fic: the center of gravity of our little sphere (7/7)
And here is chapter seven, too, because I would've felt bad about leaving you for the weekend with the end of six.
Title: The Center Of Gravity Of Our Little Sphere (chapter 7/7) (chapter 6 here) (chapters 4 & 5 here) (chapter 3 here) (chapter 2 here) (chapter 1 here)
Rating: R overall, and also for this chapter, for Erik and Charles getting to have the sex!
Warnings: slight D/s dynamics in later chapters, eventual minor (villain) character death
Word Count: 29,950 (total); 4,298 for this chapter
Disclaimers: boys’re not mine, only doing this for fun. Title and epigraph courtesy of H.G. Wells.
Notes/Summary: for telperion_15's prompt of Erik is employed as a not-so-jolly department store Santa, and Charles is one of his elves. Except somehow it turned into an enormous low-powered Victorian AU, full of hurt/comfort and love and plot and some, er, slight D/s dynamics, and also, um, Shaw-the-villain. Yep, that’s right. Also, some historical liberties for mutants existing and gay marriage reform in progress.
In this chapter: happy endings are possible after all.
December 25, 1897
He takes them to the Columbia laboratory, first. Charles’s laboratory. He rationalizes that it’s closer, that it’ll be familiar and yet not too personal, not too intense for still-reforming memories.
Inside, he knows he’s a coward. Can’t face bringing Charles home to his rooms, their rooms, the space they’ve been sharing, and witness their bathtub and windows and pillows being met with that same gaze, that quizzical blue.
He’d caught Raven’s arm, that morning, outside the hospital room. Had had to watch her face, as he explained: first that Charles was awake, and physically all right; second, that Charles wasn’t all right in any real sense of the words. She’d closed her eyes, absorbing the impact. He’d put a hand on her shoulder, all he could think to do, and let her go in.
The doctors’d agreed, earlier that day, that Charles could go home. No strenuous activity, not while he was still recovering, but there was no point in someone technically fit and mobile taking up the bed. And Charles had looked at Erik with hope and just a hint of self-satisfaction-see, I am fine, I told you so-and Erik’d been left breathless by the wave of affection, and longing, and heartache that crashed through his chest.
The laboratory’s quiescent, placidly awaiting the start of term, around them. Specimens watch them from jars; microscopes peer up through focused lenses, intrigued. The cloudy light of afternoon, illumination through mist that wants to be rain, follows them around.
Charles touches a bench, a microscope, a slide, neatly labeled in his own writing, beside it. Charles has elegant writing, when he bothers, a product of years-ago etiquette drills; mostly, Erik knows, he doesn’t bother, no longer as any sort of rebellion but because he doesn’t worry about taking the time for note-perfect p’s and q’s.
He, Erik, knows that about Charles. He wonders whether Charles himself still knows.
Charles touches the microscope again. Smiles, very faintly, a shared private joke between himself and the instrument. Erik holds his breath.
The door clatters behind them and disrupts the moment. They both turn, Erik thoroughly prepared to commit bodily harm should anyone interrupt Charles now.
“Oh-Professor-sorry, I didn’t expect-I was coming over to get some-I talked to Raven and she said and I thought maybe you’d want your notes or some books or something that might-obviously you had the same idea, or are you better, I’m so sorry, are you-feeling better, or…?” Hank eventually runs out of words, machinery out of steam, and trails off.
“…Hank,” Charles says. Erik can’t tell whether that’s real recognition or excellent pretense, but he suspects the latter. “Thank you. And, no, I’m afraid what you’ve heard remains true. But I do remember all the factual events, you know, so if you wanted to ask me about your research topic, I’m still going to ask you whether you’ve looked into Schleiden’s cell theory as deeply as you should…”
“I have,” Hank protests, promptly, sounding understandably startled, “over the last few weeks, since you told me to, and I had questions about how well his observation of cell development in medusae plants translates to other species, and-”
“It does, though, if you look at-where’s the-oh, there it is, Hank, hand me that box and come here-”
Erik takes a few steps away, and he’s smiling, he can feel himself smiling, but it’s a smile built on shaky ground. Insufficient structure, at the base. Won’t hold for long.
He leans against the doorframe, and watches Charles remember how to get excited, how to love something that’s a piece of his heart and a light in those eyes, something that isn’t Erik.
The rain begins, out in the world, tapping compassionate rhythms on the roof overhead. It’s isolating, the three of them-two of them, really, plus Erik-alone in the laboratory, in the world.
There’s a sagging spot in the corner of the room, where hastily assembled walls don’t quite meet evenly. He pictures how he might redesign it, reconstruct the space. Higher ceilings. Larger windows, because Charles likes them, reminders of the world he’s constantly trying to explore and improve. A larger window there would mean having to move a load-bearing wall, so maybe if he puts it there, and then he also won’t have to think about the way that Charles is smiling at Hank, that brilliant unabashed grin that’d caught Erik’s heart the very first time.
Charles also likes bookshelves, he thinks; and, determinedly, starts calculating where he could manage built-in shelves. If Charles ever wants them.
He’s pondering the far wall when he feels a gentle tap on his arm, in his thoughts. Erik?
Charles? “I thought you were occupied…”
“I was. I think I’ve given him enough to think about, though; I’ve lost him to the German botanists for a while. But, Erik, this…I remember this.” Thank you. The eyes’re sparkling up at him, bright and happy, and Erik pushes aside any feelings other than relief and joy on Charles’s behalf.
“You’re welcome. If this is working…is there someplace else you’d like to go?” Anywhere you want. The rain splashes from the eaves, tumbles down, flings itself loudly into the ground. If you…if you want Hank to come along…
The ocean-canyon eyes blink, in surprise. “Hank? Certainly not. He’s busy. And I have you for company.” I enjoy your company. I am…I might be a bit cold. It’s raining, you know. Can we go home?
“Of course.” He snatches discarded gloves from the nearest table, grabs Charles’s hands, starts to put the one on the other, and then stops, faced with the somewhat incredulous expression.
“Ah…did I…did we…you get to dress me?”
“Um.” The only good explanation for that impulse, involving as it does their occasional bedroom dynamic and Erik’s need to take care of Charles, in those raw and vulnerable moments after, in all the moments when Charles needs care, actually makes him blush. Which then makes Charles blush, seeing those thoughts.
“…oh. Never mind. You, ah. Go on. I wasn’t actually objecting. Can we find hot cocoa, on the way?”
“I did say anything you’d like.” Charles, I enjoy your company, too. You-I would like you to know that.
“I do,” Charles promises, and leaves his now-gloved hands in Erik’s, and smiles.
He’s not certain what Charles means by home, not yet; the university accommodations’re closer, so they stop there first. Charles licks cocoa from his lips, tilts his head, considers. “It’s not very large, is it?”
“You…well, you’re visiting faculty, you said…it’s temporary…”
“Oh. There was something I’d meant to tell you, about that. I think I might’ve been waiting to ask you a question, though.” Another sip. Erik watches him swallow, entranced. “I was…nervous about asking you. But I suppose I should tell you now, since I’ve said something?”
“I…whatever you want to do.”
“They asked me if I might like to stay on. Permanently, I mean. As this semester went so swimmingly.” Charles finishes off the cocoa; automatically, Erik takes it and sets it out for disposal, head full of white noise.
“What…what did you say?”
“I believe I said I would like to say yes, but I needed some time to think about it.” Charles examines his front door, squares his shoulders, reaches for the knob. “So this is where I live? Feels like I’ve seen pictures.”
“You…lately you’ve not been here very much…but-”
Charles steps across the threshold. Over to the bookshelves, almost immediately. Erik stops talking, in the hope that his thoughts will cease spinning and settle down.
Charles has been asked to stay. Charles could stay here, in New York, with him. Permanently.
Charles had never been planning to stay, before.
Charles had wanted to ask him a question. Erik thinks of the possibilities, of the possibility he wants more than anything, the question he’s been beginning to hope he might ask those blue eyes, too, if he could be the one to say the words first. If it’s the same question, that question, he’ll say yes now and forever and for all time.
It won’t be that question, now. How can it be? Charles doesn’t know him. Can’t be in love, so deeply in love, with someone who’s only here as an ink-sketch outline in that injured mind.
Erik bites hard into his lip. Breathes. Watches Charles try to relearn himself, bit by broken bit, room by shadowy room.
As Charles wanders out of the hallway and back into the sitting room, one finger trails over wood, and up, along eager book-spines. A few more steps; uncertain eyes seek out a doorway, a table, the curves where the ceiling greets the walls. And then they return, and meet his.
“Erik, I…I recognize this, I do, but…is this…home?”
All the words vanish, in the frankness of that question. None left, in his head, on his lips.
“Charles,” he manages, finally, “this is…these are…you live here. You, and Raven…”
“I…” Charles bites his lip. Looks down. Breaks Erik’s heart all over again. “I just thought…I mean, I remember…or I dreamed that, maybe…we were living somewhere else? You, and I? Someplace with…windows. An impressive bathtub. Your stove and soup pots. You…”
His heart’s cracking for a different reason, now. “I used to-I’d been cooking for you. For us. You remember that…”
“That was real…You had a bed. We had a bed. And I woke up cold, that first night, and you didn’t have extra blankets, but you had your coat, and you put that over me…”
“And you said you felt perfectly warm. I did go out and buy blankets. The next day. Charles…”
I love you, Charles says, and that’s warm, too, like summer unexpectedly blossoming in January. I can feel that.
I love you, Erik answers, though it’s not very coherent, through the flood and thaw.
I feel that, too. Not everything, not yet, but…that, yes. “Can we…go home, now? I do recall this place, I mean, I recall these rooms…” Another touch, fingers alighting on the nearest bookshelf, more confidence this time. “But I think I’d like to see our home.”
So they do.
Charles walks in the door first. Turns around, not needing to say anything, and smiles. The happiness, the sense of yes/right/this/you, bursts around them like a warm summer shower, like the cozy patter of drops outside.
Erik takes his hands again, because he can’t do anything else. The metal sculptures shiver and chime, in their resting places, not from cold.
“You have gloves on.” May I…take them for you?
“Since we’re home? Yes.” Not planning on going anywhere else, any time soon. Charles smiles again, as Erik slides wool slowly over his fingers, knit fabric revealing pale skin; the last finger on that left hand catches, briefly, and Charles breathes in, and the air changes, shifts, grows taut.
“You…said you were cold, earlier…” He’s removing Charles’s other glove, methodically, regardless. Inch by inch.
“I’m not cold any longer.”
“And you…are feeling all right. Your head…” He lifts one hand. Brushes windswept hair out of Charles’s face. Leaves his fingers there, skimming a question over tender skin, avoiding the lingering bandage in that one wounded spot.
“My head,” Charles announces, “is absolutely fine,” and then takes a step forward, pressed up against Erik now, intoxicatingly near. When Erik breathes, he imagines he can taste that coconut soap, scenting all the inviting skin.
“I think I would like to kiss you,” Charles tells him, looking up into his eyes; Erik says, “Wait, are you certain that you-” and lips meet his with decided force, Charles kissing him as if one or both of their lives could depend on it, as if they’ve never been here before and never will be again.
They have, and they haven’t. Not like this.
Charles tastes like hot cocoa and winter rain. Like the glitter of tinsel and the laughter in their heads. Erik never wants to come back up for air. Charles can be his air.
You taste delicious, too. I knew you would.
Charles, you-
No. I’m afraid not. But this is real, this, me wanting this-wanting you. This me, who I am right now. I want you.
I want this-I want you-but-
You bought me hot cocoa, Charles says, and does something with his tongue that makes Erik’s knees go weak, and you sat at my bedside, and you thought about windows in my laboratory because you know I like them, and I may not remember when I first fell in love with you, but I remember these things, here and now. And this is real.
I love you.
I love you, too. Take me to bed? I assume I’ll love that, as well.
“Oh,” Erik tells him, because this much needs to be said out loud, not so much a promise as a prediction, “you will.” And then grabs those hands again and pulls Charles into the other room and into the bed, in a flurry of clothing and sheets and discarded undergarments.
Charles gasps, when Erik collects his curious hands and pins them down against the mattress. “Stay put. I have plans for you.”
“I was trying to touch you-”
“Oh…well, in that case.” He rolls over on top of Charles, all that body weight, making sure to use his muscles to best advantage. Charles doesn’t try to struggle, only relaxes into Erik’s grip and lets himself be held down, wide-eyed.
“Sufficient touching for you?”
“Erik-” This time Charles does wiggle, a hungry little lifting of hips; Erik laughs, shifts position, leaves Charles panting and desperate for friction.
That’s hardly fair!
I don’t hear you making an articulate argument for any other position.
I-you-Erik, please!
“Please what? This?” He wraps a hand around Charles’s beautifully swollen cock, hard and flushed with need; gets a small moan. You like that?
Yes-
Good.
But I meant-earlier-oh god do that again-I wanted to-to get to know you, to explore you-
Oh. He remembers to breathe. Reminds himself that for Charles, this is new in so many ways. Yes. I’m sorry. What do you want to-
No, this is good, you’re good, I like this, I only- Charles blushes, but doesn’t look away. Can I touch you? Please?
Erik moves the hand that’s been holding slim wrists; Charles blinks, hesitates, doesn’t sit up right away. It takes a second, but Erik realizes, and when he does he says, a little astonished but thrilled to the core, “Come here, please, Charles.”
Charles grins, sits up, permission given and accepted; kisses Erik’s lips, lightly, then his shoulder, then a bit lower, wandering pathways that drift across Erik’s chest, stomach, hips. He stops short of caressing Erik’s cock, but only just; his breath flutters across superheated arousal, and Erik fights back imminent eruptions and manages, panting, “Charles, do you want to suck my cock?”
Charles audibly inhales, and whispers, yes…
Then do it.
Charles does. Tentatively at first, adjusting to the length, the sensation, the fullness; but he’s broadcasting the shivers of pleasure, the excitement, the heat that washes through them both when he licks the straining tip and drops of wetness spill over his tongue. Those eyes fall shut when Charles takes him deeper, relaxing into the motion now, and Erik puts a hand on his head and keeps him in place and Charles doesn’t physically tremble but the intensity streaks like fire through their vision.
They quiver on the edge for a quick second, and then Erik clutches at self-control and tugs on Charles’s hair, not hard, only enough to convey the idea; Charles slides up and lets Erik’s cock slip from his mouth, eyes huge and dark and drowned in desire.
“I want you,” Erik tells him, I want to be inside you, to take you, to make you feel all of me, after.
Yes Erik please-
“Then lie down.” They have lubricants, scented oils and lotions, in the bedside drawer; Charles had bought most of them, and laughed for several minutes at Erik’s expression, confronted with the variety of options, after that first shopping excursion.
He picks pineapple, partly because Charles does like that one and partly because it’s the first one that comes to hand.
On the subject of hands, Charles tips his head to watch, as Erik’s moves between his legs. He looks perfectly anticipatory, not at all alarmed or virginal, though he does glance at Erik’s cock, suddenly, with a half-amused expression, as if reconsidering how these pieces might fit together.
But he doesn’t say stop, so Erik presses a finger inside him, opening him up, feeling that tightness yield and give way. Charles moans, a sound that’s probably meant to be Erik’s name but dissolves into wordless craving.
More?
Charles lifts his head, blinking, dazed. What do YOU think?
Erik laughs. More, then.
He moves fingers, once they’re inside, searching. Finds that particular place, right where he recalls it, particularly sensitive. Strokes.
Charles nearly screams. The hips snap up off the bed, pushing against his hand.
“Don’t be impatient,” Erik admonishes him, gently, “you can finish when I say,” and the midnight oceans of those eyes grow wider, but they listen, as Charles tries to still the shivering of all those muscles, against the bed.
“You do like this. When I tell you what I want, when I tell you what you can do, when I tell you that you are being good, for me…” You are. You always are.
Charles is past being verbal, now, incoherent pulses of need and lust and heat and broken incandescent surrender; but Erik picks up that last little flicker of impatience, cinnamon spice amid the aching sweetness, because even here Charles is still himself and still can never quite be good at waiting, when he wants something very badly. When he wants Erik, needs Erik, so very badly.
Charles is still himself, at least in this. And Erik can give him this. They can be themselves, again, together.
Because he needs Charles equally as much, he says, “Now,” and strokes his fingers hard across that throbbing place, repeatedly, again and again, and Charles comes for him, gasping, cock untouched and spilling white stickiness over that tense stomach, all the freckles, pulses of liquid ecstasy.
Erik’s own cock is heavy and yearning between his legs, but he can’t resist one more flick of fingers, pushing that orgasm to the peak, and Charles tries to scream and curl up around his hand and sob his name all at once, and Erik pushes him back into the scattered pillows and slides his hand out-Charles, eyes closed, whimpers-and then plunges inside, into all that slick heat, muscles loose and euphoric and unprotesting.
He’s not gentle, even though he wants to be; he can’t help the motion becoming harder, though, faster, when Charles reaches for him, blindly running arms up and down his back, as if trying to hold Erik as tightly inside him as possible; Erik pants his name, and Charles moans, gorgeously responsive, and Erik lifts one of those parted legs and braces himself and thrusts, and Charles cries out and the pleasure floods over them both, not as sharply as the first time, but languorous, extended, dreamlike and decadent; and Erik feels the climax build and sweep across him, too, everywhere, pulling him into the heart of delight.
They stay very still, for an eternity, in the quiet. It’s not a soundless quiet. Soft breaths. The careful repositioning of arms. The small sigh when Erik slips out and then the second sigh, satisfaction, when he pulls Charles close to him again.
The rain tapdances, on the rooftop, on the windowpane. Too much energy, Erik decides, but he’s too comfortable, too unshakeably content, to mind.
Erik, Charles murmurs, and laughs, rippling languid echoes of fulfillment. That was…you were…you are…
“Charles,” Erik says, out loud because he can, because he can’t contain that feeling, has to let it out somehow. “Charles.” I love you.
“And I love you.” I love your hand right there.
“I-yes, you do. I know you do.” You’ve…told me that before.
I have? “It’s still true, then.”
“Please don’t-you don’t remember that?” Not enough. Not enough, after all. After everything.
No. This will be enough. He will make it enough. Through sheer bloodyminded love and strength of will and the devotion of infinite days, every word he has to say again, every moment they’ll recreate or discover anew. It’ll all be new. And that will be all they need.
I am sorry. Charles glances away. At the rain. “I wish-”
“I know. Don’t say that.” You’re here.
Hold me, Charles asks, very silently. Erik reaches out arms, folds them around him, tucks Charles securely into the space that’s meant for him, always and forever, skin to skin. They fit together, in the pearl-grey remains of the afternoon.
Charles doesn’t quite fall asleep, lying there encircled by his arms; the breathing’s not regular enough for that, little inhales and exhales that float over cooling bodies. Erik doesn’t sleep either. Only rests his cheek against that tumble of exuberant hair, and breathes, and lets himself feel the weight of that familiar shape beside his.
The air is sweet, and chilled, and tastes of winter. Outside the festive lights will be coming on, flickering vividly at the boldest early stars. The whole world glowing with the holiday spirit.
This bed, their bed, is warm. The blankets curl up at the base, near their feet, and settle in.
He closes his eyes, and holds onto Charles. Thinks, drifting, lazily, home.
Some time must pass, then. When he opens his eyes, it’s because he can feel the gaze resting on his face. And Charles is looking at him, too, wide-eyed and silent, lips parted in recognition.
The universe trembles. Turns over, with mute and inexpressible joy.
“Erik,” Charles says. Erik.
If he speaks, if he gives the hope actual form, it might shatter. He waits, arrested by the eyes, by the voiceless crackle in the air.
“Erik,” Charles says again. “You drew a bridge for me. In this bed.” With chess-piece anchor-points, at the ends.
They’re decorative, Erik whispers.
Like holiday costumes. Like…turning around, in a storage room, and seeing you smile.
The joy is piercing, quick and sharp as an arrow, so blinding it hurts, but exquisitely so. Kaleidoscopic. Dizzying.
Charles, meeting his eyes, laughs, wondering and elated and breathless, like the birth of a star.
“Charles,” Erik says, out loud, and then he’s laughing too, Charles in his arms and the mattress solid beneath them, the whole world fracturing into holiday-light rainbows and mirth. Christmas Day.
I remember, Charles says, through the laughter, through Erik clutching his hands, through the gleeful cheering of the rain, what I was going to ask you.
You-wait, you remember-what were you-?
I do want to stay here. I WANT to stay here, I want everything, I love you-
Yes, you do, you love me and I love you-
The university, Charles says, kissing him soundly, asked me to stay, I told you that, and what I wanted to ask you was-I know it’s fast, I know we’ve not even had a proper month together, but you know me like no one ever has and I know you and if you want to, if you want me, if you say you might someday want to-
Charles, will you marry me?
“I was trying to ask you!” But Charles kisses him one more time, and doesn’t let go. And yes!
Charles does sell the company. To Logan. For the grand sum of one American dollar. And then accepts a permanent professorship at Columbia, after requesting, and receiving, funding for all his graduate students plus a bit extra to redesign the lab, employing any architect he might happen to like having involved in the process.
Erik builds bridges and skyscrapers and schools across the city, and gradually, in other cities too. People know his name. They tend to comment that he must have a good heart, despite the gruff demeanor. After all, he volunteers as Saint Nicholas in the traditional Xavier Company holiday festivities, every year. Sometimes he’s asked why he works a chess-piece design into every building, every sculpture, always someplace, small or large, hidden away or visibly grand. When those questions come up, he always smiles.
Erik and Charles get married two short weeks after the new year, the first available date, in the winter, under holiday lights and, halfway through, an uninvited and spectacularly heavy snowfall. The ceremony doesn’t stop, though, only pauses while Erik yanks off his own coat and wraps it around shorter shoulders. Raven and half the guests sigh out loud at the gesture, and the romance of it all.
Charles grins. Like the night we first met.
You mean the night you invited me out for coffee and introduced yourself as my elf?
The night you made me this. Charles is holding the silvery star-shaped ornament, the one made out of those cheap elf-costume bells.
…you saved that?
Of course. I thought perhaps we could put it up, somewhere. On the tree, if we ever manage to acquire one-the thought of me surrounded by Christmas trees really isn’t so adorable that you must tackle me into the bed every time, you know-
Yes it is.
Not complaining. --or hanging next to a menorah. If you want that. If you want to.
“Charles,” Erik says, aloud, “I do,” and Charles grins, and says the words right back, as the snow turns the world into a wonderland around them.
Title: The Center Of Gravity Of Our Little Sphere (chapter 7/7) (chapter 6 here) (chapters 4 & 5 here) (chapter 3 here) (chapter 2 here) (chapter 1 here)
Rating: R overall, and also for this chapter, for Erik and Charles getting to have the sex!
Warnings: slight D/s dynamics in later chapters, eventual minor (villain) character death
Word Count: 29,950 (total); 4,298 for this chapter
Disclaimers: boys’re not mine, only doing this for fun. Title and epigraph courtesy of H.G. Wells.
Notes/Summary: for telperion_15's prompt of Erik is employed as a not-so-jolly department store Santa, and Charles is one of his elves. Except somehow it turned into an enormous low-powered Victorian AU, full of hurt/comfort and love and plot and some, er, slight D/s dynamics, and also, um, Shaw-the-villain. Yep, that’s right. Also, some historical liberties for mutants existing and gay marriage reform in progress.
In this chapter: happy endings are possible after all.
December 25, 1897
He takes them to the Columbia laboratory, first. Charles’s laboratory. He rationalizes that it’s closer, that it’ll be familiar and yet not too personal, not too intense for still-reforming memories.
Inside, he knows he’s a coward. Can’t face bringing Charles home to his rooms, their rooms, the space they’ve been sharing, and witness their bathtub and windows and pillows being met with that same gaze, that quizzical blue.
He’d caught Raven’s arm, that morning, outside the hospital room. Had had to watch her face, as he explained: first that Charles was awake, and physically all right; second, that Charles wasn’t all right in any real sense of the words. She’d closed her eyes, absorbing the impact. He’d put a hand on her shoulder, all he could think to do, and let her go in.
The doctors’d agreed, earlier that day, that Charles could go home. No strenuous activity, not while he was still recovering, but there was no point in someone technically fit and mobile taking up the bed. And Charles had looked at Erik with hope and just a hint of self-satisfaction-see, I am fine, I told you so-and Erik’d been left breathless by the wave of affection, and longing, and heartache that crashed through his chest.
The laboratory’s quiescent, placidly awaiting the start of term, around them. Specimens watch them from jars; microscopes peer up through focused lenses, intrigued. The cloudy light of afternoon, illumination through mist that wants to be rain, follows them around.
Charles touches a bench, a microscope, a slide, neatly labeled in his own writing, beside it. Charles has elegant writing, when he bothers, a product of years-ago etiquette drills; mostly, Erik knows, he doesn’t bother, no longer as any sort of rebellion but because he doesn’t worry about taking the time for note-perfect p’s and q’s.
He, Erik, knows that about Charles. He wonders whether Charles himself still knows.
Charles touches the microscope again. Smiles, very faintly, a shared private joke between himself and the instrument. Erik holds his breath.
The door clatters behind them and disrupts the moment. They both turn, Erik thoroughly prepared to commit bodily harm should anyone interrupt Charles now.
“Oh-Professor-sorry, I didn’t expect-I was coming over to get some-I talked to Raven and she said and I thought maybe you’d want your notes or some books or something that might-obviously you had the same idea, or are you better, I’m so sorry, are you-feeling better, or…?” Hank eventually runs out of words, machinery out of steam, and trails off.
“…Hank,” Charles says. Erik can’t tell whether that’s real recognition or excellent pretense, but he suspects the latter. “Thank you. And, no, I’m afraid what you’ve heard remains true. But I do remember all the factual events, you know, so if you wanted to ask me about your research topic, I’m still going to ask you whether you’ve looked into Schleiden’s cell theory as deeply as you should…”
“I have,” Hank protests, promptly, sounding understandably startled, “over the last few weeks, since you told me to, and I had questions about how well his observation of cell development in medusae plants translates to other species, and-”
“It does, though, if you look at-where’s the-oh, there it is, Hank, hand me that box and come here-”
Erik takes a few steps away, and he’s smiling, he can feel himself smiling, but it’s a smile built on shaky ground. Insufficient structure, at the base. Won’t hold for long.
He leans against the doorframe, and watches Charles remember how to get excited, how to love something that’s a piece of his heart and a light in those eyes, something that isn’t Erik.
The rain begins, out in the world, tapping compassionate rhythms on the roof overhead. It’s isolating, the three of them-two of them, really, plus Erik-alone in the laboratory, in the world.
There’s a sagging spot in the corner of the room, where hastily assembled walls don’t quite meet evenly. He pictures how he might redesign it, reconstruct the space. Higher ceilings. Larger windows, because Charles likes them, reminders of the world he’s constantly trying to explore and improve. A larger window there would mean having to move a load-bearing wall, so maybe if he puts it there, and then he also won’t have to think about the way that Charles is smiling at Hank, that brilliant unabashed grin that’d caught Erik’s heart the very first time.
Charles also likes bookshelves, he thinks; and, determinedly, starts calculating where he could manage built-in shelves. If Charles ever wants them.
He’s pondering the far wall when he feels a gentle tap on his arm, in his thoughts. Erik?
Charles? “I thought you were occupied…”
“I was. I think I’ve given him enough to think about, though; I’ve lost him to the German botanists for a while. But, Erik, this…I remember this.” Thank you. The eyes’re sparkling up at him, bright and happy, and Erik pushes aside any feelings other than relief and joy on Charles’s behalf.
“You’re welcome. If this is working…is there someplace else you’d like to go?” Anywhere you want. The rain splashes from the eaves, tumbles down, flings itself loudly into the ground. If you…if you want Hank to come along…
The ocean-canyon eyes blink, in surprise. “Hank? Certainly not. He’s busy. And I have you for company.” I enjoy your company. I am…I might be a bit cold. It’s raining, you know. Can we go home?
“Of course.” He snatches discarded gloves from the nearest table, grabs Charles’s hands, starts to put the one on the other, and then stops, faced with the somewhat incredulous expression.
“Ah…did I…did we…you get to dress me?”
“Um.” The only good explanation for that impulse, involving as it does their occasional bedroom dynamic and Erik’s need to take care of Charles, in those raw and vulnerable moments after, in all the moments when Charles needs care, actually makes him blush. Which then makes Charles blush, seeing those thoughts.
“…oh. Never mind. You, ah. Go on. I wasn’t actually objecting. Can we find hot cocoa, on the way?”
“I did say anything you’d like.” Charles, I enjoy your company, too. You-I would like you to know that.
“I do,” Charles promises, and leaves his now-gloved hands in Erik’s, and smiles.
He’s not certain what Charles means by home, not yet; the university accommodations’re closer, so they stop there first. Charles licks cocoa from his lips, tilts his head, considers. “It’s not very large, is it?”
“You…well, you’re visiting faculty, you said…it’s temporary…”
“Oh. There was something I’d meant to tell you, about that. I think I might’ve been waiting to ask you a question, though.” Another sip. Erik watches him swallow, entranced. “I was…nervous about asking you. But I suppose I should tell you now, since I’ve said something?”
“I…whatever you want to do.”
“They asked me if I might like to stay on. Permanently, I mean. As this semester went so swimmingly.” Charles finishes off the cocoa; automatically, Erik takes it and sets it out for disposal, head full of white noise.
“What…what did you say?”
“I believe I said I would like to say yes, but I needed some time to think about it.” Charles examines his front door, squares his shoulders, reaches for the knob. “So this is where I live? Feels like I’ve seen pictures.”
“You…lately you’ve not been here very much…but-”
Charles steps across the threshold. Over to the bookshelves, almost immediately. Erik stops talking, in the hope that his thoughts will cease spinning and settle down.
Charles has been asked to stay. Charles could stay here, in New York, with him. Permanently.
Charles had never been planning to stay, before.
Charles had wanted to ask him a question. Erik thinks of the possibilities, of the possibility he wants more than anything, the question he’s been beginning to hope he might ask those blue eyes, too, if he could be the one to say the words first. If it’s the same question, that question, he’ll say yes now and forever and for all time.
It won’t be that question, now. How can it be? Charles doesn’t know him. Can’t be in love, so deeply in love, with someone who’s only here as an ink-sketch outline in that injured mind.
Erik bites hard into his lip. Breathes. Watches Charles try to relearn himself, bit by broken bit, room by shadowy room.
As Charles wanders out of the hallway and back into the sitting room, one finger trails over wood, and up, along eager book-spines. A few more steps; uncertain eyes seek out a doorway, a table, the curves where the ceiling greets the walls. And then they return, and meet his.
“Erik, I…I recognize this, I do, but…is this…home?”
All the words vanish, in the frankness of that question. None left, in his head, on his lips.
“Charles,” he manages, finally, “this is…these are…you live here. You, and Raven…”
“I…” Charles bites his lip. Looks down. Breaks Erik’s heart all over again. “I just thought…I mean, I remember…or I dreamed that, maybe…we were living somewhere else? You, and I? Someplace with…windows. An impressive bathtub. Your stove and soup pots. You…”
His heart’s cracking for a different reason, now. “I used to-I’d been cooking for you. For us. You remember that…”
“That was real…You had a bed. We had a bed. And I woke up cold, that first night, and you didn’t have extra blankets, but you had your coat, and you put that over me…”
“And you said you felt perfectly warm. I did go out and buy blankets. The next day. Charles…”
I love you, Charles says, and that’s warm, too, like summer unexpectedly blossoming in January. I can feel that.
I love you, Erik answers, though it’s not very coherent, through the flood and thaw.
I feel that, too. Not everything, not yet, but…that, yes. “Can we…go home, now? I do recall this place, I mean, I recall these rooms…” Another touch, fingers alighting on the nearest bookshelf, more confidence this time. “But I think I’d like to see our home.”
So they do.
Charles walks in the door first. Turns around, not needing to say anything, and smiles. The happiness, the sense of yes/right/this/you, bursts around them like a warm summer shower, like the cozy patter of drops outside.
Erik takes his hands again, because he can’t do anything else. The metal sculptures shiver and chime, in their resting places, not from cold.
“You have gloves on.” May I…take them for you?
“Since we’re home? Yes.” Not planning on going anywhere else, any time soon. Charles smiles again, as Erik slides wool slowly over his fingers, knit fabric revealing pale skin; the last finger on that left hand catches, briefly, and Charles breathes in, and the air changes, shifts, grows taut.
“You…said you were cold, earlier…” He’s removing Charles’s other glove, methodically, regardless. Inch by inch.
“I’m not cold any longer.”
“And you…are feeling all right. Your head…” He lifts one hand. Brushes windswept hair out of Charles’s face. Leaves his fingers there, skimming a question over tender skin, avoiding the lingering bandage in that one wounded spot.
“My head,” Charles announces, “is absolutely fine,” and then takes a step forward, pressed up against Erik now, intoxicatingly near. When Erik breathes, he imagines he can taste that coconut soap, scenting all the inviting skin.
“I think I would like to kiss you,” Charles tells him, looking up into his eyes; Erik says, “Wait, are you certain that you-” and lips meet his with decided force, Charles kissing him as if one or both of their lives could depend on it, as if they’ve never been here before and never will be again.
They have, and they haven’t. Not like this.
Charles tastes like hot cocoa and winter rain. Like the glitter of tinsel and the laughter in their heads. Erik never wants to come back up for air. Charles can be his air.
You taste delicious, too. I knew you would.
Charles, you-
No. I’m afraid not. But this is real, this, me wanting this-wanting you. This me, who I am right now. I want you.
I want this-I want you-but-
You bought me hot cocoa, Charles says, and does something with his tongue that makes Erik’s knees go weak, and you sat at my bedside, and you thought about windows in my laboratory because you know I like them, and I may not remember when I first fell in love with you, but I remember these things, here and now. And this is real.
I love you.
I love you, too. Take me to bed? I assume I’ll love that, as well.
“Oh,” Erik tells him, because this much needs to be said out loud, not so much a promise as a prediction, “you will.” And then grabs those hands again and pulls Charles into the other room and into the bed, in a flurry of clothing and sheets and discarded undergarments.
Charles gasps, when Erik collects his curious hands and pins them down against the mattress. “Stay put. I have plans for you.”
“I was trying to touch you-”
“Oh…well, in that case.” He rolls over on top of Charles, all that body weight, making sure to use his muscles to best advantage. Charles doesn’t try to struggle, only relaxes into Erik’s grip and lets himself be held down, wide-eyed.
“Sufficient touching for you?”
“Erik-” This time Charles does wiggle, a hungry little lifting of hips; Erik laughs, shifts position, leaves Charles panting and desperate for friction.
That’s hardly fair!
I don’t hear you making an articulate argument for any other position.
I-you-Erik, please!
“Please what? This?” He wraps a hand around Charles’s beautifully swollen cock, hard and flushed with need; gets a small moan. You like that?
Yes-
Good.
But I meant-earlier-oh god do that again-I wanted to-to get to know you, to explore you-
Oh. He remembers to breathe. Reminds himself that for Charles, this is new in so many ways. Yes. I’m sorry. What do you want to-
No, this is good, you’re good, I like this, I only- Charles blushes, but doesn’t look away. Can I touch you? Please?
Erik moves the hand that’s been holding slim wrists; Charles blinks, hesitates, doesn’t sit up right away. It takes a second, but Erik realizes, and when he does he says, a little astonished but thrilled to the core, “Come here, please, Charles.”
Charles grins, sits up, permission given and accepted; kisses Erik’s lips, lightly, then his shoulder, then a bit lower, wandering pathways that drift across Erik’s chest, stomach, hips. He stops short of caressing Erik’s cock, but only just; his breath flutters across superheated arousal, and Erik fights back imminent eruptions and manages, panting, “Charles, do you want to suck my cock?”
Charles audibly inhales, and whispers, yes…
Then do it.
Charles does. Tentatively at first, adjusting to the length, the sensation, the fullness; but he’s broadcasting the shivers of pleasure, the excitement, the heat that washes through them both when he licks the straining tip and drops of wetness spill over his tongue. Those eyes fall shut when Charles takes him deeper, relaxing into the motion now, and Erik puts a hand on his head and keeps him in place and Charles doesn’t physically tremble but the intensity streaks like fire through their vision.
They quiver on the edge for a quick second, and then Erik clutches at self-control and tugs on Charles’s hair, not hard, only enough to convey the idea; Charles slides up and lets Erik’s cock slip from his mouth, eyes huge and dark and drowned in desire.
“I want you,” Erik tells him, I want to be inside you, to take you, to make you feel all of me, after.
Yes Erik please-
“Then lie down.” They have lubricants, scented oils and lotions, in the bedside drawer; Charles had bought most of them, and laughed for several minutes at Erik’s expression, confronted with the variety of options, after that first shopping excursion.
He picks pineapple, partly because Charles does like that one and partly because it’s the first one that comes to hand.
On the subject of hands, Charles tips his head to watch, as Erik’s moves between his legs. He looks perfectly anticipatory, not at all alarmed or virginal, though he does glance at Erik’s cock, suddenly, with a half-amused expression, as if reconsidering how these pieces might fit together.
But he doesn’t say stop, so Erik presses a finger inside him, opening him up, feeling that tightness yield and give way. Charles moans, a sound that’s probably meant to be Erik’s name but dissolves into wordless craving.
More?
Charles lifts his head, blinking, dazed. What do YOU think?
Erik laughs. More, then.
He moves fingers, once they’re inside, searching. Finds that particular place, right where he recalls it, particularly sensitive. Strokes.
Charles nearly screams. The hips snap up off the bed, pushing against his hand.
“Don’t be impatient,” Erik admonishes him, gently, “you can finish when I say,” and the midnight oceans of those eyes grow wider, but they listen, as Charles tries to still the shivering of all those muscles, against the bed.
“You do like this. When I tell you what I want, when I tell you what you can do, when I tell you that you are being good, for me…” You are. You always are.
Charles is past being verbal, now, incoherent pulses of need and lust and heat and broken incandescent surrender; but Erik picks up that last little flicker of impatience, cinnamon spice amid the aching sweetness, because even here Charles is still himself and still can never quite be good at waiting, when he wants something very badly. When he wants Erik, needs Erik, so very badly.
Charles is still himself, at least in this. And Erik can give him this. They can be themselves, again, together.
Because he needs Charles equally as much, he says, “Now,” and strokes his fingers hard across that throbbing place, repeatedly, again and again, and Charles comes for him, gasping, cock untouched and spilling white stickiness over that tense stomach, all the freckles, pulses of liquid ecstasy.
Erik’s own cock is heavy and yearning between his legs, but he can’t resist one more flick of fingers, pushing that orgasm to the peak, and Charles tries to scream and curl up around his hand and sob his name all at once, and Erik pushes him back into the scattered pillows and slides his hand out-Charles, eyes closed, whimpers-and then plunges inside, into all that slick heat, muscles loose and euphoric and unprotesting.
He’s not gentle, even though he wants to be; he can’t help the motion becoming harder, though, faster, when Charles reaches for him, blindly running arms up and down his back, as if trying to hold Erik as tightly inside him as possible; Erik pants his name, and Charles moans, gorgeously responsive, and Erik lifts one of those parted legs and braces himself and thrusts, and Charles cries out and the pleasure floods over them both, not as sharply as the first time, but languorous, extended, dreamlike and decadent; and Erik feels the climax build and sweep across him, too, everywhere, pulling him into the heart of delight.
They stay very still, for an eternity, in the quiet. It’s not a soundless quiet. Soft breaths. The careful repositioning of arms. The small sigh when Erik slips out and then the second sigh, satisfaction, when he pulls Charles close to him again.
The rain tapdances, on the rooftop, on the windowpane. Too much energy, Erik decides, but he’s too comfortable, too unshakeably content, to mind.
Erik, Charles murmurs, and laughs, rippling languid echoes of fulfillment. That was…you were…you are…
“Charles,” Erik says, out loud because he can, because he can’t contain that feeling, has to let it out somehow. “Charles.” I love you.
“And I love you.” I love your hand right there.
“I-yes, you do. I know you do.” You’ve…told me that before.
I have? “It’s still true, then.”
“Please don’t-you don’t remember that?” Not enough. Not enough, after all. After everything.
No. This will be enough. He will make it enough. Through sheer bloodyminded love and strength of will and the devotion of infinite days, every word he has to say again, every moment they’ll recreate or discover anew. It’ll all be new. And that will be all they need.
I am sorry. Charles glances away. At the rain. “I wish-”
“I know. Don’t say that.” You’re here.
Hold me, Charles asks, very silently. Erik reaches out arms, folds them around him, tucks Charles securely into the space that’s meant for him, always and forever, skin to skin. They fit together, in the pearl-grey remains of the afternoon.
Charles doesn’t quite fall asleep, lying there encircled by his arms; the breathing’s not regular enough for that, little inhales and exhales that float over cooling bodies. Erik doesn’t sleep either. Only rests his cheek against that tumble of exuberant hair, and breathes, and lets himself feel the weight of that familiar shape beside his.
The air is sweet, and chilled, and tastes of winter. Outside the festive lights will be coming on, flickering vividly at the boldest early stars. The whole world glowing with the holiday spirit.
This bed, their bed, is warm. The blankets curl up at the base, near their feet, and settle in.
He closes his eyes, and holds onto Charles. Thinks, drifting, lazily, home.
Some time must pass, then. When he opens his eyes, it’s because he can feel the gaze resting on his face. And Charles is looking at him, too, wide-eyed and silent, lips parted in recognition.
The universe trembles. Turns over, with mute and inexpressible joy.
“Erik,” Charles says. Erik.
If he speaks, if he gives the hope actual form, it might shatter. He waits, arrested by the eyes, by the voiceless crackle in the air.
“Erik,” Charles says again. “You drew a bridge for me. In this bed.” With chess-piece anchor-points, at the ends.
They’re decorative, Erik whispers.
Like holiday costumes. Like…turning around, in a storage room, and seeing you smile.
The joy is piercing, quick and sharp as an arrow, so blinding it hurts, but exquisitely so. Kaleidoscopic. Dizzying.
Charles, meeting his eyes, laughs, wondering and elated and breathless, like the birth of a star.
“Charles,” Erik says, out loud, and then he’s laughing too, Charles in his arms and the mattress solid beneath them, the whole world fracturing into holiday-light rainbows and mirth. Christmas Day.
I remember, Charles says, through the laughter, through Erik clutching his hands, through the gleeful cheering of the rain, what I was going to ask you.
You-wait, you remember-what were you-?
I do want to stay here. I WANT to stay here, I want everything, I love you-
Yes, you do, you love me and I love you-
The university, Charles says, kissing him soundly, asked me to stay, I told you that, and what I wanted to ask you was-I know it’s fast, I know we’ve not even had a proper month together, but you know me like no one ever has and I know you and if you want to, if you want me, if you say you might someday want to-
Charles, will you marry me?
“I was trying to ask you!” But Charles kisses him one more time, and doesn’t let go. And yes!
Charles does sell the company. To Logan. For the grand sum of one American dollar. And then accepts a permanent professorship at Columbia, after requesting, and receiving, funding for all his graduate students plus a bit extra to redesign the lab, employing any architect he might happen to like having involved in the process.
Erik builds bridges and skyscrapers and schools across the city, and gradually, in other cities too. People know his name. They tend to comment that he must have a good heart, despite the gruff demeanor. After all, he volunteers as Saint Nicholas in the traditional Xavier Company holiday festivities, every year. Sometimes he’s asked why he works a chess-piece design into every building, every sculpture, always someplace, small or large, hidden away or visibly grand. When those questions come up, he always smiles.
Erik and Charles get married two short weeks after the new year, the first available date, in the winter, under holiday lights and, halfway through, an uninvited and spectacularly heavy snowfall. The ceremony doesn’t stop, though, only pauses while Erik yanks off his own coat and wraps it around shorter shoulders. Raven and half the guests sigh out loud at the gesture, and the romance of it all.
Charles grins. Like the night we first met.
You mean the night you invited me out for coffee and introduced yourself as my elf?
The night you made me this. Charles is holding the silvery star-shaped ornament, the one made out of those cheap elf-costume bells.
…you saved that?
Of course. I thought perhaps we could put it up, somewhere. On the tree, if we ever manage to acquire one-the thought of me surrounded by Christmas trees really isn’t so adorable that you must tackle me into the bed every time, you know-
Yes it is.
Not complaining. --or hanging next to a menorah. If you want that. If you want to.
“Charles,” Erik says, aloud, “I do,” and Charles grins, and says the words right back, as the snow turns the world into a wonderland around them.