FIC: Utopia 21/? (WIP)
Title: Utopia
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairings: Charles/Erik
Genre: drama, angst, au, dystopia, future!fic
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 8700/?
Warnings: dubcon, emotional manipulation, sex
Summary: Based on this 1stclass_kink prompt (and originally posted there).
"Erik has succeeded in taking over the world, but mutant utopia has yet to materialize. Charles is his reluctant companion."
With thanks to my betas, idioticonion and KaeKae, and to my eternal cheerleader, theredoormouse. Also, further snake!chain dedicated to subtilior, who washes her dishes to the wails of the damned.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23
Notes: Ah! I'm sorry this took so long. D: Mostly it's just that I'm terrible at politics and so that all took me a very long time to write, but also? There are scenes coming up that I'm very excited about, and who wants to be writing an interlude when you could be writing the end? ;) Not, mind you, that the next chapter is the end... But very soon! And unlike every other time I've said "soon", this time I mean it! *flails*
xcv.
The next morning Charles was in the middle of tugging on his shoes when he heard the scrape of his door unlocking. Bent down over his own knees and with fingers trapped between leather and sock, he craned his head up awkwardly to see a young man step into the foyer. He wore a pristine white lab coat.
“Hello,” Charles offered, looking the fellow over. He was very young indeed, it seemed; beneath the wrinkled greenish skin and through the self-conscious disguise of the coat Charles detected the uneasy swagger of an adolescent soldier. It was a posture sadly not unfamiliar-after all, there were not so many mutants in the world that the Brotherhood could afford to be choosy.
This young man, however, did not have that same wild danger glinting in his eyes; rather, by the hunch of his shoulders, he appeared to be one of those quiet recruits who’d learned to kill and then kindly removed themselves from the company of others. Charles couldn’t know for certain, however; though he wore no helmet, the young man’s thoughts were just as inscrutable to him.
“Dorian, sir,” he mumbled, and scooped the air with his hand, beckoning for Charles to follow.
Charles popped his heel down into his shoe and straightened. “Are you to be my guard today, Dorian?” he asked, not unkindly. After all, there was no call to be rude, even if the circumstances of their meeting left something to be desired.
Dorian ducked his head in a nod and turned back to the door, clearly taking Charles’ question as a sign that he was ready to leave.
Charles arched his eyebrow at Dorian’s back. Well, if Erik really was more concerned about Charles’ conversational skills than his telepathy… It would appear that he’d found a solution.
With a mental shrug, Charles followed him through the door. He caught his own lab coat from the coat tree along the way and dropped it into his lap, and when he passed the steel door and armed guard he ignored the prickling of hair under his sleeves.
When they were further down the hallway Charles could not resist twisting around in his chair to see whether the guard had gone, now that Charles had left-but no; he stood there still, keeping watch over the empty room.
It was not until they passed more people in the hallway that Charles began to notice something… Strange.
He frowned, and tipped his head to the side as if maybe he needed to drain water out of his brain through his ears. That’s what it felt like, certainly; he could see those people well enough, could see that they weren’t wearing helmets, and yet… And yet, Charles could only catch the muffled edges of their thoughts, elusive like the barest wisps of cotton. It was nearly enough to make his eyes sting.
What’s wrong with me? Charles wondered, rubbing the back of his hand over his temple; beginning, almost, to panic. He didn’t feel any different otherwise-and he knew that, since the war, research into power-dampening drugs had been absolutely forbidden-but…
His gaze flicked up to Dorian. Of course. Erik had given him a guard who could both keep Charles safe and protect others from Charles himself. Fascinating… If rather unpleasant. Better, perhaps, than being muzzled with one of those accursed helmets.
Charles relegated that to the back of his mind, along with certain other unnamed realities.
And he was fine; really, he was fine. Even when they arrived at the lab and saw no sign of Beast; even when Charles entered his work room and saw that he would be testing alone from now on. For indeed, he had heard nothing of Hannah, even through his discrete probing of Beth’s memory. He was fairly sure that she had not been captured, and he’d tried to obscure their trail well enough that she could not be found; so that maybe she could stay. He had not expected to see her in the lab-but he had… Hoped.
Still; he said nothing as he moved about the room, tidying up the mess the Brotherhood had left when they’d searched it. Reagents out of place, bottles of stock left out on the counter, a liter flask cracked and all of the previously sterile equipment now suspect… Just as well that Hannah had gone, really. She would have pitched a fit.
Charles held up a tin half-full with slender glass pipette tubes; a few of them had been carelessly tipped out onto the counter and lay in pieces, their micrometers scattered out of order. Someone had clearly opened the tin and turned it over to check for anything suspicious; Charles wanted to believe that they had worn gloves and that the box was still sterile, but… He would have to send them back into the autoclave, just to be sure.
It was a shame; glassware was expensive in the new world, and only well-trained glassblowers could replace broken equipment. In fact, not long before Charles had been moved to the Brotherhood’s headquarters he had overheard a glowingly smug television report about how Magneto’s people had effectively, efficiently crippled the renegade human scientists at the University of Wisconsin-simply by murdering their glassblower and destroying his ovens.
Charles slid the square metal cap back over the tin and looked around for a place to set it-but then put the box back down on the counter next to the shards of broken pipettes. He might as well save himself the trip and get a cart, since he’d probably decide to autoclave half the room by the time he was through.
He turned and saw Dorian leaning on the doorframe, hunched down and staring out into the main part of the lab. With a weary sigh Charles asked, “You’re supposed to be posing as an assistant, aren’t you?”
Dorian glanced back to Charles, eyebrows raised in startled inquiry.
“You’ll give yourself away if you just stand there. At least come in and have a seat, or bring a cart if you want to help,” Charles suggested, voice becoming slightly muffled as he bent down to retrieve a pan and brush from beside the glass disposal bin.
When Charles sat up again he found that Dorian had vanished. Whether he had actually gone to get the cart or if Charles had inadvertently offended him into leaving, he didn’t know-but he still couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts, so Dorian must not have gone far.
He stared at the broken glass without making any movement to sweep it up. The lab was strangely quiet without the background hum of mental calculations and self-narrated notes. He could still hear the hum of the centrifuge out in the main room; the clatter of a magnetic stirring rod whirling around on the bottom of a flask; the scrape of chairs on tile… But little else. It was like working in a laboratory run by the whispers of ghosts.
Charles heard the squeaking wheels of a cart and jumped to brush the glass shards into his pan. Dorian re-entered the room just as Charles tipped them out into the bin, and the telepath smiled brightly over at his guard. “Ah, thank you, Dorian; that’s just what I needed.”
The corner of Dorian’s mouth edged up, and he turned his head away as the creases in his green skin furrowed deeper.
In the end Charles did not, in fact, do any experimental work. He plated new bacteria from the liquid cultures that hadn’t yet died, set new culture tubes to incubate in the shaker, and forgot his old test tubes to circle round together with Hannah’s. He re-organized, calling upon Dorian’s height to reach the bottles on the top shelf and replace them somewhere easier for Charles to reach. He moved the extra equipment back into the main part of the lab.
He didn’t know what the other scientists thought, or if they even knew anything had changed. They must, of course-after all, the Brotherhood had intruded into their shared domain to overturn their work; it could not have been subtle, and Charles knew at least that it was not an especially common occurrence, though that risk was a part of the sacrifice involved in working for the world’s only non-weaponized biology lab.
Without his telepathy, however, Charles couldn’t know what lay behind the silence. Did they know that he had been involved, and what had happened? Did anyone, for that matter, beyond Erik and the few people in Erik’s trust? Surely the other biologists must have been resentful for the reminder of their subservience; even the Brotherhood’s supporters would not have appreciated the interruption.
Did they blame him? Did they pity him? Or was this merely the benign apathy of the preoccupied scientist, left unexcused now that he could not feel their attention elsewhere?
Charles led Dorian to the autoclave to retrieve the hot glassware, and wondered.
xcvi.
Badger, on the other hand-she had gotten her helmet back, or perhaps had it replaced, but Charles had no difficulty reading her emotions.
“Oh, you absolute idiot!” she snarled, and threw herself at him. Charles held up one hand in defense and grabbed for a wheel with the other; then Badger’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, the chair jolted back from force of impact, and Charles endured, breathless with shock and the crush of her embrace.
In an instant Badger had gone again, pacing away to a safe distance from which to berate him. She tsked. “Look at you. Look at your face! Fuck, if they weren’t dead already, and if Magneto hadn’t already made his point…” She pressed her lips together and shook her fist in front of her. She wasn’t tall, but her sleeve pulled menacingly taut over the muscles of her arm.
Charles frowned-had Erik gone through with his morbid intentions after all? His immediate concern, however, was: “You know about what happened?”
“Of course! You know my rank. Outside of the inner circle it’s all pretty hush but I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t know that something happened,” Badger said, calmly enough; then she narrowed her eyes again and snapped, “And you know what-you need a keeper. You should have someone with you at all times in case you have to tie your shoes! What kind of genius are you supposed to be, anyway? Okay, I’ll accept that you forgot my helmet and left it sitting out for anyone to just walk by and take it-we all make mistakes; that was an especially stupid one, mind you, and very nearly got me into some hot water-still perfectly normal-but how could you not have seen this coming? You’ve had free access to those assholes’ brains for weeks, and you never thought maybe, just maybe, you should be concerned and perhaps not just wander around in the middle of the night?”
Charles leaned his head back, blinking in bewilderment-but if he took a moment to respond, it was because of one thing Badger hadn’t chastised him for. If he understood her title correctly, then-disgraced or not-as a Major General, she shared a rank below that Zeus had occupied, who in turn ranked below the Brotherhood’s leader himself. Furthermore, she knew Charles personally, and he suspected that she’d been tasked with his care beyond just regaining the use of his legs. There couldn’t have been too many people more likely to know that Charles had been engaged in subversive activities that night, and yet… She clearly didn’t.
Which implied that Erik wanted as few people as possible to know about Charles’ disloyalty. Another thing to think about, when he had a moment…
“Is there any use in defending myself?” Charles asked, arching an eyebrow warily.
“None at all. I’ve already written you off as a lost cause. I’ll give you a charitable eulogy at your inevitably early funeral, though, because I do kind of like you despite your numerous and severe impairments of judgment,” Badger told him, and crossed her arms to lean back against a padded table. “Now, tell me-have you been practicing with the crutches?”
Charles thought back, trying to remember what he’d been doing for the past few days that didn’t involve being abducted or having sex with Erik. It was an admittedly challenging task. “Not… Really?” he guessed.
Badger rolled her eyes. “You know what, I take back all the nice things I said about your funeral. Really, Charles? Come on, I thought you wanted to walk again some day. Sure, it’s tough, whatever-but if you don’t get off your ass now, you’re going to have a much harder time of it later.”
“I’m sorry,” Charles said. “I’ve just been…” He saw her raised brows, and sighed in defeat. “All right, yes, I’ve been avoiding it. It’s inconvenient and painful and, I’ll admit: I don’t like it.”
Uncrossing her arms to set her hands flat on the table behind her, Badger replied, “I’m sure. You’re proud, and even if everything doesn’t always come easily for you, you try to make it look like it does. That’s not going to work this time. You’re going to be tired, and you’re going to look stupid-but at least you get to do it in private. So get it out of the way quickly and move on.”
Charles made a noncommittal noise that sounded vaguely like it might, conceivably, have been agreement.
“Charles,” Badger warned.
“All right,” Charles said, holding up his hands to indicate his surrender. “I’ll try to do better. I promise. Will that make you happy?”
Badger’s answer was made clear enough from her incredulous grunt, but she went on to recommend, “Ask me again once you’ve actually done it.”
xcvii.
Badger walked Charles to the door-or rather, led him there; Charles was once again resigned to his chair. He’d draped his lab coat draped over his knees, but now they shook with the weight of the garment, too exhausted even for that small burden. He pulled the coat higher, onto his thighs, and breathed a sigh of relief, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get any more practice walking when less than a half hour of it left his legs so drained and weak.
Badger held the door open to let Charles through first, and Dorian peeled away from the wall outside to take up position next to him-then he saw Badger and stiffened up from his stoop. Charles frowned at him until he realized again: beneath the casual clothing, neither of them were really what they seemed.
He half-expected Badger to chastise Dorian for the ridiculous formality of a lab assistant standing at attention for a physical therapist, but she barely glanced at the young soldier before telling Charles, “One word: crutches. Use them.” Then she sauntered back into her domain and the door swung closed behind her.
Charles pulled a face at Dorian, but the boy stared back at him uncomprehendingly until Charles remembered that most of the people he took for granted as being part of his life were internationally-known members of the ruling class. Feeling a little embarrassed at himself, Charles ducked his chin down as he started back to his rooms.
Once there, Dorian didn’t go in with him; instead, Charles received a low, two-fingered wave as his escort halted beyond the threshold.
Charles nodded, and waited until the door shut and locked before, with a reach and a toss, he hooked his lab coat up onto the coat tree. Then, because the light outside leaned narrow, he went to the lamp and switched it on.
He sat with his hands folded together until Erik came to retrieve him. It didn’t take long.
The first he knew of it was when the collar thrummed against his throat. A warm purr of metal caressed the points of his clavicles and Charles exhaled, slowly, tightening his hands around each other as his body echoed that hum in the pit of his stomach, rousing with interest. Like a dog hearing its master’s return, he thought. It was an appealingly fatalistic comparison; after all, a dog could wag its tail just as easily for a cruel owner as a kind. Then again, some men could be much nicer to their dogs than to their neighbors…
The door swung open, and the long black toe of a boot followed. Charles’ eyes followed the sweep of trouser seam upward, past the bend of a knee to a dangling curl of fingers-black in their gloves, seen in silhouette only, their tips brushing the subtle curve of a thigh.
Chest tight, Charles tore his eyes up to Erik’s face before they could wander further; the Brotherhood’s leader studied him from under the sharp angle of his eyebrows, eyes darkly shadowed between the points of the helmet. Dog, Charles accused his body, but nonetheless tilted his head back as Erik approached, accepting the soft press of his lips and the scrape of stubbled chin as Erik bent to kiss him in greeting.
Erik’s hand caressed his cheek as he pulled away, and Charles did not return his fond smile. “Ready, Charles?” he asked.
Charles held his gaze for a moment, then blinked and turned his face into Erik’s palm. His heart rattled as he kissed against the glove and he felt suddenly self-conscious, even though Erik had recently seen him do worse. “As I’ll ever be,” he mumbled in reply.
Erik’s lips curled up further, and his hand slid from Charles’ mouth with a passing stroke of his fingertips along the curve of Charles’ lips. He straightened and, still smiling, stepped back. He tilted his body toward the door. “Then come.”
Charles nodded once and lowered his hands to the rims of his wheels; glad, for once, of Erik’s propensity for ridiculous capes. He didn’t want to know where his eyes would go if he could see Erik’s back unobstructed.
It turned out to be a moot point anyway, because Erik waited for him in the hall and, rather than taking the lead, fell into step beside him. Charles snuck a glance up at Erik and saw the barest curve of Erik’s pupils as he looked back at Charles, who turned his head quickly away again.
The expression on Erik’s face had looked almost like pride, which made no sense at all.
xcviii.
The meeting was surprisingly quiet. Nobody advocated for any immediate bombings, and no one then protested the prohibitive expense. Instead, after Erik called for silence the council stayed silent, all of them looking back and forth amongst each other before even that became too much, and Charles watched as eyes fell one after the other to the table. A few mutants occupied themselves with pushing their folders around, although not so intently that it appeared they might have something to contribute.
Charles had expected that his abductors’ usual seats would be empty, but it appeared that everyone who could had instead used the opportunity to move down the table one chair; away from Erik and, subsequently, Charles, who suddenly felt very obvious by Erik’s side. He found that his eyes, too, sought the relief of smooth wood finish. There they roamed, before catching on the charred pit where Erik had once redirected lightening.
Erik tapped his fingers on the table, twice, before speaking-softly, but pitched so that everyone could hear. “Every day that we’ve met at this table, and every time before that, when we had no table-we were at the start of something new. That’s never been more true than today. Give me your best.”
He stared around at his officers, who met his eyes and quickly looked away to shuffle their papers more purposefully. Some slouched; some sat straighter in their chairs.
“First thing’s first,” began Infrared, “While I’m sure it’s satisfying to leave the positions open, we really ought to replace our Secretary of State and Lieutenant General.”
They scarcely had the time to look around at each other in bewilderment before a young man Charles didn’t recognize cleared his throat in introduction. He was big-extraordinarily tall and muscular, with buzzed black hair, and Charles would have thought him to be military except for the warmth of calm shrouding his mind, barely touched by the deeper thrum of nervousness.
Charles looked more closely around the table, surprised to see a quite a number of faces which he did not, on closer inspection, remember at all; likewise, a similar number of minor officials and ministers were absent. He could feel their wariness now that he searched for it; Zeus and Skink, apparently, were not the only Brotherhood authorities to lose their places, although only one of these replacements occupied a dead man’s seat.
“I have all the reports from Skink’s staff on hand,” this new man said, propping a thick file up in front of him to straighten against the table. “I can fulfill his duties.”
Erik arched an eyebrow, fingers falling flat on the table. “And who are you?” He wasn’t the only one wondering; throughout the room, Charles could sense the others trying to recall: had they been warned about this young man? His stoicism, they suspected, could just as easily be callousness as serenity.
“Piotr Rasputin, Undersecretary of Labor, sir.” The Undersecretary glanced away, shifted his thumbs over the manila folder, and looked back, keeping his eyes on the clasp of Erik’s cape. “Or… Colossus.”
Erik nodded, slowly, singly. “Colossus… What makes you think that I’ll let you do that?”
Colossus blinked once, but didn’t rise to the barb. “Convenience, sir. I’m qualified, I’m familiar with the job, and I’m sitting at this table.”
Erik’s fingers resumed their tapping, deliberate and in sequence, all in a wave from small to large. He pursed his lips. Further down, the man sitting next to Infrared leaned over and whispered, “Can he actually do that? Just show up and get the job?” She shrugged in reply; it was, after all, a good question; one that they were not alone in asking.
After all-though the Brotherhood was essentially a meritocratic dictatorship, it was in many ways merely an occupying military enforcing its rules on a rebellious anarchy. A few years prior, it hadn’t even been that; government had come only after the soldiers, and field promotions were still far more common than appointments.
“Do we… Vote?” the Minister of Agriculture asked, and then covered his mouth with short fingers, eyes flicking from side to side as his colleagues looked at him and then glanced away, unable to hold their interest in the man.
“Have we ever voted on anything?” another mutant directed at Infrared, as if she’d been the one who’d posed the question in the first place.
“Not…” Infrared began, with a flicker of her eyes to look at Erik, “…For a very long time.”
“In the Old United States government…” an older gentlemen-one of those few mutants from the earlier generation-offered, voice wavering with uncertainty, “The Secretary of the Treasury would replace the Secretary of State.”
“But we are not the American government,” Erik growled, leaning forward just a little. His hand wrapped into a gradual fist on the table, and his tendons pulled tight under the hem of his sleeve. “The American government is destroyed. The Brotherhood is new. We are trying to be better.”
Charles reached over-it wasn’t far-and brushed his fingers against Erik’s elbow. The Brotherhood’s leader snapped around to glare warning at Charles, who lifted the corner of his mouth in a wry, gentle smile. He drew breath to speak, paused, and then began again: “…Magneto. The old governments persisted for as long as they did for good reason. It’s perfectly acceptable to borrow.”
Erik’s eyebrows furrowed low over his eyes as he held Charles’ gaze. His cheeks shifted with the grind of his teeth. Then, with a short, jerking nod, he turned back to the table, lifting his elbow away from Charles’ fingers and up onto the wood. “The Minister of Finance,” Erik pronounced carefully, “is more useful to me where he is. Traditionally-if we wish to stick to tradition-these titles are mine to give and take, but… You will vote, when I make my decision. Your choices will not be held against you.”
The others were silent, waiting, until Colossus inquired, “Your decision, sir?”
Erik inclined his head toward Charles, watching the telepath until he sighed, lifted his fingers to his temple-more for Colossus’ benefit than real necessity-and brushed against the Undersecretary’s mind, waiting for an invitation. Colossus didn’t react outwardly, but inside he cringed away in surprise; apprehension crusted around the exploratory tendril of Charles’ mind like a cyst. He knew Charles-knew of Charles-and wanted to trust him, but…
Charles met his cool gray eyes, mirroring the calm there. I won’t look if you tell me not to, he said, along with a flash of-know what this means to you-know what happens if you don’t. He didn’t push, but after a moment the crystals of distrust broke off and dissolved back into Colossus’ general wariness, along with a cautious-hope? Yes, hope, because this man was good, and had held his tongue through the past few years of Brotherhood rule just to be here; not to overthrow but to help. To that end, he’d studied Skink’s duties and more.
Charles withdrew from Colossus’ mind and turned to Erik. “He can do the job,” Charles said, “and he’s trustworthy.”
Erik frowned in consideration, eyes glinting with silent thought as he peered over at the young Undersecretary. He pressed his lips together, nodded to himself, and then made a dismissive gesture with his hand as he looked back down at the stack of red folders in front of him. “The responsibilities are yours. The title will be contingent on how well you fulfill them.”
Erik drew out one folder from the stack and laid it on top, caught the cover against his glove and flipped it open to study the contents; craning his neck to see, Charles saw that it was a very short collection of bolded names- every one preceded by the words “Major General”-and when he squinted he saw that they were accompanied by an overview of their decorations and experience. Badger’s name-her real name-wasn’t on the list, and it seemed to only be the one page. After all, there weren’t many of them: only five, at most, that Charles could think of.
“Florida,” Erik murmured, “Henan, the Alps… My best men are involved in our most important engagements.” He remained immobile, except for the flicker of his eyes and the slow rise and fall of his chest. The rest of the council, too, stayed still; watching him and waiting.
Charles glanced over at the others, then back to Erik. He drummed his fingers on his armrest, and then squeezed them around the stuffed vinyl padding. “If it’s all a matter of capability and convenience,” Charles began, “then there is someone of suitable rank in this building, who is otherwise unoccupied.”
Infrared frowned at him. “Are you talking about Major General Horton?”
“Badger, yes,” Charles confirmed.
“But…” Infrared hesitated, looking between them: from Charles to Erik, Erik to Charles. He felt the decision stuck in her mind: if she addressed Charles, she might offend Erik; but if she protested to Erik she ran the risk of offending them both, potentially.
She chewed her bottom lip, and finally turned her head toward Charles. “…Professor. Badger is assigned to custodial and clinic duties for a reason. While her title is the same, her rank is not.”
“I know what she did,” Charles argued, then stopped to glance at Erik-but Erik wasn’t looked at him; he was watching Infrared with his fingers rubbing absently along his jaw. Charles just about lost his train of thought at that, and what was supposed to be a glance almost became a stare until he wrenched his eyes away to continue his rebuttal. “…I’ve read her mind. She’s loyal, and she has principles; two qualities your last Lieutenant General lacked. To you, she’s a known quantity; to the resistance, her disappearance after Chicago makes her a compelling mystery. She’s your best option.”
“We’ve had her vetted for loyalty several times since then,” Infrared admitted. “But she has disobeyed Brotherhood orders in the past. What kind of message would it send if we put her in charge of overseeing our military?”
“That you’re honest about the change you’re promising,” Charles told her. “That you’re not just giving lip service to the idea. I agree that Badger would be a strange choice… And that’s why you should do it.”
“For all Zeus’ faults, he was still good at his job,” Infrared said, slowly. She shifted her gaze over Erik, and Charles followed suit.
Erik looked at them both, leaning his chin into his hand. His middle and index fingers were stretched out to catch their tips on the lower edge of the helmet. “As was Badger,” he pointed out to Infrared, and then met Charles’ eyes. “Would the anti-extinctionists see her as a hero for what she did?”
“No,” Charles said. His pulse quickened as he prepared to argue his case. “She’s still responsible for a lot of deaths. Because she refused to fight dirty, though, and was subsequently pulled from active duty… She would certainly be the most sympathetic of your choices. Besides,” he arched an eyebrow, “This means you don’t have to stop killing the resistance in other parts of the world.”
“Trust me, Professor, there’s very little killing going on there either,” Erik grumbled, and straightened up. “Very well, then. Send Major General Horton instructions to cease all of her custodial duties as soon as this meeting’s over. She should be in her new office by eight tomorrow morning.” He said all of this to a young girl standing by the door; she nodded, the white streak in her hair bobbing with her chin, and remained where she was.
Erik turned back to his council, and Charles let himself breathe again and look more closely at what it was that bothered him-because something did. It seemed too easy; it seemed far too easy. And yet… Here he was, successful, and nobody had made any protest; not even a token debate.
Charles looked down the table at the other mutants, noticing again that he was essentially alone with Erik. His hard-earned breath caught-Charles was sitting next to Erik at the head of the table. He was sitting with Erik, and when Charles had spoken, Erik hadn’t watched him; hadn’t given his approval and hadn’t appeared to care what Charles said. The collar was hidden invisible under his shirt. It would look-to the others, it would look-
It would look as if Charles ruled alongside Magneto.
Calm, Charles told himself, inhaling slowly. He held the air in his lungs; then exhaled even more slowly. It hardly matters. It doesn’t matter what they think of you. The truth is the truth. This is… More convenient, is all. For the time being. He allowed himself a small, bitter smile. After all, it might mean less resistance if you do ever manage that coup. As if that weren’t such an impossibility at the moment…
Charles was vaguely aware of Colossus speaking. His voice was deep and level. Soothingly rational. “…If we truly are going to be cutting back on military expenditures-and we should, for reasons that will become clear-then we should direct more effort into reinforcing existing infrastructure. In any given place on this planet, based on partial data and informal reports, Brotherhood citizens are far more likely to die from infection, illness, starvation, and accidental injury than any violent causes.”
“Speaking on the Lieutenant General’s behalf, I suspect that might change if we re-allocated our funding,” Infrared commented.
“It will certainly have to be a consideration, yes, and I’d like to initiate some formal investigation into that, but if we can focus on defending and reinforcing our existing occupations, then we should do that,” Colossus explained.
“You’re in a hurry,” Erik remarked, one eyebrow twitching up.
“I may not have much time, sir,” Colossus replied, grave. “And this is important. People fight when they feel threatened. Safety-even relative safety-inspires happiness, and a happy civilian is a cooperative citizen.”
“That’s a bit twee,” the Director of Mutant Affairs observed, smoothing down one side of his mustache with his thumb.
“Is it?” Colossus inquired blandly. “What would you think about your government if you were worried about where you’d find your next meal? What would you think if every new bucket of water might be the one that made you too sick to defend yourself from looters? How would you feel, after all that, when someone shows up to demand a contribution of food for the local militia?”
It was impressive, Charles thought, to see someone who still had so much hope; but of course, Erik’s response-for all of its patience-took the thin bubble of optimism that had been cautiously rising around them and ruthlessly popped it. “And how do you plan on accomplishing this?”
“It’s a goal,” Colossus admitted, “Nothing more. The likelihood of this succeeding is slim, and it could go drastically wrong.”
“Then what, exactly, was the point of all that?” the Minister of Finance exclaimed in disgust, leaning back in his chair. “Good intentions never got anything done.”
“They’re more effective than inaction,” Colossus retorted.
Charles moistened his lips-now or never-and decided to give his own opinion. “Think of it this way: you’ve been at war for the past four years. You’ve had martial law and you’ve had that Breen fellow on every frequency you could broadcast, telling people how great everything would be if only they stopped fighting.”
He turned to look at Erik, and met his eyes to say, “Your citizens won’t stop fighting you until they feel like citizens. Think of this less as… Admitting defeat, and more as the next stage in your operation. You need to…” Charles cringed internally; I can’t believe I’m saying this- “Conquer their hearts, now that you’ve conquered their cities.”
Erik steepled his eyebrows and tipped down his chin. His expression was one of awed disbelief; clearly, he was as surprised that Charles had said that as Charles himself. Regardless, his tone betrayed none of that as he replied, “This isn’t anything I haven’t considered before, Charles. My concern is that my people might not be safe if I choose to change tactics today.”
Charles shrugged in a forcibly nonchalant sort of way. ‘My people,’ his mind repeated. My god. I’m talking to the dictator in charge of the planet. Funny how one forgot such things when that dictator was also the person one had sex with… “I suspect there will never be a time when it’s not a gamble,” Charles reasoned. “If you take too long, of course, your ‘people’ might lose patience with you.”
“Of course,” Erik echoed, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “But these are all things that have to be researched.” He looked back at his council to make those arrangements, and Charles continued to watch him; he didn’t worry that he was being covert because, after all, everyone else was watching Erik as well-but none, perhaps, as intently as he did.
It was all so strange, and so frustrating; every time that Charles though he’d come close to decoding the creases of Erik’s eyelids, the curve of his mouth, the flare of his nostrils-every time, Erik did something to add a new variable to the equation. Like this, whatever this was; yesterday Erik had gnawed his shoulder black and blue in retaliation to a simple question, and now Erik was treating him like… Like an equal, almost.
Charles narrowed his eyes in thought. He hadn’t spoken much to Erik since the night before, and their… Agreement, but… Things between them seemed different, now. Calm, almost; as if Erik really had taken Charles’ promise seriously, and believed him. As if Erik, in all of his apparent madness, had chosen to live in a world where Charles really did love and support him and Erik really was a partner rather than a jailor.
It was… Sad, in a way, Charles felt. He could understand the appeal; at the moment they were all listening to the Minister of Scientific Research-a PI from the geology lab, if Charles recalled correctly-who was relaying new findings suggesting that the volcanism in South America and the Atlantic, if left unchecked, could continue for as long as thirty thousand years. Over the past few years the impact of the Argentinean Traps alone had been extraordinarily catastrophic; the thought that they might never stop erupting within any of their lifetimes-even those of the mutants who otherwise appeared immortal-was simply…
Well. Certainly, Charles didn’t want to think about what might happen to the planet if they couldn’t figure out a way to undo what was supposed to have been a temporary catastrophe. The winters were already colder; new, finer instruments suggested that the very air might be shaving years off their lives even in North America; and now…
“We’re receiving reports that the pH of rain in Europe has dropped another point four units since the last measurement, two weeks ago,” the geologist stated, without looking at the papers before him, “down to 4.02. Major rivers in Western Europe are averaging around 5.12. We feel certain that this is from sulfur dioxide released since the Mid-Atlantic Event. Preliminary research suggests that most fish eggs won’t hatch below pH five, and increased solute concentrations from adding basic salts to streams in order to raise the pH to potable standards will likely also have an adverse effect, even if it were possible on such a large scale…”
Charles didn’t know much about Erik’s life where it didn’t involve him, personally, but he couldn’t imagine that Erik was particularly close to anyone else. Charles certainly couldn’t imagine Erik confiding in any of his subordinates; after all, he’d made himself into Magneto, and Magneto did not have doubts or fears. Magneto didn’t love anyone, or allow himself to be consoled. Instead, he’d chosen to come to Charles-to steal from Charles-all those things that Charles might… Perhaps… If asked nicely…
But he didn’t, Charles reminded himself. Erik hadn’t asked; hadn’t allowed Charles to make his own decision, and that… That would never change, and it would always be there between them, even if Erik chose to ignore it. It just wouldn’t do, to waste time dwelling on the impossible.
They moved from discussing the promise of using limestone to neutralize acidic waters in retention ponds on to planning for Erik’s speech to promote Legacy.
“We’ve cleaned up the ruins of Victoria but otherwise left them intact,” the mutant from Public Relations announced to the room. “Aside from necessary time constraints, we think that it will make a more impressive backdrop than open construction. We’ve recovered the ferries and some of the larger boats left in the harbor. Sound and film setup should be finished within a day; interior reconstruction of the Parliament Building is in progress and should be acceptable for your presence by the time you arrive. If you have any second thoughts about the city or speech’s location… Now would be the time to express them, sir. We do have acceptable locations ready here on the East Coast…”
“No,” Erik replied, with a brief shake of his head. “Victoria is our best option. The northern West Coast has been the least affected by global conditions and their winters remain warm. It’s not associated with American power, and it’s isolated. Most importantly, it’s defensible; all the more so once construction is complete.”
“Very well. Our survey teams have chosen a number of quarrying and logging sites nearby, and have prepared an evaluation…”
For all that Charles didn’t belong in that room, sitting with those people-for all that no amount of acceptance made it right-it was difficult not to imagine that maybe the Brotherhood could be something more. After the meeting, when several of the council members approached Charles-including Colossus and the Minister of Agriculture-it was difficult to remind himself that they didn’t seek his advice because he’d offered it.
So when Erik’s hand came to rest on his shoulder and he stooped down to murmur, “Come with me, Charles,” the geneticist only hesitated long enough to apologize for his obligation before backing away to follow Erik out the door.
In the corridor Erik waited for him again, so that they could walk back side by side with each other. Between them, acid rain fell and cities burned in defiance of whatever goals they still shared, and they could not stand to look directly at the possibility of finally, at long last, achieving them.
Charles said nothing when the chain around his neck broke and trickled down his chest, clinging tight to skin and winding serpentine over his ribs. He shivered and stopped himself from clenching his hands over the wheels, but the metal was warm where it had been pressed against his skin all day and the day before. It was a caress, its intent clear and unmistakable-though Erik made no sign of realizing it, except for the twitch of his fingers by his hip, sending the links winding over Charles’ stomach beneath his shirt, smooth and individual like scales.
He expected-and dreaded-that the chain would dip down under his trousers and slither between his legs, but Erik apparently did not feel quite like torturing him to that extent. The necklace stayed about his belt, and Charles tried not to think too hard about that twinge of disappointment aching in the curved bones of his pelvis.
It must take a great deal of control, he mused to distract himself, to keep the chain moving with them at a constant speed-or was it natural, like breathing? Certainly Erik saw through the metal, in some way Charles had glimpsed but still did not quite understand, like the familiar scent of a loved one: utterly forgettable when absent but inexorably recognizable when present. It was not really sight, not really smell or taste or touch-but something else, some other way that Erik knew the shape of him, just as Charles had once known the feel of his mind in a way Erik had never gotten close to imagining correctly.
They reached Charles’ rooms, and if the guard noticed the flush of Charles’ skin he gave no indication, only stepped back respectfully as Erik opened the door with the weight of his gaze. He gestured with a formal sweep of his arm for Charles to enter first. The cape hung redly off his bicep, and as he passed Charles remembered again what that heavy drape of fabric smelled of.
Charles turned around in the center of his sitting room and waited patiently for Erik to hang the cape up, to come to him, and to kiss him. He closed his eyes when Erik’s nose touched his, and when their lips pressed together he felt the collar complete itself again around his throat. Erik’s hands slid up onto his shoulders and pushed him back into the chair, and his tongue teased Charles’ bottom lip until Charles reached up to bundle his hands in Erik’s jacket and pull him down.
Erik’s hands darted down to catch himself on the chair’s armrests; Charles felt the curl of his smile as he opened his mouth to Charles’ tongue. He tasted clean, like he hadn’t eaten in a long time; his teeth were smooth, and he held his jaws carefully apart as if he was afraid that Charles might withdraw if he moved-so Charles growled and pressed closer until Erik moaned and bit into his mouth, nose smashed against Charles’.
Eventually Charles released him, and Erik drew back far enough to look into Charles’ eyes. He was breathing through his mouth and Charles saw, when he glanced down, that the insides of Erik’s lips were softly red. Then, as if Erik had seen the thought in Charles’ mind, he sank down, slowly, to kneel at Charles’ feet.
Watching him, their gazes still locked together, Charles hardly dared to breathe. There-in Erik’s eyes, too, he saw something like a bewildered vulnerability, an uncertainly that hid behind resolve when Erik blinked to turn his attention to Charles’ feet. He lifted them each in turn from their footrests, set the shined tips of Charles’ shoes down onto the wooden floor, and waved the footrests back to make room for himself between Charles’ knees.
Tentatively, but all the same with a graceful stretch of his fingers, Erik set his hands on the tops of Charles’ thighs to steady himself as be bent down to nuzzle against Charles’ belt buckle. He opened his mouth against the trouser placket and exhaled, warm against the curve of Charles’ mostly-hard cock, then tilted his head back to meet Charles’ eyes again, in inquiry. And if Charles had never before seen anything so ridiculous as the ruler of the world kneeling before him, ready, apparently, to suck him off-he could not find it in him to laugh.
Wordlessly, Charles nodded-but it was barely a twitch of his chin so he nodded again, more certainly this time.
Erik’s eyebrows lifted up in the center; the shadows of his cheeks flickered as he swallowed. He looked down again and focused on undoing the belt buckle, large hands fumbling a little with the leather. Charles tightened his grip around the armrests, and pushed himself up when Erik tugged at his waistband until pants and trousers pooled together around Charles’ ankles and Erik’s breath fluttered between his legs.
Erik wrapped a hand around the base of Charles’ cock to prop it upright, then bent his neck down until the pink, moist curve of the head nudged against his mouth. There he paused, and sought Charles’ eyes again-but Charles couldn’t help but stare at where the flesh of Erik’s bottom lip bowed down against him, exposing a glimpse of teeth. Certainly, he had no attention to spare for puzzling out Erik’s silences.
Charles bit his own lip as if Erik could feel it and pressed his toes into the floor, pushing himself up a little. Obligingly, Erik tilted his face forward and closed his mouth around him. The tip of a hidden tongue flicked up and stroked, and Charles squeezed the thin stuffing of the armrests and gritted his teeth together, because-fuck, that sudden warmth after cool air-
Furthermore, this was Erik, and… Well, Charles hadn’t previously imagined what the sight of the back of his head-well, helmet-might do to him and… It had an effect, to say the least, to watch Erik bobbing over him, shoulders rocking to take the responsibility from his neck, rough jacket nudging in against Charles’ knees.
Those long, supple fingers had gained some confidence, wrapped tightly around the shaft where Erik’s mouth couldn’t reach, though he’d made a valiant-and quickly abortive-effort. It didn’t feel any less good, by any means; one of Charles previous girlfriends-well, multi-night stands-had been able to take him down her throat and had seemed content enough to do so, but though it had been novel, certainly, he’d never once stopped worrying that she’d quickly change her mind if he moved, despite assurances to the contrary.
Erik, of course, was different from all of Charles’ previous experiences; most notably, he was male, and what he seemed to lack in practice he made up for in knowledge. It was also the only time Charles hadn’t been able to know what someone was about to do with their mouth, and the surprise of it, of not being able to predict, of not knowing his own taste and texture… It was voyeuristic in a way Charles had never felt, as a voyeur.
It was all… Rather good, really. Very good, Charles thought vaguely. Erik’s lips were firm and smooth around Charles’ width; his hand pumped and twisted, slick with drool; and within his mouth he lapped and sucked and, now and then, made an involuntary slurping noise that he immediately stifled.
He didn’t have to work at it for long. “Erik-” Charles whispered, releasing his grasp on the armrests to shove ineffectively at the other man’s shoulders. “I’m going to… Ah,” Erik’s free hand clutched into Charles’ thigh, and he coughed a little when the first spurt of come hit the back of his throat; then he shifted and was silent as Charles came against the curve of his tongue in time to the pull of Erik’s fingers.
Charles hissed at the threat of discomfort, and pushed at Erik again; this time he obeyed, sweeping Charles clean with the pucker of his lips. Erik swallowed, wearing a quizzically introverted expression-evaluating the taste, perhaps? Either way, Charles didn’t look to see what he decided to think about it, choosing instead to slouch back in his chair and squeeze shut his eyes to capture that lingering feeling of contentment before it slipped away into exhaustion.
A moment later, he felt the poke of Erik’s helmet against his chest as the other man leaned down against him, lying over Charles’ bare lap with his body and wrapping his arms around Charles’ sides, folded against the chair. Charles realized, suddenly, that his own hands still rested on Erik’s shoulders, but he lacked the energy to move them.
Erik flexed his arms, pulling himself closer, and Charles grunted in discomfort, jerking his head up to look down at the man. “Your helmet,” Charles reminded him.
“Mm,” Erik responded, and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He peered up at Charles’ face, but said nothing.
Charles fidgeted a little under the attention, scratching his short nails absently against the bumpy threads of Erik’s jacket shoulders. He was very aware that he was still quite naked under the bulk of Erik’s body.
Finally, however, Charles had to give in to curiosity. “What?” he asked.
“I’m trying to memorize the way you look,” Erik murmured, smoothing the shirt over Charles’ ribs with his hands.
Charles felt his eyebrows tip up. “…All right.”
Erik seemed to take that as permission to continue staring. Charles turned his head a little; he tried to look at something else, at the wood paneling maybe, but he found his gaze drawn back to Erik’s. His irises were a deep gray in the gloom, mere rings around his pupils.
Then, one corner of Erik’s lips twitched up, and he inhaled suddenly, as if he’d forgotten to. “If I could remember one thing,” he said, looking back into Charles’ eyes. “Just one thing-it would be this.”
Charles frowned at him. “All right,” he repeated, doubtfully.
Erik’s smile softened, and he settled back down onto Charles’ stomach with a sigh. This time he angled his head to the side, so that the horns didn’t dig into Charles’ skin, and Charles spread his hand over Erik’s back in what he supposed was an awkwardly comforting sort of way.
Charles’ mind had just begun to wander when Erik spoke again.
“I want you to come with me when I give my speech,” Erik said. “I want you to come to Victoria with me. I think you should be there.”
“All…” Charles began, and caught himself. “I will,” he said instead, pressing his thumb down in along the ridge of Erik’s spine. It would, after all, make for a nice change of scenery, and he’d heard from a reliable source that Victoria was nice at this time of year.
Chapter 22
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairings: Charles/Erik
Genre: drama, angst, au, dystopia, future!fic
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 8700/?
Warnings: dubcon, emotional manipulation, sex
Summary: Based on this 1stclass_kink prompt (and originally posted there).
"Erik has succeeded in taking over the world, but mutant utopia has yet to materialize. Charles is his reluctant companion."
With thanks to my betas, idioticonion and KaeKae, and to my eternal cheerleader, theredoormouse. Also, further snake!chain dedicated to subtilior, who washes her dishes to the wails of the damned.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23
Notes: Ah! I'm sorry this took so long. D: Mostly it's just that I'm terrible at politics and so that all took me a very long time to write, but also? There are scenes coming up that I'm very excited about, and who wants to be writing an interlude when you could be writing the end? ;) Not, mind you, that the next chapter is the end... But very soon! And unlike every other time I've said "soon", this time I mean it! *flails*
xcv.
The next morning Charles was in the middle of tugging on his shoes when he heard the scrape of his door unlocking. Bent down over his own knees and with fingers trapped between leather and sock, he craned his head up awkwardly to see a young man step into the foyer. He wore a pristine white lab coat.
“Hello,” Charles offered, looking the fellow over. He was very young indeed, it seemed; beneath the wrinkled greenish skin and through the self-conscious disguise of the coat Charles detected the uneasy swagger of an adolescent soldier. It was a posture sadly not unfamiliar-after all, there were not so many mutants in the world that the Brotherhood could afford to be choosy.
This young man, however, did not have that same wild danger glinting in his eyes; rather, by the hunch of his shoulders, he appeared to be one of those quiet recruits who’d learned to kill and then kindly removed themselves from the company of others. Charles couldn’t know for certain, however; though he wore no helmet, the young man’s thoughts were just as inscrutable to him.
“Dorian, sir,” he mumbled, and scooped the air with his hand, beckoning for Charles to follow.
Charles popped his heel down into his shoe and straightened. “Are you to be my guard today, Dorian?” he asked, not unkindly. After all, there was no call to be rude, even if the circumstances of their meeting left something to be desired.
Dorian ducked his head in a nod and turned back to the door, clearly taking Charles’ question as a sign that he was ready to leave.
Charles arched his eyebrow at Dorian’s back. Well, if Erik really was more concerned about Charles’ conversational skills than his telepathy… It would appear that he’d found a solution.
With a mental shrug, Charles followed him through the door. He caught his own lab coat from the coat tree along the way and dropped it into his lap, and when he passed the steel door and armed guard he ignored the prickling of hair under his sleeves.
When they were further down the hallway Charles could not resist twisting around in his chair to see whether the guard had gone, now that Charles had left-but no; he stood there still, keeping watch over the empty room.
It was not until they passed more people in the hallway that Charles began to notice something… Strange.
He frowned, and tipped his head to the side as if maybe he needed to drain water out of his brain through his ears. That’s what it felt like, certainly; he could see those people well enough, could see that they weren’t wearing helmets, and yet… And yet, Charles could only catch the muffled edges of their thoughts, elusive like the barest wisps of cotton. It was nearly enough to make his eyes sting.
What’s wrong with me? Charles wondered, rubbing the back of his hand over his temple; beginning, almost, to panic. He didn’t feel any different otherwise-and he knew that, since the war, research into power-dampening drugs had been absolutely forbidden-but…
His gaze flicked up to Dorian. Of course. Erik had given him a guard who could both keep Charles safe and protect others from Charles himself. Fascinating… If rather unpleasant. Better, perhaps, than being muzzled with one of those accursed helmets.
Charles relegated that to the back of his mind, along with certain other unnamed realities.
And he was fine; really, he was fine. Even when they arrived at the lab and saw no sign of Beast; even when Charles entered his work room and saw that he would be testing alone from now on. For indeed, he had heard nothing of Hannah, even through his discrete probing of Beth’s memory. He was fairly sure that she had not been captured, and he’d tried to obscure their trail well enough that she could not be found; so that maybe she could stay. He had not expected to see her in the lab-but he had… Hoped.
Still; he said nothing as he moved about the room, tidying up the mess the Brotherhood had left when they’d searched it. Reagents out of place, bottles of stock left out on the counter, a liter flask cracked and all of the previously sterile equipment now suspect… Just as well that Hannah had gone, really. She would have pitched a fit.
Charles held up a tin half-full with slender glass pipette tubes; a few of them had been carelessly tipped out onto the counter and lay in pieces, their micrometers scattered out of order. Someone had clearly opened the tin and turned it over to check for anything suspicious; Charles wanted to believe that they had worn gloves and that the box was still sterile, but… He would have to send them back into the autoclave, just to be sure.
It was a shame; glassware was expensive in the new world, and only well-trained glassblowers could replace broken equipment. In fact, not long before Charles had been moved to the Brotherhood’s headquarters he had overheard a glowingly smug television report about how Magneto’s people had effectively, efficiently crippled the renegade human scientists at the University of Wisconsin-simply by murdering their glassblower and destroying his ovens.
Charles slid the square metal cap back over the tin and looked around for a place to set it-but then put the box back down on the counter next to the shards of broken pipettes. He might as well save himself the trip and get a cart, since he’d probably decide to autoclave half the room by the time he was through.
He turned and saw Dorian leaning on the doorframe, hunched down and staring out into the main part of the lab. With a weary sigh Charles asked, “You’re supposed to be posing as an assistant, aren’t you?”
Dorian glanced back to Charles, eyebrows raised in startled inquiry.
“You’ll give yourself away if you just stand there. At least come in and have a seat, or bring a cart if you want to help,” Charles suggested, voice becoming slightly muffled as he bent down to retrieve a pan and brush from beside the glass disposal bin.
When Charles sat up again he found that Dorian had vanished. Whether he had actually gone to get the cart or if Charles had inadvertently offended him into leaving, he didn’t know-but he still couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts, so Dorian must not have gone far.
He stared at the broken glass without making any movement to sweep it up. The lab was strangely quiet without the background hum of mental calculations and self-narrated notes. He could still hear the hum of the centrifuge out in the main room; the clatter of a magnetic stirring rod whirling around on the bottom of a flask; the scrape of chairs on tile… But little else. It was like working in a laboratory run by the whispers of ghosts.
Charles heard the squeaking wheels of a cart and jumped to brush the glass shards into his pan. Dorian re-entered the room just as Charles tipped them out into the bin, and the telepath smiled brightly over at his guard. “Ah, thank you, Dorian; that’s just what I needed.”
The corner of Dorian’s mouth edged up, and he turned his head away as the creases in his green skin furrowed deeper.
In the end Charles did not, in fact, do any experimental work. He plated new bacteria from the liquid cultures that hadn’t yet died, set new culture tubes to incubate in the shaker, and forgot his old test tubes to circle round together with Hannah’s. He re-organized, calling upon Dorian’s height to reach the bottles on the top shelf and replace them somewhere easier for Charles to reach. He moved the extra equipment back into the main part of the lab.
He didn’t know what the other scientists thought, or if they even knew anything had changed. They must, of course-after all, the Brotherhood had intruded into their shared domain to overturn their work; it could not have been subtle, and Charles knew at least that it was not an especially common occurrence, though that risk was a part of the sacrifice involved in working for the world’s only non-weaponized biology lab.
Without his telepathy, however, Charles couldn’t know what lay behind the silence. Did they know that he had been involved, and what had happened? Did anyone, for that matter, beyond Erik and the few people in Erik’s trust? Surely the other biologists must have been resentful for the reminder of their subservience; even the Brotherhood’s supporters would not have appreciated the interruption.
Did they blame him? Did they pity him? Or was this merely the benign apathy of the preoccupied scientist, left unexcused now that he could not feel their attention elsewhere?
Charles led Dorian to the autoclave to retrieve the hot glassware, and wondered.
xcvi.
Badger, on the other hand-she had gotten her helmet back, or perhaps had it replaced, but Charles had no difficulty reading her emotions.
“Oh, you absolute idiot!” she snarled, and threw herself at him. Charles held up one hand in defense and grabbed for a wheel with the other; then Badger’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, the chair jolted back from force of impact, and Charles endured, breathless with shock and the crush of her embrace.
In an instant Badger had gone again, pacing away to a safe distance from which to berate him. She tsked. “Look at you. Look at your face! Fuck, if they weren’t dead already, and if Magneto hadn’t already made his point…” She pressed her lips together and shook her fist in front of her. She wasn’t tall, but her sleeve pulled menacingly taut over the muscles of her arm.
Charles frowned-had Erik gone through with his morbid intentions after all? His immediate concern, however, was: “You know about what happened?”
“Of course! You know my rank. Outside of the inner circle it’s all pretty hush but I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t know that something happened,” Badger said, calmly enough; then she narrowed her eyes again and snapped, “And you know what-you need a keeper. You should have someone with you at all times in case you have to tie your shoes! What kind of genius are you supposed to be, anyway? Okay, I’ll accept that you forgot my helmet and left it sitting out for anyone to just walk by and take it-we all make mistakes; that was an especially stupid one, mind you, and very nearly got me into some hot water-still perfectly normal-but how could you not have seen this coming? You’ve had free access to those assholes’ brains for weeks, and you never thought maybe, just maybe, you should be concerned and perhaps not just wander around in the middle of the night?”
Charles leaned his head back, blinking in bewilderment-but if he took a moment to respond, it was because of one thing Badger hadn’t chastised him for. If he understood her title correctly, then-disgraced or not-as a Major General, she shared a rank below that Zeus had occupied, who in turn ranked below the Brotherhood’s leader himself. Furthermore, she knew Charles personally, and he suspected that she’d been tasked with his care beyond just regaining the use of his legs. There couldn’t have been too many people more likely to know that Charles had been engaged in subversive activities that night, and yet… She clearly didn’t.
Which implied that Erik wanted as few people as possible to know about Charles’ disloyalty. Another thing to think about, when he had a moment…
“Is there any use in defending myself?” Charles asked, arching an eyebrow warily.
“None at all. I’ve already written you off as a lost cause. I’ll give you a charitable eulogy at your inevitably early funeral, though, because I do kind of like you despite your numerous and severe impairments of judgment,” Badger told him, and crossed her arms to lean back against a padded table. “Now, tell me-have you been practicing with the crutches?”
Charles thought back, trying to remember what he’d been doing for the past few days that didn’t involve being abducted or having sex with Erik. It was an admittedly challenging task. “Not… Really?” he guessed.
Badger rolled her eyes. “You know what, I take back all the nice things I said about your funeral. Really, Charles? Come on, I thought you wanted to walk again some day. Sure, it’s tough, whatever-but if you don’t get off your ass now, you’re going to have a much harder time of it later.”
“I’m sorry,” Charles said. “I’ve just been…” He saw her raised brows, and sighed in defeat. “All right, yes, I’ve been avoiding it. It’s inconvenient and painful and, I’ll admit: I don’t like it.”
Uncrossing her arms to set her hands flat on the table behind her, Badger replied, “I’m sure. You’re proud, and even if everything doesn’t always come easily for you, you try to make it look like it does. That’s not going to work this time. You’re going to be tired, and you’re going to look stupid-but at least you get to do it in private. So get it out of the way quickly and move on.”
Charles made a noncommittal noise that sounded vaguely like it might, conceivably, have been agreement.
“Charles,” Badger warned.
“All right,” Charles said, holding up his hands to indicate his surrender. “I’ll try to do better. I promise. Will that make you happy?”
Badger’s answer was made clear enough from her incredulous grunt, but she went on to recommend, “Ask me again once you’ve actually done it.”
xcvii.
Badger walked Charles to the door-or rather, led him there; Charles was once again resigned to his chair. He’d draped his lab coat draped over his knees, but now they shook with the weight of the garment, too exhausted even for that small burden. He pulled the coat higher, onto his thighs, and breathed a sigh of relief, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get any more practice walking when less than a half hour of it left his legs so drained and weak.
Badger held the door open to let Charles through first, and Dorian peeled away from the wall outside to take up position next to him-then he saw Badger and stiffened up from his stoop. Charles frowned at him until he realized again: beneath the casual clothing, neither of them were really what they seemed.
He half-expected Badger to chastise Dorian for the ridiculous formality of a lab assistant standing at attention for a physical therapist, but she barely glanced at the young soldier before telling Charles, “One word: crutches. Use them.” Then she sauntered back into her domain and the door swung closed behind her.
Charles pulled a face at Dorian, but the boy stared back at him uncomprehendingly until Charles remembered that most of the people he took for granted as being part of his life were internationally-known members of the ruling class. Feeling a little embarrassed at himself, Charles ducked his chin down as he started back to his rooms.
Once there, Dorian didn’t go in with him; instead, Charles received a low, two-fingered wave as his escort halted beyond the threshold.
Charles nodded, and waited until the door shut and locked before, with a reach and a toss, he hooked his lab coat up onto the coat tree. Then, because the light outside leaned narrow, he went to the lamp and switched it on.
He sat with his hands folded together until Erik came to retrieve him. It didn’t take long.
The first he knew of it was when the collar thrummed against his throat. A warm purr of metal caressed the points of his clavicles and Charles exhaled, slowly, tightening his hands around each other as his body echoed that hum in the pit of his stomach, rousing with interest. Like a dog hearing its master’s return, he thought. It was an appealingly fatalistic comparison; after all, a dog could wag its tail just as easily for a cruel owner as a kind. Then again, some men could be much nicer to their dogs than to their neighbors…
The door swung open, and the long black toe of a boot followed. Charles’ eyes followed the sweep of trouser seam upward, past the bend of a knee to a dangling curl of fingers-black in their gloves, seen in silhouette only, their tips brushing the subtle curve of a thigh.
Chest tight, Charles tore his eyes up to Erik’s face before they could wander further; the Brotherhood’s leader studied him from under the sharp angle of his eyebrows, eyes darkly shadowed between the points of the helmet. Dog, Charles accused his body, but nonetheless tilted his head back as Erik approached, accepting the soft press of his lips and the scrape of stubbled chin as Erik bent to kiss him in greeting.
Erik’s hand caressed his cheek as he pulled away, and Charles did not return his fond smile. “Ready, Charles?” he asked.
Charles held his gaze for a moment, then blinked and turned his face into Erik’s palm. His heart rattled as he kissed against the glove and he felt suddenly self-conscious, even though Erik had recently seen him do worse. “As I’ll ever be,” he mumbled in reply.
Erik’s lips curled up further, and his hand slid from Charles’ mouth with a passing stroke of his fingertips along the curve of Charles’ lips. He straightened and, still smiling, stepped back. He tilted his body toward the door. “Then come.”
Charles nodded once and lowered his hands to the rims of his wheels; glad, for once, of Erik’s propensity for ridiculous capes. He didn’t want to know where his eyes would go if he could see Erik’s back unobstructed.
It turned out to be a moot point anyway, because Erik waited for him in the hall and, rather than taking the lead, fell into step beside him. Charles snuck a glance up at Erik and saw the barest curve of Erik’s pupils as he looked back at Charles, who turned his head quickly away again.
The expression on Erik’s face had looked almost like pride, which made no sense at all.
xcviii.
The meeting was surprisingly quiet. Nobody advocated for any immediate bombings, and no one then protested the prohibitive expense. Instead, after Erik called for silence the council stayed silent, all of them looking back and forth amongst each other before even that became too much, and Charles watched as eyes fell one after the other to the table. A few mutants occupied themselves with pushing their folders around, although not so intently that it appeared they might have something to contribute.
Charles had expected that his abductors’ usual seats would be empty, but it appeared that everyone who could had instead used the opportunity to move down the table one chair; away from Erik and, subsequently, Charles, who suddenly felt very obvious by Erik’s side. He found that his eyes, too, sought the relief of smooth wood finish. There they roamed, before catching on the charred pit where Erik had once redirected lightening.
Erik tapped his fingers on the table, twice, before speaking-softly, but pitched so that everyone could hear. “Every day that we’ve met at this table, and every time before that, when we had no table-we were at the start of something new. That’s never been more true than today. Give me your best.”
He stared around at his officers, who met his eyes and quickly looked away to shuffle their papers more purposefully. Some slouched; some sat straighter in their chairs.
“First thing’s first,” began Infrared, “While I’m sure it’s satisfying to leave the positions open, we really ought to replace our Secretary of State and Lieutenant General.”
They scarcely had the time to look around at each other in bewilderment before a young man Charles didn’t recognize cleared his throat in introduction. He was big-extraordinarily tall and muscular, with buzzed black hair, and Charles would have thought him to be military except for the warmth of calm shrouding his mind, barely touched by the deeper thrum of nervousness.
Charles looked more closely around the table, surprised to see a quite a number of faces which he did not, on closer inspection, remember at all; likewise, a similar number of minor officials and ministers were absent. He could feel their wariness now that he searched for it; Zeus and Skink, apparently, were not the only Brotherhood authorities to lose their places, although only one of these replacements occupied a dead man’s seat.
“I have all the reports from Skink’s staff on hand,” this new man said, propping a thick file up in front of him to straighten against the table. “I can fulfill his duties.”
Erik arched an eyebrow, fingers falling flat on the table. “And who are you?” He wasn’t the only one wondering; throughout the room, Charles could sense the others trying to recall: had they been warned about this young man? His stoicism, they suspected, could just as easily be callousness as serenity.
“Piotr Rasputin, Undersecretary of Labor, sir.” The Undersecretary glanced away, shifted his thumbs over the manila folder, and looked back, keeping his eyes on the clasp of Erik’s cape. “Or… Colossus.”
Erik nodded, slowly, singly. “Colossus… What makes you think that I’ll let you do that?”
Colossus blinked once, but didn’t rise to the barb. “Convenience, sir. I’m qualified, I’m familiar with the job, and I’m sitting at this table.”
Erik’s fingers resumed their tapping, deliberate and in sequence, all in a wave from small to large. He pursed his lips. Further down, the man sitting next to Infrared leaned over and whispered, “Can he actually do that? Just show up and get the job?” She shrugged in reply; it was, after all, a good question; one that they were not alone in asking.
After all-though the Brotherhood was essentially a meritocratic dictatorship, it was in many ways merely an occupying military enforcing its rules on a rebellious anarchy. A few years prior, it hadn’t even been that; government had come only after the soldiers, and field promotions were still far more common than appointments.
“Do we… Vote?” the Minister of Agriculture asked, and then covered his mouth with short fingers, eyes flicking from side to side as his colleagues looked at him and then glanced away, unable to hold their interest in the man.
“Have we ever voted on anything?” another mutant directed at Infrared, as if she’d been the one who’d posed the question in the first place.
“Not…” Infrared began, with a flicker of her eyes to look at Erik, “…For a very long time.”
“In the Old United States government…” an older gentlemen-one of those few mutants from the earlier generation-offered, voice wavering with uncertainty, “The Secretary of the Treasury would replace the Secretary of State.”
“But we are not the American government,” Erik growled, leaning forward just a little. His hand wrapped into a gradual fist on the table, and his tendons pulled tight under the hem of his sleeve. “The American government is destroyed. The Brotherhood is new. We are trying to be better.”
Charles reached over-it wasn’t far-and brushed his fingers against Erik’s elbow. The Brotherhood’s leader snapped around to glare warning at Charles, who lifted the corner of his mouth in a wry, gentle smile. He drew breath to speak, paused, and then began again: “…Magneto. The old governments persisted for as long as they did for good reason. It’s perfectly acceptable to borrow.”
Erik’s eyebrows furrowed low over his eyes as he held Charles’ gaze. His cheeks shifted with the grind of his teeth. Then, with a short, jerking nod, he turned back to the table, lifting his elbow away from Charles’ fingers and up onto the wood. “The Minister of Finance,” Erik pronounced carefully, “is more useful to me where he is. Traditionally-if we wish to stick to tradition-these titles are mine to give and take, but… You will vote, when I make my decision. Your choices will not be held against you.”
The others were silent, waiting, until Colossus inquired, “Your decision, sir?”
Erik inclined his head toward Charles, watching the telepath until he sighed, lifted his fingers to his temple-more for Colossus’ benefit than real necessity-and brushed against the Undersecretary’s mind, waiting for an invitation. Colossus didn’t react outwardly, but inside he cringed away in surprise; apprehension crusted around the exploratory tendril of Charles’ mind like a cyst. He knew Charles-knew of Charles-and wanted to trust him, but…
Charles met his cool gray eyes, mirroring the calm there. I won’t look if you tell me not to, he said, along with a flash of-know what this means to you-know what happens if you don’t. He didn’t push, but after a moment the crystals of distrust broke off and dissolved back into Colossus’ general wariness, along with a cautious-hope? Yes, hope, because this man was good, and had held his tongue through the past few years of Brotherhood rule just to be here; not to overthrow but to help. To that end, he’d studied Skink’s duties and more.
Charles withdrew from Colossus’ mind and turned to Erik. “He can do the job,” Charles said, “and he’s trustworthy.”
Erik frowned in consideration, eyes glinting with silent thought as he peered over at the young Undersecretary. He pressed his lips together, nodded to himself, and then made a dismissive gesture with his hand as he looked back down at the stack of red folders in front of him. “The responsibilities are yours. The title will be contingent on how well you fulfill them.”
Erik drew out one folder from the stack and laid it on top, caught the cover against his glove and flipped it open to study the contents; craning his neck to see, Charles saw that it was a very short collection of bolded names- every one preceded by the words “Major General”-and when he squinted he saw that they were accompanied by an overview of their decorations and experience. Badger’s name-her real name-wasn’t on the list, and it seemed to only be the one page. After all, there weren’t many of them: only five, at most, that Charles could think of.
“Florida,” Erik murmured, “Henan, the Alps… My best men are involved in our most important engagements.” He remained immobile, except for the flicker of his eyes and the slow rise and fall of his chest. The rest of the council, too, stayed still; watching him and waiting.
Charles glanced over at the others, then back to Erik. He drummed his fingers on his armrest, and then squeezed them around the stuffed vinyl padding. “If it’s all a matter of capability and convenience,” Charles began, “then there is someone of suitable rank in this building, who is otherwise unoccupied.”
Infrared frowned at him. “Are you talking about Major General Horton?”
“Badger, yes,” Charles confirmed.
“But…” Infrared hesitated, looking between them: from Charles to Erik, Erik to Charles. He felt the decision stuck in her mind: if she addressed Charles, she might offend Erik; but if she protested to Erik she ran the risk of offending them both, potentially.
She chewed her bottom lip, and finally turned her head toward Charles. “…Professor. Badger is assigned to custodial and clinic duties for a reason. While her title is the same, her rank is not.”
“I know what she did,” Charles argued, then stopped to glance at Erik-but Erik wasn’t looked at him; he was watching Infrared with his fingers rubbing absently along his jaw. Charles just about lost his train of thought at that, and what was supposed to be a glance almost became a stare until he wrenched his eyes away to continue his rebuttal. “…I’ve read her mind. She’s loyal, and she has principles; two qualities your last Lieutenant General lacked. To you, she’s a known quantity; to the resistance, her disappearance after Chicago makes her a compelling mystery. She’s your best option.”
“We’ve had her vetted for loyalty several times since then,” Infrared admitted. “But she has disobeyed Brotherhood orders in the past. What kind of message would it send if we put her in charge of overseeing our military?”
“That you’re honest about the change you’re promising,” Charles told her. “That you’re not just giving lip service to the idea. I agree that Badger would be a strange choice… And that’s why you should do it.”
“For all Zeus’ faults, he was still good at his job,” Infrared said, slowly. She shifted her gaze over Erik, and Charles followed suit.
Erik looked at them both, leaning his chin into his hand. His middle and index fingers were stretched out to catch their tips on the lower edge of the helmet. “As was Badger,” he pointed out to Infrared, and then met Charles’ eyes. “Would the anti-extinctionists see her as a hero for what she did?”
“No,” Charles said. His pulse quickened as he prepared to argue his case. “She’s still responsible for a lot of deaths. Because she refused to fight dirty, though, and was subsequently pulled from active duty… She would certainly be the most sympathetic of your choices. Besides,” he arched an eyebrow, “This means you don’t have to stop killing the resistance in other parts of the world.”
“Trust me, Professor, there’s very little killing going on there either,” Erik grumbled, and straightened up. “Very well, then. Send Major General Horton instructions to cease all of her custodial duties as soon as this meeting’s over. She should be in her new office by eight tomorrow morning.” He said all of this to a young girl standing by the door; she nodded, the white streak in her hair bobbing with her chin, and remained where she was.
Erik turned back to his council, and Charles let himself breathe again and look more closely at what it was that bothered him-because something did. It seemed too easy; it seemed far too easy. And yet… Here he was, successful, and nobody had made any protest; not even a token debate.
Charles looked down the table at the other mutants, noticing again that he was essentially alone with Erik. His hard-earned breath caught-Charles was sitting next to Erik at the head of the table. He was sitting with Erik, and when Charles had spoken, Erik hadn’t watched him; hadn’t given his approval and hadn’t appeared to care what Charles said. The collar was hidden invisible under his shirt. It would look-to the others, it would look-
It would look as if Charles ruled alongside Magneto.
Calm, Charles told himself, inhaling slowly. He held the air in his lungs; then exhaled even more slowly. It hardly matters. It doesn’t matter what they think of you. The truth is the truth. This is… More convenient, is all. For the time being. He allowed himself a small, bitter smile. After all, it might mean less resistance if you do ever manage that coup. As if that weren’t such an impossibility at the moment…
Charles was vaguely aware of Colossus speaking. His voice was deep and level. Soothingly rational. “…If we truly are going to be cutting back on military expenditures-and we should, for reasons that will become clear-then we should direct more effort into reinforcing existing infrastructure. In any given place on this planet, based on partial data and informal reports, Brotherhood citizens are far more likely to die from infection, illness, starvation, and accidental injury than any violent causes.”
“Speaking on the Lieutenant General’s behalf, I suspect that might change if we re-allocated our funding,” Infrared commented.
“It will certainly have to be a consideration, yes, and I’d like to initiate some formal investigation into that, but if we can focus on defending and reinforcing our existing occupations, then we should do that,” Colossus explained.
“You’re in a hurry,” Erik remarked, one eyebrow twitching up.
“I may not have much time, sir,” Colossus replied, grave. “And this is important. People fight when they feel threatened. Safety-even relative safety-inspires happiness, and a happy civilian is a cooperative citizen.”
“That’s a bit twee,” the Director of Mutant Affairs observed, smoothing down one side of his mustache with his thumb.
“Is it?” Colossus inquired blandly. “What would you think about your government if you were worried about where you’d find your next meal? What would you think if every new bucket of water might be the one that made you too sick to defend yourself from looters? How would you feel, after all that, when someone shows up to demand a contribution of food for the local militia?”
It was impressive, Charles thought, to see someone who still had so much hope; but of course, Erik’s response-for all of its patience-took the thin bubble of optimism that had been cautiously rising around them and ruthlessly popped it. “And how do you plan on accomplishing this?”
“It’s a goal,” Colossus admitted, “Nothing more. The likelihood of this succeeding is slim, and it could go drastically wrong.”
“Then what, exactly, was the point of all that?” the Minister of Finance exclaimed in disgust, leaning back in his chair. “Good intentions never got anything done.”
“They’re more effective than inaction,” Colossus retorted.
Charles moistened his lips-now or never-and decided to give his own opinion. “Think of it this way: you’ve been at war for the past four years. You’ve had martial law and you’ve had that Breen fellow on every frequency you could broadcast, telling people how great everything would be if only they stopped fighting.”
He turned to look at Erik, and met his eyes to say, “Your citizens won’t stop fighting you until they feel like citizens. Think of this less as… Admitting defeat, and more as the next stage in your operation. You need to…” Charles cringed internally; I can’t believe I’m saying this- “Conquer their hearts, now that you’ve conquered their cities.”
Erik steepled his eyebrows and tipped down his chin. His expression was one of awed disbelief; clearly, he was as surprised that Charles had said that as Charles himself. Regardless, his tone betrayed none of that as he replied, “This isn’t anything I haven’t considered before, Charles. My concern is that my people might not be safe if I choose to change tactics today.”
Charles shrugged in a forcibly nonchalant sort of way. ‘My people,’ his mind repeated. My god. I’m talking to the dictator in charge of the planet. Funny how one forgot such things when that dictator was also the person one had sex with… “I suspect there will never be a time when it’s not a gamble,” Charles reasoned. “If you take too long, of course, your ‘people’ might lose patience with you.”
“Of course,” Erik echoed, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “But these are all things that have to be researched.” He looked back at his council to make those arrangements, and Charles continued to watch him; he didn’t worry that he was being covert because, after all, everyone else was watching Erik as well-but none, perhaps, as intently as he did.
It was all so strange, and so frustrating; every time that Charles though he’d come close to decoding the creases of Erik’s eyelids, the curve of his mouth, the flare of his nostrils-every time, Erik did something to add a new variable to the equation. Like this, whatever this was; yesterday Erik had gnawed his shoulder black and blue in retaliation to a simple question, and now Erik was treating him like… Like an equal, almost.
Charles narrowed his eyes in thought. He hadn’t spoken much to Erik since the night before, and their… Agreement, but… Things between them seemed different, now. Calm, almost; as if Erik really had taken Charles’ promise seriously, and believed him. As if Erik, in all of his apparent madness, had chosen to live in a world where Charles really did love and support him and Erik really was a partner rather than a jailor.
It was… Sad, in a way, Charles felt. He could understand the appeal; at the moment they were all listening to the Minister of Scientific Research-a PI from the geology lab, if Charles recalled correctly-who was relaying new findings suggesting that the volcanism in South America and the Atlantic, if left unchecked, could continue for as long as thirty thousand years. Over the past few years the impact of the Argentinean Traps alone had been extraordinarily catastrophic; the thought that they might never stop erupting within any of their lifetimes-even those of the mutants who otherwise appeared immortal-was simply…
Well. Certainly, Charles didn’t want to think about what might happen to the planet if they couldn’t figure out a way to undo what was supposed to have been a temporary catastrophe. The winters were already colder; new, finer instruments suggested that the very air might be shaving years off their lives even in North America; and now…
“We’re receiving reports that the pH of rain in Europe has dropped another point four units since the last measurement, two weeks ago,” the geologist stated, without looking at the papers before him, “down to 4.02. Major rivers in Western Europe are averaging around 5.12. We feel certain that this is from sulfur dioxide released since the Mid-Atlantic Event. Preliminary research suggests that most fish eggs won’t hatch below pH five, and increased solute concentrations from adding basic salts to streams in order to raise the pH to potable standards will likely also have an adverse effect, even if it were possible on such a large scale…”
Charles didn’t know much about Erik’s life where it didn’t involve him, personally, but he couldn’t imagine that Erik was particularly close to anyone else. Charles certainly couldn’t imagine Erik confiding in any of his subordinates; after all, he’d made himself into Magneto, and Magneto did not have doubts or fears. Magneto didn’t love anyone, or allow himself to be consoled. Instead, he’d chosen to come to Charles-to steal from Charles-all those things that Charles might… Perhaps… If asked nicely…
But he didn’t, Charles reminded himself. Erik hadn’t asked; hadn’t allowed Charles to make his own decision, and that… That would never change, and it would always be there between them, even if Erik chose to ignore it. It just wouldn’t do, to waste time dwelling on the impossible.
They moved from discussing the promise of using limestone to neutralize acidic waters in retention ponds on to planning for Erik’s speech to promote Legacy.
“We’ve cleaned up the ruins of Victoria but otherwise left them intact,” the mutant from Public Relations announced to the room. “Aside from necessary time constraints, we think that it will make a more impressive backdrop than open construction. We’ve recovered the ferries and some of the larger boats left in the harbor. Sound and film setup should be finished within a day; interior reconstruction of the Parliament Building is in progress and should be acceptable for your presence by the time you arrive. If you have any second thoughts about the city or speech’s location… Now would be the time to express them, sir. We do have acceptable locations ready here on the East Coast…”
“No,” Erik replied, with a brief shake of his head. “Victoria is our best option. The northern West Coast has been the least affected by global conditions and their winters remain warm. It’s not associated with American power, and it’s isolated. Most importantly, it’s defensible; all the more so once construction is complete.”
“Very well. Our survey teams have chosen a number of quarrying and logging sites nearby, and have prepared an evaluation…”
For all that Charles didn’t belong in that room, sitting with those people-for all that no amount of acceptance made it right-it was difficult not to imagine that maybe the Brotherhood could be something more. After the meeting, when several of the council members approached Charles-including Colossus and the Minister of Agriculture-it was difficult to remind himself that they didn’t seek his advice because he’d offered it.
So when Erik’s hand came to rest on his shoulder and he stooped down to murmur, “Come with me, Charles,” the geneticist only hesitated long enough to apologize for his obligation before backing away to follow Erik out the door.
In the corridor Erik waited for him again, so that they could walk back side by side with each other. Between them, acid rain fell and cities burned in defiance of whatever goals they still shared, and they could not stand to look directly at the possibility of finally, at long last, achieving them.
Charles said nothing when the chain around his neck broke and trickled down his chest, clinging tight to skin and winding serpentine over his ribs. He shivered and stopped himself from clenching his hands over the wheels, but the metal was warm where it had been pressed against his skin all day and the day before. It was a caress, its intent clear and unmistakable-though Erik made no sign of realizing it, except for the twitch of his fingers by his hip, sending the links winding over Charles’ stomach beneath his shirt, smooth and individual like scales.
He expected-and dreaded-that the chain would dip down under his trousers and slither between his legs, but Erik apparently did not feel quite like torturing him to that extent. The necklace stayed about his belt, and Charles tried not to think too hard about that twinge of disappointment aching in the curved bones of his pelvis.
It must take a great deal of control, he mused to distract himself, to keep the chain moving with them at a constant speed-or was it natural, like breathing? Certainly Erik saw through the metal, in some way Charles had glimpsed but still did not quite understand, like the familiar scent of a loved one: utterly forgettable when absent but inexorably recognizable when present. It was not really sight, not really smell or taste or touch-but something else, some other way that Erik knew the shape of him, just as Charles had once known the feel of his mind in a way Erik had never gotten close to imagining correctly.
They reached Charles’ rooms, and if the guard noticed the flush of Charles’ skin he gave no indication, only stepped back respectfully as Erik opened the door with the weight of his gaze. He gestured with a formal sweep of his arm for Charles to enter first. The cape hung redly off his bicep, and as he passed Charles remembered again what that heavy drape of fabric smelled of.
Charles turned around in the center of his sitting room and waited patiently for Erik to hang the cape up, to come to him, and to kiss him. He closed his eyes when Erik’s nose touched his, and when their lips pressed together he felt the collar complete itself again around his throat. Erik’s hands slid up onto his shoulders and pushed him back into the chair, and his tongue teased Charles’ bottom lip until Charles reached up to bundle his hands in Erik’s jacket and pull him down.
Erik’s hands darted down to catch himself on the chair’s armrests; Charles felt the curl of his smile as he opened his mouth to Charles’ tongue. He tasted clean, like he hadn’t eaten in a long time; his teeth were smooth, and he held his jaws carefully apart as if he was afraid that Charles might withdraw if he moved-so Charles growled and pressed closer until Erik moaned and bit into his mouth, nose smashed against Charles’.
Eventually Charles released him, and Erik drew back far enough to look into Charles’ eyes. He was breathing through his mouth and Charles saw, when he glanced down, that the insides of Erik’s lips were softly red. Then, as if Erik had seen the thought in Charles’ mind, he sank down, slowly, to kneel at Charles’ feet.
Watching him, their gazes still locked together, Charles hardly dared to breathe. There-in Erik’s eyes, too, he saw something like a bewildered vulnerability, an uncertainly that hid behind resolve when Erik blinked to turn his attention to Charles’ feet. He lifted them each in turn from their footrests, set the shined tips of Charles’ shoes down onto the wooden floor, and waved the footrests back to make room for himself between Charles’ knees.
Tentatively, but all the same with a graceful stretch of his fingers, Erik set his hands on the tops of Charles’ thighs to steady himself as be bent down to nuzzle against Charles’ belt buckle. He opened his mouth against the trouser placket and exhaled, warm against the curve of Charles’ mostly-hard cock, then tilted his head back to meet Charles’ eyes again, in inquiry. And if Charles had never before seen anything so ridiculous as the ruler of the world kneeling before him, ready, apparently, to suck him off-he could not find it in him to laugh.
Wordlessly, Charles nodded-but it was barely a twitch of his chin so he nodded again, more certainly this time.
Erik’s eyebrows lifted up in the center; the shadows of his cheeks flickered as he swallowed. He looked down again and focused on undoing the belt buckle, large hands fumbling a little with the leather. Charles tightened his grip around the armrests, and pushed himself up when Erik tugged at his waistband until pants and trousers pooled together around Charles’ ankles and Erik’s breath fluttered between his legs.
Erik wrapped a hand around the base of Charles’ cock to prop it upright, then bent his neck down until the pink, moist curve of the head nudged against his mouth. There he paused, and sought Charles’ eyes again-but Charles couldn’t help but stare at where the flesh of Erik’s bottom lip bowed down against him, exposing a glimpse of teeth. Certainly, he had no attention to spare for puzzling out Erik’s silences.
Charles bit his own lip as if Erik could feel it and pressed his toes into the floor, pushing himself up a little. Obligingly, Erik tilted his face forward and closed his mouth around him. The tip of a hidden tongue flicked up and stroked, and Charles squeezed the thin stuffing of the armrests and gritted his teeth together, because-fuck, that sudden warmth after cool air-
Furthermore, this was Erik, and… Well, Charles hadn’t previously imagined what the sight of the back of his head-well, helmet-might do to him and… It had an effect, to say the least, to watch Erik bobbing over him, shoulders rocking to take the responsibility from his neck, rough jacket nudging in against Charles’ knees.
Those long, supple fingers had gained some confidence, wrapped tightly around the shaft where Erik’s mouth couldn’t reach, though he’d made a valiant-and quickly abortive-effort. It didn’t feel any less good, by any means; one of Charles previous girlfriends-well, multi-night stands-had been able to take him down her throat and had seemed content enough to do so, but though it had been novel, certainly, he’d never once stopped worrying that she’d quickly change her mind if he moved, despite assurances to the contrary.
Erik, of course, was different from all of Charles’ previous experiences; most notably, he was male, and what he seemed to lack in practice he made up for in knowledge. It was also the only time Charles hadn’t been able to know what someone was about to do with their mouth, and the surprise of it, of not being able to predict, of not knowing his own taste and texture… It was voyeuristic in a way Charles had never felt, as a voyeur.
It was all… Rather good, really. Very good, Charles thought vaguely. Erik’s lips were firm and smooth around Charles’ width; his hand pumped and twisted, slick with drool; and within his mouth he lapped and sucked and, now and then, made an involuntary slurping noise that he immediately stifled.
He didn’t have to work at it for long. “Erik-” Charles whispered, releasing his grasp on the armrests to shove ineffectively at the other man’s shoulders. “I’m going to… Ah,” Erik’s free hand clutched into Charles’ thigh, and he coughed a little when the first spurt of come hit the back of his throat; then he shifted and was silent as Charles came against the curve of his tongue in time to the pull of Erik’s fingers.
Charles hissed at the threat of discomfort, and pushed at Erik again; this time he obeyed, sweeping Charles clean with the pucker of his lips. Erik swallowed, wearing a quizzically introverted expression-evaluating the taste, perhaps? Either way, Charles didn’t look to see what he decided to think about it, choosing instead to slouch back in his chair and squeeze shut his eyes to capture that lingering feeling of contentment before it slipped away into exhaustion.
A moment later, he felt the poke of Erik’s helmet against his chest as the other man leaned down against him, lying over Charles’ bare lap with his body and wrapping his arms around Charles’ sides, folded against the chair. Charles realized, suddenly, that his own hands still rested on Erik’s shoulders, but he lacked the energy to move them.
Erik flexed his arms, pulling himself closer, and Charles grunted in discomfort, jerking his head up to look down at the man. “Your helmet,” Charles reminded him.
“Mm,” Erik responded, and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He peered up at Charles’ face, but said nothing.
Charles fidgeted a little under the attention, scratching his short nails absently against the bumpy threads of Erik’s jacket shoulders. He was very aware that he was still quite naked under the bulk of Erik’s body.
Finally, however, Charles had to give in to curiosity. “What?” he asked.
“I’m trying to memorize the way you look,” Erik murmured, smoothing the shirt over Charles’ ribs with his hands.
Charles felt his eyebrows tip up. “…All right.”
Erik seemed to take that as permission to continue staring. Charles turned his head a little; he tried to look at something else, at the wood paneling maybe, but he found his gaze drawn back to Erik’s. His irises were a deep gray in the gloom, mere rings around his pupils.
Then, one corner of Erik’s lips twitched up, and he inhaled suddenly, as if he’d forgotten to. “If I could remember one thing,” he said, looking back into Charles’ eyes. “Just one thing-it would be this.”
Charles frowned at him. “All right,” he repeated, doubtfully.
Erik’s smile softened, and he settled back down onto Charles’ stomach with a sigh. This time he angled his head to the side, so that the horns didn’t dig into Charles’ skin, and Charles spread his hand over Erik’s back in what he supposed was an awkwardly comforting sort of way.
Charles’ mind had just begun to wander when Erik spoke again.
“I want you to come with me when I give my speech,” Erik said. “I want you to come to Victoria with me. I think you should be there.”
“All…” Charles began, and caught himself. “I will,” he said instead, pressing his thumb down in along the ridge of Erik’s spine. It would, after all, make for a nice change of scenery, and he’d heard from a reliable source that Victoria was nice at this time of year.
Chapter 22