Fic: Any Day Now
Title: Any Day Now
Fandom: X-Men First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3800
Warnings: Crossdressing
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: Raven's smiling so hard her face has to hurt, and he can feel the wash of her amusement. It's mildly humiliating.
AN: Written for kink bingo for the 'crossdressing' square.
It takes Charles three hours to get home.
That includes the time he spends sitting uncomfortably in a cab, with his hand pressed over his eyes. His feet hurt, the shoes are heavier than they have any right to be, and he's extremely uncomfortable. It's been a long day, a very long day and he'd quite like it to be over now.
He's left with the long, slow walk to the house, over the gravel driveway - who on earth decided a gravel driveway was a good idea? His feet do not think it’s a good idea. He's perfectly capable of getting to his room without being spotted, if he wants to. In fact, he's perfectly capable of walking past everyone he meets without being spotted. Leaving this whole episode as a rather unpleasant reminder of the wonderful, and yet still occasionally vindictive, inventiveness of nature. One that no one will ever know about, except for him.
Raven is in his office, and he could avoid her perfectly easily. He could head straight to his room, get changed, leave the entire experience as exactly that, an experience. But things between them have been...stilted lately. She's been frustrated with him, angry at him, disappointed in him, and he's not going to pretend he hasn't deserved some of it. There's something to be said, occasionally, for letting other people laugh at your mistakes. For knowing that even the best of intentions, and preparation, can end in disaster. He truly believes that she needs to know that he's capable of making a mess, as much as anyone else.
He pushes open the door, shoes thumping against it, and waits for her to turn from the window to face him. He can feel her surprise, the twist of amusement, eyebrows climbing, mouth flicking up at the corner. The very first thing she says -
"I like your dress."
Charles sighs, and pushes the door to his office shut behind him. "I'm so glad. Because there was very little choice, and I'm somewhat behind in the current fashion trends."
She folds her arms, perches against the desk and looks him over. "This is one story I'm going to hear. No excuses, no refusals, if you tell me nothing else for the rest of your life, you have to tell me this."
Charles sighs and looks down at himself. He's been avoiding that, mostly, since he'd performed a very hurried and awkward redressing in an unoccupied office. The dress comes somewhere vaguely in the region of mid-thigh. Which is one of the small favours he doesn't quite feel happy about counting. He really is trying to be mature about this, but he's tired and irritable, and really not in the mood. Also, the middle of the dress seems to have been designed to flatter a waist he doesn't have. Leaving him with a very confused posture, which still isn't quite sure where his ribs are supposed to be.
"Molecular destabilisation," he admits. "Though that's just a guess. And for future reference, you should avoid surprising anyone with the ability to separate atoms at the molecular level, and then be grateful that they have the self-control to leave biological organisms intact."
"Uh huh," Raven agrees. "So, I'm going to assume by all that, that you got your clothes destabilised."
Charles will not look sadly down at himself again. Also, he will accept that today was his own fault and no one else's. "Something like that, yes."
"And there were no pants?" Raven asks, as if they can often be found randomly lying around, in case there's a shortage. Or an emergency.
"There were no pants," he says firmly. "I looked."
"You couldn't convince some passing guy to give you his pants?" she suggests.
"No -" Charles resists the urge to press finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose. "No, I thought when it came to either wearing the dress and blending in, or stripping some unfortunate passer-by, that the former was the lesser of two evils." Not that he hadn't been tempted, of course. Though the fact that the security guard had been a good four inches over six feet had rather made that moot anyway.
Raven is enjoying this far too much. "So you just made everyone think you were some woman, just walking home from the office?"
"You make it sound like I did something utterly mad, rather than sensible, under the circumstances." Charles realises he's snapping. But it hasn't exactly been the best day ever, and he feels like he's been walking all afternoon.
Raven seems to be most interested in his irritation. "You made yourself hot, didn't you?" she says suddenly, with a nod of understanding.
He knows what she means, instantly of course. Because he was the one who'd had to deal with it.
"In retrospect, yes, that may have been a miscalculation on my part."
Raven nods. "Yeah, hot girl, walking back from the office on a nice day, barefoot. I'm amazed you got home at all."
"Do you have any idea how many people I was already dealing with? And I couldn't wear the shoes, I may be shorter than average, but I'm not a size four." Charles is tempted to throw the shoes somewhere in his office, possibly in the trash. He has no idea why he's still carrying them, only it had been easier to broadcast a complete picture, rather than awkward pieces.
"So why didn't you just make people think you were wearing pants?" she asks.
He'd asked himself that an hour into his journey, and honestly he couldn't think of a good answer then either.
"You say that like it would have been my obvious first thought, after having my clothes melted. I'm sorry to say that I was thinking more in the realms of a speedy exit." He lifts a hand and gestures at himself. "No, that's a lie, the very first thing I was thinking was, 'how do I get into this blasted thing?'"
"I told you, you should have taken Erik."
Charles isn't sure Erik would have been any help in the situation, if he's honest. No matter how much he enjoys his company, having him around a nervous teenage girl who could destabilise matter. Erik isn't exactly the voice of calm and reason.
In all likelihood they would have both ended up naked.
"I don't think I could have convinced him to put on a dress," Charles says, rather than follow that line of thought any further.
Raven's smiling so hard her face has to hurt, and he can feel the wash of her amusement. It's mildly humiliating.
Charles sits down in the desk chair. Raven's immediate mental flinch of horrified surprise makes him tug the dress down at the front.
"I didn't realise the dress was all you were wearing," she says carefully, so close to laughter he can see her shoulders shaking.
"Ten seconds and I'm going to make you forget this entire conversation," he threatens, or promises. It's a fantastic idea, come to think of it.
She shakes her head, a threat of 'you wouldn't dare' floating just out of reach.
Charles puts the shoes on the desk. He's very glad they didn't fit, if he's honest. Because staring at them at eye level gives him a new appreciation for the natural curve of the human foot. Which these monstrosities are clearly not interested in.
Raven picks one up, turns it over. "It's a shame," she says with a smile. "An extra three inches goes a long way."
"Very funny," he says dryly. Because height was perhaps the one thing he didn’t find himself in need of today.
She drops them back on the desk, with a hard, unpleasant 'clack.'
"If it's any consolation, you look -"
Charles frowns. "I'm well aware of what I look like, thank you."
There's a quiet, considering noise, and a shake of head, blonde hair flicking across Raven's face briefly. "No, I don't think you are." She's still measuring him, head tipped to the side, and there's an invitation in it, or something like it, so he looks.
The dress apparently suits him.
Fantastic.
He leaves her, muttering to herself, and still grossly lacking in sympathy or support. He takes the shoes with him, he's not entirely sure why, possibly some sort of instinctive need to hide the evidence. Or perhaps destroy the evidence.
He realises half way up the stairs that his day won't come to an end quite yet. Because Eric is in his room. Charles can feeling the combined tension, and low simmering anger, layered over something which feels uncomfortably close to hurt. He knows he's going to regret thinking he could see to this one, very close, and by all accounts non-threatening mutant by himself.
He's really far too old for a lecture, and too tired for Erik’s painful disappointment.
He could ignore him, he could make Erik ignore him, until he's presentable at least. But he promised he wouldn't, and it's really such a ridiculous thing. He can cope with teasing. He's a grown man and he's fairly sure there will be far worse than this in their future. So he pushes the door open, finds Erik glaring at one of his bookcases. Charles would have known he was unhappy just by the stiff length of his spine. Feeling it does bring a certain amount of guilt though.
He drops the heels, loudly, on the floor. Which gets Erik's attention more than his entrance. He's fully prepared to give Erik the opportunity to be angry, he deserves it. He's expecting it.
What he gets instead is utter silence.
"Yes, I've had a very long day, and it's absolutely hilarious -" Charles stops talking, the rest of the sentence turning to air. Because what he's getting from Erik isn't anger or amusement. It's a very different and unexpected emotion.
He's felt it before, of course, the low simmer of fascination, arousal and curiousity that's been between them almost from the beginning. This is not a low simmer though, it's a curl of heat, focused, and sharp.
Erik's suddenly glaring at him, like he's done it on purpose, like he's to blame, and Charles has a dizzying second to understand, to explain -
He's honestly not sure if he makes it through a single word, before Erik's across the room, and he's being ruthlessly shoved into the wall, hard enough to knock all the air out of him. He knows Erik's going to kiss him, it's a burn of intent which is so loud it almost takes his legs out from under him. But he's still not prepared for it. For the warm, hard, necessary push of mouth against his own.
Erik's hands slide up from his waist, over his ribs to catch his neck, holding his head still. The kiss opens out, becomes wet and deep and vicious. It drags on and on, like neither of them know how to do anything else. There are fingers pushing through the damp ends of Charles's hair, loose and then tight, as if Erik can't help himself. Charles has no control over the way his hands grip everything in reach, not entirely sure whether that was his own demand, or Erik's, and that's mildly disconcerting. Why on earth hadn't they done this before?
He doesn't realise Erik's pulled away, until he's gasping.
"You are impossible," Erik snarls.
Charles's mouth, tingling and slick and ill-used, refuses to form words in response.
"I had good intentions, Charles, I did." Erik's hands won't stop moving, like they want to grip tight everywhere the material clings, everywhere he's pressed into the dress. "For the first time in a very long time, I had good intentions. And then you come back looking like -" the sentence breaks on a growl, and there's a strong thigh working its way between his own, pushing the hem of the dress up, which is a very distracting sensation.
Charles knows he should say something to that, should acknowledge Erik's admission of it, at least. But Erik's touching him, freely, shamelessly, hands sliding on his bare thighs, and the strange constricted side of his waist, squeezing where his ribs are. There's nothing in his head but white noise. Charles wasn't aware you could be breathless inside your own mind, until now. It's like a noisy clench of thoughts, too bright and sharp and overwhelming to register as anything but sound and colour and Erik.
If the turbulent mess of arousal inside Erik's head wasn't a clue, then the solid, aggressive line of his erection would have gone some way towards explaining. Felt from both sides with a dizzying sort of intensity.
Erik's hands, bigger than he has any reference for, are sliding up under the tight clutch of the skirt, hot on his thighs, indulging in them, in a way that forces Charles's exhale to come out as a groan. Erik wants him like this, wants him bruised, lust-drunk and confined from thighs to shoulders in dark cotton. He wants to shove the skirt up and ruin him, while Charles makes soft, broken noises and opens around him - dear God.
Erik.
Yes.
One large hand catches the back of his knee, hikes him up the wall until he's kissing down, just past eye level, one hand twisting hard enough to be uncomfortable in Erik's hair.
"I'm going to fuck you right here," Erik says simply, voice a wreck. "If you would like to object, do it now."
Charles is not sure anyone could object to that. And when he says nothing, thinks nothing, in response, Erik kisses him again. They're so close, so twisted up together that Charles can see it, in perfect clarity - fingers stretching him open, the wet slick push of it. The bow of his back against the wall, press and push of cock all the way inside, until he can't breathe - he clenches a fist in the hair at the back of Erik's neck, and nearly chokes on his next breath.
"Yes, I want that." The words come out in a rush, barely intelligible, barely sane.
All of it.
Erik.
He's half-caught in arousal which isn't his own, struggling to think around it, when it's threaded through everything. When he can feel Erik's hands, both on his thighs and curled around them. Nothing left to do but wrap them round Erik's waist, an awkward catch and squeeze.
Erik makes a noise like he's been punched. Charles is clawing at the material of his shirt, strangled, breathless demand that's half noise and half thought. The dress pushes up over the naked curve of his arse, and he can't remember the last time he felt so exposed. The world suddenly moving far too fast underneath him.
He'd always been aware they could end up here. Their friendship, easy and intimate in a way he's never understood. But he'd always assumed they would drift together eventually, a slow winding of tension, and closeness. Until they were helpless to do anything but end up in bed together.
Charles had never thought it would happen like this. The impatient, frustrated, aggressive brutality of it, that's doing its best to smash every thought into pieces. The way Erik is fighting the simple, overwhelming urge to push inside him, and take him against the wall.
Then stop fighting.
He feels drunk, skin too hot, mind clawing at the reckless urge to hurry him on further, to refuse the pause to find something to use as lubricant, to let spit and enthusiasm serve. Because he can't fucking stop long enough to think about anything else. There's a sharp stab of guilt after the thought. Which is how he knows they're not his thoughts, not him, and it's getting so hard to tell. Charles has a brief, terrible moment of fear that they'll get tangled up irrevocably. But then it's gone, washed away in red. He agrees, absolutely, he doesn't want to stop touching, doesn't want to wait. He needs everything now.
He's very glad indeed that Erik ignores - or can't hear - the dizzy stream of thought. That someone knows what they're doing.
Where?
It's more than a word, too loud, and smeared through with explanatory images, filthy, obscene images.
Charles forces himself to think.
Suntan lotion, third drawer.
There's a growl of annoyance and Charles is left balanced on his toes, drifting without touch, for far too many seconds. Shivering in the chill of the room, dress pushed up over his hips, throat damp with sweat.
He groans out loud when the warmth of Erik's body presses into him again, mouth hot and rough on his own like he can't help himself. Erik coaxes him up again, while he kisses him. Until Charles has one hand curled around the arch of a bookshelf, the other tangled in Erik's hair, one leg round his waist, the other pressed into the wall, Erik's hand tight under his knee.
It takes a moment of shifting, a shaky, impatient balancing act. Charles can hear the clank of a belt, the soft sound of swearing, and the click of plastic. Before Erik's fingers are inside him, and the world goes strange at the edges, the sudden physical pull warring with the mental, as he stretches, opens around the push. He's gasping and it sounds too loud, wounded. The rough, easy, dirty physicality of it, pulling him closer and closer to incoherence.
Erik tugs on his hair, a demand for attention, for focus. He understands.
You're destroying me. If you intend to fuck me, make it soon.
You are obscenely tight.
Charles isn't sure whether that's a compliment, or a warning. But Erik wraps Charles's hand tight around the bookshelf above him, lifts his thigh up higher, and tilts his hips. It's too much, too rushed, the slippery, greedy push far quicker than he's ready for. Thoughts scattered by a thin dart of pain. Erik hisses like he can feel it too. But Charles stalls any attempt to stop. Fingers pulling, throat forcing desperate, broken noises out of his mouth.
Push of command, he can feel guilty about it later.
Don't you dare stop.
It should be awkward, it should be impossible. God knows how Erik's holding him up. Charles can't do anything to help, full attention just on keeping his balance, holding what he can of his weight while Erik pins him there, and fucks up into him with short, hard pushes. It's uncomfortable, and awkward, and it's shredding every nerve he owns into pieces. He's shaking, nails drawing blood at the back of Erik's neck. There's a question as to whether gravity still exists, whether anything exists outside the motion, the fury, the absolute burning desperation of it all.
Erik is incredible like this. There's a savage beauty to him, though Charles knows he never intended them to be like this. That he would have held back, he would have resisted the simple, selfish aggression. This is raw want, all niceties and kindness stripped away. The idea of Charles wanting anything else but exactly this, Erik, with all his flaws and sharp edges perfectly intact, is unthinkable.
Charles pushes his free hand into Erik's hair and kisses him, until he runs out of breath. Then he tips his head back to groan, lets Erik's teeth sink into his throat. Reassurance is easy.
I wanted everything. Everything you are, my friend.
Though Charles thinks they are beyond friends, that they will never be just friends again.
The wall is brutally, uncomfortably hard against his back, but he doesn't protest at all about having his shoulders slammed into it, repeatedly.
There's the whining screech of metal wrenched beyond its tolerances, the splatter of impossible liquid against wood, and the crunch of destruction from several points in the room. Charles can feel it in a way he shouldn't be able to, an echo of familiarity, of understanding.
It would be so easy to...
...slip inside. It's like falling, far too easy, frighteningly easy, and then they're tangling together. Sliding towards incoherence. For a second Charles has a grasp on absolutely everything. He can see what they are together. What they could be together. More than that, he can see the vast stretch of it all, outside the both of them.
He doesn't need machines to reach it.
The only sensation left is roughness, metal-sharp edges and pleasure.
Then they let go.
Charles is panting into the curve of Erik's neck, fingers numb. Every breath saws through his throat like he's been screaming. His hand uncurls, drops to Erik's back, then can't quite let go. Erik very carefully eases free of him, and Charles's legs relax, slip. The floor is so far away, but Erik’s hands catch him, and carefully set him on the floor again. That's when Charles discovers that his legs, in fact, don't quite work, and the dress is ruined. Is it his dress now? It must be, he supposes.
Erik's swearing and pushing his hair out of his face. Calling his name quietly, like he's afraid he's broken him. Charles isn't quite sure that he hasn't yet. He feels very sore, and strange, sticky and utterly debauched, mind humming like someone carved into it, left it raw and wet.
"I thought you might ask about the dress," Charles says quietly, slowly, and that doesn't make an awful lot of sense, even to him. Erik is still touching his hair, as if he's been given permission and now can't quite make himself stop. And Charles thinks perhaps he stole that thought.
He lays his hands on Erik's chest, since he believes they are past the point where they can't touch each other. Though he thinks Erik reads something in the gesture that he never intends, because he takes a step back, frowning.
"I'm sorry." Erik's voice is raw.
"Don't you dare apologise," Charles says fiercely, bruised by the very idea of it.
Not for this, never for this.
Charles takes a shaky step forward, on bare feet, draws the warmth of Erik back. Crowded into the wall once again, and there are hands on Charles's waist again, lost for anywhere else to go.
"I think I'm the one who went a little too far," Charles admits. "I don't usually get so tangled up. I don't push." It's a lie, of course. He did push, just for a second, lost somewhere in the desperation of it.
I never knew how much I wanted it.
There's a huff of laughter, and Erik's forehead is heavy against his own.
"You didn't make me do anything I didn't want," he says roughly.
You wouldn't know, Charles thinks, helplessly. You'd never know.
Fandom: X-Men First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3800
Warnings: Crossdressing
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: Raven's smiling so hard her face has to hurt, and he can feel the wash of her amusement. It's mildly humiliating.
AN: Written for kink bingo for the 'crossdressing' square.
It takes Charles three hours to get home.
That includes the time he spends sitting uncomfortably in a cab, with his hand pressed over his eyes. His feet hurt, the shoes are heavier than they have any right to be, and he's extremely uncomfortable. It's been a long day, a very long day and he'd quite like it to be over now.
He's left with the long, slow walk to the house, over the gravel driveway - who on earth decided a gravel driveway was a good idea? His feet do not think it’s a good idea. He's perfectly capable of getting to his room without being spotted, if he wants to. In fact, he's perfectly capable of walking past everyone he meets without being spotted. Leaving this whole episode as a rather unpleasant reminder of the wonderful, and yet still occasionally vindictive, inventiveness of nature. One that no one will ever know about, except for him.
Raven is in his office, and he could avoid her perfectly easily. He could head straight to his room, get changed, leave the entire experience as exactly that, an experience. But things between them have been...stilted lately. She's been frustrated with him, angry at him, disappointed in him, and he's not going to pretend he hasn't deserved some of it. There's something to be said, occasionally, for letting other people laugh at your mistakes. For knowing that even the best of intentions, and preparation, can end in disaster. He truly believes that she needs to know that he's capable of making a mess, as much as anyone else.
He pushes open the door, shoes thumping against it, and waits for her to turn from the window to face him. He can feel her surprise, the twist of amusement, eyebrows climbing, mouth flicking up at the corner. The very first thing she says -
"I like your dress."
Charles sighs, and pushes the door to his office shut behind him. "I'm so glad. Because there was very little choice, and I'm somewhat behind in the current fashion trends."
She folds her arms, perches against the desk and looks him over. "This is one story I'm going to hear. No excuses, no refusals, if you tell me nothing else for the rest of your life, you have to tell me this."
Charles sighs and looks down at himself. He's been avoiding that, mostly, since he'd performed a very hurried and awkward redressing in an unoccupied office. The dress comes somewhere vaguely in the region of mid-thigh. Which is one of the small favours he doesn't quite feel happy about counting. He really is trying to be mature about this, but he's tired and irritable, and really not in the mood. Also, the middle of the dress seems to have been designed to flatter a waist he doesn't have. Leaving him with a very confused posture, which still isn't quite sure where his ribs are supposed to be.
"Molecular destabilisation," he admits. "Though that's just a guess. And for future reference, you should avoid surprising anyone with the ability to separate atoms at the molecular level, and then be grateful that they have the self-control to leave biological organisms intact."
"Uh huh," Raven agrees. "So, I'm going to assume by all that, that you got your clothes destabilised."
Charles will not look sadly down at himself again. Also, he will accept that today was his own fault and no one else's. "Something like that, yes."
"And there were no pants?" Raven asks, as if they can often be found randomly lying around, in case there's a shortage. Or an emergency.
"There were no pants," he says firmly. "I looked."
"You couldn't convince some passing guy to give you his pants?" she suggests.
"No -" Charles resists the urge to press finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose. "No, I thought when it came to either wearing the dress and blending in, or stripping some unfortunate passer-by, that the former was the lesser of two evils." Not that he hadn't been tempted, of course. Though the fact that the security guard had been a good four inches over six feet had rather made that moot anyway.
Raven is enjoying this far too much. "So you just made everyone think you were some woman, just walking home from the office?"
"You make it sound like I did something utterly mad, rather than sensible, under the circumstances." Charles realises he's snapping. But it hasn't exactly been the best day ever, and he feels like he's been walking all afternoon.
Raven seems to be most interested in his irritation. "You made yourself hot, didn't you?" she says suddenly, with a nod of understanding.
He knows what she means, instantly of course. Because he was the one who'd had to deal with it.
"In retrospect, yes, that may have been a miscalculation on my part."
Raven nods. "Yeah, hot girl, walking back from the office on a nice day, barefoot. I'm amazed you got home at all."
"Do you have any idea how many people I was already dealing with? And I couldn't wear the shoes, I may be shorter than average, but I'm not a size four." Charles is tempted to throw the shoes somewhere in his office, possibly in the trash. He has no idea why he's still carrying them, only it had been easier to broadcast a complete picture, rather than awkward pieces.
"So why didn't you just make people think you were wearing pants?" she asks.
He'd asked himself that an hour into his journey, and honestly he couldn't think of a good answer then either.
"You say that like it would have been my obvious first thought, after having my clothes melted. I'm sorry to say that I was thinking more in the realms of a speedy exit." He lifts a hand and gestures at himself. "No, that's a lie, the very first thing I was thinking was, 'how do I get into this blasted thing?'"
"I told you, you should have taken Erik."
Charles isn't sure Erik would have been any help in the situation, if he's honest. No matter how much he enjoys his company, having him around a nervous teenage girl who could destabilise matter. Erik isn't exactly the voice of calm and reason.
In all likelihood they would have both ended up naked.
"I don't think I could have convinced him to put on a dress," Charles says, rather than follow that line of thought any further.
Raven's smiling so hard her face has to hurt, and he can feel the wash of her amusement. It's mildly humiliating.
Charles sits down in the desk chair. Raven's immediate mental flinch of horrified surprise makes him tug the dress down at the front.
"I didn't realise the dress was all you were wearing," she says carefully, so close to laughter he can see her shoulders shaking.
"Ten seconds and I'm going to make you forget this entire conversation," he threatens, or promises. It's a fantastic idea, come to think of it.
She shakes her head, a threat of 'you wouldn't dare' floating just out of reach.
Charles puts the shoes on the desk. He's very glad they didn't fit, if he's honest. Because staring at them at eye level gives him a new appreciation for the natural curve of the human foot. Which these monstrosities are clearly not interested in.
Raven picks one up, turns it over. "It's a shame," she says with a smile. "An extra three inches goes a long way."
"Very funny," he says dryly. Because height was perhaps the one thing he didn’t find himself in need of today.
She drops them back on the desk, with a hard, unpleasant 'clack.'
"If it's any consolation, you look -"
Charles frowns. "I'm well aware of what I look like, thank you."
There's a quiet, considering noise, and a shake of head, blonde hair flicking across Raven's face briefly. "No, I don't think you are." She's still measuring him, head tipped to the side, and there's an invitation in it, or something like it, so he looks.
The dress apparently suits him.
Fantastic.
He leaves her, muttering to herself, and still grossly lacking in sympathy or support. He takes the shoes with him, he's not entirely sure why, possibly some sort of instinctive need to hide the evidence. Or perhaps destroy the evidence.
He realises half way up the stairs that his day won't come to an end quite yet. Because Eric is in his room. Charles can feeling the combined tension, and low simmering anger, layered over something which feels uncomfortably close to hurt. He knows he's going to regret thinking he could see to this one, very close, and by all accounts non-threatening mutant by himself.
He's really far too old for a lecture, and too tired for Erik’s painful disappointment.
He could ignore him, he could make Erik ignore him, until he's presentable at least. But he promised he wouldn't, and it's really such a ridiculous thing. He can cope with teasing. He's a grown man and he's fairly sure there will be far worse than this in their future. So he pushes the door open, finds Erik glaring at one of his bookcases. Charles would have known he was unhappy just by the stiff length of his spine. Feeling it does bring a certain amount of guilt though.
He drops the heels, loudly, on the floor. Which gets Erik's attention more than his entrance. He's fully prepared to give Erik the opportunity to be angry, he deserves it. He's expecting it.
What he gets instead is utter silence.
"Yes, I've had a very long day, and it's absolutely hilarious -" Charles stops talking, the rest of the sentence turning to air. Because what he's getting from Erik isn't anger or amusement. It's a very different and unexpected emotion.
He's felt it before, of course, the low simmer of fascination, arousal and curiousity that's been between them almost from the beginning. This is not a low simmer though, it's a curl of heat, focused, and sharp.
Erik's suddenly glaring at him, like he's done it on purpose, like he's to blame, and Charles has a dizzying second to understand, to explain -
He's honestly not sure if he makes it through a single word, before Erik's across the room, and he's being ruthlessly shoved into the wall, hard enough to knock all the air out of him. He knows Erik's going to kiss him, it's a burn of intent which is so loud it almost takes his legs out from under him. But he's still not prepared for it. For the warm, hard, necessary push of mouth against his own.
Erik's hands slide up from his waist, over his ribs to catch his neck, holding his head still. The kiss opens out, becomes wet and deep and vicious. It drags on and on, like neither of them know how to do anything else. There are fingers pushing through the damp ends of Charles's hair, loose and then tight, as if Erik can't help himself. Charles has no control over the way his hands grip everything in reach, not entirely sure whether that was his own demand, or Erik's, and that's mildly disconcerting. Why on earth hadn't they done this before?
He doesn't realise Erik's pulled away, until he's gasping.
"You are impossible," Erik snarls.
Charles's mouth, tingling and slick and ill-used, refuses to form words in response.
"I had good intentions, Charles, I did." Erik's hands won't stop moving, like they want to grip tight everywhere the material clings, everywhere he's pressed into the dress. "For the first time in a very long time, I had good intentions. And then you come back looking like -" the sentence breaks on a growl, and there's a strong thigh working its way between his own, pushing the hem of the dress up, which is a very distracting sensation.
Charles knows he should say something to that, should acknowledge Erik's admission of it, at least. But Erik's touching him, freely, shamelessly, hands sliding on his bare thighs, and the strange constricted side of his waist, squeezing where his ribs are. There's nothing in his head but white noise. Charles wasn't aware you could be breathless inside your own mind, until now. It's like a noisy clench of thoughts, too bright and sharp and overwhelming to register as anything but sound and colour and Erik.
If the turbulent mess of arousal inside Erik's head wasn't a clue, then the solid, aggressive line of his erection would have gone some way towards explaining. Felt from both sides with a dizzying sort of intensity.
Erik's hands, bigger than he has any reference for, are sliding up under the tight clutch of the skirt, hot on his thighs, indulging in them, in a way that forces Charles's exhale to come out as a groan. Erik wants him like this, wants him bruised, lust-drunk and confined from thighs to shoulders in dark cotton. He wants to shove the skirt up and ruin him, while Charles makes soft, broken noises and opens around him - dear God.
Erik.
Yes.
One large hand catches the back of his knee, hikes him up the wall until he's kissing down, just past eye level, one hand twisting hard enough to be uncomfortable in Erik's hair.
"I'm going to fuck you right here," Erik says simply, voice a wreck. "If you would like to object, do it now."
Charles is not sure anyone could object to that. And when he says nothing, thinks nothing, in response, Erik kisses him again. They're so close, so twisted up together that Charles can see it, in perfect clarity - fingers stretching him open, the wet slick push of it. The bow of his back against the wall, press and push of cock all the way inside, until he can't breathe - he clenches a fist in the hair at the back of Erik's neck, and nearly chokes on his next breath.
"Yes, I want that." The words come out in a rush, barely intelligible, barely sane.
All of it.
Erik.
He's half-caught in arousal which isn't his own, struggling to think around it, when it's threaded through everything. When he can feel Erik's hands, both on his thighs and curled around them. Nothing left to do but wrap them round Erik's waist, an awkward catch and squeeze.
Erik makes a noise like he's been punched. Charles is clawing at the material of his shirt, strangled, breathless demand that's half noise and half thought. The dress pushes up over the naked curve of his arse, and he can't remember the last time he felt so exposed. The world suddenly moving far too fast underneath him.
He'd always been aware they could end up here. Their friendship, easy and intimate in a way he's never understood. But he'd always assumed they would drift together eventually, a slow winding of tension, and closeness. Until they were helpless to do anything but end up in bed together.
Charles had never thought it would happen like this. The impatient, frustrated, aggressive brutality of it, that's doing its best to smash every thought into pieces. The way Erik is fighting the simple, overwhelming urge to push inside him, and take him against the wall.
Then stop fighting.
He feels drunk, skin too hot, mind clawing at the reckless urge to hurry him on further, to refuse the pause to find something to use as lubricant, to let spit and enthusiasm serve. Because he can't fucking stop long enough to think about anything else. There's a sharp stab of guilt after the thought. Which is how he knows they're not his thoughts, not him, and it's getting so hard to tell. Charles has a brief, terrible moment of fear that they'll get tangled up irrevocably. But then it's gone, washed away in red. He agrees, absolutely, he doesn't want to stop touching, doesn't want to wait. He needs everything now.
He's very glad indeed that Erik ignores - or can't hear - the dizzy stream of thought. That someone knows what they're doing.
Where?
It's more than a word, too loud, and smeared through with explanatory images, filthy, obscene images.
Charles forces himself to think.
Suntan lotion, third drawer.
There's a growl of annoyance and Charles is left balanced on his toes, drifting without touch, for far too many seconds. Shivering in the chill of the room, dress pushed up over his hips, throat damp with sweat.
He groans out loud when the warmth of Erik's body presses into him again, mouth hot and rough on his own like he can't help himself. Erik coaxes him up again, while he kisses him. Until Charles has one hand curled around the arch of a bookshelf, the other tangled in Erik's hair, one leg round his waist, the other pressed into the wall, Erik's hand tight under his knee.
It takes a moment of shifting, a shaky, impatient balancing act. Charles can hear the clank of a belt, the soft sound of swearing, and the click of plastic. Before Erik's fingers are inside him, and the world goes strange at the edges, the sudden physical pull warring with the mental, as he stretches, opens around the push. He's gasping and it sounds too loud, wounded. The rough, easy, dirty physicality of it, pulling him closer and closer to incoherence.
Erik tugs on his hair, a demand for attention, for focus. He understands.
You're destroying me. If you intend to fuck me, make it soon.
You are obscenely tight.
Charles isn't sure whether that's a compliment, or a warning. But Erik wraps Charles's hand tight around the bookshelf above him, lifts his thigh up higher, and tilts his hips. It's too much, too rushed, the slippery, greedy push far quicker than he's ready for. Thoughts scattered by a thin dart of pain. Erik hisses like he can feel it too. But Charles stalls any attempt to stop. Fingers pulling, throat forcing desperate, broken noises out of his mouth.
Push of command, he can feel guilty about it later.
Don't you dare stop.
It should be awkward, it should be impossible. God knows how Erik's holding him up. Charles can't do anything to help, full attention just on keeping his balance, holding what he can of his weight while Erik pins him there, and fucks up into him with short, hard pushes. It's uncomfortable, and awkward, and it's shredding every nerve he owns into pieces. He's shaking, nails drawing blood at the back of Erik's neck. There's a question as to whether gravity still exists, whether anything exists outside the motion, the fury, the absolute burning desperation of it all.
Erik is incredible like this. There's a savage beauty to him, though Charles knows he never intended them to be like this. That he would have held back, he would have resisted the simple, selfish aggression. This is raw want, all niceties and kindness stripped away. The idea of Charles wanting anything else but exactly this, Erik, with all his flaws and sharp edges perfectly intact, is unthinkable.
Charles pushes his free hand into Erik's hair and kisses him, until he runs out of breath. Then he tips his head back to groan, lets Erik's teeth sink into his throat. Reassurance is easy.
I wanted everything. Everything you are, my friend.
Though Charles thinks they are beyond friends, that they will never be just friends again.
The wall is brutally, uncomfortably hard against his back, but he doesn't protest at all about having his shoulders slammed into it, repeatedly.
There's the whining screech of metal wrenched beyond its tolerances, the splatter of impossible liquid against wood, and the crunch of destruction from several points in the room. Charles can feel it in a way he shouldn't be able to, an echo of familiarity, of understanding.
It would be so easy to...
...slip inside. It's like falling, far too easy, frighteningly easy, and then they're tangling together. Sliding towards incoherence. For a second Charles has a grasp on absolutely everything. He can see what they are together. What they could be together. More than that, he can see the vast stretch of it all, outside the both of them.
He doesn't need machines to reach it.
The only sensation left is roughness, metal-sharp edges and pleasure.
Then they let go.
Charles is panting into the curve of Erik's neck, fingers numb. Every breath saws through his throat like he's been screaming. His hand uncurls, drops to Erik's back, then can't quite let go. Erik very carefully eases free of him, and Charles's legs relax, slip. The floor is so far away, but Erik’s hands catch him, and carefully set him on the floor again. That's when Charles discovers that his legs, in fact, don't quite work, and the dress is ruined. Is it his dress now? It must be, he supposes.
Erik's swearing and pushing his hair out of his face. Calling his name quietly, like he's afraid he's broken him. Charles isn't quite sure that he hasn't yet. He feels very sore, and strange, sticky and utterly debauched, mind humming like someone carved into it, left it raw and wet.
"I thought you might ask about the dress," Charles says quietly, slowly, and that doesn't make an awful lot of sense, even to him. Erik is still touching his hair, as if he's been given permission and now can't quite make himself stop. And Charles thinks perhaps he stole that thought.
He lays his hands on Erik's chest, since he believes they are past the point where they can't touch each other. Though he thinks Erik reads something in the gesture that he never intends, because he takes a step back, frowning.
"I'm sorry." Erik's voice is raw.
"Don't you dare apologise," Charles says fiercely, bruised by the very idea of it.
Not for this, never for this.
Charles takes a shaky step forward, on bare feet, draws the warmth of Erik back. Crowded into the wall once again, and there are hands on Charles's waist again, lost for anywhere else to go.
"I think I'm the one who went a little too far," Charles admits. "I don't usually get so tangled up. I don't push." It's a lie, of course. He did push, just for a second, lost somewhere in the desperation of it.
I never knew how much I wanted it.
There's a huff of laughter, and Erik's forehead is heavy against his own.
"You didn't make me do anything I didn't want," he says roughly.
You wouldn't know, Charles thinks, helplessly. You'd never know.