Fic: Awakenings (2/2)
Title: Awakenings (Part 2 of 2)
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Author: loonylupinlover
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Rating: NC-17.
Length: This portion: ~5300 words
Genre: First time, power exploration/training, powers + sexytimes, timeline: mutant recruiting
Summary: Erik and Charles discover new insights about each other's abilities, even as Erik tries to hide his growing feelings for Charles. Charles doesn't make it easy for him.
Part One
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“Cheers!” Charles exclaims, clinking his shot glass against Erik’s. They gulp the liquor down and Erik’s mouth twists at the burning sensation. Was this one whiskey? Vodka? He can’t remember already. Once Angel had said she would come with them and told her boss she was quitting, they had set her up with her own hotel room. She had retired to the room for an early evening, but Charles, flush with success and the knowledge that his work with Cerebro was effective, had insisted they go back out for drinks.
Erik is no longer sure how much they’ve had. There was wine at Angel’s club, beer at the pub down the street, and now they’ve progressed to shots. He feels pleasantly warm. “Well done, Charles, indeed,” he says, with only a slight slur to the way he says Charles.
“It’s simply fascinating,” Charles pontificates, his face shining and his cheeks red. “To think I was able to find her from such a distance. Hank will be so excited to hear of how well Cerebro works. There are so many of us out there, so many more than I had ever dreamed or hoped. And I could feel them. It was like having the world spread out before me, with so many vistas - so many minds - to explore.”
“What does it feel like?” Erik interjects. “I told you what it feels like when I work. What does it feel like for you?” He edges closer to Charles, straining to hear the answer over the noise in the bar.
Charles looks at a loss for words and his nose and mouth crinkle in thought.
“You see, it’s more difficult than it looks,” says Erik, nudging Charles. Charles slaps his hand down on the bar as if for emphasis, except he hasn’t said anything yet.
“I do see that, Erik, thank you for making such an astute observation. Yes. Well. First, there is myself, my own consciousness, my own mind. I am always aware of that, on some level. I have touched minds where people go into a sort of trance, getting completely lost in some activity, almost shutting off consciousness entirely. That does not happen to me. Ever. I am always - awake. Even when I sleep, there’s still a level of awareness there that non-telepaths don’t share.”
He rubs at his chin, still thinking hard. “But then - and here’s where it starts to get quite interesting - I know there are others all around me. It’s like a combination of every mode your own brain uses for thought: sight, sound, emotion, memories of touch and smell.” He leans in to Erik further, giving him a cunning look: eyebrows arched, red mouth drawn up in a sly smile. “I can sense those other minds, constantly. To quiet them completely takes an enormous amount of effort and I don’t do it often. I’m always aware of them, and it’s always possible to explore those minds the way you can read the books in a library or the pages of a newspaper.”
“Do you touch those other minds often?” Erik asks. He is trying to avoid thinking of those lips, of grabbing Charles by the arms and kissing him. “It seems like you would have an ethical issue on your hands. After all you don’t go around and ask permission from everyone you hear, do you? Do you hold back?”
Charles’ face darkens. “You do get right to the point of things, don’t you? Sometimes, at least.” He turns to the bartender and gestures for two more pints as Erik wonders what the last sentence meant. The bartender fulfills Charles’ request and Charles grabs the glasses, tossing his head toward an unoccupied booth in the corner. “Come on, then, shall we head somewhere more private?”
Erik follows him, sliding into one of the leather seats and laying his suit jacket beside him. He rolls up his shirt sleeves, keeping his tattooed forearm facing the table, and takes his drink from Charles, who climbs into the seat across from him.
“As I was saying,” Charles says, leaning forward across the table, “I’ve not had to describe it much before and I find my thoughts on it are a little… garbled right now.” He raises his glass and clinks it against Erik’s.
“I was asking about the ethics of it,” Erik reminds him.
Charles is focusing very intently on his drink, which is slowly losing its foamy head. Keeping his head down, he says, “It’s something I’ve struggled with since I was old enough to raise the question. Is it all right to enter someone’s mind on a lark? Is it acceptable to peek for something I really, truly need, for something that will serve the greater good? And there’s more than just reading people. I can make them do things, do exactly what I want them to do. I could make you do a splendid tap dance on this table before jumping off the roof of this building.”
He swallows; his Adam’s apple jerks with the motion. His voice goes very soft. “I could pith people, Erik; wipe them clean of all memories, tabula rasa, erase them forever. I don’t even think it would be difficult.” He looks sick at the thought, seeming to shrink in on himself in horror. Despite the redness that alcohol has raised in his cheeks, he looks even paler than usual, and the lines beneath his eyes look shadowed. “I would never want to do it. But just the fact that I could - yes, I do wonder about it.”
He takes a long draft of his beer, shuddering a little. “Of course that sort of thing doesn’t come up terribly often. I usually have to worry more about little things. Privacy is always a concern, it’s something most people value highly… and I can shatter that without them even being the wiser. And I do, sometimes. Sometimes it’s for a good reason, or at least, what I think is a good reason… but other times, it’s simply for my own benefit, or because I’m curious. I did that with you.”
He takes another long pull of beer from his glass, fixing Erik with one of those heavy looks he has difficulty handling. The alcohol emboldens Erik, however, and he keeps his gaze. Charles’ eyes are terribly blue.
“How did you know I was out there, that night? Were you looking for someone like me?”
“I wasn’t, not by that point. We’d found Shaw, his telepath ally was blocking me, and I’d given up on sending my awareness out there,” says Charles. “Really, you found me.”
Erik is baffled. “How?”
Charles’ mouth tucks up in one corner. “People with very… ah, very strong memories… It’s as if they’re shouting in a quiet room. The weight of everything you’ve felt, everything in your life; it screamed. When it hit me I about fell over from the shock of it. And in that connection, I went deeper than I needed to. I saw everything you had never intended to tell anyone.” He reaches out and puts a hand on Erik’s bare arm, squeezing gently for a moment before pulling back. “I’m sorry.”
Erik shakes his head, staring intently into Charles’ face. “You shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t have to hold back what you are, what you can do. And -“ He hesitates. “You don’t need to regret being in my head. You’re the only one I can trust, with what I am.”
Charles looks closely at him, and suddenly there is a small a-ha! expression that flits across his face. Before Erik can comment on it, it is gone, and so is the moment. Erik focuses back on his glass and says quickly, “You didn’t really answer my question from earlier, about what it actually, physically feels like for you. I’m still curious.”
Charles’ fingers flex convulsively as if he wants to raise them to his temple. Instead he says, “Can I show you? That would be easiest.”
Erik nods. “Of course.”
Charles’ fingers settle into their familiar position at his head. Erik opens his mouth to ask why Charles seems to need the crutch - though perhaps it’s like the way manipulating metal feels so much easier when his fingers move - but then Charles is there in his head.
I’m going to try and show you what I seefeelhearsense, Charles says into his mind, the last word a jumbled mishmash of several syllables. Erik takes a deep breath, and then he’s clutching the edge of the table, riveted.
Somehow Charles has fed some part of his mind into Erik’s, or maybe ushered a part of Erik into himself. It’s dizzying, disorienting, and Erik feels nauseous at the way Charles is shoehorning Erik’s consciousness into the madhouse Charles feels all around him. There are rushes, gouts of others’ thoughts flooding into his mind in torrents. The people in the bar have become a cacophonous maelstrom, their thoughts crashing into Charles’ - into Erik’s - awareness. Somehow he gets a distant sense of Charles sitting back, able to see through the stream of thoughts and sift them into some semblance of organization and order. Charles feels unperturbed by the rush of thoughts and feelings, but his calm acceptance of the thoughts doesn’t seem to be transferring over to Erik. Erik feels bombarded by the wants, the needs, the lies, the fears of the man tending bar, the woman making eyes at the pair of them, the couple at the table behind them…
I think it was difficult in the beginning, Charles sends to him, but now it’s simply life to me. Erik feels him pulling up mental barriers, slowly quieting the frenzy of people outside of them. Charles directs them to look at the man behind the bar, and somehow Charles focuses on him, and Erik can hear his every thought with incredible clarity. It’s a horrifying tangle of the mundane, the annoying, and the downright depressing. Charles releases his focus on the man and selects the woman, and riffles through her memories in a blinding flash. Erik barely understands the massive influx of raw data contained in the woman’s past memories and current thoughts, but he can feel Charles’ easy understanding, can see him cataloguing information and separating the useful from the useless in the space of a few seconds. To Erik it is a swirling mess, sickening, incomprehensible, mad --
“Stop,” Erik croaks, and with that word he’s back fully in his own head, leaning over the table to press the heels of his hands against his eyes. The regular sounds of the bar, clashing glasses and raised voices and piped in music, are a relief after the din of the humans’ thoughts.
“Did that alarm you?” comes Charles’ voice.
“Fuck, Charles,” Erik growls. “How do you live like that?”
Charles grabs Erik’s wrists and pulls his hands away from his face, releasing them when Charles is able to look back into his eyes. “I have to apologize to you again, don’t I,” he says in a low voice. “I’ve never brought someone in like that before. It was very difficult. I shouldn’t have done it, or at least, I should have waited until I was sober. My control isn’t as fine like this. I get sloppy.”
Erik waves Charles’ protests away. “It wasn’t you. It was them. How do you stand it, all of those minds surrounding you, shouting at you like that?”
“I usually don’t let them shout,” says Charles with some surprise. “They weren’t shouting just now, that was the level I normally keep them at.”
“If that wasn’t shouting, I shudder to think of what it’s like when you feel overwhelmed by it.”
He is beginning to realize how dangerous Charles could be. Erik prefers to use his powers of observation on others, not on studying himself, but even so, he is aware of certain facts about himself. Erik knows he is a masterful man; he’s seen it on the faces of the men he’s hunted and killed. He knows the violence in him hums just beneath the surface, and that unless he makes an effort to conceal it, others sense it and fear it, and fear him. These things have been plain to him since he was a very young man.
In Charles, the danger is deeply veiled. It is only just now that Erik begins to see what Charles could be capable of. Erik has killed people, and will kill again. But Charles could completely nullify them, eliminating them so completely that they could be removed from all human memory. And yet he would not do such a thing: a fact Erik knows with certainty.
He shivers, desire raging in him. To be faced with such a remarkable man, a man with such intellect, such passion, such power…
“Erik?”
Erik shakes himself from his reverie and says, his voice low, “You’re a dangerous man, Charles.”
“Yes,” Charles says quietly. His lips curl into a conspiratorial grin, and the way his eyes crinkle and his eyebrows rise is positively wicked in nature. “We both are, aren’t we?”
Erik sucks in a breath between his teeth, and lets it out slowly. Does Charles know what he’s doing to Erik? Whether or not Charles knows, Erik can’t take it anymore. The urge to grab Charles by the front of his shirt and haul him over the table to kiss him is almost unbearable. Erik’s fingers are twitching and the lamp overhead begins to sway, then bend. With a great effort he stills his hands and says, “Shouldn’t we be getting back to the hotel?”
Charles checks his watch. “Good Lord. I’m afraid you’re right. Let me go take care of the tab.” He slides out of the booth and gets to his feet. “I’ll meet you out front, shall I?” he says, and heads to the bar.
Erik gets up, grabbing his jacket, and moves past the few patrons still left in the bar. The door opens before him without him touching it, and he hurries out of it before anyone can notice. He seems to be sublimating his frustration into his ability, and he frowns at the loss of control. He moves to the curb, leaning against a light post, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers as he stares out into the street.
He doesn’t know how he is supposed to stay so calm when Charles lights him up in ways he didn’t know were possible. He thought he had been a monster beyond repair, and yet Charles sees in him something worthy, something fascinating. Charles trusts him enough to share his gift with him: I’ve never brought someone in like that before. But he doesn’t seem to see how he riles Erik so.
Erik stiffens against the lamp post and feels it shaking, his power making it vibrate. Though Erik is still looking into the street, he can feel that behind him, Charles is walking through the bar doors. Erik can tell it’s him by the same metal he had memorized in the train. Without turning around, Erik says loudly, “What took you so long?”
Charles, still a few feet away, stops. Erik turns to look at him and notices he seems unnerved. “How did you know I was there? I thought I was being quiet.”
“You were. I could feel your metal getting closer,” Erik says, shrugging.
“All right, but how did you know it was me, and not somebody else?”
“I told you,” says Erik pointedly. “Your metal.” His face breaks into a rueful smile. “I suppose I memorized it during our work today.”
Charles closes the gap between them, tugging at his lower lip with his teeth. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it again.
“Spit it out, Charles. The night is late.”
“I could find the answer out if I wanted to,” he says. “But I want to hear it from you.” Erik can feel the heat between them; Charles is close to him, now, too close, less than a foot of space between them. Out of the corner of his eyes Erik looks up and down the street; they are alone.
“You want to hear the answer to…?” His breath hitches in his throat.
“Erik… are you attracted to me?”
Erik stares at him, completely nonplussed. Fuck. Charles looks up at him in complete seriousness, his lips pursed, his eyes questioning. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Erik snarls. He pushes past Charles and marches down the street, calling behind him, “It seems you’ve already guessed!” He’s furious at how transparent he must have been, at the cool way Charles seems to have merely regarded it as a curiosity. He grabs his suit jacket and shoves his arms into it as he hurries down the street. Predictably, between Charles’ footsteps and his metal, Erik knows Charles is chasing after him.
He allows Charles to catch up to him at the entrance to an alley just behind their hotel. Charles grabs him by the arm and Erik shakes him off. “I suppose you’ve been enjoying this?” he spits.
“Well - to be frank, a little,” says Charles, and Erik shoves him backward. Charles stumbles, catching himself before he trips.
“What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything,” Charles says, straightening up and, for some reason, laughing. “I’ve been enjoying it because I feel the same way, you idiot!”
“I - you what?” Erik is completely dumbfounded. Everything pulls into sharp, bright focus and all of the moments he’d assumed Charles couldn’t really be flirting hit him with an incredible impact. “But that’s impossible. Raven said -“
“You’ve been listening to her, have you? She’s only got part of the story, I’m afraid. I do prefer women, if you must know. But that doesn’t preclude being, ah, intrigued by the right man,” says Charles, brushing his suit where Erik had rumpled the front of it. “It’s a much more common state than people know of, actually…” He gives Erik one of those terribly charming smiles. “At any rate, I don’t flirt this incessantly with just anyone.”
“God damn it, Charles!” Erik’s hands jerk forward and he grabs Charles by the shoulders, then pulls the other man into a kiss that’s hard and clumsy and exactly what he’s been looking for. Charles reaches up and twists his fingers into Erik’s hair, bringing him even closer so their bodies are pressed into each other. They break apart, gasping.
“Should we go upstairs?” Charles asks, his chest heaving, his face red. Erik looks into his open mouth and shudders with longing.
“Why, don’t want anyone to see us?”
“I’m not concerned about that - I could easily redirect anyone who happened to see us - but it has just occurred to me that we have some most excellent beds at our disposal.”
Erik hurries back to the hotel so quickly that Charles has to jog to keep up with him.
They enter the hotel quietly, an energy thrumming between them. They pass by the night staff without a glance, then wait, impatiently, for the elevator. It seems an eternity. Erik wants to start ripping Charles’ clothes off in the lobby, night staff be damned, and quivers with frustration.
It’s only a few more moments, Charles speaks into his mind, and Erik draws in a deep breath.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” he says, very quietly, and Charles winks at him as the elevator doors open. They slip inside, and as soon as they select their floor and the doors rattle closed he’s got Charles slammed up against the corner, his hands on Charles’ neck and his thumbs against his cheeks, pulling the other man’s face to his own. Charles’ mouth is unbearably slick and hot and Erik presses up against him, covering his body with his own.
The lift stops moving and Erik quickly extricates himself from Charles, looking straight ahead as the doors open. It’s their floor, and they hurry down the hallway to their room. Charles gets the door and lets them in, then closes the door behind them.
They look at each other.
Erik isn’t sure what happens first. He and Charles move at the same time and in a tangle of limbs they’re on Charles’ bed, tearing at each other’s clothing, kissing hard enough to bruise. Charles gets Erik’s jacket and tie off and manages to rip one of the shirt’s shoulders. Erik strips Charles naked to the waist, buttons flying everywhere, and goes frenziedly for his belt and zipper. In a flurry they’re kicking off shoes, trousers, socks, underthings until Charles straddles him about the waist and Erik lets out a long groan at the feel of the other man’s skin.
“You should have said something sooner,” Erik says thickly, pulling down Charles for one of those raw kisses. He grabs at him, unable to get enough of his skin.
Charles’ cock is pressed against his stomach and Erik thrusts against Charles’ thigh at the way it feels. He reaches between them to take hold of Charles’ cock.
“I didn’t want to alienate you, if you didn’t feel - ahh - the same way,” Charles breathes, arching upward into Erik’s hand.
“But you could have just looked -“ Erik touches the side of Charles’ face with a shaking hand, then gives Charles’ cock a swift, sure pull. Charles writhes.
“Wanted to leave you - some privacy,” he chokes out, then catches Erik off guard with a deep kiss. Erik wraps his arms around him, pulling him even closer.
Charles breaks out of the embrace, then sits back and snakes a hand down between Erik’s legs. Erik is now the one panting at the feel of Charles’ fingers firmly encircling his shaft. Charles strokes him, slowly at first, then more insistently, and Erik is throwing his head back against the covers. Charles releases him and bends low over him. Erik kisses him hard at the junction between his neck and shoulder, leaving a red mark at the collarbone, then breaks off to gasp as Charles grinds against him. His cock throbs , and his hips buck against the other man. Charles’ tongue slips against Erik’s jaw and he lets out a strangled groan at how warm and wet it is.
Erik rears up, knocking Charles back down to the bed to lay on his back. Erik holds him there, one hand on his chest. “Thank God you said something,” Erik pants, greatly enjoying the view of Charles below him with one arm up behind his head. “I couldn’t have waited much longer for this.” With that he inches backward on the bed, then gives Charles a broad smile before lowering his mouth to the other man’s cock.
Sliding his lips down Charles’ shaft is immensely satisfying for the way Charles hisses, then groans, long and low and guttural. Experimentally Erik swirls his tongue against the tip, and Charles’ hips jerk upwards involuntarily as he moans, “That isn’t fair.”
“No. It isn’t,” Erik admits, his mouth still loosely encircling Charles’ dick, and Charles shivers at the way the sound vibrates against him. He moves his tongue up, then down in one long, languid lick, then holds his lips firmly against the shaft and takes Charles as deep as he can. He’s rewarded with a sharp gasp from Charles, who sits up and gives Erik a look of half pleasure, half exasperation.
“That does it,” says Charles, and raises a trembling hand to his temple. If you’re going to tease me, I’ll do the same, he says into Erik’s mind.
“Do your worst,” Erik says, then takes Charles deeply again for one, two, three thrusts. Suddenly Erik is on his back, Charles is sucking him, he’s bucking and writhing against the headboard and how did he even get like this from his previous position, this doesn’t actually make sense, they skipped a step -
The vision fades and Erik is looking back at Charles in confusion, back on his knees between Charles’ legs. The other man’s mouth twists in an evil grin as he taps the side of his head. “I warned you.”
“You ass!” Erik scowls at him even as he feels a combination of amusement and shock that Charles could make him feel physical sensation so convincingly. “You know, if you keep that up, I won’t be able to do anything for you.”
“I know,” Charles says. “That’s why I’m going to do this instead.”
Erik slides Charles deep into his mouth again. Charles moans, and as he does so, the vision of Erik in Charles’ position blooms again in his mind. His cock throbs. Erik reels from what Charles is doing in his head, the almost unbearable pleasure radiating from that bright point of Charles’ presence. The pleasure spikes again and again, any time Charles’ cock hits the back of Erik’s throat, or Erik swirls his tongue against the spot between the glans and the shaft. Charles groans in both his ears and his head, and he’s lost in the sensations, engulfed.
It’s frightening, such a loss of control, but it’s intoxicating as well. The images Charles sends are much more than mere pictures or films; they’re completely immersive. It’s as if he’s living in two worlds at the same time: the world where he’s between Charles’ legs with his lips around Charles’ cock, and the world where he’s the one on his back and Charles is licking, tugging, sucking, sliding him in and out between those red, red lips… And somehow both worlds are equally true, and equally felt, so that his cock twitches in Charles’ mouth even as Charles groans for him. Instead of before, when he could only feel what Charles wanted him to feel, he’s now balanced between reality and Charles’ fantasy, viewing both of them, and it’s stunning.
In the excitement of what he’s doing to Charles and what Charles is doing to him, all of Erik’s senses are heightened. Every scrap of metal in the room and the surrounding parts of the hotel becomes crystallized in his mind, shimmering in his mind’s eye along with all of the sensation Charles is sending him. The bed shudders underneath them with Erik’s trembling and Charles, warningly, says Erik! I don’t want to have to pay for that if you break it!
Erik lets out a barklike laugh. He tamps down on his magnetism and reins it in as much as possible, confining it to the nightstand, which twitches and rocks back and forth before stilling as Erik calms himself. Don’t worry, says Charles. Someday I’ll bring you to my home, and you can destroy whatever you like.
“I’d like that,” Erik pants, the words almost lost in the ragged breaths tearing themselves from his mouth. “Fuck, Charles, how can you -“ He goes unintelligible, then, words lost to him.
It’s as if a third reality is beginning to bleed around the edges of the fantasy Charles is crafting for him, and the real, physical action of sucking Charles off. The third reality is Charles’ experiences. Every swirl of Erik’s tongue is telegraphed to him through Charles, so that he’s both Charles and himself, torn between giving physical pleasure, receiving a mental version of it, and then receiving the effects of his ministrations. The full knowledge of what he’s doing to Charles is unbearably arousing; he hears Charles’ groans with his ears and mind, and feels the groans coming out of Charles’ mouth with this new connection, feels them like it’s himself making those noises. The whole experience is like every kind of pornographic image at once, combined with self-pleasure and fantasy, overlaid with fucking and being fucked; it’s all endured at once in a roiling wave of lust, affection and pure physical need. It’s bizarre, and dizzying, and so fucking hot that his mind and his cock feel scorched with it.
He is determined, through the haze of thoughts and impressions, to make Charles come. He grasps him firmly in one hand and strokes, hard and fast, as he takes Charles deeply into his mouth. Charles’ breathing takes on a new, frantic pitch and he reaches down to tangle his hands in Erik’s hair. As he does, the flood of perception in Erik’s mind takes on a new level of frenzy. Sound and images roar in his mind, a multitude of them: Charles bending Erik over in their train car with their clothes half on, Erik pinning Charles against a shower wall, hasty blowjobs in backseats and elevators and libraries, Erik gasping Charles’ name again and again, Charles’ face contorting as he comes, sweat and saliva and the feel of skin on skin, kissing sucking fucking, an endless array of you me yes, yes, yes -
Charles comes in Erik’s mouth, then, howling in ecstasy; at the same time, Erik’s mind whites out with sheer, unbearable, agonizing pleasure and it’s only distantly he realizes that he’s coming too. The wave of Charles’ orgasm is an onslaught his mind can scarcely cope with, and it’s all that he can do to cling to Charles’ hips as he’s overwhelmed. The whiteout fades to darkness for a few seconds or maybe a few days, it’s hard to tell which.
“Erik,” says Charles, from very far away. Erik blinks, his breathing gradually slowing. He feels utterly weak and boneless; it seems to take him ages to lift his head up to look at Charles, who gives him a tired smile. “I hope that wasn’t too much for you.”
Erik’s mind feels strangely empty; a single reality feels so thin after the explosion of scenarios and feelings Charles had given him. Even the colors of the room seem dimmer. He swallows, tasting Charles on his tongue. “In some ways it was.” He clambers up onto his hands and knees, moving up on the bed to settle down against Charles. “But I think I could get used to it.” He grins.
Charles laughs, resting his head against Erik’s shoulders as he stretches out. “I could arrange that.”
Erik reaches out and turns off the lamp. In the darkness Charles is warm against him; his breathing slows, heralding approaching sleep. Erik is weary, too, but something keeps him awake. There’s something else he wants to do.
“Charles.”
“Yes, Erik?” Charles’ voice is already going groggy.
“You…” He hesitates, but considers: he has already revealed so much today, what is a little more? “You know what I am, and what I’ve done.”
“Yes, I do.”
“So I’m certain you know that I - do not really have an understanding of what it means, to care for someone.” He shies away from using another word, one even more loaded than what he’s just said. He’s not sure he’ll ever say that word.
Charles shifts, sliding an arm around Erik’s shoulders, and he presses his lips to Erik’s neck. “I do know it.”
“However, if anyone could teach me what that means, I think it would be you.”
Charles’ breath is soft against Erik’s skin. “My friend, what do you think I’ve been trying to do this whole time?”
Erik chuckles, then turns his head to kiss Charles in a kiss much more gentle than any they’ve shared so far. It feels strange, but good. “My eternal gratitude… Professor.”
Charles mock-punches him in the side and Erik can hear the mingled scowl and smile in his voice as he says, “That was uncalled for.” Another kiss, and then, “You know, we really ought to get some sleep. Our train leaves early.” A longer, softer kiss. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” says Erik, and relishes the way Charles curls behind him as they drift off into sleep.
During the night Erik learns several new things. He learns that Charles snores lightly the entire night, and that he is in fact an insufferable blanket stealer. Charles is also revealed to possess surprisingly knobby knees and sharp elbows, and has an uncanny knack for poking Erik in the back most uncomfortably. It’s peculiar sharing a bed all night with someone; Erik has not had a lot of practice. Every time he rolls over Charles is there with his snoring or his elbows or his hoard of blankets. It’s odd.
Erik finds it’s the best he’s slept in years.
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Author's note: Random things about this -- I greatly enjoy Charles the flirting manwhore, telepathic sex, and the idea that Charles' telepathy is a fucking scary mutation. I'd write dark!Charles but I think it would scare me. So I've been keeping him fluffy but also acknowledging just how fucking powerful he really could be.
god I love this fandom so freaking much hahaha
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Author: loonylupinlover
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Rating: NC-17.
Length: This portion: ~5300 words
Genre: First time, power exploration/training, powers + sexytimes, timeline: mutant recruiting
Summary: Erik and Charles discover new insights about each other's abilities, even as Erik tries to hide his growing feelings for Charles. Charles doesn't make it easy for him.
Part One
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“Cheers!” Charles exclaims, clinking his shot glass against Erik’s. They gulp the liquor down and Erik’s mouth twists at the burning sensation. Was this one whiskey? Vodka? He can’t remember already. Once Angel had said she would come with them and told her boss she was quitting, they had set her up with her own hotel room. She had retired to the room for an early evening, but Charles, flush with success and the knowledge that his work with Cerebro was effective, had insisted they go back out for drinks.
Erik is no longer sure how much they’ve had. There was wine at Angel’s club, beer at the pub down the street, and now they’ve progressed to shots. He feels pleasantly warm. “Well done, Charles, indeed,” he says, with only a slight slur to the way he says Charles.
“It’s simply fascinating,” Charles pontificates, his face shining and his cheeks red. “To think I was able to find her from such a distance. Hank will be so excited to hear of how well Cerebro works. There are so many of us out there, so many more than I had ever dreamed or hoped. And I could feel them. It was like having the world spread out before me, with so many vistas - so many minds - to explore.”
“What does it feel like?” Erik interjects. “I told you what it feels like when I work. What does it feel like for you?” He edges closer to Charles, straining to hear the answer over the noise in the bar.
Charles looks at a loss for words and his nose and mouth crinkle in thought.
“You see, it’s more difficult than it looks,” says Erik, nudging Charles. Charles slaps his hand down on the bar as if for emphasis, except he hasn’t said anything yet.
“I do see that, Erik, thank you for making such an astute observation. Yes. Well. First, there is myself, my own consciousness, my own mind. I am always aware of that, on some level. I have touched minds where people go into a sort of trance, getting completely lost in some activity, almost shutting off consciousness entirely. That does not happen to me. Ever. I am always - awake. Even when I sleep, there’s still a level of awareness there that non-telepaths don’t share.”
He rubs at his chin, still thinking hard. “But then - and here’s where it starts to get quite interesting - I know there are others all around me. It’s like a combination of every mode your own brain uses for thought: sight, sound, emotion, memories of touch and smell.” He leans in to Erik further, giving him a cunning look: eyebrows arched, red mouth drawn up in a sly smile. “I can sense those other minds, constantly. To quiet them completely takes an enormous amount of effort and I don’t do it often. I’m always aware of them, and it’s always possible to explore those minds the way you can read the books in a library or the pages of a newspaper.”
“Do you touch those other minds often?” Erik asks. He is trying to avoid thinking of those lips, of grabbing Charles by the arms and kissing him. “It seems like you would have an ethical issue on your hands. After all you don’t go around and ask permission from everyone you hear, do you? Do you hold back?”
Charles’ face darkens. “You do get right to the point of things, don’t you? Sometimes, at least.” He turns to the bartender and gestures for two more pints as Erik wonders what the last sentence meant. The bartender fulfills Charles’ request and Charles grabs the glasses, tossing his head toward an unoccupied booth in the corner. “Come on, then, shall we head somewhere more private?”
Erik follows him, sliding into one of the leather seats and laying his suit jacket beside him. He rolls up his shirt sleeves, keeping his tattooed forearm facing the table, and takes his drink from Charles, who climbs into the seat across from him.
“As I was saying,” Charles says, leaning forward across the table, “I’ve not had to describe it much before and I find my thoughts on it are a little… garbled right now.” He raises his glass and clinks it against Erik’s.
“I was asking about the ethics of it,” Erik reminds him.
Charles is focusing very intently on his drink, which is slowly losing its foamy head. Keeping his head down, he says, “It’s something I’ve struggled with since I was old enough to raise the question. Is it all right to enter someone’s mind on a lark? Is it acceptable to peek for something I really, truly need, for something that will serve the greater good? And there’s more than just reading people. I can make them do things, do exactly what I want them to do. I could make you do a splendid tap dance on this table before jumping off the roof of this building.”
He swallows; his Adam’s apple jerks with the motion. His voice goes very soft. “I could pith people, Erik; wipe them clean of all memories, tabula rasa, erase them forever. I don’t even think it would be difficult.” He looks sick at the thought, seeming to shrink in on himself in horror. Despite the redness that alcohol has raised in his cheeks, he looks even paler than usual, and the lines beneath his eyes look shadowed. “I would never want to do it. But just the fact that I could - yes, I do wonder about it.”
He takes a long draft of his beer, shuddering a little. “Of course that sort of thing doesn’t come up terribly often. I usually have to worry more about little things. Privacy is always a concern, it’s something most people value highly… and I can shatter that without them even being the wiser. And I do, sometimes. Sometimes it’s for a good reason, or at least, what I think is a good reason… but other times, it’s simply for my own benefit, or because I’m curious. I did that with you.”
He takes another long pull of beer from his glass, fixing Erik with one of those heavy looks he has difficulty handling. The alcohol emboldens Erik, however, and he keeps his gaze. Charles’ eyes are terribly blue.
“How did you know I was out there, that night? Were you looking for someone like me?”
“I wasn’t, not by that point. We’d found Shaw, his telepath ally was blocking me, and I’d given up on sending my awareness out there,” says Charles. “Really, you found me.”
Erik is baffled. “How?”
Charles’ mouth tucks up in one corner. “People with very… ah, very strong memories… It’s as if they’re shouting in a quiet room. The weight of everything you’ve felt, everything in your life; it screamed. When it hit me I about fell over from the shock of it. And in that connection, I went deeper than I needed to. I saw everything you had never intended to tell anyone.” He reaches out and puts a hand on Erik’s bare arm, squeezing gently for a moment before pulling back. “I’m sorry.”
Erik shakes his head, staring intently into Charles’ face. “You shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t have to hold back what you are, what you can do. And -“ He hesitates. “You don’t need to regret being in my head. You’re the only one I can trust, with what I am.”
Charles looks closely at him, and suddenly there is a small a-ha! expression that flits across his face. Before Erik can comment on it, it is gone, and so is the moment. Erik focuses back on his glass and says quickly, “You didn’t really answer my question from earlier, about what it actually, physically feels like for you. I’m still curious.”
Charles’ fingers flex convulsively as if he wants to raise them to his temple. Instead he says, “Can I show you? That would be easiest.”
Erik nods. “Of course.”
Charles’ fingers settle into their familiar position at his head. Erik opens his mouth to ask why Charles seems to need the crutch - though perhaps it’s like the way manipulating metal feels so much easier when his fingers move - but then Charles is there in his head.
I’m going to try and show you what I seefeelhearsense, Charles says into his mind, the last word a jumbled mishmash of several syllables. Erik takes a deep breath, and then he’s clutching the edge of the table, riveted.
Somehow Charles has fed some part of his mind into Erik’s, or maybe ushered a part of Erik into himself. It’s dizzying, disorienting, and Erik feels nauseous at the way Charles is shoehorning Erik’s consciousness into the madhouse Charles feels all around him. There are rushes, gouts of others’ thoughts flooding into his mind in torrents. The people in the bar have become a cacophonous maelstrom, their thoughts crashing into Charles’ - into Erik’s - awareness. Somehow he gets a distant sense of Charles sitting back, able to see through the stream of thoughts and sift them into some semblance of organization and order. Charles feels unperturbed by the rush of thoughts and feelings, but his calm acceptance of the thoughts doesn’t seem to be transferring over to Erik. Erik feels bombarded by the wants, the needs, the lies, the fears of the man tending bar, the woman making eyes at the pair of them, the couple at the table behind them…
I think it was difficult in the beginning, Charles sends to him, but now it’s simply life to me. Erik feels him pulling up mental barriers, slowly quieting the frenzy of people outside of them. Charles directs them to look at the man behind the bar, and somehow Charles focuses on him, and Erik can hear his every thought with incredible clarity. It’s a horrifying tangle of the mundane, the annoying, and the downright depressing. Charles releases his focus on the man and selects the woman, and riffles through her memories in a blinding flash. Erik barely understands the massive influx of raw data contained in the woman’s past memories and current thoughts, but he can feel Charles’ easy understanding, can see him cataloguing information and separating the useful from the useless in the space of a few seconds. To Erik it is a swirling mess, sickening, incomprehensible, mad --
“Stop,” Erik croaks, and with that word he’s back fully in his own head, leaning over the table to press the heels of his hands against his eyes. The regular sounds of the bar, clashing glasses and raised voices and piped in music, are a relief after the din of the humans’ thoughts.
“Did that alarm you?” comes Charles’ voice.
“Fuck, Charles,” Erik growls. “How do you live like that?”
Charles grabs Erik’s wrists and pulls his hands away from his face, releasing them when Charles is able to look back into his eyes. “I have to apologize to you again, don’t I,” he says in a low voice. “I’ve never brought someone in like that before. It was very difficult. I shouldn’t have done it, or at least, I should have waited until I was sober. My control isn’t as fine like this. I get sloppy.”
Erik waves Charles’ protests away. “It wasn’t you. It was them. How do you stand it, all of those minds surrounding you, shouting at you like that?”
“I usually don’t let them shout,” says Charles with some surprise. “They weren’t shouting just now, that was the level I normally keep them at.”
“If that wasn’t shouting, I shudder to think of what it’s like when you feel overwhelmed by it.”
He is beginning to realize how dangerous Charles could be. Erik prefers to use his powers of observation on others, not on studying himself, but even so, he is aware of certain facts about himself. Erik knows he is a masterful man; he’s seen it on the faces of the men he’s hunted and killed. He knows the violence in him hums just beneath the surface, and that unless he makes an effort to conceal it, others sense it and fear it, and fear him. These things have been plain to him since he was a very young man.
In Charles, the danger is deeply veiled. It is only just now that Erik begins to see what Charles could be capable of. Erik has killed people, and will kill again. But Charles could completely nullify them, eliminating them so completely that they could be removed from all human memory. And yet he would not do such a thing: a fact Erik knows with certainty.
He shivers, desire raging in him. To be faced with such a remarkable man, a man with such intellect, such passion, such power…
“Erik?”
Erik shakes himself from his reverie and says, his voice low, “You’re a dangerous man, Charles.”
“Yes,” Charles says quietly. His lips curl into a conspiratorial grin, and the way his eyes crinkle and his eyebrows rise is positively wicked in nature. “We both are, aren’t we?”
Erik sucks in a breath between his teeth, and lets it out slowly. Does Charles know what he’s doing to Erik? Whether or not Charles knows, Erik can’t take it anymore. The urge to grab Charles by the front of his shirt and haul him over the table to kiss him is almost unbearable. Erik’s fingers are twitching and the lamp overhead begins to sway, then bend. With a great effort he stills his hands and says, “Shouldn’t we be getting back to the hotel?”
Charles checks his watch. “Good Lord. I’m afraid you’re right. Let me go take care of the tab.” He slides out of the booth and gets to his feet. “I’ll meet you out front, shall I?” he says, and heads to the bar.
Erik gets up, grabbing his jacket, and moves past the few patrons still left in the bar. The door opens before him without him touching it, and he hurries out of it before anyone can notice. He seems to be sublimating his frustration into his ability, and he frowns at the loss of control. He moves to the curb, leaning against a light post, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers as he stares out into the street.
He doesn’t know how he is supposed to stay so calm when Charles lights him up in ways he didn’t know were possible. He thought he had been a monster beyond repair, and yet Charles sees in him something worthy, something fascinating. Charles trusts him enough to share his gift with him: I’ve never brought someone in like that before. But he doesn’t seem to see how he riles Erik so.
Erik stiffens against the lamp post and feels it shaking, his power making it vibrate. Though Erik is still looking into the street, he can feel that behind him, Charles is walking through the bar doors. Erik can tell it’s him by the same metal he had memorized in the train. Without turning around, Erik says loudly, “What took you so long?”
Charles, still a few feet away, stops. Erik turns to look at him and notices he seems unnerved. “How did you know I was there? I thought I was being quiet.”
“You were. I could feel your metal getting closer,” Erik says, shrugging.
“All right, but how did you know it was me, and not somebody else?”
“I told you,” says Erik pointedly. “Your metal.” His face breaks into a rueful smile. “I suppose I memorized it during our work today.”
Charles closes the gap between them, tugging at his lower lip with his teeth. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it again.
“Spit it out, Charles. The night is late.”
“I could find the answer out if I wanted to,” he says. “But I want to hear it from you.” Erik can feel the heat between them; Charles is close to him, now, too close, less than a foot of space between them. Out of the corner of his eyes Erik looks up and down the street; they are alone.
“You want to hear the answer to…?” His breath hitches in his throat.
“Erik… are you attracted to me?”
Erik stares at him, completely nonplussed. Fuck. Charles looks up at him in complete seriousness, his lips pursed, his eyes questioning. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Erik snarls. He pushes past Charles and marches down the street, calling behind him, “It seems you’ve already guessed!” He’s furious at how transparent he must have been, at the cool way Charles seems to have merely regarded it as a curiosity. He grabs his suit jacket and shoves his arms into it as he hurries down the street. Predictably, between Charles’ footsteps and his metal, Erik knows Charles is chasing after him.
He allows Charles to catch up to him at the entrance to an alley just behind their hotel. Charles grabs him by the arm and Erik shakes him off. “I suppose you’ve been enjoying this?” he spits.
“Well - to be frank, a little,” says Charles, and Erik shoves him backward. Charles stumbles, catching himself before he trips.
“What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything,” Charles says, straightening up and, for some reason, laughing. “I’ve been enjoying it because I feel the same way, you idiot!”
“I - you what?” Erik is completely dumbfounded. Everything pulls into sharp, bright focus and all of the moments he’d assumed Charles couldn’t really be flirting hit him with an incredible impact. “But that’s impossible. Raven said -“
“You’ve been listening to her, have you? She’s only got part of the story, I’m afraid. I do prefer women, if you must know. But that doesn’t preclude being, ah, intrigued by the right man,” says Charles, brushing his suit where Erik had rumpled the front of it. “It’s a much more common state than people know of, actually…” He gives Erik one of those terribly charming smiles. “At any rate, I don’t flirt this incessantly with just anyone.”
“God damn it, Charles!” Erik’s hands jerk forward and he grabs Charles by the shoulders, then pulls the other man into a kiss that’s hard and clumsy and exactly what he’s been looking for. Charles reaches up and twists his fingers into Erik’s hair, bringing him even closer so their bodies are pressed into each other. They break apart, gasping.
“Should we go upstairs?” Charles asks, his chest heaving, his face red. Erik looks into his open mouth and shudders with longing.
“Why, don’t want anyone to see us?”
“I’m not concerned about that - I could easily redirect anyone who happened to see us - but it has just occurred to me that we have some most excellent beds at our disposal.”
Erik hurries back to the hotel so quickly that Charles has to jog to keep up with him.
They enter the hotel quietly, an energy thrumming between them. They pass by the night staff without a glance, then wait, impatiently, for the elevator. It seems an eternity. Erik wants to start ripping Charles’ clothes off in the lobby, night staff be damned, and quivers with frustration.
It’s only a few more moments, Charles speaks into his mind, and Erik draws in a deep breath.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” he says, very quietly, and Charles winks at him as the elevator doors open. They slip inside, and as soon as they select their floor and the doors rattle closed he’s got Charles slammed up against the corner, his hands on Charles’ neck and his thumbs against his cheeks, pulling the other man’s face to his own. Charles’ mouth is unbearably slick and hot and Erik presses up against him, covering his body with his own.
The lift stops moving and Erik quickly extricates himself from Charles, looking straight ahead as the doors open. It’s their floor, and they hurry down the hallway to their room. Charles gets the door and lets them in, then closes the door behind them.
They look at each other.
Erik isn’t sure what happens first. He and Charles move at the same time and in a tangle of limbs they’re on Charles’ bed, tearing at each other’s clothing, kissing hard enough to bruise. Charles gets Erik’s jacket and tie off and manages to rip one of the shirt’s shoulders. Erik strips Charles naked to the waist, buttons flying everywhere, and goes frenziedly for his belt and zipper. In a flurry they’re kicking off shoes, trousers, socks, underthings until Charles straddles him about the waist and Erik lets out a long groan at the feel of the other man’s skin.
“You should have said something sooner,” Erik says thickly, pulling down Charles for one of those raw kisses. He grabs at him, unable to get enough of his skin.
Charles’ cock is pressed against his stomach and Erik thrusts against Charles’ thigh at the way it feels. He reaches between them to take hold of Charles’ cock.
“I didn’t want to alienate you, if you didn’t feel - ahh - the same way,” Charles breathes, arching upward into Erik’s hand.
“But you could have just looked -“ Erik touches the side of Charles’ face with a shaking hand, then gives Charles’ cock a swift, sure pull. Charles writhes.
“Wanted to leave you - some privacy,” he chokes out, then catches Erik off guard with a deep kiss. Erik wraps his arms around him, pulling him even closer.
Charles breaks out of the embrace, then sits back and snakes a hand down between Erik’s legs. Erik is now the one panting at the feel of Charles’ fingers firmly encircling his shaft. Charles strokes him, slowly at first, then more insistently, and Erik is throwing his head back against the covers. Charles releases him and bends low over him. Erik kisses him hard at the junction between his neck and shoulder, leaving a red mark at the collarbone, then breaks off to gasp as Charles grinds against him. His cock throbs , and his hips buck against the other man. Charles’ tongue slips against Erik’s jaw and he lets out a strangled groan at how warm and wet it is.
Erik rears up, knocking Charles back down to the bed to lay on his back. Erik holds him there, one hand on his chest. “Thank God you said something,” Erik pants, greatly enjoying the view of Charles below him with one arm up behind his head. “I couldn’t have waited much longer for this.” With that he inches backward on the bed, then gives Charles a broad smile before lowering his mouth to the other man’s cock.
Sliding his lips down Charles’ shaft is immensely satisfying for the way Charles hisses, then groans, long and low and guttural. Experimentally Erik swirls his tongue against the tip, and Charles’ hips jerk upwards involuntarily as he moans, “That isn’t fair.”
“No. It isn’t,” Erik admits, his mouth still loosely encircling Charles’ dick, and Charles shivers at the way the sound vibrates against him. He moves his tongue up, then down in one long, languid lick, then holds his lips firmly against the shaft and takes Charles as deep as he can. He’s rewarded with a sharp gasp from Charles, who sits up and gives Erik a look of half pleasure, half exasperation.
“That does it,” says Charles, and raises a trembling hand to his temple. If you’re going to tease me, I’ll do the same, he says into Erik’s mind.
“Do your worst,” Erik says, then takes Charles deeply again for one, two, three thrusts. Suddenly Erik is on his back, Charles is sucking him, he’s bucking and writhing against the headboard and how did he even get like this from his previous position, this doesn’t actually make sense, they skipped a step -
The vision fades and Erik is looking back at Charles in confusion, back on his knees between Charles’ legs. The other man’s mouth twists in an evil grin as he taps the side of his head. “I warned you.”
“You ass!” Erik scowls at him even as he feels a combination of amusement and shock that Charles could make him feel physical sensation so convincingly. “You know, if you keep that up, I won’t be able to do anything for you.”
“I know,” Charles says. “That’s why I’m going to do this instead.”
Erik slides Charles deep into his mouth again. Charles moans, and as he does so, the vision of Erik in Charles’ position blooms again in his mind. His cock throbs. Erik reels from what Charles is doing in his head, the almost unbearable pleasure radiating from that bright point of Charles’ presence. The pleasure spikes again and again, any time Charles’ cock hits the back of Erik’s throat, or Erik swirls his tongue against the spot between the glans and the shaft. Charles groans in both his ears and his head, and he’s lost in the sensations, engulfed.
It’s frightening, such a loss of control, but it’s intoxicating as well. The images Charles sends are much more than mere pictures or films; they’re completely immersive. It’s as if he’s living in two worlds at the same time: the world where he’s between Charles’ legs with his lips around Charles’ cock, and the world where he’s the one on his back and Charles is licking, tugging, sucking, sliding him in and out between those red, red lips… And somehow both worlds are equally true, and equally felt, so that his cock twitches in Charles’ mouth even as Charles groans for him. Instead of before, when he could only feel what Charles wanted him to feel, he’s now balanced between reality and Charles’ fantasy, viewing both of them, and it’s stunning.
In the excitement of what he’s doing to Charles and what Charles is doing to him, all of Erik’s senses are heightened. Every scrap of metal in the room and the surrounding parts of the hotel becomes crystallized in his mind, shimmering in his mind’s eye along with all of the sensation Charles is sending him. The bed shudders underneath them with Erik’s trembling and Charles, warningly, says Erik! I don’t want to have to pay for that if you break it!
Erik lets out a barklike laugh. He tamps down on his magnetism and reins it in as much as possible, confining it to the nightstand, which twitches and rocks back and forth before stilling as Erik calms himself. Don’t worry, says Charles. Someday I’ll bring you to my home, and you can destroy whatever you like.
“I’d like that,” Erik pants, the words almost lost in the ragged breaths tearing themselves from his mouth. “Fuck, Charles, how can you -“ He goes unintelligible, then, words lost to him.
It’s as if a third reality is beginning to bleed around the edges of the fantasy Charles is crafting for him, and the real, physical action of sucking Charles off. The third reality is Charles’ experiences. Every swirl of Erik’s tongue is telegraphed to him through Charles, so that he’s both Charles and himself, torn between giving physical pleasure, receiving a mental version of it, and then receiving the effects of his ministrations. The full knowledge of what he’s doing to Charles is unbearably arousing; he hears Charles’ groans with his ears and mind, and feels the groans coming out of Charles’ mouth with this new connection, feels them like it’s himself making those noises. The whole experience is like every kind of pornographic image at once, combined with self-pleasure and fantasy, overlaid with fucking and being fucked; it’s all endured at once in a roiling wave of lust, affection and pure physical need. It’s bizarre, and dizzying, and so fucking hot that his mind and his cock feel scorched with it.
He is determined, through the haze of thoughts and impressions, to make Charles come. He grasps him firmly in one hand and strokes, hard and fast, as he takes Charles deeply into his mouth. Charles’ breathing takes on a new, frantic pitch and he reaches down to tangle his hands in Erik’s hair. As he does, the flood of perception in Erik’s mind takes on a new level of frenzy. Sound and images roar in his mind, a multitude of them: Charles bending Erik over in their train car with their clothes half on, Erik pinning Charles against a shower wall, hasty blowjobs in backseats and elevators and libraries, Erik gasping Charles’ name again and again, Charles’ face contorting as he comes, sweat and saliva and the feel of skin on skin, kissing sucking fucking, an endless array of you me yes, yes, yes -
Charles comes in Erik’s mouth, then, howling in ecstasy; at the same time, Erik’s mind whites out with sheer, unbearable, agonizing pleasure and it’s only distantly he realizes that he’s coming too. The wave of Charles’ orgasm is an onslaught his mind can scarcely cope with, and it’s all that he can do to cling to Charles’ hips as he’s overwhelmed. The whiteout fades to darkness for a few seconds or maybe a few days, it’s hard to tell which.
“Erik,” says Charles, from very far away. Erik blinks, his breathing gradually slowing. He feels utterly weak and boneless; it seems to take him ages to lift his head up to look at Charles, who gives him a tired smile. “I hope that wasn’t too much for you.”
Erik’s mind feels strangely empty; a single reality feels so thin after the explosion of scenarios and feelings Charles had given him. Even the colors of the room seem dimmer. He swallows, tasting Charles on his tongue. “In some ways it was.” He clambers up onto his hands and knees, moving up on the bed to settle down against Charles. “But I think I could get used to it.” He grins.
Charles laughs, resting his head against Erik’s shoulders as he stretches out. “I could arrange that.”
Erik reaches out and turns off the lamp. In the darkness Charles is warm against him; his breathing slows, heralding approaching sleep. Erik is weary, too, but something keeps him awake. There’s something else he wants to do.
“Charles.”
“Yes, Erik?” Charles’ voice is already going groggy.
“You…” He hesitates, but considers: he has already revealed so much today, what is a little more? “You know what I am, and what I’ve done.”
“Yes, I do.”
“So I’m certain you know that I - do not really have an understanding of what it means, to care for someone.” He shies away from using another word, one even more loaded than what he’s just said. He’s not sure he’ll ever say that word.
Charles shifts, sliding an arm around Erik’s shoulders, and he presses his lips to Erik’s neck. “I do know it.”
“However, if anyone could teach me what that means, I think it would be you.”
Charles’ breath is soft against Erik’s skin. “My friend, what do you think I’ve been trying to do this whole time?”
Erik chuckles, then turns his head to kiss Charles in a kiss much more gentle than any they’ve shared so far. It feels strange, but good. “My eternal gratitude… Professor.”
Charles mock-punches him in the side and Erik can hear the mingled scowl and smile in his voice as he says, “That was uncalled for.” Another kiss, and then, “You know, we really ought to get some sleep. Our train leaves early.” A longer, softer kiss. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” says Erik, and relishes the way Charles curls behind him as they drift off into sleep.
During the night Erik learns several new things. He learns that Charles snores lightly the entire night, and that he is in fact an insufferable blanket stealer. Charles is also revealed to possess surprisingly knobby knees and sharp elbows, and has an uncanny knack for poking Erik in the back most uncomfortably. It’s peculiar sharing a bed all night with someone; Erik has not had a lot of practice. Every time he rolls over Charles is there with his snoring or his elbows or his hoard of blankets. It’s odd.
Erik finds it’s the best he’s slept in years.
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Author's note: Random things about this -- I greatly enjoy Charles the flirting manwhore, telepathic sex, and the idea that Charles' telepathy is a fucking scary mutation. I'd write dark!Charles but I think it would scare me. So I've been keeping him fluffy but also acknowledging just how fucking powerful he really could be.
god I love this fandom so freaking much hahaha