FIC: (X-Men First Class) and miles to go before I sleep (Erik & Charles)
TITLE: And miles to go before I sleep
AUTHOR: Dee
CHARACTERS: Erik and Charles
RATING: Adult (themes)
SUMMARY: The beginning of journeys and the deeper truths of getting to know you.
NOTES: Thanks to my writing circle, for not booting me out when I passed fic instead of proper writing, and texting me title suggestions, even if I didn't go with "Misterhood". *G*
DISCLAIMER: I neither own nor am affiliated with the X-Men franchise. I intend no disrespect or infringement.
=====
It wasn't worry; the thing that curdled Erik's stomach was more like dread, the bracing of grim certainty, a dark and familiar hiding place. Charles, though, leapt eagerly into McCoy's nest of aspirations and wires, and though his gasp almost made Erik flinch, what rang in it was nothing like pain or fear.
It was... exultation. Wonder. Giddiness.
Erik watched his transported face, and felt like a savage at the feet of angels. He had never felt that way with his powers. Never.
Afterwards, Raven was eager to hear every last detail of how it worked, barely caring about the word in three she understood, while Hank cared passionately about every single one. They were both easily mollified by Charles's blithe, "Quite fine, ta," and it was only Erik who noticed that his words were too bright and quick, his eyes wide and glassy, his fingers trembling on the railing as Erik followed him down the stairs.
He stopped still in the shadow of the transmitter, one hand over his face, the other lifted as though to fend Erik off, as though Erik hadn't stopped greater than arm's length away. "Just," Charles said, "hush."
Erik waited, made an effort to think about blue sky, sunshine on grass, the facts of the summer around them and nothing that he associated with it.
He was successful inasmuch as after a few minutes, Charles rubbed at his forehead with a rueful little smile before letting his hand drop, looking around and blinking in the sun. He was unsuccessful inasmuch as Charles then said, "Tennis can, actually, be enjoyable."
"I think we have slightly more important things to be doing," Erik noted blandly.
Charles used the machine again, in the course of what they were doing here, but it never took him quite like the first time.
*
Charles had no concept of personal space.
Not physically, and that was the dead giveaway. He was always the perfect distance from anyone else, ebbing and flowing, not encroaching and not distant, delivering the perfect subconscious level of ease. Its own sort of blatant proof that mentally he was incapable of keeping his arms inside the car.
Erik watched him speaking - to agents, to mutants, to the lunch lady in the canteen - and considered the strong possibility that Charles didn't even know he was doing it. It had taken Erik a long time to realise that the difference about himself was not just in what he could do, but in how the world showed itself to him. And no one, it was clear, had ever dug deep into Charles simply to see what was there.
When Charles caught up to him in the corridor, he came close enough for their sleeves to brush as he held up a single manila file. Hands in his pockets after Erik took it. Two steps to the door to Erik's room, where Charles leant against the frame, saying, "Our mysterious host thinks we should start with just one, see how we go."
Erik reached out, tripped the lock at the same time as he turned the door handle, and caught the curve of Charles's smile from the corner of his eye. "It's more impressive," he noted, mildly chiding, "if you don't know I'm doing it."
"Sorry," Charles said, smile broadening. "I never got to enjoy magicians as a child either. And Christmas was almost tedious." He followed Erik into the room - didn't loiter in the doorway like a prison guard.
Erik pulled out the desk chair, but mostly to get it out of the way so he could spread the file information out on the desk; whatever their CIA minder had said, there were locations for more than one possible mutant here. Charles also ignored the chair, leaning a hip casually against one corner of the desk. "Him first," Erik said, tapping a finger on one paper, and Charles tilted close to his shoulder to look over.
It didn't bother Erik at all, actually, the physical proximity. The terrible things had never happened at close quarters. It was just nothing to get used to. Nothing to take for granted.
"Have you considered," Erik asked, gathering the papers back into one pile again, neatening the corners, "what you're going to say?"
"Not a clue." When Erik glanced over, Charles was smiling blithely at his own feet, head bowed. A slight turn of his head, and he was looking at Erik. "Rather hoping you'd help with that part."
Erik closed the file, tilted it in Charles's direction. "I don't think you want my style of persuasion on this."
Charles kept his hands in his pockets, his gaze irritatingly immutable for such a bland blue. "You know how to find people. How to reach them," he said, very quietly. "And whatever I have secondhand, I haven't really been there. I won't fake it. Not to them."
Erik still didn't know how much help he'd be. How convincing could he be when he still couldn't quite understand what Charles was offering? When he was still sure this would end.
*
Charles drove like an organic experience, like an agglomeration of bad habits and lazy shortcuts, with a carelessness that had Erik's fingers curling around his knee, his foot pressing hard against the floor, clinging grimly to the conversation. "But the Test is sacrosanct."
"Limited-overs opens the entire game of cricket to a greater amateur participation," Charles argued, barely two fingers on the wheel, "and the batting line-up needs the sort of fire-- oh for heaven's sake."
Erik blinked, but there didn't (surprisingly) seem to be any impending accident to force the sudden, shrieking halt Charles had brought the car to on the shoulder of the road. Charles had his door open, circling around the front of the car, while Erik was still eyeing him quizzically.
"Shove over," Charles ordered, opening Erik's door. He added, when Erik still hesitated. "Drive. You want to."
Erik blinked, but slid across the front seat. "I just don't want to die improbably wedged in a tree." He adjusted the rear-vision mirror as Charles threw himself into the passenger seat with a slightly overdone huff. "Who taught you to drive anyway?"
Charles shrugged. "Stepfather. Mother. Picked it up, here and there." He lounged in the seat, getting comfortable, and grinned. "Do you even need the steering wheel?"
There was something niggling at Erik, though, and he stared at Charles, mulling it over, until an eyebrow lifted over those bright blue eyes. "You're so fucking helpful all the time," Erik stated, "because it irritates you when people are irritated."
Charles blinked, but his face didn't really twitch, and of course, you'd become an old hand never giving away a thing, when you might be in danger of responding to something no one had said aloud. A masterpiece of bland, Erik could appreciate that, it was just a little disappointing to have it turned upon him. He sighed, put the car into gear, checked the rear-vision mirror.
"You're right," Charles said, and Erik paused, hands on the wheel, to glance back over at him. That rueful smile again, Charles looking down to run his thumb along the crease in his trouser leg. "When someone's discontent, it's a itch at the surface of their minds, it's like..." His smile widened. "It's like having a prickle stuck in your sock. You can put up with it, but why would you, when it's easy to remove? It's so often just an easy fix, not so much to give at all, and happy people are like silk." He looked up, then, with a quirk to the corner of his mouth. "Well, most people. You're just prickly by nature."
A smile tugged at the corner of Erik's mouth. "And you're nosy."
"We all have our quirks," Charles noted blithely. A moment later, though, he added, "Does it bother you?"
Did it bother him. Charles had plunged into his head much as he had into the ocean, reaching after him blindly, dragging indiscriminately up from the deep. Like trying to lift a submarine, but that wasn't something Erik did every day. Even now, he could feel the shape of the car around them, the weaknesses in it, the stresses of the metal. Knew without even thinking about it where, if he pushed, it would break. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it does." Charles sounded affronted.
Erik found himself smiling at the road. "I meant, is there anything you could do if it did?"
After a moment, Charles admitted, "Not really. It's not conscious. I could try blocking it off, or you out, or--"
"No," Erik said. "I don't w-- You shouldn't have to chain yourself."
Charles shrugged, a movement in the corner of Erik's vision. "I could try," he repeated.
Erik shook his head.
*
They travelled hundreds of miles to pick up Alex Summers - their tame spook advocated a systematic sweep, but Charles was adamant that they were getting this one, that he needed them more than anyone closer - and then after they had him he refused entirely to fly back. When Erik saw what he could do, he understood not wanting to be contained with all those people, but at the time he'd glanced quizzically at Charles, for a single shake of his head, and they'd commandeered a car instead. Erik drove, except when Alex drove, Erik having no desire to die in a tree in his sleep, either.
They travelled hundreds of miles and found no one. Patterns built up, and Erik couldn't say he was surprised; he wasn't the only accomplished nomad with something driving him on. Running didn't leave the sorts of strong memories that stalking did, and even if it had, one ruthless manhunt in Erik's life was enough. Charles only came near asking once, his mouth open and then closed again with a shake of Erik's head. Some of their targets were simply and untraceably gone.
Nor was the surly Canadian the only disinterested response they received (though certainly the most succinct). They were turned down more often than they were taken up, through disbelief or fear or self-interest or other reasons that Erik couldn't divine and didn't care about. Charles remained affable, of course, entirely unquelled by each successive disavowal of his personal dream. Easy to see the other person's side, Erik supposed, when you could literally see it.
They described parabolas across America, composite journeys plotted like cobwebs. They travelled hundreds of miles.
"How many?" Erik asked, over breakfast in a roadside diner.
"All of them," Charles answered, as though the question had not suddenly intruded on a discussion of the best routes to reach the day's destination. He sipped at his coffee, with a faint wince that had Erik passing the sugar. "As many as we can."
"As many as we can before...?" Erik prompted.
Charles smiled. "Telepath, not seer."
*
"When did you first...?" Erik let the question trail off, finding no adequate verbs.
But Charles didn't need them, the last of the pawns waiting in his fist as he considered, gaze thoughtful and distant until it sharpened again. "When did you?" he returned, and set the pawn in its place. "Not consciously, I mean. Not actively. But the..." He waved a hand, easy and all-encompassing. "The background, the passive cataloguing, knowing what's there, in the vicinity, knowing its weight, its shape, its purpose."
In return, Erik had to offer the same consideration, though he flinched from the sharp edges of memory. Not really necessary; he knew the answer. "Always. I can't remember not having that." Knowing where his mother's purse was when he wanted her to buy sweets, knowing when his father was near by the nails in his boots, knowing it was time to wake up by the whisper of the skillet in the kitchen.
Charles smiled, but it was tired; they'd been travelling so much, recently, and that had nothing at all to do with it. "Exactly," he said.
Erik thought of a child picking the lies off his mother's tongue, all those careless, unthinking, self-serving, well-meaning lies.
*
Erik was on the footpath, after two steps of sinking into grass as lush as shagpile carpet, by the time he realised Charles hadn't moved at all. He was still standing behind the open passenger door of the car, his elbow propped on the door and his fingers to his temple as though he'd forgotten they were there in staring at the house. Erik turned again, looked up at it; perfectly ordinary, behind lush trees and riotous flowers and a conquering climbing rose. "Charles?"
"We can't go in," Charles said, as though the words were a kneejerk response to outside stimulus. He blinked hard, lowered his hand.
"What's in there?" Erik asked, coming back across the grass to stand on the opposite side of the car door. He glanced over his shoulder again at the house. It certainly didn't look dangerous, but Auschwitz-Birkenau had been beautiful in summertime. Charles had refused to drive anywhere with a gun in the vehicle, but the effect could be achieved with a handful of ball bearings, and that was before they even got to what Charles himself could do.
Charles's hand on his shoulder made Erik flinch in surprise, fingers tightening on him. "No, sorry, not like that." Charles gave an apologetic little smile. "She isn't dangerous. She... manipulates plants, that's what she can do. She gardens. She loves it. She loves her garden, and her child, and her husband, and her home." His eyes drifted, over Erik's shoulder, to the house again. "She's not afraid."
Erik kept watching him, the wondering spirit of discovery on his face. "She deserves to know."
"Does she?" Charles asked. "I've always wanted to know. Always wondered. Always. She's..." He met Erik's eyes suddenly. "Content."
A car turned into the road, curled around theirs into the drive of the house. It was clear who it must be even before Charles murmured, "The husband."
"Can I help you gentlemen?" he called, stepping out of the car. Hat in one hand, reaching back for a briefcase. The perfect vision of normality.
"Afraid we're lost," Erik said, and Charles made a little noise beside him. "Must have taken a wrong turning; which way is the Travelodge?"
"Left here." He pointed. "And right two blocks over, but if you'll pardon me, the Riverview, opposite it, is better and local."
"Thank you," Erik said, and walked back around the car.
Charles called, "Good evening," and the man waved his hat from between the verdant hedgerows.
"Let's see if this Riverview has a bar," Erik noted, starting the car, and Charles huffed a gulp of something that wasn't quite laughter.
*
"You knew what I was, and you still asked me to stay."
Charles's eyes were soft with fatigue and liquor, warm with bemusement, watching Erik upside down from where he was sprawled across the foot of his bed. "A mutant?"
"A murderer."
But Charles's gaze didn't even waver, so he must have been cheating again; a frown twitched at Erik's face, and Charles blinked. "Sorry." He dragged a hand over his face. Both easier and more difficult when drunk, he'd said that, earlier. Erik hadn't wanted him to try, he'd said that. "You didn't kill the banker."
It was ridiculous, sometimes, having someone who knew the contents of his head. Like talking about himself behind his own back. Like being naked and unremarked. "I thought I might need him again."
Charles smiled, warm and chiding, his head lolling back again. "No, you didn't."
No, Erik hadn't. "It doesn't--"
"Make you a good man?" Charles rolled to his side, up on one elbow, to look at him almost steadily. It seemed wrong, really, if eyes were the window to the soul, that Charles's should be so innocuous. "I have combed my fingers through minds like a child playing in sand, and I will tell you--Erik." (And Erik may, actually, have preferred it when Charles called him my friend, too blithe, too presumptuous, but not nearly as intimate.) "Erik, there are no good men. Everyone is selfish. Everyone is afraid."
There was a measure left in the bottle; Erik poured it into his own glass. "Everyone."
Charles flopped back, eyes closed. "Especially me."
*
He'd sat in an anonymous room of a breathlessly discreet hotel, with an inch and a half each of high quality whiskey and intelligence on Sebastian Shaw. Chances had been good there would be nothing in there he didn't already know. A lot of suspecteds, a number of things he'd done since Erik was snatched from his facility by liberating forces, but not a lot of solid, useful truth. Even a sliver might be enough.
He hadn't savoured the anticipation. He'd been thinking of something else.
Desperate men had been telling Erik shocking things since before the fall of the Reich. Strange that they'd all been trumped, effortlessly, by a sodden and soft young man.
Erik had been alone since the moment the light drained from his mother's eyes. Even stranger that a few moments could change that forever. But whatever he wanted, wherever he went, even if he never saw them - him - again, it would still be true. He was not alone.
He'd read the file, cover to cover, taking longer than the whiskey lasted, almost longer than the night lasted, but he washed his face as dawn slanted in through windows he hadn't drawn the curtains on. Shaved with steady hands and a familiar blade.
And then he went back.
*
They rattled back along Soviet roads, the inimitable Miss Frost staring down half a dozen soldiers at once.
"You really need to stop jumping in after me," Erik said, as light as a joke, but what he really meant was thank you.
Charles heard it anyway, of course, and Erik could hardly summon any disapproval when he had been counting on it, when Charles was smiling at him so blithely. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "It's working out so far."
AUTHOR: Dee
CHARACTERS: Erik and Charles
RATING: Adult (themes)
SUMMARY: The beginning of journeys and the deeper truths of getting to know you.
NOTES: Thanks to my writing circle, for not booting me out when I passed fic instead of proper writing, and texting me title suggestions, even if I didn't go with "Misterhood". *G*
DISCLAIMER: I neither own nor am affiliated with the X-Men franchise. I intend no disrespect or infringement.
=====
It wasn't worry; the thing that curdled Erik's stomach was more like dread, the bracing of grim certainty, a dark and familiar hiding place. Charles, though, leapt eagerly into McCoy's nest of aspirations and wires, and though his gasp almost made Erik flinch, what rang in it was nothing like pain or fear.
It was... exultation. Wonder. Giddiness.
Erik watched his transported face, and felt like a savage at the feet of angels. He had never felt that way with his powers. Never.
Afterwards, Raven was eager to hear every last detail of how it worked, barely caring about the word in three she understood, while Hank cared passionately about every single one. They were both easily mollified by Charles's blithe, "Quite fine, ta," and it was only Erik who noticed that his words were too bright and quick, his eyes wide and glassy, his fingers trembling on the railing as Erik followed him down the stairs.
He stopped still in the shadow of the transmitter, one hand over his face, the other lifted as though to fend Erik off, as though Erik hadn't stopped greater than arm's length away. "Just," Charles said, "hush."
Erik waited, made an effort to think about blue sky, sunshine on grass, the facts of the summer around them and nothing that he associated with it.
He was successful inasmuch as after a few minutes, Charles rubbed at his forehead with a rueful little smile before letting his hand drop, looking around and blinking in the sun. He was unsuccessful inasmuch as Charles then said, "Tennis can, actually, be enjoyable."
"I think we have slightly more important things to be doing," Erik noted blandly.
Charles used the machine again, in the course of what they were doing here, but it never took him quite like the first time.
*
Charles had no concept of personal space.
Not physically, and that was the dead giveaway. He was always the perfect distance from anyone else, ebbing and flowing, not encroaching and not distant, delivering the perfect subconscious level of ease. Its own sort of blatant proof that mentally he was incapable of keeping his arms inside the car.
Erik watched him speaking - to agents, to mutants, to the lunch lady in the canteen - and considered the strong possibility that Charles didn't even know he was doing it. It had taken Erik a long time to realise that the difference about himself was not just in what he could do, but in how the world showed itself to him. And no one, it was clear, had ever dug deep into Charles simply to see what was there.
When Charles caught up to him in the corridor, he came close enough for their sleeves to brush as he held up a single manila file. Hands in his pockets after Erik took it. Two steps to the door to Erik's room, where Charles leant against the frame, saying, "Our mysterious host thinks we should start with just one, see how we go."
Erik reached out, tripped the lock at the same time as he turned the door handle, and caught the curve of Charles's smile from the corner of his eye. "It's more impressive," he noted, mildly chiding, "if you don't know I'm doing it."
"Sorry," Charles said, smile broadening. "I never got to enjoy magicians as a child either. And Christmas was almost tedious." He followed Erik into the room - didn't loiter in the doorway like a prison guard.
Erik pulled out the desk chair, but mostly to get it out of the way so he could spread the file information out on the desk; whatever their CIA minder had said, there were locations for more than one possible mutant here. Charles also ignored the chair, leaning a hip casually against one corner of the desk. "Him first," Erik said, tapping a finger on one paper, and Charles tilted close to his shoulder to look over.
It didn't bother Erik at all, actually, the physical proximity. The terrible things had never happened at close quarters. It was just nothing to get used to. Nothing to take for granted.
"Have you considered," Erik asked, gathering the papers back into one pile again, neatening the corners, "what you're going to say?"
"Not a clue." When Erik glanced over, Charles was smiling blithely at his own feet, head bowed. A slight turn of his head, and he was looking at Erik. "Rather hoping you'd help with that part."
Erik closed the file, tilted it in Charles's direction. "I don't think you want my style of persuasion on this."
Charles kept his hands in his pockets, his gaze irritatingly immutable for such a bland blue. "You know how to find people. How to reach them," he said, very quietly. "And whatever I have secondhand, I haven't really been there. I won't fake it. Not to them."
Erik still didn't know how much help he'd be. How convincing could he be when he still couldn't quite understand what Charles was offering? When he was still sure this would end.
*
Charles drove like an organic experience, like an agglomeration of bad habits and lazy shortcuts, with a carelessness that had Erik's fingers curling around his knee, his foot pressing hard against the floor, clinging grimly to the conversation. "But the Test is sacrosanct."
"Limited-overs opens the entire game of cricket to a greater amateur participation," Charles argued, barely two fingers on the wheel, "and the batting line-up needs the sort of fire-- oh for heaven's sake."
Erik blinked, but there didn't (surprisingly) seem to be any impending accident to force the sudden, shrieking halt Charles had brought the car to on the shoulder of the road. Charles had his door open, circling around the front of the car, while Erik was still eyeing him quizzically.
"Shove over," Charles ordered, opening Erik's door. He added, when Erik still hesitated. "Drive. You want to."
Erik blinked, but slid across the front seat. "I just don't want to die improbably wedged in a tree." He adjusted the rear-vision mirror as Charles threw himself into the passenger seat with a slightly overdone huff. "Who taught you to drive anyway?"
Charles shrugged. "Stepfather. Mother. Picked it up, here and there." He lounged in the seat, getting comfortable, and grinned. "Do you even need the steering wheel?"
There was something niggling at Erik, though, and he stared at Charles, mulling it over, until an eyebrow lifted over those bright blue eyes. "You're so fucking helpful all the time," Erik stated, "because it irritates you when people are irritated."
Charles blinked, but his face didn't really twitch, and of course, you'd become an old hand never giving away a thing, when you might be in danger of responding to something no one had said aloud. A masterpiece of bland, Erik could appreciate that, it was just a little disappointing to have it turned upon him. He sighed, put the car into gear, checked the rear-vision mirror.
"You're right," Charles said, and Erik paused, hands on the wheel, to glance back over at him. That rueful smile again, Charles looking down to run his thumb along the crease in his trouser leg. "When someone's discontent, it's a itch at the surface of their minds, it's like..." His smile widened. "It's like having a prickle stuck in your sock. You can put up with it, but why would you, when it's easy to remove? It's so often just an easy fix, not so much to give at all, and happy people are like silk." He looked up, then, with a quirk to the corner of his mouth. "Well, most people. You're just prickly by nature."
A smile tugged at the corner of Erik's mouth. "And you're nosy."
"We all have our quirks," Charles noted blithely. A moment later, though, he added, "Does it bother you?"
Did it bother him. Charles had plunged into his head much as he had into the ocean, reaching after him blindly, dragging indiscriminately up from the deep. Like trying to lift a submarine, but that wasn't something Erik did every day. Even now, he could feel the shape of the car around them, the weaknesses in it, the stresses of the metal. Knew without even thinking about it where, if he pushed, it would break. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it does." Charles sounded affronted.
Erik found himself smiling at the road. "I meant, is there anything you could do if it did?"
After a moment, Charles admitted, "Not really. It's not conscious. I could try blocking it off, or you out, or--"
"No," Erik said. "I don't w-- You shouldn't have to chain yourself."
Charles shrugged, a movement in the corner of Erik's vision. "I could try," he repeated.
Erik shook his head.
*
They travelled hundreds of miles to pick up Alex Summers - their tame spook advocated a systematic sweep, but Charles was adamant that they were getting this one, that he needed them more than anyone closer - and then after they had him he refused entirely to fly back. When Erik saw what he could do, he understood not wanting to be contained with all those people, but at the time he'd glanced quizzically at Charles, for a single shake of his head, and they'd commandeered a car instead. Erik drove, except when Alex drove, Erik having no desire to die in a tree in his sleep, either.
They travelled hundreds of miles and found no one. Patterns built up, and Erik couldn't say he was surprised; he wasn't the only accomplished nomad with something driving him on. Running didn't leave the sorts of strong memories that stalking did, and even if it had, one ruthless manhunt in Erik's life was enough. Charles only came near asking once, his mouth open and then closed again with a shake of Erik's head. Some of their targets were simply and untraceably gone.
Nor was the surly Canadian the only disinterested response they received (though certainly the most succinct). They were turned down more often than they were taken up, through disbelief or fear or self-interest or other reasons that Erik couldn't divine and didn't care about. Charles remained affable, of course, entirely unquelled by each successive disavowal of his personal dream. Easy to see the other person's side, Erik supposed, when you could literally see it.
They described parabolas across America, composite journeys plotted like cobwebs. They travelled hundreds of miles.
"How many?" Erik asked, over breakfast in a roadside diner.
"All of them," Charles answered, as though the question had not suddenly intruded on a discussion of the best routes to reach the day's destination. He sipped at his coffee, with a faint wince that had Erik passing the sugar. "As many as we can."
"As many as we can before...?" Erik prompted.
Charles smiled. "Telepath, not seer."
*
"When did you first...?" Erik let the question trail off, finding no adequate verbs.
But Charles didn't need them, the last of the pawns waiting in his fist as he considered, gaze thoughtful and distant until it sharpened again. "When did you?" he returned, and set the pawn in its place. "Not consciously, I mean. Not actively. But the..." He waved a hand, easy and all-encompassing. "The background, the passive cataloguing, knowing what's there, in the vicinity, knowing its weight, its shape, its purpose."
In return, Erik had to offer the same consideration, though he flinched from the sharp edges of memory. Not really necessary; he knew the answer. "Always. I can't remember not having that." Knowing where his mother's purse was when he wanted her to buy sweets, knowing when his father was near by the nails in his boots, knowing it was time to wake up by the whisper of the skillet in the kitchen.
Charles smiled, but it was tired; they'd been travelling so much, recently, and that had nothing at all to do with it. "Exactly," he said.
Erik thought of a child picking the lies off his mother's tongue, all those careless, unthinking, self-serving, well-meaning lies.
*
Erik was on the footpath, after two steps of sinking into grass as lush as shagpile carpet, by the time he realised Charles hadn't moved at all. He was still standing behind the open passenger door of the car, his elbow propped on the door and his fingers to his temple as though he'd forgotten they were there in staring at the house. Erik turned again, looked up at it; perfectly ordinary, behind lush trees and riotous flowers and a conquering climbing rose. "Charles?"
"We can't go in," Charles said, as though the words were a kneejerk response to outside stimulus. He blinked hard, lowered his hand.
"What's in there?" Erik asked, coming back across the grass to stand on the opposite side of the car door. He glanced over his shoulder again at the house. It certainly didn't look dangerous, but Auschwitz-Birkenau had been beautiful in summertime. Charles had refused to drive anywhere with a gun in the vehicle, but the effect could be achieved with a handful of ball bearings, and that was before they even got to what Charles himself could do.
Charles's hand on his shoulder made Erik flinch in surprise, fingers tightening on him. "No, sorry, not like that." Charles gave an apologetic little smile. "She isn't dangerous. She... manipulates plants, that's what she can do. She gardens. She loves it. She loves her garden, and her child, and her husband, and her home." His eyes drifted, over Erik's shoulder, to the house again. "She's not afraid."
Erik kept watching him, the wondering spirit of discovery on his face. "She deserves to know."
"Does she?" Charles asked. "I've always wanted to know. Always wondered. Always. She's..." He met Erik's eyes suddenly. "Content."
A car turned into the road, curled around theirs into the drive of the house. It was clear who it must be even before Charles murmured, "The husband."
"Can I help you gentlemen?" he called, stepping out of the car. Hat in one hand, reaching back for a briefcase. The perfect vision of normality.
"Afraid we're lost," Erik said, and Charles made a little noise beside him. "Must have taken a wrong turning; which way is the Travelodge?"
"Left here." He pointed. "And right two blocks over, but if you'll pardon me, the Riverview, opposite it, is better and local."
"Thank you," Erik said, and walked back around the car.
Charles called, "Good evening," and the man waved his hat from between the verdant hedgerows.
"Let's see if this Riverview has a bar," Erik noted, starting the car, and Charles huffed a gulp of something that wasn't quite laughter.
*
"You knew what I was, and you still asked me to stay."
Charles's eyes were soft with fatigue and liquor, warm with bemusement, watching Erik upside down from where he was sprawled across the foot of his bed. "A mutant?"
"A murderer."
But Charles's gaze didn't even waver, so he must have been cheating again; a frown twitched at Erik's face, and Charles blinked. "Sorry." He dragged a hand over his face. Both easier and more difficult when drunk, he'd said that, earlier. Erik hadn't wanted him to try, he'd said that. "You didn't kill the banker."
It was ridiculous, sometimes, having someone who knew the contents of his head. Like talking about himself behind his own back. Like being naked and unremarked. "I thought I might need him again."
Charles smiled, warm and chiding, his head lolling back again. "No, you didn't."
No, Erik hadn't. "It doesn't--"
"Make you a good man?" Charles rolled to his side, up on one elbow, to look at him almost steadily. It seemed wrong, really, if eyes were the window to the soul, that Charles's should be so innocuous. "I have combed my fingers through minds like a child playing in sand, and I will tell you--Erik." (And Erik may, actually, have preferred it when Charles called him my friend, too blithe, too presumptuous, but not nearly as intimate.) "Erik, there are no good men. Everyone is selfish. Everyone is afraid."
There was a measure left in the bottle; Erik poured it into his own glass. "Everyone."
Charles flopped back, eyes closed. "Especially me."
*
He'd sat in an anonymous room of a breathlessly discreet hotel, with an inch and a half each of high quality whiskey and intelligence on Sebastian Shaw. Chances had been good there would be nothing in there he didn't already know. A lot of suspecteds, a number of things he'd done since Erik was snatched from his facility by liberating forces, but not a lot of solid, useful truth. Even a sliver might be enough.
He hadn't savoured the anticipation. He'd been thinking of something else.
Desperate men had been telling Erik shocking things since before the fall of the Reich. Strange that they'd all been trumped, effortlessly, by a sodden and soft young man.
Erik had been alone since the moment the light drained from his mother's eyes. Even stranger that a few moments could change that forever. But whatever he wanted, wherever he went, even if he never saw them - him - again, it would still be true. He was not alone.
He'd read the file, cover to cover, taking longer than the whiskey lasted, almost longer than the night lasted, but he washed his face as dawn slanted in through windows he hadn't drawn the curtains on. Shaved with steady hands and a familiar blade.
And then he went back.
*
They rattled back along Soviet roads, the inimitable Miss Frost staring down half a dozen soldiers at once.
"You really need to stop jumping in after me," Erik said, as light as a joke, but what he really meant was thank you.
Charles heard it anyway, of course, and Erik could hardly summon any disapproval when he had been counting on it, when Charles was smiling at him so blithely. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "It's working out so far."