fic: the center of gravity of our little sphere (3/7)
And chapter three!
Title: The Center Of Gravity Of Our Little Sphere (3/7) (chapter two here) (chapter 1 here)
Rating: R overall, and also for this chapter, for a bit of sex and Erik panicking
Warnings: slight D/s dynamics in later chapters, eventual minor (villain) character death
Word Count: 29,950 (total); 6,940 for chapter three
Disclaimers: boys’re not mine, only doing this for fun. Title and epigraph courtesy of H.G. Wells.
Notes/Summary: for telperion_15's prompt of Erik is employed as a not-so-jolly department store Santa, and Charles is one of his elves. Except somehow it turned into an enormous low-powered Victorian AU, full of hurt/comfort and love and plot and some, er, slight D/s dynamics, and also, um, Shaw-the-villain. Yep, that’s right. Also, some historical liberties for mutants existing and gay marriage reform in progress.
In this chapter: Erik finds Charles, and some confessions are offered and accepted, and there's all the hurt/comfort ever, and some very gentle first-time sex (well, oral sex; totally counts). Also, giant bathtubs.
December 14 & 15, 1897
Charles is gone. That fact doesn’t become apparent until the following morning. By then, it’s terrifying.
Erik spends the evening and part of the night alternately trying to get drunk, realizing he doesn’t actually keep enough alcohol in his office to get drunk, contemplating a venture out to buy more, and then being afraid that Charles will decide to come find him and turn up at the exact second Erik’s out of sight.
He stays in his office. Charles might look for him there; it’s the only address Charles will know, for him, since Erik’s never talked about where he lives.
Where he lives is a small but comfortable set of rooms in one of his own apartment buildings, not the newest but with one of the best views he’s ever arranged. Occasionally, over the past few days, he’s caught himself wondering whether Charles might appreciate those views as well.
Charles, he thinks, and opens the expensive whisky he keeps for the most affluent potential clients, and sits on his desk contemplating what a mess he’s just made of his life.
Charles has been hurt. Not physically, maybe, but assaulted all the same. And yes, maybe Charles does have some explaining to do, maybe they need to figure a few things out, that’s all true. But Charles has been hurt, was hurt, while he, Erik, stood there and accused blue eyes of lying to him about everything, all along.
He knows that’s not true. He knows the important parts, the cocoa and the chess matches and the quick sunbeam smile, are real. He’s always known.
Charles doesn’t appear at his office. Emma Frost does, and promptly rolls her eyes, says, “Call me when you’re sober,” and vanishes off to whatever ice cave she calls home. Erik hurls a handful of paperclips at the door. Mostly misses.
He had run after Charles, once he’d ceased to be frozen by sheer horror. Hadn’t done any good, though; Charles was either long out of the building or hiding his presence very effectively. And Charles’s business manager, all muscles and hair and glowering expressions, had threatened bodily harm if Erik refused to leave the premises.
He’d decided that he could probably take Logan in a fight, if events had gone, or might ever go, that direction. But Charles would likely mind. And Erik can’t do anything that might hurt Charles. More.
He’d tried Charles’s rented rooms, the ones he shares with his sister, at the university, earlier. No one’d been there, not since that morning, from the look of the place. Half-drunk and long-heatless tea, abandoned on a table. Scribbled notes for next term’s lectures. Books stacked untidily on a chair, all of them waiting, studying Erik expectantly: well, where is he? Why haven’t you brought him home?
“…I’m sorry,” Erik’d said, to the books, to the room, to Charles, and then had fled the weight of all those voiceless accusations.
He had run over to the laboratory, collared the first of Charles’s graduate students that he could find-Henry, the one with the glasses and overly large feet, who evidently hadn’t noticed the end of term around him-and stationed his baffled but obliging minion at Charles’s front door. If Charles comes home, the boy will send a message. And Erik will know.
At some point he falls asleep sitting on the floor in front of his desk, leaning against the wood. His dreams are frightening. Pieces of the past, of his parents, not enough food, not enough money, Schmidt-Shaw-not caring when they grew sick or weak. Himself trying desperately to build Shaw’s machinery in a day. Failing.
His mother’d told him that everything would be all right. She’d lied.
The dream, as dreams do, shifts and blurs and changes, in his head. And it’s not his mother he can’t save. It’s Charles, standing there while Shaw lifts a hand to touch him, to run fingers along his cheek, to do worse if Erik can’t complete the task at hand.
Charles shivers, in the dream, the same way he had behind his desk, and closes those eyes, blue like bruises, like guilt. As if he doesn’t expect Erik to save him. As if he thinks that Erik will fail, or worse, won’t care enough to try.
No! Erik shouts, in the dream, and wakes himself up, trembling, on the floor.
The metal-embossed inkstand explodes, on his desk.
And someone’s knocking on his door.
Charles, he thinks, wordlessly, please, and flings it open.
Not Charles. Charles’s sister. Who’s glaring daggers at him even as he steps aside to let her in.
“Where’s Charles?”
“…what?”
“He didn’t come home last night. I knew he was upset, Logan said so, and Logan’s not usually wrong, and I know how much Charles likes to talk, so I figured he’d come here and talk to you. Where is he?”
“Wait-he’s not-he talked to Logan? When?”
“Before he left? I don’t know.” She regards the flood of ink, slowly dripping to the carpet, with suspicion. “What did you say to him?”
“…Logan?”
“Charles, you moron. Not that Logan likes you much, either.”
“I…might’ve said…I thought he was-he never told me who he was. And then I saw him meeting with someone I-I called him a-he said he’s never wanted anything from his family. Why not?”
“Why not,” Raven repeats, shaking her head. “Why didn’t you ask him?”
Of course. That would’ve been the obvious question. He’d been too angry for that. Too betrayed. He tries to offer words. No details, but something, at least. Gets cut off before he can begin.
“You think you’re the only person who knows anything about pain.” Raven’s glaring at him, eyes all yellow and fierce as a giant hunting cat’s, and that’s not a metaphor. “You don’t know anything about him. You don’t know anything about us. You’ve never even wondered about his scars, have you. You bastard.”
“His-what?”
“Oh, come on, you’re fucking him. Don’t look so shocked, it’s not as if I’ve never heard the word. And you are, aren’t you? You can’t say you haven’t noticed, then.”
“But I-we’re not-I haven’t-” Why is he explaining himself? Why, for that matter, hasn’t he been sleeping with Charles? Put this way, it sounds ridiculous that he’s not, when he wants to, when he wants. When Charles has been holding his hand and smiling up at him and not pushing him, not ever, making Erik smile too and never requesting a thing in return.
Why does Charles have scars?
“You’re not?” Raven stares at him for a minute. “You’re serious. My god. I hope you know how little you deserve to have my brother in love with you, because he obviously does love you, and you obviously don’t give a damn.”
“I-he’s never said-”
And Raven stops, and exhales, slowly. “No. No, he wouldn’t. That would be what he’d do. Charles, you idiot.”
Charles, of course, isn’t there. No answer forthcoming. Only the dispassionate splash of the ink. Spilled. Unrecapturable.
“He…didn’t send you over here…”
And suddenly she’s angry again. “No wonder the two of you are perfect for each other, no wonder you’re fighting, neither one of you knows how to listen, when it’s important, and-if you’ve ever cared about him even a little bit, you’re going to listen to me now. Charles is missing. He never came home last night. He did not send a note, or a messenger, or turn up at half-past-three with two showgirls and a bottle of brandy, all right? He. Did. Not. Come. Home.”
And Erik can’t breathe.
The realization’s physical. A fist to the stomach. To the heart. He would collapse to the floor, folding up around this terrible hole in his chest, but he can’t move, because every piece of his body’s gone numb.
Charles. Charles alone in New York City, the heir to a glittering fortune in a place where nighttime murders don’t even make morning headlines, a telepath with recently-inflicted emotional wounds undermining all his walls, young and beautiful and audibly not American, out walking those dark and icy streets.
Oh, god. Charles.
The police are no help. They listen and nod gravely, and then make what-can-you-do? expressions over Raven’s head, smirking at Erik as if to say, we’re all men here, let’s just humor the hysterical lady. And then they politely suggest that Charles, given his relative youth, wealth, and past reputation, is simply out having a wonderfully good time.
Erik nearly puts his fist through the wall.
He also nearly strangles the fat man in the police chief’s uniform with the man’s own handcuffs, but considers the fact that Charles wouldn’t approve, and resists. He settles for fusing all the locks on the room’s private safe, instead. Petty vengeance, but it relieves some of his tension. For a second.
They leave the station. Raven looks white and grim. Erik can only imagine his own expression, as scattered passersby dodge out of his way.
Raven decides to go back home, to see if Charles has turned up, to wait. Erik hails them a cab, accompanies her, sees no sign of blue eyes in the night. It isn’t snowing, but there’s a heartless frost, hard and crystalline, biting through clothes and scarves and wool.
He waits, with Raven, for a while, and then he has to get up. Motion. Action. What he knows how to do.
It’s not dawn, not quite, but the greyness is growing lighter, coal giving way to pale ash. The charred remnants of fire, Erik thinks, the color that remains when there’s no flame left.
He walks, slowly, through the city streets. In the dim floating pre-morning gloom, the scene is otherworldly, that gap between the brilliant nighttime and the bustling day. The secret hours patrolled by cats and the dwellers in cracks.
The earliest ships’ve come in, down at the docks. Occasionally cries and calls ring out, briefly penetrating the hush. Milkmen make rounds. Bales of newsprint appear at street corners, awaiting paper-sellers. The world going on, as usual, ordinary, everyday.
He hadn’t been able to sit still any longer. Sitting still feels too much like acceptance. Like resignation. And Erik’s never been good at acceptance.
He can navigate the city without signs or roadmaps. Each building, every monument to human engineering and determination and capitalism and creativity and greed, sings to him. They all chime in a slightly different key.
His own buildings always hum the most clearly. Sympathetic vibrations, perhaps. Echoes between creator and art.
He’s near one of his own right now. He knows which one it is without looking. The Xavier Building. Charles’s building.
He can’t look at it, not now, so he spins away and turns down a side street, not really paying attention, only walking, hopelessly, and when he looks up and sees their coffeehouse opening its doors to pour out golden light, he wants to scream.
Standing there, after an uncounted while, he starts to notice something odd.
There’s a space, on the ground, outside the brightly-lit windows. A space where no one’s walking, despite the slowly-appearing early-morning holiday shoppers.
It’s a space about the size of a person, if that person were sitting down, curled up against the meager friendliness of the wall, and if that person weren’t very big to begin with, and trying very hard not to let anyone notice he’s taking up any room.
Erik takes two steps across the pavement, narrowly avoids tripping over an elderly woman and her poodle, avoids the matching scowls from both person and dog, and puts his hand out and touches the shoulder that he knows is there. “Charles?”
The world flickers, just for a second: Charles’s surprise, and the confirmation Erik’s looking for.
“Charles,” he says, “I know you’re there. Please-” and then finds himself trapped by too many words, everything he wants to say next, are you all right? and please let me see you and I’m so sorry, I need you, please come back and play chess with me and if you’ll let me, and please let me, I would like to ask you about your scars.
“How do you know-Ah. Raven.” Charles breathes out, resignedly, and the breath of air ripples outward and alters the world, Erik’s perceptions, emptiness filling with solid color. “She would tell you about that, now. At the worst possible time.”
“Have you been out here all night?” He kneels down, too, carefully, at Charles’s side. The sidewalk’s very cold, even through trouser legs. He doesn’t like to think about what that might mean. Charles hasn’t tried to stand up, or to move away, and that’s either a good sign or a bad one, and Erik doesn’t know.
“No. Only a few hours. How did you find me?”
“I...was just walking. Hoping. I saw this spot, and I-You told me once that you could hide in plain sight. If you wanted to.” He holds out a hand, palm up. For Charles to take, if he wants it. The air is very keen, brittle and sharp and clear as broken glass ornaments, against his skin.
“Apparently,” Charles says, looking at the offered hand, “I can’t hide from you,” and Erik can’t tell whether that’s disappointment or gratitude or neither, in that shielded tone.
Please, he thinks again, desperately, not certain what he’s asking for, or from whom, only knowing how very badly he needs Charles to reach out and take his hand.
Charles doesn’t look at him, but does lift his own ungloved fingers, slowly. Sets them in Erik’s. And Erik, who hasn’t wept in years, has to bite hard into his own lip to hold back the cascade.
“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you,” Charles murmurs, to their hands. “At first, I mean. I only…it never occurs to me, to introduce myself that way. Not really. And then you were so-I wanted to keep talking to you. To drink cocoa with you, and watch you smile. I could never find the right words. But I should’ve done.”
“Perhaps.” He squeezes the fingers, in his. Fights his own instincts, which are shouting at him to get them inside, away from hypothermia and frostbite and other dangers of the cold. If he pushes too hard, Charles might retreat again. “I like drinking cocoa with you, as well. And playing chess with you. And what you said, about smiling-You aren’t hiding from me. Right now. You did let me see you.”
“I owe you an explanation. Or an apology. Something…” Charles sighs. “I haven’t precisely apologized, yet, have I? I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you do, yes.” Truth; Charles deserves that. “But I owe that much to you, as well. So…if you feel like getting up…perhaps we can apologize to each other? Somewhere indoors?”
You don’t owe me anything, Charles says, wearily. I lied to you. “But you may be right about finding someplace indoors. I can’t actually feel my toes.”
“You did lie to me. Or at least you didn’t tell me everything. And I would like to know why. But it’s not your fault that I didn’t-that I said-what I said to you. I was wrong, too, and I am sorry.” I do know who you are. You order tea in coffeehouses and get excited about new scientific textbooks. And you look far too pleased with yourself when you beat me at chess and then I want to kiss you. Please look at me.
There’s a second of hesitance, during which Erik’s heart trembles on the verge of cracking, before Charles looks up. And the imminent heartbreak gets swamped by shock.
“What the hell happened?”
“It’s not important!”
“Yes it is!” The bruise is large, and colorful. It sits like a mute and ominous spider over one graceful cheekbone, stretching vicious legs out in shadowy glee. Charles, who-what-
I’m sorry-
What?! Out loud, desperately, he tries again. “Can I see? What happened?”
“I…yes, you can…if you want-”
“Of course I want!” He touches injured skin, as gently as he can. Tips Charles’s face toward the light. Forces back the unhelpful obscenities that jump to his lips. “Who-who did this to you?”
“It’s fine,” Charles says, softly.
“It isn’t!”
“It’s…” A small sigh. “You know I didn’t go home. I didn’t precisely sit here on the ground all night, either. I did walk around, for a while. And then I got cold. And then I went to a pub, because I thought I might like to be drunk, except I couldn’t really summon the enthusiasm, and then I told a very muscular ship’s captain that I didn’t mind him appreciating my backside-which he was, in his head, quite loudly-but that I wasn’t in the mood, at which point he proclaimed to the entire room that he was not any sort of fairy-boy, and then punched me in the face. I-”
“Charles-”
“It really is all right.” Charles looks away. “I knew he would, you see.”
Erik sits on his heels for a second, shocked to the core. Earthquakes. Tremors. The presaging of an apocalypse, as the world spins uncaringly on.
No. Not while he can still do something, anything, to hold back the cataclysm.
He’s not sure what to say, so he settles for actions. He’s always been better at those.
He picks up Charles’s cold hand again. Folds his own fingers around those shorter freckled ones, reassurance, perhaps, tangible sensation, physical and inarguably here. Then bends his head and touches his lips to fingertips, lightly, but with conviction: I want you. I will always want you. Here, in the dark light of your confessions, on the stained sidewalks in the crackling cold, or inside in the glow of lamplight and tea, or anywhere, wherever you want me to be.
And then he waits.
Erik, Charles says, into the quiet. When he looks, blue eyes are looking up, into his.
I think…I want you to be wherever I am.
Then I will be. Simple as a heartbeat. As their heartbeats, in time. “Can you stand up?”
So that we can go find that someplace indoors? With tea? “I think so, yes.” Charles starts to get up. Winces. Erik realizes abruptly that the dark pattern on the sleeve of that shirt, the one he’d taken for dirt or dampness, is neither of those.
Much redder. Horrifying.
“You’re bleeding! Come here, please-”
“It’s not…it isn’t as bad as it looks. I promise.” But Charles leans into his body despite the words. Erik clings to him with one arm, trying futilely to become some sort of shelter against the cold, and at the same time peels away soaked fabric, as gently as he can. Charles hisses in pain.
“Sorry-I’m sorry, Charles, I know it hurts-what’s this from?” It’s not as bad as he’d first thought, only a jagged cut across thin skin, nothing vital. But his heart doesn’t believe that, yet.
“It was only me being clumsy. After he-I tripped over a table. I think that’s from a whisky glass. I-”
“We need to clean this. And get you out of the cold. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Home. I mean my home. I mean-you’re looking at me like-do you need to sit down? Here-”
“No, I’m fine, I’m only-you want to take me home with you? To your home?” You’d…share that with me?
“Of course,” Erik tells him, I trust you, and then, while Charles is still patently processing the honesty in that statement, scoops him up off his feet, and proceeds, despite vociferous protests about heaviness and unnecessary coddling, to carry him the entire way.
Inside the fortress of the building, enclosed by worried walls and curious lampgleam, he deposits Charles on the bed. He’d thought about the low sofa, in the open sitting room, but the bedroom will have the best light, at this time of morning. And he needs to be able to see. To fix this. To make this right.
Charles hasn’t said anything for some time. This fact is frightening.
“Charles,” he says, voice a bit too loud, “are you awake?”
“Oh…yes, sorry. Only thinking. This is…you designed this place, didn’t you? For yourself?”
Erik glances around, involuntarily. Of course he had; but he’s a bit surprised that Charles can tell. Or maybe not. Maybe he isn’t surprised at all, that Charles knows him so profoundly.
The quiet walls, the practical furnishings, the open space, all concur. Even his small metal sculptures, the ones that have their own niches in various walls, purr encouragingly. They all like having Charles here.
“Yes. Can I see your-oh, no, you’re shivering, we should-” The other room has a bathtub. A generously-sized tub even for Erik, which means that Charles can probably swim in it like a lake, but right now that’s a good thing: Charles needs all the warmth in the world.
He can turn the water on with a thought, and does, and as steam begins wafting invitingly skyward, reaches out, and then stops himself, looking at that ruined shirt, not yet unfastening any protective buttons. Hears Charles say, in memory, he was thinking about tying me to my desk and repeatedly violating me, the entire time I was talking...
“It’s all right.” Charles reaches over, and takes his hand. He didn’t. It didn’t happen. Or it mostly didn’t happen. But you’re you. You’re not him.
A few of the metal sculptures shiver, on the walls. But he manages to nod, faced with all that steadiness, and then, cautiously, starts undoing buttons. Charles tries to help, one-handed.
“Stop that. You’re injured.”
“Not that badly.”
“Please stop.”
Miraculously, Charles does; only looks at him, quiet, for a rare moment, eyes the infinite dark color of the sky after sundown.
When Erik’s fingers gingerly slip beneath cloth and encounter skin, Charles breathes in. And then half-smiles, wondrous and fleeting as a shooting star. “I always imagined this moment as a bit more…well, more champagne and excitement and less freezing to death, honestly.” Thank you, Erik.
“You are not freezing to death.” Won’t happen. Not allowed to happen. “Can I…remove this? Are you…” Do you want me to touch you?
“The answer to that is most certainly yes.” And thank you again. For that. The certainty. .
Charles does flinch, though, not visibly, as Erik moves to peel fabric away. He stops again. Are you sure?
“I thought I just said so.” It’s only…Raven did tell you, did she not? About the…the scars. They’re not that bad, really, and I’m not-but I did think perhaps I should warn you-And then that mental flurry stops abruptly, as Erik decides that no words are going to be sufficient and simply goes back to doing what he’s been doing, which is undressing golden freckles and inadvertently holding his breath.
They aren’t technically that bad, no. Not life-threatening or large. Small circles that Erik’s brain can only categorize as like cigar burns-the alternative’s unthinkable-along elegant arms, over that chest. One tangled silvery line like spider’s-webs caught along an elbow; never visible, because Charles doesn’t walk around in short sleeves.
Those…what you’re thinking they resemble. They, ah…well. Are.
Erik says something very blasphemous, in German.
Yes, I’d probably have to agree. My stepfather was not a particularly kind man. “He did regret the elbow, though. He’d not meant to break bones. And, you know, he didn’t touch me for quite some time, after that; worth it, really. So it’s sort of a badge of survival.” Charles looks at him, shakes that head, puts a hand on Erik’s arm. It’s all right. I’m all right. Now. I promise you that.
And the emotion, accompanying the touch, is genuine, if tinged with watercolor waves of ruefulness: Charles does mean the words, when he says them. It’s not all right, of course-and clearly they need to have a talk about what that English phrase means-but Charles is, miraculously, truthfully, still here. Not unscathed, but accepting the damage. Moving beyond it.
It’s probably healthier than Erik’s reaction, which currently involves the desire for a time machine and several hours alone with some scrap metal and that dark-figured stepfather.
And then Charles shivers again, and Erik swears out loud and yanks off every other shred of his clothing and sweeps him back into apprehensive arms.
“I can walk, you know.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” He eases Charles down into the bathtub. The water flows up and laps at dark hair like a happy cat, and cradles all the freckles in heat and security.
Erik tries very hard not to think about those freckles, and the water touching them. That would mean he’s thinking about Charles being naked. And those are not thoughts he should be having, right now.
“Can I see your arm?”
“Oh…here, yes. Sorry. I’m enjoying your bathtub. I can’t even reach the other end, this is stupendous…”
“You said…champagne and excitement, earlier. When you imagined this moment. You imagined this moment?” If he talks, if he can keep Charles talking, then neither of them will have to think about the bloody cut that slices across the muscle. His hands move on autopilot. Bandages. Alcohol. Needle. Thread.
Also, though, underneath everything, that absurdly shining thread of glee wants to know: Charles thinks about him, has thought about them, here together.
“I did, yes. I do. Though I might’ve imagined in more detail if I’d known you had a private lake in here…”
“Charles,” Erik says, and Charles tips his head back and smiles, and the kiss warms all the abysses of the world.
After a while, he finishes the row of stitches, small and neat and precise, not too many after all, and sets everything down, thread and bandages and antiseptic, and then puts a hand on the side of the tub for no reason at all. Charles takes it. And they sit quietly, holding hands, in the ripples of water and steam.
Eventually Charles sighs and yawns and murmurs a half-formed thought about fingers and prunes, and Erik nods, grabs blankets, curses mentally because he hasn’t got enough blankets, and whisks Charles off to the bed. He doesn’t think to ask; Charles doesn’t protest. Only settles down amid squashable pillows, and stretches his arm, flexes muscles, testing. “Thank you. You’re quite good at that.”
“I…had to learn. Are you still cold?” He’ll find more blankets somewhere, if the answer’s yes. Might have to sacrifice a shirt or two. They won’t be upset.
“No. Erik…” You said-about Shaw-you said that he ruined your family. Your life. I would never have spoken to him if I’d known, believe me.
I do.
Do you want to tell me?
And Erik looks at him, really looks at him, perched there on Erik’s bed, bundled up and bruised and beautiful. Asking the question with compassion in those eyes.
Charles, he says, and thinks briefly about silvery lines over morning-washed skin. That’s a question, as well.
Charles smiles, just a little. I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.
Erik sits down beside him, slowly. Not out of hesitation. Only a kind of delicious disbelief, the unhurried sensation of time in a dream, unfolding petal by petal, drawn-out and almost unbelievably splendid.
He puts a hand out, and finds entrancing skin, water-warmed and welcoming his touch, as Charles magically wriggles around and makes space for both of them in the blanket-burrow. Explorations. Discoveries. Priceless treasure, beyond compare.
“Not a dream,” Charles says, out loud but very softly, not breaking the spell.
So he tells Charles everything.
Everything means-everything. His childhood. How proud his parents’d been of his unusual abilities, his intuitive understanding of engineering principles. The great Industrial Revolution, the factory, moving into their small town. The choice: work for Schmidt, or starve. No choice at all, not in the end.
His parents growing ill. Himself taking his father’s place, one morning, at the factory.
Charles makes a small sound, at that, as if he wants to say something, but when Erik glances over, he shakes his head. Puts his other hand atop Erik’s restless fingers, on his arm. And Erik, through no easily explicable cause, feels more calm.
He shows Charles the accident at the factory, himself intervening, abilities strained to the utmost. Stopping spinning wheels, saving the life of one of the foremen, a man who’d offered his own bread for Erik to take home, the day before. Shows Charles the look on Schmidt’s face, at the sight.
Charles squeezes his hand.
“I built everything for him,” Erik says. As quickly as I could, every day, until I couldn’t stand, until I couldn’t eat-it was never enough. And when my mother died, he told me that if I’d been a better son, done what he asked, she might’ve lived.
Charles breathes in, plainly shocked, but doesn’t interrupt, or let go. Lets him keep talking, now that’s he’s started, secrets pouring out into the world.
I left-I walked out, in the night, and kept going, until I got on a steamer bound for America. I thought I could-here, in New York, I could start over. And if I could make enough money, make the right contacts…I always thought I’d find Schmidt-Shaw-again, one day. And then he was there. In your office.
Erik, I’m so sorry.
It’s not your fault, Charles.
Still. I never would’ve even entertained his offer. And I might’ve done worse than throw him out of the office. And the image that accompanies that statement is of Charles smacking the man over the head with the nearest book and dropping him at Erik’s feet, gift-wrapped, and it’s amusing, but also tinged with regret: Charles means it all.
“You didn’t know,” Erik says, aloud, “because I didn’t tell you. You had no reason to know.” And you were-he hurt you, anyway, you weren’t-I should have told you. Warned you about him.
“You didn’t know I’d be meeting with him, either.” But Charles tightens his grip on Erik’s hand, remembering. Perhaps we’re just not very good at talking to each other.
“Perhaps we can…try again?” ARE you all right?
I’m…telepaths become used to hearing everyone’s thoughts, you see, very early on. Fantasies. Desires. Most people would never act on them. And he didn’t know I could hear. But it was…so very personal. And he took such pleasure in the imagining. So that was a bit…unnerving. “And, yes. Yes, I think we can.” Charles glances at their joined hands. Then up, meeting Erik’s eyes. “I’m all right.”
“Scars,” Erik says, softly. Old and new. You said you’d tell me yours.
“I did…” Charles takes a deep breath. Lets him see.
After a while, Erik has to pull his pet coins from his pocket and fling them into motion, in the air. If he doesn’t, if he doesn’t let them spin furiously in place, all the rage will erupt some other way, and Charles doesn’t need that.
No wonder Charles wants nothing to do with his family. Erik’s coins ring brightly with the need to do something, to exhume that now-deceased stepfather and kill him again, perhaps, for ever daring to lay a hand-and worse-on that glorious skin. To go back in time, impossibly, and hold younger Charles against the blood-black smear of pain that’s the memory of his real father’s death.
Self-inflicted. No note, no explanation, simple devastation, while his young son sat up in bed and screamed and felt it all. Blasphemous, Erik thinks, and he’s not religious, not any longer, but it’s the only word that fits. The only word for all the wounds, all the scars.
I left for Oxford as soon as I could, Charles tells him. The day I came of age and could walk away. I never thought I’d come back.
Why-why did you? Under the words, inside them, voiceless selfish gladness that Charles did, that they were allowed to meet, that they’ve known each other at all.
Yes, Charles says, I’m rather happy about that, as well. “To be perfectly truthful…and we are being truthful, now, aren’t we…my mother died. She left everything to me. It was…something of a surprise.”
I'm sorry, Erik says, because that's what people say, in those moments. Charles looks at him, and, after a second, smiles. It's all right. Anyway, that's why I'm here. Though...I'm here, specifically, at this moment, because of you.
...what?
Because you found me.
Because you let me find you. "I...am glad. That you are here." Inadequate. True.
"So am I." Erik...I am also half-naked, in your bed.
“Yes…so you are.” The opalescent winter light splashes through the windows, and pools around them, anticipating. Do you want-would you like to be…
More naked in your bed? I think I would enjoy that, yes. “As long as you’re naked, too.”
Erik loses every stitch of clothing as fast as humanly possible. Dives back onto the bed. Looks at Charles, and then stops. “Are you-I mean, if you’re not-”
If Charles is still wounded. If Charles is off-balance from the violations, the images, that must still be swirling in the back of his head. If Charles is afraid to be touched. If.
“I told you that I was all right. I meant it.” Would it help if I kissed you?
“If you-” Charles tastes like sunlight in winter and unexpected spice, hot cocoa spiked with exotic rum, complex and delicious. Erik breathes in, tries to run his tongue over every inch of welcoming skin, wants to drink it all in and let those sensations overwhelm his world.
Charles laughs, in their heads, not out of amusement, or only out of a kind of wondering amusement that’s entwined with limitless elation, celebratory as the holiday lights. And parts his lips a bit more. Trails fingertips over Erik’s arms. Along his back.
Sufficiently convinced? Or perhaps I ought to kiss you more?
Please never stop, Erik asks him, meaning the words, and Charles laughs again, and then gets that look in blue eyes, the one that Erik knows from all those chess matches, mischievous and delighted. He starts to inquire, and abruptly finds himself being pounced on, tossed down into the bed, and pinned between an excited mattress and a very enthusiastic body.
Bemused, he takes a second to process this turn of events. Charles takes advantage of that second to shift positions. And then puts those lips somewhere…else.
“Oh god-”
Charles doesn’t even pause to answer out loud. You did say you liked me kissing you.
“I-you-oh god do that again with your tongue-” And he starts losing English, after that, swearing in German, or just babbling incoherent phrases, which makes Charles grin and then do that specific thing a few more times. Erik’s hands are in his hair, holding him in place, they’ve ended up there at some point, and he would worry about being too rough but he gets the impression that Charles doesn’t mind, that he rather likes the weight, the possessiveness, the desire.
He thrusts upwards, inadvertently, and Charles moves with him in response, one hand sliding up to wrap around the base of his cock, and there’s pleasure everywhere, billowing around them, inside and out, himself and Charles and the physical and mental all colliding ecstatically, white-hot and electric as a supernova, and one or both of them thinks an exultant Yes!! and then he stops thinking, for a while.
Charles swallows, breathes, swallows again, and then kisses the tip of Erik’s cock, lightly, taking him back in, tasting him in the aftermath, not quite looking up.
Erik, lying there panting and wondering when the world’s going to stop sparkling, manages, Charles, come here, please…
Charles pulls that warm mouth away from Erik’s softening arousal, and slides up to lie next to him, in the bed, and curls naturally into the space that’s meant for him along Erik’s side, but still doesn’t meet Erik’s eyes.
Charles, Erik says again, and tangles a hand in his hair, and touches his face, the cheek that isn’t wounded and painful.
The ocean-water eyes do lift, at that. And maybe there’s a hint of melancholy in the mental touch of lips to his, but it’s a sweet kind of ache, the hush after the tempest, the quivering lull of the surfeit of sensation, exposed and raw and pure.
Erik kisses him as gently as possible, an unspoken question; Charles says I don’t know! and laughs, unevenly, in place of the tears.
Your hair tastes like coconut, Erik says, because it’s true. And this earns another laugh, brighter now, without any real embarrassment. The company imports quite a lot of luxury soap! And I happen to like luxury soap! And coconut!
I didn’t say I minded.
“No, you didn’t…” Charles smiles up at him. Erik feels, briefly, invincible. I believe I could also like your bed. It’s a friendly bed. Pleased to see me.
“I’m pleased to see you.” Can I…see more of you?
“I’m already naked, you realize.”
“Yes, but…” He runs a hand over Charles’s hip, following freckles. I prefer exploring by touch. Like this. Here. If you would like…
“I would definitely like.” Charles rolls over onto his back. Pulls Erik down on top of him. “Go on. Explore. Explore me.”
Which is an irresistible invitation. So Erik does.
He’s never had that much experience in this area, and he’s not quite sure of the mechanics involved in what Charles has just done for him, but Charles makes very encouraging little noises when Erik kisses his stomach, when long fingers stroke curiously across that hardness, silk and iron, swelling further when he wraps his hand around the shaft.
Charles groans, softly, at that last one. “Good?” Erik inquires, as if he can’t tell, and Charles says “Jesus Christ Erik please” and Erik raises both eyebrows at him. “Such language, from you. Not exactly fit for polite company.”
“Fuck polite company,” Charles says, “will you please move your hand like that again now?”
Erik has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Assumes an appropriately stern expression. “Don’t be impatient. I get to explore you, remember? My turn.”
To which Charles mutters something very succinct and quite profane, but which isn’t exactly a protest, and Erik considers for only a second and then says, “Behave.”
And Charles goes very wide-eyed and quiet, gazing up at him, and the ripples of desire say everything, bursting through their veins.
“Oh,” Erik says, “yes, then, all right,” because even if he’s never really done this before that somehow doesn’t matter, because Charles is looking at him with that expression, astonishment and want and absolute trust, because he can do this, because yes.
There’s wetness at his fingertips. Leaking from Charles’s cock, so hard and beautifully needy, stirring at his touch. He uses it. Strokes, up and down. Finds a rhythm.
Charles gasps, in their heads and out loud. Starts talking again, voicelessly, words and phrases falling over each other: Erik yes please need yes more please-
Are you asking me?
Yes-
Ask me again.
Oh, fuck, Charles says, plus a few more colorful words, but when the shock of denial flashes through them both it’s a delicious impact. Dizzying. Erik, please, please, I need to, I need you, please do that again right there your hand right THERE-please tell me I can, I have to-
You can. For me.
And Charles gasps again, and every muscle goes rigid, orgasm spilling out over Erik’s hand, that pale stomach, the faded scars. In their heads, euphoria like honeyed wine and the brilliance of fireworks. Delirious bliss.
The sensation doesn’t vanish, in the aftermath. It transmutes, instead, into a quieter glow, banked embers and contentment at dusk. Peace.
Charles doesn’t say anything for a while, only lying folded into the circle of Erik’s arms. Their heartbeats keep time, in the background.
Would you, Erik says, into the tumble of coconut hair on his shoulder, like to stay here? Tonight?
This earns a smile, against his skin. It’s technically morning, now…but yes. I would.
Good.
Yes.
“Charles…” That was…good…for you, wasn’t it? He knows the answer, or he thinks he does. He still needs to hear the words.
“That was incredible, for me.” What about you? I know you’ve not-I mean, not very much-I mean-sorry!
“You apologize too much,” Erik says, and kisses the top of his head. “Don’t.” Incredible for me, as well. A bit unexpected, perhaps. But…in a good way.
I’ve never actually done that before, Charles admits, after a comfortable interlude. I mean the last part. The part when you-me asking you for-honestly incredible, you know. I told you once that you were brilliant. You are.
We are. Together.
Yes. Drowsy agreement. Affirmation. Sunrise.
There’s still a bruise on Charles’s face, a bandage on that arm, and when he sighs and settles more securely into Erik’s hold, Erik feels his heart break, just a little, not enough to contain all the emotions he’s feeling in this second, the worry and protectiveness and wonder and exhaustion and joy.
At the edge of sleep, Charles murmurs yes, one more time. To everything.
And they fall asleep that way, tangled up together in Erik’s friendly bed, as the morning sun comes up to pour golden light over the world.
Title: The Center Of Gravity Of Our Little Sphere (3/7) (chapter two here) (chapter 1 here)
Rating: R overall, and also for this chapter, for a bit of sex and Erik panicking
Warnings: slight D/s dynamics in later chapters, eventual minor (villain) character death
Word Count: 29,950 (total); 6,940 for chapter three
Disclaimers: boys’re not mine, only doing this for fun. Title and epigraph courtesy of H.G. Wells.
Notes/Summary: for telperion_15's prompt of Erik is employed as a not-so-jolly department store Santa, and Charles is one of his elves. Except somehow it turned into an enormous low-powered Victorian AU, full of hurt/comfort and love and plot and some, er, slight D/s dynamics, and also, um, Shaw-the-villain. Yep, that’s right. Also, some historical liberties for mutants existing and gay marriage reform in progress.
In this chapter: Erik finds Charles, and some confessions are offered and accepted, and there's all the hurt/comfort ever, and some very gentle first-time sex (well, oral sex; totally counts). Also, giant bathtubs.
December 14 & 15, 1897
Charles is gone. That fact doesn’t become apparent until the following morning. By then, it’s terrifying.
Erik spends the evening and part of the night alternately trying to get drunk, realizing he doesn’t actually keep enough alcohol in his office to get drunk, contemplating a venture out to buy more, and then being afraid that Charles will decide to come find him and turn up at the exact second Erik’s out of sight.
He stays in his office. Charles might look for him there; it’s the only address Charles will know, for him, since Erik’s never talked about where he lives.
Where he lives is a small but comfortable set of rooms in one of his own apartment buildings, not the newest but with one of the best views he’s ever arranged. Occasionally, over the past few days, he’s caught himself wondering whether Charles might appreciate those views as well.
Charles, he thinks, and opens the expensive whisky he keeps for the most affluent potential clients, and sits on his desk contemplating what a mess he’s just made of his life.
Charles has been hurt. Not physically, maybe, but assaulted all the same. And yes, maybe Charles does have some explaining to do, maybe they need to figure a few things out, that’s all true. But Charles has been hurt, was hurt, while he, Erik, stood there and accused blue eyes of lying to him about everything, all along.
He knows that’s not true. He knows the important parts, the cocoa and the chess matches and the quick sunbeam smile, are real. He’s always known.
Charles doesn’t appear at his office. Emma Frost does, and promptly rolls her eyes, says, “Call me when you’re sober,” and vanishes off to whatever ice cave she calls home. Erik hurls a handful of paperclips at the door. Mostly misses.
He had run after Charles, once he’d ceased to be frozen by sheer horror. Hadn’t done any good, though; Charles was either long out of the building or hiding his presence very effectively. And Charles’s business manager, all muscles and hair and glowering expressions, had threatened bodily harm if Erik refused to leave the premises.
He’d decided that he could probably take Logan in a fight, if events had gone, or might ever go, that direction. But Charles would likely mind. And Erik can’t do anything that might hurt Charles. More.
He’d tried Charles’s rented rooms, the ones he shares with his sister, at the university, earlier. No one’d been there, not since that morning, from the look of the place. Half-drunk and long-heatless tea, abandoned on a table. Scribbled notes for next term’s lectures. Books stacked untidily on a chair, all of them waiting, studying Erik expectantly: well, where is he? Why haven’t you brought him home?
“…I’m sorry,” Erik’d said, to the books, to the room, to Charles, and then had fled the weight of all those voiceless accusations.
He had run over to the laboratory, collared the first of Charles’s graduate students that he could find-Henry, the one with the glasses and overly large feet, who evidently hadn’t noticed the end of term around him-and stationed his baffled but obliging minion at Charles’s front door. If Charles comes home, the boy will send a message. And Erik will know.
At some point he falls asleep sitting on the floor in front of his desk, leaning against the wood. His dreams are frightening. Pieces of the past, of his parents, not enough food, not enough money, Schmidt-Shaw-not caring when they grew sick or weak. Himself trying desperately to build Shaw’s machinery in a day. Failing.
His mother’d told him that everything would be all right. She’d lied.
The dream, as dreams do, shifts and blurs and changes, in his head. And it’s not his mother he can’t save. It’s Charles, standing there while Shaw lifts a hand to touch him, to run fingers along his cheek, to do worse if Erik can’t complete the task at hand.
Charles shivers, in the dream, the same way he had behind his desk, and closes those eyes, blue like bruises, like guilt. As if he doesn’t expect Erik to save him. As if he thinks that Erik will fail, or worse, won’t care enough to try.
No! Erik shouts, in the dream, and wakes himself up, trembling, on the floor.
The metal-embossed inkstand explodes, on his desk.
And someone’s knocking on his door.
Charles, he thinks, wordlessly, please, and flings it open.
Not Charles. Charles’s sister. Who’s glaring daggers at him even as he steps aside to let her in.
“Where’s Charles?”
“…what?”
“He didn’t come home last night. I knew he was upset, Logan said so, and Logan’s not usually wrong, and I know how much Charles likes to talk, so I figured he’d come here and talk to you. Where is he?”
“Wait-he’s not-he talked to Logan? When?”
“Before he left? I don’t know.” She regards the flood of ink, slowly dripping to the carpet, with suspicion. “What did you say to him?”
“…Logan?”
“Charles, you moron. Not that Logan likes you much, either.”
“I…might’ve said…I thought he was-he never told me who he was. And then I saw him meeting with someone I-I called him a-he said he’s never wanted anything from his family. Why not?”
“Why not,” Raven repeats, shaking her head. “Why didn’t you ask him?”
Of course. That would’ve been the obvious question. He’d been too angry for that. Too betrayed. He tries to offer words. No details, but something, at least. Gets cut off before he can begin.
“You think you’re the only person who knows anything about pain.” Raven’s glaring at him, eyes all yellow and fierce as a giant hunting cat’s, and that’s not a metaphor. “You don’t know anything about him. You don’t know anything about us. You’ve never even wondered about his scars, have you. You bastard.”
“His-what?”
“Oh, come on, you’re fucking him. Don’t look so shocked, it’s not as if I’ve never heard the word. And you are, aren’t you? You can’t say you haven’t noticed, then.”
“But I-we’re not-I haven’t-” Why is he explaining himself? Why, for that matter, hasn’t he been sleeping with Charles? Put this way, it sounds ridiculous that he’s not, when he wants to, when he wants. When Charles has been holding his hand and smiling up at him and not pushing him, not ever, making Erik smile too and never requesting a thing in return.
Why does Charles have scars?
“You’re not?” Raven stares at him for a minute. “You’re serious. My god. I hope you know how little you deserve to have my brother in love with you, because he obviously does love you, and you obviously don’t give a damn.”
“I-he’s never said-”
And Raven stops, and exhales, slowly. “No. No, he wouldn’t. That would be what he’d do. Charles, you idiot.”
Charles, of course, isn’t there. No answer forthcoming. Only the dispassionate splash of the ink. Spilled. Unrecapturable.
“He…didn’t send you over here…”
And suddenly she’s angry again. “No wonder the two of you are perfect for each other, no wonder you’re fighting, neither one of you knows how to listen, when it’s important, and-if you’ve ever cared about him even a little bit, you’re going to listen to me now. Charles is missing. He never came home last night. He did not send a note, or a messenger, or turn up at half-past-three with two showgirls and a bottle of brandy, all right? He. Did. Not. Come. Home.”
And Erik can’t breathe.
The realization’s physical. A fist to the stomach. To the heart. He would collapse to the floor, folding up around this terrible hole in his chest, but he can’t move, because every piece of his body’s gone numb.
Charles. Charles alone in New York City, the heir to a glittering fortune in a place where nighttime murders don’t even make morning headlines, a telepath with recently-inflicted emotional wounds undermining all his walls, young and beautiful and audibly not American, out walking those dark and icy streets.
Oh, god. Charles.
The police are no help. They listen and nod gravely, and then make what-can-you-do? expressions over Raven’s head, smirking at Erik as if to say, we’re all men here, let’s just humor the hysterical lady. And then they politely suggest that Charles, given his relative youth, wealth, and past reputation, is simply out having a wonderfully good time.
Erik nearly puts his fist through the wall.
He also nearly strangles the fat man in the police chief’s uniform with the man’s own handcuffs, but considers the fact that Charles wouldn’t approve, and resists. He settles for fusing all the locks on the room’s private safe, instead. Petty vengeance, but it relieves some of his tension. For a second.
They leave the station. Raven looks white and grim. Erik can only imagine his own expression, as scattered passersby dodge out of his way.
Raven decides to go back home, to see if Charles has turned up, to wait. Erik hails them a cab, accompanies her, sees no sign of blue eyes in the night. It isn’t snowing, but there’s a heartless frost, hard and crystalline, biting through clothes and scarves and wool.
He waits, with Raven, for a while, and then he has to get up. Motion. Action. What he knows how to do.
It’s not dawn, not quite, but the greyness is growing lighter, coal giving way to pale ash. The charred remnants of fire, Erik thinks, the color that remains when there’s no flame left.
He walks, slowly, through the city streets. In the dim floating pre-morning gloom, the scene is otherworldly, that gap between the brilliant nighttime and the bustling day. The secret hours patrolled by cats and the dwellers in cracks.
The earliest ships’ve come in, down at the docks. Occasionally cries and calls ring out, briefly penetrating the hush. Milkmen make rounds. Bales of newsprint appear at street corners, awaiting paper-sellers. The world going on, as usual, ordinary, everyday.
He hadn’t been able to sit still any longer. Sitting still feels too much like acceptance. Like resignation. And Erik’s never been good at acceptance.
He can navigate the city without signs or roadmaps. Each building, every monument to human engineering and determination and capitalism and creativity and greed, sings to him. They all chime in a slightly different key.
His own buildings always hum the most clearly. Sympathetic vibrations, perhaps. Echoes between creator and art.
He’s near one of his own right now. He knows which one it is without looking. The Xavier Building. Charles’s building.
He can’t look at it, not now, so he spins away and turns down a side street, not really paying attention, only walking, hopelessly, and when he looks up and sees their coffeehouse opening its doors to pour out golden light, he wants to scream.
Standing there, after an uncounted while, he starts to notice something odd.
There’s a space, on the ground, outside the brightly-lit windows. A space where no one’s walking, despite the slowly-appearing early-morning holiday shoppers.
It’s a space about the size of a person, if that person were sitting down, curled up against the meager friendliness of the wall, and if that person weren’t very big to begin with, and trying very hard not to let anyone notice he’s taking up any room.
Erik takes two steps across the pavement, narrowly avoids tripping over an elderly woman and her poodle, avoids the matching scowls from both person and dog, and puts his hand out and touches the shoulder that he knows is there. “Charles?”
The world flickers, just for a second: Charles’s surprise, and the confirmation Erik’s looking for.
“Charles,” he says, “I know you’re there. Please-” and then finds himself trapped by too many words, everything he wants to say next, are you all right? and please let me see you and I’m so sorry, I need you, please come back and play chess with me and if you’ll let me, and please let me, I would like to ask you about your scars.
“How do you know-Ah. Raven.” Charles breathes out, resignedly, and the breath of air ripples outward and alters the world, Erik’s perceptions, emptiness filling with solid color. “She would tell you about that, now. At the worst possible time.”
“Have you been out here all night?” He kneels down, too, carefully, at Charles’s side. The sidewalk’s very cold, even through trouser legs. He doesn’t like to think about what that might mean. Charles hasn’t tried to stand up, or to move away, and that’s either a good sign or a bad one, and Erik doesn’t know.
“No. Only a few hours. How did you find me?”
“I...was just walking. Hoping. I saw this spot, and I-You told me once that you could hide in plain sight. If you wanted to.” He holds out a hand, palm up. For Charles to take, if he wants it. The air is very keen, brittle and sharp and clear as broken glass ornaments, against his skin.
“Apparently,” Charles says, looking at the offered hand, “I can’t hide from you,” and Erik can’t tell whether that’s disappointment or gratitude or neither, in that shielded tone.
Please, he thinks again, desperately, not certain what he’s asking for, or from whom, only knowing how very badly he needs Charles to reach out and take his hand.
Charles doesn’t look at him, but does lift his own ungloved fingers, slowly. Sets them in Erik’s. And Erik, who hasn’t wept in years, has to bite hard into his own lip to hold back the cascade.
“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you,” Charles murmurs, to their hands. “At first, I mean. I only…it never occurs to me, to introduce myself that way. Not really. And then you were so-I wanted to keep talking to you. To drink cocoa with you, and watch you smile. I could never find the right words. But I should’ve done.”
“Perhaps.” He squeezes the fingers, in his. Fights his own instincts, which are shouting at him to get them inside, away from hypothermia and frostbite and other dangers of the cold. If he pushes too hard, Charles might retreat again. “I like drinking cocoa with you, as well. And playing chess with you. And what you said, about smiling-You aren’t hiding from me. Right now. You did let me see you.”
“I owe you an explanation. Or an apology. Something…” Charles sighs. “I haven’t precisely apologized, yet, have I? I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you do, yes.” Truth; Charles deserves that. “But I owe that much to you, as well. So…if you feel like getting up…perhaps we can apologize to each other? Somewhere indoors?”
You don’t owe me anything, Charles says, wearily. I lied to you. “But you may be right about finding someplace indoors. I can’t actually feel my toes.”
“You did lie to me. Or at least you didn’t tell me everything. And I would like to know why. But it’s not your fault that I didn’t-that I said-what I said to you. I was wrong, too, and I am sorry.” I do know who you are. You order tea in coffeehouses and get excited about new scientific textbooks. And you look far too pleased with yourself when you beat me at chess and then I want to kiss you. Please look at me.
There’s a second of hesitance, during which Erik’s heart trembles on the verge of cracking, before Charles looks up. And the imminent heartbreak gets swamped by shock.
“What the hell happened?”
“It’s not important!”
“Yes it is!” The bruise is large, and colorful. It sits like a mute and ominous spider over one graceful cheekbone, stretching vicious legs out in shadowy glee. Charles, who-what-
I’m sorry-
What?! Out loud, desperately, he tries again. “Can I see? What happened?”
“I…yes, you can…if you want-”
“Of course I want!” He touches injured skin, as gently as he can. Tips Charles’s face toward the light. Forces back the unhelpful obscenities that jump to his lips. “Who-who did this to you?”
“It’s fine,” Charles says, softly.
“It isn’t!”
“It’s…” A small sigh. “You know I didn’t go home. I didn’t precisely sit here on the ground all night, either. I did walk around, for a while. And then I got cold. And then I went to a pub, because I thought I might like to be drunk, except I couldn’t really summon the enthusiasm, and then I told a very muscular ship’s captain that I didn’t mind him appreciating my backside-which he was, in his head, quite loudly-but that I wasn’t in the mood, at which point he proclaimed to the entire room that he was not any sort of fairy-boy, and then punched me in the face. I-”
“Charles-”
“It really is all right.” Charles looks away. “I knew he would, you see.”
Erik sits on his heels for a second, shocked to the core. Earthquakes. Tremors. The presaging of an apocalypse, as the world spins uncaringly on.
No. Not while he can still do something, anything, to hold back the cataclysm.
He’s not sure what to say, so he settles for actions. He’s always been better at those.
He picks up Charles’s cold hand again. Folds his own fingers around those shorter freckled ones, reassurance, perhaps, tangible sensation, physical and inarguably here. Then bends his head and touches his lips to fingertips, lightly, but with conviction: I want you. I will always want you. Here, in the dark light of your confessions, on the stained sidewalks in the crackling cold, or inside in the glow of lamplight and tea, or anywhere, wherever you want me to be.
And then he waits.
Erik, Charles says, into the quiet. When he looks, blue eyes are looking up, into his.
I think…I want you to be wherever I am.
Then I will be. Simple as a heartbeat. As their heartbeats, in time. “Can you stand up?”
So that we can go find that someplace indoors? With tea? “I think so, yes.” Charles starts to get up. Winces. Erik realizes abruptly that the dark pattern on the sleeve of that shirt, the one he’d taken for dirt or dampness, is neither of those.
Much redder. Horrifying.
“You’re bleeding! Come here, please-”
“It’s not…it isn’t as bad as it looks. I promise.” But Charles leans into his body despite the words. Erik clings to him with one arm, trying futilely to become some sort of shelter against the cold, and at the same time peels away soaked fabric, as gently as he can. Charles hisses in pain.
“Sorry-I’m sorry, Charles, I know it hurts-what’s this from?” It’s not as bad as he’d first thought, only a jagged cut across thin skin, nothing vital. But his heart doesn’t believe that, yet.
“It was only me being clumsy. After he-I tripped over a table. I think that’s from a whisky glass. I-”
“We need to clean this. And get you out of the cold. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Home. I mean my home. I mean-you’re looking at me like-do you need to sit down? Here-”
“No, I’m fine, I’m only-you want to take me home with you? To your home?” You’d…share that with me?
“Of course,” Erik tells him, I trust you, and then, while Charles is still patently processing the honesty in that statement, scoops him up off his feet, and proceeds, despite vociferous protests about heaviness and unnecessary coddling, to carry him the entire way.
Inside the fortress of the building, enclosed by worried walls and curious lampgleam, he deposits Charles on the bed. He’d thought about the low sofa, in the open sitting room, but the bedroom will have the best light, at this time of morning. And he needs to be able to see. To fix this. To make this right.
Charles hasn’t said anything for some time. This fact is frightening.
“Charles,” he says, voice a bit too loud, “are you awake?”
“Oh…yes, sorry. Only thinking. This is…you designed this place, didn’t you? For yourself?”
Erik glances around, involuntarily. Of course he had; but he’s a bit surprised that Charles can tell. Or maybe not. Maybe he isn’t surprised at all, that Charles knows him so profoundly.
The quiet walls, the practical furnishings, the open space, all concur. Even his small metal sculptures, the ones that have their own niches in various walls, purr encouragingly. They all like having Charles here.
“Yes. Can I see your-oh, no, you’re shivering, we should-” The other room has a bathtub. A generously-sized tub even for Erik, which means that Charles can probably swim in it like a lake, but right now that’s a good thing: Charles needs all the warmth in the world.
He can turn the water on with a thought, and does, and as steam begins wafting invitingly skyward, reaches out, and then stops himself, looking at that ruined shirt, not yet unfastening any protective buttons. Hears Charles say, in memory, he was thinking about tying me to my desk and repeatedly violating me, the entire time I was talking...
“It’s all right.” Charles reaches over, and takes his hand. He didn’t. It didn’t happen. Or it mostly didn’t happen. But you’re you. You’re not him.
A few of the metal sculptures shiver, on the walls. But he manages to nod, faced with all that steadiness, and then, cautiously, starts undoing buttons. Charles tries to help, one-handed.
“Stop that. You’re injured.”
“Not that badly.”
“Please stop.”
Miraculously, Charles does; only looks at him, quiet, for a rare moment, eyes the infinite dark color of the sky after sundown.
When Erik’s fingers gingerly slip beneath cloth and encounter skin, Charles breathes in. And then half-smiles, wondrous and fleeting as a shooting star. “I always imagined this moment as a bit more…well, more champagne and excitement and less freezing to death, honestly.” Thank you, Erik.
“You are not freezing to death.” Won’t happen. Not allowed to happen. “Can I…remove this? Are you…” Do you want me to touch you?
“The answer to that is most certainly yes.” And thank you again. For that. The certainty. .
Charles does flinch, though, not visibly, as Erik moves to peel fabric away. He stops again. Are you sure?
“I thought I just said so.” It’s only…Raven did tell you, did she not? About the…the scars. They’re not that bad, really, and I’m not-but I did think perhaps I should warn you-And then that mental flurry stops abruptly, as Erik decides that no words are going to be sufficient and simply goes back to doing what he’s been doing, which is undressing golden freckles and inadvertently holding his breath.
They aren’t technically that bad, no. Not life-threatening or large. Small circles that Erik’s brain can only categorize as like cigar burns-the alternative’s unthinkable-along elegant arms, over that chest. One tangled silvery line like spider’s-webs caught along an elbow; never visible, because Charles doesn’t walk around in short sleeves.
Those…what you’re thinking they resemble. They, ah…well. Are.
Erik says something very blasphemous, in German.
Yes, I’d probably have to agree. My stepfather was not a particularly kind man. “He did regret the elbow, though. He’d not meant to break bones. And, you know, he didn’t touch me for quite some time, after that; worth it, really. So it’s sort of a badge of survival.” Charles looks at him, shakes that head, puts a hand on Erik’s arm. It’s all right. I’m all right. Now. I promise you that.
And the emotion, accompanying the touch, is genuine, if tinged with watercolor waves of ruefulness: Charles does mean the words, when he says them. It’s not all right, of course-and clearly they need to have a talk about what that English phrase means-but Charles is, miraculously, truthfully, still here. Not unscathed, but accepting the damage. Moving beyond it.
It’s probably healthier than Erik’s reaction, which currently involves the desire for a time machine and several hours alone with some scrap metal and that dark-figured stepfather.
And then Charles shivers again, and Erik swears out loud and yanks off every other shred of his clothing and sweeps him back into apprehensive arms.
“I can walk, you know.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” He eases Charles down into the bathtub. The water flows up and laps at dark hair like a happy cat, and cradles all the freckles in heat and security.
Erik tries very hard not to think about those freckles, and the water touching them. That would mean he’s thinking about Charles being naked. And those are not thoughts he should be having, right now.
“Can I see your arm?”
“Oh…here, yes. Sorry. I’m enjoying your bathtub. I can’t even reach the other end, this is stupendous…”
“You said…champagne and excitement, earlier. When you imagined this moment. You imagined this moment?” If he talks, if he can keep Charles talking, then neither of them will have to think about the bloody cut that slices across the muscle. His hands move on autopilot. Bandages. Alcohol. Needle. Thread.
Also, though, underneath everything, that absurdly shining thread of glee wants to know: Charles thinks about him, has thought about them, here together.
“I did, yes. I do. Though I might’ve imagined in more detail if I’d known you had a private lake in here…”
“Charles,” Erik says, and Charles tips his head back and smiles, and the kiss warms all the abysses of the world.
After a while, he finishes the row of stitches, small and neat and precise, not too many after all, and sets everything down, thread and bandages and antiseptic, and then puts a hand on the side of the tub for no reason at all. Charles takes it. And they sit quietly, holding hands, in the ripples of water and steam.
Eventually Charles sighs and yawns and murmurs a half-formed thought about fingers and prunes, and Erik nods, grabs blankets, curses mentally because he hasn’t got enough blankets, and whisks Charles off to the bed. He doesn’t think to ask; Charles doesn’t protest. Only settles down amid squashable pillows, and stretches his arm, flexes muscles, testing. “Thank you. You’re quite good at that.”
“I…had to learn. Are you still cold?” He’ll find more blankets somewhere, if the answer’s yes. Might have to sacrifice a shirt or two. They won’t be upset.
“No. Erik…” You said-about Shaw-you said that he ruined your family. Your life. I would never have spoken to him if I’d known, believe me.
I do.
Do you want to tell me?
And Erik looks at him, really looks at him, perched there on Erik’s bed, bundled up and bruised and beautiful. Asking the question with compassion in those eyes.
Charles, he says, and thinks briefly about silvery lines over morning-washed skin. That’s a question, as well.
Charles smiles, just a little. I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.
Erik sits down beside him, slowly. Not out of hesitation. Only a kind of delicious disbelief, the unhurried sensation of time in a dream, unfolding petal by petal, drawn-out and almost unbelievably splendid.
He puts a hand out, and finds entrancing skin, water-warmed and welcoming his touch, as Charles magically wriggles around and makes space for both of them in the blanket-burrow. Explorations. Discoveries. Priceless treasure, beyond compare.
“Not a dream,” Charles says, out loud but very softly, not breaking the spell.
So he tells Charles everything.
Everything means-everything. His childhood. How proud his parents’d been of his unusual abilities, his intuitive understanding of engineering principles. The great Industrial Revolution, the factory, moving into their small town. The choice: work for Schmidt, or starve. No choice at all, not in the end.
His parents growing ill. Himself taking his father’s place, one morning, at the factory.
Charles makes a small sound, at that, as if he wants to say something, but when Erik glances over, he shakes his head. Puts his other hand atop Erik’s restless fingers, on his arm. And Erik, through no easily explicable cause, feels more calm.
He shows Charles the accident at the factory, himself intervening, abilities strained to the utmost. Stopping spinning wheels, saving the life of one of the foremen, a man who’d offered his own bread for Erik to take home, the day before. Shows Charles the look on Schmidt’s face, at the sight.
Charles squeezes his hand.
“I built everything for him,” Erik says. As quickly as I could, every day, until I couldn’t stand, until I couldn’t eat-it was never enough. And when my mother died, he told me that if I’d been a better son, done what he asked, she might’ve lived.
Charles breathes in, plainly shocked, but doesn’t interrupt, or let go. Lets him keep talking, now that’s he’s started, secrets pouring out into the world.
I left-I walked out, in the night, and kept going, until I got on a steamer bound for America. I thought I could-here, in New York, I could start over. And if I could make enough money, make the right contacts…I always thought I’d find Schmidt-Shaw-again, one day. And then he was there. In your office.
Erik, I’m so sorry.
It’s not your fault, Charles.
Still. I never would’ve even entertained his offer. And I might’ve done worse than throw him out of the office. And the image that accompanies that statement is of Charles smacking the man over the head with the nearest book and dropping him at Erik’s feet, gift-wrapped, and it’s amusing, but also tinged with regret: Charles means it all.
“You didn’t know,” Erik says, aloud, “because I didn’t tell you. You had no reason to know.” And you were-he hurt you, anyway, you weren’t-I should have told you. Warned you about him.
“You didn’t know I’d be meeting with him, either.” But Charles tightens his grip on Erik’s hand, remembering. Perhaps we’re just not very good at talking to each other.
“Perhaps we can…try again?” ARE you all right?
I’m…telepaths become used to hearing everyone’s thoughts, you see, very early on. Fantasies. Desires. Most people would never act on them. And he didn’t know I could hear. But it was…so very personal. And he took such pleasure in the imagining. So that was a bit…unnerving. “And, yes. Yes, I think we can.” Charles glances at their joined hands. Then up, meeting Erik’s eyes. “I’m all right.”
“Scars,” Erik says, softly. Old and new. You said you’d tell me yours.
“I did…” Charles takes a deep breath. Lets him see.
After a while, Erik has to pull his pet coins from his pocket and fling them into motion, in the air. If he doesn’t, if he doesn’t let them spin furiously in place, all the rage will erupt some other way, and Charles doesn’t need that.
No wonder Charles wants nothing to do with his family. Erik’s coins ring brightly with the need to do something, to exhume that now-deceased stepfather and kill him again, perhaps, for ever daring to lay a hand-and worse-on that glorious skin. To go back in time, impossibly, and hold younger Charles against the blood-black smear of pain that’s the memory of his real father’s death.
Self-inflicted. No note, no explanation, simple devastation, while his young son sat up in bed and screamed and felt it all. Blasphemous, Erik thinks, and he’s not religious, not any longer, but it’s the only word that fits. The only word for all the wounds, all the scars.
I left for Oxford as soon as I could, Charles tells him. The day I came of age and could walk away. I never thought I’d come back.
Why-why did you? Under the words, inside them, voiceless selfish gladness that Charles did, that they were allowed to meet, that they’ve known each other at all.
Yes, Charles says, I’m rather happy about that, as well. “To be perfectly truthful…and we are being truthful, now, aren’t we…my mother died. She left everything to me. It was…something of a surprise.”
I'm sorry, Erik says, because that's what people say, in those moments. Charles looks at him, and, after a second, smiles. It's all right. Anyway, that's why I'm here. Though...I'm here, specifically, at this moment, because of you.
...what?
Because you found me.
Because you let me find you. "I...am glad. That you are here." Inadequate. True.
"So am I." Erik...I am also half-naked, in your bed.
“Yes…so you are.” The opalescent winter light splashes through the windows, and pools around them, anticipating. Do you want-would you like to be…
More naked in your bed? I think I would enjoy that, yes. “As long as you’re naked, too.”
Erik loses every stitch of clothing as fast as humanly possible. Dives back onto the bed. Looks at Charles, and then stops. “Are you-I mean, if you’re not-”
If Charles is still wounded. If Charles is off-balance from the violations, the images, that must still be swirling in the back of his head. If Charles is afraid to be touched. If.
“I told you that I was all right. I meant it.” Would it help if I kissed you?
“If you-” Charles tastes like sunlight in winter and unexpected spice, hot cocoa spiked with exotic rum, complex and delicious. Erik breathes in, tries to run his tongue over every inch of welcoming skin, wants to drink it all in and let those sensations overwhelm his world.
Charles laughs, in their heads, not out of amusement, or only out of a kind of wondering amusement that’s entwined with limitless elation, celebratory as the holiday lights. And parts his lips a bit more. Trails fingertips over Erik’s arms. Along his back.
Sufficiently convinced? Or perhaps I ought to kiss you more?
Please never stop, Erik asks him, meaning the words, and Charles laughs again, and then gets that look in blue eyes, the one that Erik knows from all those chess matches, mischievous and delighted. He starts to inquire, and abruptly finds himself being pounced on, tossed down into the bed, and pinned between an excited mattress and a very enthusiastic body.
Bemused, he takes a second to process this turn of events. Charles takes advantage of that second to shift positions. And then puts those lips somewhere…else.
“Oh god-”
Charles doesn’t even pause to answer out loud. You did say you liked me kissing you.
“I-you-oh god do that again with your tongue-” And he starts losing English, after that, swearing in German, or just babbling incoherent phrases, which makes Charles grin and then do that specific thing a few more times. Erik’s hands are in his hair, holding him in place, they’ve ended up there at some point, and he would worry about being too rough but he gets the impression that Charles doesn’t mind, that he rather likes the weight, the possessiveness, the desire.
He thrusts upwards, inadvertently, and Charles moves with him in response, one hand sliding up to wrap around the base of his cock, and there’s pleasure everywhere, billowing around them, inside and out, himself and Charles and the physical and mental all colliding ecstatically, white-hot and electric as a supernova, and one or both of them thinks an exultant Yes!! and then he stops thinking, for a while.
Charles swallows, breathes, swallows again, and then kisses the tip of Erik’s cock, lightly, taking him back in, tasting him in the aftermath, not quite looking up.
Erik, lying there panting and wondering when the world’s going to stop sparkling, manages, Charles, come here, please…
Charles pulls that warm mouth away from Erik’s softening arousal, and slides up to lie next to him, in the bed, and curls naturally into the space that’s meant for him along Erik’s side, but still doesn’t meet Erik’s eyes.
Charles, Erik says again, and tangles a hand in his hair, and touches his face, the cheek that isn’t wounded and painful.
The ocean-water eyes do lift, at that. And maybe there’s a hint of melancholy in the mental touch of lips to his, but it’s a sweet kind of ache, the hush after the tempest, the quivering lull of the surfeit of sensation, exposed and raw and pure.
Erik kisses him as gently as possible, an unspoken question; Charles says I don’t know! and laughs, unevenly, in place of the tears.
Your hair tastes like coconut, Erik says, because it’s true. And this earns another laugh, brighter now, without any real embarrassment. The company imports quite a lot of luxury soap! And I happen to like luxury soap! And coconut!
I didn’t say I minded.
“No, you didn’t…” Charles smiles up at him. Erik feels, briefly, invincible. I believe I could also like your bed. It’s a friendly bed. Pleased to see me.
“I’m pleased to see you.” Can I…see more of you?
“I’m already naked, you realize.”
“Yes, but…” He runs a hand over Charles’s hip, following freckles. I prefer exploring by touch. Like this. Here. If you would like…
“I would definitely like.” Charles rolls over onto his back. Pulls Erik down on top of him. “Go on. Explore. Explore me.”
Which is an irresistible invitation. So Erik does.
He’s never had that much experience in this area, and he’s not quite sure of the mechanics involved in what Charles has just done for him, but Charles makes very encouraging little noises when Erik kisses his stomach, when long fingers stroke curiously across that hardness, silk and iron, swelling further when he wraps his hand around the shaft.
Charles groans, softly, at that last one. “Good?” Erik inquires, as if he can’t tell, and Charles says “Jesus Christ Erik please” and Erik raises both eyebrows at him. “Such language, from you. Not exactly fit for polite company.”
“Fuck polite company,” Charles says, “will you please move your hand like that again now?”
Erik has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Assumes an appropriately stern expression. “Don’t be impatient. I get to explore you, remember? My turn.”
To which Charles mutters something very succinct and quite profane, but which isn’t exactly a protest, and Erik considers for only a second and then says, “Behave.”
And Charles goes very wide-eyed and quiet, gazing up at him, and the ripples of desire say everything, bursting through their veins.
“Oh,” Erik says, “yes, then, all right,” because even if he’s never really done this before that somehow doesn’t matter, because Charles is looking at him with that expression, astonishment and want and absolute trust, because he can do this, because yes.
There’s wetness at his fingertips. Leaking from Charles’s cock, so hard and beautifully needy, stirring at his touch. He uses it. Strokes, up and down. Finds a rhythm.
Charles gasps, in their heads and out loud. Starts talking again, voicelessly, words and phrases falling over each other: Erik yes please need yes more please-
Are you asking me?
Yes-
Ask me again.
Oh, fuck, Charles says, plus a few more colorful words, but when the shock of denial flashes through them both it’s a delicious impact. Dizzying. Erik, please, please, I need to, I need you, please do that again right there your hand right THERE-please tell me I can, I have to-
You can. For me.
And Charles gasps again, and every muscle goes rigid, orgasm spilling out over Erik’s hand, that pale stomach, the faded scars. In their heads, euphoria like honeyed wine and the brilliance of fireworks. Delirious bliss.
The sensation doesn’t vanish, in the aftermath. It transmutes, instead, into a quieter glow, banked embers and contentment at dusk. Peace.
Charles doesn’t say anything for a while, only lying folded into the circle of Erik’s arms. Their heartbeats keep time, in the background.
Would you, Erik says, into the tumble of coconut hair on his shoulder, like to stay here? Tonight?
This earns a smile, against his skin. It’s technically morning, now…but yes. I would.
Good.
Yes.
“Charles…” That was…good…for you, wasn’t it? He knows the answer, or he thinks he does. He still needs to hear the words.
“That was incredible, for me.” What about you? I know you’ve not-I mean, not very much-I mean-sorry!
“You apologize too much,” Erik says, and kisses the top of his head. “Don’t.” Incredible for me, as well. A bit unexpected, perhaps. But…in a good way.
I’ve never actually done that before, Charles admits, after a comfortable interlude. I mean the last part. The part when you-me asking you for-honestly incredible, you know. I told you once that you were brilliant. You are.
We are. Together.
Yes. Drowsy agreement. Affirmation. Sunrise.
There’s still a bruise on Charles’s face, a bandage on that arm, and when he sighs and settles more securely into Erik’s hold, Erik feels his heart break, just a little, not enough to contain all the emotions he’s feeling in this second, the worry and protectiveness and wonder and exhaustion and joy.
At the edge of sleep, Charles murmurs yes, one more time. To everything.
And they fall asleep that way, tangled up together in Erik’s friendly bed, as the morning sun comes up to pour golden light over the world.