Brief Lives (23/25)
Title: Brief Lives (23/25)
Author: monstrousreg
Word count: 3506
Warnings: Eh, my first incursion into NC-17. YE BE WARNED.
Pairing: Erik/Charles.
Summary: Erik thinks he's going to seduce, interrogate and murder some nondescript CIA intelligence agent, and winds up biting more than he can chew. Charles is not keen on being murdered, he doesn't favor interrogations, and he's certainly not willing to be seduced. That he's not cooperating is midly put.
Notes: Unbetaed, and stuff. Eeep. I hope this isn't completely ridiculous and stupid and you think I whould never write sex again in my life. I'M SORRY. Oh. and it possibly ends on a rather disturbing note.
On the good side, there’s a way to solve the issue of Charles’ sleepy clinginess when they’re in bed.
The bad side of that is that Charles stops clinging only because he suffers the heat of summer much more than Erik does. Erik likes the heat-he spent many a freezing night just shy of hypothermia in the camps and appreciates the comfortable bed in the sweltering heat of the New York summer.
There’s also the fact that Erik just happens to like sweaty bodies pressed together in the mornings.
Erik wakes up now and realizes Charles has removed himself to the far side of the bed, stretched out on his left side with his back to Erik-a rarity that he’s not touching him, but a completely freak-fact that he’s not facing him.
“Charles?” He props himself up on an elbow, leaning over Charles’ shoulder, puzzled.
Charles is awake, eyes wide and glassy.
“What is it?” Erik asks quietly, laying his hand gently on Charles’ arm.
Charles closes his eyes and, a moment later, flicks the sheets down a few inches. Erik glances down in confusion, and is startled to find that, for the first time since they’ve been sharing a bed, Charles has a morning erection. His erections is pressing up and tenting the front of his boxers.
Charles’ sexual drive has its lows and its highs. When he’s already aroused getting him going is as easy as breathing in his ear. The problem is actually getting him to respond-something he often has to convince himself to do, and that Erik has learned to have patience with. There are triggers-small little details that make Charles’ mind a minefield when it comes to his libido. Things Erik wishes he could work on himself, but realizes he shouldn’t.
This is the first time Charles has gotten aroused on his sleep, probably in a long time, and he’s clearly rattled.
“It’s alright, you know,” Erik says soothingly, stroking Charles’ arm. “I wish you would have waked me. I can help you if you want.”
Charles hesitates, eyes flicking restlessly.
“It hurts.”
Erik frowns, sliding his arm down around Charles’ chest and heaving him close so his back is against Erik’s chest. He reaches down and pushes the sheets completely away, pleased when Charles shifts only to get more comfortable and not to move away or cover himself.
“How long have you been like this?” Erik asks quietly into Charles’ ear, resting his hand on Charles’ hip, thumb sliding between the waistband of his boxers and his pale skin.
Charles relaxes further against him, closing his eyes.
About half an hour, I think. It-it won’t go down.
Why didn’t you take care of it? We’ve been over this, Charles.
I didn’t-I know I can do that, it’s only I wanted-
Charles opens his eyes, a startling cornflower blue, nearly luminescent, in the dark.
“I wanted you and I didn’t want to wake you up.”
Erik smiles, pleased by the admission and by the fact Charles forced himself to say it out loud.
You should have, he thinks as he pushes his nose against the angle of Charles’ jaw, nudging him to roll his head back and bare his throat. Charles does, his right hand coming up to the back of Erik’s neck. Erik brings his lips up in a slow drag and nips Charles’ skin right behind the shell of his ear, relishing the way the telepath shivers against him.
Erik shifts and drops a kiss on Charles’ cheekbone on his way to the man’s lips. Charles opens his mouth for him readily, shifting to be completely on his back and bringing his hands up to Erik’s neck. Charles is almost always eager and loud when they’re entangled, and Erik loves that-but there’s a different sort of edge to his eagerness this morning, and Erik thinks he understand what’s missing.
The metal-bender moves to drape his whole body over Charles’, covering him and aligning their bodies from chest to cock. Charles doesn’t hesitate to spread his legs for Erik, a comfort that’s not always there, and Erik grins, probably like a psychopath. Not that Charles can tell-his eyes are still closed and he’s starting to pant.
Erik licks into Charles’ hot mouth, sliding his tongue wetly over the telepath’s, sucking the other’s tongue into his mouth, biting at his full bottom lip. Erik is nearly always a silent lover, so all of the sounds in the room are coming from Charles’ parted lips-stuttering gasps and half-uttered moans, mewling whines that drive Erik insane with want.
If only he could suck them all into his mouth and swallow them-but he can’t, because he’s taking the chance to straddle Charles thighs and sitting up, tugging at Charles’ shirt with his left hand. The geneticist raises up slightly to let him drag it off his torso, and then drops back heavily when Erik pushes him down with a hand on his chest.
Erik reaches up with his left hand and tears his own shirt off, throwing it carelessly away. Charles’ hands trail lightly up the flat lines of his stomach and chest, cup his neck and slide away, restless. Erik catches his right and presses it down against the bed, squeezing his wrist insistently and he leans down.
“Want me to take care of it for you?” he asks gravelly against Charles throat, licking at the hollow between his collarbones and grinding down on his erection. Charles writhes, nodding as he reaches up to grip Erik’s shoulders.
Erik shrugs gently out of his grasp and moves down like a snake, very deliberately dragging his erection over the hard line of Charles’ before settling down so the telepath’s cock is trapped between his navel and Erik’s. The German noses at Charles’s chest idly and finally presses his open mouth over Charles’ right nipple.
The telepath arches. The sounds he’s making now are completely indecent. His heart is thundering under Erik’s lips, chest heaving with shallow breaths. Erik realizes Charles hasn’t come this unhinged ever before with him, and the knowledge actually focuses him more. Erik’s had sex many times, almost always found it extremely pleasurable, and he’s no stranger to orgasm, even in its delayed forms.
Charles, on the other hand, has never had consensual intercourse. Erik knows he can make it good, and feels the responsibility of doing so, here and now.
“Alright,” he murmurs, letting up slightly and shifting so he can kiss Charles, gently and slowly, bringing him down a little. He strokes Charles’ hair back off his forehead with his left hand, kissing the telepath’s sensitive temple.
“Calm down, Charles. Slow down.”
Charles swallows and makes an effort to control his breathing, clawing back from the mindless high to a more sedate, rational place.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice rough.
“Don’t be. I’m going to take you over, but I just want you to calm down a little so I don’t hurt you. Can you lock down your telepathy for a while?”
Charles nods dazedly, “Already did, when I woke up.”
Erik kisses him again, settling his weight on the man’s body completely. Charles appreciates it, arching into him with a contented sigh. “There’s lube on my bedside drawer,” he says in a sigh, voice breaking off when Erik rolls his hips gently into his.
They don’t use it immediately. Erik takes his time, going slowly and methodically, guiding Charles smoothly up the curve only to pull back before he falls, arousing him without really making him desperate, because he wants Charles to feel pleasure but be coherent, somewhat, throughout. It’s possibly asking a lot from someone who’s been in enforced celibacy for a long time, but Charles doesn’t complain, trying to be patient, consciously letting Erik be in control. There will be time for Erik to make him mindless later, in the future, but right now... right now it's important Charles knows he can stop Erik with a breath, if need be.
I know you know what you’re doing, he sends at some point, panting against Erik’s ear when the other man finally grips the soft underside of his knee and bends his leg, up and out, to settle naked over him. Don’t make it hurt, please.
“It won’t,” Erik promises, because he can tell that Charles is as relaxed as he’s ever seen him, body pliant, limbs trembling with lust. Erik’s own arousal is slower in its mounting, though it burns brighter. By this pint his erection hurts and he knows he’ll last an embarrassingly small amount of time, but he’ll cope.
Erik finally grabs the lube, coats his fingers and takes all the time in the world opening Charles up, distracting him with kisses and long licks, nips at his navel, heat and suction on the head of his cock. It’s a testament of the trust Charles has put on Erik that he never one flinches back or tries to move away, and makes an effort to relax further and follow Erik’s murmured suggestions.
Erik waits until he’s three fingers in before changing the angle and rubbing up. Charles is startled, crying out loudly. Erik grins and presses up again, rubbing against the same spot over and over as he licks idly at Charles’ stomach. He’s still clumsy with his left hand, but he’s deft enough for this, at least.
“Stop,” Charles gasps, breathless, tugging at Erik’s hair. “Stop or I’ll-Erik.“
Erik obliges, slipping his fingers out with a groan and raising up over the long, sprawled line of Charles’ body to give him a deep kiss, all teeth and lips spit-slick.
“I can’t lean on my arm,” he says softly. “You’ll be on top.”
Charles is poorly coordinated but willing to cooperate. Erik stretches out on his back and lets Charles get up on his knees over him, admiring the vast expanses of pale skin peppered here and there with red marks where he’s bitten or sucked too harshly. Charles’ skin, normally English-pale, is flushed from the chest up.
“It’ll be short,” Erik says with a self-deprecating smile, “So make the best of it while you can.”
Charles nods, beyond speech, or at least quite beyond as much speech as Erik is capable of stringing together, and starts lowering himself down.
Even with all of the preparation and as aroused as Charles is, it’s understandably tight, and Charles is well out of practice-he doesn’t remember how to move properly, how to find a rhythm, how to do it smoothly. Erik grips his right hip and gives him a hint, slow and steady, long strokes, no rush. Charles settles into it, thighs working easily, chest heaving.
Predictably, it doesn’t take long for Erik to ride the way to the apex, but he’ll be damned if he comes before Charles does-so he grabs Charles cock, heavy against his belly, and starts stroking it in time with Charles’ movements. The telepath begins to lose the rhythm, throwing his head back. Erik grits his teeth against the orgasm pressing up on his spine, tingling down his legs, all the way up to his fingertips. He sets his feet flat on the bed and with a sharp thrust up, finds Charles’ prostate again.
Charles comes almost immediately, crying out and shaking apart so violently that Erik has to surge up and catch him against his chest. His face comes against Charles’ throat just as he climaxes himself, and he can’t help but bite down, hard, right under Charles’ Adam’s apple.
Charles is completely boneless, but he manages to force his hand to fly out and braces them both when Erik slumps back, his arm coming quickly around Erik’s back to hold him upright.
“Tired you out, old man?” he asks breathlessly, lowering Erik down to the mattress gently.
“Shut up,” Erik grumbles. When Charles makes to move away he hisses and catches his hip, stilling him. “Gently now. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I’m alright,” Charles says, nevertheless heeding the advice and moving slowly. “I’ll clean us up.”
“Stay,” Erik says sleepily, grabbing Charles’ wrist and tugging him down on the bed with him.
“Erik, we’re filthy, let me just-“
“I like cuddling after sex,” Erik snaps. “Live with it.”
Charles grins stupidly, and curls himself snugly around Erik’s larger frame.
Erik cards his fingers tenderly through Charles’ damp hair, already slipping down the hill towards sleep. Half-asleep as he is, his mind doesn’t hesitate before asking, Was it good?
Charles hides his face in Erik’s neck and settles contentedly into him. It was great. It didn’t hurt.
There’s a tone of awe to his voice, like he can’t quite believe it, and Erik snorts indelicately.
It doesn’t have to.
Charles says something else, out loud this time, but it gets blurred in the white noise of Erik’s sleeping mind.
Erik sleeps and, once again, he dreams.
He’s in a wide, snowed field-it feels like the top of a mountain, cold and frigid like it was carved out of ice itself. He turns around in a wide circle, eyes sweeping quickly as his mind settles down, the cold becoming sharper.
Charles? he sends out, curious. Where am I?
This is where it ends, Charles’ voice says, and Erik whirls around, startled-only to realize, instinctively, that Charles isn’t speaking to him.
He blinks and wills the landscape to shift, show me show me let me see.
There’s a breeze like a breath, and a veil falls down. Beyond its fold on the snow stand Charles, Emma Frost, and-Erik himself, a dream-Erik from the past, dressed entirely in black. In his hand there’s a long, curving sword of black metal. From its top drips crimson-red blood.
How can you hold two consciousness at once? Emma Frosts ask weakly, and when Erik looks more closely he can see she is bleeding from many cuts, and holding her stomach, blood spilling freely through her long pale fingers.
You thought I’d shaped my violence into a projection of Erik, Charles says, grim. But the truth is I was violent before I ever met him-and if we’re to be honest, I am much more violent than he will ever be.
But you can’t-
I don’t have it in myself to forgive you.
We’re brother and sister, Charles, you have to let me-
I owe you nothing, Charles says calmly. I’ve yet to see what you’ve done to Raven, Emma, but I know that it will take years to mend. I won’t suffer you laying a finger on Erik’s mind.
But I don’t understand how he’s even here!
He can’t not be here, Charles shrugs. I did try to lock him away, but it’s like holding melting iron with your fingertips. He eats through my shields.
How is that-he’s no projection, he’s him, it’s Lehnsherr, so how-
It’s not important, Charles interrupted, glancing at dream-Erik, who arches a brow and flicks the blade, invitingly. He’s not what you came here to find, anyway.
You set me up, Frost whispers. I don’t know how, but you set me up. I had no idea this-your mind is… vast. Insurmountable. How can you be so powerful? No one should have this kind of power. It’s not natural.
I am more powerful than you, Charles agrees. He makes to give a step forward, closer to Frost, and dream-Erik block his path with the blade of the sword, wordless and aggressive, but-Erik can tell he’s actually trying to keep Charles back, at a safe distance from the enemy.
“This is how you see me?” He asks, awed.
“No”, Charles is suddenly at his side, real-Charles, present Charles, the man sleeping beside him in bed. “This is how you see yourself. You got the eyes wrong, by the way.”
“I got my own eyes wrong?” Erik is unimpressed.
“You’ve got a singularly twisted image of yourself, inside your mind.”
“What are we looking at here?” Erik asks, because there’s no point following that thought, right now.
“You’re looking at Emma Frost’s death. This is the end of it, the last few minutes.”
“I missed most of it then. A pity.”
“It wasn’t pretty,” Charles replies frankly. “It was bloody and painful and cruel, and I held nothing back. You wouldn’t have liked it.”
“She deserved it,” Erik shrugs.
“No,” Charles shakes his head. “No one deserves what I did to her. I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life, knowing that I’m capable of such horrors.”
Erik looks at him, puzzled and curious, but Charles doesn’t make an effort to elaborate.
“Why am I there then?” he asks instead.
Charles gives him a tired glance. “You’re there because you’re an impatient little shit, and as much as I tried to block you out, you kept coming over, I suppose because you felt my mind in distress and could do nothing but come to my aid.”
“I don’t remember any of this, how can that be?”
“I shut the link down between us,” Charles reminds him. “So that Frost could not find it. What’s here is a part of your subconscious, a wisp of it; a knife from the armory of your mind. You sensed that I was fighting and came to help. I tried to repress it, but as you can see,” he gestured with his hand. “You weren’t very keen on it.”
“Why am I holding a sword?” Erik frowned.
Charles looked incredulous, “You’re asking me? It’s your subconscious.”
I am more powerful than you, past-Charles repeats, gently disentangling himself from dream-Erik’s protective stance. But I am also more skilled, and harder by half to fool. I knew all along that we were in my mind, until I dragged us over to yours. You thought you were destroying my shields, Emma, while all the while you mutilated your own. Erik isn’t a projection; I can take him with me anywhere. I suppose his presence must have disoriented you.
And the other man? Frost asks tiredly.
Francis, dream-Erik answers, pulling Charles back by the elbow and giving him a scathing look. He really is gone.
Nothing for it, Charles shrugs. He was a projection. He couldn’t come with us into her mind. And I needed him, so-yes, he’s gone. He’s a part of me now.
“This is giving me a headache,” Erik sighs.
Charles reaches over to smooth his hand over Erik’s mussed hair, and with his stroke the pain fades. Erik gives him a grateful look.
“Your mind brought us here. You wanted to remember.”
Erik nods, looking back at the three mental memories.
Dream-Charles tugs the sword out of dream-Erik’s hand. Dream-Erik grabs his wrist, trying to keep him back, but dream-Charles shakes his head and moves towards Frost, My kill, Erik-my burden.
I wish there was another way, Emma, Charles says honestly. But I cannot let you live, knowing you’ll come back to hurt the ones I love. I want you to know I understand that Shaw made you as he made me, and that I do not hate you.
Such great comfort, Emma sneered.
None, I know, Charles nods, shifting his grip on the longs sword. Yet it’ll have to do.
The sword-blade catches the light as he swings it down, but the blood that sprays the snow is platinum-silver, not red.
The memory fades, the landscape changes-for a moment they stand shoulder to shoulder in the Irish hills, and a second later that too dissolves, and Erik wakes in bed in the darkness of their room.
“You tricked her into killing herself,” he says out loud, staring at the ceiling.
“No one knows how best to destroy a mind but its owner,” Charles murmurs.
Erik could hardly absorb the horror of it.
“I almost wish I hadn’t remembered,” he mutters ate length.
“You ought to remember,” Charles replies. “You ought to know what I’m capable of, and what I’m willing to do.”
“You’d do it again.”
“If it means keeping you and everyone else I love safe: yes. A thousand times. That and worse.”
“What could be worse than that?’ Erik asks weakly.
“Oh, Erik,” Charles sighs sadly. “With what I can do? Death is but a gift.”
Erik swallows, turning his face to press a chaste kiss to Charles’ lips and comb his hair back tenderly. So much power held in such a slight vessel. It seems unbelievable that Charles is a creature of such abilities, incomprehensible even, as he lays like this draped over Erik’s body, naked and pressed together, hot and limp and relaxed.
He is the weapon, Francis had said. And you must know how to wield it.
“Rather a great responsibility,” Erik mumbles against Charles’ hair, closing his eyes.
I know you’re up to the task, darling.
Erik himself is unsure, but he says nothing. There’s nothing to say anymore-he’s thrown his luck in with this powerful, beautiful, uncontrollable madman, and there is nowhere to go but forth. In any case, there is no place he’d rather be, either.
After all, the heat is always greater the closer you are to the flames-even with the risk of catching fire.
Chapter 24
Author: monstrousreg
Word count: 3506
Warnings: Eh, my first incursion into NC-17. YE BE WARNED.
Pairing: Erik/Charles.
Summary: Erik thinks he's going to seduce, interrogate and murder some nondescript CIA intelligence agent, and winds up biting more than he can chew. Charles is not keen on being murdered, he doesn't favor interrogations, and he's certainly not willing to be seduced. That he's not cooperating is midly put.
Notes: Unbetaed, and stuff. Eeep. I hope this isn't completely ridiculous and stupid and you think I whould never write sex again in my life. I'M SORRY. Oh. and it possibly ends on a rather disturbing note.
On the good side, there’s a way to solve the issue of Charles’ sleepy clinginess when they’re in bed.
The bad side of that is that Charles stops clinging only because he suffers the heat of summer much more than Erik does. Erik likes the heat-he spent many a freezing night just shy of hypothermia in the camps and appreciates the comfortable bed in the sweltering heat of the New York summer.
There’s also the fact that Erik just happens to like sweaty bodies pressed together in the mornings.
Erik wakes up now and realizes Charles has removed himself to the far side of the bed, stretched out on his left side with his back to Erik-a rarity that he’s not touching him, but a completely freak-fact that he’s not facing him.
“Charles?” He props himself up on an elbow, leaning over Charles’ shoulder, puzzled.
Charles is awake, eyes wide and glassy.
“What is it?” Erik asks quietly, laying his hand gently on Charles’ arm.
Charles closes his eyes and, a moment later, flicks the sheets down a few inches. Erik glances down in confusion, and is startled to find that, for the first time since they’ve been sharing a bed, Charles has a morning erection. His erections is pressing up and tenting the front of his boxers.
Charles’ sexual drive has its lows and its highs. When he’s already aroused getting him going is as easy as breathing in his ear. The problem is actually getting him to respond-something he often has to convince himself to do, and that Erik has learned to have patience with. There are triggers-small little details that make Charles’ mind a minefield when it comes to his libido. Things Erik wishes he could work on himself, but realizes he shouldn’t.
This is the first time Charles has gotten aroused on his sleep, probably in a long time, and he’s clearly rattled.
“It’s alright, you know,” Erik says soothingly, stroking Charles’ arm. “I wish you would have waked me. I can help you if you want.”
Charles hesitates, eyes flicking restlessly.
“It hurts.”
Erik frowns, sliding his arm down around Charles’ chest and heaving him close so his back is against Erik’s chest. He reaches down and pushes the sheets completely away, pleased when Charles shifts only to get more comfortable and not to move away or cover himself.
“How long have you been like this?” Erik asks quietly into Charles’ ear, resting his hand on Charles’ hip, thumb sliding between the waistband of his boxers and his pale skin.
Charles relaxes further against him, closing his eyes.
About half an hour, I think. It-it won’t go down.
Why didn’t you take care of it? We’ve been over this, Charles.
I didn’t-I know I can do that, it’s only I wanted-
Charles opens his eyes, a startling cornflower blue, nearly luminescent, in the dark.
“I wanted you and I didn’t want to wake you up.”
Erik smiles, pleased by the admission and by the fact Charles forced himself to say it out loud.
You should have, he thinks as he pushes his nose against the angle of Charles’ jaw, nudging him to roll his head back and bare his throat. Charles does, his right hand coming up to the back of Erik’s neck. Erik brings his lips up in a slow drag and nips Charles’ skin right behind the shell of his ear, relishing the way the telepath shivers against him.
Erik shifts and drops a kiss on Charles’ cheekbone on his way to the man’s lips. Charles opens his mouth for him readily, shifting to be completely on his back and bringing his hands up to Erik’s neck. Charles is almost always eager and loud when they’re entangled, and Erik loves that-but there’s a different sort of edge to his eagerness this morning, and Erik thinks he understand what’s missing.
The metal-bender moves to drape his whole body over Charles’, covering him and aligning their bodies from chest to cock. Charles doesn’t hesitate to spread his legs for Erik, a comfort that’s not always there, and Erik grins, probably like a psychopath. Not that Charles can tell-his eyes are still closed and he’s starting to pant.
Erik licks into Charles’ hot mouth, sliding his tongue wetly over the telepath’s, sucking the other’s tongue into his mouth, biting at his full bottom lip. Erik is nearly always a silent lover, so all of the sounds in the room are coming from Charles’ parted lips-stuttering gasps and half-uttered moans, mewling whines that drive Erik insane with want.
If only he could suck them all into his mouth and swallow them-but he can’t, because he’s taking the chance to straddle Charles thighs and sitting up, tugging at Charles’ shirt with his left hand. The geneticist raises up slightly to let him drag it off his torso, and then drops back heavily when Erik pushes him down with a hand on his chest.
Erik reaches up with his left hand and tears his own shirt off, throwing it carelessly away. Charles’ hands trail lightly up the flat lines of his stomach and chest, cup his neck and slide away, restless. Erik catches his right and presses it down against the bed, squeezing his wrist insistently and he leans down.
“Want me to take care of it for you?” he asks gravelly against Charles throat, licking at the hollow between his collarbones and grinding down on his erection. Charles writhes, nodding as he reaches up to grip Erik’s shoulders.
Erik shrugs gently out of his grasp and moves down like a snake, very deliberately dragging his erection over the hard line of Charles’ before settling down so the telepath’s cock is trapped between his navel and Erik’s. The German noses at Charles’s chest idly and finally presses his open mouth over Charles’ right nipple.
The telepath arches. The sounds he’s making now are completely indecent. His heart is thundering under Erik’s lips, chest heaving with shallow breaths. Erik realizes Charles hasn’t come this unhinged ever before with him, and the knowledge actually focuses him more. Erik’s had sex many times, almost always found it extremely pleasurable, and he’s no stranger to orgasm, even in its delayed forms.
Charles, on the other hand, has never had consensual intercourse. Erik knows he can make it good, and feels the responsibility of doing so, here and now.
“Alright,” he murmurs, letting up slightly and shifting so he can kiss Charles, gently and slowly, bringing him down a little. He strokes Charles’ hair back off his forehead with his left hand, kissing the telepath’s sensitive temple.
“Calm down, Charles. Slow down.”
Charles swallows and makes an effort to control his breathing, clawing back from the mindless high to a more sedate, rational place.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice rough.
“Don’t be. I’m going to take you over, but I just want you to calm down a little so I don’t hurt you. Can you lock down your telepathy for a while?”
Charles nods dazedly, “Already did, when I woke up.”
Erik kisses him again, settling his weight on the man’s body completely. Charles appreciates it, arching into him with a contented sigh. “There’s lube on my bedside drawer,” he says in a sigh, voice breaking off when Erik rolls his hips gently into his.
They don’t use it immediately. Erik takes his time, going slowly and methodically, guiding Charles smoothly up the curve only to pull back before he falls, arousing him without really making him desperate, because he wants Charles to feel pleasure but be coherent, somewhat, throughout. It’s possibly asking a lot from someone who’s been in enforced celibacy for a long time, but Charles doesn’t complain, trying to be patient, consciously letting Erik be in control. There will be time for Erik to make him mindless later, in the future, but right now... right now it's important Charles knows he can stop Erik with a breath, if need be.
I know you know what you’re doing, he sends at some point, panting against Erik’s ear when the other man finally grips the soft underside of his knee and bends his leg, up and out, to settle naked over him. Don’t make it hurt, please.
“It won’t,” Erik promises, because he can tell that Charles is as relaxed as he’s ever seen him, body pliant, limbs trembling with lust. Erik’s own arousal is slower in its mounting, though it burns brighter. By this pint his erection hurts and he knows he’ll last an embarrassingly small amount of time, but he’ll cope.
Erik finally grabs the lube, coats his fingers and takes all the time in the world opening Charles up, distracting him with kisses and long licks, nips at his navel, heat and suction on the head of his cock. It’s a testament of the trust Charles has put on Erik that he never one flinches back or tries to move away, and makes an effort to relax further and follow Erik’s murmured suggestions.
Erik waits until he’s three fingers in before changing the angle and rubbing up. Charles is startled, crying out loudly. Erik grins and presses up again, rubbing against the same spot over and over as he licks idly at Charles’ stomach. He’s still clumsy with his left hand, but he’s deft enough for this, at least.
“Stop,” Charles gasps, breathless, tugging at Erik’s hair. “Stop or I’ll-Erik.“
Erik obliges, slipping his fingers out with a groan and raising up over the long, sprawled line of Charles’ body to give him a deep kiss, all teeth and lips spit-slick.
“I can’t lean on my arm,” he says softly. “You’ll be on top.”
Charles is poorly coordinated but willing to cooperate. Erik stretches out on his back and lets Charles get up on his knees over him, admiring the vast expanses of pale skin peppered here and there with red marks where he’s bitten or sucked too harshly. Charles’ skin, normally English-pale, is flushed from the chest up.
“It’ll be short,” Erik says with a self-deprecating smile, “So make the best of it while you can.”
Charles nods, beyond speech, or at least quite beyond as much speech as Erik is capable of stringing together, and starts lowering himself down.
Even with all of the preparation and as aroused as Charles is, it’s understandably tight, and Charles is well out of practice-he doesn’t remember how to move properly, how to find a rhythm, how to do it smoothly. Erik grips his right hip and gives him a hint, slow and steady, long strokes, no rush. Charles settles into it, thighs working easily, chest heaving.
Predictably, it doesn’t take long for Erik to ride the way to the apex, but he’ll be damned if he comes before Charles does-so he grabs Charles cock, heavy against his belly, and starts stroking it in time with Charles’ movements. The telepath begins to lose the rhythm, throwing his head back. Erik grits his teeth against the orgasm pressing up on his spine, tingling down his legs, all the way up to his fingertips. He sets his feet flat on the bed and with a sharp thrust up, finds Charles’ prostate again.
Charles comes almost immediately, crying out and shaking apart so violently that Erik has to surge up and catch him against his chest. His face comes against Charles’ throat just as he climaxes himself, and he can’t help but bite down, hard, right under Charles’ Adam’s apple.
Charles is completely boneless, but he manages to force his hand to fly out and braces them both when Erik slumps back, his arm coming quickly around Erik’s back to hold him upright.
“Tired you out, old man?” he asks breathlessly, lowering Erik down to the mattress gently.
“Shut up,” Erik grumbles. When Charles makes to move away he hisses and catches his hip, stilling him. “Gently now. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I’m alright,” Charles says, nevertheless heeding the advice and moving slowly. “I’ll clean us up.”
“Stay,” Erik says sleepily, grabbing Charles’ wrist and tugging him down on the bed with him.
“Erik, we’re filthy, let me just-“
“I like cuddling after sex,” Erik snaps. “Live with it.”
Charles grins stupidly, and curls himself snugly around Erik’s larger frame.
Erik cards his fingers tenderly through Charles’ damp hair, already slipping down the hill towards sleep. Half-asleep as he is, his mind doesn’t hesitate before asking, Was it good?
Charles hides his face in Erik’s neck and settles contentedly into him. It was great. It didn’t hurt.
There’s a tone of awe to his voice, like he can’t quite believe it, and Erik snorts indelicately.
It doesn’t have to.
Charles says something else, out loud this time, but it gets blurred in the white noise of Erik’s sleeping mind.
Erik sleeps and, once again, he dreams.
He’s in a wide, snowed field-it feels like the top of a mountain, cold and frigid like it was carved out of ice itself. He turns around in a wide circle, eyes sweeping quickly as his mind settles down, the cold becoming sharper.
Charles? he sends out, curious. Where am I?
This is where it ends, Charles’ voice says, and Erik whirls around, startled-only to realize, instinctively, that Charles isn’t speaking to him.
He blinks and wills the landscape to shift, show me show me let me see.
There’s a breeze like a breath, and a veil falls down. Beyond its fold on the snow stand Charles, Emma Frost, and-Erik himself, a dream-Erik from the past, dressed entirely in black. In his hand there’s a long, curving sword of black metal. From its top drips crimson-red blood.
How can you hold two consciousness at once? Emma Frosts ask weakly, and when Erik looks more closely he can see she is bleeding from many cuts, and holding her stomach, blood spilling freely through her long pale fingers.
You thought I’d shaped my violence into a projection of Erik, Charles says, grim. But the truth is I was violent before I ever met him-and if we’re to be honest, I am much more violent than he will ever be.
But you can’t-
I don’t have it in myself to forgive you.
We’re brother and sister, Charles, you have to let me-
I owe you nothing, Charles says calmly. I’ve yet to see what you’ve done to Raven, Emma, but I know that it will take years to mend. I won’t suffer you laying a finger on Erik’s mind.
But I don’t understand how he’s even here!
He can’t not be here, Charles shrugs. I did try to lock him away, but it’s like holding melting iron with your fingertips. He eats through my shields.
How is that-he’s no projection, he’s him, it’s Lehnsherr, so how-
It’s not important, Charles interrupted, glancing at dream-Erik, who arches a brow and flicks the blade, invitingly. He’s not what you came here to find, anyway.
You set me up, Frost whispers. I don’t know how, but you set me up. I had no idea this-your mind is… vast. Insurmountable. How can you be so powerful? No one should have this kind of power. It’s not natural.
I am more powerful than you, Charles agrees. He makes to give a step forward, closer to Frost, and dream-Erik block his path with the blade of the sword, wordless and aggressive, but-Erik can tell he’s actually trying to keep Charles back, at a safe distance from the enemy.
“This is how you see me?” He asks, awed.
“No”, Charles is suddenly at his side, real-Charles, present Charles, the man sleeping beside him in bed. “This is how you see yourself. You got the eyes wrong, by the way.”
“I got my own eyes wrong?” Erik is unimpressed.
“You’ve got a singularly twisted image of yourself, inside your mind.”
“What are we looking at here?” Erik asks, because there’s no point following that thought, right now.
“You’re looking at Emma Frost’s death. This is the end of it, the last few minutes.”
“I missed most of it then. A pity.”
“It wasn’t pretty,” Charles replies frankly. “It was bloody and painful and cruel, and I held nothing back. You wouldn’t have liked it.”
“She deserved it,” Erik shrugs.
“No,” Charles shakes his head. “No one deserves what I did to her. I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life, knowing that I’m capable of such horrors.”
Erik looks at him, puzzled and curious, but Charles doesn’t make an effort to elaborate.
“Why am I there then?” he asks instead.
Charles gives him a tired glance. “You’re there because you’re an impatient little shit, and as much as I tried to block you out, you kept coming over, I suppose because you felt my mind in distress and could do nothing but come to my aid.”
“I don’t remember any of this, how can that be?”
“I shut the link down between us,” Charles reminds him. “So that Frost could not find it. What’s here is a part of your subconscious, a wisp of it; a knife from the armory of your mind. You sensed that I was fighting and came to help. I tried to repress it, but as you can see,” he gestured with his hand. “You weren’t very keen on it.”
“Why am I holding a sword?” Erik frowned.
Charles looked incredulous, “You’re asking me? It’s your subconscious.”
I am more powerful than you, past-Charles repeats, gently disentangling himself from dream-Erik’s protective stance. But I am also more skilled, and harder by half to fool. I knew all along that we were in my mind, until I dragged us over to yours. You thought you were destroying my shields, Emma, while all the while you mutilated your own. Erik isn’t a projection; I can take him with me anywhere. I suppose his presence must have disoriented you.
And the other man? Frost asks tiredly.
Francis, dream-Erik answers, pulling Charles back by the elbow and giving him a scathing look. He really is gone.
Nothing for it, Charles shrugs. He was a projection. He couldn’t come with us into her mind. And I needed him, so-yes, he’s gone. He’s a part of me now.
“This is giving me a headache,” Erik sighs.
Charles reaches over to smooth his hand over Erik’s mussed hair, and with his stroke the pain fades. Erik gives him a grateful look.
“Your mind brought us here. You wanted to remember.”
Erik nods, looking back at the three mental memories.
Dream-Charles tugs the sword out of dream-Erik’s hand. Dream-Erik grabs his wrist, trying to keep him back, but dream-Charles shakes his head and moves towards Frost, My kill, Erik-my burden.
I wish there was another way, Emma, Charles says honestly. But I cannot let you live, knowing you’ll come back to hurt the ones I love. I want you to know I understand that Shaw made you as he made me, and that I do not hate you.
Such great comfort, Emma sneered.
None, I know, Charles nods, shifting his grip on the longs sword. Yet it’ll have to do.
The sword-blade catches the light as he swings it down, but the blood that sprays the snow is platinum-silver, not red.
The memory fades, the landscape changes-for a moment they stand shoulder to shoulder in the Irish hills, and a second later that too dissolves, and Erik wakes in bed in the darkness of their room.
“You tricked her into killing herself,” he says out loud, staring at the ceiling.
“No one knows how best to destroy a mind but its owner,” Charles murmurs.
Erik could hardly absorb the horror of it.
“I almost wish I hadn’t remembered,” he mutters ate length.
“You ought to remember,” Charles replies. “You ought to know what I’m capable of, and what I’m willing to do.”
“You’d do it again.”
“If it means keeping you and everyone else I love safe: yes. A thousand times. That and worse.”
“What could be worse than that?’ Erik asks weakly.
“Oh, Erik,” Charles sighs sadly. “With what I can do? Death is but a gift.”
Erik swallows, turning his face to press a chaste kiss to Charles’ lips and comb his hair back tenderly. So much power held in such a slight vessel. It seems unbelievable that Charles is a creature of such abilities, incomprehensible even, as he lays like this draped over Erik’s body, naked and pressed together, hot and limp and relaxed.
He is the weapon, Francis had said. And you must know how to wield it.
“Rather a great responsibility,” Erik mumbles against Charles’ hair, closing his eyes.
I know you’re up to the task, darling.
Erik himself is unsure, but he says nothing. There’s nothing to say anymore-he’s thrown his luck in with this powerful, beautiful, uncontrollable madman, and there is nowhere to go but forth. In any case, there is no place he’d rather be, either.
After all, the heat is always greater the closer you are to the flames-even with the risk of catching fire.
Chapter 24