needing Erik; Charles just needs.
His heart aches, in that well-guarded space inside his chest. It’s a familiar sensation, by now, but this time the ache is sharper, because this time is different: he’s getting all his fantasies fulfilled, Charles stretched out on the blank white sheets and so willing and making annoyed little noises because Erik’s taking too long, but they aren’t his fantasies, after all. Because this isn’t real, no matter how badly he wants it to be.
But Charles does need this, and it’s not just anyone who’s here; Erik is here, and it’s better this way, no matter how cruelly those needle-sharp thoughts poke into his heart. At least he cares about Charles. At least he can try to make things good. At least he’s a friend.
And his heart is used to cruelty, anyway. No one’s ever been very kind to it, over the years.
Charles makes a tiny pleading sound, sapphire eyes all huge and uncomprehending, now, unsure why Erik’s extended the offer but is making him wait, and Erik flinches because that’s an accusation even if Charles doesn’t mean it as such: he’s causing Charles extra seconds of pain.
So he finishes pulling off his own clothing with ruthless speed, and joins Charles on the elaborately carved tapestry of the bed.
Charles sighs, softly, when Erik touches him; like relief, even though they’ve not begun anything, yet. When Erik touches him there, he gasps, shudders, and comes on the spot, wet heat spilling out helplessly over exploratory fingertips. “Sorry—”
“No.” He kisses those mobile lips, to stop the apologies; knows that just once won’t be enough, not from the way Charles is still hard under his hand, trembling with each stroke. “I said I would help. And I will. What do you want me to do?”
Charles blinks, and an image sears its burning-star path across Erik’s mind: the two of them in the bed, heat and sweat and skin against skin, himself above Charles, inside Charles, his hands pinning slim wrists to the mattress, taking what he wants, claiming Charles, inside and out, as his—The vision snaps off, suddenly; Erik catches his breath, regaining balance even though he’s still lying down on the bed.
“Sorry,” Charles whispers again, not quite looking at him. “That was—I didn’t mean to—”
“Is that what you want?”
Charles blinks again. Still doesn’t lift his gaze. Nods.
“Charles, please. Look at me. I don’t mind—” Oh, god, an understatement if ever there was one, but he can’t tell Charles how he really feels about this suggestion. “—and I can. We can. But please don’t be ashamed of this. It isn’t your fault.”
Charles bites his lip again, at that, teeth sinking into pink flesh, and still doesn’t say anything, and Erik says, “Please,” and uses his other hand to tip that chin up and get gemstone-shaded eyes to gaze at him. Charles breathes in, one single cleanly-defined inhale, at the physical command; and Erik thinks, not even a conscious realization, oh.
There’s a crystal-clear moment of absolute stillness, and then everything dissolves into a blur of motion.
His hands on Charles’s skin. Charles breathing against his shoulder, warm impatient puffs of air. His fingers sliding between those disproportionately long legs, finding that spot, so welcoming and vulnerable. Charles lifts his hips, pushes back, asking, wordlessly; Erik grabs frantically for the final fraying remnant of his self-control, finds it, whispers, “wait, one moment, please, soon, I promise,” and glances desperately around the room, searching for something, anything, that will help.
There’s lotion in the bathroom; he doesn’t even bother getting up, just yanks at the metal shelf from across the room and catches the bottle when the entire thing comes flying their direction and crashes into the foot of the bed. Charles, he notices, glancing back down, is more or less inarticulate by now but still manages to look amused.
“Yes,” Erik says, to the sparkling eyes, “well, you try for precision at this particular moment,” and then flicks open the bottle and proceeds to do something that makes Charles gasp and shiver in place, and all the amusement gets scalded away from the superheated sapphire gaze by unadulterated erotic want.
Erik wants, too. Every inch of his body hums with the sensation.
Somewhere in there, Charles has a second orgasm, with the movement of Erik’s fingers slipping inside him, opening him up, making him ready, and at the sight Erik nearly comes too, watching Charles fall apart around his hand, when he presses a fingertip right there, when he hears Charles cry out, when buried in the middle of the sound is Erik’s name.
No. More. Charles has asked him for more.
When he moves, and they come together, it’s almost too easy. As if they’d been made for each other. As if they were always meant to do this, somehow, sometime, someplace.
It’s exactly right, and Charles moans his name again and trails graceful hands along Erik’s back and pulls him in closer, when Erik tries to go slowly, not wanting to hurt him. And that’s exactly right too, of course Charles would be impatient at that moment, but it’s also exactly wrong, because it’s not Charles being impatient, not at this moment.
“Charles,” he whispers, “not too fast, please, I do not want to cause you pain, have you ever even—” and Charles figures out what he’s asking and not-quite-laughs.
Some. Not a lot, but enough to know how this works. You can—do that again!
That?
There, please—!
There, Erik thinks, and breathes “Charles,” out loud, when he reaches his own breaking point, sooner than he’d meant to but Charles has started losing control of his own projections, now, shields flickering and failing in the onslaught of sensation, and the waves of pleasure/need/radiance/ecstasy crash into Erik’s mind with disorientingly glorious force, and he can’t hold back, can’t do anything except be caught up in the flood.
Charles stays still for a few minutes, breathing ragged but evening out, in the aftermath; and Erik lets himself hope, for a moment, that that might’ve been enough.
Of course it isn’t.
The second time, he has more self-control, that initial brilliant sharpness more blunted. He can make it last longer. Can hold Charles there, on that dazzling edge, and push him over, again, and again, without falling himself, at least not immediately. Can remember what Charles wants, has asked him for, that vision still etched in fire in the back of Erik’s mind.
Charles is practically sobbing beneath him, arching up restlessly, begging wordlessly for respite; Erik whispers, “Look at me,” and those jewel-bright eyes, pupils all dilated and dark with want, find his.
He slides his hands along Charles’s arms, over soft skin and the interruptions of golden freckles, startlingly vivid and so enthralling. Finds the delicate bones of those wrists, smaller than his, and fragile, when he closes his fingers around them and presses Charles’s hands to the mattress.
And Charles gasps, shudders, and then relaxes, into his hold. And those endlessly blue eyes remain focused on his, open and trusting and accepting it all. Knowing that Erik won’t hurt him, will never hurt him, will make him feel good, through all of the need.
“This is what you asked me for,” Erik tells him, not that he thinks Charles has forgotten but because they both need to hear those words, out loud, filling up and transforming the silence of the room. And Charles nods, an infinitesimal motion that nonetheless echoes infinitely in Erik’s thoughts: yes, yes, please, you, yours, PLEASE…
He isn’t gentle, this time; Charles doesn’t want that. Still careful, of course; he can feel how sensitive Charles is, by now, every spot that aches and craves and throbs with pleasure that’s nearly pain. But Charles wants Erik to be forceful, to assert his own needs, to be overwhelmingly present all around him. To leave sensations that will tingle and linger even afterwards: tangible and sensuous reminders of the two of them together.
So he does.
Charles clings to him in the wake of the explosions, shaking, face buried in the curve of Erik’s shoulder and neck; Erik runs a hand along his back, feels him trembling, and whispers to him, words, phrases, tethers to reality: I’m here, you’re here, was that all right, you are all right, and Charles, after a few minutes, nods, sweat-damp hair trailing along Erik’s skin.
And then they have to start all over again.
Erik loses count, after a while.
Charles tries to say, again, I’m sorry, and Erik shakes his head but Charles whispers it one more time anyway, the next time he has to come, wrung out and dry as a summer lightning-storm by now, but still needing, red and sore when Erik touches him but unable to stop.
Erik, I’m so sorry, you—
Charles, please don’t, Erik says, and brings his other hand up to catch the tears, when they fall from those glittering eyes and slide along flushed cheeks. The droplets land on his fingertips and sit there like diamonds, implacable and unmoved by all the pain in the room.
I think it might be wearing off soon, Charles offers, though they both know that’s more of a hope than a statement of fact; Charles has attempted the same statement at least two earlier times, and on neither occasion has it proven to be true.
No, I mean it, this time. I think.
You think. “Here, you should drink more water.” He’s been trying his best to keep Charles—both of them, really, but he’s less concerned about himself—hydrated, running into the miniscule bathroom when he thinks he has a moment, coming back and holding the glass for Charles when he isn’t certain that Charles can manage that much himself.
It’s not enough. But it’s at least something else, however small, that he can do.
“Thank you. Again.” And I’m sorry.
“Stop talking,” Erik says, and kisses him, because the sensation will distract them both from the anguish that isn’t physical, that he can hear in that broken voice. The same anguish that resonates inside his own bones, in the pauses between each heartbeat, when he knows for a fact that his heart will never be the same again.
He pushes Charles back down onto the mattress—mostly empty, now, they’ve kicked or flung most of the encroaching pillows and blankets away, so there’s not much left besides the two of them and that last wrinkled sheet—and moves back between those pale thighs, licking and stroking and tasting until Charles arches up against him, with a sound that, earlier, might’ve been a scream but by now is only a broken cry.
Erik himself has long since been finished, in that sense—more times than he’d ever known he was capable of, but still not enough—but he can do other things, and he does, for as long as he can, while the world slides away into a drunken swirling haze of erotic sights and sounds and pleasure and pain.
His lips hurt, he realizes vaguely, at some point. And his hands are very tired. And Charles, who has ceased even trying to speak, aloud or in his head, must be in agony.
Erik can hear the almost-noiseless sounds of his sobs, and he tries to offer comfort, tries to touch Charles and say that everything is all right, but Charles flinches mindlessly away from any new and already overwhelming sensation, and probably can’t hear him, or comprehend the words if he can.
Or maybe he can. Erik tries to hope that that might be the case, when he murmurs, wearily, “Charles,” and Charles, who hasn’t been moving at all for several terrifying minutes, shivers, responding to his name.
“Charles,” Erik says again, because it might be working, and his own voice emerges sounding bruised and battered, “can you hear me?”
A pause, and then a very tentative nod; Erik recalls how to get air into his lungs—by breathing, of course, what an amazing concept that is—and then instantly forgets, as thoughts that aren’t his own float into his head. Charles isn’t forming words, not yet, but the concept comes across, completion/escape/cooling wildfires/receding thunderstorm/cloudbursts dwindling away: Charles thinks they might, at last, have reached some sort of reprieve.
Erik doesn’t know who to thank, it’s not as if he believes in a god or a higher power or a guiding light, these days, but he breathes Thank you anyway, to Charles, to the universe, to whoever might be listening.
Very tired, Charles tells him. Tired/hurt/fulfilled/rawness like flayed nerve endings after a flood. Sleep?
You can sleep, Erik answers, even though coherence is an effort on his part too. I’ll stay here. Keep you safe.
Know you will. Thank you.
Don’t thank me, Erik tries to tell him, I don’t want you to be grateful for this, but Charles is already asleep, without even changing positions, crumpled up in a ball in the center of the desolate mattress, as if trying to make himself as small and protected as he can.
Erik, clumsy with his own exhaustion, finds the closest pile of sheets and blankets and pulls it up over them; the night air bites into his skin with frozen teeth, now that they’ve stopped moving. He’s afraid to touch Charles again, the phantom ghosts of pain still sizzling along his veins from that brief mental contact, but he can’t let Charles be cold.
He means to stay awake, to keep watch over Charles in the pre-dawn greyness, and he tries, but he has no reserves left either, physically, mentally, emotionally, and he falls asleep without even knowing it, stretched out on his side and facing Charles, in the wreckage they’ve made of the bed and all the bedding on it.
He wakes up to early-morning iciness and an empty bed and, almost simultaneously, heartbreak.
Charles is gone.
Erik stares blankly at the vacant space beside him. Every inch of his body aches, or maybe that’s just his heart. He can’t even think.
Charles has left. Charles can’t stand to wake up next to him. Of course not; Charles never wanted any of this. Charles was forced to want him.
And maybe he saw the truth in Erik’s thoughts, somewhere in that dizzying kaleidoscope of heat and lust and sensation; maybe he’s disgusted by the knowledge that Erik wants him, or maybe Charles hasn’t seen any of that, and it’s only that he’s trying to make things easier, thinking that Erik would rather pretend nothing’s happened, that this was only friendship and desperation.
Of course Charles will always want to make things easier, Erik thinks, for someone else. If that’s at all possible, Charles will try.
Or, and this possibility turns up unasked in the arctic air and chills him to the core, he hasn’t managed to do enough, to be enough, after all. What if Charles has awakened, still irrational and incoherent with need, and has left Erik asleep and gone out seeking some other means of relief, some frantic attempt at fulfillment? What if Charles has found someone else, someone who isn’t Erik, who won’t understand, who might not be kind to him?
That thought—the idea of Charles giving himself to someone else, some stranger, someone who won’t appreciate just what a priceless gift he’s being offered, or, worse, who might hurt Charles—pushes him up and out of the bed and onto his feet before he’s even made a conscious decision, all the shattered pieces of his heart rattling against each other inside his chest.
And then he starts to take a step, and encounters an unexpected obstacle, and then looks down.
Charles. Sleeping. On the floor.
Charles is wrapped up, still in a self-contained little ball of elegant limbs and pale skin and fatigue, inside the topmost blanket from their bed—no wonder the morning felt so cold, Erik thinks indistinctly—and no pillow at all, just his own hand, hair tumbling hopelessly in all directions, and there are tear-tracks along the one visible cheek, still-damp skin beneath closed eyelashes, water turning them dark and pointed.
But he is asleep, very much so; he hasn’t even moved, despite nearly being stepped on.
“Oh,” Erik says, very softly, not certain who he’s talking to; and then slides down to the floor, very carefully, next to Charles and the blanket-cocoon, and reaches up, pulls the sheet down from the bed, and puts his arms around Charles, and drags the sheet over them both, and he doesn’t expect to fall back asleep but he does, holding onto Charles on the hard wooden floor.
The next time he wakes up, it’s because Charles is also awake, and is looking at him.
Erik’s always been a light sleeper—well, not always, but he’s trained himself to be, and that habit is permanent by now, except for when he’s been utterly exhausted by the attempt to appease Charles’s brutally insatiable desires—and so even though Charles probably thinks he hasn’t moved, the slightest tensing of that smaller body, in Erik’s arms, is enough.
This time, it’s later in the morning, enough so that the room is comfortably warm, sunlight wandering in around the edges of the curtained window and pouring itself out above them on the bed, over the now vacant mattress, clad only in the remaining bottom sheet. Little specks of dust glimmer in the air, turning to gold around them; the light curls up in the knots and swirls of the wood of the floor, and the tangle of Charles’s hair, and those too-blue eyes are gazing into his, astonishedly.
“Good morning,” Erik says, because one of them has to.
Charles blinks, and then looks even more astounded, as if he’d been expecting Erik to disappear the second he closed his eyes. “Ah…good morning. You’re here.”
“So are you. How are you?”
“I mean…on the floor. You slept on the floor.”
“So did you. Why, again? And you didn’t answer my first question.”
“I’m…better, I think. Possibly the worst headache I’ve ever had—which is saying something, considering—but not…well, you, ah, know. That’s over.”
“Good.”
“Erik…you…”
“Charles,” Erik says, and he means to ask again about why they’re down here on the floor, but instead finds himself reaching out to touch the closest cheek, fingers brushing the faded marks of those shining tears.
Charles swallows. Blinks again. But doesn’t move away.
So Erik lets his fingertip drift, very gently, down to parted lips. Hears, and feels over his skin, the tiny intake of breath, at the caress.
“Charles,” he says, one more time, because he has to, “can I kiss you?” And holds his breath, in the single second before Charles nods, and the world lights up around them.
Technically it isn’t their first kiss, of course. But it feels like the first, like dawn and sunrise and the beginning of everything, anyway.
He can feel Charles smiling, against his lips, in his thoughts, effervescent and hopeful as a promise; this time Charles tastes a little like salt, from all the tears, and Erik tries to sweep all of that away with his tongue and replace it with love.
Love? Charles sounds…surprised, of course. But there’s another emotion there, trembling around the corners, and Erik isn’t sure but it just might be joy.
Love, he says, firmly, without moving his lips, which are very happy to stay where they are. Because it’s true. It’s always been true. I love you, Charles.
I love you, too—Delight, disbelief, amazement, and through it all, like a vein of gold, that coruscating glitter of, yes, joy. But you—
Charles, why are we on the floor?
Ah…But there’s no room for hesitance, not now, between them. Just pure honesty. I thought you wouldn’t—I woke up and you were asleep and you looked—a flicker of memory, Erik through Charles’s eyes, and he’s not sure whether to laugh or cry at that image of himself, worn out and beautiful and complicated and fascinating, steel and iron and blood layered with fierce love and self-sacrifice, the need to protect the people he loves even if he has to turn himself into something unrecognizable to do it.
Charles, that’s not me.
Yes, it is. What you did—you didn’t have to do that, for me. I know you didn’t want to—what you did—but it was even harder for you than I thought, wasn’t it? Because you do—care about me?
Charles, I LOVE you.
You do. I know you do. Now. And I love you. And that was why the floor, you know.
Still not quite seeing the connection.
Because I do love you. I knew I loved you even before this. And I did—do—want you—I think I’ve wanted you ever since that first night we met—but I didn’t want it to happen like this. Not when I gave you no choice. And I was—Charles swallows. Looks away. Erik reaches over, and taps at the closest cheek until Charles looks back in his direction, persistence which almost earns a smile. Some part of me wanted that, wanted YOU, anyway, even knowing it wasn’t real. And I woke up and I couldn’t—I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t ask any more of you, but I couldn’t just leave, either—
This one Erik has to ask out loud. “So you thought the floor would be a good idea?”
“Well, I was also very tired, and rather sore.” Charles does smile up at him, this time; somehow they’ve rolled over and ended up with Erik on top, one hand beneath Charles’s head as a cushion against the reproachful floor, which keeps suggesting with every new uneven spot that they move to the bed again. “I honestly don’t think I would’ve made it very far even if I’d tried to leave.”
“Sore?” Can I kiss you again?
“Somewhat, yes…” Please.
“Like this?” I’m sorry. And you are wrong, you know.
“Exactly like that—and you don’t have to be—and what?” You don’t have to apologize for anything. You were fantastic. You ARE fantastic.
“So are you.” You said you didn’t give me a choice. That isn’t true.
But—
You gave me every chance you could, to leave, if I’d wanted to. You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to—I mean, of course I DIDN’T want to, not when you were—but I did want—you know what I mean. The same way you mean it.
You—
You wanted me. I wanted you, too. “And also I love you.”
“And I love you.” Erik, you—are you sure?
“That I love you? Yes. You ought to be sure of that, too.” Do you remember the very first answer I gave you? When I offered to help?
“I am.” And…you said you meant it. The offer.
“Then we’re both sure about this.” Not just that. I told you that you weren’t projecting, weren’t making me do anything—that I didn’t feel any different. And that was true.
Yes! Elation like the first streaks of sunrise, bursting incandescently over a distant horizon. You—because you—
Because I couldn’t feel any different, regardless. Because I wanted—want!—you, always. And that’s true, too. They both know it is.
The warmth of that truth spreads out around them, as friendly as the gleam of the sunshine through the window. It fills up the rumpled sheets and the overly decorated little hotel room and the otherwise unremarkable morning, and overflows, out into the world, and changes it forever. Just like that.
“Bed?” Charles inquires, grinning cheerfully up at him, basking in all the newfound contentment, the light smoothing over all the rough spots and bruises and coaxing them away. “Not that I’m not enjoying our current positions, mind you, I just think my back might be happier on something a bit more soft…”
“Bed,” Erik agrees promptly, and then gathers Charles up off the floor—which prompts a surprised squeak, which Erik instantly decides is the most adorable sound in the universe and wants to hear again forever—and deposits him on the bed, and then pauses to appreciate the sight, before joining him there.
“I am not adorable.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I am not. You remember this particular fantasy?”
Erik will never forget that particular fantasy. But… “That was you? I mean…that wasn’t only…you want me to…that was your idea?”
“Erik,” Charles observes, cheerfully, “you haven’t seen half of my ideas, yet,” and Erik contemplates this prospect briefly and retorts, “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”
Charles starts laughing, there in his arms, under the honey-colored glow of the sunlight, in the disaster of the bed, and Erik looks at him and thinks perfect and mine and then, very quietly, yours.
The laughter fades into a smile, at that. Not a large smile, but one that creeps up into sapphire eyes and stays reflected there, shining.
“I’m not perfect,” Charles says, still smiling. “But yes to the other two. Of course yes.”
And Erik kisses him again, and thinks yes, and then, because he can, adds, and still adorable.
Charles laughs again, and then tries to hit him with an ornately-beaded pillow, and Erik laughs too and deflects the pillow with one hand and uses the other to snare both devious hands in his larger one and pin them to the bed, above that fluffy-haired head.
So this WAS what you wanted? What YOU wanted, I mean. Not that he has any intention of continuing to indulge Charles’s fantasies at this particular moment; they’re both too exhausted, and Charles has already admitted to being sore, and so they’re not doing anything until he’s convinced that Charles is truly all right.
Charles licks his lips, and doesn’t try to move his hands in the slightest. Very much yes about the wanting. In case you couldn’t tell, which you probably can. And thank you for the concern. Although I think I’d be fine if you were interested in—
No.
But—
No. Soon, though. DEFINITELY soon. I promise. For now, just rest, please? And let me hold you. They both would like that. He can tell. “And I still love you.”
And Charles smiles again, and says “I still love you too,” and answers Yes.
When they do eventually get around to leaving the bed, that afternoon, making their way downstairs through all the approving china sculptures and overstuffed furniture, the same elderly man is sitting stolidly behind the desk, and he still doesn’t look up; but he does mutter “Happy Easter,” just as they head out the door.
Charles stops walking; Erik nearly runs into him. “What? Is something wrong? Are you—?”
“No, nothing…sorry…it is Easter, today, isn’t it? I completely forgot.”
“Well,” Erik points out, “we were a bit preoccupied,” and Charles laughs. “Rather appropriately so. As I think I mentioned, before all of this…”
“Please don’t tell me that you’re considering our sexual encounters as some sort of annual springtime fertility ritual, Charles.”
“Not annual at all,” Charles says, and grins, and leans into Erik’s arm, around his shoulder, in the sunlight. “I’m imagining more along the lines of every single day.”