FIC: "The Winter of Banked Fires" (NC17, Charles/Erik, Logan/Rogue) Ch. 22-25 of 37
I cribbed and paraphrased a bit from The Sun. It will be very obvious what bit, and what has been changed.
22.
Damn it, it’s the first day they’ve had something concrete to do, something urgent to plan, and they’re snowed in. Evening is drawing on, almost 24 hours into the storm, and the heavy winds continue to blow flakes sideways so thick and fast that it’s almost impossible even to see the nearest cabins. Charles glares out the frosted windowpane at the whiteout as if it had personally offended him.
He reaches for Ororo’s mind. Can anything be done about this?
From her own cabin she thinks back, I could send the blizzard away, but it would be highly disruptive across an enormous area. This is a large front. It needs release. Better to let it snow. She can be protective of weather patterns.
“Looks as if we’re snowbound for tonight, too,” Charles says to Erik, who is pouring hot water into two of the last remaining teabags from their supplies. “Inconvenient.”
“We need to plan. Now we have time, and no distractions. You and I have made considerable progress in the last day. I fail to see the problem.” Erik only sounds calm; he feels oddly agitated, as he has ever since the Brotherhood attack, though he’s keeping it so far beneath the surface that no one without telepathy could ever tell. Just as easily, he says, “Too bad it keeps us from seeing the aurora borealis again, though.”
“How do you - of course. They’re caused by geomagnetic storms. You feel them as well as see them, don’t you?”
Erik nods. His mood remains black, but he explains quite steadily: “They feel marvelous - rather like fur against bare skin.”
Which brings back memories of Erik’s bare skin. Charles never wrapped him in fur - someone else must have had that pleasure - but he can imagine it. Can’t help imagining it, now.
“Green is most common,” Erik says, watching the snow-blind window. “It feels somewhat coarse, but not at all unpleasant. Then pink and red, which become silkier - that’s what we would see right now, in fact - then gold, which is rather rich. Mink, perhaps. The rarest of all is blue, and that feels indescribable.”
“Share it with me?”
Erik does. Charles feels the slip of it, like being massaged by something unnamable but utterly wonderful. It’s the sensation he always imagined for the furs the White Witch wrapped Edmund in when he first stumbled upon Narnia.
Despite that pleasant exchange, Erik’s gloom is deepening. He’s always had his moods, and his reasons for them, which is why Charles tries to wait them out - but this has lasted for more than a day now. The temptation to simply pry into his mind and find out what’s going on is powerful, but that’s not the best way to handle this. Unable to bear it any longer, Charles says, “Erik, what’s wrong?”
“You’ve never fully grasped the concept of letting someone else raise the subject if and only if they feel like talking, have you?”
Charles, who keeps his silence on more unspoken thoughts than most people can imagine, considers this something of a low blow. “Very well. If you’d rather concentrate on more planning tonight, we can do that.”
Erik’s dark mood spikes so swiftly that it seems to be a force in the room, like cold wind whistling through cracks in the walls. “Yes. Better this way. Everything smoothed over and made right.” Erik’s smile is taut. “That’s how you prefer things.”
“You can be angry with me for prying or angry with me for ignoring your moods, but you can’t be both. Pick one.”
As usual, Erik doesn’t acknowledge that he’s being contradictory. He considers his words for a long, charged pause before he speaks. “That didn’t affect you, out there yesterday? Everyone talking about how things ought to have been all along?”
Charles realizes what Erik’s getting at; he can see the outline of it in Erik’s mind, and truth be told, in his own. “We’ve always needed each other.”
“All mutants. And you and I.”
“You and I,” Charles repeats.
“I prided myself that - that our leaving one another proved something. How committed we both were. How willing we were to give up what we wanted most for our causes,” Erik says, the admission costing him with every word. “But we were better leaders together than either of us could be on his own.”
Charles goes very still as the recognition settles over him too.
When they turned away from each other, they betrayed what they most believed. They betrayed the very causes they thought they were sacrificing for, and every person who believed in them. In losing each other, they lost everything.
Silence stretches between them for a few moments as Charles takes it in.
“I gave you up for nothing,” Erik says. The hell of it is that he’s right.
Charles fights hard to remain steady. He’s always tried not to let regret be his master; it’s the only thing that gets him through. “We can work together now. We can lead side by side.”
“It’s as easy as that for you?”
“Nothing about this is easy!” Steady, Charles thinks, steady. “Can we not be grateful for what we’ve gotten back?”
Wearily, Erik leans back on the threadbare couch. Despite his years, there is something about his expression that reminds Charles of the Erik he first met - wary and jaded, yet still keenly vulnerable. Seeing that in him wrenches Charles’ heart; he has so few defenses against Erik, the person he has tried harder to defend himself against than any other. “Charles, I’m more grateful for your friendship than you can ever know. A few months ago, I would have traded the remaining years of my life for one more chess game with you.”
There’s no chess set here; nobody thought to pack one, not even Hank. “Erik,” Charles murmurs, unable to find other words.
Erik continues, “But to answer your question, no. I can’t be grateful for what we’ve gotten back. Not when I compare it to what we might have had.”
“You know what you are to me.” The words come out very even and sure. “And I know what I’ve meant to you. Of course I wish that we might have - that things could have been different. Yet we cannot allow ourselves to dwell on our regrets.”
“So generous. So noble. So tidy.” Every word is like a flick from a sharpened knife-point, barely touching the skin yet drawing blood. “Do you never allow yourself to lose control, Charles? You used to.”
“We’ve both matured.”
“We’ve both gotten old, you mean. Even if you’re not showing it quite as much these days.”
“Catching up fast,” Charles says, running his hand over his newly shorn head. Though he hasn’t lost all his hair again yet, it became thin enough that he tired of half-measures, surrendered to cabin fever, and took the clippers to his scalp a couple hours ago.
The gentle joke doesn’t work. Erik’s eyes narrow, though he’s more curious than angry. “How eager you are to change the subject. You have honesty from the rest of us whether we like it not; are you so unwilling to pay us the same courtesy?”
Charles knows he’s being baited, but it works nevertheless. “This from someone who spent decades wearing a helmet that locked me out.”
“You’re the one locking doors now.” Erik is entirely too pleased with the neatness of his trap. “So the bloodless saint is only an illusion after all.”
“As you know full well.” Temper finally aroused, Charles decides that if Erik wants a fight this badly, he can have one. “If you really want to hear it, I decided a long time ago that you would have left me eventually regardless. That day on the beach - it was important for many reasons, but between us, I think it hardly mattered.”
Erik stares at him; he doesn’t appear to like the argument he worked so hard to get. Good. “Now, this I have to hear. How is it that you think the final hours of our relationship ‘hardly mattered’?”
“You would never have allowed yourself to remain with me, not in the long term. Not with me or with anyone. Once you told me that, after Magda, you had never let yourself fully fall in love again because you saw relationships as baggage. Ties that held you down. You couldn’t have seen yourself as the weapon of our race, the leader of this great movement, and let yourself enjoy anything as humble - as human - as a love affair. Admit it, Erik. You regarded your feelings for me as a weakness.”
Charles braces himself for a retort that doesn’t come. Instead Erik considers what he’s said, and although he looks more ill-tempered than before, he finally says, “There’s some truth to that.”
Why must he be so disarming at the worst possible times? Charles sighs as he braces his hands against the table; he’s started to notice some tiredness in his legs and back after a long day - a sign of things to come.
Erik continues, “It frightened me. I’d trained myself to need nothing, and after such a short time, I needed you. Like I needed air.”
“So you suffocated the human part of yourself by walking away.”
“Do you honestly think you couldn’t have won me back? There were days - there were years where, at any moment, if you had come to me, I would have given up anything to have you back. I would have given up everything.”
“Your cause? Your anger? I doubt it,” Charles snaps. “And how could I have ever known?”
“How you hated that helmet. Are you so unwilling to understand what it’s like for those of us locked in our own skulls?”
“Yes. And I won’t apologize for it. What’s natural for the rest of you is unnatural for me. From the time I was a baby, I knew that people were different from objects because I could sense something of their thoughts and feelings. When you wore that helmet, you didn’t feel like a man to me. You felt like a machine. And I think you preferred it that way.”
“Just as you preferred your moral superiority and your solitude to humbling yourself in any effort to make things right between us.” By now Erik is as close to the edge as Charles. “Did you ever try? Did you ever come to me as anything but the Honorable Leader of the Opposition? Except, of course, on one of our nights.”
They’ve made love dozens of times since their breakup, sometimes during long, languid evenings stolen for each other in hotels around the world, sometimes through purely psychic encounters when that damned helmet was taken off and Charles could indulge them both. It’s not as if they ever stopped, exactly - the last time was a decade ago, and yet Charles never felt sure it was the final time.
He remembers that night in Los Angeles - or is it Erik remembering?
“Don’t distract me,” Charles warns, ignoring the wicked gleam in Erik’s eye. “There were times I pleaded with you. I’d have gone to my knees if I still could have. And you know it.”
A long pause follows before Erik admits, “You did. Just never when I could hear you. And when I could hear you, you never spoke.”
“What rotten timing we have.”
“My dear Charles. How inadequate.”
“What would be adequate to what we lost in each other? I don’t have the words for that. I don’t think they exist.”
Erik’s dark eyes search his, understanding at last that Charles feels the loss as sharply as he does. It doesn’t comfort him; Charles wishes it would. He hates the thought of causing Erik yet more pain. Quietly, Erik says, “You never used to need words.”
That’s an invitation, however tacit. But the invitation is for them to revisit their pain - to open the wounds they’ve both spend the last few decades trying in vain to heal.
And yet, maybe Erik’s right. Maybe they have to face it before they can fully move on.
“Let me in,” Charles whispers.
And Erik does.
Images from his mind flood Charles’ inner vision: His own death, almost as horrible to see as it was to experience, and the way Erik had at first been unable to understand how he could continue to breathe, why his heart kept beating, in a world without Charles in it. Kissing frantically in the car that first afternoon, the feeling of his own hair clutched within Erik’s fingers as he kept him close, still afraid Charles would pull away. A newspaper photograph of him taken the first time Charles “went public,” and Erik torn between pride, longing, and the foolishness of feeling such longing at just the sight of Charles’ face in black ink on newsprint. One of the nights they came together - yes, Los Angeles, hardly a year after the split, Erik swearing at Charles’ folly but unable to stop himself from pulling open his shirt, sending buttons clattering against the wall, practically crawling onto the wheelchair, bending the arms outward the better to straddle Charles and grind against him.
Charles’ own memories well up too, unfettered. Another of their stolen nights - yes, Amsterdam, when at the height of his climax Erik bit down on Charles’ shoulder and the pain was as good as any possible pleasure. How sickening it was to see that Erik had been abused in jail by William Stryker and his goons, the hollow in his heart that came from witnessing that blue-black bruise. Sitting next to one another in the medical bay of the ship on the day they met, each shivering from cold and the new awareness of each other. What it was like to lie in bed when they had first become lovers and watch Erik sleep, how the beauty of his broad shoulders and tapered waist paled beside how good it was to see him, however briefly, at peace - to think that maybe for a day, for an hour, he’d helped Erik forget his pain and remember joy -
“Don’t,” Erik whispers, and Charles instantly pulls them back into their own heads. Erik’s right; it’s too much. The study in the mansion dissolves, and once again they are in their little cabin, where it is cold and dark.
For a few moments they can only stare at each other, awash in the full awareness of how much they lost. Charles allows himself to think of it so seldom. And now - when Erik has found him and saved him against all odds - now he has to realize they really might have shared their entire lives.
He folds Erik in his arms, and they simply hold each other.
“I’m sorry,” Charles says.
“I am too.”
When he’s certain he won’t cry, Charles leans his forehead against Erik’s. They move closer at the same moment, the urge mutual. It’s a kiss goodbye, no more and no less.
Or it was intended to be.
But Charles doesn’t pull away, and Erik doesn’t either, and the kiss lasts one moment longer than it was meant to - the moment that changes everything.
The moment when he first realizes that their future doesn’t have to look like their past.
Their lips part, but they remain there, faces only inches apart. Erik rests his forehead against Charles’ again, buying time.
Tentatively, Charles kisses him once more - softly, hardly more than a brush, but this time he’s testing the waters. Erik doesn’t pull away. His arousal and his uncertainty are no less sharp than Charles’ own.
Charles slides his hand along the back of Erik’s neck. “You surprised me.”
“I thought it was you who surprised me.”
Another kiss, even briefer than the last. They can’t meet each other’s eyes. At the moment, Charles’ mind is racing too fast to sense anyone else’s, but he knows Erik’s confusion must be as great as his own.
Yes, they’ve made love many times since splitting up. If they were to sleep together on those same terms, that would be simple to negotiate. What’s happening now isn’t simple. Charles doesn’t just want Erik’s body or his mind for a night; he wants Erik back, wholly and completely. Erik wants him back too. And if there’s anything left to stand in their way, Charles doesn’t remember what it is.
They’ve never been here before. Since their split, they’ve never had any reason to expect a future together; they have considered their relationship a lost cause for so long that they failed to recognize hope when it came to them.
It’s disconcerting. It’s wonderful. It’s terrifying.
All he can think of to say is, “It would be a hell of a gamble.”
Erik chuckles ruefully. “You think this is the gamble?”
He’s right. The gamble is believing that they’re on the same side, that their vision of how mutantkind is to proceed from here is mutual and shared. If that’s true, then coming together as lovers isn’t dangerous - it’s how things should be, how they always should have been. If it’s not, then they’ll destroy each other no matter what.
“I don’t know that I would survive losing you another time,” Erik says. From anyone else, it would be melodrama; from him, it’s only fact.
“Nor I.” Charles brushes one thumb along Erik’s cheekbone. “But we parted once when we shouldn’t have. I don’t want to do that again.”
Erik kisses him this time, long and slow, and Charles opens his mouth into it. How long has it been since he kissed someone this way, lips apart, tongue pushing inside? Years, maybe. He’s forgotten how intoxicating it can be. How the body rises up, demanding that the mind give in. Their kiss goes on and on, Erik’s arms winding around him as Charles threads his fingers through silvery hair.
When they part, they gaze at each other, breathing quickly, still unsure. Charles speaks so softly it’s hardly even a whisper: “Come to bed.”
Erik’s uncertainty washes over Charles, blinding him to any potential answer, until the moment Erik kisses him again.
For the first few minutes, they can’t stop kissing long enough to do anything else. Charles hasn’t let himself get simply carried away like this in ages, and he can tell from the way Erik surrenders to it that the same is true for him. He slides his hands along Erik’s back, his chest, his thighs, reminding himself of the contours and planes of his body. Already it seems impossible to him that he’s gone so long without simply touching Erik like this - without feeling that he had the right to.
Then he can’t bear it any longer, and he gets to his feet, towing Erik after him toward the bedroom. Thus far Erik’s slept on the sofa, leaving the bed to him; from now on, they share.
As they stumble through the doorway, Charles whispers between kisses, “I forgot how good this feels.”
“You can’t have done without all these years.”
Still bucking for a fight: Sometimes Erik doesn’t know when to shut it off. Charles hasn’t done without all these years, but he says only the simple truth. “What I can do - with my mind - I rarely bother with bodies any longer.”
“Lazy,” Erik chides him as he walks Charles backward to the side of the bed and pushes him down to the mattress. As he lowers himself over Charles’ body, he murmurs, “None of your illusions and fantasies tonight.”
“I don’t have any fantasies better than this.”
That, too, is no more than the truth, but hearing it makes Erik’s expression soften, and once again Charles sees a glimpse of the younger, more vulnerable person he first loved. “You dear man,” Erik murmurs.
Then they’re caught up in kissing again, in undressing one another. Charles’ gifts mean that he missed the lack of sensation below the waist far less than most paraplegics, but while it’s returned he intends to enjoy it for all it’s worth. He revels in the feeling of Erik moving against him, Erik’s hands stroking him, exploring a body he’s been apart from for too long.
No fantasies. No illusions. But this is a night to share memory. More than that: a night to redeem it.
Without fading the reality of this bed or this room, Charles brings up one of the images Erik just shared with him: that night in Los Angeles when they got so carried away that they destroyed a perfectly good wheelchair. Slowly he matches his memory of that night to Erik’s own, and it’s like putting together two halves of a torn photograph. The ragged edges seam together, and suddenly it’s there, it’s so much more real than it could have been for either of them alone - Erik’s excitement as he raked his hand across Charles’ chest, the way Charles felt vulnerable and turned on at once as Erik lifted him in his arms to carry him to bed for the first time, how Charles wasn’t sure his half-paralyzed body could still please Erik, and all the ways he and Erik learned he could. Not only does the sheer erotic power of the memory double, but the love also gleams through as it never did before, not even when it was really happening.
“I put the wheelchair straight the next morning,” Erik protests softly as Charles undoes his trousers.
“It never rolled right again.” This is whispered between kisses, over the rustle of fabric being pushed away. “No matter how often Hank tinkered with it.”
Erik offers the next memory: That night they kissed for an hour while Nat King Cole played on the hi-fi. How, after many years of mostly hurried, meaningless couplings, Erik had luxuriated in having a lover he could hold close like this - and what it was like to stop running and stand still, because he was finally exactly where he wanted to be. Charles matches it with the way he realized that night that Erik, for all his flinty exterior and dark humor, needed to be protected - from those who had hurt him, from himself, from the endless petty cruelty of the world, and how badly Charles had wanted to be that protector.
“Me against the world.” He stretches alongside Erik, their bodies finally naked together. Erik is so much older now - he not that far behind, at this point - and yet what is that age but a reminder of the years they have loved each other? “What a fool I was.”
“But a heroic fool for all that.” The way Erik says this turns it into a caress.
The memories continue to flicker within them, each offering up whatever is most precious, most private - unafraid to see it through each other’s eyes. How they flirted with each other during those first few weeks, their attraction forbidden by the day’s mores, and yet how all the world’s condemnation wasn’t enough to keep them from gazing into each other’s eyes.
How it felt for Erik to look down and see Charles’ comatose form and feel blinding joy because he was alive, and now Erik could bring him back - and what it was like for Charles to emerge from the terrible dizzying dark and see Erik next to him, holding his hands.
How thrilling it had been to lean close to one another in the front seat of the car when they kissed for the first time.
Every pair of images becomes one. Every gap in memory is filled in. Every breach is healed.
They’re not young men anymore, his recent regeneration notwithstanding; what used to be almost instantaneous takes time now. But taking time is sweet. As they soar through their pasts, Charles strokes Erik gently, then urgently, feeling his response moment by moment, until he can resist no longer and bows his head to take Erik between his lips.
Erik groans. Encouraged, Charles uses his tongue to caress him, sucks deeply, opens his mind enough to feel Erik’s pleasure along with his own. As the fullness of it hits him, sending him reeling, he sends the sensation back into Erik in turn. This give and take was once second nature to them; now it’s enough to make Erik cry out.
“I want you,” Erik whispers, and Charles’ mind fills with the mental image of what he yearns to do. It’s what Charles wants too - dear God, he’s missed this.
There’s salve beside the bed that will work. He hands it to Erik, kisses him desperately while Erik slicks his fingers, and then splays himself to his lover’s touch. Erik’s hand pushes within him - sometimes they did that, just that, and it was beyond exhilarating, maybe again soon but not tonight. And already he can imagine other nights with Erik, a future when they are never apart; it’s the greatest joy Charles has known in years.
At this point, Erik can hear Charles’ thoughts as clearly as Charles can hear his. Erik whispers, “Never without you,” as he spoons around Charles’ back.
“Never again.” Charles draws his leg up and reaches back to comb his fingers through Erik’s hair as Erik clutches at his pelvic bone and holds him fast. “Never - oh.”
And then the fusion goes beyond bodies, beyond words, as what they share builds and burns past containment. When they come, Charles captures the moment, stretches it out, holding them there at the pinnacle until there’s no greater pleasure to feel, no separation left, and they fall together into deep water, ripples spreading out for miles.
**
Several cabins away, in their new bed, Kitty rolls over, suddenly aroused, and kisses Bobby to consciousness.
In yet another cabin, Storm jolts from a vivid erotic dream to wish that Nightcrawler were with her - just as, with a BAMF and a swirl of blue smoke, he appears, in the hope that she’s awake.
Hank doesn’t wake up, but his dream changes from something forgettable into a vision he’ll never erase from his mind: He and Raven, twined together in his bed at the cabin, though a softer, warmer version of the same. But he’s the one changing shapes, from the boy he was into the blue-furred man he’s become, and each shift drives her even more crazy with desire.
Raven, too, remains asleep. Her dream is fragmented at first - is that Erik with her? Beast? At long last, Charles? At first it’s almost frightening, not knowing who’s touching her, who’s inside her, until finally the dream illuminates enough for her to understand that she’s with all three of them. It’s their first week together, and this time they’ll do it right. She flushes darker blue as she writhes between them, laughing out loud in her sleep with joy.
Wrapped up in each other as they are, Logan and Marie hardly notice the charge that sweeps over them, but his fingers grip her thighs a little more fiercely, and Marie bucks against his tongue more urgently, and the climax that sweeps through her makes her cry out in a way that gets Logan hard in an instant.
All throughout the town - everywhere within twenty miles of Charles and Erik - the wave of arousal ripples strong enough to enter every mind. Those with a partner reach out to them; those with fantasies relish those. And the children too young to understand desire in that sense dream instead of the aurora borealis shining pure, silvery blue.
23.
The New York Times, February 2
“… Although the Cure was meant to end the “mutant question,” more questions are being asked than ever before in the wake of anti-mutant violence. Those who once found mutant powers terrifying have had to see how easily mutants can in fact be captured and killed. Those who did not recognize mutants as part of humanity have seen mutants’ families and friends grieving in the wake of a Purifier “Testament,” their term for their filmed execution-style murders. Even those who remain wary of mutants in recent polls are now far more likely to indicate that they would not support violence against mutants - and support for legal measures such as mandatory registration is dropping. Politicos in Washington who made pro-Purifier statements only a few months prior are now distancing themselves from the group … “
Universal Press Syndicate, February 5
Dear Abby,
My teenage son, “Ricky,” has come out to us as a mutant. He has X-ray vision; we never guessed, though now I know how he always found his Christmas presents! His father, “Mack,” is completely horrified - he says Jamie should take the Cure as soon as possible. I don’t agree. Ricky says he doesn’t use his abilities to break the law or hurt anyone, and I believe him; he’s always been a great kid who has deserved our trust. So why should he have to change! Mack says people don’t understand, and I say that’s their problem. What do you think, Abby? - MUTANT MOM IN MINNESOTA
Dear MUTANT MOM,
Faithful readers of my column know that when the Cure was first announced last summer, I urged readers who were mutants or had mutant family members to look into this “solution” to their problems. Well, give me thirty lashes with a wet noodle, because countless readers since then have written in to share their stories about being a mutant or living with one, and they’ve convinced me that mutation is no problem at all. It is our failure to accept others who are “different” that causes the trouble. Yes, some mutants break the law - but so do plenty of other folks, and they don’t need powers to do it. By and large, mutants are just like us - and tomorrow I’ll be printing a series of letters that prove it.
Talk to your husband and find out why he is so strongly opposed to your son remaining a mutant. He may only be afraid for Ricky, given the violence against mutants in recent months. I’m sending you a copy of a new booklet I’m making available to Dear Abby readers: “Mutation - Embracing the Change.” Send $4.99 and a self-addressed stamped envelope to …
The Sun, February 9
The identity of a top Premier League footballer who wishes to announce himself as a mutant will be revealed tonight. A TV investigation into undisclosed mutants in sport had focused on him, but sources claim he then approached the show to share his story openly.
The star will be named by Channel 4 show “Dispatches” as it focuses on the issue of mutants in sport and whether their participation is a violation of league rules.
The show claims to have discovered the identities of dozens of footballers who refused to take genetic tests when some clubs began looking into the matter late last year. Their names have been kept secret by the Football Association and their clubs.
The star insists that his mutant abilities are unrelated to football, Channel 4 insiders say.
Terry Colburn of the British Mutant Defense League says, “I hope this footballer will become a test case for the league. If his mutation does not provide an unfair advantage then there is no reason on Earth he should not compete.”
The Wall Street Journal, February 10
Scott Aherne never visited the Xavier School before he sent his son there. He never even looked at a brochure.
“I didn’t want to lay eyes on the place,” he says. “I figured it was probably like some kind of reform school. Back then I thought that was all a kid like Vince could expect.”
Aherne, 47, was no different from many parents who discover they have a mutant child. When his son Vince began demonstrating the power to conduct electricity - and insisting on being called “Volt” - his father only wanted to keep it secret. The invitation for Vince to attend Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in New Salem, New York, seemed like a godsend. Although the school had only publicly identified its mission of educating and sheltering mutant youth within the past year, it had been in existence since the early 1960s. Its headmaster, Charles Xavier, was one of the most prominent spokesmen for mutant rights.
Despite those credentials, Aherne still expected the worst from the school … and still sent Vince there regardless.
“I wanted the problem to go away,” Aherne says, his eyes filling with tears. “Instead I sent my son away.”
Then, last November, the Xavier School became one of the first targets of anti-mutant violence by the political movement now known as the Purifiers. Letters were sent to parents, asking for permission to take their children to safety - and secrecy.
“I said yes and told myself it was to keep Vince from being hurt,” Aherne says. “But sometimes I wonder whether I lacked the courage to face his problems myself.”
Some students did return home - apparently all whose parents requested that they return. But the rest of the students, along with the faculty and the pro-mutant fighting force known as the “X-Men,” have remained underground ever since. In the wake of their absence, the X-Men are now more missed than feared - as are the children under their care.
“This place is a mansion,” Aherne says now, as he looks at the Xavier School (unoccupied except for a private, wholly human security force, which has no direct contact with the school administrators.) “It’s beautiful. Why didn’t I ever think it could be beautiful?”
CNN.com, February 13
Some observers call “the mutant question” the last battleground of the modern culture wars in the United States. However, the battleground keeps changing, and the question now is how the public at large will respond to the Purifier “Testaments” - filmed executions of mutants whose powers were insufficient to free them from armed militia groups.
According to a Pew Research study, even people who would consider themselves “strongly anti-mutant” oppose the Purifiers’ actions. The group, led by Reverend Matthew Risman, is now defined as a fringe group whose actions are not to be supported - much as the church of the Rev. Fred Phelps attracts no support from mainstream Christian leaders.
However, opinions vary sharply on how to respond to these attacks. The public seems divided on whether mutants should receive legal protection, and what form that protection might take. There is nearly a 50/50 split on the question of registration - and there is no consensus on whether registration is a pro-mutant or anti-mutant move. Some respondents saw this as a “check on mutant powers,” while still others argued it was the best protection for a group that may be unable to protect itself.
Which way will the political tide turn? The Pew study results indicate that it’s far too early to tell …
24.
The first thing Erik thinks when he awakens to see Charles sleeping next to him is that he is being completely ridiculous.
Honestly, he tells himself, aren’t you past believing in fairy tales?
Yet this is no fairy tale, no dream. He is really in Charles’ bed. He has taken Charles back - or has Charles taken him? Both, it seems.
There were mornings in the first few weeks after their split when Erik awoke and reached for Charles before he remembered. He spent the hours after that castigating himself, searching for every last shred of hope that remained and burning it to nothingness. Or so he’d thought. Something must have survived, preserved deep inside, to bring him to this.
Erik turns on his side, the better to watch Charles doze. The sheer wonder of the moment is counterbalanced nicely by Charles’ tendency to sleep with his mouth open. A small smile tugs at Erik’s lips, and the feeling that steals over him is strangely like contentment.
Then, very suddenly, Charles sits bolt upright in bed. Instantly he has shifted from slumber to wakefulness and alarm. “What is it?” Erik says.
“The children.”
Erik starts to get out of bed, the better to defend their students, but Charles lays one hand on his arm to hold him in place. His expression is shifting from concern to bemusement. “Wait.”
“Are we under attack?”
“I don’t think so. No. We aren’t.” Charles leans against the headboard, clearly relieved. “It was an icefall. Came crashing against a vacant cabin near the girls’ dormitory - frightened them. But it’s nothing really.” He starts to smile. “I believe they’re now planning a snowball fight.”
Erik seizes Charles by the shoulders and kisses him soundly. Within moments he’s borne Charles down onto the bed. They don’t go beyond kissing and caressing - they’re both still completely sated from the night before - and yet somehow this feels just as intimate as their lovemaking did. This is all Erik wants, all he can ever imagine wanting: the rasp of Charles’ unshaven cheek against his, the taste of his mouth, his hand stroking the length of Erik’s back.
But then Charles folds him in a psychic embrace to match the physical one; love surrounds him, infuses him, and Erik knows he wants this too - today and always.
When at last they break off their kisses, Erik nestles himself in Charles’ arms and rests his head against Charles’ chest. Once he trusts himself to speak, he says, “I missed that.”
“Did you?” Charles runs one hand through Erik’s hair, and clearly there’s something else he wants to say, but he hesitates. Erik waits. Finally Charles gets it out: “Sometimes I wondered - on a few of our nights just before we left off, when we weren’t getting on as well - I wondered whether you really wanted me. Or whether you just wanted what I could do.”
“Your Jedi mind tricks, you mean. Honestly, Charles, you know better than that.” One of the most intense sexual experiences they ever shared took place on a night when Erik left the helmet on.
“I knew you would - ” To Erik’s surprise, Charles’ chest starts to shake with repressed laughter. “The minute, the very minute they said that line in the movie, Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back or whichever one it was - I knew if you saw it too, you’d say that to me one day.”
“If I saw it? Good Lord. I’m not exactly a fan of modern popular culture, but I do occasionally leave the house.”
“We’ve got decades of pop culture to discuss, you know. There were so many times I just wanted to hear what you would think of something. Especially something ridiculous.”
Their meetings were always so highly charged - in one way or another - that they’ve discussed almost nothing trivial or lighthearted in all the time since. “I know. Can you believe we’ve never had a chance to make fun of disco?”
Charles can’t hold back the laughter any longer, and Erik rolls back, the better to see his face. “Oh, God. That was the worst. Polyester suits and satin shirts.” He gives Erik a mischievous look. “Although I do seem to remember someone adopting a rather disco mustache around that time.”
“I thought you liked that mustache. We had rather spectacular sex one weekend while I had that mustache.”
“In spite of the mustache.”
“And who spent the 1980s in those ghastly multicolored pullovers? The ones with the triangles and the lines and … things.”
Charles covers his eyes with his hand, as if wincing. “Guilty as charged.” He strokes along Erik’s shoulder as his expression softens. “It’s good to see you laughing.”
Erik experiences a sudden moment of awareness that their relationship will not always be like this - drowsy post-coital laughter. Kisses and conversation, without a disagreement in the world, everything so easy and gentle and right.
But Erik has spent most of his life torn between fearing a horrific feature and remembering a brutal past. For today, he decides, he’s going to live in the now. This is a very good now to have, and there’s no point in wasting it.
“It’s easier to laugh when you’re happy.” Erik curls further into Charles’ embrace. “No one has ever made me happier than you.”
“Erik. I love you.”
Only after Charles kisses him does Erik realize how seldom they’ve said those words to one another. And yet it’s always been there. He closes his eyes and surrenders to the kiss, hoping it’s possible for some things to go unsaid - for some truths to be understood without words. Then, maybe, they really do understand one another after all.
25.
Digging out the snow late that evening would be a chore, were Ororo not able to summon the winds to blow most of it away into huge drifts on the edge of their small town. Charles wonders how long it will be before they can restore communications; they were on the verge of creating wireless access, which would be a boon on many fronts. The students leap about, finding the break from routine and confinement exciting, whereas the X-Men are stuck chipping ice away from locks and checking whether their food stores have frozen solid.
Charles walks out of his cabin with Erik; they’re not hand in hand or anything like that, because that’s not how either of them conducts himself, but there must be some subtle cues they’re sending. Hank’s ears adjust at an angle that often means he’s reconsidering a situation. Even he makes no assumptions, though. The one person who knows - who automatically understands, because she’s been inside Erik’s head enough to make the connection - is Marie. She straightens, looks away and hurries toward the vehicles, supposedly for a check of the equipment but really to get farther away from them.
Although Logan starts to follow her, Charles motions for him to stay put. Logan gets a rather wary look on his face - and given what Charles now senses guiltily floating atop his memories, no wonder - but he acquiesces. There’s a definite edge to it; Logan intends to find out what’s wrong with Marie sooner rather than later. But there’s trust there too.
Charles hopes he deserves it.
When he finds Marie, she’s tapping the motorcycle’s gauges and scowling. As he approaches, she glances over her shoulder and freezes; she didn’t expect him to actually confront her. “Hello,” he says gently. “Are you all right?”
She takes the question in an entirely different light than he intended it. “Logan and I - it’s not like he pressured me or anything.”
“I realize that.”
“He’s sweet, really.” Her cheeks flush, and then she turns back to the motorcycle, as if that will help.
Charles’ talents have not given him any greater insight into what relationships will work out in the end. Sometimes it’s easy enough to sense when something is doomed, but usually another person’s romance is a tangle of emotions that he’s no better at sorting out than anyone else. Of course, there are obvious pitfalls in this case: the age gap between them, plus Logan’s myriad attitude problems and murky past. But Marie is an adult now, however young, and their relationship isn’t exploitive - Charles can tell that much. Beyond that, it’s none of his business.
“I didn’t come here to lecture you about your love life,” he says. “You’re old enough to make your own decisions.”
“Oh. Okay.” She glances over her shoulder. “So, you’re here because - ”
“Because I rather thought you wanted to lecture me.”
Marie drops any pretense of caring about the condition of the motorcycle at this moment. “Professor - seriously, you can’t let Magneto come back. I don’t mean - you and him - I don’t mean that. Not just that, anyway.” She’s more worried for him than angry, which Charles finds oddly touching. “Have you forgotten what he did to me? What he did to you? I know he’s had a lot of stuff happen to him, and I know he rescued you and everything, but that doesn’t mean he’s changed. Not really. Even if it seems like he has here and now - what happens when we get back out in the world? Everything will be different then. More like it was before.” Her gaze shadows as she wonders what that means for her and Logan, but she doesn’t let it distract her. “Are you going to let Magneto make our decisions? Let him be in charge with you? Because I don’t trust his judgment, and you shouldn’t either.”
After she finishes, Charles considers what she’s said very carefully. Marie is young, and speaking impulsively, but that doesn’t mean her words aren’t worth listening to.
Yet she has not been within Erik’s mind, has not felt the transformation there. Charles has, and he trusts that more than anything else.
Finally he says, “You don’t have to excuse Erik for what he did to you. It was cruel in the extreme, and unjustifiable. That act is yours to forgive and no one else’s. I’ll never ask you to accept it.”
Marie relaxes slightly. “Okay.”
“What I will ask you to accept is that now Erik is on our side. We’re facing a crisis unlike any other in our race’s history, and we need each other. All mutants, even the ones we’ve fought in the past. That includes Erik. You don’t have to like him; you don’t have to trust his judgment. You only have to understand that he wants the same thing we want. He wants mutants to be safe and free, all of us, everywhere.”
“But what he’ll do to make that happen - it’s not right.”
“I sincerely believe Erik regrets his past choices. If he were being less than honest with me, I’d know.”
She runs one hand through her hair, obviously trying to calm herself and yet make him less calm. “At Alkali Lake, when Stryker’s men were after us - Professor, he left you to die.”
That hurts, but he reminds himself that the pain isn’t something she caused, just something she’s made him recall. “That’s mine to forgive, and no one else’s.”
Marie blinks. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I don’t blame you for being concerned.” Charles sighs. “You can always speak your mind, Marie. Be honest. I’ll try to do the same.” He hasn’t spent enough time being accountable, these past many years.
Although she doesn’t like it, she accepts this. Again, there’s that trust he relies on so much. “All right. Just be careful.”
Her desire to keep him from being hurt makes him smile. She’s so young that she believes such a thing is possible. “I will. And tell Logan to stop worrying I’m about to put him under house arrest, would you?”
That makes her laugh, so they part well.
As he heads back toward the others, though, Charles finds himself reflecting on one particular thing she said. What happens when they return to the regular world? In this snowy, quiet place, anything seems possible, even miracles. But after their mission in China, after they’ve reclaimed the mansion and their rights - then what? Will Erik’s change of heart hold? Will Charles still be able to see through Erik’s eyes?
Then he glimpses Erik, who is talking very seriously to a few of the students too young to be frightened of him; Charles delves into the conversation just enough to understand that Erik is explaining what a good snow fort they could build, and that the children like this idea. It’s impossible not to smile.
Erik has always said hope was his failing. Charles always felt it was his strength. Either way, he won’t abandon it now.
**
Netflix streaming has realized I would like to watch vintage Who serials. Fifth Doctor, here I come!
22.
Damn it, it’s the first day they’ve had something concrete to do, something urgent to plan, and they’re snowed in. Evening is drawing on, almost 24 hours into the storm, and the heavy winds continue to blow flakes sideways so thick and fast that it’s almost impossible even to see the nearest cabins. Charles glares out the frosted windowpane at the whiteout as if it had personally offended him.
He reaches for Ororo’s mind. Can anything be done about this?
From her own cabin she thinks back, I could send the blizzard away, but it would be highly disruptive across an enormous area. This is a large front. It needs release. Better to let it snow. She can be protective of weather patterns.
“Looks as if we’re snowbound for tonight, too,” Charles says to Erik, who is pouring hot water into two of the last remaining teabags from their supplies. “Inconvenient.”
“We need to plan. Now we have time, and no distractions. You and I have made considerable progress in the last day. I fail to see the problem.” Erik only sounds calm; he feels oddly agitated, as he has ever since the Brotherhood attack, though he’s keeping it so far beneath the surface that no one without telepathy could ever tell. Just as easily, he says, “Too bad it keeps us from seeing the aurora borealis again, though.”
“How do you - of course. They’re caused by geomagnetic storms. You feel them as well as see them, don’t you?”
Erik nods. His mood remains black, but he explains quite steadily: “They feel marvelous - rather like fur against bare skin.”
Which brings back memories of Erik’s bare skin. Charles never wrapped him in fur - someone else must have had that pleasure - but he can imagine it. Can’t help imagining it, now.
“Green is most common,” Erik says, watching the snow-blind window. “It feels somewhat coarse, but not at all unpleasant. Then pink and red, which become silkier - that’s what we would see right now, in fact - then gold, which is rather rich. Mink, perhaps. The rarest of all is blue, and that feels indescribable.”
“Share it with me?”
Erik does. Charles feels the slip of it, like being massaged by something unnamable but utterly wonderful. It’s the sensation he always imagined for the furs the White Witch wrapped Edmund in when he first stumbled upon Narnia.
Despite that pleasant exchange, Erik’s gloom is deepening. He’s always had his moods, and his reasons for them, which is why Charles tries to wait them out - but this has lasted for more than a day now. The temptation to simply pry into his mind and find out what’s going on is powerful, but that’s not the best way to handle this. Unable to bear it any longer, Charles says, “Erik, what’s wrong?”
“You’ve never fully grasped the concept of letting someone else raise the subject if and only if they feel like talking, have you?”
Charles, who keeps his silence on more unspoken thoughts than most people can imagine, considers this something of a low blow. “Very well. If you’d rather concentrate on more planning tonight, we can do that.”
Erik’s dark mood spikes so swiftly that it seems to be a force in the room, like cold wind whistling through cracks in the walls. “Yes. Better this way. Everything smoothed over and made right.” Erik’s smile is taut. “That’s how you prefer things.”
“You can be angry with me for prying or angry with me for ignoring your moods, but you can’t be both. Pick one.”
As usual, Erik doesn’t acknowledge that he’s being contradictory. He considers his words for a long, charged pause before he speaks. “That didn’t affect you, out there yesterday? Everyone talking about how things ought to have been all along?”
Charles realizes what Erik’s getting at; he can see the outline of it in Erik’s mind, and truth be told, in his own. “We’ve always needed each other.”
“All mutants. And you and I.”
“You and I,” Charles repeats.
“I prided myself that - that our leaving one another proved something. How committed we both were. How willing we were to give up what we wanted most for our causes,” Erik says, the admission costing him with every word. “But we were better leaders together than either of us could be on his own.”
Charles goes very still as the recognition settles over him too.
When they turned away from each other, they betrayed what they most believed. They betrayed the very causes they thought they were sacrificing for, and every person who believed in them. In losing each other, they lost everything.
Silence stretches between them for a few moments as Charles takes it in.
“I gave you up for nothing,” Erik says. The hell of it is that he’s right.
Charles fights hard to remain steady. He’s always tried not to let regret be his master; it’s the only thing that gets him through. “We can work together now. We can lead side by side.”
“It’s as easy as that for you?”
“Nothing about this is easy!” Steady, Charles thinks, steady. “Can we not be grateful for what we’ve gotten back?”
Wearily, Erik leans back on the threadbare couch. Despite his years, there is something about his expression that reminds Charles of the Erik he first met - wary and jaded, yet still keenly vulnerable. Seeing that in him wrenches Charles’ heart; he has so few defenses against Erik, the person he has tried harder to defend himself against than any other. “Charles, I’m more grateful for your friendship than you can ever know. A few months ago, I would have traded the remaining years of my life for one more chess game with you.”
There’s no chess set here; nobody thought to pack one, not even Hank. “Erik,” Charles murmurs, unable to find other words.
Erik continues, “But to answer your question, no. I can’t be grateful for what we’ve gotten back. Not when I compare it to what we might have had.”
“You know what you are to me.” The words come out very even and sure. “And I know what I’ve meant to you. Of course I wish that we might have - that things could have been different. Yet we cannot allow ourselves to dwell on our regrets.”
“So generous. So noble. So tidy.” Every word is like a flick from a sharpened knife-point, barely touching the skin yet drawing blood. “Do you never allow yourself to lose control, Charles? You used to.”
“We’ve both matured.”
“We’ve both gotten old, you mean. Even if you’re not showing it quite as much these days.”
“Catching up fast,” Charles says, running his hand over his newly shorn head. Though he hasn’t lost all his hair again yet, it became thin enough that he tired of half-measures, surrendered to cabin fever, and took the clippers to his scalp a couple hours ago.
The gentle joke doesn’t work. Erik’s eyes narrow, though he’s more curious than angry. “How eager you are to change the subject. You have honesty from the rest of us whether we like it not; are you so unwilling to pay us the same courtesy?”
Charles knows he’s being baited, but it works nevertheless. “This from someone who spent decades wearing a helmet that locked me out.”
“You’re the one locking doors now.” Erik is entirely too pleased with the neatness of his trap. “So the bloodless saint is only an illusion after all.”
“As you know full well.” Temper finally aroused, Charles decides that if Erik wants a fight this badly, he can have one. “If you really want to hear it, I decided a long time ago that you would have left me eventually regardless. That day on the beach - it was important for many reasons, but between us, I think it hardly mattered.”
Erik stares at him; he doesn’t appear to like the argument he worked so hard to get. Good. “Now, this I have to hear. How is it that you think the final hours of our relationship ‘hardly mattered’?”
“You would never have allowed yourself to remain with me, not in the long term. Not with me or with anyone. Once you told me that, after Magda, you had never let yourself fully fall in love again because you saw relationships as baggage. Ties that held you down. You couldn’t have seen yourself as the weapon of our race, the leader of this great movement, and let yourself enjoy anything as humble - as human - as a love affair. Admit it, Erik. You regarded your feelings for me as a weakness.”
Charles braces himself for a retort that doesn’t come. Instead Erik considers what he’s said, and although he looks more ill-tempered than before, he finally says, “There’s some truth to that.”
Why must he be so disarming at the worst possible times? Charles sighs as he braces his hands against the table; he’s started to notice some tiredness in his legs and back after a long day - a sign of things to come.
Erik continues, “It frightened me. I’d trained myself to need nothing, and after such a short time, I needed you. Like I needed air.”
“So you suffocated the human part of yourself by walking away.”
“Do you honestly think you couldn’t have won me back? There were days - there were years where, at any moment, if you had come to me, I would have given up anything to have you back. I would have given up everything.”
“Your cause? Your anger? I doubt it,” Charles snaps. “And how could I have ever known?”
“How you hated that helmet. Are you so unwilling to understand what it’s like for those of us locked in our own skulls?”
“Yes. And I won’t apologize for it. What’s natural for the rest of you is unnatural for me. From the time I was a baby, I knew that people were different from objects because I could sense something of their thoughts and feelings. When you wore that helmet, you didn’t feel like a man to me. You felt like a machine. And I think you preferred it that way.”
“Just as you preferred your moral superiority and your solitude to humbling yourself in any effort to make things right between us.” By now Erik is as close to the edge as Charles. “Did you ever try? Did you ever come to me as anything but the Honorable Leader of the Opposition? Except, of course, on one of our nights.”
They’ve made love dozens of times since their breakup, sometimes during long, languid evenings stolen for each other in hotels around the world, sometimes through purely psychic encounters when that damned helmet was taken off and Charles could indulge them both. It’s not as if they ever stopped, exactly - the last time was a decade ago, and yet Charles never felt sure it was the final time.
He remembers that night in Los Angeles - or is it Erik remembering?
“Don’t distract me,” Charles warns, ignoring the wicked gleam in Erik’s eye. “There were times I pleaded with you. I’d have gone to my knees if I still could have. And you know it.”
A long pause follows before Erik admits, “You did. Just never when I could hear you. And when I could hear you, you never spoke.”
“What rotten timing we have.”
“My dear Charles. How inadequate.”
“What would be adequate to what we lost in each other? I don’t have the words for that. I don’t think they exist.”
Erik’s dark eyes search his, understanding at last that Charles feels the loss as sharply as he does. It doesn’t comfort him; Charles wishes it would. He hates the thought of causing Erik yet more pain. Quietly, Erik says, “You never used to need words.”
That’s an invitation, however tacit. But the invitation is for them to revisit their pain - to open the wounds they’ve both spend the last few decades trying in vain to heal.
And yet, maybe Erik’s right. Maybe they have to face it before they can fully move on.
“Let me in,” Charles whispers.
And Erik does.
Images from his mind flood Charles’ inner vision: His own death, almost as horrible to see as it was to experience, and the way Erik had at first been unable to understand how he could continue to breathe, why his heart kept beating, in a world without Charles in it. Kissing frantically in the car that first afternoon, the feeling of his own hair clutched within Erik’s fingers as he kept him close, still afraid Charles would pull away. A newspaper photograph of him taken the first time Charles “went public,” and Erik torn between pride, longing, and the foolishness of feeling such longing at just the sight of Charles’ face in black ink on newsprint. One of the nights they came together - yes, Los Angeles, hardly a year after the split, Erik swearing at Charles’ folly but unable to stop himself from pulling open his shirt, sending buttons clattering against the wall, practically crawling onto the wheelchair, bending the arms outward the better to straddle Charles and grind against him.
Charles’ own memories well up too, unfettered. Another of their stolen nights - yes, Amsterdam, when at the height of his climax Erik bit down on Charles’ shoulder and the pain was as good as any possible pleasure. How sickening it was to see that Erik had been abused in jail by William Stryker and his goons, the hollow in his heart that came from witnessing that blue-black bruise. Sitting next to one another in the medical bay of the ship on the day they met, each shivering from cold and the new awareness of each other. What it was like to lie in bed when they had first become lovers and watch Erik sleep, how the beauty of his broad shoulders and tapered waist paled beside how good it was to see him, however briefly, at peace - to think that maybe for a day, for an hour, he’d helped Erik forget his pain and remember joy -
“Don’t,” Erik whispers, and Charles instantly pulls them back into their own heads. Erik’s right; it’s too much. The study in the mansion dissolves, and once again they are in their little cabin, where it is cold and dark.
For a few moments they can only stare at each other, awash in the full awareness of how much they lost. Charles allows himself to think of it so seldom. And now - when Erik has found him and saved him against all odds - now he has to realize they really might have shared their entire lives.
He folds Erik in his arms, and they simply hold each other.
“I’m sorry,” Charles says.
“I am too.”
When he’s certain he won’t cry, Charles leans his forehead against Erik’s. They move closer at the same moment, the urge mutual. It’s a kiss goodbye, no more and no less.
Or it was intended to be.
But Charles doesn’t pull away, and Erik doesn’t either, and the kiss lasts one moment longer than it was meant to - the moment that changes everything.
The moment when he first realizes that their future doesn’t have to look like their past.
Their lips part, but they remain there, faces only inches apart. Erik rests his forehead against Charles’ again, buying time.
Tentatively, Charles kisses him once more - softly, hardly more than a brush, but this time he’s testing the waters. Erik doesn’t pull away. His arousal and his uncertainty are no less sharp than Charles’ own.
Charles slides his hand along the back of Erik’s neck. “You surprised me.”
“I thought it was you who surprised me.”
Another kiss, even briefer than the last. They can’t meet each other’s eyes. At the moment, Charles’ mind is racing too fast to sense anyone else’s, but he knows Erik’s confusion must be as great as his own.
Yes, they’ve made love many times since splitting up. If they were to sleep together on those same terms, that would be simple to negotiate. What’s happening now isn’t simple. Charles doesn’t just want Erik’s body or his mind for a night; he wants Erik back, wholly and completely. Erik wants him back too. And if there’s anything left to stand in their way, Charles doesn’t remember what it is.
They’ve never been here before. Since their split, they’ve never had any reason to expect a future together; they have considered their relationship a lost cause for so long that they failed to recognize hope when it came to them.
It’s disconcerting. It’s wonderful. It’s terrifying.
All he can think of to say is, “It would be a hell of a gamble.”
Erik chuckles ruefully. “You think this is the gamble?”
He’s right. The gamble is believing that they’re on the same side, that their vision of how mutantkind is to proceed from here is mutual and shared. If that’s true, then coming together as lovers isn’t dangerous - it’s how things should be, how they always should have been. If it’s not, then they’ll destroy each other no matter what.
“I don’t know that I would survive losing you another time,” Erik says. From anyone else, it would be melodrama; from him, it’s only fact.
“Nor I.” Charles brushes one thumb along Erik’s cheekbone. “But we parted once when we shouldn’t have. I don’t want to do that again.”
Erik kisses him this time, long and slow, and Charles opens his mouth into it. How long has it been since he kissed someone this way, lips apart, tongue pushing inside? Years, maybe. He’s forgotten how intoxicating it can be. How the body rises up, demanding that the mind give in. Their kiss goes on and on, Erik’s arms winding around him as Charles threads his fingers through silvery hair.
When they part, they gaze at each other, breathing quickly, still unsure. Charles speaks so softly it’s hardly even a whisper: “Come to bed.”
Erik’s uncertainty washes over Charles, blinding him to any potential answer, until the moment Erik kisses him again.
For the first few minutes, they can’t stop kissing long enough to do anything else. Charles hasn’t let himself get simply carried away like this in ages, and he can tell from the way Erik surrenders to it that the same is true for him. He slides his hands along Erik’s back, his chest, his thighs, reminding himself of the contours and planes of his body. Already it seems impossible to him that he’s gone so long without simply touching Erik like this - without feeling that he had the right to.
Then he can’t bear it any longer, and he gets to his feet, towing Erik after him toward the bedroom. Thus far Erik’s slept on the sofa, leaving the bed to him; from now on, they share.
As they stumble through the doorway, Charles whispers between kisses, “I forgot how good this feels.”
“You can’t have done without all these years.”
Still bucking for a fight: Sometimes Erik doesn’t know when to shut it off. Charles hasn’t done without all these years, but he says only the simple truth. “What I can do - with my mind - I rarely bother with bodies any longer.”
“Lazy,” Erik chides him as he walks Charles backward to the side of the bed and pushes him down to the mattress. As he lowers himself over Charles’ body, he murmurs, “None of your illusions and fantasies tonight.”
“I don’t have any fantasies better than this.”
That, too, is no more than the truth, but hearing it makes Erik’s expression soften, and once again Charles sees a glimpse of the younger, more vulnerable person he first loved. “You dear man,” Erik murmurs.
Then they’re caught up in kissing again, in undressing one another. Charles’ gifts mean that he missed the lack of sensation below the waist far less than most paraplegics, but while it’s returned he intends to enjoy it for all it’s worth. He revels in the feeling of Erik moving against him, Erik’s hands stroking him, exploring a body he’s been apart from for too long.
No fantasies. No illusions. But this is a night to share memory. More than that: a night to redeem it.
Without fading the reality of this bed or this room, Charles brings up one of the images Erik just shared with him: that night in Los Angeles when they got so carried away that they destroyed a perfectly good wheelchair. Slowly he matches his memory of that night to Erik’s own, and it’s like putting together two halves of a torn photograph. The ragged edges seam together, and suddenly it’s there, it’s so much more real than it could have been for either of them alone - Erik’s excitement as he raked his hand across Charles’ chest, the way Charles felt vulnerable and turned on at once as Erik lifted him in his arms to carry him to bed for the first time, how Charles wasn’t sure his half-paralyzed body could still please Erik, and all the ways he and Erik learned he could. Not only does the sheer erotic power of the memory double, but the love also gleams through as it never did before, not even when it was really happening.
“I put the wheelchair straight the next morning,” Erik protests softly as Charles undoes his trousers.
“It never rolled right again.” This is whispered between kisses, over the rustle of fabric being pushed away. “No matter how often Hank tinkered with it.”
Erik offers the next memory: That night they kissed for an hour while Nat King Cole played on the hi-fi. How, after many years of mostly hurried, meaningless couplings, Erik had luxuriated in having a lover he could hold close like this - and what it was like to stop running and stand still, because he was finally exactly where he wanted to be. Charles matches it with the way he realized that night that Erik, for all his flinty exterior and dark humor, needed to be protected - from those who had hurt him, from himself, from the endless petty cruelty of the world, and how badly Charles had wanted to be that protector.
“Me against the world.” He stretches alongside Erik, their bodies finally naked together. Erik is so much older now - he not that far behind, at this point - and yet what is that age but a reminder of the years they have loved each other? “What a fool I was.”
“But a heroic fool for all that.” The way Erik says this turns it into a caress.
The memories continue to flicker within them, each offering up whatever is most precious, most private - unafraid to see it through each other’s eyes. How they flirted with each other during those first few weeks, their attraction forbidden by the day’s mores, and yet how all the world’s condemnation wasn’t enough to keep them from gazing into each other’s eyes.
How it felt for Erik to look down and see Charles’ comatose form and feel blinding joy because he was alive, and now Erik could bring him back - and what it was like for Charles to emerge from the terrible dizzying dark and see Erik next to him, holding his hands.
How thrilling it had been to lean close to one another in the front seat of the car when they kissed for the first time.
Every pair of images becomes one. Every gap in memory is filled in. Every breach is healed.
They’re not young men anymore, his recent regeneration notwithstanding; what used to be almost instantaneous takes time now. But taking time is sweet. As they soar through their pasts, Charles strokes Erik gently, then urgently, feeling his response moment by moment, until he can resist no longer and bows his head to take Erik between his lips.
Erik groans. Encouraged, Charles uses his tongue to caress him, sucks deeply, opens his mind enough to feel Erik’s pleasure along with his own. As the fullness of it hits him, sending him reeling, he sends the sensation back into Erik in turn. This give and take was once second nature to them; now it’s enough to make Erik cry out.
“I want you,” Erik whispers, and Charles’ mind fills with the mental image of what he yearns to do. It’s what Charles wants too - dear God, he’s missed this.
There’s salve beside the bed that will work. He hands it to Erik, kisses him desperately while Erik slicks his fingers, and then splays himself to his lover’s touch. Erik’s hand pushes within him - sometimes they did that, just that, and it was beyond exhilarating, maybe again soon but not tonight. And already he can imagine other nights with Erik, a future when they are never apart; it’s the greatest joy Charles has known in years.
At this point, Erik can hear Charles’ thoughts as clearly as Charles can hear his. Erik whispers, “Never without you,” as he spoons around Charles’ back.
“Never again.” Charles draws his leg up and reaches back to comb his fingers through Erik’s hair as Erik clutches at his pelvic bone and holds him fast. “Never - oh.”
And then the fusion goes beyond bodies, beyond words, as what they share builds and burns past containment. When they come, Charles captures the moment, stretches it out, holding them there at the pinnacle until there’s no greater pleasure to feel, no separation left, and they fall together into deep water, ripples spreading out for miles.
**
Several cabins away, in their new bed, Kitty rolls over, suddenly aroused, and kisses Bobby to consciousness.
In yet another cabin, Storm jolts from a vivid erotic dream to wish that Nightcrawler were with her - just as, with a BAMF and a swirl of blue smoke, he appears, in the hope that she’s awake.
Hank doesn’t wake up, but his dream changes from something forgettable into a vision he’ll never erase from his mind: He and Raven, twined together in his bed at the cabin, though a softer, warmer version of the same. But he’s the one changing shapes, from the boy he was into the blue-furred man he’s become, and each shift drives her even more crazy with desire.
Raven, too, remains asleep. Her dream is fragmented at first - is that Erik with her? Beast? At long last, Charles? At first it’s almost frightening, not knowing who’s touching her, who’s inside her, until finally the dream illuminates enough for her to understand that she’s with all three of them. It’s their first week together, and this time they’ll do it right. She flushes darker blue as she writhes between them, laughing out loud in her sleep with joy.
Wrapped up in each other as they are, Logan and Marie hardly notice the charge that sweeps over them, but his fingers grip her thighs a little more fiercely, and Marie bucks against his tongue more urgently, and the climax that sweeps through her makes her cry out in a way that gets Logan hard in an instant.
All throughout the town - everywhere within twenty miles of Charles and Erik - the wave of arousal ripples strong enough to enter every mind. Those with a partner reach out to them; those with fantasies relish those. And the children too young to understand desire in that sense dream instead of the aurora borealis shining pure, silvery blue.
23.
The New York Times, February 2
“… Although the Cure was meant to end the “mutant question,” more questions are being asked than ever before in the wake of anti-mutant violence. Those who once found mutant powers terrifying have had to see how easily mutants can in fact be captured and killed. Those who did not recognize mutants as part of humanity have seen mutants’ families and friends grieving in the wake of a Purifier “Testament,” their term for their filmed execution-style murders. Even those who remain wary of mutants in recent polls are now far more likely to indicate that they would not support violence against mutants - and support for legal measures such as mandatory registration is dropping. Politicos in Washington who made pro-Purifier statements only a few months prior are now distancing themselves from the group … “
Universal Press Syndicate, February 5
Dear Abby,
My teenage son, “Ricky,” has come out to us as a mutant. He has X-ray vision; we never guessed, though now I know how he always found his Christmas presents! His father, “Mack,” is completely horrified - he says Jamie should take the Cure as soon as possible. I don’t agree. Ricky says he doesn’t use his abilities to break the law or hurt anyone, and I believe him; he’s always been a great kid who has deserved our trust. So why should he have to change! Mack says people don’t understand, and I say that’s their problem. What do you think, Abby? - MUTANT MOM IN MINNESOTA
Dear MUTANT MOM,
Faithful readers of my column know that when the Cure was first announced last summer, I urged readers who were mutants or had mutant family members to look into this “solution” to their problems. Well, give me thirty lashes with a wet noodle, because countless readers since then have written in to share their stories about being a mutant or living with one, and they’ve convinced me that mutation is no problem at all. It is our failure to accept others who are “different” that causes the trouble. Yes, some mutants break the law - but so do plenty of other folks, and they don’t need powers to do it. By and large, mutants are just like us - and tomorrow I’ll be printing a series of letters that prove it.
Talk to your husband and find out why he is so strongly opposed to your son remaining a mutant. He may only be afraid for Ricky, given the violence against mutants in recent months. I’m sending you a copy of a new booklet I’m making available to Dear Abby readers: “Mutation - Embracing the Change.” Send $4.99 and a self-addressed stamped envelope to …
The Sun, February 9
The identity of a top Premier League footballer who wishes to announce himself as a mutant will be revealed tonight. A TV investigation into undisclosed mutants in sport had focused on him, but sources claim he then approached the show to share his story openly.
The star will be named by Channel 4 show “Dispatches” as it focuses on the issue of mutants in sport and whether their participation is a violation of league rules.
The show claims to have discovered the identities of dozens of footballers who refused to take genetic tests when some clubs began looking into the matter late last year. Their names have been kept secret by the Football Association and their clubs.
The star insists that his mutant abilities are unrelated to football, Channel 4 insiders say.
Terry Colburn of the British Mutant Defense League says, “I hope this footballer will become a test case for the league. If his mutation does not provide an unfair advantage then there is no reason on Earth he should not compete.”
The Wall Street Journal, February 10
Scott Aherne never visited the Xavier School before he sent his son there. He never even looked at a brochure.
“I didn’t want to lay eyes on the place,” he says. “I figured it was probably like some kind of reform school. Back then I thought that was all a kid like Vince could expect.”
Aherne, 47, was no different from many parents who discover they have a mutant child. When his son Vince began demonstrating the power to conduct electricity - and insisting on being called “Volt” - his father only wanted to keep it secret. The invitation for Vince to attend Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in New Salem, New York, seemed like a godsend. Although the school had only publicly identified its mission of educating and sheltering mutant youth within the past year, it had been in existence since the early 1960s. Its headmaster, Charles Xavier, was one of the most prominent spokesmen for mutant rights.
Despite those credentials, Aherne still expected the worst from the school … and still sent Vince there regardless.
“I wanted the problem to go away,” Aherne says, his eyes filling with tears. “Instead I sent my son away.”
Then, last November, the Xavier School became one of the first targets of anti-mutant violence by the political movement now known as the Purifiers. Letters were sent to parents, asking for permission to take their children to safety - and secrecy.
“I said yes and told myself it was to keep Vince from being hurt,” Aherne says. “But sometimes I wonder whether I lacked the courage to face his problems myself.”
Some students did return home - apparently all whose parents requested that they return. But the rest of the students, along with the faculty and the pro-mutant fighting force known as the “X-Men,” have remained underground ever since. In the wake of their absence, the X-Men are now more missed than feared - as are the children under their care.
“This place is a mansion,” Aherne says now, as he looks at the Xavier School (unoccupied except for a private, wholly human security force, which has no direct contact with the school administrators.) “It’s beautiful. Why didn’t I ever think it could be beautiful?”
CNN.com, February 13
Some observers call “the mutant question” the last battleground of the modern culture wars in the United States. However, the battleground keeps changing, and the question now is how the public at large will respond to the Purifier “Testaments” - filmed executions of mutants whose powers were insufficient to free them from armed militia groups.
According to a Pew Research study, even people who would consider themselves “strongly anti-mutant” oppose the Purifiers’ actions. The group, led by Reverend Matthew Risman, is now defined as a fringe group whose actions are not to be supported - much as the church of the Rev. Fred Phelps attracts no support from mainstream Christian leaders.
However, opinions vary sharply on how to respond to these attacks. The public seems divided on whether mutants should receive legal protection, and what form that protection might take. There is nearly a 50/50 split on the question of registration - and there is no consensus on whether registration is a pro-mutant or anti-mutant move. Some respondents saw this as a “check on mutant powers,” while still others argued it was the best protection for a group that may be unable to protect itself.
Which way will the political tide turn? The Pew study results indicate that it’s far too early to tell …
24.
The first thing Erik thinks when he awakens to see Charles sleeping next to him is that he is being completely ridiculous.
Honestly, he tells himself, aren’t you past believing in fairy tales?
Yet this is no fairy tale, no dream. He is really in Charles’ bed. He has taken Charles back - or has Charles taken him? Both, it seems.
There were mornings in the first few weeks after their split when Erik awoke and reached for Charles before he remembered. He spent the hours after that castigating himself, searching for every last shred of hope that remained and burning it to nothingness. Or so he’d thought. Something must have survived, preserved deep inside, to bring him to this.
Erik turns on his side, the better to watch Charles doze. The sheer wonder of the moment is counterbalanced nicely by Charles’ tendency to sleep with his mouth open. A small smile tugs at Erik’s lips, and the feeling that steals over him is strangely like contentment.
Then, very suddenly, Charles sits bolt upright in bed. Instantly he has shifted from slumber to wakefulness and alarm. “What is it?” Erik says.
“The children.”
Erik starts to get out of bed, the better to defend their students, but Charles lays one hand on his arm to hold him in place. His expression is shifting from concern to bemusement. “Wait.”
“Are we under attack?”
“I don’t think so. No. We aren’t.” Charles leans against the headboard, clearly relieved. “It was an icefall. Came crashing against a vacant cabin near the girls’ dormitory - frightened them. But it’s nothing really.” He starts to smile. “I believe they’re now planning a snowball fight.”
Erik seizes Charles by the shoulders and kisses him soundly. Within moments he’s borne Charles down onto the bed. They don’t go beyond kissing and caressing - they’re both still completely sated from the night before - and yet somehow this feels just as intimate as their lovemaking did. This is all Erik wants, all he can ever imagine wanting: the rasp of Charles’ unshaven cheek against his, the taste of his mouth, his hand stroking the length of Erik’s back.
But then Charles folds him in a psychic embrace to match the physical one; love surrounds him, infuses him, and Erik knows he wants this too - today and always.
When at last they break off their kisses, Erik nestles himself in Charles’ arms and rests his head against Charles’ chest. Once he trusts himself to speak, he says, “I missed that.”
“Did you?” Charles runs one hand through Erik’s hair, and clearly there’s something else he wants to say, but he hesitates. Erik waits. Finally Charles gets it out: “Sometimes I wondered - on a few of our nights just before we left off, when we weren’t getting on as well - I wondered whether you really wanted me. Or whether you just wanted what I could do.”
“Your Jedi mind tricks, you mean. Honestly, Charles, you know better than that.” One of the most intense sexual experiences they ever shared took place on a night when Erik left the helmet on.
“I knew you would - ” To Erik’s surprise, Charles’ chest starts to shake with repressed laughter. “The minute, the very minute they said that line in the movie, Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back or whichever one it was - I knew if you saw it too, you’d say that to me one day.”
“If I saw it? Good Lord. I’m not exactly a fan of modern popular culture, but I do occasionally leave the house.”
“We’ve got decades of pop culture to discuss, you know. There were so many times I just wanted to hear what you would think of something. Especially something ridiculous.”
Their meetings were always so highly charged - in one way or another - that they’ve discussed almost nothing trivial or lighthearted in all the time since. “I know. Can you believe we’ve never had a chance to make fun of disco?”
Charles can’t hold back the laughter any longer, and Erik rolls back, the better to see his face. “Oh, God. That was the worst. Polyester suits and satin shirts.” He gives Erik a mischievous look. “Although I do seem to remember someone adopting a rather disco mustache around that time.”
“I thought you liked that mustache. We had rather spectacular sex one weekend while I had that mustache.”
“In spite of the mustache.”
“And who spent the 1980s in those ghastly multicolored pullovers? The ones with the triangles and the lines and … things.”
Charles covers his eyes with his hand, as if wincing. “Guilty as charged.” He strokes along Erik’s shoulder as his expression softens. “It’s good to see you laughing.”
Erik experiences a sudden moment of awareness that their relationship will not always be like this - drowsy post-coital laughter. Kisses and conversation, without a disagreement in the world, everything so easy and gentle and right.
But Erik has spent most of his life torn between fearing a horrific feature and remembering a brutal past. For today, he decides, he’s going to live in the now. This is a very good now to have, and there’s no point in wasting it.
“It’s easier to laugh when you’re happy.” Erik curls further into Charles’ embrace. “No one has ever made me happier than you.”
“Erik. I love you.”
Only after Charles kisses him does Erik realize how seldom they’ve said those words to one another. And yet it’s always been there. He closes his eyes and surrenders to the kiss, hoping it’s possible for some things to go unsaid - for some truths to be understood without words. Then, maybe, they really do understand one another after all.
25.
Digging out the snow late that evening would be a chore, were Ororo not able to summon the winds to blow most of it away into huge drifts on the edge of their small town. Charles wonders how long it will be before they can restore communications; they were on the verge of creating wireless access, which would be a boon on many fronts. The students leap about, finding the break from routine and confinement exciting, whereas the X-Men are stuck chipping ice away from locks and checking whether their food stores have frozen solid.
Charles walks out of his cabin with Erik; they’re not hand in hand or anything like that, because that’s not how either of them conducts himself, but there must be some subtle cues they’re sending. Hank’s ears adjust at an angle that often means he’s reconsidering a situation. Even he makes no assumptions, though. The one person who knows - who automatically understands, because she’s been inside Erik’s head enough to make the connection - is Marie. She straightens, looks away and hurries toward the vehicles, supposedly for a check of the equipment but really to get farther away from them.
Although Logan starts to follow her, Charles motions for him to stay put. Logan gets a rather wary look on his face - and given what Charles now senses guiltily floating atop his memories, no wonder - but he acquiesces. There’s a definite edge to it; Logan intends to find out what’s wrong with Marie sooner rather than later. But there’s trust there too.
Charles hopes he deserves it.
When he finds Marie, she’s tapping the motorcycle’s gauges and scowling. As he approaches, she glances over her shoulder and freezes; she didn’t expect him to actually confront her. “Hello,” he says gently. “Are you all right?”
She takes the question in an entirely different light than he intended it. “Logan and I - it’s not like he pressured me or anything.”
“I realize that.”
“He’s sweet, really.” Her cheeks flush, and then she turns back to the motorcycle, as if that will help.
Charles’ talents have not given him any greater insight into what relationships will work out in the end. Sometimes it’s easy enough to sense when something is doomed, but usually another person’s romance is a tangle of emotions that he’s no better at sorting out than anyone else. Of course, there are obvious pitfalls in this case: the age gap between them, plus Logan’s myriad attitude problems and murky past. But Marie is an adult now, however young, and their relationship isn’t exploitive - Charles can tell that much. Beyond that, it’s none of his business.
“I didn’t come here to lecture you about your love life,” he says. “You’re old enough to make your own decisions.”
“Oh. Okay.” She glances over her shoulder. “So, you’re here because - ”
“Because I rather thought you wanted to lecture me.”
Marie drops any pretense of caring about the condition of the motorcycle at this moment. “Professor - seriously, you can’t let Magneto come back. I don’t mean - you and him - I don’t mean that. Not just that, anyway.” She’s more worried for him than angry, which Charles finds oddly touching. “Have you forgotten what he did to me? What he did to you? I know he’s had a lot of stuff happen to him, and I know he rescued you and everything, but that doesn’t mean he’s changed. Not really. Even if it seems like he has here and now - what happens when we get back out in the world? Everything will be different then. More like it was before.” Her gaze shadows as she wonders what that means for her and Logan, but she doesn’t let it distract her. “Are you going to let Magneto make our decisions? Let him be in charge with you? Because I don’t trust his judgment, and you shouldn’t either.”
After she finishes, Charles considers what she’s said very carefully. Marie is young, and speaking impulsively, but that doesn’t mean her words aren’t worth listening to.
Yet she has not been within Erik’s mind, has not felt the transformation there. Charles has, and he trusts that more than anything else.
Finally he says, “You don’t have to excuse Erik for what he did to you. It was cruel in the extreme, and unjustifiable. That act is yours to forgive and no one else’s. I’ll never ask you to accept it.”
Marie relaxes slightly. “Okay.”
“What I will ask you to accept is that now Erik is on our side. We’re facing a crisis unlike any other in our race’s history, and we need each other. All mutants, even the ones we’ve fought in the past. That includes Erik. You don’t have to like him; you don’t have to trust his judgment. You only have to understand that he wants the same thing we want. He wants mutants to be safe and free, all of us, everywhere.”
“But what he’ll do to make that happen - it’s not right.”
“I sincerely believe Erik regrets his past choices. If he were being less than honest with me, I’d know.”
She runs one hand through her hair, obviously trying to calm herself and yet make him less calm. “At Alkali Lake, when Stryker’s men were after us - Professor, he left you to die.”
That hurts, but he reminds himself that the pain isn’t something she caused, just something she’s made him recall. “That’s mine to forgive, and no one else’s.”
Marie blinks. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I don’t blame you for being concerned.” Charles sighs. “You can always speak your mind, Marie. Be honest. I’ll try to do the same.” He hasn’t spent enough time being accountable, these past many years.
Although she doesn’t like it, she accepts this. Again, there’s that trust he relies on so much. “All right. Just be careful.”
Her desire to keep him from being hurt makes him smile. She’s so young that she believes such a thing is possible. “I will. And tell Logan to stop worrying I’m about to put him under house arrest, would you?”
That makes her laugh, so they part well.
As he heads back toward the others, though, Charles finds himself reflecting on one particular thing she said. What happens when they return to the regular world? In this snowy, quiet place, anything seems possible, even miracles. But after their mission in China, after they’ve reclaimed the mansion and their rights - then what? Will Erik’s change of heart hold? Will Charles still be able to see through Erik’s eyes?
Then he glimpses Erik, who is talking very seriously to a few of the students too young to be frightened of him; Charles delves into the conversation just enough to understand that Erik is explaining what a good snow fort they could build, and that the children like this idea. It’s impossible not to smile.
Erik has always said hope was his failing. Charles always felt it was his strength. Either way, he won’t abandon it now.
**
Netflix streaming has realized I would like to watch vintage Who serials. Fifth Doctor, here I come!