Fic: Good Intentions
Title: Good Intentions
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Erik/Charles
Rating: R
Word Count: 2800
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: The suits are...not what Charles is expecting.
AN: Written for kink bingo, for the 'uniforms/military kink' square.
The suits are...not what Charles is expecting.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting, having not given in to the urge to keep a mental note of Hank's progress. Though something in the way of flight suits probably would have been his guess. Functional, durable, wearable. He could have offered further words, if anyone had pressed. But he suspects that none of them would have been 'yellow.'
Yellow is an odd choice.
Erik doesn't look impressed either. Though Erik rarely looks impressed. Erik tends to work from the assumption that he'll be disappointed. When he looks impressed, it's because you deserve it.
Looking is really all they're doing, until Charles takes the initiative, leans over the trunk, elbows balanced on the rim. He reaches in and unfolds the first suit, feels the material.
"What do you think?" he asks.
Erik doesn't move away from the wall, arms still crossed. He neither confirms, nor denies having any feelings on the matter. Which he's very obviously doing on purpose. Charles raises an eyebrow at him, which gets him the faintest trace of a smirk. Charles can't resist the mental equivalent of leaning a little closer, just enough to feel amusement, threads of what could only be classed as a dare. Charles is more than willing to accept the challenge. He starts tugging open the buttons of his shirt, not even attempting to hide his smile. Prepared to make a possible sacrifice of his dignity, for a good cause. Judging by Erik's head shake the cause is still debatable. But he joins Charles in stripping material over his head, all the same.
Charles has a considerably more trouble than Erik, who immediately and competently folds himself into the leather, like he owns it. Wetsuits, Charles reminds himself. If you can get into a wetsuit then you can get into anything.
If anyone had told him that Erik would be able to pull off yellow and navy, he would have accused them of lying, or being very drunk. But it's unfair and shamefully accurate to say that he does. Erik's zip very slowly pulls both halves of the suit together, without being touched. Which prompts a rather interesting, but very unhelpful, mental image of that happening in reverse. Charles, who's more than familiar with the fickle, and downright vindictive, nature of the mind, when it comes to denying it its impulsive moments, is more than willing to indulge the thought, while he wrangles his shoulders into a comfortable position. Not an easy feat, when the restrictive grip of leather is foreign to you. Also, cold in places, which is about as pleasant as you'd expect.
His own zip is especially cold against his chest, when he pulls it up halfway - he'll definitely need to wear something underneath next time - then sits on a crate and works the boots on.
When he looks up he finds Erik flexing his hands, as if he's trying to read all the metal in the suit, and staring at his thighs in a confused sort of way. Confusion looks a lot like irritation on his face, but Charles likes to think he's learned to tell the difference. That he's learned to read things in the tension that shifts on Erik's face, without having to stray into his thoughts.
"I think they're pockets," Charles offers. "Though I'm not absolutely sure. It's the only option which makes sense, since I can think of no reason why you'd need to be able to get to your thighs in an emergency." He feels the laugh more than he hears it, when he balances a leg on one of the equipment crates, and unzips one of the debated fastenings. "Pockets," he confirms with his fingers, when he finds leather inside, instead of his own leg. "Though what exactly you'd put in there, which would fit, and not impede your ability to run or climb, I have no idea."
"I don't think functionality was the primary goal here." Erik bends an arm, then stretches it. The zip at the cuff pulls shut, almost as an afterthought. His powers truly have become an extension of himself, and Charles can't help but marvel at it.
"What makes you think that?"
"They're bright yellow," Erik points out. "Yellow isn't exactly famed for its use in either a stealth, or camouflage capacity."
There are an awful lots of zips, Charles realises suddenly. It's almost as if Erik had appeared in Hank's laboratory one night, and demanded the ability to throw people around if necessary. Always looking for that extra edge. That...wouldn't entirely be outside the realms of possibility, come to think of it. Charles is debating whether he should look for any zip-related, nefarious misdeeds in Erik's face, when he registers the slow tug against the muscle of his thigh. The subtle rasp of metal. Which forces him to look down.
"Erik."
"Hmm." The low, easy noise is about as playful as Erik gets. Under any other circumstances Charles would encourage him - would most definitely encourage him. Has always been open to that sort of encouragement. But he did tell Hank ten minutes, and he suspects they've stayed longer than that already.
"Could you please do my pockets back up."
Erik laughs, not apologetic in the slightest, and the tug returns in the other direction. He draws the main zip the rest of the way closed, for good measure. In one slow drag, that forces Charles to tilt his head back, away from the metal edge when it reaches the top. There's an indulgence to the whole affair, which Charles refuses to find distracting. But the temptation, to look, to discover the intention behind the gesture, is almost unbearable.
So he questions. Which is really nothing more than a thread of curiosity, not quite words. It's offered, or perhaps the better word would be shared. What do you want?
Something grips the main zip of the suit, a squeeze and flex of every metal catch that holds it together. It's a movement with none of the finesse which Charles knows Erik is capable of. The equivalent of a fist unconsciously clenching in anger, perhaps? Though this isn't anger, for all that it shares some of its intensity.
Charles lifts a hand, only to have it drawn sharply down again, by the metal at the cuff.
The main zip drags down again, slow at first, but then aggressively once it hits mid-chest. It tears all the way down, opens all the way, leaves the material of the suit to curl open. Cold air crawls across his bare skin, though Charles is more interested in the way Erik looks at him. The way he makes no attempt to hide it. Erik approves of the zips, Charles thinks. The control.
"Is that what you wanted?" Voices can be so loud sometimes, far more accusing than they should, tones turning a question, or a tease, into a demand. Public speaking teaches you bad habits too, unfortunate when you always know what other people think of the way you sound.
Erik gives him a look of such frustrated annoyance, reading something he never intended. Words on their own can be irritatingly inexact when you need them most. Erik has a tendency to expect people to react a certain way, and he doesn't always like it when people surprise him.
"You're infuriating," Erik says simply, though some of the anger breaks apart, recedes.
Charles doesn't know why Erik forgives him so easily, doesn't want to question it, too afraid he'll break it somehow. He does laugh then, he can't help it.
"I don't mean to be, I assure you."
Charles knows - knows before Erik does - that he's going to touch him, has to touch him, but he still doesn't have time to do anything but inhale, before Erik moves. His hands are chilled where they slide in, either side of the open zip. They curve round his waist, pushing material aside. They grip and hold tight, seem to give every indication that they have no intention of letting go. His thumbs are sliding on - stroking Charles's bare skin, deep under the leather, and warming the longer they stay there. There's certainly no confusing the intimacy of the gesture for friendly camaraderie. When Charles relaxes into his grip, doesn't step free, or pull away there's...surprise, a pleasant sort of surprise, but it shifts while he's still feeling it, becomes something warmer, with edges.
There's a muttered hiss of something which probably isn't English.
Charles isn't concentrating on that.
Erik.
Strange how that sounded an awful lot like encouragement, rather than question. Or perhaps it was meant to be encouragement. It's so hard sometimes, to remember what's been said and what's been thought. To decide what's been admitted, and what hasn't. What Charles is allowed to react to. He's spent his entire life putting them in separate compartments. But Erik confuses everything, with his tendency to stray wherever he pleases. Interested one moment, and apathetic the next. Appreciative and willing, and then suddenly cold and pragmatic. Erik has so often felt like a man trying to control his own emotional reactions, that Charles has resisted making any advances of his own.
Are you sure about this?
"Don't you know?" Erik's expression is unexpectedly serious. His mind is unexpectedly serious.
"Unfair," Charles tells him. "I was being polite." But he can't resist the invitation, and he can feel everything they are, drawing tight, becoming sharp, and hot, and different, and the way Erik wants that. There's no fear at all from him. No doubts now, just certainty. As if Erik had already decided that this was exactly where they were meant to end up. As ruthlessly as he decides everything else.
"You don't have to be polite on my account, Charles."
Charles forces his mouth to form words, because mental communication tends to lack insistence under these circumstances, also determination - yes, he's fairly certain anything that came out of his brain at the moment would be far too honest. It's too easy to get caught up in other people's emotions, intentions, fantasies. And far too easy to change them, without meaning to.
"I told Hank we'd be back in ten minutes."
"Convince him otherwise," Erik says roughly. His voice is sliding rapidly towards something uncivilised, that makes Charles abandon his attempt to point out the dangers of trying to walk on that slippery ethical slope. In fact he does exactly what he's been told, without any sort of protest, or complaint. Which is very unlike him. He suspects that will rankle a little later. But it's Erik, and he so rarely asks for anything. Charles checks where everyone else is, makes sure they're not here, makes sure they'll be nowhere near here, even if they never know why. Erik's hands push, just enough to encourage him back a step, and again, until he knocks gently into the lid of another crate.
"What do you intend?" Charles asks. It's a fair enough question, and he's curious.
Erik presses in close, head tipping forward to rest against his own. Heavy and hot, and Charles doesn't know whether the movement is intentional or not, but it's effective. Because everything is suddenly close enough to touch, like a particularly fiendish form of warfare.
The suit, dragged open and down, leather pinned between the wall and Charles's back, Erik on his knees, on his knees. Power pinning Charles's wrists to the wall -
Charles, hiked up on the crate, both their suits pulled down - gloves that came with them left on though, firm thought that, Charles is impressed - bare legs wrapped around Erik's waist, simple and explicit -
Charles against the wall again, arms behind his back, tangled in leather sleeves, zip pulled all the way down, Erik's hands pushed so far inside it would probably hurt, teeth buried somewhere in his shoulder -
A too-brief, flash of Erik, pressed face-down into the floor, teeth bloody. Charles over him, in him, movement slow and hard. The burn of raw friction, and the soft, shaken gasps of something mixed with genuine pain -
Both of them stretched out in the untidy pile of their suits, Erik fucking him - nothing like gentle - in the tangle of leather. All narrow lines and spare muscles, and Charles indulges in the thought, in the completeness of it. The attention to detail. He wants it with nothing like scientific curiousity and everything like simple lust -
Then there's a rather adventurous attempt at something against the wall, which Charles is fairly sure defies all the laws of physics - and Charles has to roll his head to the side, has to break contact, just to breathe. Forehead suddenly cold, everything inside burning hot. Struggling briefly - very, very briefly - with the desire to just make one of those, any one of those things happen. He's completely lost, and they haven't even kissed. He knows for certain one thing the suits were not designed for, because they are uncomfortably tight now.
"I don't think that last one is physically possible." Charles has never heard his voice so shredded.
"Does it matter?" Erik's fingers are flexing on his skin, tight, and then loose, and then sharp where his nails dig in. His mind is all ragged edges, and Charles thinks that's entirely his own fault. Is tempted - more than tempted - to push a little harder, to wind it tighter. To prove that he can. Arrogance, mischief, a genuine urge to see Erik without the little social niceties that keep him pleasant. Reckless perhaps, God, so very reckless, but tempting.
Charles has to laugh, breathless and stupid because it doesn't matter, it really doesn't.
"That depends on your intentions."
There's something fierce under the way Erik's holding him, something possessive. But Charles doesn't resist when one of Erik's hands slides from his waist upwards, fingers spreading indulgently over his ribs, chest, thumb dragging slowly over his nipple. The hand stops at his throat, curves higher, grips his chin, and slowly rolls his head back. There's a smile now, very close, very sharp. So many observations he could make about being eaten, none of them appropriate, or maybe too appropriate? Distracting.
"And if I said everything?" Erik's voice has gone shamelessly low.
Charles doesn't know how he can possibly agree to this exchange, while still keeping his dignity.
"Just say yes," Erik says quietly.
Charles wonders if he still needs his dignity, if he's thinking that loudly. Erik's laughing and this might be a terrible idea, because they're so close, so important, and it could all go so very wrong. But then Erik pulls the hair at the back of his neck, and it's impossible to do anything else but open his mouth and kiss him.
It's not a gentle kiss, it's probably nothing like a first kiss should be. Hard on one side, persuasive on the other, aggressive and accepting. Slow and greedy. They probably shouldn't work as well as this. There should be edges where they don't fit, but Charles is yet to find them. It's a strange mixture of the physical and the mental. A half conversation that's made up of images and emotion. Close to the surface, impatience and lust making them brief and half-formed, and Erik is not helping at all. Not resisting. As close as they are, emotions of the same flavour clashing somewhere in the middle. It's hard to stay out.
Charles turns his head, breathes into the suddenly too-warm air of the room.
"I'm not sure this is what Hank had in mind when he told us to test out the suits."
"I'm sure he'd approve of our intention to be thorough." Erik's voice is a growl against the line of his jaw. Breath flowing down his neck, mind obsessed with the intention to kiss him again, more than kiss him.
It's impossible to form words.
God, how do you make everything sound like that.
Like what?
Erik has worked out how to make his mental voice sound the same. Perhaps Charles was right when he called this warfare. Erik's hands are moving again, and Charles doesn’t have to see inside his head to chart their intention, knuckles pushing aside the leather as they go. Thumbs finding where his skin is fine and sensitive.
"Like in ten minutes I'm going to be doing something that I'll be happy to be ashamed about for the rest of my life," Charles says aloud. "How does anyone ever tell you no?"
Erik's hands are still for just a beat too long, before they move again, more cautiously than before. Charles is close enough to feel the flicker of discomfort, of uncertainty.
He lets Erik push the leather over his shoulders.
"I have no intention of saying no, Erik."
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Erik/Charles
Rating: R
Word Count: 2800
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: The suits are...not what Charles is expecting.
AN: Written for kink bingo, for the 'uniforms/military kink' square.
The suits are...not what Charles is expecting.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting, having not given in to the urge to keep a mental note of Hank's progress. Though something in the way of flight suits probably would have been his guess. Functional, durable, wearable. He could have offered further words, if anyone had pressed. But he suspects that none of them would have been 'yellow.'
Yellow is an odd choice.
Erik doesn't look impressed either. Though Erik rarely looks impressed. Erik tends to work from the assumption that he'll be disappointed. When he looks impressed, it's because you deserve it.
Looking is really all they're doing, until Charles takes the initiative, leans over the trunk, elbows balanced on the rim. He reaches in and unfolds the first suit, feels the material.
"What do you think?" he asks.
Erik doesn't move away from the wall, arms still crossed. He neither confirms, nor denies having any feelings on the matter. Which he's very obviously doing on purpose. Charles raises an eyebrow at him, which gets him the faintest trace of a smirk. Charles can't resist the mental equivalent of leaning a little closer, just enough to feel amusement, threads of what could only be classed as a dare. Charles is more than willing to accept the challenge. He starts tugging open the buttons of his shirt, not even attempting to hide his smile. Prepared to make a possible sacrifice of his dignity, for a good cause. Judging by Erik's head shake the cause is still debatable. But he joins Charles in stripping material over his head, all the same.
Charles has a considerably more trouble than Erik, who immediately and competently folds himself into the leather, like he owns it. Wetsuits, Charles reminds himself. If you can get into a wetsuit then you can get into anything.
If anyone had told him that Erik would be able to pull off yellow and navy, he would have accused them of lying, or being very drunk. But it's unfair and shamefully accurate to say that he does. Erik's zip very slowly pulls both halves of the suit together, without being touched. Which prompts a rather interesting, but very unhelpful, mental image of that happening in reverse. Charles, who's more than familiar with the fickle, and downright vindictive, nature of the mind, when it comes to denying it its impulsive moments, is more than willing to indulge the thought, while he wrangles his shoulders into a comfortable position. Not an easy feat, when the restrictive grip of leather is foreign to you. Also, cold in places, which is about as pleasant as you'd expect.
His own zip is especially cold against his chest, when he pulls it up halfway - he'll definitely need to wear something underneath next time - then sits on a crate and works the boots on.
When he looks up he finds Erik flexing his hands, as if he's trying to read all the metal in the suit, and staring at his thighs in a confused sort of way. Confusion looks a lot like irritation on his face, but Charles likes to think he's learned to tell the difference. That he's learned to read things in the tension that shifts on Erik's face, without having to stray into his thoughts.
"I think they're pockets," Charles offers. "Though I'm not absolutely sure. It's the only option which makes sense, since I can think of no reason why you'd need to be able to get to your thighs in an emergency." He feels the laugh more than he hears it, when he balances a leg on one of the equipment crates, and unzips one of the debated fastenings. "Pockets," he confirms with his fingers, when he finds leather inside, instead of his own leg. "Though what exactly you'd put in there, which would fit, and not impede your ability to run or climb, I have no idea."
"I don't think functionality was the primary goal here." Erik bends an arm, then stretches it. The zip at the cuff pulls shut, almost as an afterthought. His powers truly have become an extension of himself, and Charles can't help but marvel at it.
"What makes you think that?"
"They're bright yellow," Erik points out. "Yellow isn't exactly famed for its use in either a stealth, or camouflage capacity."
There are an awful lots of zips, Charles realises suddenly. It's almost as if Erik had appeared in Hank's laboratory one night, and demanded the ability to throw people around if necessary. Always looking for that extra edge. That...wouldn't entirely be outside the realms of possibility, come to think of it. Charles is debating whether he should look for any zip-related, nefarious misdeeds in Erik's face, when he registers the slow tug against the muscle of his thigh. The subtle rasp of metal. Which forces him to look down.
"Erik."
"Hmm." The low, easy noise is about as playful as Erik gets. Under any other circumstances Charles would encourage him - would most definitely encourage him. Has always been open to that sort of encouragement. But he did tell Hank ten minutes, and he suspects they've stayed longer than that already.
"Could you please do my pockets back up."
Erik laughs, not apologetic in the slightest, and the tug returns in the other direction. He draws the main zip the rest of the way closed, for good measure. In one slow drag, that forces Charles to tilt his head back, away from the metal edge when it reaches the top. There's an indulgence to the whole affair, which Charles refuses to find distracting. But the temptation, to look, to discover the intention behind the gesture, is almost unbearable.
So he questions. Which is really nothing more than a thread of curiosity, not quite words. It's offered, or perhaps the better word would be shared. What do you want?
Something grips the main zip of the suit, a squeeze and flex of every metal catch that holds it together. It's a movement with none of the finesse which Charles knows Erik is capable of. The equivalent of a fist unconsciously clenching in anger, perhaps? Though this isn't anger, for all that it shares some of its intensity.
Charles lifts a hand, only to have it drawn sharply down again, by the metal at the cuff.
The main zip drags down again, slow at first, but then aggressively once it hits mid-chest. It tears all the way down, opens all the way, leaves the material of the suit to curl open. Cold air crawls across his bare skin, though Charles is more interested in the way Erik looks at him. The way he makes no attempt to hide it. Erik approves of the zips, Charles thinks. The control.
"Is that what you wanted?" Voices can be so loud sometimes, far more accusing than they should, tones turning a question, or a tease, into a demand. Public speaking teaches you bad habits too, unfortunate when you always know what other people think of the way you sound.
Erik gives him a look of such frustrated annoyance, reading something he never intended. Words on their own can be irritatingly inexact when you need them most. Erik has a tendency to expect people to react a certain way, and he doesn't always like it when people surprise him.
"You're infuriating," Erik says simply, though some of the anger breaks apart, recedes.
Charles doesn't know why Erik forgives him so easily, doesn't want to question it, too afraid he'll break it somehow. He does laugh then, he can't help it.
"I don't mean to be, I assure you."
Charles knows - knows before Erik does - that he's going to touch him, has to touch him, but he still doesn't have time to do anything but inhale, before Erik moves. His hands are chilled where they slide in, either side of the open zip. They curve round his waist, pushing material aside. They grip and hold tight, seem to give every indication that they have no intention of letting go. His thumbs are sliding on - stroking Charles's bare skin, deep under the leather, and warming the longer they stay there. There's certainly no confusing the intimacy of the gesture for friendly camaraderie. When Charles relaxes into his grip, doesn't step free, or pull away there's...surprise, a pleasant sort of surprise, but it shifts while he's still feeling it, becomes something warmer, with edges.
There's a muttered hiss of something which probably isn't English.
Charles isn't concentrating on that.
Erik.
Strange how that sounded an awful lot like encouragement, rather than question. Or perhaps it was meant to be encouragement. It's so hard sometimes, to remember what's been said and what's been thought. To decide what's been admitted, and what hasn't. What Charles is allowed to react to. He's spent his entire life putting them in separate compartments. But Erik confuses everything, with his tendency to stray wherever he pleases. Interested one moment, and apathetic the next. Appreciative and willing, and then suddenly cold and pragmatic. Erik has so often felt like a man trying to control his own emotional reactions, that Charles has resisted making any advances of his own.
Are you sure about this?
"Don't you know?" Erik's expression is unexpectedly serious. His mind is unexpectedly serious.
"Unfair," Charles tells him. "I was being polite." But he can't resist the invitation, and he can feel everything they are, drawing tight, becoming sharp, and hot, and different, and the way Erik wants that. There's no fear at all from him. No doubts now, just certainty. As if Erik had already decided that this was exactly where they were meant to end up. As ruthlessly as he decides everything else.
"You don't have to be polite on my account, Charles."
Charles forces his mouth to form words, because mental communication tends to lack insistence under these circumstances, also determination - yes, he's fairly certain anything that came out of his brain at the moment would be far too honest. It's too easy to get caught up in other people's emotions, intentions, fantasies. And far too easy to change them, without meaning to.
"I told Hank we'd be back in ten minutes."
"Convince him otherwise," Erik says roughly. His voice is sliding rapidly towards something uncivilised, that makes Charles abandon his attempt to point out the dangers of trying to walk on that slippery ethical slope. In fact he does exactly what he's been told, without any sort of protest, or complaint. Which is very unlike him. He suspects that will rankle a little later. But it's Erik, and he so rarely asks for anything. Charles checks where everyone else is, makes sure they're not here, makes sure they'll be nowhere near here, even if they never know why. Erik's hands push, just enough to encourage him back a step, and again, until he knocks gently into the lid of another crate.
"What do you intend?" Charles asks. It's a fair enough question, and he's curious.
Erik presses in close, head tipping forward to rest against his own. Heavy and hot, and Charles doesn't know whether the movement is intentional or not, but it's effective. Because everything is suddenly close enough to touch, like a particularly fiendish form of warfare.
The suit, dragged open and down, leather pinned between the wall and Charles's back, Erik on his knees, on his knees. Power pinning Charles's wrists to the wall -
Charles, hiked up on the crate, both their suits pulled down - gloves that came with them left on though, firm thought that, Charles is impressed - bare legs wrapped around Erik's waist, simple and explicit -
Charles against the wall again, arms behind his back, tangled in leather sleeves, zip pulled all the way down, Erik's hands pushed so far inside it would probably hurt, teeth buried somewhere in his shoulder -
A too-brief, flash of Erik, pressed face-down into the floor, teeth bloody. Charles over him, in him, movement slow and hard. The burn of raw friction, and the soft, shaken gasps of something mixed with genuine pain -
Both of them stretched out in the untidy pile of their suits, Erik fucking him - nothing like gentle - in the tangle of leather. All narrow lines and spare muscles, and Charles indulges in the thought, in the completeness of it. The attention to detail. He wants it with nothing like scientific curiousity and everything like simple lust -
Then there's a rather adventurous attempt at something against the wall, which Charles is fairly sure defies all the laws of physics - and Charles has to roll his head to the side, has to break contact, just to breathe. Forehead suddenly cold, everything inside burning hot. Struggling briefly - very, very briefly - with the desire to just make one of those, any one of those things happen. He's completely lost, and they haven't even kissed. He knows for certain one thing the suits were not designed for, because they are uncomfortably tight now.
"I don't think that last one is physically possible." Charles has never heard his voice so shredded.
"Does it matter?" Erik's fingers are flexing on his skin, tight, and then loose, and then sharp where his nails dig in. His mind is all ragged edges, and Charles thinks that's entirely his own fault. Is tempted - more than tempted - to push a little harder, to wind it tighter. To prove that he can. Arrogance, mischief, a genuine urge to see Erik without the little social niceties that keep him pleasant. Reckless perhaps, God, so very reckless, but tempting.
Charles has to laugh, breathless and stupid because it doesn't matter, it really doesn't.
"That depends on your intentions."
There's something fierce under the way Erik's holding him, something possessive. But Charles doesn't resist when one of Erik's hands slides from his waist upwards, fingers spreading indulgently over his ribs, chest, thumb dragging slowly over his nipple. The hand stops at his throat, curves higher, grips his chin, and slowly rolls his head back. There's a smile now, very close, very sharp. So many observations he could make about being eaten, none of them appropriate, or maybe too appropriate? Distracting.
"And if I said everything?" Erik's voice has gone shamelessly low.
Charles doesn't know how he can possibly agree to this exchange, while still keeping his dignity.
"Just say yes," Erik says quietly.
Charles wonders if he still needs his dignity, if he's thinking that loudly. Erik's laughing and this might be a terrible idea, because they're so close, so important, and it could all go so very wrong. But then Erik pulls the hair at the back of his neck, and it's impossible to do anything else but open his mouth and kiss him.
It's not a gentle kiss, it's probably nothing like a first kiss should be. Hard on one side, persuasive on the other, aggressive and accepting. Slow and greedy. They probably shouldn't work as well as this. There should be edges where they don't fit, but Charles is yet to find them. It's a strange mixture of the physical and the mental. A half conversation that's made up of images and emotion. Close to the surface, impatience and lust making them brief and half-formed, and Erik is not helping at all. Not resisting. As close as they are, emotions of the same flavour clashing somewhere in the middle. It's hard to stay out.
Charles turns his head, breathes into the suddenly too-warm air of the room.
"I'm not sure this is what Hank had in mind when he told us to test out the suits."
"I'm sure he'd approve of our intention to be thorough." Erik's voice is a growl against the line of his jaw. Breath flowing down his neck, mind obsessed with the intention to kiss him again, more than kiss him.
It's impossible to form words.
God, how do you make everything sound like that.
Like what?
Erik has worked out how to make his mental voice sound the same. Perhaps Charles was right when he called this warfare. Erik's hands are moving again, and Charles doesn’t have to see inside his head to chart their intention, knuckles pushing aside the leather as they go. Thumbs finding where his skin is fine and sensitive.
"Like in ten minutes I'm going to be doing something that I'll be happy to be ashamed about for the rest of my life," Charles says aloud. "How does anyone ever tell you no?"
Erik's hands are still for just a beat too long, before they move again, more cautiously than before. Charles is close enough to feel the flicker of discomfort, of uncertainty.
He lets Erik push the leather over his shoulders.
"I have no intention of saying no, Erik."