Good Boys (9/15)
The next morning Charles awoke before Erik did and without thinking very much about it peeled off his pajamas and climbed over onto Erik’s bed. He stretched carefully out on his stomach and lay there on folded arms gazing over at Erik.
Erik as he slept was still guarded, somehow; the faint worried lines on the brow never quite dispersed even in the depths of dreams, and Charles was reminded of those mysterious fish at the bottom of the ocean who were always at least half awake, swimming through their nights. It seemed such an inadequate comparison. Instead Charles thought of poisonous anemones whose sting was death to everyone except for certain fish who passed through their tendrils with impunity, and thought, “So I’m to be a clownfish, then? Charles, this is why you don’t go in for metaphors,” and snickered in spite of himself and Erik woke up and looked at him and he remembered that he was lying spread naked on Erik’s bed.
“Well, this is a surprise,” Erik said.
“Erik,” Charles said quickly, not looking at him, “do that to me again right now and I’ll worry about it in the car.”
Erik’s sharp sudden intake of breath made Charles feel almost smug. Then Erik laughed and reached over and cupped one hand possessively around the smooth curve of Charles’ buttocks.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Charles,” Erik said, and Charles flushed. “Or did you miss the point of the exercise?”
Charles looked over at him. Erik’s grin was entirely too smug, as usual, and he wished there were some way to prove him wrong. Then Erik’s fingers traced slowly and delectably along the line of his spine and Erik said, “Something you wanted to ask me, Charles?” and Charles felt his whole body begin to respond to the touch. “Erik,” he hissed.
Then Erik had thrown off the covers and was kneeling over him, one knee on either side of Charles’ torso, and Erik’s mouth followed his hand, kissing a careful line down his spine, and Charles whimpered. “Please,” he said.
“What?” Erik said
Charles found that he was clenching his thighs together almost without meaning to, and he watched the lust kindle in Erik’s eyes as Erik’s gaze ran approvingly over the length of his body.
“Please,” Charles said, “I want to feel you there again,” and arched his body just a fraction up towards Erik’s, and he could feel Erik’s arousal already, and Erik’s hands grasped his waist.
“Charles,” Erik said, and they were both having difficulty not moving against each other, he could feel how much Erik wanted to, and Erik whispered, “Just behave like yourself today, Charles, don’t try anything funny.”
“All right,” Charles hissed, arching his neck up towards Erik, and Erik seemed to know what he wanted, half-kissed, half-bit him on the white exposed flesh, and Erik whispered, “All right?” and Charles shivered and nodded and said, “All right, Erik,” and reached over to the bedside table and found the stuff Erik had used the last time.
He unscrewed the cap, coated one of his hands with it, and slid the hand between his own legs, glancing up at Erik, and Erik’s nostrils flared and Charles could feel his erection throb suddenly against him.
“You should see yourself, Charles,” Erik murmured. Charles flushed but met his gaze, and the look in Erik’s eyes was more than molten lust - Erik was actually entranced, as though he could not manage to tear his eyes away when Charles was like this, pliant and flushed between his thighs, blue eyes wide with desire, and Erik purred, “Look at yourself,” and Charles slipped into his mind and caught a glimpse of himself and gasped a little. There was a confidence that he had not been expecting - still shy, still reticent, but a bit cockier, as though he could tell how sexy he looked like this, and there was an almost feral glint in his eyes, wide and hungry with lust, his hand moving between his thighs with a tantalizing slowness, and he heard, “Charles, you have no idea what you’re doing to me,” and Erik said, “Charles, that’s enough,” and then Erik’s hands braced on his shoulders and Erik thrust into the spot between his thighs, and watching himself gasp and writhe like that when Erik’s cock slid against that sensitive zone was almost too much. He slipped free of Erik’s mind and thrust his body back against him, back arching, fingers clenching in the sheets.
“Fucking God,” Erik muttered, and he heard, “Charles you are possibly the sexiest thing on this planet.”
They were thrusting together now, his thighs clamping together around Erik’s cock, and the friction was overwhelming. Erik’s hands were locked tight on his hips, holding him steady, and it was too much - too good - and not quite enough, he couldn’t help thinking, but shoved the thought away because it did not do to think too much right now, and he whispered, “Please,” and Erik began thrusting harder, hips slamming into him, making the bed jounce beneath them and Charles cry out, and Erik muttered through clenched teeth, “That’s what you like, isn’t it, Charles? Tomorrow you’ll wear the marks of this on your perfect white thighs, you’ll feel where I’ve been when you walk, and you’ll feel where you wish I was” and Charles choked out, “Erik,” and came, feeling Erik’s own release welling up and Erik thrust into him once more and then their seed mingled in the ruined sheets.
Erik kissed him slowly and carefully and then got up, grinning down at him like a carver grins at a masterwork. “Remember, Charles. Try not to be so - difficult today.”
“I’ll try,” Charles said. With those eyes on him, possessive and still dark with lust, he was regretting it already.
--
They were eating dinner in some anonymous diner.
“I used to be taller,” Charles was saying. “Not objectively but relatively speaking, naturally.”
“Naturally.”
“One starts off tall, or middle of the pack at any rate, and then everyone else gets taller and one doesn’t.”
“Ah,” Erik said.
Charles frowned. He ate a last mouthful of potatoes and put the fork down. “Suppose that didn’t happen to you, did it?”
He could heard Erik thinking, “I wouldn’t change a thing” and some muddled Shakespeare about being just about the middle parts of fortune that swiftly turned into an obscene vision of exactly where Charles’ head wound up when he was on his knees.
“Erik,” Charles muttered.
“Stay out of my head,” Erik grinned back.
“The reference was apt at least,” Charles said, shooting him a look that was supposed to be reproving but couldn’t help being slightly mirthful. Where had all the indignation gone? Charles thought momentarily that perhaps that sector of his brain was now occupied with tidbits about Erik - the way he liked his eggs or the faintest hint of a strut that was always in his walk somewhere, or the precise dimensions of the bulge in his- But he wasn’t going to think about that now. That thought led places.
“And admit you set yourself up for it,” Erik said. “I’m amazed you don’t have rugburn.”
Charles swallowed. Feeling suddenly a little rash he said, “I might actually.”
Erik chuckled. But the look he turned on Charles was enough to make Charles blush helplessly and suddenly wish they were alone. He met Erik’s eyes and noticed that Erik’s mind was swiftly carding through locations for a quick indecorous - yes, those were his thoughts exactly.
“Men’s room,” Charles said, reaching over and letting his fingers linger just a little too long on Erik’s elbow.
Erik looked at him and Charles felt his ears burn. This was exactly what Charles Xavier had been afraid of, he knew. That once he let up control he wouldn’t be able to - he’d wind up in strange restrooms with strange Germans and the next morning he’d wake up sticky and sore in all the wrong places and --
“I mean, I have to go use the euphemism,” Charles said, trying to cover the blush that had risen to engulf his entire face, and Erik laughed.
“You’ve been good today, Charles,” he said, levelly. “Better than I’d any right to expect, if I’m to be honest. You don’t have to--”
“Stop talking,” Charles said, getting up and beginning to walk towards the restroom with a strange nervous fluttering in his chest, and he could feel Erik’s eyes following him as he walked. He shut the door and made his way into the stall and leaned against it for a moment, shutting his eyes. Then he could hear Erik’s footsteps outside.
Erik had known what he meant.
--
Afterwards, the taste of Erik still on his lips, his hair a little mussed from where Erik's fingers had clenched in it, shoulders sore from the bruising kiss afterwards when Erik had slammed him against the side of the stall, he followed Erik out of the diner and they wandered aimlessly, talking, until they found a waterfront park with a picnic table and shooed away two decrepit-looking seagulls and deployed the chessmen on it.
Charles won.
Erik watched him fold the board and put away the pieces and said, “Come sit over here, Charles, it’s scenic.”
Charles chuckled ruefully. He settled next to Erik on the other side of the table and gazed out over the water. The air felt different between them, somehow; it had all day, but more this evening, since their frenzied coupling in the men’s room, and the fact that it had already been twice in a day and Erik’s presence at his side still set something strange kindling in the pit of his stomach was one of those things that Charles was adamantly not going to think about, not today at any rate.
Erik’s fingers, under the picnic table, found Charles’, and Charles did not attempt to disentangle them. Momentarily he wondered what Charles Xavier would think but shoved the thought underwater long enough to make it stop thrashing. He felt curiously aloof from his body, as though the young man sitting at a picnic table looking over at Erik with a new little half-smile in his eyes were a stranger. Erik said something a little indecorous and Charles felt his blood sing in his ears, wondered, “How did this happen, how did I wind up here like this, how on earth am I going to fix this, will I be able to fix this?” and began stroking Erik’s knuckles with his thumb, flushing at the half-conscious look Erik turned on him.
“I read all of Shakespeare when I was twelve,” Charles was saying. “My stepfather had him in a big folio. They say everyone falls into two camps: Shakespeare or Einstein. I’m in the Einstein camp. Naturally.”
“What’s the matter with Shakespeare?” Erik asked. Some odd-shaped birds walked past, moving like houses on stilts. Erik’s thumb began to run over the ridge of Charles’ index finger.
Charles frowned. “Everyone seemed a bit - uncontrolled,” he said, trying to calm the sudden surge of his pulse. “I kept wanting to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to get a grip on themselves.”
Erik laughed. “How like you, Charles,” he murmured. The sun was down now, the night air still warm.
“Also being a telepath I suppose I lack sympathy for plots based on misunderstandings,” Charles admitted.
“So little suspense in your life, Charles,” Erik muttered. “Doesn’t it ever get boring?” His hand caught Charles’ and slid their intertwined fingers to rest on Charles’ knee. Suddenly the touch was all Charles could think about.
“No,” Charles said, thinking, Not since you at any rate.
“I was always partial to Richard III,” Erik said.
“So was I,” Charles said. “And the Tempest.”
“I would have pegged you for a Prospero,” Erik said. “Alone with your books on your personal island?” Charles thought, he has no right to sound that sexy when he’s not even trying to be. “Looking for the right spell to fix the world’s problems, Charles? And did you find it?”
Charles smiled. "Not yet, Erik."
Erik's knee slid over and touched his. "They played chess in that, if I'm remembering it right."
"Not Prospero," Charles said. "Ferdinand and Miranda, at the conclusion."
"Brave new world that hath such creatures in it," Erik said, not looking at him, as though the words were slightly the wrong size for his mouth.
"Exactly." Charles glanced over at him.
"Funny, if you think of it," Erik said. "To spend your whole life thinking no one else exists who's like you, and you meet someone who is, and somehow this gives you the urge to play chess."
"Wouldn't have pegged you for a Miranda, Erik," Charles said lightly, sliding closer on the bench, and Erik snorted.
The night wind stirred around them. Charles’ hair blew into his eyes and Erik reached over and pushed it out of his face, and he noticed how close together they were sitting, their legs pressed together on the bench as though for warmth, an electric current humming between them. He could feel Erik’s slightly startled delight at their proximity, and suddenly a little careless he leaned his head onto Erik’s shoulder and threaded an arm through Erik’s.
“Well, Charles,” Erik muttered, “to what do I owe this honor?”
“Not to Einstein,” Charles said, feeling queerer than he had in a long time. It was dark on the water and he almost couldn’t see Erik’s expression.
“Is anyone here,” Erik asked. His voice sounded a little rough.
“No one who’s looking,” Charles said, after a moment, furrowing his brow in concentration.
“Good,” Erik said. He leaned over and bridged the gap between their mouths. The kiss was different - all this was different, this day had been absolutely wrong and strange and Charles couldn’t quite chase away the word “date.” Erik’s kiss demanded nothing; Erik’s mouth claimed his carefully, almost delicately, like Erik was trying to memorize him. It felt - like finding something fascinating, like -- all the words that sprang to mind were the wrong words; this was a lapse, Erik was dangerous and a bad investment and he’d been craving Erik’s sinewy powerful body with a strange insistence that was, he reassured himself, merely carnal, a flaw in the works somewhere, but physical, and yes Erik’s mind was fascinating and the way he spoke and drove and played chess were endlessly mesmerizing but Erik was incapable of things like this, men were incapable of things like this, this was the sort of thing you could only get from certain more traditional avenues, it couldn’t go anywhere or turn into anything besides a few furtive and increasingly sticky fumblings in beds or bathrooms or - anywhere, Charles thought, anywhere, I’d do it anywhere if he looked at me that way.
He slid a hand up to rest on Erik's chest. Erik's eyes flickered open and met his.
Then he heard the thought, "What are you doing Erik? What are you trying to - he's a good boy but you could bend him over and take him right here if you wanted, stop kissing him like that, you don’t kiss people like that” and then Erik pulled away suddenly and neither of them looked at each other. Charles was glad; he knew his own expression was entirely transparent, eyes wide and helplessly open and that Erik could have seen the nervous flush on his cheeks and heard the way his breath was going.
“You see, I can be a nice boy, Charles,” Erik murmured, reaching over and stroking Charles’ chin with a finger, and there was something about the touch that reminded Charles of a cat trying to caress a mouse.
“I don’t like nice boys,” Charles said, clasping his hand over Erik’s hand and leaning over and kissing him roughly, plundering Erik’s mouth with his tongue, trying to make it rough and fast and desperate the way things usually went because whatever had just happened was unnerving, and if spending a day with Erik trying to ignore what Charles Xavier would do resulted in something like that-
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” Erik said, pulling back and looking at him. “I want you. Unspeakably, Charles.”
“All right,” Charles said.
Erik laughed. “All right?” he mimicked. “Well, this is progress.”
Charles flushed. “But - not that, Erik.”
Erik barely seemed disappointed. “Speakably, then.”
Then they were walking as fast as they could back to the hotel. Halfway there Erik’s hand reached over and found his fingers again. Charles, he thought to himself, this is the most reckless thing you’ve ever done in your life -- and it's not bridges or heights or water, it's him, kissing him on a bench in the dark even manages to be dangerous somehow-- But he caught Erik’s hand anyway.
Chapter 10