The Brakes Are Shot to Hell: Twelve Conversations in the Car (Erik/Charles, teen, 6529 words)
The Brakes Are Shot to Hell: Twelve Conversations in the Car
Pairing: Erik/Charles
Words: 6529
Rating: Teen
Warnings: sexual situations, general angstiness, character death, flagrant abuse of the comma. and also f-words (sightings are rare but have been documented.) some brief, non-graphic mentions of child abuse.
Spoilers: Definitely X2 and XMFC, probably X1... ah, hell, everything. ALL the X-Men movies
Summary: Erik is careful, but around Charles, he forgets himself.
In which Erik is effectively cockblocked by a six year old, which is far less funny than it should be. There is pining, and self-flagellation (of the proverbial sort, this is rated teen, y'all), and Charles doesn't need a six year old to cockblock him, because he does a fine job cockblocking himself. He is also an idiot. Erik is too, surprise surprise. <= (Don't let this summary fool you. This story is depressing as hell.)
Disclaimer: if I owned it, X3 would not exist, just saying. it would be disowned. or at least vastly different. also, The Great Gatsby is quoted in this story, which is property of F Scott Fitzgerald, and which I'm honestly far more tempted to steal than X3.
A/N of Epic Proportions: *taps fandom hesitantly* Is alive? *sigh,* it always seems that by the time I cowboy up and actually write something for a fandom, everyone else is jumping ship. Okay, so my sister read through this but she is far too nice and SINGULARLY UNHELPFUL. (That said, she is SO MUCH LOVE, she's amazing, seriously, thanks bb.) So this is technically unbetaed. Also, it was written entirely on my iPod, mostly on the 5000 hour flight back from Italy, and I am dyslexic and iPod spell-check sucks, so I'm sorry for the mess of spelling mistakes this probably is. In other news, the sister and I are SO EXCITED for Future Past. At which point this story will become AU, probably, but oh well, canon is screwy and weird and noncontinuous anyway, so whatever. It follows XMFC in the important parts, though (i.e. when Our Heroes/Evil Mutants of the Brotherhood met and when when Professor X was paralyzed, OH MY GOD, SPOILER.) I have posted no works in this fandom thus far but have existed here, a wraith-like creature made of anonymous comments and kudos and stuff, so I know you guys are all awesome! Okay, this shit is getting long. Now, ON TO THE ANGSTFEST, I mean story.
The Brakes Are Shot to Hell: Twelve Conversations in the Car
i
"You're very careful." Charles watches Erik's hands on the steering wheel. He moves with purpose, ruthlessly efficient. The earth stretches out before them, vast and flat and seemingly limitless, bleeding out over the horizon where in the distance the road meets the sky, their union lost in the heat haze of early afternoon. The cornfields span for miles in every direction; they are in Iowa, perhaps, and it is large and silent, only the engine's purr and the hard body of the car cutting through the stillness in the air as Erik slices into it, a well-honed blade.
"And you are careless," Erik responds, absently, but Charles is not fooled, cannot look away from Erik's steady hands, cannot believe he does or says anything he does not trust, does not mean exactly. He feels the minds of others as though they are his own, but Erik's mind is not his. This he knows, implicitly, and it is heady, the uncertainty. He must be careful with this; Erik's mind is cruel enough on its own. He cannot afford to be broken, again.
"'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,'" Charles says, reciting. "'They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.'
"... I suppose I am careless," says Charles, after a while. His words break the silence, too, clumsy in a way Erik's controlled movements--body and car and the words he speaks--are not. Where Charles' words are a brutalization of the quiet, Erik's are a fatal caress, the seductive whisper of poison in the blood. "But I'm not so callous as to leave my messes for others to sort through."
Erik's hands tighten around the wheel, almost imperceptibly: a slight whitening of the skin over his knuckles. "Maybe you're careless enough not to realize you've made a mess at all."
ii
Erik is careful, but around Charles, he forgets himself. His breath comes quickly, thready through his chest, and he is drowning. But no; there is no water, running thick down his throat: nothing so calming, so centering. He is suffocating, gasping in the air at the top of a mountain only to find that it is too thin to sustain him, too fragile to survive the hostile environment within the confines of his chest.
Charles' knee presses into his hip, his thighs tighten over Erik's, and Erik cannot think, hears Charles' high, breathless voice, touch me, and he does. The gear shift must be digging into Charles' pelvis, but he presses forward anyway, desperately, his sharp breath dampening Erik's shirt over his shoulder, murmuring words Erik cannot make out. Erik has never wanted to touch someone so badly in his life.
Cars whizz past, too close, too close; the shoulder is not wide, here, and the car's right wheels have settled in the dirt by the roadside. If they were on the tarmac, the other side of the car would cross the white line. Erik pulls back, gasps, lays his hand over Charles' chest to still him, raises it to his mouth when Charles pushes his head forward, lips parted for a kiss. "Charles, wait, Charles. They'll see us."
Charles' tongue darts out, flicks against the tips of Erik's fingers as he speaks, and Erik cannot help the shudder that sings through him. "They won't if I don't want them to." And he takes Erik's fingers into his mouth.
iii
They are still young, but older, now. Jaded, perhaps, and Charles hates how hard it is to meet Erik's eyes. He knows he cannot run from his mistakes. He is not in denial; he is only ashamed. He does not believe he could ever call Erik a mistake, and he hates them both a little, for that. For many things, but also that, especially that, because it's not something he knows how to deal with. His mistakes, at least, he can learn from.
"Why did you take me, Erik?" He is in his pajamas; Erik kidnapped him from his bed, but he is not embarrassed. Erik has seen him in far more compromising positions. And Erik is not laughing now, and certainly he had not been laughing then.
"I thought we could... you might..." he sounds frustrated, vulnerable, so unlike the Erik Charles knows, the Erik who is all hard, flat muscle and destructive power. His eyes are normally cold, implacable, the exacting nature of his mutation translated into that sharp gaze, the precise set of his shoulders. In this moment, his eyes are uncertain, vaporous, and he is raw, exposed, like a nerve split open. "Don't you still want me?"
Yes. "What I want doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters." Erik snorts, but his scoffing tone turns low, intimate, as he closes the space between them. The tension is not reduced along with the distance separating Charles' ear from Erik's lips; it is crammed instead into the smaller space, until it's so thick it sings like a live wire. Charles can feel Erik's breath curling warm against his temple. "Don't you want to be thrown over? Wrecked? Don't you want to be fucked by someone who knows exactly where to touch you?"
Charles' breath quickens, and he is helpless to slow it. But Erik is asking him to give of himself, and he can't: not like this. "I want you to take off the helmet, Erik."
Erik lets out a soft breath, and it sets the hairs behind Charles' ear to quivering, his body following suit, and he knows already he is undone. "I'll let you in." Erik whispers, a tease: a promise. "If you're willing to return the favor. Quid pro quo, and all that."
Charles sits back in his seat, hard. "It's not a good idea," he says. It is not a refusal.
Erik makes a sharp right, steps hard on the gas, and he is wearing the helmet, but Charles can almost hear Erik's thoughts sing through the back of his mind, triumphant.
Charles closes his eyes and whispers, too quiet for Erik to hear, "And further we fall."
iv
Charles sees Erik glance over at him out of the corner of his eye, and braces himself. "You know I'm not... celibate, right?"
Charles snorts, wry and unamused, but he's not angry, really: just resigned. "I'm quite aware that you have semi-regular sex with my sister, yes."
"Your ex-sister," Erik says, turning back to look once again through the windshield.
"Don't," Charles says, sharp, and there's the anger he'd been missing.
Erik shrugs one shoulder. "It's the truth."
"I'm not sitting here calling you my ex-boyfriend even though that's true enough." Erik is always telling the truth, even when it's hard--especially when it's hard--and Charles sometimes hates him for that.
Erik quirks an eyebrow, huffs a small, dry laugh, but there's something strange and bitter underneath it. "What is this, some teenage melodrama?"
Charles smiles a little despite himself. "Did I mention Moira's now my ex-best friend because she wouldn't forgive me for pulling her pigtails?"
"You said she might hate you now for erasing her memories, yes." And here he sounds knowing, smug, I told you so in his eyes, and Charles resents that, chafes against it.
"I think this metaphor is breaking down," he says, petulant.
"Everything breaks down somewhere." Erik's voice is heavier, really, than the subject matter warrants. Charles slants his eyes sideways, steals a glance. Erik does not look wistful--does not sound wistful, either. But Charles knows him well, too well, and he is wistful--in mourning still. Charles knows. The weight of knowing lies heavy in the marrow of his bones. The helmet sits firmly over Erik's head, because that is not a concession he is willing to make this time. He does not know that it is futile, that Charles sees in Erik's eyes, in the slant of his mouth, in the most minute shift of his rigid shoulders, the same things he would see in Erik's mind.
"Well, I never expected you to wait up for me."
"Yes," Erik says, and his voice is harder, angrier, strong and sure: too sure, so sure that Charles knows--knows--that it is forced, "because that would be idiotic, waiting around for the next time I'm free to come find you and indulge in my masochistic tendencies. When you won't even put out."
Charles does not delude himself. He knows that Erik wants him, wants him by his side, wants him in his bed. Erik knows they make a formidable team, that on the battlefield, the two of them together meet no match in raw, blind power. And Charles is good at sex; even with his paralysis, he's good at sex, can anticipate every desire, every need, can give and take and withhold and succumb, and he knows, knows, that Erik has never come so hard as he has with Charles laid out beneath him. He knows Erik is fond of him, knows Erik cares for him, even. But he does not know, because he does not allow himself to look, if Erik loves him with the blind, shaking, wanton love Charles feels so desperately for him. He will not look because he does not think so, does not think Erik loves him like that. Erik is very careful.
Erik's gaze is heavy on him, and Charles sighs, wishes for one bitter moment that he could cross his legs, tap his foot, fidget. Really, he wants to throw something, but he's made enough of a mess already, his bull-in-a-China-shop against Erik ease, the swift, precise strike of an adder. "We're not star crossed lovers, Erik. We made our choices; we chose our sides."
Erik snorts and turns his glare on the road ahead. "So it's all on us, then? What about the humans? If it weren't for them, there would be no sides to choose."
Charles' voice goes quieter, and a little sad. "We all only want to live, Erik. The best way we know how."
Erik takes the next turn sharply, white-knuckled and decisive in his anger. "No. Don't. You don't get to do that, Charles."
"Do what?"
His nostrils flare. "This! Turning this into another fucking debate, where you get to paint the walls with some Utopian schwachsinn about how we all want the same things. It's a pretty picture, Charles, but most lies are."
v
"Stop the world, I want to get off." Charles is flushed and glassy-eyed, listing a little in his seat, falling against the car door and pulling himself back up to sitting, only to tip sideways again. Erik wants to look at him and think he is disgusting, but he can only manage to be fond, a little aroused by the way Charles' lips are parted, slightly swollen, and the knowledge that his flush spreads all the way down his chest, stopping just short of the trail of hair leading down to his bellybutton. Erik wants to look at him like this without wanting desperately to kiss him, any bit of Charles he can reach.
"You're drunk, Charles, you idiot," he says, brusque, and Charles' eyes widen slightly, a crease settling between his eyebrows.
"Don't be nasty. I'm in no condition to defend my honor. Isn't that your job, anyway?"
Erik snorts, forces himself to look away. "I'm not defending your honor. I'm casting aspersions on it, at the moment."
"Oh," Charles says, sighing, and puts a little too much force behind it in his intoxicated state. "Well, that's too bad, because I love you." Erik's eyes widen and he steps hard on the pedal in his shock, jerking them forward like they've been rear-ended. "I wish you were closer," Charles goes on, oblivious, as something tightens like a vice in Erik's chest. "Do you know, I listen for you, sometimes. When I can't sleep. But I never find you." Erik does not know whether to scream or cry: knows, really, that he can do neither. He wants to shout at Charles, the idiot, tell him to shut the hell up, order him never to speak again. But then he does, he does, the bastard, and Erik is shaking, is falling apart. "I wish you didn't hate me, Erik."
I don't hate you. He wants to say it, wants to, but he can't. Charles won't remember it in the morning, but, gottverdammt, he can't. Erik has always fared better with lies of omission, and this is the lie he allows himself. He is burning; he is burning, and he will not define it, will not admit that it is not hate that roils in his gut when he sees Charles smile and realizes that it is not a happy smile, not really, that Erik cannot make him smile, bright and unrestrained, the way he used to. Maybe Charles cannot smile like that anymore, has lost it along the way, like so many things. Erik sighs, and eases on the gas pedal, and silently burns.
"Erik," Charles says, eyes drunk and hungry, "Erik. I want to suck you off. Come... c'mere. Wanna touch you."
Erik breathes out, because this; this is familiar territory. Erik would never say yes; he would never take Charles like this, doesn't want him like this. And, suddenly, the burn is back in his stomach, because that's more confirmation than he wanted to give, too close to the truth to be safe. Erik is very careful, but Charles makes him forget himself. He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself, with the world, with Charles, drunk and pliant beside him. He sighs, and moves into the left lane. "Go to sleep, Charles."
vi
"Who the hell is this?"
"Well, hello to you too, Erik. You could have simply tapped on the window, and asked to be let in."
"It's not as though the door's broken. And I can free your ignition as quickly as I fused it in place."
"I never doubted you could. Although now might be a good time..."
"That idiot can wait his damn turn. It's not as though he'll die waiting two more seconds to fill his gas tank... although that can be arranged, if he doesn't stop edging forward. I hope he doesn't think he's being covert."
"Erik. The last thing we need is to wreck someone's car--"
"Get a move on, Charles, the ignition's been fixed for a minute now."
"... Ah. So it has. Of course, you couldn't have simply told me that, could you? In answer to your first question: this is Brendan. He was visiting with his parents in Scarsdale."
"Chauffeur duty, Charles? Don't you have Hank for these things?"
"Who're you?"
"Brendan, this is Erik. And no, Erik, Hank's teaching a class, and I had a free schedule. Besides, I can do things myself. I'm not useless, you know."
"You know I didn't mean--"
"Are you the man who broke Professor X's legs?"
"I..."
"Who told you that, Brendan?"
"Hank."
"Well, Hank should have told you--"
"Yes. I am the one who... who did that. To Charles."
"It was an accident, Brendan."
"You're not going to hurt him right now, are you?"
"No. No, I don't want to hurt him."
"Okay. Good."
"Well, now that the Spanish Inquisition is--"
"Hank said you control metal. Can you make my plane fly? It's tin, or something."
"Aluminum. Yes, I can lift it. Watch."
"... Wow!"
"Is there an actual reason you invaded my car, Erik, or were you looking for an audience to your parlor tricks?"
"Shut up. Of course there's a reason, Charles, don't be ridiculous. I'm sure you're aware of the whispers in Washington, of some kind of--mutant registry. They're drafting a bill."
"Oh, Erik. You don't honestly think that'll make it past the Senate?"
"You know what I think, Charles. This is the beginning."
"Oh, you always did have a flair for the dramatic."
"My histrionics are very ridiculously absurd, yes."
"Wow, that was more than normally scathing. Are you sure you don't have latent flame abilities?"
"They'll be giving us numbers, Charles. I have one already, thanks. In case you'd forgotten. You don't honestly think I'm happy about being right?"
"Aren't you? Haven't you spent years waiting for this moment? I thought you'd be ecstatic."
"I'm not."
"Oh, Erik, I know, I know, I only--"
"In fact, I'm very upset. Positively verklempt."
"You... oh. Yes, I can see that."
"Don't be sarcastic. I'm fragile right now."
"Such a delicate flower. Well, I wouldn't want to break you."
"Oh, no. Perhaps that's exactly what I need. To be broken."
"Careful, Erik."
"He's, what, five? He doesn't understand subtext."
"Six, actually. And we're not having this discussion.
"... Erik! This car is more than big enough for you to stay on your side of the console. Besides, there's a child present. Leave room for..."
"Jesus, you were going to say. Good thing I don't believe in Jesus. Figments of the imagination don't take up any space, Professor."
"Oh, no, we are not doing this that way."
"But we are doing this?"
"Dammit, Erik, no."
"So no talk of basic human bodily functions in front of the child, but we're allowed to curse?"
"He's going to be traumatized, by the time you leave this car."
"He's playing with his jet plane, and making a damn racket, he can't hear us."
"They're fighter jet noises, obviously. Oh, that's... eugh, a fighter jet with salivary glands, apparently."
"I've seen you with worse on than a six year old's saliva."
"Erik!"
"Oh, do try not to sound so scandalized, Charles, its only the truth. "
"It's inappr--"
"We could drop the boy off at the mansion."
"If we go to the mansion, then leave again, my carjacking excuse becomes invalid."
"The fact that you're still behind the wheel already discounts grand theft auto."
"Oh, I suppose so, damn. Although, you don't know how to work the hand controls, so if you had me at gunpoint--"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Charles--"
"Ah, well. I'll think of something."
"I'm thinking of something."
"I don't suppose you think of much else. You're coming on a bit strong."
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"I don't think your heart has anything to do with it."
"Charles. Charles, that's... Come now, I wouldn't be here if... You can't think I don't care?"
"Not for lack of trying."
"We're not in bed, but not for lack of trying."
"See? It always comes back to--"
"It's not bedtime yet."
"That's right, Brendan. Erik's just a little sleepy. He'll be having a long night."
vii
"Do you remember the bill I told you about?" Erik asks. Erik is very careful, and very truthful, and also very direct, often to the point of bluntness: to the exclusion of all pleasantries and all propriety. Charles has long since stopped trying to wean him off it, has even longer harbored the secret opinion that all this is simply a part of Erik's charm.
He raises an eyebrow, smiles a little. "You mean the one that died quietly on the Senate floor years ago?"
Erik ignores him, pretends a sudden onslaught of deafness, and really Charles should not be as fond of Erik as he is, in this moment. "It's being brought up again, Charles. It's gaining in popularity, slowly but surely."
"And it'll die again Erik, I'm sure of it." Charles sighs, gives Erik a consoling pat on the knee, but his hand is promptly jostled away, and it is miraculous that Erik can jerk his knee so sharply without effecting the speed of the car. Charles sighs again.
"It won't stay dead forever. Maybe it won't make it this time, or next time, or the time after, but it will make it, someday. It's only a matter of time."
"You don't know that, Erik." Charles feels suddenly very old; this argument suddenly feels, to Charles, tired, a lightbulb left on so long it's beginning to die, to flicker and fail. Charles does not like to play the part of an enabler, but with Erik, as always, he cannot help himself, is compelled inexorably to seek him out, to speak to him: to thrust himself into Erik's orbit and stay there, where he can be close to him, where he can see him and touch him and doesn't have to cast around frantically for his mind before he remembers he's not allowed in, anymore. "You can't know what will happen."
Erik holds the steering wheel like it is a living thing from which he is trying to squeeze the life. When he speaks, Charles can hear the slow grind of his teeth, and remembers suddenly, viscerally, why people fear Erik. "At least I am prepared for the possibility, at least I don't wear the optimistic blinders you should have grown out of years ago, Charles. What will you do if it is passed? Sit on your hands and hum 'God Save the Queen?'"
"Well, I surely won't be standing, if that's what you mean." He doesn't mean to snap at Erik, to say something he knows will strike the most vulnerable parts of Erik's shields and make them sing. He really doesn't, but Erik should know him, should know that Charles, in his heart, is as terrified of the harrowing possibilities as Erik is. When Erik flinches at his words, at the vitriol behind them, at the lingering sting of his own self-blame, Charles does not feel vindicated, triumphant. He only feels tired, feels a deep ache answering from within himself. "Besides," he says, and his tone is an apology, an absolution, "you don't know it will pass. People may lose interest, in the coming years. Look how far civil rights for homosexuals have come, for African-Americans. Back in the sixties, when we were recruiting, we would have had handcuffs slapped on us if we'd been caught at it. We had to sit in whites-only bars in every place we went to south of the Mason-Dixon."
Erik smiles, a wry, mocking thing, and the guilt must have hit him deep, today. "Come now, Charles, you haven't answered me properly. Don't run from the question, old friend."
"I was only trying to--"
"You're running, Charles." He smiles a ruthless, angry smile.
Charles finds he is angry, too, because they keep missing each other, because Erik is not willing, never willing, to meet him halfway. He looks down at his legs, immobile before him: it hurts him, must hurt Erik just as much, when he says, "Not so often, these days."
viii
"So, are you going to tell me why you've reversed our roles this time, Charles?" Erik lounges back in the passenger seat, because he is thrown, caught off guard, but these things happen when he is with Charles and so he is prepared.
Charles smiles at him, encouraging. Bastard. He reads Erik too well, his conclusions too close for comfort: not exact, never exact, but near enough to speed Erik's blood through his fingertips. "We're going to pick up a girl. A very special little girl, and I need your help."
Erik smiles back, now that he's seen the board, knows where his strategy will take him. "My help? Isn't that a throwback. Well, Charles. It's been a while since we've gone recruiting."
Charles smiles, a little wistfully, and something tugs in Erik's gut. "Hasn't it? It will be just like old times, won't it."
Erik's smile turns wicked, and Charles' eyes narrow a moment before Erik says, smug, with his toothiest, most predatory smile, "Well, maybe not just. We'll have to switch positions, when we stop off on the shoulder of the road."
"Erik, really." Charles is blushing, and Erik can't help but follow it down, in his mind's eye, to its inevitable conclusion. He wants to free the buttons on Charles' shirt, to watch the flush spread, to follow it with his hands, with his tongue; he tightens his fingers on the steering wheel instead.
He lets out a slow breath through his nose, hopes Charles doesn't notice. Everything is suddenly very, very bright, and he knows his eyes have dilated. "What? I thought you wanted to remind me of old times. The good old days, perhaps? Isn't that what made those days good, old friend."
Charles sighs and closes his eyes for a moment before fixing them back on the road. Yes, Erik thinks, Definitely wistful, as Charles says, "Erik. Things are different, now. We can't go back."
Erik looks at him for a long moment: a slow, predatory smile. "Maybe you're just scared."
Charles shivers a little, at the look on his face, then seems to remember himself, staring at Erik sadly and shaking his head, so compassionate Erik could punch him in the mouth. "Back then, Erik, it was a gamble. Now, it's just masochistic. There's nothing to win: nothing either of us are willing to give."
"We've already lost. What's one more, of many? A drop in the ocean. Come on, Charles, one more for the road?" Looking at Charles, Erik feels like he did at thirty two, at thirty five, at forty, at fifty; he feels wanton, wrung out, his stomach clenching, but he does not let that bleed into his voice, cannot lose himself in the desperation of wanting. There are things he cannot have, and Charles, the thing he wants most, more than anything else in the world, is one of them. He wants Charles so much, but his life can't be about the things he wants.
"Erik..."
"It won't be the same. I know that, Charles. I... I still want it." Any way I can have it. And what, I ask you, does that say about me? Erik is careful, but Charles has always been his blind spot, the place where he let's himself slip, where he can't help it.
"Alright, Erik. Alright."
They are like broken toys, trying and failing to perform their function, to succeed, when success is impossible, when they only ever come together just to spring apart once again. When they first met, they were young, and vibrant, and brilliant together. But they are not the people they used to be.
ix
The funeral was awful. The death of a child is always, always a tragedy, but the death of Tasha Rhodes was worse than most; three knife wounds in her back at the hands of her own father, who sobbed as he did it, sobbed afterward, sobbed and sobbed and wouldn't stop, said it was for her own good. Charles hates that man, Tasha's father, because he does not have the right. His tears are poison. He does not deserve to cry over the child he killed, the wonderful, beautiful person he stole from the world. He should save the tears for the people who loved her, the people who would miss her as she was, young and gloriously vibrant, not those who longed for the girl they wished she could have been.
The students cried and the mother cried and Storm and Scott and Jean cried, but Charles could not cry, because Charles stayed up three nights in a row preparing the funeral and writing the eulogy and then he had to stand up in front of the entire school, all those tear-streaked faces, and talk about Tasha, who was beautiful, who liked horses, who could shift the earth beneath her feet and who was dead. He's buried students before, of course he has, and whoever said it gets easier with time and instance, that person was a liar.
Erik's voice, for once, is gentle and sad--understanding--and Charles feels closer to him in this moment than he has in a long, long time, because this time they are united in their belief. "Are you alright?"
"No."
Erik reaches over to grab his shoulder, bracing, but only for a moment. They don't talk again, not even when Erik steps out of the car, and Charles can't stop himself from watching Erik's back, straight and proud under that ridiculous cape swishing around his ankles, as he walks away.
x
"Sometimes, Erik, I regret ever having met you." There is a look on Erik's face that Charles cannot place, but it tastes bitter and painful at the back of his mind, sharp and metallic. An ache, a plea, a punishment, like the helmet turned sideways on the floor between their seats, so innocuous, now, with no dark secrets hidden in its shadows. "I'm sorry. That's not... that's not fair. That's not even what I regret, not really. It's just... I've only ever hurt you, haven't I?" He sighs, corrects himself; "We've only ever hurt each other."
"You could ease our pain." Erik says, but already he sounds resigned.
Charles sighs. He is old, and tired. "My life is no longer about my own regrets." What he means is, It's too late, Erik. Perhaps it's always been.
xi
"I don't need you to lift me up into your car, Erik, honestly. If you insist on manhandling me every time you kidnap me, I may have to mutiny, one of these days."
"Maybe I just wanted an excuse to cop a feel."
"I see you're in with the cool crowd now, with the hip new car and your big talk. Rock on with your bad self, Erik, really, it's not inconveniencing me at all."
"Wait. Hold on, stop talking, wait. Is that. Is that boy, that student of yours, dressed in a boy scout's uniform?"
"Yes. Don't worry, your eyes aren't failing you."
"You let your children join the boy scouts, Charles?"
"And why shouldn't I? Survival skills are important."
"But the boy scouts, Charles. It's the fucking Hitler Youth, right here in America!"
"Now, Erik, I don't think--"
"Shut up, Charles. Just shut up, now.
"... Will you be sending them to one of those idiotic gay correction camps if they decide they like their fellow troupe members better than the pretty park ranger? Because the scouts won't take them back until they're good and repressed.
"...But where do they draw the line, I'd like to know. It's a slippery slope. Not that far to fall between 'homosexuals can't join' and 'only blondes with blue eyes who love Jesus can be in our club.'
"... Are you asleep, old man? The least you could do is respond."
"Don't get in a strop, you told me to shut up. I have."
"Well, do speak up. Can't even hold a proper conversation, why do I even speak to you anymore. You're growing extraordinarily dull in your old age."
xii
"Why have you come here, Erik?" Charles is resigned. He only feels tired, tired and lost and angry, futilely angry with the world, and he wishes that he and Erik were star crossed lovers, so he didn't have to live with the blame. "Haven't you done enough. Haven't I been humiliated--dehumanized--enough? Can't you leave me be?"
Erik looks genuinely confused, slightly indignant, and Charles hates him, is disgusted by him, hopes never to see him again, and perhaps if he says it enough he will wake one day to find that it's true. "Dehumanized? Charles..."
Charles takes a quick breath, and another, and steadies himself. His voice is quiet, inflectionless as he speaks, and he knows, knows this will unnerve Erik more than anything else, and is fiercely glad of it. "You and Stryker both used me, as a tool, as a means to an end. You took from me my... my judgement, my free will. What more do you want? What more could you possibly want?" He sighs, scrubs a hand down his face. He feels exhausted, bled dry. "I ask again, Erik; why are you here?"
Erik takes a shaky breath, won't look Charles in the eye as he says, disjointedly, "I just... I heard. That you were in the hospital and I, I wanted to make sure that you were all right."
Charles feels a rush of hysterical, insane laughter building behind his sternum and he clamps down on it, chokes it out. "You left me to die, Erik. You left me where I would have killed all those people, helpless to stop myself, and died still trapped in the void where all their minds used to be. And... Jean, Erik, she's--" he takes a deep breath and blinks twice, rapidly. "I honestly, truly do not see why you would care, that I was in the bloody fucking hospital, when you left me for dead! You'll have to enlighten me, I'm afraid, as I've been proven a fool. For trusting you to, to treat me like a person, to give a flying fuck whether I live or die, but you... No. Just... why? Are you here?"
In this moment, Charles is thirty again, young and alone, in the sand on a beach with a bullet in his back. He is an old man, in a wheelchair in a room with a child he failed. He is twelve years old with bruises pressed into his arm and his mother's cold indifference pressed into his mind, and he is alone and terrified and Kurt is refastening his belt and turning away, and Charles' back burns, burns like it's on fire, and Kurt is asking if he learned his lesson but he can't for the life of him remember what it was.
Erik is beginning to sound panicked, desperate. "I didn't. Didn't know. I didn't know! Charles, I did not know that the dam was going to break, how could I have known? When I left, it was still structurally sound."
"You took both the helicopters." Charles' voice is still unnaturally flat, and the frantic look on Erik's face intensifies.
"I didn't want to be followed! Your damn mutt Logan would chase me to the ends of the Earth."
Charles feels his patience straining, on the verge of snapping, and if he lets it get that far it will lash out at both of them, and he really hates himself, despises himself at the basest level, for giving a damn whether Erik gets hurt. "If you've come to insult my family, Erik, you may as well leave. Have you come to rub salt in my wounds? To add insult to injury? Because really, I haven't the inclination--"
Erik waves his hands, movements erratic, which is odd because Erik is so careful, so precise and controlled. "No, Charles, listen, I just wanted to see that you... that you weren't hurt."
"I AM HURT!" Charles screams, with all the helpless rage of the twelve year old, the agony of the thirty year old, the despair of the old man. He sighs, and he is defeated, resigned, exhausted. "But it doesn't matter. You don't care."
Erik's voice is a fierce whisper when he says, "Of course it matters." And then, in the span of a single moment that feels, as it happens, like a thousand years of silence, of emptiness, Erik is shoving the helmet off his head with one hand and steadying himself on Charles' seat back with the other. The helmet ricochets off the steering wheel and lands on the floor, spinning wildly on it's side, like a top. Erik is scrambling over the center console, scrabbling at Charles' arms to keep his balance as his knees come down on either side of Charles' hips. His hands stay tight on Charles' upper arms, wrinkling the fabric of his shirtsleeves, and he is sobbing into Charles' mouth, whole body shaking with it as he gasps against his lips, "Oh God, mein Gott, you bastard, you bastard. I'm sorry, I'm so--I love you so fucking much I love you, Gott, Charles, Charles, please." And it is so easy for Charles to knuckle back under, to press his fingertips into Erik's hips to keep him grounded, to stop him falling, just to feel the warm press of his skin beneath his sweater.
Charles sees in this man the thirty two year old, touch-starved and lonely, the fifty year old, bitter but determined, the old man, begging forgiveness. And he knows--knows-- that when they meet again it will be business as usual, they will not speak of this and Erik will make elaborate, disastrous plans and Charles will stand against him, and it's not enough, it really isn't, but it has to be. This kind of blind, shaking, wanton love is supposed to hold people together, across infinities, across the great divide of death, but Erik and Charles come together now only to spring apart, because their love is real and true and desperate but it isn't enough. Charles almost, almost wishes he never knew Erik loved him like that, so he could keep believing that revelation would have changed something, would have forced the world to bend.
Erik is still shaking, still gasping, his forehead pressed against Charles' collarbone and his warm, ragged breath dampening Charles' shirt over his shoulder. He must be uncomfortable with the gearshift pressing into his hipbone, his knees wedged between Charles and the door and Charles and the console, respectively. They are not young anymore, they should not do this, but they can't help it. They take what they can get because it's not enough, never enough, but it has to be. Charles presses his face into Erik's hair, strokes his cheeks with his fingertips, gently, gently, because this moment, and the two of them as they are right here, right now, in Charles' old car in the corner of the hospital parking lot, is a fragile thing. It will break, because everything breaks down eventually.
They are not star-crossed lovers. They are two old men in a station wagon, with a wheelchair in the boot and a metal helmet clanging underfoot as they cling to each other. People pass by, close on either side of the car, but no one sees them. Charles won't let them.
Pairing: Erik/Charles
Words: 6529
Rating: Teen
Warnings: sexual situations, general angstiness, character death, flagrant abuse of the comma. and also f-words (sightings are rare but have been documented.) some brief, non-graphic mentions of child abuse.
Spoilers: Definitely X2 and XMFC, probably X1... ah, hell, everything. ALL the X-Men movies
Summary: Erik is careful, but around Charles, he forgets himself.
In which Erik is effectively cockblocked by a six year old, which is far less funny than it should be. There is pining, and self-flagellation (of the proverbial sort, this is rated teen, y'all), and Charles doesn't need a six year old to cockblock him, because he does a fine job cockblocking himself. He is also an idiot. Erik is too, surprise surprise. <= (Don't let this summary fool you. This story is depressing as hell.)
Disclaimer: if I owned it, X3 would not exist, just saying. it would be disowned. or at least vastly different. also, The Great Gatsby is quoted in this story, which is property of F Scott Fitzgerald, and which I'm honestly far more tempted to steal than X3.
A/N of Epic Proportions: *taps fandom hesitantly* Is alive? *sigh,* it always seems that by the time I cowboy up and actually write something for a fandom, everyone else is jumping ship. Okay, so my sister read through this but she is far too nice and SINGULARLY UNHELPFUL. (That said, she is SO MUCH LOVE, she's amazing, seriously, thanks bb.) So this is technically unbetaed. Also, it was written entirely on my iPod, mostly on the 5000 hour flight back from Italy, and I am dyslexic and iPod spell-check sucks, so I'm sorry for the mess of spelling mistakes this probably is. In other news, the sister and I are SO EXCITED for Future Past. At which point this story will become AU, probably, but oh well, canon is screwy and weird and noncontinuous anyway, so whatever. It follows XMFC in the important parts, though (i.e. when Our Heroes/Evil Mutants of the Brotherhood met and when when Professor X was paralyzed, OH MY GOD, SPOILER.) I have posted no works in this fandom thus far but have existed here, a wraith-like creature made of anonymous comments and kudos and stuff, so I know you guys are all awesome! Okay, this shit is getting long. Now, ON TO THE ANGSTFEST, I mean story.
The Brakes Are Shot to Hell: Twelve Conversations in the Car
i
"You're very careful." Charles watches Erik's hands on the steering wheel. He moves with purpose, ruthlessly efficient. The earth stretches out before them, vast and flat and seemingly limitless, bleeding out over the horizon where in the distance the road meets the sky, their union lost in the heat haze of early afternoon. The cornfields span for miles in every direction; they are in Iowa, perhaps, and it is large and silent, only the engine's purr and the hard body of the car cutting through the stillness in the air as Erik slices into it, a well-honed blade.
"And you are careless," Erik responds, absently, but Charles is not fooled, cannot look away from Erik's steady hands, cannot believe he does or says anything he does not trust, does not mean exactly. He feels the minds of others as though they are his own, but Erik's mind is not his. This he knows, implicitly, and it is heady, the uncertainty. He must be careful with this; Erik's mind is cruel enough on its own. He cannot afford to be broken, again.
"'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,'" Charles says, reciting. "'They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.'
"... I suppose I am careless," says Charles, after a while. His words break the silence, too, clumsy in a way Erik's controlled movements--body and car and the words he speaks--are not. Where Charles' words are a brutalization of the quiet, Erik's are a fatal caress, the seductive whisper of poison in the blood. "But I'm not so callous as to leave my messes for others to sort through."
Erik's hands tighten around the wheel, almost imperceptibly: a slight whitening of the skin over his knuckles. "Maybe you're careless enough not to realize you've made a mess at all."
ii
Erik is careful, but around Charles, he forgets himself. His breath comes quickly, thready through his chest, and he is drowning. But no; there is no water, running thick down his throat: nothing so calming, so centering. He is suffocating, gasping in the air at the top of a mountain only to find that it is too thin to sustain him, too fragile to survive the hostile environment within the confines of his chest.
Charles' knee presses into his hip, his thighs tighten over Erik's, and Erik cannot think, hears Charles' high, breathless voice, touch me, and he does. The gear shift must be digging into Charles' pelvis, but he presses forward anyway, desperately, his sharp breath dampening Erik's shirt over his shoulder, murmuring words Erik cannot make out. Erik has never wanted to touch someone so badly in his life.
Cars whizz past, too close, too close; the shoulder is not wide, here, and the car's right wheels have settled in the dirt by the roadside. If they were on the tarmac, the other side of the car would cross the white line. Erik pulls back, gasps, lays his hand over Charles' chest to still him, raises it to his mouth when Charles pushes his head forward, lips parted for a kiss. "Charles, wait, Charles. They'll see us."
Charles' tongue darts out, flicks against the tips of Erik's fingers as he speaks, and Erik cannot help the shudder that sings through him. "They won't if I don't want them to." And he takes Erik's fingers into his mouth.
iii
They are still young, but older, now. Jaded, perhaps, and Charles hates how hard it is to meet Erik's eyes. He knows he cannot run from his mistakes. He is not in denial; he is only ashamed. He does not believe he could ever call Erik a mistake, and he hates them both a little, for that. For many things, but also that, especially that, because it's not something he knows how to deal with. His mistakes, at least, he can learn from.
"Why did you take me, Erik?" He is in his pajamas; Erik kidnapped him from his bed, but he is not embarrassed. Erik has seen him in far more compromising positions. And Erik is not laughing now, and certainly he had not been laughing then.
"I thought we could... you might..." he sounds frustrated, vulnerable, so unlike the Erik Charles knows, the Erik who is all hard, flat muscle and destructive power. His eyes are normally cold, implacable, the exacting nature of his mutation translated into that sharp gaze, the precise set of his shoulders. In this moment, his eyes are uncertain, vaporous, and he is raw, exposed, like a nerve split open. "Don't you still want me?"
Yes. "What I want doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters." Erik snorts, but his scoffing tone turns low, intimate, as he closes the space between them. The tension is not reduced along with the distance separating Charles' ear from Erik's lips; it is crammed instead into the smaller space, until it's so thick it sings like a live wire. Charles can feel Erik's breath curling warm against his temple. "Don't you want to be thrown over? Wrecked? Don't you want to be fucked by someone who knows exactly where to touch you?"
Charles' breath quickens, and he is helpless to slow it. But Erik is asking him to give of himself, and he can't: not like this. "I want you to take off the helmet, Erik."
Erik lets out a soft breath, and it sets the hairs behind Charles' ear to quivering, his body following suit, and he knows already he is undone. "I'll let you in." Erik whispers, a tease: a promise. "If you're willing to return the favor. Quid pro quo, and all that."
Charles sits back in his seat, hard. "It's not a good idea," he says. It is not a refusal.
Erik makes a sharp right, steps hard on the gas, and he is wearing the helmet, but Charles can almost hear Erik's thoughts sing through the back of his mind, triumphant.
Charles closes his eyes and whispers, too quiet for Erik to hear, "And further we fall."
iv
Charles sees Erik glance over at him out of the corner of his eye, and braces himself. "You know I'm not... celibate, right?"
Charles snorts, wry and unamused, but he's not angry, really: just resigned. "I'm quite aware that you have semi-regular sex with my sister, yes."
"Your ex-sister," Erik says, turning back to look once again through the windshield.
"Don't," Charles says, sharp, and there's the anger he'd been missing.
Erik shrugs one shoulder. "It's the truth."
"I'm not sitting here calling you my ex-boyfriend even though that's true enough." Erik is always telling the truth, even when it's hard--especially when it's hard--and Charles sometimes hates him for that.
Erik quirks an eyebrow, huffs a small, dry laugh, but there's something strange and bitter underneath it. "What is this, some teenage melodrama?"
Charles smiles a little despite himself. "Did I mention Moira's now my ex-best friend because she wouldn't forgive me for pulling her pigtails?"
"You said she might hate you now for erasing her memories, yes." And here he sounds knowing, smug, I told you so in his eyes, and Charles resents that, chafes against it.
"I think this metaphor is breaking down," he says, petulant.
"Everything breaks down somewhere." Erik's voice is heavier, really, than the subject matter warrants. Charles slants his eyes sideways, steals a glance. Erik does not look wistful--does not sound wistful, either. But Charles knows him well, too well, and he is wistful--in mourning still. Charles knows. The weight of knowing lies heavy in the marrow of his bones. The helmet sits firmly over Erik's head, because that is not a concession he is willing to make this time. He does not know that it is futile, that Charles sees in Erik's eyes, in the slant of his mouth, in the most minute shift of his rigid shoulders, the same things he would see in Erik's mind.
"Well, I never expected you to wait up for me."
"Yes," Erik says, and his voice is harder, angrier, strong and sure: too sure, so sure that Charles knows--knows--that it is forced, "because that would be idiotic, waiting around for the next time I'm free to come find you and indulge in my masochistic tendencies. When you won't even put out."
Charles does not delude himself. He knows that Erik wants him, wants him by his side, wants him in his bed. Erik knows they make a formidable team, that on the battlefield, the two of them together meet no match in raw, blind power. And Charles is good at sex; even with his paralysis, he's good at sex, can anticipate every desire, every need, can give and take and withhold and succumb, and he knows, knows, that Erik has never come so hard as he has with Charles laid out beneath him. He knows Erik is fond of him, knows Erik cares for him, even. But he does not know, because he does not allow himself to look, if Erik loves him with the blind, shaking, wanton love Charles feels so desperately for him. He will not look because he does not think so, does not think Erik loves him like that. Erik is very careful.
Erik's gaze is heavy on him, and Charles sighs, wishes for one bitter moment that he could cross his legs, tap his foot, fidget. Really, he wants to throw something, but he's made enough of a mess already, his bull-in-a-China-shop against Erik ease, the swift, precise strike of an adder. "We're not star crossed lovers, Erik. We made our choices; we chose our sides."
Erik snorts and turns his glare on the road ahead. "So it's all on us, then? What about the humans? If it weren't for them, there would be no sides to choose."
Charles' voice goes quieter, and a little sad. "We all only want to live, Erik. The best way we know how."
Erik takes the next turn sharply, white-knuckled and decisive in his anger. "No. Don't. You don't get to do that, Charles."
"Do what?"
His nostrils flare. "This! Turning this into another fucking debate, where you get to paint the walls with some Utopian schwachsinn about how we all want the same things. It's a pretty picture, Charles, but most lies are."
v
"Stop the world, I want to get off." Charles is flushed and glassy-eyed, listing a little in his seat, falling against the car door and pulling himself back up to sitting, only to tip sideways again. Erik wants to look at him and think he is disgusting, but he can only manage to be fond, a little aroused by the way Charles' lips are parted, slightly swollen, and the knowledge that his flush spreads all the way down his chest, stopping just short of the trail of hair leading down to his bellybutton. Erik wants to look at him like this without wanting desperately to kiss him, any bit of Charles he can reach.
"You're drunk, Charles, you idiot," he says, brusque, and Charles' eyes widen slightly, a crease settling between his eyebrows.
"Don't be nasty. I'm in no condition to defend my honor. Isn't that your job, anyway?"
Erik snorts, forces himself to look away. "I'm not defending your honor. I'm casting aspersions on it, at the moment."
"Oh," Charles says, sighing, and puts a little too much force behind it in his intoxicated state. "Well, that's too bad, because I love you." Erik's eyes widen and he steps hard on the pedal in his shock, jerking them forward like they've been rear-ended. "I wish you were closer," Charles goes on, oblivious, as something tightens like a vice in Erik's chest. "Do you know, I listen for you, sometimes. When I can't sleep. But I never find you." Erik does not know whether to scream or cry: knows, really, that he can do neither. He wants to shout at Charles, the idiot, tell him to shut the hell up, order him never to speak again. But then he does, he does, the bastard, and Erik is shaking, is falling apart. "I wish you didn't hate me, Erik."
I don't hate you. He wants to say it, wants to, but he can't. Charles won't remember it in the morning, but, gottverdammt, he can't. Erik has always fared better with lies of omission, and this is the lie he allows himself. He is burning; he is burning, and he will not define it, will not admit that it is not hate that roils in his gut when he sees Charles smile and realizes that it is not a happy smile, not really, that Erik cannot make him smile, bright and unrestrained, the way he used to. Maybe Charles cannot smile like that anymore, has lost it along the way, like so many things. Erik sighs, and eases on the gas pedal, and silently burns.
"Erik," Charles says, eyes drunk and hungry, "Erik. I want to suck you off. Come... c'mere. Wanna touch you."
Erik breathes out, because this; this is familiar territory. Erik would never say yes; he would never take Charles like this, doesn't want him like this. And, suddenly, the burn is back in his stomach, because that's more confirmation than he wanted to give, too close to the truth to be safe. Erik is very careful, but Charles makes him forget himself. He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself, with the world, with Charles, drunk and pliant beside him. He sighs, and moves into the left lane. "Go to sleep, Charles."
vi
"Who the hell is this?"
"Well, hello to you too, Erik. You could have simply tapped on the window, and asked to be let in."
"It's not as though the door's broken. And I can free your ignition as quickly as I fused it in place."
"I never doubted you could. Although now might be a good time..."
"That idiot can wait his damn turn. It's not as though he'll die waiting two more seconds to fill his gas tank... although that can be arranged, if he doesn't stop edging forward. I hope he doesn't think he's being covert."
"Erik. The last thing we need is to wreck someone's car--"
"Get a move on, Charles, the ignition's been fixed for a minute now."
"... Ah. So it has. Of course, you couldn't have simply told me that, could you? In answer to your first question: this is Brendan. He was visiting with his parents in Scarsdale."
"Chauffeur duty, Charles? Don't you have Hank for these things?"
"Who're you?"
"Brendan, this is Erik. And no, Erik, Hank's teaching a class, and I had a free schedule. Besides, I can do things myself. I'm not useless, you know."
"You know I didn't mean--"
"Are you the man who broke Professor X's legs?"
"I..."
"Who told you that, Brendan?"
"Hank."
"Well, Hank should have told you--"
"Yes. I am the one who... who did that. To Charles."
"It was an accident, Brendan."
"You're not going to hurt him right now, are you?"
"No. No, I don't want to hurt him."
"Okay. Good."
"Well, now that the Spanish Inquisition is--"
"Hank said you control metal. Can you make my plane fly? It's tin, or something."
"Aluminum. Yes, I can lift it. Watch."
"... Wow!"
"Is there an actual reason you invaded my car, Erik, or were you looking for an audience to your parlor tricks?"
"Shut up. Of course there's a reason, Charles, don't be ridiculous. I'm sure you're aware of the whispers in Washington, of some kind of--mutant registry. They're drafting a bill."
"Oh, Erik. You don't honestly think that'll make it past the Senate?"
"You know what I think, Charles. This is the beginning."
"Oh, you always did have a flair for the dramatic."
"My histrionics are very ridiculously absurd, yes."
"Wow, that was more than normally scathing. Are you sure you don't have latent flame abilities?"
"They'll be giving us numbers, Charles. I have one already, thanks. In case you'd forgotten. You don't honestly think I'm happy about being right?"
"Aren't you? Haven't you spent years waiting for this moment? I thought you'd be ecstatic."
"I'm not."
"Oh, Erik, I know, I know, I only--"
"In fact, I'm very upset. Positively verklempt."
"You... oh. Yes, I can see that."
"Don't be sarcastic. I'm fragile right now."
"Such a delicate flower. Well, I wouldn't want to break you."
"Oh, no. Perhaps that's exactly what I need. To be broken."
"Careful, Erik."
"He's, what, five? He doesn't understand subtext."
"Six, actually. And we're not having this discussion.
"... Erik! This car is more than big enough for you to stay on your side of the console. Besides, there's a child present. Leave room for..."
"Jesus, you were going to say. Good thing I don't believe in Jesus. Figments of the imagination don't take up any space, Professor."
"Oh, no, we are not doing this that way."
"But we are doing this?"
"Dammit, Erik, no."
"So no talk of basic human bodily functions in front of the child, but we're allowed to curse?"
"He's going to be traumatized, by the time you leave this car."
"He's playing with his jet plane, and making a damn racket, he can't hear us."
"They're fighter jet noises, obviously. Oh, that's... eugh, a fighter jet with salivary glands, apparently."
"I've seen you with worse on than a six year old's saliva."
"Erik!"
"Oh, do try not to sound so scandalized, Charles, its only the truth. "
"It's inappr--"
"We could drop the boy off at the mansion."
"If we go to the mansion, then leave again, my carjacking excuse becomes invalid."
"The fact that you're still behind the wheel already discounts grand theft auto."
"Oh, I suppose so, damn. Although, you don't know how to work the hand controls, so if you had me at gunpoint--"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Charles--"
"Ah, well. I'll think of something."
"I'm thinking of something."
"I don't suppose you think of much else. You're coming on a bit strong."
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"I don't think your heart has anything to do with it."
"Charles. Charles, that's... Come now, I wouldn't be here if... You can't think I don't care?"
"Not for lack of trying."
"We're not in bed, but not for lack of trying."
"See? It always comes back to--"
"It's not bedtime yet."
"That's right, Brendan. Erik's just a little sleepy. He'll be having a long night."
vii
"Do you remember the bill I told you about?" Erik asks. Erik is very careful, and very truthful, and also very direct, often to the point of bluntness: to the exclusion of all pleasantries and all propriety. Charles has long since stopped trying to wean him off it, has even longer harbored the secret opinion that all this is simply a part of Erik's charm.
He raises an eyebrow, smiles a little. "You mean the one that died quietly on the Senate floor years ago?"
Erik ignores him, pretends a sudden onslaught of deafness, and really Charles should not be as fond of Erik as he is, in this moment. "It's being brought up again, Charles. It's gaining in popularity, slowly but surely."
"And it'll die again Erik, I'm sure of it." Charles sighs, gives Erik a consoling pat on the knee, but his hand is promptly jostled away, and it is miraculous that Erik can jerk his knee so sharply without effecting the speed of the car. Charles sighs again.
"It won't stay dead forever. Maybe it won't make it this time, or next time, or the time after, but it will make it, someday. It's only a matter of time."
"You don't know that, Erik." Charles feels suddenly very old; this argument suddenly feels, to Charles, tired, a lightbulb left on so long it's beginning to die, to flicker and fail. Charles does not like to play the part of an enabler, but with Erik, as always, he cannot help himself, is compelled inexorably to seek him out, to speak to him: to thrust himself into Erik's orbit and stay there, where he can be close to him, where he can see him and touch him and doesn't have to cast around frantically for his mind before he remembers he's not allowed in, anymore. "You can't know what will happen."
Erik holds the steering wheel like it is a living thing from which he is trying to squeeze the life. When he speaks, Charles can hear the slow grind of his teeth, and remembers suddenly, viscerally, why people fear Erik. "At least I am prepared for the possibility, at least I don't wear the optimistic blinders you should have grown out of years ago, Charles. What will you do if it is passed? Sit on your hands and hum 'God Save the Queen?'"
"Well, I surely won't be standing, if that's what you mean." He doesn't mean to snap at Erik, to say something he knows will strike the most vulnerable parts of Erik's shields and make them sing. He really doesn't, but Erik should know him, should know that Charles, in his heart, is as terrified of the harrowing possibilities as Erik is. When Erik flinches at his words, at the vitriol behind them, at the lingering sting of his own self-blame, Charles does not feel vindicated, triumphant. He only feels tired, feels a deep ache answering from within himself. "Besides," he says, and his tone is an apology, an absolution, "you don't know it will pass. People may lose interest, in the coming years. Look how far civil rights for homosexuals have come, for African-Americans. Back in the sixties, when we were recruiting, we would have had handcuffs slapped on us if we'd been caught at it. We had to sit in whites-only bars in every place we went to south of the Mason-Dixon."
Erik smiles, a wry, mocking thing, and the guilt must have hit him deep, today. "Come now, Charles, you haven't answered me properly. Don't run from the question, old friend."
"I was only trying to--"
"You're running, Charles." He smiles a ruthless, angry smile.
Charles finds he is angry, too, because they keep missing each other, because Erik is not willing, never willing, to meet him halfway. He looks down at his legs, immobile before him: it hurts him, must hurt Erik just as much, when he says, "Not so often, these days."
viii
"So, are you going to tell me why you've reversed our roles this time, Charles?" Erik lounges back in the passenger seat, because he is thrown, caught off guard, but these things happen when he is with Charles and so he is prepared.
Charles smiles at him, encouraging. Bastard. He reads Erik too well, his conclusions too close for comfort: not exact, never exact, but near enough to speed Erik's blood through his fingertips. "We're going to pick up a girl. A very special little girl, and I need your help."
Erik smiles back, now that he's seen the board, knows where his strategy will take him. "My help? Isn't that a throwback. Well, Charles. It's been a while since we've gone recruiting."
Charles smiles, a little wistfully, and something tugs in Erik's gut. "Hasn't it? It will be just like old times, won't it."
Erik's smile turns wicked, and Charles' eyes narrow a moment before Erik says, smug, with his toothiest, most predatory smile, "Well, maybe not just. We'll have to switch positions, when we stop off on the shoulder of the road."
"Erik, really." Charles is blushing, and Erik can't help but follow it down, in his mind's eye, to its inevitable conclusion. He wants to free the buttons on Charles' shirt, to watch the flush spread, to follow it with his hands, with his tongue; he tightens his fingers on the steering wheel instead.
He lets out a slow breath through his nose, hopes Charles doesn't notice. Everything is suddenly very, very bright, and he knows his eyes have dilated. "What? I thought you wanted to remind me of old times. The good old days, perhaps? Isn't that what made those days good, old friend."
Charles sighs and closes his eyes for a moment before fixing them back on the road. Yes, Erik thinks, Definitely wistful, as Charles says, "Erik. Things are different, now. We can't go back."
Erik looks at him for a long moment: a slow, predatory smile. "Maybe you're just scared."
Charles shivers a little, at the look on his face, then seems to remember himself, staring at Erik sadly and shaking his head, so compassionate Erik could punch him in the mouth. "Back then, Erik, it was a gamble. Now, it's just masochistic. There's nothing to win: nothing either of us are willing to give."
"We've already lost. What's one more, of many? A drop in the ocean. Come on, Charles, one more for the road?" Looking at Charles, Erik feels like he did at thirty two, at thirty five, at forty, at fifty; he feels wanton, wrung out, his stomach clenching, but he does not let that bleed into his voice, cannot lose himself in the desperation of wanting. There are things he cannot have, and Charles, the thing he wants most, more than anything else in the world, is one of them. He wants Charles so much, but his life can't be about the things he wants.
"Erik..."
"It won't be the same. I know that, Charles. I... I still want it." Any way I can have it. And what, I ask you, does that say about me? Erik is careful, but Charles has always been his blind spot, the place where he let's himself slip, where he can't help it.
"Alright, Erik. Alright."
They are like broken toys, trying and failing to perform their function, to succeed, when success is impossible, when they only ever come together just to spring apart once again. When they first met, they were young, and vibrant, and brilliant together. But they are not the people they used to be.
ix
The funeral was awful. The death of a child is always, always a tragedy, but the death of Tasha Rhodes was worse than most; three knife wounds in her back at the hands of her own father, who sobbed as he did it, sobbed afterward, sobbed and sobbed and wouldn't stop, said it was for her own good. Charles hates that man, Tasha's father, because he does not have the right. His tears are poison. He does not deserve to cry over the child he killed, the wonderful, beautiful person he stole from the world. He should save the tears for the people who loved her, the people who would miss her as she was, young and gloriously vibrant, not those who longed for the girl they wished she could have been.
The students cried and the mother cried and Storm and Scott and Jean cried, but Charles could not cry, because Charles stayed up three nights in a row preparing the funeral and writing the eulogy and then he had to stand up in front of the entire school, all those tear-streaked faces, and talk about Tasha, who was beautiful, who liked horses, who could shift the earth beneath her feet and who was dead. He's buried students before, of course he has, and whoever said it gets easier with time and instance, that person was a liar.
Erik's voice, for once, is gentle and sad--understanding--and Charles feels closer to him in this moment than he has in a long, long time, because this time they are united in their belief. "Are you alright?"
"No."
Erik reaches over to grab his shoulder, bracing, but only for a moment. They don't talk again, not even when Erik steps out of the car, and Charles can't stop himself from watching Erik's back, straight and proud under that ridiculous cape swishing around his ankles, as he walks away.
x
"Sometimes, Erik, I regret ever having met you." There is a look on Erik's face that Charles cannot place, but it tastes bitter and painful at the back of his mind, sharp and metallic. An ache, a plea, a punishment, like the helmet turned sideways on the floor between their seats, so innocuous, now, with no dark secrets hidden in its shadows. "I'm sorry. That's not... that's not fair. That's not even what I regret, not really. It's just... I've only ever hurt you, haven't I?" He sighs, corrects himself; "We've only ever hurt each other."
"You could ease our pain." Erik says, but already he sounds resigned.
Charles sighs. He is old, and tired. "My life is no longer about my own regrets." What he means is, It's too late, Erik. Perhaps it's always been.
xi
"I don't need you to lift me up into your car, Erik, honestly. If you insist on manhandling me every time you kidnap me, I may have to mutiny, one of these days."
"Maybe I just wanted an excuse to cop a feel."
"I see you're in with the cool crowd now, with the hip new car and your big talk. Rock on with your bad self, Erik, really, it's not inconveniencing me at all."
"Wait. Hold on, stop talking, wait. Is that. Is that boy, that student of yours, dressed in a boy scout's uniform?"
"Yes. Don't worry, your eyes aren't failing you."
"You let your children join the boy scouts, Charles?"
"And why shouldn't I? Survival skills are important."
"But the boy scouts, Charles. It's the fucking Hitler Youth, right here in America!"
"Now, Erik, I don't think--"
"Shut up, Charles. Just shut up, now.
"... Will you be sending them to one of those idiotic gay correction camps if they decide they like their fellow troupe members better than the pretty park ranger? Because the scouts won't take them back until they're good and repressed.
"...But where do they draw the line, I'd like to know. It's a slippery slope. Not that far to fall between 'homosexuals can't join' and 'only blondes with blue eyes who love Jesus can be in our club.'
"... Are you asleep, old man? The least you could do is respond."
"Don't get in a strop, you told me to shut up. I have."
"Well, do speak up. Can't even hold a proper conversation, why do I even speak to you anymore. You're growing extraordinarily dull in your old age."
xii
"Why have you come here, Erik?" Charles is resigned. He only feels tired, tired and lost and angry, futilely angry with the world, and he wishes that he and Erik were star crossed lovers, so he didn't have to live with the blame. "Haven't you done enough. Haven't I been humiliated--dehumanized--enough? Can't you leave me be?"
Erik looks genuinely confused, slightly indignant, and Charles hates him, is disgusted by him, hopes never to see him again, and perhaps if he says it enough he will wake one day to find that it's true. "Dehumanized? Charles..."
Charles takes a quick breath, and another, and steadies himself. His voice is quiet, inflectionless as he speaks, and he knows, knows this will unnerve Erik more than anything else, and is fiercely glad of it. "You and Stryker both used me, as a tool, as a means to an end. You took from me my... my judgement, my free will. What more do you want? What more could you possibly want?" He sighs, scrubs a hand down his face. He feels exhausted, bled dry. "I ask again, Erik; why are you here?"
Erik takes a shaky breath, won't look Charles in the eye as he says, disjointedly, "I just... I heard. That you were in the hospital and I, I wanted to make sure that you were all right."
Charles feels a rush of hysterical, insane laughter building behind his sternum and he clamps down on it, chokes it out. "You left me to die, Erik. You left me where I would have killed all those people, helpless to stop myself, and died still trapped in the void where all their minds used to be. And... Jean, Erik, she's--" he takes a deep breath and blinks twice, rapidly. "I honestly, truly do not see why you would care, that I was in the bloody fucking hospital, when you left me for dead! You'll have to enlighten me, I'm afraid, as I've been proven a fool. For trusting you to, to treat me like a person, to give a flying fuck whether I live or die, but you... No. Just... why? Are you here?"
In this moment, Charles is thirty again, young and alone, in the sand on a beach with a bullet in his back. He is an old man, in a wheelchair in a room with a child he failed. He is twelve years old with bruises pressed into his arm and his mother's cold indifference pressed into his mind, and he is alone and terrified and Kurt is refastening his belt and turning away, and Charles' back burns, burns like it's on fire, and Kurt is asking if he learned his lesson but he can't for the life of him remember what it was.
Erik is beginning to sound panicked, desperate. "I didn't. Didn't know. I didn't know! Charles, I did not know that the dam was going to break, how could I have known? When I left, it was still structurally sound."
"You took both the helicopters." Charles' voice is still unnaturally flat, and the frantic look on Erik's face intensifies.
"I didn't want to be followed! Your damn mutt Logan would chase me to the ends of the Earth."
Charles feels his patience straining, on the verge of snapping, and if he lets it get that far it will lash out at both of them, and he really hates himself, despises himself at the basest level, for giving a damn whether Erik gets hurt. "If you've come to insult my family, Erik, you may as well leave. Have you come to rub salt in my wounds? To add insult to injury? Because really, I haven't the inclination--"
Erik waves his hands, movements erratic, which is odd because Erik is so careful, so precise and controlled. "No, Charles, listen, I just wanted to see that you... that you weren't hurt."
"I AM HURT!" Charles screams, with all the helpless rage of the twelve year old, the agony of the thirty year old, the despair of the old man. He sighs, and he is defeated, resigned, exhausted. "But it doesn't matter. You don't care."
Erik's voice is a fierce whisper when he says, "Of course it matters." And then, in the span of a single moment that feels, as it happens, like a thousand years of silence, of emptiness, Erik is shoving the helmet off his head with one hand and steadying himself on Charles' seat back with the other. The helmet ricochets off the steering wheel and lands on the floor, spinning wildly on it's side, like a top. Erik is scrambling over the center console, scrabbling at Charles' arms to keep his balance as his knees come down on either side of Charles' hips. His hands stay tight on Charles' upper arms, wrinkling the fabric of his shirtsleeves, and he is sobbing into Charles' mouth, whole body shaking with it as he gasps against his lips, "Oh God, mein Gott, you bastard, you bastard. I'm sorry, I'm so--I love you so fucking much I love you, Gott, Charles, Charles, please." And it is so easy for Charles to knuckle back under, to press his fingertips into Erik's hips to keep him grounded, to stop him falling, just to feel the warm press of his skin beneath his sweater.
Charles sees in this man the thirty two year old, touch-starved and lonely, the fifty year old, bitter but determined, the old man, begging forgiveness. And he knows--knows-- that when they meet again it will be business as usual, they will not speak of this and Erik will make elaborate, disastrous plans and Charles will stand against him, and it's not enough, it really isn't, but it has to be. This kind of blind, shaking, wanton love is supposed to hold people together, across infinities, across the great divide of death, but Erik and Charles come together now only to spring apart, because their love is real and true and desperate but it isn't enough. Charles almost, almost wishes he never knew Erik loved him like that, so he could keep believing that revelation would have changed something, would have forced the world to bend.
Erik is still shaking, still gasping, his forehead pressed against Charles' collarbone and his warm, ragged breath dampening Charles' shirt over his shoulder. He must be uncomfortable with the gearshift pressing into his hipbone, his knees wedged between Charles and the door and Charles and the console, respectively. They are not young anymore, they should not do this, but they can't help it. They take what they can get because it's not enough, never enough, but it has to be. Charles presses his face into Erik's hair, strokes his cheeks with his fingertips, gently, gently, because this moment, and the two of them as they are right here, right now, in Charles' old car in the corner of the hospital parking lot, is a fragile thing. It will break, because everything breaks down eventually.
They are not star-crossed lovers. They are two old men in a station wagon, with a wheelchair in the boot and a metal helmet clanging underfoot as they cling to each other. People pass by, close on either side of the car, but no one sees them. Charles won't let them.