A Love with Intuition
Jun. 20th, 2014 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mind_over_metalNSFW
Set post-CFUD (i.e., Charles and Erik were stuck together in ajam-jar RP multi-dimensional summer/prison camp and are resultantly in a relationship -- at least in so much as they’re not broken up -- that they haven't seen fit to inform anyone else of since they returned home) with DoFP influence (thus, spoilers)
IN CASE YOU'VE BEEN WONDERING HOW THEY'VE BEEN GETTING ON SINCE CAMP
--
Me
So the big question is
whether Erik would be down for using Hank's serum as a sex aid
I mean, that was the question on everyone's mind, right
Jeeps
lskdjfhglsdkfj
I HAVE TO CONFESS IT WAS NOT ON MINE but now i've seen the error of my ways
i think
he
would have to be talked into it
DAMMIT ERIK WOULD YOU THINK ABOUT ME FOR JUST A MINUTE
Happy belated birthday,godwinner. Sorry the idea turned from humor to angst. That happens.
--
Observed evidence over the course of the past couple of years indicated that the tipping point seemed to be somewhere around the four-hour mark. Less than that and it was more likely that nothing would explode. It was at about that length of time that the conditions became increasingly disposed toward something violently combusting. Of course, there were also the times when Erik and Charles started in a fight, one or both of them ready to have his hands around the other's throat from the moment of seeing the other's face (or earlier), but when originating from a position of relative amicability, they could usually manage a few rounds of sex (or a nice dinner and maybe one round of sex) before someone let something trigger a fight.
They only had a couple of hours the first time the question was raised, which is probably what allowed it to be dropped with such little struggle.
"You know what I think of you being a lab rat for Hank's miracle cures," Erik said, his voice hardening to cold-edged sarcasm.
"It was just a question. I thought that maybe...." Charles let both the words and the thought hang for a moment before deliberately setting them to the side, settling himself back into Erik's arms. "Grab the sheet, will you?"
"It's hardly chilly."
"Not everyone here is a hot-blooded, barbaric continental," Charles protested without any heat.
It took them a few minutes, but they finally reached a compromise on bedding and then talked about what Johnson's withdrawing from the race meant for the Democratic primary until Charles had to leave for the panel that had brought him to Boston in the first place.
Given how quickly the subject had been dropped, it surprised Erik when, a couple months and a couple rendezvous later, Charles said, "It wouldn't be experimental, of course. We've already run several tests."
"What?" said Erik.
"The serum," Charles clarified. "I wouldn't do something that risky. We've already tested how it affects me. How else do you think we'd know the... side effect?"
"...you're telling me that you've allowed yourself to be a live test subject."
Charles sighed. "It's hardly possible to be rigorous and objective while running tests on oneself."
"And so you chose to put yourself at risk when you have children in your care-"
"I trust Hank's science, he would never put me at risk-"
"And of course, he'd never make a mistake-"
"It's precisely because of what that experiment on himself showed with-"
"Right, of course, it had the opposite effect from what was desired at first. Now, though, if you’re able to willingly suppress your own mutation-"
"That’s not the point of-"
(Erik had been in Philadelphia when Charles was on summer break. They had the entire weekend together – and ended up spending a few hours on Sunday not speaking to each other as a result of that argument. After which they spent a few hours making up for lost time, letting the possibilities offered by Hank's serum again be dismissed from discussion.)
It was several months after that when Erik received the note. Erik had been lying low in New Jersey for a couple weeks when the envelope with no return address came, same as with all of those other notes he had received over the years when no one should have known where he was.
"I will be at the Atlantic City Marriott on next Thursday. I will have used the serum because it is my body to do with as I wish. You can meet me or not meet me. Whatever you choose will not impact my communicating with you again."
Oh, Charles, Erik thought, if only you knew how well lack of apology suits you.
Erik could have followed that tiny piece of metal he knew so well, the one that had been fused to Charles's spine ever since Erik had put another piece of metal there (always with him now, always his), but he heard himself asking the lobby clerk anyways, as if to fill the unnatural silence in his head. As he rode the elevator to the sixth floor, he shrugged off his winter coat and extended his senses outward from where Charles was broken: belt buckle, wristwatch, thin thin needles just out of reach, a skeletal and contorted wheelchair (the small, collapsible one, in its folded state).
But so silent.
It was difficult to not feel offended, Erik discovered, to shake the feeling that he was being ignored, shut out. But he wasn't, Erik told himself, as he walked down the hall to Room 618, he was being waited for, all of the metal in the room still, so still. Dead still. Erik's steps hastened. It was stupid, to leave himself so vulnerable, particularly with the ominous leads they had been discovering lately-
Charles moved.
Erik slowed to a stop outside of Room 618. Nothing greeted him. Charles, Erik realized, still did not even know that Erik was there, that he had come. He waited a few minutes longer in the advantage of his knowledge. Charles was shifting slightly (restless?) but remaining seated. How long would Charles have waited, Erik wondered, laying a hand flat against a door. No, he rebuked himself as he let his hand drop, there was no wondering. Charles would wait as long as he had said that he would wait. That much, he knew.
With a flick of his fingers, Erik unlocked and opened the door. Another twist of the wrist closed and locked it behind him.
Charles was dressed casually in a short-sleeved sports shirt that did not look particularly good on him. It was the color more than the terrible plaid – Charles's own color was off and it clashed, Erik noted, and there were shadows under his eyes, but it was hard to be bothered with those details when Charles's eyes were so hungry and rising, they were rising, and there was probably a joke somewhere in the fact that Erik and Charles had actually never quite seen eye to eye (eye to chin or eye to hair, depending on the perspective), but it had been years since Erik had stood motionless and held eye contact as Charles approached without needing to dip his head. Erik briefly wondered if Charles had, in fact, retained his telepathic powers and was now freezing him to the spot, now compelling Erik to reach for him. No, no, his body told him as his arm raised itself so that he could grasp around the back of Charles's neck, this is you, this is him.
"Charles-" Erik started to say, to give voice to the strangeness, but Charles's mouth was already pressed to his, stealing his own name from Erik's lips as his strong fingers caged themselves around Erik's skull, pulling Erik down farther to meet him. They had never kissed like this, standing toe to toe, both fully upright, isolated in space with nothing to support them. Strange, Erik's brain continued to scream at him, like kissing a stranger.
But the feel of Charles's hair gripped tight in Erik's fingers (and the resultant moan), the half-strangled gasp when Erik pressed his mouth to that spot below Charles's ear, the scent of the body pressed hot up against his own – that was all the same. Somewhere in the void and buried beneath the silence was the man Erik knew, who set his mind and body aflame like no one else. His teeth caught on the soft flesh of Charles's mouth, and Charles did not protest but took it with greediness, as if his vulnerability was the only thing he had to offer and oh but wasn't Charles always so desperate to give.
Erik pulled back to stare at Charles and wondered if Charles could read that in his eyes: I could kill you now. He thought it as hard as he could.
Charles dropped to his knees, and Erik drew in a sharp breath as how painfully hard he found himself. His hand remained fisted in Charles's hair, but most of Erik's strength was channeled into staring. Staring at the messy way the material of Charles's slacks gets bunched against the ground. Staring at the ninety-degree angle of Charles's legs against the floor. Staring at the line that traveled straight up from this knees, up through his hips, past the strain in the front of Charles's slacks, up that solid chest, to the face staring at Charles's own hands as they impatiently cleared the obstacles between Charles's mouth and Erik's cock, to the eyes that closed in either bliss or pain when Charles's mouth found its target.
Open your eyes, Erik thought, then he said, "Open your eyes" and his voice was a wavering wreck, but he was unembarrassed by it. The look in Charles's eyes was just as wrecked, and once they were open, Charles did nothing to hide it, and that, too, was the same.
Charles was fast and sloppy like a man in a desert who had suddenly found water, too impatient to take him deep, sometimes making Erik hiss with the careless brush of teeth. His jaw was clenched, tense with the effort of not moving his hips to force himself farther into the wet tightness that he'd had so many times before. Charles could ask for it if he wanted it, was never shy about it. But he pulled his mouth off completely, making Erik choke instead. Grabbing onto Erik's arm, he pulled himself to standing, legs a bit stiff and uncoordinated underneath him, but he was hardly upright before he began walking backwards toward the bed, not loosening his grip on Erik's arm.
Erik gladly followed, his free hand reaching for the bottom of his own shirt as he hurried to keep up. Charles released Erik's arm as he sat down on the edge of the bed, and he had his shirt half off by the time that Erik had lifted his over his head and tossed it to the side. He reached for Charles's belt, but Charles pushed him away with shaking hands. Erik took a step back, and again he stared, watching Charles fumble off his pants, remembered the first time he had helped Charles undress and wondered if Charles was thinking of that, too. Somehow he got his pants off as well without tripping himself despite his eyes being glued to Charles's cock and the way that it visibly had Charles's thoughts, even if Erik didn't.
"Well?" Charles's voice was rough with impatience. Erik kneeled on the bed between his spread thighs, metal-wrapped container of lube flying to his open hand while the other pressed against Charles's chest, pushing him back toward the headboard.
"Do you... It fully restores... everything?" Erik asked as he slicked up his fingers.
"Mostly," Charles said, pulling a pillow down to shove under his hips. "Motor control, definitely, and most sensation, though that can be a little hit or- ah."
It was difficult not to laugh aloud at the bemused expression on Charles's face as he look down at his own body to where his hips had reflexively twitched away from the wet brush of Erik's fingers across his hole. A faint flush of embarrassment had already begun to paint his pale face.
"Keep going, it just- I was just surprised, keep going."
And with that sort of demand, how could he do anything other than comply, Erik thought as he leaned down to trap Charles with the weight of his body and suck bruises onto the delicate skin of his neck. His free hand wrapped itself possessively around the side of Charles's hip, and he aimed this time for Charles's cock, fist wrapping slickly around him, letting him jerk sharply into his grip a few times before again sliding his hand downward. This time, he could feel the tension of Charles deliberately holding himself still.
"No good, either," he sighed against Charles's jawline. "Come on, relax for me, Charles." He traced one finger around Charles's entrance. "We know you can. How many times have I fucked you now?"
"Not enough," Charles shot back before his breath caught in his throat.
Erik searched his face, Charles staring hard at some focused point in this middle distance as he clenched hard around Erik's finger. "Okay?" Erik asked, a miracle that his voice was as steady as it was at the new sensation of this resistance. If he felt this, that had to mean that Charles was feeling him, finally feeling him. "Answer me, Charles."
There was a moment of just the harsh sound of both of their breathing, but through gritted teeth, Charles's said, "Yes. Yes... keep... fuck, I'm fine, keep..."
And then Erik moved his finger again and put Charles out of his inarticulate misery, kissing him hard and wet and filthy, taking each grunt and whimper and moan as was his due. Because it all was his, Erik thought as he added a second finger. Neither he nor Charles had ever made any demand so foolish as faithfulness, because no one could ever compare, and he knew that was as true for his body as it was for his mind.
"Did you ever do this to yourself," he murmured against Charles's lips, pulled back just far enough to articulate sound, "ever get so desperate for it, fuck yourself on your own fingers?"
The bite was hard enough that Erik tasted his own blood when Charles let his mouth fall away, his head tipping back, his throat and exposed column of white marred only by his own markings.
"When I was younger, yes, in- as a teenager, a bit, and th- then... but only one and- aah!"
The arch of his spine off the mattress was beautiful. Erik took it as a sign to continue what he was doing. But he wasn't allowed to for very long before Charles began demanding again, with broken curses and moaned encouragement.
Erik took his time, always taking some perverse joy in being the cause of Charles's frustration. But the need in him was no less than Charles's, so it was not long before he was slicking up his cock with a groan and lining himself up with the body that would no longer accept him easily.
And then Charles wrapped his legs around Erik's waist, and he nearly came from the touch of Charles's ankle across his back.
One, two, three steadying breaths, willing himself back from the edge. Then he pushed inside, and it felt much the same, but Charles's sharp cry was new. Erik slowed but did not stop, continuing forward until he was as deep as he could go.
"Can you feel me?" he asked against the wetness on Charles's face. "Tell me you can feel me."
Charles's head jerked incoherently, neither nodding nor disagreeing, entire body trembling around Erik.
"Charles, tell me," Erik demanded, needing a voice other than his own.
Those red lips fell open and a broken moan tumbled out before Charles's voice cracked on a "Yes." And "Yes, I can. I can. I feel you in- feeling you inside me- Erik... Erik..."
And he might have said more words, but Erik wasn't listening, couldn't hear above the roar of his own mind, his own heart. The force was punishing, and the arms wrapped around Erik's neck only held him closer.
And when Erik came, he felt desperately alone.
His vision slowly seeping back from the edges inward, Erik looked down and saw that Charles had come at some point. One of his legs had fallen haphazardly to the side, but his other three limbs were still wrapped around him. They stayed bound together that way for a few minutes before Erik reluctantly dislodged Charles's leg enough for him to pull out.
To go much farther than that was more than he felt like managing, though, and he settled back down across Charles's chest. Charles let his arms stay loosely draped around him, one bending up to card idly through his hair. They remained there in silence past the point when Charles usually started complaining about catching a chill.
"Alex's number was called," Charles said.
Erik's brow furrowed. "So? There has to be some way-"
"He's going."
Erik shifted his head from Charles's chest, so that the ticking of Charles's wristwatch was louder than the beat of his heart.
"How is she?" Charles asked.
"Fine," Erik said. He probably wasn't lying. Mystique had said she was fine the last time that she contacted him, telling him not to look for her. That had been almost a year ago. But if Charles still didn't feel like actually asking, Erik didn't feel like starting that fight again.
Charles slipped out of the bed, walking naked into the bathroom. After a few minutes passed in silence, Erik swung his legs around and got out of the bed as well, gathering up his clothes and starting to get redressed.
He heard the crash and felt the leak of Charles's mind just about simultaneously.
Charles, he thought, and he called, "Charles-" turning to rush into the bathroom wearing his pants and one sock.
"I'm fine," said the voice on the other side of the closed door.
"Charles-"
"You should leave now," he said, and it wasn't a command, but there was an undercurrent of compulsion, one that Erik recognized as unintentional.
Erik pulled on the rest of his clothes and, when he made it to the hallway a few minutes later, pulled the door shut after him with perhaps a little more force than it was meant to handle. Reaching out his hand, he realigned the lock.
There was no one around, so he left through the window at the end of the hall.
A week later, he received another note reading:
"Wintering in New Jersey is a terrible plan. Join me for the weekend? We could head back to Connecticut.
I'll be normal. I've pulled myself together. I promise. I shouldn't have done that last time.
I'm sorry."
Erik disliked feeling conflicted.
--
[Post Script]
Hank had gone out to get groceries when Charles heard the noise downstairs. He instinctively focused his mind toward the intrusion – but nothing. A brief flare of panic trembled in his gut before he steadied himself and walked over to grab a poker from the fireplace. Just because his telepathy was muted didn't mean that he was helpless. After all, what could be more helpless than...
But deal with the threat first. He crept down the stairs with the quiet that he had learned as a child, edged to the kitchen.
The poker clattered loudly to the ground.
"Hello, Charles," said Raven. "I told Erik that it was pretty damn sad when I was more likely to be able to get the truth from you. Are you feeling up to having a talk?"
[End.]
Set post-CFUD (i.e., Charles and Erik were stuck together in a
IN CASE YOU'VE BEEN WONDERING HOW THEY'VE BEEN GETTING ON SINCE CAMP
--
Me
So the big question is
whether Erik would be down for using Hank's serum as a sex aid
I mean, that was the question on everyone's mind, right
Jeeps
lskdjfhglsdkfj
I HAVE TO CONFESS IT WAS NOT ON MINE but now i've seen the error of my ways
i think
he
would have to be talked into it
DAMMIT ERIK WOULD YOU THINK ABOUT ME FOR JUST A MINUTE
Happy belated birthday,
godwinner. Sorry the idea turned from humor to angst. That happens.--
Observed evidence over the course of the past couple of years indicated that the tipping point seemed to be somewhere around the four-hour mark. Less than that and it was more likely that nothing would explode. It was at about that length of time that the conditions became increasingly disposed toward something violently combusting. Of course, there were also the times when Erik and Charles started in a fight, one or both of them ready to have his hands around the other's throat from the moment of seeing the other's face (or earlier), but when originating from a position of relative amicability, they could usually manage a few rounds of sex (or a nice dinner and maybe one round of sex) before someone let something trigger a fight.
They only had a couple of hours the first time the question was raised, which is probably what allowed it to be dropped with such little struggle.
"You know what I think of you being a lab rat for Hank's miracle cures," Erik said, his voice hardening to cold-edged sarcasm.
"It was just a question. I thought that maybe...." Charles let both the words and the thought hang for a moment before deliberately setting them to the side, settling himself back into Erik's arms. "Grab the sheet, will you?"
"It's hardly chilly."
"Not everyone here is a hot-blooded, barbaric continental," Charles protested without any heat.
It took them a few minutes, but they finally reached a compromise on bedding and then talked about what Johnson's withdrawing from the race meant for the Democratic primary until Charles had to leave for the panel that had brought him to Boston in the first place.
Given how quickly the subject had been dropped, it surprised Erik when, a couple months and a couple rendezvous later, Charles said, "It wouldn't be experimental, of course. We've already run several tests."
"What?" said Erik.
"The serum," Charles clarified. "I wouldn't do something that risky. We've already tested how it affects me. How else do you think we'd know the... side effect?"
"...you're telling me that you've allowed yourself to be a live test subject."
Charles sighed. "It's hardly possible to be rigorous and objective while running tests on oneself."
"And so you chose to put yourself at risk when you have children in your care-"
"I trust Hank's science, he would never put me at risk-"
"And of course, he'd never make a mistake-"
"It's precisely because of what that experiment on himself showed with-"
"Right, of course, it had the opposite effect from what was desired at first. Now, though, if you’re able to willingly suppress your own mutation-"
"That’s not the point of-"
(Erik had been in Philadelphia when Charles was on summer break. They had the entire weekend together – and ended up spending a few hours on Sunday not speaking to each other as a result of that argument. After which they spent a few hours making up for lost time, letting the possibilities offered by Hank's serum again be dismissed from discussion.)
It was several months after that when Erik received the note. Erik had been lying low in New Jersey for a couple weeks when the envelope with no return address came, same as with all of those other notes he had received over the years when no one should have known where he was.
"I will be at the Atlantic City Marriott on next Thursday. I will have used the serum because it is my body to do with as I wish. You can meet me or not meet me. Whatever you choose will not impact my communicating with you again."
Oh, Charles, Erik thought, if only you knew how well lack of apology suits you.
Erik could have followed that tiny piece of metal he knew so well, the one that had been fused to Charles's spine ever since Erik had put another piece of metal there (always with him now, always his), but he heard himself asking the lobby clerk anyways, as if to fill the unnatural silence in his head. As he rode the elevator to the sixth floor, he shrugged off his winter coat and extended his senses outward from where Charles was broken: belt buckle, wristwatch, thin thin needles just out of reach, a skeletal and contorted wheelchair (the small, collapsible one, in its folded state).
But so silent.
It was difficult to not feel offended, Erik discovered, to shake the feeling that he was being ignored, shut out. But he wasn't, Erik told himself, as he walked down the hall to Room 618, he was being waited for, all of the metal in the room still, so still. Dead still. Erik's steps hastened. It was stupid, to leave himself so vulnerable, particularly with the ominous leads they had been discovering lately-
Charles moved.
Erik slowed to a stop outside of Room 618. Nothing greeted him. Charles, Erik realized, still did not even know that Erik was there, that he had come. He waited a few minutes longer in the advantage of his knowledge. Charles was shifting slightly (restless?) but remaining seated. How long would Charles have waited, Erik wondered, laying a hand flat against a door. No, he rebuked himself as he let his hand drop, there was no wondering. Charles would wait as long as he had said that he would wait. That much, he knew.
With a flick of his fingers, Erik unlocked and opened the door. Another twist of the wrist closed and locked it behind him.
Charles was dressed casually in a short-sleeved sports shirt that did not look particularly good on him. It was the color more than the terrible plaid – Charles's own color was off and it clashed, Erik noted, and there were shadows under his eyes, but it was hard to be bothered with those details when Charles's eyes were so hungry and rising, they were rising, and there was probably a joke somewhere in the fact that Erik and Charles had actually never quite seen eye to eye (eye to chin or eye to hair, depending on the perspective), but it had been years since Erik had stood motionless and held eye contact as Charles approached without needing to dip his head. Erik briefly wondered if Charles had, in fact, retained his telepathic powers and was now freezing him to the spot, now compelling Erik to reach for him. No, no, his body told him as his arm raised itself so that he could grasp around the back of Charles's neck, this is you, this is him.
"Charles-" Erik started to say, to give voice to the strangeness, but Charles's mouth was already pressed to his, stealing his own name from Erik's lips as his strong fingers caged themselves around Erik's skull, pulling Erik down farther to meet him. They had never kissed like this, standing toe to toe, both fully upright, isolated in space with nothing to support them. Strange, Erik's brain continued to scream at him, like kissing a stranger.
But the feel of Charles's hair gripped tight in Erik's fingers (and the resultant moan), the half-strangled gasp when Erik pressed his mouth to that spot below Charles's ear, the scent of the body pressed hot up against his own – that was all the same. Somewhere in the void and buried beneath the silence was the man Erik knew, who set his mind and body aflame like no one else. His teeth caught on the soft flesh of Charles's mouth, and Charles did not protest but took it with greediness, as if his vulnerability was the only thing he had to offer and oh but wasn't Charles always so desperate to give.
Erik pulled back to stare at Charles and wondered if Charles could read that in his eyes: I could kill you now. He thought it as hard as he could.
Charles dropped to his knees, and Erik drew in a sharp breath as how painfully hard he found himself. His hand remained fisted in Charles's hair, but most of Erik's strength was channeled into staring. Staring at the messy way the material of Charles's slacks gets bunched against the ground. Staring at the ninety-degree angle of Charles's legs against the floor. Staring at the line that traveled straight up from this knees, up through his hips, past the strain in the front of Charles's slacks, up that solid chest, to the face staring at Charles's own hands as they impatiently cleared the obstacles between Charles's mouth and Erik's cock, to the eyes that closed in either bliss or pain when Charles's mouth found its target.
Open your eyes, Erik thought, then he said, "Open your eyes" and his voice was a wavering wreck, but he was unembarrassed by it. The look in Charles's eyes was just as wrecked, and once they were open, Charles did nothing to hide it, and that, too, was the same.
Charles was fast and sloppy like a man in a desert who had suddenly found water, too impatient to take him deep, sometimes making Erik hiss with the careless brush of teeth. His jaw was clenched, tense with the effort of not moving his hips to force himself farther into the wet tightness that he'd had so many times before. Charles could ask for it if he wanted it, was never shy about it. But he pulled his mouth off completely, making Erik choke instead. Grabbing onto Erik's arm, he pulled himself to standing, legs a bit stiff and uncoordinated underneath him, but he was hardly upright before he began walking backwards toward the bed, not loosening his grip on Erik's arm.
Erik gladly followed, his free hand reaching for the bottom of his own shirt as he hurried to keep up. Charles released Erik's arm as he sat down on the edge of the bed, and he had his shirt half off by the time that Erik had lifted his over his head and tossed it to the side. He reached for Charles's belt, but Charles pushed him away with shaking hands. Erik took a step back, and again he stared, watching Charles fumble off his pants, remembered the first time he had helped Charles undress and wondered if Charles was thinking of that, too. Somehow he got his pants off as well without tripping himself despite his eyes being glued to Charles's cock and the way that it visibly had Charles's thoughts, even if Erik didn't.
"Well?" Charles's voice was rough with impatience. Erik kneeled on the bed between his spread thighs, metal-wrapped container of lube flying to his open hand while the other pressed against Charles's chest, pushing him back toward the headboard.
"Do you... It fully restores... everything?" Erik asked as he slicked up his fingers.
"Mostly," Charles said, pulling a pillow down to shove under his hips. "Motor control, definitely, and most sensation, though that can be a little hit or- ah."
It was difficult not to laugh aloud at the bemused expression on Charles's face as he look down at his own body to where his hips had reflexively twitched away from the wet brush of Erik's fingers across his hole. A faint flush of embarrassment had already begun to paint his pale face.
"Keep going, it just- I was just surprised, keep going."
And with that sort of demand, how could he do anything other than comply, Erik thought as he leaned down to trap Charles with the weight of his body and suck bruises onto the delicate skin of his neck. His free hand wrapped itself possessively around the side of Charles's hip, and he aimed this time for Charles's cock, fist wrapping slickly around him, letting him jerk sharply into his grip a few times before again sliding his hand downward. This time, he could feel the tension of Charles deliberately holding himself still.
"No good, either," he sighed against Charles's jawline. "Come on, relax for me, Charles." He traced one finger around Charles's entrance. "We know you can. How many times have I fucked you now?"
"Not enough," Charles shot back before his breath caught in his throat.
Erik searched his face, Charles staring hard at some focused point in this middle distance as he clenched hard around Erik's finger. "Okay?" Erik asked, a miracle that his voice was as steady as it was at the new sensation of this resistance. If he felt this, that had to mean that Charles was feeling him, finally feeling him. "Answer me, Charles."
There was a moment of just the harsh sound of both of their breathing, but through gritted teeth, Charles's said, "Yes. Yes... keep... fuck, I'm fine, keep..."
And then Erik moved his finger again and put Charles out of his inarticulate misery, kissing him hard and wet and filthy, taking each grunt and whimper and moan as was his due. Because it all was his, Erik thought as he added a second finger. Neither he nor Charles had ever made any demand so foolish as faithfulness, because no one could ever compare, and he knew that was as true for his body as it was for his mind.
"Did you ever do this to yourself," he murmured against Charles's lips, pulled back just far enough to articulate sound, "ever get so desperate for it, fuck yourself on your own fingers?"
The bite was hard enough that Erik tasted his own blood when Charles let his mouth fall away, his head tipping back, his throat and exposed column of white marred only by his own markings.
"When I was younger, yes, in- as a teenager, a bit, and th- then... but only one and- aah!"
The arch of his spine off the mattress was beautiful. Erik took it as a sign to continue what he was doing. But he wasn't allowed to for very long before Charles began demanding again, with broken curses and moaned encouragement.
Erik took his time, always taking some perverse joy in being the cause of Charles's frustration. But the need in him was no less than Charles's, so it was not long before he was slicking up his cock with a groan and lining himself up with the body that would no longer accept him easily.
And then Charles wrapped his legs around Erik's waist, and he nearly came from the touch of Charles's ankle across his back.
One, two, three steadying breaths, willing himself back from the edge. Then he pushed inside, and it felt much the same, but Charles's sharp cry was new. Erik slowed but did not stop, continuing forward until he was as deep as he could go.
"Can you feel me?" he asked against the wetness on Charles's face. "Tell me you can feel me."
Charles's head jerked incoherently, neither nodding nor disagreeing, entire body trembling around Erik.
"Charles, tell me," Erik demanded, needing a voice other than his own.
Those red lips fell open and a broken moan tumbled out before Charles's voice cracked on a "Yes." And "Yes, I can. I can. I feel you in- feeling you inside me- Erik... Erik..."
And he might have said more words, but Erik wasn't listening, couldn't hear above the roar of his own mind, his own heart. The force was punishing, and the arms wrapped around Erik's neck only held him closer.
And when Erik came, he felt desperately alone.
His vision slowly seeping back from the edges inward, Erik looked down and saw that Charles had come at some point. One of his legs had fallen haphazardly to the side, but his other three limbs were still wrapped around him. They stayed bound together that way for a few minutes before Erik reluctantly dislodged Charles's leg enough for him to pull out.
To go much farther than that was more than he felt like managing, though, and he settled back down across Charles's chest. Charles let his arms stay loosely draped around him, one bending up to card idly through his hair. They remained there in silence past the point when Charles usually started complaining about catching a chill.
"Alex's number was called," Charles said.
Erik's brow furrowed. "So? There has to be some way-"
"He's going."
Erik shifted his head from Charles's chest, so that the ticking of Charles's wristwatch was louder than the beat of his heart.
"How is she?" Charles asked.
"Fine," Erik said. He probably wasn't lying. Mystique had said she was fine the last time that she contacted him, telling him not to look for her. That had been almost a year ago. But if Charles still didn't feel like actually asking, Erik didn't feel like starting that fight again.
Charles slipped out of the bed, walking naked into the bathroom. After a few minutes passed in silence, Erik swung his legs around and got out of the bed as well, gathering up his clothes and starting to get redressed.
He heard the crash and felt the leak of Charles's mind just about simultaneously.
Charles, he thought, and he called, "Charles-" turning to rush into the bathroom wearing his pants and one sock.
"I'm fine," said the voice on the other side of the closed door.
"Charles-"
"You should leave now," he said, and it wasn't a command, but there was an undercurrent of compulsion, one that Erik recognized as unintentional.
Erik pulled on the rest of his clothes and, when he made it to the hallway a few minutes later, pulled the door shut after him with perhaps a little more force than it was meant to handle. Reaching out his hand, he realigned the lock.
There was no one around, so he left through the window at the end of the hall.
A week later, he received another note reading:
"Wintering in New Jersey is a terrible plan. Join me for the weekend? We could head back to Connecticut.
I'll be normal. I've pulled myself together. I promise. I shouldn't have done that last time.
I'm sorry."
Erik disliked feeling conflicted.
--
[Post Script]
Hank had gone out to get groceries when Charles heard the noise downstairs. He instinctively focused his mind toward the intrusion – but nothing. A brief flare of panic trembled in his gut before he steadied himself and walked over to grab a poker from the fireplace. Just because his telepathy was muted didn't mean that he was helpless. After all, what could be more helpless than...
But deal with the threat first. He crept down the stairs with the quiet that he had learned as a child, edged to the kitchen.
The poker clattered loudly to the ground.
"Hello, Charles," said Raven. "I told Erik that it was pretty damn sad when I was more likely to be able to get the truth from you. Are you feeling up to having a talk?"
[End.]
