Three Times Erik Came Back (And Once He Almost Did)
Three Times Erik Came Back and One Time He Almost Did
1.
Erik thought there was something in the darkness as he strode out of the facility, clutching his briefcase.
Charles, of course. Waiting. Stepping demurely out of the shadows and standing there, and Erik felt the faintest tugging at the edges of his mind, as though Charles were grasping for a foothold, the same way his mind had pulled at him when they were together in the water.
“I don’t need your help,” he muttered.
His head had always been a lonely place. Lonely, dark, and full of monsters.
Now it felt as though someone were knocking and he could see through the latch that that someone was bearing food and candles and laughter and could not help wanting to unlock the door. For a moment he could see himself through the other man’s eyes, and something like a desperate tendril of want shot out and clutched at him and then fluttered away apologetically. The thought, “You cannot stir things apart” floated for a moment into his mind and hung there.
For a moment he wavered. Then he could feel Charles slipping in past the lock and waving his candle around and making the monsters jump, and he couldn’t push him out just yet, didn’t want to, wondered what it would be like to feel Charles there all the time, tried to think, “This is unfair, get out” but couldn’t, merely looked at him in startled awe.
“I won’t stop you leaving,” Charles said, and Charles’ mind flooded more insistently into his, a wash of different shades of light and color and warmth and - desire, raw and searing and sudden and helpless and then shoved instantly away with the murmur ‘I know other ways to make you stay, I’ve seen how you look at me’-- and Charles’ mind slid away from his, leaving his mind feeling strangely rumpled and lonesome, like an empty bed, and Charles said, “I could,” and he couldn’t help it, his mind yearned towards Charles’ again and whispered, I don’t want to be alone, and Charles’ mind hissed back, You’re not, and there was a little surge of warmth between them before Charles’ eyes grew serious and he murmured, “But I won’t.”
As he walked away he could still feel Charles’ presence behind him, like a beacon. The farther away he got the more it felt as though there were something lodged in his mind, warm and bright and strange, like discovering a new limb.
He continued walking for some time, but he could still feel Charles, the way you feel rather than see someone walking towards you in a fog. Charles was a candle tucked into his mind’s corner, and it was strange, and he thought, “Get out of my head,” and found the answering thought, “No.” And then, warm but a little surprised and confused and apologetic, “Actually I can’t. I’m terribly sorry, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for the moment.”
Eventually he discovered that he was walking back. The little part of his mind that was humming with Charles continued to hum louder as he approached, and without knowing that he knew where it was he found himself standing outside Charles’ window.
The window frame was metal. So was the latch.
Then he was inside, and Charles was sitting up perplexedly in bed, and he’d pulled the window shut behind him and taken a step closer and whispered, “Make me.”
Then Charles was up on his knees on the bed pulling Erik towards him, clinging to him suddenly as metal sometimes did, mouth warm and pliant on his mouth, yielding and demanding all at once, and he kissed him until his mouth was sore, tearing off Charles’ pajamas while Charles’ deft fingers found the fastenings of his jacket and shrugged it off and pulled his turtleneck over his head, and then Charles’ mouth was all over him, those fingers ghosting caresses over his shoulders and tangling in his hair and his hands were sliding over every inch of the pale hot perfection that was Charles, the soft line of the throat, the smooth chest, the sleep-tousled dark hair. And then he had begun to lick his way down Charles’ chest, pausing to plant a kiss on Charles’ navel, and taken him in his mouth, and the look Charles wore and the fact that Erik’s name sprang unprompted to his lips like that as he came, fingers tight in Erik’s hair, was gift enough, but then Charles thought, “Stop holding back,” and he’d raked his teeth along Charles’ throat, leaving a darkening welt, and Charles had pulled a jar of something off the bedside table and pressed it into his hands and whispered, “Here. Take me. I want you.”
Then he couldn’t help crying out Charles’ name as he thrust into him, and Charles was hot and tight and perfect and hissed, “Harder, fuck me, fuck me so I’ll bruise in case you don’t stay, so I’ll be feeling the ghost of you in me for months,” and that was all it took, he came with shuddering hips and then he was kissing Charles again and afterwards Charles had nestled into his arms and murmured, “I won’t stop you leaving,” and Erik whispered, “You already did,” into the white flesh of Charles’ throat and Charles said, “Hm,” and looked steadily at him.
It was like that all night. Charles was insatiable and filthy and perfect and pliable as metal, and their bodies fit as though someone had designed them to, and Charles’ mind in his mind was the most horrible wonderful ravishing thing he had ever felt and he had to feel more, more of the subtle pressure of Charles’ thoughts and those tight supple thighs and that beautiful hot mouth, and by the end of it when his body was exhausted and his mind was tingling and numb he felt with a conviction he had never experienced before that the only thing more insane than staying would be letting Charles out of his sight for an instant. When the sun was rising and they lay wrapped around each other, exhausted and sticky and knees tangled under a ruck of sheets, he saw a flicker of worry cross Charles’ face and pressed his lips unthinkingly to Charles’ forehead. Then he watched the worried expression fade as Charles fell asleep and fell himself.
He had gotten up before Charles the next day and taken a long walk to compose himself, wondering what this was that he’d gotten into, his head sore and fuzzy and his lips raw and every muscle aching and contentment, strange and new, radiating through him and making him feel oddly light.
He wound up strolling in to find Charles sitting with the G-Man. And Charles’ expression of delight and the precise way he was wearing his collar and how demure he looked compared to the way he had in the night, hair askew and eyes squeezed shut and crying Erik - God - Erik - Fuck - Harder - like a man possessed, had made him grin.
He couldn’t keep the wonder at Charles and the amazement that anyone existed who could fuck like that and somehow look that composed the next morning from showing in his eyes, that and his simple curiosity what Charles would say or do next, and as he looked at him his mouth curled into a knowing smile.
And when Charles said, “I’m with Erik” and shot him that look, he felt as though a new part of his mind was coming to life.
2.
He had lost the chess match and the argument. But after a few hours had passed he found himself in Charles’ room. Charles was in the shower. He pulled off his clothes and lay down on his side of the bed, propped up on an elbow.
“Erik?” Charles said, emerging from the bathroom in a fluffy expanse of white robe. “Thought you wanted a good night’s sleep.”
“I can leave,” he said, not moving. Charles laughed a little ruefully and sat down at the edge of the bed and ruffled Erik’s hair.
“No sense in that,” he said. “There are sex-starved people in China, I’ve been told.”
“Always the altruist,” Erik muttered, glancing up at him.
“Don’t start,” Charles murmured back, pulling Erik towards him into a kiss. It began gentle and somehow benedictory, then Charles had grasped his face in both hands and was capturing his mouth almost desperately, like a man eats a feast that he knows may disappear. Erik returned it in kind, half-sitting up, pulling Charles into his lap and tangling a hand in Charles’ damp hair.
Then Charles was out of the bathrobe and sitting astride his hips in that place where he fit, and Erik was planting kisses down his neck and along his collarbone and Charles’ arms were wrapped around his back.
He felt that little corner of his mind where Charles always seemed to crouch light up a little. “I feel you,” he hissed.
“Good,” Charles said. “I hope you do.”
--
“Tomorrow we might die,” Erik said, looking down at Charles, pinioned beneath him on the bed. Charles gazed up into his eyes and shook his head.
“I’m not afraid of dying, Erik,” he whispered. “There’s things worse than dying.”
“Worse?"
“Other things one couldn’t bear to lose,” Charles said quietly.
“Like?” Erik kissed him in that spot at the corner of his jaw that always made Charles moan.
“You,” Charles said, bluntly enough that it made him wince.
“I don’t think you could lose me if you tried,” Erik said against Charles’ neck.
And Charles shuddered but hissed, “Erik, if you kill Shaw things will be different.”
And Erik muttered, “Can we please not talk about him in bed,” and he felt Charles’ spot in his mind darken and acquiesce and Charles glanced up at him with an almost terrifying need in those warm blue eyes and if they needed sleep that night, they didn’t get any.
3.
He hated the wheelchair. It stood next to the bed and he wanted to smash it and bend it and twist it out of shape, but that would accomplish nothing. You could not stir things apart.
Azazel had brought him, frowning at the request. He was not supposed to be here. Charles’ corner of his mind felt dark, dark as the rocks around a lighthouse.
He crawled into the bed and lay there. It had only been a week since Charles was back from the hospital, and everything already smelled different. Antiseptic, somehow.
“Erik?” Charles said, turning over, and that initial unthinking look of delighted surprise darkened and hardened, like waking from a pleasant dream into a cold and empty bed. “You ought to leave.”
“Make me,” Erik said, catching Charles in his arms and kissing him hungrily but gently, and Charles surrendered almost instantly, clinging to him, Erik thinking, “Please don’t tell me where you can’t feel it, that’ll break me too,” then “I’m sorry, I know it’s selfish” and Charles thought back, “I feel you,” and his mind added, “Everywhere, the same as always, you know what that is, Erik, what you’ve always done to me,” and Erik thought, “And you to me.”
They made love slowly and impossibly, Erik never loosening his grip on Charles, forcing their eyes to meet whenever Charles tried to look away, kissing him worshipfully, and the side of his mind where Charles was lit up with worry and lust and a faint edge of anger and Charles kept thinking, “Don’t look at me like that, don’t apologize, fuck me harder, I want it to hurt” and Erik thought back, “I love you,” and Charles came panting his name and looking into his eyes with an expression of helpless relief and didn’t let go of him.
That morning he didn’t leave. He lay there feeling Charles’ heavy breathing and failing to stop himself from crying.
When Charles woke up and noticed and looked at him with his own eyes starting to well up a little and leaned over and kissed the trace of the tear on his cheek, he thought he could feel his heart breaking. He had thought that was a metaphor. He had thought it would be nothing worse than a dull remorse, but it was like a wrenching, like he had tried to uproot a tree that was blocking his view and discovered its roots were tangled in the foundations of his house. He felt physically sick. And Charles’ corner of his mind was the only part where anything still felt all right, but that was the most painful place of all. It was like his whole body was frozen so he was trying to jump into a fire.
And then tears were pouring down his cheeks and Charles was still kissing his face, his tongue finding the salt trails, whispering, “It’s all right,” and Erik laughed roughly and said, “No, nothing’s all right,” and then Charles shot him a look like he was lying there on the beach again with his whole body awash in pain and hissed, “Please.” And that was worst of all, because Charles was always a little more dignified than he needed to be, and this was not, not in the slightest - and he could see in Charles’ eyes that he knew it wasn’t, that Charles who usually kept things in check didn’t even think he should be here, might not even have forgiven him, and this Charles was crying and whispering, “Please, Erik, please,” and Charles was clutching him with a drowning grip and finally he caught Charles’ mouth with his to keep Charles from having to beg like that, because there was no use.
“You don’t have to leave,” Charles whispered, when he broke the kiss. Then, “Please.”
And Erik shook his head and thought, “Come with me.”
And Charles laughed a little harshly and thought, “You know I can’t do that” and looked away.
He reached over and pulled Charles’ face towards him and kissed him, viciously at first, and then with the sudden simplicity of a key finding its lock. Charles made a little sound in his throat and pulled Erik closer and then he forced Charles to look at him and thought, “You choose your humans over this?”
And Charles thought, “Don’t spoil this, Erik, don’t exploit this like it’s a weakness,” and Erik thought, “I’m not, it’s what you want” and Charles pulled away and shook his head and whispered, “Don’t tell me what I want, Erik. You only move metal.”
And then he seized Charles by the face again and kissed him, viciously, bruisingly, as though they were both hoping to leave marks, because they both could tell that this was the end, and in a way it had always been the end, every time.
But he couldn’t let go of Charles. And the kiss continued and it was impossible to tear his mouth from Charles’ and their arms stayed locked around each other. And Erik whispered, “Can I still come here, sometimes?” and felt a tiny twinge of hope at the corner of his mind, and Charles’ whole body shuddered with a sob and Charles raised his eyes to him slowly and said with that funny desolate half-laugh, “I think you’d better not.”
And then he knew if he stayed another second he would have to stay forever. When he pulled his arms free of Charles, it was like tearing off his own skin.
He thought when he put the helmet on he wouldn’t be able to feel the pain in that corner of his mind, but it was there, like a plane crashing just on the edge of all his thoughts.
But he didn’t take the helmet off.
4.
They are playing chess in a jail cell.
“Why do you come here, Charles?”
“Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?” Charles asks.
“Ah yes. Your continuing search for hope.”
But he knows what Charles is really looking for, thinks, “Oh, it’s there, you must know it’s there, there was never any helping it.” And for a second he dares Charles to feel it, the images that have flooded behind his eyelids in the midst of a thousand dreams and nightmares, the ones from which he wakes with the pillow wet and the sheets sticky, images of them before they became what they are, and some nights he can swear he feels Charles dreaming the same dream.
He feels Charles’ eyes on him and thinks that fighting with Charles is the closest he can be to loving him, and anyway with Charles those lines were always blurred, it was always as hard as he could take it, and that was why it was so good.
Charles thinks, “That was a long time ago, Erik.” The thought is bland and cool enough, but he feels the turmoil in the corner of his mind, the want that still sears through him sometimes when he least expects it. He wants to touch Charles again, like that, more than anything. It is as though Charles is still waiting for him, somewhere, in the darkness.
And that is when he has to motion him away.