X-Men: First Class fic: First Breath After Coma (3/3)
part 2
First Breath After Coma (part 3)
Mr. Zimmermann is as helpful as ever when Charles goes to the library first thing the next morning. With the sketch sitting on the table between them, they search through architectural journals and photo books for pictures of the building Charles saw. Mr. Zimmermann doesn't ask questions or enquire how it is that Charles has a sketch of a building but only a rough idea of its location (south, maybe fifty miles away).
"Eureka," Mr. Zimmermann says, after nearly three hours have passed. He lifts a journal to show Charles a photograph of the building, the name printed underneath. He looks a little guilty to have broken his own silence rules.
Charles leaves directly from the library, giving instructions to an impassive Williams.
The drive down to New York takes forever. Charles has to repress the urge every few minutes to tell Williams to put his foot down. Trees and houses and telephone poles go by the window at a painfully slow pace; Charles would only be satisfied if he could see no more than a blur, and even that would still be too slow.
He can't relax. He churns scenarios over and over in his mind, tries to work out how best to greet Erik. He doesn't want to startle him, and if, somehow, Charles is wrong and Erik doesn't have his powers, then Charles is going to need to be very careful. Yet careful is the last thing he wants to be - he wants to rush up to Erik, take him by the shoulders and shake him for not being there when Charles woke up, ridiculous as that would be. He wants to find out exactly how their lives overlap, if any of Charles' memories of Erik are true. He wants to learn whether or not his old friend is the man Charles believes him to be.
Charles feels out of control. He taps out a rhythm on the door handle, more and more nervous as he gets closer.
The drive takes just over an hour in the end. Williams helps him out of the car, and Charles looks around. This is the place. The building he saw in Erik's mind is on one side of a public square. It's lunchtime, and people are milling around, sitting on steps and around the base of the statue, eating bagged lunches.
Charles wheels himself along the sidewalk and reaches out with his mind. He takes in the whole square, hundreds of people, and instantly knows Erik is not in this crowd. He sends out tendrils of thought further, touching mind after mind, frantic now he knows he's close.
He looks crazy. He sees it in the minds of passers-by. The madman in the wheelchair, circling around, fingers pressed to his temple, eyes straining as though he can see through buildings. He doesn't care. If he looks just a little further-
There.
Nearby. In the basement of a tall building, a dingy room filled with a large printing press, shouting to be heard over the noise of the press. There's a thick scent of ink in the air, ink and sweat and heat. Erik's busy, finishing up an urgent job - fliers for a local election - and he doesn't notice the faint press of Charles' mind.
Charles holds his mind steady. Keeps the touch light but secure. He wheels himself along the sidewalk. Goes to the pedestrian crossing before he crosses the road. Reaches the right building, and waits.
Erik's thirsty. He's been working since 4 a.m., and he's nearly finished, ready for a drink. In just a few minutes, he'll come out of the door and Charles will see him.
Charles can be patient. He can wait.
It feels like the hardest thing he's ever done.
The sun is low this time of year, even at lunchtime, but there's a gap in the buildings opposite and Charles finds a spot on the sidewalk where he can wait in the sun, out of the way of the passing pedestrians. He wraps his scarf tighter around his neck and is grateful for the new fingerless gloves Raven bought him - they're thick navy wool, with leather inset in the palms. His hands are shaking a little, and he clasps them together in his lap to force them still.
Charles knows exactly when Erik is about to exit the building, but he isn't prepared for the wonder of seeing him for the first time.
He is exactly like Charles' memory. A new hint of grey at his temple, maybe, and some dark smudges of ink across his cheek, but his face is so familiar that Charles' chest aches at the sight of him. Erik's fingers are inky too, stained dark under his fingernails. He's wearing a heavy black greatcoat, collar turned up in expectation of the cold breeze. He stands tall and determined, scans the road quickly and takes the four steps up to the sidewalk in just two strides.
He sees Charles.
They stare at each other. Erik isn't broadcasting anything. It isn't a total absence of all thought, not like the utter silence Charles had felt when Erik put on Shaw's helmet. But Erik is drawing back internally, and Charles can't feel any obvious emotions. Charles could go inside his head, but this is his friend, and he's already intruded in order to find him. More would be an invasion, and however much Charles desperately wants to know what Erik is thinking right now, he won't sneak around in Erik's mind uninvited.
They stare for several seconds. Then Erik turns to walk away, as though Charles is a random stranger who caught his eye for no reason. He's going to leave, and Charles can't help it. He shouts. "No!"
It's New York. No one else reacts, but Erik stops in his tracks. He turns back to Charles.
"Erik, my friend," Charles says, and he is begging Erik to recognize him, all of his plans to say the right thing forgotten.
"Why are you here?" Erik asks.
"May we talk?" Charles asks in return. "Somewhere warmer?"
Erik doesn't look surprised at the request, just wary. "There's a bar down the block. It'll be open."
They walk in silence, the need to weave along a busy street enough excuse for the lack of conversation.
The bar is small and dark. There's a game of pool going on, and one old man slumped in a booth, but otherwise it's empty. Charles gets them two bottles of beer, and they sit at a sticky round wooden table in the farthest corner from the door. Oh! Pretty Woman is playing on the jukebox. Raven likes that song, dances to it when Charles isn't around.
"I'm Charles Xavier," Charles says, pulling off his gloves and holding out his hand. It's backwards, introducing himself after calling Erik his friend, but he needs to restart this meeting, and his name is a logical starting point.
"I know," Erik says. He shakes Charles' hand, but doesn't introduce himself. "I heard you were in a coma. I'm glad you're out of it," he adds. If there's anything more in that statement than the polite concern of a virtual stranger, Charles can't find it.
Charles wants to shout at him, beg him to tell Charles what's real, instead of this civil and distant conversation. He wants to know what Erik remembers. He wants to read his mind or at least nudge it towards opening up to Charles, but his need for Erik to open up to him willingly is even greater. If this is a new start for them, Charles wants to get it right this time. He doesn't want a repeat of lying on a beach in Erik's arms, in agony, begging Erik not to kill an entire fleet. He wants Erik to trust him enough to try Charles' path, to give a peaceful, non-genocidal approach to human-mutant relations a chance. Charles has the opportunity to start afresh, guide Erik onto a path that will be good for him and the world.
Maybe that is the whole purpose of his memories. Maybe some higher power is interfering in the ways of men, giving Charles the understanding to make the right decisions this time around.
Even without reading Erik's mind, Charles knows he's in turmoil. Charles isn't as good at reading people's faces as Raven - the Raven he remembers. She used to study people in intricate detail, all their mannerisms and habits and the reasons behind them, so that she could mimic them successfully. Charles always relied too much on the emotions people broadcast, or on reading the surface layers of their thoughts.
But there is strain in the set of Erik's jaw and tension in his shoulders, and dark circles under his eyes, and it's easy enough to read his state of mind from those signs.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm curious. What happened? At the crash?" Charles asks.
"I don't remember it that clearly," Erik says too quickly, and his eyes flicker up and to the left for a fraction of a second. He's lying.
Charles doesn't challenge him. He takes another drink, and then carries on as though he's simply reminiscing. "The police officer who interviewed me when I woke up, Sergeant MacTaggert, she told me that I was lucky to be alive. That the wreckage was the strangest she'd ever seen. We should both have died that day."
"Perhaps she isn't very experienced in the field of car crashes," Erik says dismissively. Charles still knows his tones well enough to know he's avoiding the subject.
Charles takes another drag of beer. He takes off his scarf and unbuttons his coat, already too warm in the muggy atmosphere of the bar. Erik doesn't even undo a single button. He looks ready to leave at any second.
Charles can't let him leave, not yet.
He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out his comb. It's metal, warm from resting against his chest. He flicks it over and over in his hand.
"I used to have a friend who could bend spoons," he says, watching the comb flash yellow from the dim glow of a wall-light. He looks up at Erik. "Do you believe that's possible? That a man can manipulate metal with the force of his mind?"
Erik doesn't answer straight away. He looks everywhere but at Charles, swallows slowly, settles in his seat. He's clearly uncertain - more so than Charles has ever seen him before - but Charles resists the temptation to push him. Erik leans forward, just a fraction, looking from the comb up to Charles and then back down to the comb. He focuses on it, and Charles finds himself holding his breath.
There's the faintest smile at the corner of Erik's mouth. Charles watches Erik's face, until he nods and looks up. When Charles looks down at the table, the comb is folded neatly in half.
Charles grins at Erik, wide and open. "I knew you could do it," he says, letting the joy he feels show on his face.
"How did you know? How did it even happen? No," Erik says, shaking his head, the faint smile gone and replaced by a pinched look of distress. "I don't-"
"It's okay," Charles says, reaching out and folding his hand over Erik's. "You're not alone. You're not the only one."
He can tell Erik isn't entirely reassured, that he's scared he's revealed too much. Bending a spoon might be a parlor trick, but to bend metal without touching it is the sort of thing that makes men mutter dangerous things. So Charles talks to him the other way: I can assure you, you're not the only one.
Erik startles back, pulling his hands off the table and away from Charles. "How did you do that?" he hisses. "This is impossible."
"You and me, we're different. We're special," Charles says quietly, but out loud. "But I think you already knew that, even if you didn't want to admit it."
"I-I do remember the crash," Erik admits slowly. There is a long pause before he speaks again, but Charles doesn't rush him. "I think you spoke to me that way then, in my head. Did you?"
Charles huffs out a bitter laugh. "I remember nothing of that day," he says. "But I might have. It makes sense."
It's Erik's turn to laugh. "It makes sense to you?"
"Yes. It does. My field is genetics - I was a Professor of Genetics in Oxford before the accident - and I believe there is a logical, scientific explanation for all this."
Erik finishes his drink. "I think we need more privacy than this bar affords," he says, standing up.
"I have a place we can talk," Charles offers. "And better beer."
*
Erik's current job is complete, the fliers all ready to be shipped out, and he doesn't need to be back at the press until the following Monday. He gets into the back of the car with Charles without question. Charles takes it as a good sign, that Erik senses that he can trust Charles.
They don't talk of anything important on the drive. Erik tells Charles about the countries he's traveled through and some of the more amusing local customs, and how he misses the sausages he had as a young child in Germany - there's nothing quite like them in New York. Charles shares silly excuses his students at Oxford gave him for not handing in papers on time, and about his failed attempts so far to train Blue to sit on command. He talks about his studies too, about genetics and mutation, but he doesn't mention mutants in the hearing of Williams.
Charles has a sense of déjà vu. When they traveled cross-country searching for mutants, they had easy, rambling conversations like this. Even said some of the same things, though important details are different: Erik's past, their goal, Charles' legs. But still, it feels good, talking like friends, the jagged edges that made Erik so dangerous before missing.
It feels comfortable. Like an old friendship renewed, even though Charles is now certain that it's no such thing, that his memories of Erik are as false as he once believed Raven's memories of his car crash to be. But there is some bond between them, that much is certain.
*
Charles aches with the familiarity of the scene. Erik sitting next to him in Charles' study, a chess board on the table between them. Erik has a glass of scotch in one hand and his socked feet up on a stool, soaking up the warmth from the fire.
There are differences from his memories: Charles isn't in his old armchair, but in his wheelchair, and Blue is curled up at his feet. The house is almost empty and the chess set is untouched. They've too much to talk about before they can allow themselves any distractions.
"How did you get inside my head?" is Erik's first question. He picks up a chess piece, a black rook, and twists it around in his fingers. His whole posture is relaxed, but Charles can sense the tension and confusion under the apparent ease.
"You have your tricks, and I have mine," Charles says, remembering words he used in some other lifetime, in a dream. "I'm a telepath," he explains properly, "and I don't just hear thoughts, I can project them too."
Erik weighs Charles' words carefully. "Are you reading my mind now?" He stares at Charles, not in accusation, but appraising, as if to make certain Charles doesn't lie to him.
"No," Charles says, and then adds in the interest of total honesty, "I can sense emotion when it's strongly felt without touching a mind. So I have a vague sense of your state of mind - I would be able to tell if you were angry or fearful, because those are strong emotions; I feel those whether I want to or not. But I promise you, I will not look inside your mind, not without your permission. You have my word on that."
"And my state of mind now?" Erik's face is blank, just one small muscle in his jaw giving away the tension he's feeling.
Charles doesn't hesitate. "You're not sure whether to believe me. You're confused and anxious."
Erik nods, his face relaxing. "Thank you for being honest," he says. He places the rook back on the chess board and tidies several pieces that have been knocked onto the wrong square. It's a stalling tactic, but Charles gives it him. This conversation needs to happen at Erik's pace. He needs answers first.
Charles picks up a white pawn and changes the subject to give Erik time. "Do you play?" Charles asks.
"Yes," Erik says, and then qualifies it. "I used to. I haven't for many years."
Charles has a sudden image of a young Erik playing with an older man. A kindly face, teaching him. His father.
"Perhaps we could play some time," Charles suggests.
"Perhaps," is all that Erik offers, but he's full of nostalgia for the game, for the memories it invokes. He wants to play again.
They are quiet for a while. It isn't quite the silence Charles remembers them enjoying, friends relaxing after a long day, but it isn't uncomfortable. Blue puts her head on Charles' knees and he scratches her favorite spot just under her neck. Her eyelids droop.
Erik is the one to break the silence. "When we crashed, what did you do? What did you do to me?" There is a hint of anger in his tone, but it feels like old anger, like a fury that's grown dull and sad.
"Do to you?" he asks. Charles never wanted to cause him pain or sorrow, but he might have done something in the fear and shock of the moment, something he doesn't remember.
"Yes. You did something, you did something to me," Erik says. He leans forward, face screwed up in concentration, relieving the moment. He looks scared. "Just before we hit, I heard your voice in my head and-I don't understand it."
"I-I have no idea. I don't even remember the crash." Charles rubs at the bridge of his nose. "I-" He huffs a breath, hardly knowing where to start. If he stares into the center of the fire, the flames are mesmerizing. He can see patterns, miniature worlds in it. "I think the accident affected my memory."
"You have amnesia?" Erik asks. Charles hasn't sensed any pity from Erik, not for his paralysis, and not for his amnesia. A trace of suspicion now, but not pity. It's a relief.
"No," Charles says. "Well, yes, I suppose I do, in a way. This is going to sound crazy-"
Erik interrupts, "I think we can both handle that. After all, you've seen me bend metal, and I've heard your voice in my head."
"There are crazier things in life than either of those," Charles warns.
"But sometimes the crazy things make more sense," Erik mutters, quietly, as though he's not really speaking to Charles, but pulling up old memories. Charles wonders what happened to this Erik during the war, what madness and horror in the name of order. There is a tattooed number on his arm; that's a partial answer. It's the same number Charles vividly remembers. Erik never hid it. It isn't Charles' place to ask, though, so he starts his own story instead.
"I have a completely different set of memories," Charles begins. "Going back years, as far as I can remember. I remember a different life to the one my sister, Raven, remembers. There's a lot of overlap, some things that are the same or similar, but in my memories, she's a mutant too. Able to shapeshift. Her natural form is blue." Blue lifts her head at the mention of her name, and Erik smiles briefly. Charles goes on. "In my memories, we met before."
Charles remembers jumping into freezing water, desperately pulling Erik to the surface. He remembers the pain in Erik's mind. He'll tell him about that another day, if Erik stays.
"We worked together," he says, "training other mutants to use their powers safely. Helped them learn ways they could use their abilities." It's the briefest possible potted history of all Charles remembers, but it will do for now.
"You knew about my-mutation? Before the crash?"
"In my memories, there was no crash. It's-confusing," Charles says. "Trying to work out what's real, what isn't. In my memories, I knew you could manipulate metal and control magnetic fields. But I didn't know for certain that your powers were real until I started looking for you. Though I hoped," Charles adds, because he wants Erik to see that this can be a gift, not a curse.
"I didn't know until the crash," Erik says. He sounds cheated, as though somehow he should have known. "I heard a voice - your voice - screaming for me to help us. As though you knew I could. And then I found myself reaching out, holding back metal, changing the trajectory of our cars." He's stretching his arms out now, circling his out-stretched hands in the air. The metal in the room is vibrating. "I could feel all the metal around me, and around you, and I forced it away from us. I had no idea I could do anything like that."
"It must have been terrifying." Charles reaches out and squeezes Erik's arm. Just briefly, reassuring.
The vibration stops. Erik's expression settles into something approaching calm.
He continues. "I thought it might have something to do with you. I don't even know why I thought that. I had no way of knowing for certain that it was your voice in my head. There was nothing to say that was what made me able to do what I did."
"You came to visit me in the hospital."
"Yes. You remember? You weren't conscious. I had to sneak in while no one was looking."
"I don't remember, no. But when I woke up I noticed indentations in the bed frame. Like finger marks. And I knew of only one man who could have done that. You know," Charles adds, "I think that saved my sanity. All that time, seeing people I remembered and finding out that they had either no memories of me, or completely different ones, that none of them were fellow mutants, I clung to the hope that when I found you, then I would know for a certainty that I wasn't the only one." Feeling other mutant minds in his search for Erik had helped, but nothing was as good as finding him. Seeing his power in action.
"And now you know you're not."
"Yes, now I know." Charles drains his glass of scotch and leans back. He hasn't felt this relaxed in a long time. He pets Blue with his free hand.
"Are there others out there, do you think? Others like us?"
Charles shouldn't feel so warm at Erik's casual use of 'us'. "Yes, there are. I am quite certain of that. There are over three billion other humans on this planet. I only touched a small fraction of them searching for you, but I felt other mutants among them. Not as many as I remember," Charles says, voice softening at the memory of the wonder of Cerebro. "When I searched for mutants in the other world, I found so many it was truly astounding. So many mutations, amazing ones I'd never imagined possible. When I searched for you, I only found a handful. But they are out there."
They quickly change the subject to China and the atomic bomb when Raven comes in to say goodnight. Charles brushed against the surface layers of her mind earlier, when he arrived with Erik. She'd remembered the name from Charles' questioning when he first woke up, so Charles slipped in a vague memory of Erik as an old university friend. Now she's just glad to see him so animated, happy that he has another friend besides her.
"You haven't told her, I take it," Erik says once she's closed the door behind her.
Charles shakes his head. "No. I hate lying to her, even if only by omission, but I think it's safest for her. The memories I have, of a team of mutants - she was one of them. And she was in danger, more than once. This way, she can lead a normal life. I'm well enough now that she doesn't have to stay here to take care of me any more. She's thinking of moving to New York, and I'm going to encourage her to do that."
"Won't you find this place empty without her?"
"It'll be strange, yes. But I hope it won't be empty," Charles says, the seed of the offer he wants to make to Erik. There's a flicker of understanding in Erik's eyes, but he doesn't say anything.
It's late. Blue's asleep now, and when Charles reaches out, Raven is brushing her teeth, half asleep. But Charles knows he and Erik still have far too many unanswered questions for either of them to sleep yet.
Erik asks the next one. "How did you find me?"
"I searched, mentally. I-" Charles finds it hard to put into words the experience of reaching out with his consciousness. It isn't something the English language has been designed to describe. "I felt your mind, eventually. Every mind is distinctive, and a mutant's mind has a very distinctive signature." Erik's mind is strong and very powerful; even if Charles hadn't known him, he would have been drawn to such a mind. But there's pain there too, underlying everything. Not the bitter hatred the other Erik felt, but a sadness, a sense of failure. "I knew yours the moment I touched it."
It sounds to Charles like something a lover would say, but he doesn't qualify his words.
Erik sounds thoughtful. "I wonder if you did that when we crashed. Reached out and awakened dormant powers in me."
"It's possible," Charles agrees. "The shock of the crash must have had some impact too. Fear can be a powerful force. Perhaps it was the combination."
"I keep wondering what might have happened if I'd known about this ability earlier. When I was a child." This is the source of his pain.
"During the Holocaust," Charles interjects softly.
"You're reading my mind now?" Erik doesn't sound angry. But he isn't pleased, either. More resigned, as though he'd had no great expectations that Charles would be able to keep out of his head.
"No. No, not at all," Charles says quickly, willing Erik to believe him without actually forcing him to accept it. "It's part of my memories. Your past, losing your parents. I've seen it in your head, before."
"I might have been able to save them," Erik says softly. This is what's been tormenting him, the failure that's eating away at him. He gets up and paces around the room. "They died in the camps, and I don't know what sort of torture they went through before they died. They were quiet, decent people. Hard-working. We were a loving family. And if I'd found out about my power in time, they might still be alive. I could have saved them," he says, coming to a halt in front of Charles.
Erik's expression is full of pain and loss, and Charles is going to help him overcome it if he possibly can. He's not going to make the same mistakes this time. Perhaps he dreamed what he did for a reason. Perhaps there is some higher power, or perhaps it was some strange form of precognition, seeing a future that might have been if things were just a little bit different.
"No, you would not," Charles says. He remembers the other Erik, the life he led, consumed by the need for revenge. He has to try to get Erik to understand. "You would have tried, and it wouldn't have helped them, just made life so much worse for you. Imagine what might have happened if someone in a position of power had learned about your powers. Imagine what they might have done to you." He feels the tears well up in his eyes and tries to blink them away. One rolls down his face, and he rubs it off. "Please trust me, it is far better that you didn't know about your abilities then."
"You sound very certain." Erik doesn't look convinced. He's too full of guilt for one man's assurances to wash it all away in one go. Charles just hopes Erik will give him the time to help him see the truth of it.
"I am." Charles yawns then, the warmth of the fire and the scotch in his belly and the late hour all conspiring against him. He could take some pills, but Erik is tired too. "We can talk more in the morning. If that is okay with you?"
Erik yawns in answer. "I assume you have a spare room," he says, looking around as though he can picture just how many rooms there are here.
"One or two," Charles says wryly.
*
Charles and Erik talk through most of the next day. Raven insists that Charles follows his physical therapy routine, so they work out in the gym together, and after lunch Charles gives Erik a tour around the grounds. He tries to see his home through Erik's eyes, and he knows he's trying to make it as appealing as possible to convince Erik to move in.
There's a brief rain shower, heavy and sudden, and Charles is very aware of Erik's closeness as they shelter under a tree. He wants to keep this, find out where their new friendship could lead. He wants Erik to stay.
"I'm aware that this is very sudden," Charles says as they head back up the lawn towards the front of the house. Erik is walking by his side; he's only offered to push Charles once, when they were racing uphill to the shelter of the tree.
"You're going to ask me to stay," Erik says, and grins at Charles.
Charles matches his grin. "I wasn't aware that telepathy was catching."
"You've been telling me about everything we achieved together in your memories, and it doesn't take a mind-reader to know that you're thinking about all we could achieve if we worked together now. And you know that I have a job that means nothing to me, and no ties, nothing holding me back."
"So that's a yes," Charles says.
Erik slows his steps, hand on the arm of Charles' chair to halt him. "I don't know what the future holds. I don't know how we'll deal if the world finds out about us. I don't want to be a government pawn - I won't be. But I've been trying to cope alone for too long, and you need someone by your side, and-" Erik tips his head back and looks at the sky. There's a break in the clouds, and a weak ray of sunlight falls on them. "And there's something between us," Erik continues, stumbling over the words as though he needs to say it but doesn't know how. "I don't know what. I don't believe in fate. I think we make our own, and that only fools or the weak blame fate. But if I ignore this, then I'd be throwing away an opportunity to do something good. Be at the start of a stronger, better human race."
Erik's last words make a faint chill go down Charles' back. But this is his chance too, his opportunity to guide Erik, help him see that mutants and humans can work together. For all his pain, this Erik isn't bitter like his old friend. He's more hopeful, more optimistic. Charles feels a new strength inside him, a new purpose.
"I am glad, my friend," Charles says.
*
Erik travels back to New York with Raven. She's tearful, but excited, and Charles touches her mind subtly to dispel any concerns she has about leaving him. He's sad to see her go, but it's for the best. She's safer somewhere else, not around him. She never needs to know about mutants. Charles doesn't know what danger might be ahead for them, but in this world, Raven needn't be a part of it.
Erik returns the next day with the same suitcase and duffle that Charles saw in the landlord's mind, both just a little more scuffed around the edges.
"I've never had grand dreams of being a printer's assistant," he tells Charles as he hangs up his shirts and jackets in the room he chose. It's his old room, next to Charles'. The wardrobe is too big for his few belongings; empty hangers rattle when he closes the door.
"What are your grand dreams?" Charles asks, wheeling across the room to turn on a lamp. It isn't dark yet, but the extra light warms the room.
"Why don't you tell me?" Erik suggests, turning on the other lamp with a flick of his fingers. Flashy. Probably the first time Erik has felt safe using his powers like that in front of someone else.
Charles taps his fingers against his temple. "Are you giving me permission?"
"I suppose I am." Erik sets a photograph on the chest-of-drawers. Erik as a child, maybe five years old, with an older woman beside him, her arm resting lightly on his shoulder. Charles recognizes her from a memory of a memory: Erik's mother.
Charles rests his chin on his hands. He's hiding things from Erik: the fear that Erik and he might come to blows as they did in his memories, the feelings he has for Erik that he can't imagine are reciprocated. He doesn't want to go into Erik's mind while he's still keeping secrets. "No, just tell me."
Erik sprawls on his bed, his unpacking finished. It didn't take him long. Clothes, toiletries, two books, a few papers in a well-worn folder, and that one framed photograph. He's been traveling a long time.
"Well," Erik starts, "I always wanted to be an astronaut. And a train driver. And for a while I wanted to be a train."
"What boy doesn't? Well, the astronaut and train driver, anyway." Charles had had ambitions of being a racing car driver at one point. But deep down genetics was always his first love, right from the time he first opened a biology textbook as a boy and worked out that genetics could be the key to understanding himself. "What now? Or do you still harbor a desire to be the first man on the moon someday?"
"Now," Erik says, stretching his arms out and floating a brass-inlaid box into the air, "now I want to see what I can do. I want to learn how to use my powers."
Charles smiles, open and content. For all his fears, he is optimistic. This time around, everything is going to be better. "We can do that together."
*
With Raven gone, there is nothing to hold them back from practicing their powers. Erik is bemused at first when Charles suggests that he could fly, and then excited. He learns quickly, hovering an inch off the ground at first, then higher, then floating up to the roof. He sits on the balustrade and waves down to Charles.
"I could float you up here too," he offers. "There's more than enough metal in your chair."
It's a crazy idea, and yet Charles says yes without hesitation. Erik floats him up carefully, keeping the chair steady, and lands him without a jolt on the roof. "That was amazing," Charles says gleefully.
Charles too is continuing to get stronger. The amphetamines help keep him focused, and he tries out old skills he once had. Erik drives them into Salem, and Charles winks at him, then freezes everyone in the bookstore.
"It's a good thing you're an honest man," Erik says, looking out the window at the bank opposite. "Or are you ever tempted?"
"To rob a bank? No, never. Smaller things, though. I used to use my powers to chat up girls," he admits wryly. "I'd offer to buy them whatever drink they were thinking about." Erik looks surprised. "What, you thought I was too honorable?" Charles laughs.
"No, not that, exactly," Erik stutters.
"Then what?"
"Nothing."
"You know, people are always lying when they say it's nothing," Charles observes.
"I was just surprised that you used to chat up girls. I'd simply assumed-that your tastes were different."
Oh. "I see. And if that were true?"
Erik shrugs. "You wouldn't be the only one," he admits, and now it's Charles turn to be surprised. And relieved.
*
Erik finds the amphetamines one morning when he wanders into Charles' bedroom and asks to borrow some shaving soap.
Charles rationalizes later that it was better that it was Erik who found them, not Raven. If Raven had known about the drugs, Charles knows would never have agreed to leave for New York.
"What the hell are you thinking?" Erik shouts at him. Charles wheels himself into his bathroom, still in his pajamas and dressing gown, to be confronted with Erik standing in front of the open cabinet holding a little brown bottle of pills. There are six tablets left in the bottle. "No wonder you're always so wired," Erik says, quieter, but no less furious.
"That I needed help to find you," Charles says. He hasn't slept well, and he hasn't had any coffee yet, and it's too early in the morning for an argument.
"You're putting this on me?" Erik snaps, disbelieving. "Your drug abuse."
"No," Charles says quickly. "I just-I had to find you, and I couldn't-I wasn't powerful enough, so I experimented. For a while. Carefully. Amphetamines helped me focus."
Erik turns the bottle slowly in his hands. "You realize that every drug addict has a perfectly good explanation for taking drugs."
Charles doesn't believe he's an addict. He has always been careful. The drugs are simply a tool. Nothing more.
Erik shakes his head in disbelief. "I might not have your ability to actually read minds, but I'm pretty sure I know what you are thinking right now, and you are wrong. You are a fucking idiot if you think you can handle this."
"Take them, then. Throw them away." Charles shrugs carelessly, as though it's no matter to him what Erik does, even though he's woken up tired and he knows that if he were to take just one tablet, or two, just two, he'd be able to work longer, work better, achieve more today.
"No."
"No?"
"No. I won't do that. You need to do that."
Erik has been here for two weeks now. They both have strong personalities, different backgrounds, different ways of looking at the world. It's surprising that they haven't argued sooner.
"And if I don't want to?"
Erik stares at him, long and hard, and then stalks out of the bathroom. He throws the bottle at Charles as he passes.
The glass is slightly warm from Erik's touch. Charles rubs his thumb around the lid. He wants to take one.
He doesn't. He reaches up and puts the bottle back in the cabinet.
*
The problem is that he's distracted for the rest of the day. He feels slightly off, three cups of coffee not enough to make him feel alert. His head aches when he tries to see if he can stretch his mind to a specific location chosen at random on a map by Erik. He can still do it, reach as far, but he feels the strain. He's irritable, and by dinner time he's had enough.
He means to take a tablet. That's his intent right up until the moment he opens the bottle. He tips one out onto his palm. It's very small and innocuous. Deceptive. But then so are a lot of dangerous things. Charles is dangerous, and so is Erik, but nobody could guess that from looking at them. They're both capable of killing people with their minds.
And they're both capable of making terrible mistakes. Charles can't fool himself that Erik is the only one who's made bad decisions. Remembering the other lifetime, Charles can see the moments he got wrong, the times he said the wrong thing. They're just following orders. Of all the thoughtless arguments to throw at a man whose family was killed in the Holocaust.
He looks at the tablets. He doesn't regret taking them. Without them, Erik wouldn't be here by his side. Charles would still be searching. But Erik is right. Charles can't keep taking them.
He tips the rest out into his hand, and throws the bottle into the trash. The tablets he drops, one by one, into the toilet, and then flushes it.
He's angry afterwards. With himself for being weak and not being willing to accept it. With Erik for being right. With himself again for being irrational. He goes to bed early that night.
The early night doesn't help his mood. He feels worse the next day, and plans things so that he spends as little time with Erik as possible. They talk over meals, but the pills are like an elephant in the room and Charles finds himself eating without tasting a thing. He goes to bed straight after dinner, skipping their regular routine of a game of chess and a glass of scotch.
It's about midnight when there's a faint knock on the door. It can only be Erik.
"Come in," Charles calls out. He doesn't really want to see Erik right now, but he knows he's been childish.
"I'm sorry," Erik says, sitting down at the edge of Charles' bed. Charles can just make out his expression in the faint light coming from the hallway. He looks sad.
"Why?" Charles shrugs. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Yes, I did. I pushed you. Tried to force you."
"You were concerned for me," Charles replies, "and you were right to be." As he argues Erik's case he feels the anger drain out of him. "I've thrown them away," he says, and is rewarded by a brief glint of a smile in Erik's eyes.
This is a new beginning for them. Charles can't afford to make any mistakes. He knows he can't expect another divine intervention, another second chance, or whatever it is that his false memories are.
He can't fuck this up.
But this moment feels so intimate. Erik is leaning in, closer than he needs to be, knees pressing against Charles' hip. Every day they've gotten closer. They spend almost all their waking hours together, training and talking and relaxing in the evenings; Charles has missed that the last two days. And he can't stop thinking about that night in Langley, the night in his fantasy, the remembered sensation of Erik's hand around his dick so vivid it's hard to distance it from his other memories.
He works to keep his breathing even. His body is reacting to Erik's proximity, to the setting, the dim light and the dip of the bed next to him.
Erik has to feel it. Has to know what he's doing to Charles. But this is the first time Charles has been so close to someone and not allowed himself to touch even the surface of their mind. He won't cheat; he won't give Erik any reason to distrust him. So he holds perfectly still and waits for Erik to speak.
Erik shifts fractionally. Not away. "I think I must have known there was something special about you from the moment you crashed into me," Erik says softly. "I couldn't bear the thought that I'd tried to save you, tried to keep the car from crushing you, and failed."
"You didn't fail." Charles puts all the conviction he feels into the words, stares at Erik and wills him to believe it.
"You were in a coma," Erik says, holding his gaze. "And-and you'll never walk again. That feels like failure."
Charles reaches out with both hands and clasps Erik's face. "You saved my life, and for that I will be forever grateful." He wonders now that he's never thanked Erik properly for that. "And you brought us together, for which I am even more grateful."
They're so close, everything that happens next seems inevitable. They move together, Erik's hands coming up to Charles' shoulders as Charles slides his fingers into Erik's hair. It's finer and silkier than he's imagined, and Erik's face is softer than he's ever seen it, warm in the glow of the hall light. He looks good, so good, and Charles marvels that he's resisted this long.
Charles closes his eyes as their lips touch. His mind skips through random thoughts. That he should have closed the bedroom window because if it rains in the night, the carpet will get wet. This is Erik, finally. Tomorrow he must get Williams to post the letter he wrote to Raven. He fought this man once, came to blows over the future of mankind. He loves him.
The two of them, they can be magnificent together. All his thoughts come to this point.
He turns his face into the kiss. Erik gasps, or maybe it's Charles. They both gasp. Charles doesn't know. He's jumping off a roof not knowing if he can fly, nothing but air beneath him, and only faith between him and death. I trust you, he says silently, and holds on.
The kiss deepens, tight and desperate.
Charles doesn't need to breath. This is his air. This is his new drug. And maybe it's no safer, certainly no less addictive, but this is his choice. Erik.
He leans dizzily into Erik, not wanting to break the kiss. He feels a faint scar above Erik's lip, presses his lips into it, laves it with his tongue, nips at it with his teeth. He wants to learn every inch of Erik.
"Is this in your memories?" Erik asks eventually, the words melting into Charles' skin. "Us?"
Charles's throat is dry. He chokes out: "No." Nothing a fraction as good as this.
"Good," Erik says. Possessive, as though he's jealous of the time the other version of him spent with Charles. Charles can feel the emotions radiating from him: relief, happiness, arousal.
"You're going to have to think more quietly if you don't want me to hear," Charles says, pulling back reluctantly and letting his hands fall down to his side. He leans against his pillows.
Erik doesn't let him keep the distance between them. He leans forward and his breath ghosts over Charles' cheek. "I want you to know everything I'm thinking right now." He lifts one of Charles' hands and places it on Charles' temple. "Everything," he says.
He is in love with Charles. That is the basis of every thought running through Erik's mind, and it colors every recent memory. It's overwhelming to see their interaction through Erik's eyes, but wonderful, so wonderful he needs Erik to know exactly how Charles sees him.
He's never tried this before, pulling someone else into his own mind, opening up for them. But there is a bond between them, a connection on a level that Charles doesn't understand yet but wants to explore in every way, and he's certain that if this can work with anyone, it's with Erik.
He doesn't need physical touch to do this, but he holds out his hand anyway and Erik takes it. Charles doesn't focus his mind; he does the exact opposite. Lets it drift away from him, opens up like a butterfly spreading its wings in the sunshine after too long in its chrysalis.
He hears a sharp intake of breath, and Erik squeezes his hand. They're joined, sharing everything they've ever seen or felt or done. This life and the other one. Charles focuses now, relives the kiss they've just shared, feels it through Erik and knows Erik feels what Charles felt.
He is so open it hurts.
He can't hold it indefinitely, but even when he draws his mind back, they don't separate completely.
"I can still feel you," Erik says, and Charles nods.
Even without trying he can feel more than just emotions. He knows Erik is afraid that they'll end up fighting like the two men on the beach. That they're too different. And he knows Erik will do everything he can to avoid that future, avoid failure.
"We won't make the same mistakes," Charles promises, determined. "We won't. This is different. We are different men. We've seen what could happen, and we can avoid it. We will avoid it."
"Yes," Erik says, and kisses Charles again.
Erik doesn't ask before he pulls the comforter and top sheet off Charles. "You're perfect," he says, and Charles knows that's in response to his own fears. His own frustration with his imperfect body.
Charles unbuttons his pajama top, and Erik presses kisses against his belly and unties his pajama bottoms. For a moment, Charles sees himself through Erik's eyes again, lying there wanton and eager, his half-hard dick nestled between the spread fabric of the pajama pants.
"You are far too clothed," Charles points out. Erik hasn't even undressed for bed yet, has spent the evening pacing around his room. "And much as I would like to strip you, right now I don't think that would be possible." Not the way Charles would like, standing in front of Erik, pulling off one garment at a time, exposing him slowly.
Erik has metal buttons on his cardigan and a metal zip on his slacks. He sheds both garments without touching them but fumbles with his cotton shirt and underpants.
He's hard, his cock jutting up against his firm belly. Charles wants to taste him, wants to feel Erik inside him, wants everything.
"Patience," Erik orders but Charles knows Erik is no more patient than he is. Erik kneels on the bed next to him. He traces his index finger down Charles' chest, over the plane of his stomach, down to the wiry hair at his groin, then bends down and takes Charles' cock in his mouth. Sucks him to full hardness.
Charles makes a sound like a sob. Bangs his head against the headboard, over and over. He twists his hands in the sheet to keep from grabbing Erik's hair. He wants to fuck Erik's mouth, crash into him, rise and fall like a wave.
Sometimes I dream of crawling into this bed with you, spreading your ass wide and fucking you so hard you scream.
Charles shudders, his cock pulsing in Erik's mouth. He knows. He's seen Erik's dreams. Seen everything. And it's still not enough. He wants to live each of those dreams, create a dozen new ones and live those too. A hundred. A thousand.
There's a humming sound in the room, and Charles doesn't recognize it at first. And then he feels it too, all the metal in the room vibrating, in tune with them both, and his skin is alive, his whole body is more alive than he's felt-ever.
Charles touches Erik. Not with his hands, but his mind. Makes it feel like Charles's hands, matches Erik's rhythm, the thrum of the metal, pumps Erik's cock, faster and rougher and Erik matches that in turn with his mouth, and Charles can't keep silent.
"Fuck, Erik," he groans. "Fuck, I can't-" I can't last, can't wait.
"Shhh," Erik says, his voice hoarse, fingers sliding into the crease of Charles' thigh, and he can't feel the touch on his own skin but he can feel it through Erik, the warmth of thin skin, blood right under the surface. They're two, but they're moving as one, in perfect phase. And when Charles comes - too soon, but it's been so long - arching his back and thrusting into Erik's mouth, he feels Erik come too.
Erik slumps down on his chest afterward, legs tangled together. He's too heavy, and there is come drying between them, but Charles wraps his arms around Erik and holds him close. Welcome home, he whispers in Erik's head.
He feels at peace. The room has settled into silence.
And then Charles feels laughter bubbling up from inside him. He isn't sure why, just that Erik is happy and he wants to laugh and he wants Charles to feel his amusement.
Erik laughs out loud, the sound rumbling through Charles' arms.
"Really?" Charles mutters. "Your reaction to mind-blowing, telepathic sex is to laugh?"
Erik just laughs harder. "You really-" He snorts into his hand, and then continues, "You really picked up girls by telling them they had a groovy mutation?"
The laughter is infectious. "It's that bad a line, huh?" Not that it generally worked, but still. Charles didn't think it was that bad.
"Oh, yes. Right up with 'you must be tired because you've been running through my head all night.'"
Charles hides his face in Erik's shoulder.
"You haven't. Tell me you haven't used that."
Charles suddenly regrets his policy of honesty, but at least it doesn't require him to actually answer the question. "I guess it's a good thing I didn't have to use a pick-up line to get you into bed," he counters.
"To think that I'd imagined you as incredibly smooth." Erik's disappointed tone would be more convincing if he weren't stroking his fingers through Charles' hair, scratching his scalp in a way that makes Charles wish he weren't falling asleep.
"If I tell you I am that smooth, really-?" Charles tries.
"Too late," Erik whispers as Charles' eyes close and his face falls heavy against the back of Erik's neck. It's very comfortable. "I've been inside your mind. I know the truth now."
*
Erik props himself up on one elbow, flicking a stray hair out of Charles eyes. Charles needs a hair cut. He put his life on hold while he searched for Erik, but now there's time.
There's a landscape on the wall opposite - a view of North Salem commissioned by a long-dead Xavier - that's almost like looking out of the window. Charles normally enjoys it every morning when he wakes, but this morning he prefers to stare at the man next to him in bed.
"So, in this other reality, this coma dream," Erik says, appraisingly. "We trained mutants, you and I."
Charles nods. Knowing Erik like this, sharing minds, it's like suddenly having subtitles on a Chinese movie after trying to work out the plot from body-language alone. He doesn't have to guess any more. He knows what Erik is going to suggest.
He smiles at the good (fake) memories and even wider at the prospect of better (real) ones. All the time he spent searching for Erik, he'd feared that Erik wouldn't know him, and knew it would break him if Erik wanted nothing to do with him. And Erik hadn't known him, not really, but it's okay. It's more than okay. They're starting again, and it's good. It's so very good.
"Yes, my friend," Charles says, and by friend he means everything: friend, brother-in-arms, partner, lover. "We did. We hoped to open a school together, right here." The plans they drew up don't exist on paper any more, but they're in Charles' head, and in Erik's now too.
"And you think you could find other mutants?"
"We know there are others out there. Not all the ones I remember, maybe, but others I felt briefly, searching for you. And some may be scared or lost. With your help, we can find them." It troubles Charles, thinking of them, of lost souls like Alex, terrified of hurting others, of starving children like the Raven he first met. But he and Erik can find them, help them. Somehow he feels certain that whoever gave him those memories did so for this very purpose, to guide him to Erik, to put them on the path they're about to take.
"Then I think that is what we should do. Find them. Make that part of your dream come true," Erik says, then grins. "If we can ever bring ourselves to leave your bed, that is."
He leans over Charles and kisses him and makes it very difficult for Charles to even consider leaving.
//
First Breath After Coma (part 3)
Mr. Zimmermann is as helpful as ever when Charles goes to the library first thing the next morning. With the sketch sitting on the table between them, they search through architectural journals and photo books for pictures of the building Charles saw. Mr. Zimmermann doesn't ask questions or enquire how it is that Charles has a sketch of a building but only a rough idea of its location (south, maybe fifty miles away).
"Eureka," Mr. Zimmermann says, after nearly three hours have passed. He lifts a journal to show Charles a photograph of the building, the name printed underneath. He looks a little guilty to have broken his own silence rules.
Charles leaves directly from the library, giving instructions to an impassive Williams.
The drive down to New York takes forever. Charles has to repress the urge every few minutes to tell Williams to put his foot down. Trees and houses and telephone poles go by the window at a painfully slow pace; Charles would only be satisfied if he could see no more than a blur, and even that would still be too slow.
He can't relax. He churns scenarios over and over in his mind, tries to work out how best to greet Erik. He doesn't want to startle him, and if, somehow, Charles is wrong and Erik doesn't have his powers, then Charles is going to need to be very careful. Yet careful is the last thing he wants to be - he wants to rush up to Erik, take him by the shoulders and shake him for not being there when Charles woke up, ridiculous as that would be. He wants to find out exactly how their lives overlap, if any of Charles' memories of Erik are true. He wants to learn whether or not his old friend is the man Charles believes him to be.
Charles feels out of control. He taps out a rhythm on the door handle, more and more nervous as he gets closer.
The drive takes just over an hour in the end. Williams helps him out of the car, and Charles looks around. This is the place. The building he saw in Erik's mind is on one side of a public square. It's lunchtime, and people are milling around, sitting on steps and around the base of the statue, eating bagged lunches.
Charles wheels himself along the sidewalk and reaches out with his mind. He takes in the whole square, hundreds of people, and instantly knows Erik is not in this crowd. He sends out tendrils of thought further, touching mind after mind, frantic now he knows he's close.
He looks crazy. He sees it in the minds of passers-by. The madman in the wheelchair, circling around, fingers pressed to his temple, eyes straining as though he can see through buildings. He doesn't care. If he looks just a little further-
There.
Nearby. In the basement of a tall building, a dingy room filled with a large printing press, shouting to be heard over the noise of the press. There's a thick scent of ink in the air, ink and sweat and heat. Erik's busy, finishing up an urgent job - fliers for a local election - and he doesn't notice the faint press of Charles' mind.
Charles holds his mind steady. Keeps the touch light but secure. He wheels himself along the sidewalk. Goes to the pedestrian crossing before he crosses the road. Reaches the right building, and waits.
Erik's thirsty. He's been working since 4 a.m., and he's nearly finished, ready for a drink. In just a few minutes, he'll come out of the door and Charles will see him.
Charles can be patient. He can wait.
It feels like the hardest thing he's ever done.
The sun is low this time of year, even at lunchtime, but there's a gap in the buildings opposite and Charles finds a spot on the sidewalk where he can wait in the sun, out of the way of the passing pedestrians. He wraps his scarf tighter around his neck and is grateful for the new fingerless gloves Raven bought him - they're thick navy wool, with leather inset in the palms. His hands are shaking a little, and he clasps them together in his lap to force them still.
Charles knows exactly when Erik is about to exit the building, but he isn't prepared for the wonder of seeing him for the first time.
He is exactly like Charles' memory. A new hint of grey at his temple, maybe, and some dark smudges of ink across his cheek, but his face is so familiar that Charles' chest aches at the sight of him. Erik's fingers are inky too, stained dark under his fingernails. He's wearing a heavy black greatcoat, collar turned up in expectation of the cold breeze. He stands tall and determined, scans the road quickly and takes the four steps up to the sidewalk in just two strides.
He sees Charles.
They stare at each other. Erik isn't broadcasting anything. It isn't a total absence of all thought, not like the utter silence Charles had felt when Erik put on Shaw's helmet. But Erik is drawing back internally, and Charles can't feel any obvious emotions. Charles could go inside his head, but this is his friend, and he's already intruded in order to find him. More would be an invasion, and however much Charles desperately wants to know what Erik is thinking right now, he won't sneak around in Erik's mind uninvited.
They stare for several seconds. Then Erik turns to walk away, as though Charles is a random stranger who caught his eye for no reason. He's going to leave, and Charles can't help it. He shouts. "No!"
It's New York. No one else reacts, but Erik stops in his tracks. He turns back to Charles.
"Erik, my friend," Charles says, and he is begging Erik to recognize him, all of his plans to say the right thing forgotten.
"Why are you here?" Erik asks.
"May we talk?" Charles asks in return. "Somewhere warmer?"
Erik doesn't look surprised at the request, just wary. "There's a bar down the block. It'll be open."
They walk in silence, the need to weave along a busy street enough excuse for the lack of conversation.
The bar is small and dark. There's a game of pool going on, and one old man slumped in a booth, but otherwise it's empty. Charles gets them two bottles of beer, and they sit at a sticky round wooden table in the farthest corner from the door. Oh! Pretty Woman is playing on the jukebox. Raven likes that song, dances to it when Charles isn't around.
"I'm Charles Xavier," Charles says, pulling off his gloves and holding out his hand. It's backwards, introducing himself after calling Erik his friend, but he needs to restart this meeting, and his name is a logical starting point.
"I know," Erik says. He shakes Charles' hand, but doesn't introduce himself. "I heard you were in a coma. I'm glad you're out of it," he adds. If there's anything more in that statement than the polite concern of a virtual stranger, Charles can't find it.
Charles wants to shout at him, beg him to tell Charles what's real, instead of this civil and distant conversation. He wants to know what Erik remembers. He wants to read his mind or at least nudge it towards opening up to Charles, but his need for Erik to open up to him willingly is even greater. If this is a new start for them, Charles wants to get it right this time. He doesn't want a repeat of lying on a beach in Erik's arms, in agony, begging Erik not to kill an entire fleet. He wants Erik to trust him enough to try Charles' path, to give a peaceful, non-genocidal approach to human-mutant relations a chance. Charles has the opportunity to start afresh, guide Erik onto a path that will be good for him and the world.
Maybe that is the whole purpose of his memories. Maybe some higher power is interfering in the ways of men, giving Charles the understanding to make the right decisions this time around.
Even without reading Erik's mind, Charles knows he's in turmoil. Charles isn't as good at reading people's faces as Raven - the Raven he remembers. She used to study people in intricate detail, all their mannerisms and habits and the reasons behind them, so that she could mimic them successfully. Charles always relied too much on the emotions people broadcast, or on reading the surface layers of their thoughts.
But there is strain in the set of Erik's jaw and tension in his shoulders, and dark circles under his eyes, and it's easy enough to read his state of mind from those signs.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm curious. What happened? At the crash?" Charles asks.
"I don't remember it that clearly," Erik says too quickly, and his eyes flicker up and to the left for a fraction of a second. He's lying.
Charles doesn't challenge him. He takes another drink, and then carries on as though he's simply reminiscing. "The police officer who interviewed me when I woke up, Sergeant MacTaggert, she told me that I was lucky to be alive. That the wreckage was the strangest she'd ever seen. We should both have died that day."
"Perhaps she isn't very experienced in the field of car crashes," Erik says dismissively. Charles still knows his tones well enough to know he's avoiding the subject.
Charles takes another drag of beer. He takes off his scarf and unbuttons his coat, already too warm in the muggy atmosphere of the bar. Erik doesn't even undo a single button. He looks ready to leave at any second.
Charles can't let him leave, not yet.
He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out his comb. It's metal, warm from resting against his chest. He flicks it over and over in his hand.
"I used to have a friend who could bend spoons," he says, watching the comb flash yellow from the dim glow of a wall-light. He looks up at Erik. "Do you believe that's possible? That a man can manipulate metal with the force of his mind?"
Erik doesn't answer straight away. He looks everywhere but at Charles, swallows slowly, settles in his seat. He's clearly uncertain - more so than Charles has ever seen him before - but Charles resists the temptation to push him. Erik leans forward, just a fraction, looking from the comb up to Charles and then back down to the comb. He focuses on it, and Charles finds himself holding his breath.
There's the faintest smile at the corner of Erik's mouth. Charles watches Erik's face, until he nods and looks up. When Charles looks down at the table, the comb is folded neatly in half.
Charles grins at Erik, wide and open. "I knew you could do it," he says, letting the joy he feels show on his face.
"How did you know? How did it even happen? No," Erik says, shaking his head, the faint smile gone and replaced by a pinched look of distress. "I don't-"
"It's okay," Charles says, reaching out and folding his hand over Erik's. "You're not alone. You're not the only one."
He can tell Erik isn't entirely reassured, that he's scared he's revealed too much. Bending a spoon might be a parlor trick, but to bend metal without touching it is the sort of thing that makes men mutter dangerous things. So Charles talks to him the other way: I can assure you, you're not the only one.
Erik startles back, pulling his hands off the table and away from Charles. "How did you do that?" he hisses. "This is impossible."
"You and me, we're different. We're special," Charles says quietly, but out loud. "But I think you already knew that, even if you didn't want to admit it."
"I-I do remember the crash," Erik admits slowly. There is a long pause before he speaks again, but Charles doesn't rush him. "I think you spoke to me that way then, in my head. Did you?"
Charles huffs out a bitter laugh. "I remember nothing of that day," he says. "But I might have. It makes sense."
It's Erik's turn to laugh. "It makes sense to you?"
"Yes. It does. My field is genetics - I was a Professor of Genetics in Oxford before the accident - and I believe there is a logical, scientific explanation for all this."
Erik finishes his drink. "I think we need more privacy than this bar affords," he says, standing up.
"I have a place we can talk," Charles offers. "And better beer."
*
Erik's current job is complete, the fliers all ready to be shipped out, and he doesn't need to be back at the press until the following Monday. He gets into the back of the car with Charles without question. Charles takes it as a good sign, that Erik senses that he can trust Charles.
They don't talk of anything important on the drive. Erik tells Charles about the countries he's traveled through and some of the more amusing local customs, and how he misses the sausages he had as a young child in Germany - there's nothing quite like them in New York. Charles shares silly excuses his students at Oxford gave him for not handing in papers on time, and about his failed attempts so far to train Blue to sit on command. He talks about his studies too, about genetics and mutation, but he doesn't mention mutants in the hearing of Williams.
Charles has a sense of déjà vu. When they traveled cross-country searching for mutants, they had easy, rambling conversations like this. Even said some of the same things, though important details are different: Erik's past, their goal, Charles' legs. But still, it feels good, talking like friends, the jagged edges that made Erik so dangerous before missing.
It feels comfortable. Like an old friendship renewed, even though Charles is now certain that it's no such thing, that his memories of Erik are as false as he once believed Raven's memories of his car crash to be. But there is some bond between them, that much is certain.
*
Charles aches with the familiarity of the scene. Erik sitting next to him in Charles' study, a chess board on the table between them. Erik has a glass of scotch in one hand and his socked feet up on a stool, soaking up the warmth from the fire.
There are differences from his memories: Charles isn't in his old armchair, but in his wheelchair, and Blue is curled up at his feet. The house is almost empty and the chess set is untouched. They've too much to talk about before they can allow themselves any distractions.
"How did you get inside my head?" is Erik's first question. He picks up a chess piece, a black rook, and twists it around in his fingers. His whole posture is relaxed, but Charles can sense the tension and confusion under the apparent ease.
"You have your tricks, and I have mine," Charles says, remembering words he used in some other lifetime, in a dream. "I'm a telepath," he explains properly, "and I don't just hear thoughts, I can project them too."
Erik weighs Charles' words carefully. "Are you reading my mind now?" He stares at Charles, not in accusation, but appraising, as if to make certain Charles doesn't lie to him.
"No," Charles says, and then adds in the interest of total honesty, "I can sense emotion when it's strongly felt without touching a mind. So I have a vague sense of your state of mind - I would be able to tell if you were angry or fearful, because those are strong emotions; I feel those whether I want to or not. But I promise you, I will not look inside your mind, not without your permission. You have my word on that."
"And my state of mind now?" Erik's face is blank, just one small muscle in his jaw giving away the tension he's feeling.
Charles doesn't hesitate. "You're not sure whether to believe me. You're confused and anxious."
Erik nods, his face relaxing. "Thank you for being honest," he says. He places the rook back on the chess board and tidies several pieces that have been knocked onto the wrong square. It's a stalling tactic, but Charles gives it him. This conversation needs to happen at Erik's pace. He needs answers first.
Charles picks up a white pawn and changes the subject to give Erik time. "Do you play?" Charles asks.
"Yes," Erik says, and then qualifies it. "I used to. I haven't for many years."
Charles has a sudden image of a young Erik playing with an older man. A kindly face, teaching him. His father.
"Perhaps we could play some time," Charles suggests.
"Perhaps," is all that Erik offers, but he's full of nostalgia for the game, for the memories it invokes. He wants to play again.
They are quiet for a while. It isn't quite the silence Charles remembers them enjoying, friends relaxing after a long day, but it isn't uncomfortable. Blue puts her head on Charles' knees and he scratches her favorite spot just under her neck. Her eyelids droop.
Erik is the one to break the silence. "When we crashed, what did you do? What did you do to me?" There is a hint of anger in his tone, but it feels like old anger, like a fury that's grown dull and sad.
"Do to you?" he asks. Charles never wanted to cause him pain or sorrow, but he might have done something in the fear and shock of the moment, something he doesn't remember.
"Yes. You did something, you did something to me," Erik says. He leans forward, face screwed up in concentration, relieving the moment. He looks scared. "Just before we hit, I heard your voice in my head and-I don't understand it."
"I-I have no idea. I don't even remember the crash." Charles rubs at the bridge of his nose. "I-" He huffs a breath, hardly knowing where to start. If he stares into the center of the fire, the flames are mesmerizing. He can see patterns, miniature worlds in it. "I think the accident affected my memory."
"You have amnesia?" Erik asks. Charles hasn't sensed any pity from Erik, not for his paralysis, and not for his amnesia. A trace of suspicion now, but not pity. It's a relief.
"No," Charles says. "Well, yes, I suppose I do, in a way. This is going to sound crazy-"
Erik interrupts, "I think we can both handle that. After all, you've seen me bend metal, and I've heard your voice in my head."
"There are crazier things in life than either of those," Charles warns.
"But sometimes the crazy things make more sense," Erik mutters, quietly, as though he's not really speaking to Charles, but pulling up old memories. Charles wonders what happened to this Erik during the war, what madness and horror in the name of order. There is a tattooed number on his arm; that's a partial answer. It's the same number Charles vividly remembers. Erik never hid it. It isn't Charles' place to ask, though, so he starts his own story instead.
"I have a completely different set of memories," Charles begins. "Going back years, as far as I can remember. I remember a different life to the one my sister, Raven, remembers. There's a lot of overlap, some things that are the same or similar, but in my memories, she's a mutant too. Able to shapeshift. Her natural form is blue." Blue lifts her head at the mention of her name, and Erik smiles briefly. Charles goes on. "In my memories, we met before."
Charles remembers jumping into freezing water, desperately pulling Erik to the surface. He remembers the pain in Erik's mind. He'll tell him about that another day, if Erik stays.
"We worked together," he says, "training other mutants to use their powers safely. Helped them learn ways they could use their abilities." It's the briefest possible potted history of all Charles remembers, but it will do for now.
"You knew about my-mutation? Before the crash?"
"In my memories, there was no crash. It's-confusing," Charles says. "Trying to work out what's real, what isn't. In my memories, I knew you could manipulate metal and control magnetic fields. But I didn't know for certain that your powers were real until I started looking for you. Though I hoped," Charles adds, because he wants Erik to see that this can be a gift, not a curse.
"I didn't know until the crash," Erik says. He sounds cheated, as though somehow he should have known. "I heard a voice - your voice - screaming for me to help us. As though you knew I could. And then I found myself reaching out, holding back metal, changing the trajectory of our cars." He's stretching his arms out now, circling his out-stretched hands in the air. The metal in the room is vibrating. "I could feel all the metal around me, and around you, and I forced it away from us. I had no idea I could do anything like that."
"It must have been terrifying." Charles reaches out and squeezes Erik's arm. Just briefly, reassuring.
The vibration stops. Erik's expression settles into something approaching calm.
He continues. "I thought it might have something to do with you. I don't even know why I thought that. I had no way of knowing for certain that it was your voice in my head. There was nothing to say that was what made me able to do what I did."
"You came to visit me in the hospital."
"Yes. You remember? You weren't conscious. I had to sneak in while no one was looking."
"I don't remember, no. But when I woke up I noticed indentations in the bed frame. Like finger marks. And I knew of only one man who could have done that. You know," Charles adds, "I think that saved my sanity. All that time, seeing people I remembered and finding out that they had either no memories of me, or completely different ones, that none of them were fellow mutants, I clung to the hope that when I found you, then I would know for a certainty that I wasn't the only one." Feeling other mutant minds in his search for Erik had helped, but nothing was as good as finding him. Seeing his power in action.
"And now you know you're not."
"Yes, now I know." Charles drains his glass of scotch and leans back. He hasn't felt this relaxed in a long time. He pets Blue with his free hand.
"Are there others out there, do you think? Others like us?"
Charles shouldn't feel so warm at Erik's casual use of 'us'. "Yes, there are. I am quite certain of that. There are over three billion other humans on this planet. I only touched a small fraction of them searching for you, but I felt other mutants among them. Not as many as I remember," Charles says, voice softening at the memory of the wonder of Cerebro. "When I searched for mutants in the other world, I found so many it was truly astounding. So many mutations, amazing ones I'd never imagined possible. When I searched for you, I only found a handful. But they are out there."
They quickly change the subject to China and the atomic bomb when Raven comes in to say goodnight. Charles brushed against the surface layers of her mind earlier, when he arrived with Erik. She'd remembered the name from Charles' questioning when he first woke up, so Charles slipped in a vague memory of Erik as an old university friend. Now she's just glad to see him so animated, happy that he has another friend besides her.
"You haven't told her, I take it," Erik says once she's closed the door behind her.
Charles shakes his head. "No. I hate lying to her, even if only by omission, but I think it's safest for her. The memories I have, of a team of mutants - she was one of them. And she was in danger, more than once. This way, she can lead a normal life. I'm well enough now that she doesn't have to stay here to take care of me any more. She's thinking of moving to New York, and I'm going to encourage her to do that."
"Won't you find this place empty without her?"
"It'll be strange, yes. But I hope it won't be empty," Charles says, the seed of the offer he wants to make to Erik. There's a flicker of understanding in Erik's eyes, but he doesn't say anything.
It's late. Blue's asleep now, and when Charles reaches out, Raven is brushing her teeth, half asleep. But Charles knows he and Erik still have far too many unanswered questions for either of them to sleep yet.
Erik asks the next one. "How did you find me?"
"I searched, mentally. I-" Charles finds it hard to put into words the experience of reaching out with his consciousness. It isn't something the English language has been designed to describe. "I felt your mind, eventually. Every mind is distinctive, and a mutant's mind has a very distinctive signature." Erik's mind is strong and very powerful; even if Charles hadn't known him, he would have been drawn to such a mind. But there's pain there too, underlying everything. Not the bitter hatred the other Erik felt, but a sadness, a sense of failure. "I knew yours the moment I touched it."
It sounds to Charles like something a lover would say, but he doesn't qualify his words.
Erik sounds thoughtful. "I wonder if you did that when we crashed. Reached out and awakened dormant powers in me."
"It's possible," Charles agrees. "The shock of the crash must have had some impact too. Fear can be a powerful force. Perhaps it was the combination."
"I keep wondering what might have happened if I'd known about this ability earlier. When I was a child." This is the source of his pain.
"During the Holocaust," Charles interjects softly.
"You're reading my mind now?" Erik doesn't sound angry. But he isn't pleased, either. More resigned, as though he'd had no great expectations that Charles would be able to keep out of his head.
"No. No, not at all," Charles says quickly, willing Erik to believe him without actually forcing him to accept it. "It's part of my memories. Your past, losing your parents. I've seen it in your head, before."
"I might have been able to save them," Erik says softly. This is what's been tormenting him, the failure that's eating away at him. He gets up and paces around the room. "They died in the camps, and I don't know what sort of torture they went through before they died. They were quiet, decent people. Hard-working. We were a loving family. And if I'd found out about my power in time, they might still be alive. I could have saved them," he says, coming to a halt in front of Charles.
Erik's expression is full of pain and loss, and Charles is going to help him overcome it if he possibly can. He's not going to make the same mistakes this time. Perhaps he dreamed what he did for a reason. Perhaps there is some higher power, or perhaps it was some strange form of precognition, seeing a future that might have been if things were just a little bit different.
"No, you would not," Charles says. He remembers the other Erik, the life he led, consumed by the need for revenge. He has to try to get Erik to understand. "You would have tried, and it wouldn't have helped them, just made life so much worse for you. Imagine what might have happened if someone in a position of power had learned about your powers. Imagine what they might have done to you." He feels the tears well up in his eyes and tries to blink them away. One rolls down his face, and he rubs it off. "Please trust me, it is far better that you didn't know about your abilities then."
"You sound very certain." Erik doesn't look convinced. He's too full of guilt for one man's assurances to wash it all away in one go. Charles just hopes Erik will give him the time to help him see the truth of it.
"I am." Charles yawns then, the warmth of the fire and the scotch in his belly and the late hour all conspiring against him. He could take some pills, but Erik is tired too. "We can talk more in the morning. If that is okay with you?"
Erik yawns in answer. "I assume you have a spare room," he says, looking around as though he can picture just how many rooms there are here.
"One or two," Charles says wryly.
*
Charles and Erik talk through most of the next day. Raven insists that Charles follows his physical therapy routine, so they work out in the gym together, and after lunch Charles gives Erik a tour around the grounds. He tries to see his home through Erik's eyes, and he knows he's trying to make it as appealing as possible to convince Erik to move in.
There's a brief rain shower, heavy and sudden, and Charles is very aware of Erik's closeness as they shelter under a tree. He wants to keep this, find out where their new friendship could lead. He wants Erik to stay.
"I'm aware that this is very sudden," Charles says as they head back up the lawn towards the front of the house. Erik is walking by his side; he's only offered to push Charles once, when they were racing uphill to the shelter of the tree.
"You're going to ask me to stay," Erik says, and grins at Charles.
Charles matches his grin. "I wasn't aware that telepathy was catching."
"You've been telling me about everything we achieved together in your memories, and it doesn't take a mind-reader to know that you're thinking about all we could achieve if we worked together now. And you know that I have a job that means nothing to me, and no ties, nothing holding me back."
"So that's a yes," Charles says.
Erik slows his steps, hand on the arm of Charles' chair to halt him. "I don't know what the future holds. I don't know how we'll deal if the world finds out about us. I don't want to be a government pawn - I won't be. But I've been trying to cope alone for too long, and you need someone by your side, and-" Erik tips his head back and looks at the sky. There's a break in the clouds, and a weak ray of sunlight falls on them. "And there's something between us," Erik continues, stumbling over the words as though he needs to say it but doesn't know how. "I don't know what. I don't believe in fate. I think we make our own, and that only fools or the weak blame fate. But if I ignore this, then I'd be throwing away an opportunity to do something good. Be at the start of a stronger, better human race."
Erik's last words make a faint chill go down Charles' back. But this is his chance too, his opportunity to guide Erik, help him see that mutants and humans can work together. For all his pain, this Erik isn't bitter like his old friend. He's more hopeful, more optimistic. Charles feels a new strength inside him, a new purpose.
"I am glad, my friend," Charles says.
*
Erik travels back to New York with Raven. She's tearful, but excited, and Charles touches her mind subtly to dispel any concerns she has about leaving him. He's sad to see her go, but it's for the best. She's safer somewhere else, not around him. She never needs to know about mutants. Charles doesn't know what danger might be ahead for them, but in this world, Raven needn't be a part of it.
Erik returns the next day with the same suitcase and duffle that Charles saw in the landlord's mind, both just a little more scuffed around the edges.
"I've never had grand dreams of being a printer's assistant," he tells Charles as he hangs up his shirts and jackets in the room he chose. It's his old room, next to Charles'. The wardrobe is too big for his few belongings; empty hangers rattle when he closes the door.
"What are your grand dreams?" Charles asks, wheeling across the room to turn on a lamp. It isn't dark yet, but the extra light warms the room.
"Why don't you tell me?" Erik suggests, turning on the other lamp with a flick of his fingers. Flashy. Probably the first time Erik has felt safe using his powers like that in front of someone else.
Charles taps his fingers against his temple. "Are you giving me permission?"
"I suppose I am." Erik sets a photograph on the chest-of-drawers. Erik as a child, maybe five years old, with an older woman beside him, her arm resting lightly on his shoulder. Charles recognizes her from a memory of a memory: Erik's mother.
Charles rests his chin on his hands. He's hiding things from Erik: the fear that Erik and he might come to blows as they did in his memories, the feelings he has for Erik that he can't imagine are reciprocated. He doesn't want to go into Erik's mind while he's still keeping secrets. "No, just tell me."
Erik sprawls on his bed, his unpacking finished. It didn't take him long. Clothes, toiletries, two books, a few papers in a well-worn folder, and that one framed photograph. He's been traveling a long time.
"Well," Erik starts, "I always wanted to be an astronaut. And a train driver. And for a while I wanted to be a train."
"What boy doesn't? Well, the astronaut and train driver, anyway." Charles had had ambitions of being a racing car driver at one point. But deep down genetics was always his first love, right from the time he first opened a biology textbook as a boy and worked out that genetics could be the key to understanding himself. "What now? Or do you still harbor a desire to be the first man on the moon someday?"
"Now," Erik says, stretching his arms out and floating a brass-inlaid box into the air, "now I want to see what I can do. I want to learn how to use my powers."
Charles smiles, open and content. For all his fears, he is optimistic. This time around, everything is going to be better. "We can do that together."
*
With Raven gone, there is nothing to hold them back from practicing their powers. Erik is bemused at first when Charles suggests that he could fly, and then excited. He learns quickly, hovering an inch off the ground at first, then higher, then floating up to the roof. He sits on the balustrade and waves down to Charles.
"I could float you up here too," he offers. "There's more than enough metal in your chair."
It's a crazy idea, and yet Charles says yes without hesitation. Erik floats him up carefully, keeping the chair steady, and lands him without a jolt on the roof. "That was amazing," Charles says gleefully.
Charles too is continuing to get stronger. The amphetamines help keep him focused, and he tries out old skills he once had. Erik drives them into Salem, and Charles winks at him, then freezes everyone in the bookstore.
"It's a good thing you're an honest man," Erik says, looking out the window at the bank opposite. "Or are you ever tempted?"
"To rob a bank? No, never. Smaller things, though. I used to use my powers to chat up girls," he admits wryly. "I'd offer to buy them whatever drink they were thinking about." Erik looks surprised. "What, you thought I was too honorable?" Charles laughs.
"No, not that, exactly," Erik stutters.
"Then what?"
"Nothing."
"You know, people are always lying when they say it's nothing," Charles observes.
"I was just surprised that you used to chat up girls. I'd simply assumed-that your tastes were different."
Oh. "I see. And if that were true?"
Erik shrugs. "You wouldn't be the only one," he admits, and now it's Charles turn to be surprised. And relieved.
*
Erik finds the amphetamines one morning when he wanders into Charles' bedroom and asks to borrow some shaving soap.
Charles rationalizes later that it was better that it was Erik who found them, not Raven. If Raven had known about the drugs, Charles knows would never have agreed to leave for New York.
"What the hell are you thinking?" Erik shouts at him. Charles wheels himself into his bathroom, still in his pajamas and dressing gown, to be confronted with Erik standing in front of the open cabinet holding a little brown bottle of pills. There are six tablets left in the bottle. "No wonder you're always so wired," Erik says, quieter, but no less furious.
"That I needed help to find you," Charles says. He hasn't slept well, and he hasn't had any coffee yet, and it's too early in the morning for an argument.
"You're putting this on me?" Erik snaps, disbelieving. "Your drug abuse."
"No," Charles says quickly. "I just-I had to find you, and I couldn't-I wasn't powerful enough, so I experimented. For a while. Carefully. Amphetamines helped me focus."
Erik turns the bottle slowly in his hands. "You realize that every drug addict has a perfectly good explanation for taking drugs."
Charles doesn't believe he's an addict. He has always been careful. The drugs are simply a tool. Nothing more.
Erik shakes his head in disbelief. "I might not have your ability to actually read minds, but I'm pretty sure I know what you are thinking right now, and you are wrong. You are a fucking idiot if you think you can handle this."
"Take them, then. Throw them away." Charles shrugs carelessly, as though it's no matter to him what Erik does, even though he's woken up tired and he knows that if he were to take just one tablet, or two, just two, he'd be able to work longer, work better, achieve more today.
"No."
"No?"
"No. I won't do that. You need to do that."
Erik has been here for two weeks now. They both have strong personalities, different backgrounds, different ways of looking at the world. It's surprising that they haven't argued sooner.
"And if I don't want to?"
Erik stares at him, long and hard, and then stalks out of the bathroom. He throws the bottle at Charles as he passes.
The glass is slightly warm from Erik's touch. Charles rubs his thumb around the lid. He wants to take one.
He doesn't. He reaches up and puts the bottle back in the cabinet.
*
The problem is that he's distracted for the rest of the day. He feels slightly off, three cups of coffee not enough to make him feel alert. His head aches when he tries to see if he can stretch his mind to a specific location chosen at random on a map by Erik. He can still do it, reach as far, but he feels the strain. He's irritable, and by dinner time he's had enough.
He means to take a tablet. That's his intent right up until the moment he opens the bottle. He tips one out onto his palm. It's very small and innocuous. Deceptive. But then so are a lot of dangerous things. Charles is dangerous, and so is Erik, but nobody could guess that from looking at them. They're both capable of killing people with their minds.
And they're both capable of making terrible mistakes. Charles can't fool himself that Erik is the only one who's made bad decisions. Remembering the other lifetime, Charles can see the moments he got wrong, the times he said the wrong thing. They're just following orders. Of all the thoughtless arguments to throw at a man whose family was killed in the Holocaust.
He looks at the tablets. He doesn't regret taking them. Without them, Erik wouldn't be here by his side. Charles would still be searching. But Erik is right. Charles can't keep taking them.
He tips the rest out into his hand, and throws the bottle into the trash. The tablets he drops, one by one, into the toilet, and then flushes it.
He's angry afterwards. With himself for being weak and not being willing to accept it. With Erik for being right. With himself again for being irrational. He goes to bed early that night.
The early night doesn't help his mood. He feels worse the next day, and plans things so that he spends as little time with Erik as possible. They talk over meals, but the pills are like an elephant in the room and Charles finds himself eating without tasting a thing. He goes to bed straight after dinner, skipping their regular routine of a game of chess and a glass of scotch.
It's about midnight when there's a faint knock on the door. It can only be Erik.
"Come in," Charles calls out. He doesn't really want to see Erik right now, but he knows he's been childish.
"I'm sorry," Erik says, sitting down at the edge of Charles' bed. Charles can just make out his expression in the faint light coming from the hallway. He looks sad.
"Why?" Charles shrugs. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Yes, I did. I pushed you. Tried to force you."
"You were concerned for me," Charles replies, "and you were right to be." As he argues Erik's case he feels the anger drain out of him. "I've thrown them away," he says, and is rewarded by a brief glint of a smile in Erik's eyes.
This is a new beginning for them. Charles can't afford to make any mistakes. He knows he can't expect another divine intervention, another second chance, or whatever it is that his false memories are.
He can't fuck this up.
But this moment feels so intimate. Erik is leaning in, closer than he needs to be, knees pressing against Charles' hip. Every day they've gotten closer. They spend almost all their waking hours together, training and talking and relaxing in the evenings; Charles has missed that the last two days. And he can't stop thinking about that night in Langley, the night in his fantasy, the remembered sensation of Erik's hand around his dick so vivid it's hard to distance it from his other memories.
He works to keep his breathing even. His body is reacting to Erik's proximity, to the setting, the dim light and the dip of the bed next to him.
Erik has to feel it. Has to know what he's doing to Charles. But this is the first time Charles has been so close to someone and not allowed himself to touch even the surface of their mind. He won't cheat; he won't give Erik any reason to distrust him. So he holds perfectly still and waits for Erik to speak.
Erik shifts fractionally. Not away. "I think I must have known there was something special about you from the moment you crashed into me," Erik says softly. "I couldn't bear the thought that I'd tried to save you, tried to keep the car from crushing you, and failed."
"You didn't fail." Charles puts all the conviction he feels into the words, stares at Erik and wills him to believe it.
"You were in a coma," Erik says, holding his gaze. "And-and you'll never walk again. That feels like failure."
Charles reaches out with both hands and clasps Erik's face. "You saved my life, and for that I will be forever grateful." He wonders now that he's never thanked Erik properly for that. "And you brought us together, for which I am even more grateful."
They're so close, everything that happens next seems inevitable. They move together, Erik's hands coming up to Charles' shoulders as Charles slides his fingers into Erik's hair. It's finer and silkier than he's imagined, and Erik's face is softer than he's ever seen it, warm in the glow of the hall light. He looks good, so good, and Charles marvels that he's resisted this long.
Charles closes his eyes as their lips touch. His mind skips through random thoughts. That he should have closed the bedroom window because if it rains in the night, the carpet will get wet. This is Erik, finally. Tomorrow he must get Williams to post the letter he wrote to Raven. He fought this man once, came to blows over the future of mankind. He loves him.
The two of them, they can be magnificent together. All his thoughts come to this point.
He turns his face into the kiss. Erik gasps, or maybe it's Charles. They both gasp. Charles doesn't know. He's jumping off a roof not knowing if he can fly, nothing but air beneath him, and only faith between him and death. I trust you, he says silently, and holds on.
The kiss deepens, tight and desperate.
Charles doesn't need to breath. This is his air. This is his new drug. And maybe it's no safer, certainly no less addictive, but this is his choice. Erik.
He leans dizzily into Erik, not wanting to break the kiss. He feels a faint scar above Erik's lip, presses his lips into it, laves it with his tongue, nips at it with his teeth. He wants to learn every inch of Erik.
"Is this in your memories?" Erik asks eventually, the words melting into Charles' skin. "Us?"
Charles's throat is dry. He chokes out: "No." Nothing a fraction as good as this.
"Good," Erik says. Possessive, as though he's jealous of the time the other version of him spent with Charles. Charles can feel the emotions radiating from him: relief, happiness, arousal.
"You're going to have to think more quietly if you don't want me to hear," Charles says, pulling back reluctantly and letting his hands fall down to his side. He leans against his pillows.
Erik doesn't let him keep the distance between them. He leans forward and his breath ghosts over Charles' cheek. "I want you to know everything I'm thinking right now." He lifts one of Charles' hands and places it on Charles' temple. "Everything," he says.
He is in love with Charles. That is the basis of every thought running through Erik's mind, and it colors every recent memory. It's overwhelming to see their interaction through Erik's eyes, but wonderful, so wonderful he needs Erik to know exactly how Charles sees him.
He's never tried this before, pulling someone else into his own mind, opening up for them. But there is a bond between them, a connection on a level that Charles doesn't understand yet but wants to explore in every way, and he's certain that if this can work with anyone, it's with Erik.
He doesn't need physical touch to do this, but he holds out his hand anyway and Erik takes it. Charles doesn't focus his mind; he does the exact opposite. Lets it drift away from him, opens up like a butterfly spreading its wings in the sunshine after too long in its chrysalis.
He hears a sharp intake of breath, and Erik squeezes his hand. They're joined, sharing everything they've ever seen or felt or done. This life and the other one. Charles focuses now, relives the kiss they've just shared, feels it through Erik and knows Erik feels what Charles felt.
He is so open it hurts.
He can't hold it indefinitely, but even when he draws his mind back, they don't separate completely.
"I can still feel you," Erik says, and Charles nods.
Even without trying he can feel more than just emotions. He knows Erik is afraid that they'll end up fighting like the two men on the beach. That they're too different. And he knows Erik will do everything he can to avoid that future, avoid failure.
"We won't make the same mistakes," Charles promises, determined. "We won't. This is different. We are different men. We've seen what could happen, and we can avoid it. We will avoid it."
"Yes," Erik says, and kisses Charles again.
Erik doesn't ask before he pulls the comforter and top sheet off Charles. "You're perfect," he says, and Charles knows that's in response to his own fears. His own frustration with his imperfect body.
Charles unbuttons his pajama top, and Erik presses kisses against his belly and unties his pajama bottoms. For a moment, Charles sees himself through Erik's eyes again, lying there wanton and eager, his half-hard dick nestled between the spread fabric of the pajama pants.
"You are far too clothed," Charles points out. Erik hasn't even undressed for bed yet, has spent the evening pacing around his room. "And much as I would like to strip you, right now I don't think that would be possible." Not the way Charles would like, standing in front of Erik, pulling off one garment at a time, exposing him slowly.
Erik has metal buttons on his cardigan and a metal zip on his slacks. He sheds both garments without touching them but fumbles with his cotton shirt and underpants.
He's hard, his cock jutting up against his firm belly. Charles wants to taste him, wants to feel Erik inside him, wants everything.
"Patience," Erik orders but Charles knows Erik is no more patient than he is. Erik kneels on the bed next to him. He traces his index finger down Charles' chest, over the plane of his stomach, down to the wiry hair at his groin, then bends down and takes Charles' cock in his mouth. Sucks him to full hardness.
Charles makes a sound like a sob. Bangs his head against the headboard, over and over. He twists his hands in the sheet to keep from grabbing Erik's hair. He wants to fuck Erik's mouth, crash into him, rise and fall like a wave.
Sometimes I dream of crawling into this bed with you, spreading your ass wide and fucking you so hard you scream.
Charles shudders, his cock pulsing in Erik's mouth. He knows. He's seen Erik's dreams. Seen everything. And it's still not enough. He wants to live each of those dreams, create a dozen new ones and live those too. A hundred. A thousand.
There's a humming sound in the room, and Charles doesn't recognize it at first. And then he feels it too, all the metal in the room vibrating, in tune with them both, and his skin is alive, his whole body is more alive than he's felt-ever.
Charles touches Erik. Not with his hands, but his mind. Makes it feel like Charles's hands, matches Erik's rhythm, the thrum of the metal, pumps Erik's cock, faster and rougher and Erik matches that in turn with his mouth, and Charles can't keep silent.
"Fuck, Erik," he groans. "Fuck, I can't-" I can't last, can't wait.
"Shhh," Erik says, his voice hoarse, fingers sliding into the crease of Charles' thigh, and he can't feel the touch on his own skin but he can feel it through Erik, the warmth of thin skin, blood right under the surface. They're two, but they're moving as one, in perfect phase. And when Charles comes - too soon, but it's been so long - arching his back and thrusting into Erik's mouth, he feels Erik come too.
Erik slumps down on his chest afterward, legs tangled together. He's too heavy, and there is come drying between them, but Charles wraps his arms around Erik and holds him close. Welcome home, he whispers in Erik's head.
He feels at peace. The room has settled into silence.
And then Charles feels laughter bubbling up from inside him. He isn't sure why, just that Erik is happy and he wants to laugh and he wants Charles to feel his amusement.
Erik laughs out loud, the sound rumbling through Charles' arms.
"Really?" Charles mutters. "Your reaction to mind-blowing, telepathic sex is to laugh?"
Erik just laughs harder. "You really-" He snorts into his hand, and then continues, "You really picked up girls by telling them they had a groovy mutation?"
The laughter is infectious. "It's that bad a line, huh?" Not that it generally worked, but still. Charles didn't think it was that bad.
"Oh, yes. Right up with 'you must be tired because you've been running through my head all night.'"
Charles hides his face in Erik's shoulder.
"You haven't. Tell me you haven't used that."
Charles suddenly regrets his policy of honesty, but at least it doesn't require him to actually answer the question. "I guess it's a good thing I didn't have to use a pick-up line to get you into bed," he counters.
"To think that I'd imagined you as incredibly smooth." Erik's disappointed tone would be more convincing if he weren't stroking his fingers through Charles' hair, scratching his scalp in a way that makes Charles wish he weren't falling asleep.
"If I tell you I am that smooth, really-?" Charles tries.
"Too late," Erik whispers as Charles' eyes close and his face falls heavy against the back of Erik's neck. It's very comfortable. "I've been inside your mind. I know the truth now."
*
Erik props himself up on one elbow, flicking a stray hair out of Charles eyes. Charles needs a hair cut. He put his life on hold while he searched for Erik, but now there's time.
There's a landscape on the wall opposite - a view of North Salem commissioned by a long-dead Xavier - that's almost like looking out of the window. Charles normally enjoys it every morning when he wakes, but this morning he prefers to stare at the man next to him in bed.
"So, in this other reality, this coma dream," Erik says, appraisingly. "We trained mutants, you and I."
Charles nods. Knowing Erik like this, sharing minds, it's like suddenly having subtitles on a Chinese movie after trying to work out the plot from body-language alone. He doesn't have to guess any more. He knows what Erik is going to suggest.
He smiles at the good (fake) memories and even wider at the prospect of better (real) ones. All the time he spent searching for Erik, he'd feared that Erik wouldn't know him, and knew it would break him if Erik wanted nothing to do with him. And Erik hadn't known him, not really, but it's okay. It's more than okay. They're starting again, and it's good. It's so very good.
"Yes, my friend," Charles says, and by friend he means everything: friend, brother-in-arms, partner, lover. "We did. We hoped to open a school together, right here." The plans they drew up don't exist on paper any more, but they're in Charles' head, and in Erik's now too.
"And you think you could find other mutants?"
"We know there are others out there. Not all the ones I remember, maybe, but others I felt briefly, searching for you. And some may be scared or lost. With your help, we can find them." It troubles Charles, thinking of them, of lost souls like Alex, terrified of hurting others, of starving children like the Raven he first met. But he and Erik can find them, help them. Somehow he feels certain that whoever gave him those memories did so for this very purpose, to guide him to Erik, to put them on the path they're about to take.
"Then I think that is what we should do. Find them. Make that part of your dream come true," Erik says, then grins. "If we can ever bring ourselves to leave your bed, that is."
He leans over Charles and kisses him and makes it very difficult for Charles to even consider leaving.
//