Ficlets and squeeeing
I have new icons! Thank you thank you cat_o_wen. ;) I love them.
Here are two more fics written for 1stclass_kink. Yeah, I know. And I really appreciate y'all's reading of these and support of me. I am thrilled to be so inspired. I need it this week especially.
Silence. In the crackle of the fire in Charles’ rooms, in the carved wooden pieces of the game Charles seems to love so much. Erik watches him, watches his hair slide slowly from behind his ear, hanging limp in his face, the red lips bitten between his teeth.
Erik takes a sip of his wine and watches as Charles contemplates the board still, the popping of the wood comfortable and warm, his turtleneck almost too hot, but he can’t bring himself to move or do anything save watch his friend - friend? How odd - and blink slowly. He doesn’t want to miss anything.
At last Charles moves his rook and Erik sighs, letting the deeply held breath out, his lungs pained from holding it in. Charles looks at him askance, and are you alright? floats through his mind. Erik nods, imperceptive, closed off, and drinks more wine as he drops his eyes from Charles intense gaze. The clock strikes eleven.
*
The water is icy cold and he can barely manage to keep his head above it, but his hands raise and fly like crows bringing a death song to Shaw, water droplets flinging around him in an arc as he forces the anchor and chain (so heavy; his brain throbs with the strain) through the yacht.
He can feel the thrum as something beneath him starts up - NO! and turns in horrified stiffness, the water buffeting him, as the sub that’s carrying his mortal enemy away from his gradually comes to life and begins to chug away. Not acceptable.
The metal hulk calls him, and he is attached to it before he realizes what he’s doing. His body is pulled along with it, and as he sinks under the water, he thinks that there is nothing he’d rather die doing.
And then someone - what - lands on his back and is inside, speaking words of strength and calling him by his name, the name he’s not told anyone for years. You have to calm your mind. Let it go. Erik, I know how much this means to you, but you will die. Let it go!
They surface, and Erik gasps and turns to find an ordinary man floating in the water with him - I’m Charles Xavier - and as he bobs and floats he spits out the only question he can think of.
You were in my mind. How did you do that?
I have my gifts, just as you have yours.
Erik bares his teeth but he’s chattering from the water’s temperature, the extreme cold freezing his brain and making things fuzzy and flashy - but he can see this man’s eyes, although they could bore right through him and lift him bodily out of the water, saving him, making him - calm your mind!
He blinks and spits out more water as his legs and arms stop thrashing. He swims closer to the other man. I thought I was alone.
Alone as he’d always been, alone on that big metal table with hooks in his flesh and torture in Shaw’s eyes, their irises gleaming and huge. Alone in the world with him the only one a circus freak, a Frankenstein’s monster that doesn’t deserve anything but to die with his creator.
You’re not alone, Erik. You’re not alone.
He and Charles stare at each other, and despite the splashing waves and Charles’ frantic shout of “here, we’re here!” Erik feels a tiny something he hasn’t remembered is even possible.
*
Charles in his bed, reading something large and ridiculous, his smoking jacket wrapped around his slender body, the light from the lamps small circles around his giant mattress. Erik wonders if he should just -
You can sit, if you wish, Erik.
He crosses the floor, cocking his head as he watches Charles read. Stopping at the foot of the bed, Erik grips the metal footer and licks dry lips. He can still feel the muzzle of the gun against his forehead, and a chill rises through his spine, despite the warmth of the room. He’s had a few glasses of brandy, but never let it be said that Erik Lehnsherr can’t hold his drink. He can move metal and force men to do what he wishes; he is calm in the face of the storm. He is strong and stoic and what Shaw made of him. He is not afraid of a small highbrow Englishman in a bathrobe.
“They will make pawns of us, Charles,” he says, and Xavier sighs and puts down his book. “I trust them, Erik, trust them to do what they need to in order to help this country. We are the tools, and with our skills they will see what we are truly capable of. Mutants are the next step in where the world is going, my friend, and I for one want to be part of the world that realizes that.”
Erik shakes his head and rounds the corner of the bed, sitting on it, back straight, as Charles had offered. “I’ve seen men’s minds, Charles. I’ve seen what they want to do with us. And believe me, if you think it’s something pretty out of a love story, then you will be sadly mistaken. And I for one,” he mocks Xavier’s tone, his voice copying the other man’s patterns perfectly, “won’t let men following each other blindly have any say in my life ever again.”
Charles opens his mouth to argue, but for once, shuts it. He turns to Erik and narrows his eyes, hand rising slightly toward his temple.
“Do that, and don’t call yourself my friend again.”
Erik stands and stares down at Xavier in his large bed, wrapped in expensive fabric and the smell of rich cigars. The lamplight is warm and yellow and Erik’s never felt more cold in his life.
I am sorry, Erik.
“What do you know about me you didn’t take from me in the first place, Charles?”
He steps around the bed slowly, methodically, and only stops at the foot when Charles brain wraps around his, pleading with no words, apologizing with no sound.
The sigh leaks from Erik’s lips, and he drops his head. He is the monster, but Charles just might have the antidote to what made that the truth. Aside from all of that -
I want to be at your side.
He thinks it quietly, and he is calm in the storm of his mind, the buzzing beehive of feeling he can’t ever shut off, unless he’s around Charles. And then and only then can the silence, blessed quiet, descend.
I want you here.
He turns and sits back on the bed and Charles’ arm touches his, solid, real, no fakery.
*
They are drunk and raucous after spending a failed day searching for a mutant that wouldn’t even give them the time of day - fuck off, he’d said - and Xavier had decided they needed drink and lots of it after that.
So Erik had drunk, and Charles had drunk - no places that served German beer; Erik had bristled and brooded when they tried the first two establishments - and now back at Westchester, they sit in the quiet lounge - one of many, Erik consistently reminds Charles, still overawed and slightly angry at the show of wealth.
What a hardship it must have been, Charles.
“Are you still thinking of that?”
Erik jerks his head around at Charles, his vision swimming slightly, a snarling leaving his lips without thinking of it. “I can’t imagine why I would be.” He reaches for the half full decanter of brandy, and winces when Charles’ overly loud voice echoes in places it’s never been before.
I know you’re hurt, Erik. But never by me, my friend. That I can swear to you.
Erik sets the bottle down after pouring a few fingers of amber colored drink. He lifts the brandy and leans back into the plushness of the chair, long digits wrapped around the cut glass tumbler. I - want to believe that.
Charles leans forward, the earnestness on his face childish and heartbreaking. Erik smiles without meaning to, the corners of his expressive mouth curling briefly, tightly, the bones in his face sharp beneath the tautness of his skin. Oh, Erik, Charles thinks, the words dancing in Erik’s mind lighter than feathers, soft, simple, quiet. They are too kind, and he stops smiling and sets the glass down. His heart begins to beat, a rhythm he’s become too used to; a rhythm that Charles can pull out of him no matter his mood, his brooding darkness, or the broken rage he needs to fire his power.
Erik was half a man, half a human at all, until this man dragged him from a wet death. And for the gods own sake he can’t bear to admit that some days. Most days he wants to be the monster, to be retribution, to be the power that will bring vengeance to his people and the tiny bit of memory he won’t let go of, no matter how much pain and sorrow it brings him. Hell, it’s the pain and sorrow that keep him focused and keep him going where he should be.
But he finds as the silence and comfort envelops him that maybe he’s wrong about that surety of destination -
He rises and sits next to Charles on the leather couch, and yes, he’s drunk, but he allows himself to do one thing he’s wanted to for the few weeks he’s known this man. He leans over and rests his head against the right side of Charles’ head, and their dark hair seems to twist together as he allows himself to engage the silence and make it his whole world. Silence and comfort and Charles and the other man slides an arm over his shoulders, pressing full lips to Erik’s left temple.
The coin Erik carries with him always sits like a burning weight in his chino pocket, and he settles his right hand over the fabric, palming the thing through his pants, even as Xavier’s scent fills his nostrils and Charles’ words and pliant murmurings mend the buzzing of his torn mind.
~~~~
Black is his usual chosen color, although as Charles leans back in his chair, watching Erik’s long fingers on the chessboard, he realizes the other man is wearing tan pants. But he’s also wearing the same black turtleneck he’s been wearing for several days now - not in a row, he also realizes, but the man has a serious dearth of clothing choices.
How shallow, he thinks, and Erik looks up, the fire crackling, the bright snapping orange flames picking up the gold and scarlet in Erik’s hair. “What’s shallow?”
Charles blinks; he hadn’t realized he’s been projecting so hard. But maybe it’s that it’s Erik, and the other man can hear him regardless. Charles would like to think so -
He swallows the last dregs of his brandy and stands, hands shoved in his pockets. “Nothing. I’m just musing. Did you want more - ” but Erik’s laughing, the rough lowness of the sound enough to make Charles turn and stare at him, his hands desperately wanting to raise to his temple. He knows everything there is to know about Erik Lehnsherr, but he wants to hear it from Erik’s lips. Not from stealing his way into the lockbox that Erik makes of his mind.
Leaning back, Erik watches Charles watching him, and lets the laugh drift off. He tugs at his collar; his face is flushed, although he tells himself it’s from the drink. “You were looking at me, Charles. What is so shallow that you can’t tell me outloud? Come come, my friend, I’m no wilting daisy.” His lips twitch but his face remains tight and blood-blushed, the thoughts that had been bouncing around his head while he was supposed to be focusing on the game at hand - Charles always had the skill and the love to beat him at it, but sometimes the other man was genial enough to pretend he didn’t - were dark and lonely and Erik didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be here, in the room with Charles and the odd comfort that rose with the fire and the drink and the expressive blue eyes that watched him as though he were the most special and delicate thing in the world.
Erik rumbles a laugh again; he’s anything but. Delicate as a machine gun, soft as a metal table, weak as a silver coin that lives in his pocket. He cocks his head and narrows his green eyes, even as Charles hems and haws and twists his red lips.
“Why do you cover up?”
That was the last thing Erik expects to hear. His mouth collapses to a thin line as he crosses his arms over his chest. What are you hiding from me?
“You say you know everything, Charles. Don’t choose to lie to me now,” Erik snaps back, pushing out of the chair, his voice soft as a wind rising before the storm that will inevitably follow. Icy rain pounds at his skull, and he stands in the yard with Herr Doktor and raises the steel shovel again and again, higher each time Schmidt hits him with the lash (only leather, of course). “I know you can see all of it.”
And therein lies the rub. Erik’s fingers (trembling a bit now; he’s surrounded by shouts of ausgesieschnet and the feeling of the lash coming again and again) cover his mouth and he slinks toward Charles, the anger rising, a small bell on top of a side table crunching with a weak ping. “Why am I shallow?”
A murmur, whispered, cracked and only half spoken, but he knows Charles hears it. The other man’s blue eyes slide shut as he speaks, the fire that was pleasant a few moments ago roaring like the ovens are busy today, Herr Doktor!
“There is more to you than pain, my friend,” Charles whispers, taking the two steps that separate them. “There is more to you than the past. Can you trust me with it?” I believe in you. Please show me.
Erik bites the inside of his lip, hard. The blood in his mouth swirls a bit as the rage mounts (metal in the blood, fascinating, have to remember that, he laughs shortly but with a cracking sound), the viscous fluid finally draining down his throat as he opens his mouth, his hands tugging at the bottom of his turtleneck - cashmere, expensive, bought with the blood money he’s stolen from many banks and many many dirty, awful men that he knows are moldering by the side of unnamed roads now.
He jerks the thing over his head, his pale stomach and chest crisscrossed with so many scars now he can’t count them. The top lands somewhere behind him, a soft plop on the ground as the thing slithers to a rest beside the chair he’d sat in. His fancy belt and Italian leather shoes look strange on their own, and Charles, to his credit, does not gasp, does not step back, does not cry out or act afraid or …
His eyes are red and wide, and his hand reaches out slowly as Erik’s arms float at his sides, birds with no roost. If he could fly, he would, away from this examination, but - Charles has to clear his throat before he can speak.
And then he doesn’t. Not outloud.
Oh, Erik, my friend.
Soft gentle hands touch Erik’s scars, finding each one, mapping them, remembering where they are, pulling from Erik’s mind who gave them to him and each circumstance. Charles trembles once, and lets Erik push his hands away finally, even as he turns to retrieve his turtleneck. Holding it in a weak grip (the Doktor would be so disappointed, kleine Erik, for your weakness)he makes to drag it over his head, suddenly tired, so tired.
You don’t need to hide from me, Erik.
“Charles,” he sighs, the name expelled from his lungs like it’s the only thing that matters anymore, “I’m not hiding. I am what he made me. This is me, and I’m not afraid of it.” He touches the worst of the marks, a zigzag line that covers the left collarbone. “I am my master’s creation. And you know how that story ends.”
He holds the sweater to his chest, the remembered pain snapping his spine straight, the weight of the coin in his pocket light and nothing now as it floats toward his hand of what must be its own accord; he hadn’t thought of it.
It doesn’t have to end like that.
Charles steps to him and slides fingers through the thick hair at Erik’s nape. A ridge-y bump is there as well, but Charles says nothing, his expression only open and mild. His eyes are still red and wet, and Erik bites the lip he’s torn again. He is Magneto and he can do what he chooses, and what he chooses is to take the revenge he’s been searching for his entire life.
He swallows roughly, the hand at his neck warm and familiar, like an old, soft shirt that isn’t high necked and long sleeved.
Trust me.
“I - Charles,” he sighs again. Weak, small, out of control, under his thumb, the child is powerless save for his anger and his gift.
Charles’ face is against Erik’s, the cheek soft and scratchy and -
Erik lets Charles kiss him, and he drops the turtleneck onto the ground, his hands going to the other man’s slender shoulders. Warring thoughts and worry and that small, scared child - he grips at Charles’ cardigan, hard, and digs nails into the soft material until he can feel Charles’ skin.
Erik has marks. Charles will too.
~~~~
OH ERIK. ;_;
You feel all the feelings.
sexy duo. Dig the matching duds.
that sound you hear is my tiny heart breaking in a thousand pieces.
Here are two more fics written for 1stclass_kink. Yeah, I know. And I really appreciate y'all's reading of these and support of me. I am thrilled to be so inspired. I need it this week especially.
Silence. In the crackle of the fire in Charles’ rooms, in the carved wooden pieces of the game Charles seems to love so much. Erik watches him, watches his hair slide slowly from behind his ear, hanging limp in his face, the red lips bitten between his teeth.
Erik takes a sip of his wine and watches as Charles contemplates the board still, the popping of the wood comfortable and warm, his turtleneck almost too hot, but he can’t bring himself to move or do anything save watch his friend - friend? How odd - and blink slowly. He doesn’t want to miss anything.
At last Charles moves his rook and Erik sighs, letting the deeply held breath out, his lungs pained from holding it in. Charles looks at him askance, and are you alright? floats through his mind. Erik nods, imperceptive, closed off, and drinks more wine as he drops his eyes from Charles intense gaze. The clock strikes eleven.
*
The water is icy cold and he can barely manage to keep his head above it, but his hands raise and fly like crows bringing a death song to Shaw, water droplets flinging around him in an arc as he forces the anchor and chain (so heavy; his brain throbs with the strain) through the yacht.
He can feel the thrum as something beneath him starts up - NO! and turns in horrified stiffness, the water buffeting him, as the sub that’s carrying his mortal enemy away from his gradually comes to life and begins to chug away. Not acceptable.
The metal hulk calls him, and he is attached to it before he realizes what he’s doing. His body is pulled along with it, and as he sinks under the water, he thinks that there is nothing he’d rather die doing.
And then someone - what - lands on his back and is inside, speaking words of strength and calling him by his name, the name he’s not told anyone for years. You have to calm your mind. Let it go. Erik, I know how much this means to you, but you will die. Let it go!
They surface, and Erik gasps and turns to find an ordinary man floating in the water with him - I’m Charles Xavier - and as he bobs and floats he spits out the only question he can think of.
You were in my mind. How did you do that?
I have my gifts, just as you have yours.
Erik bares his teeth but he’s chattering from the water’s temperature, the extreme cold freezing his brain and making things fuzzy and flashy - but he can see this man’s eyes, although they could bore right through him and lift him bodily out of the water, saving him, making him - calm your mind!
He blinks and spits out more water as his legs and arms stop thrashing. He swims closer to the other man. I thought I was alone.
Alone as he’d always been, alone on that big metal table with hooks in his flesh and torture in Shaw’s eyes, their irises gleaming and huge. Alone in the world with him the only one a circus freak, a Frankenstein’s monster that doesn’t deserve anything but to die with his creator.
You’re not alone, Erik. You’re not alone.
He and Charles stare at each other, and despite the splashing waves and Charles’ frantic shout of “here, we’re here!” Erik feels a tiny something he hasn’t remembered is even possible.
*
Charles in his bed, reading something large and ridiculous, his smoking jacket wrapped around his slender body, the light from the lamps small circles around his giant mattress. Erik wonders if he should just -
You can sit, if you wish, Erik.
He crosses the floor, cocking his head as he watches Charles read. Stopping at the foot of the bed, Erik grips the metal footer and licks dry lips. He can still feel the muzzle of the gun against his forehead, and a chill rises through his spine, despite the warmth of the room. He’s had a few glasses of brandy, but never let it be said that Erik Lehnsherr can’t hold his drink. He can move metal and force men to do what he wishes; he is calm in the face of the storm. He is strong and stoic and what Shaw made of him. He is not afraid of a small highbrow Englishman in a bathrobe.
“They will make pawns of us, Charles,” he says, and Xavier sighs and puts down his book. “I trust them, Erik, trust them to do what they need to in order to help this country. We are the tools, and with our skills they will see what we are truly capable of. Mutants are the next step in where the world is going, my friend, and I for one want to be part of the world that realizes that.”
Erik shakes his head and rounds the corner of the bed, sitting on it, back straight, as Charles had offered. “I’ve seen men’s minds, Charles. I’ve seen what they want to do with us. And believe me, if you think it’s something pretty out of a love story, then you will be sadly mistaken. And I for one,” he mocks Xavier’s tone, his voice copying the other man’s patterns perfectly, “won’t let men following each other blindly have any say in my life ever again.”
Charles opens his mouth to argue, but for once, shuts it. He turns to Erik and narrows his eyes, hand rising slightly toward his temple.
“Do that, and don’t call yourself my friend again.”
Erik stands and stares down at Xavier in his large bed, wrapped in expensive fabric and the smell of rich cigars. The lamplight is warm and yellow and Erik’s never felt more cold in his life.
I am sorry, Erik.
“What do you know about me you didn’t take from me in the first place, Charles?”
He steps around the bed slowly, methodically, and only stops at the foot when Charles brain wraps around his, pleading with no words, apologizing with no sound.
The sigh leaks from Erik’s lips, and he drops his head. He is the monster, but Charles just might have the antidote to what made that the truth. Aside from all of that -
I want to be at your side.
He thinks it quietly, and he is calm in the storm of his mind, the buzzing beehive of feeling he can’t ever shut off, unless he’s around Charles. And then and only then can the silence, blessed quiet, descend.
I want you here.
He turns and sits back on the bed and Charles’ arm touches his, solid, real, no fakery.
*
They are drunk and raucous after spending a failed day searching for a mutant that wouldn’t even give them the time of day - fuck off, he’d said - and Xavier had decided they needed drink and lots of it after that.
So Erik had drunk, and Charles had drunk - no places that served German beer; Erik had bristled and brooded when they tried the first two establishments - and now back at Westchester, they sit in the quiet lounge - one of many, Erik consistently reminds Charles, still overawed and slightly angry at the show of wealth.
What a hardship it must have been, Charles.
“Are you still thinking of that?”
Erik jerks his head around at Charles, his vision swimming slightly, a snarling leaving his lips without thinking of it. “I can’t imagine why I would be.” He reaches for the half full decanter of brandy, and winces when Charles’ overly loud voice echoes in places it’s never been before.
I know you’re hurt, Erik. But never by me, my friend. That I can swear to you.
Erik sets the bottle down after pouring a few fingers of amber colored drink. He lifts the brandy and leans back into the plushness of the chair, long digits wrapped around the cut glass tumbler. I - want to believe that.
Charles leans forward, the earnestness on his face childish and heartbreaking. Erik smiles without meaning to, the corners of his expressive mouth curling briefly, tightly, the bones in his face sharp beneath the tautness of his skin. Oh, Erik, Charles thinks, the words dancing in Erik’s mind lighter than feathers, soft, simple, quiet. They are too kind, and he stops smiling and sets the glass down. His heart begins to beat, a rhythm he’s become too used to; a rhythm that Charles can pull out of him no matter his mood, his brooding darkness, or the broken rage he needs to fire his power.
Erik was half a man, half a human at all, until this man dragged him from a wet death. And for the gods own sake he can’t bear to admit that some days. Most days he wants to be the monster, to be retribution, to be the power that will bring vengeance to his people and the tiny bit of memory he won’t let go of, no matter how much pain and sorrow it brings him. Hell, it’s the pain and sorrow that keep him focused and keep him going where he should be.
But he finds as the silence and comfort envelops him that maybe he’s wrong about that surety of destination -
He rises and sits next to Charles on the leather couch, and yes, he’s drunk, but he allows himself to do one thing he’s wanted to for the few weeks he’s known this man. He leans over and rests his head against the right side of Charles’ head, and their dark hair seems to twist together as he allows himself to engage the silence and make it his whole world. Silence and comfort and Charles and the other man slides an arm over his shoulders, pressing full lips to Erik’s left temple.
The coin Erik carries with him always sits like a burning weight in his chino pocket, and he settles his right hand over the fabric, palming the thing through his pants, even as Xavier’s scent fills his nostrils and Charles’ words and pliant murmurings mend the buzzing of his torn mind.
~~~~
Black is his usual chosen color, although as Charles leans back in his chair, watching Erik’s long fingers on the chessboard, he realizes the other man is wearing tan pants. But he’s also wearing the same black turtleneck he’s been wearing for several days now - not in a row, he also realizes, but the man has a serious dearth of clothing choices.
How shallow, he thinks, and Erik looks up, the fire crackling, the bright snapping orange flames picking up the gold and scarlet in Erik’s hair. “What’s shallow?”
Charles blinks; he hadn’t realized he’s been projecting so hard. But maybe it’s that it’s Erik, and the other man can hear him regardless. Charles would like to think so -
He swallows the last dregs of his brandy and stands, hands shoved in his pockets. “Nothing. I’m just musing. Did you want more - ” but Erik’s laughing, the rough lowness of the sound enough to make Charles turn and stare at him, his hands desperately wanting to raise to his temple. He knows everything there is to know about Erik Lehnsherr, but he wants to hear it from Erik’s lips. Not from stealing his way into the lockbox that Erik makes of his mind.
Leaning back, Erik watches Charles watching him, and lets the laugh drift off. He tugs at his collar; his face is flushed, although he tells himself it’s from the drink. “You were looking at me, Charles. What is so shallow that you can’t tell me outloud? Come come, my friend, I’m no wilting daisy.” His lips twitch but his face remains tight and blood-blushed, the thoughts that had been bouncing around his head while he was supposed to be focusing on the game at hand - Charles always had the skill and the love to beat him at it, but sometimes the other man was genial enough to pretend he didn’t - were dark and lonely and Erik didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be here, in the room with Charles and the odd comfort that rose with the fire and the drink and the expressive blue eyes that watched him as though he were the most special and delicate thing in the world.
Erik rumbles a laugh again; he’s anything but. Delicate as a machine gun, soft as a metal table, weak as a silver coin that lives in his pocket. He cocks his head and narrows his green eyes, even as Charles hems and haws and twists his red lips.
“Why do you cover up?”
That was the last thing Erik expects to hear. His mouth collapses to a thin line as he crosses his arms over his chest. What are you hiding from me?
“You say you know everything, Charles. Don’t choose to lie to me now,” Erik snaps back, pushing out of the chair, his voice soft as a wind rising before the storm that will inevitably follow. Icy rain pounds at his skull, and he stands in the yard with Herr Doktor and raises the steel shovel again and again, higher each time Schmidt hits him with the lash (only leather, of course). “I know you can see all of it.”
And therein lies the rub. Erik’s fingers (trembling a bit now; he’s surrounded by shouts of ausgesieschnet and the feeling of the lash coming again and again) cover his mouth and he slinks toward Charles, the anger rising, a small bell on top of a side table crunching with a weak ping. “Why am I shallow?”
A murmur, whispered, cracked and only half spoken, but he knows Charles hears it. The other man’s blue eyes slide shut as he speaks, the fire that was pleasant a few moments ago roaring like the ovens are busy today, Herr Doktor!
“There is more to you than pain, my friend,” Charles whispers, taking the two steps that separate them. “There is more to you than the past. Can you trust me with it?” I believe in you. Please show me.
Erik bites the inside of his lip, hard. The blood in his mouth swirls a bit as the rage mounts (metal in the blood, fascinating, have to remember that, he laughs shortly but with a cracking sound), the viscous fluid finally draining down his throat as he opens his mouth, his hands tugging at the bottom of his turtleneck - cashmere, expensive, bought with the blood money he’s stolen from many banks and many many dirty, awful men that he knows are moldering by the side of unnamed roads now.
He jerks the thing over his head, his pale stomach and chest crisscrossed with so many scars now he can’t count them. The top lands somewhere behind him, a soft plop on the ground as the thing slithers to a rest beside the chair he’d sat in. His fancy belt and Italian leather shoes look strange on their own, and Charles, to his credit, does not gasp, does not step back, does not cry out or act afraid or …
His eyes are red and wide, and his hand reaches out slowly as Erik’s arms float at his sides, birds with no roost. If he could fly, he would, away from this examination, but - Charles has to clear his throat before he can speak.
And then he doesn’t. Not outloud.
Oh, Erik, my friend.
Soft gentle hands touch Erik’s scars, finding each one, mapping them, remembering where they are, pulling from Erik’s mind who gave them to him and each circumstance. Charles trembles once, and lets Erik push his hands away finally, even as he turns to retrieve his turtleneck. Holding it in a weak grip (the Doktor would be so disappointed, kleine Erik, for your weakness)he makes to drag it over his head, suddenly tired, so tired.
You don’t need to hide from me, Erik.
“Charles,” he sighs, the name expelled from his lungs like it’s the only thing that matters anymore, “I’m not hiding. I am what he made me. This is me, and I’m not afraid of it.” He touches the worst of the marks, a zigzag line that covers the left collarbone. “I am my master’s creation. And you know how that story ends.”
He holds the sweater to his chest, the remembered pain snapping his spine straight, the weight of the coin in his pocket light and nothing now as it floats toward his hand of what must be its own accord; he hadn’t thought of it.
It doesn’t have to end like that.
Charles steps to him and slides fingers through the thick hair at Erik’s nape. A ridge-y bump is there as well, but Charles says nothing, his expression only open and mild. His eyes are still red and wet, and Erik bites the lip he’s torn again. He is Magneto and he can do what he chooses, and what he chooses is to take the revenge he’s been searching for his entire life.
He swallows roughly, the hand at his neck warm and familiar, like an old, soft shirt that isn’t high necked and long sleeved.
Trust me.
“I - Charles,” he sighs again. Weak, small, out of control, under his thumb, the child is powerless save for his anger and his gift.
Charles’ face is against Erik’s, the cheek soft and scratchy and -
Erik lets Charles kiss him, and he drops the turtleneck onto the ground, his hands going to the other man’s slender shoulders. Warring thoughts and worry and that small, scared child - he grips at Charles’ cardigan, hard, and digs nails into the soft material until he can feel Charles’ skin.
Erik has marks. Charles will too.
~~~~
OH ERIK. ;_;
You feel all the feelings.
sexy duo. Dig the matching duds.
that sound you hear is my tiny heart breaking in a thousand pieces.