Erik
“This isn’t my room,” Charles declared one morning, glaring at the painting on the opposite wall that was probably called Fox-hunt on Lord Edmund Bickford-Cavendish’s Estate, 1750, or something equally British. “I want to be in my own room.”
“Your room is on the first floor. Much nearer the common areas, the children’s rooms.”
Erik hated that he only knew this because Hank had told him. That resentment helped him to maintain a stern expression despite the powerful pout that Charles turned his way, though he still only succeeded because there were still bags under Charles’s eyes, weight he wasn’t gaining back, a tremor in his hands that came and went—Hank suspected nerve damage from one of the drugs. The only thing that would stop Erik from giving Charles whatever he wanted was when the withholding was for Charles’s own good.
When pouting didn’t work, Charles scowled instead. “I’m not a child, Erik. You can’t keep me confined to my room, especially when it isn’t even my room.”
“I’m not trying to,” Erik said patiently. Dealing with Charles was an exercise in patience—always, but especially these days. “I’m asking if you feel ready to be bothered by people wanting things from you from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. Considering you nearly jumped out of your skin this morning when a door slammed downstairs, it seems a fair question.”
“I’ll be fine,” Charles insisted, though he sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Erik. “Besides, I won’t be alone, will I?”
Erik scoffed and didn’t bother to hide it when he rolled his eyes. That was a low blow and they both knew it, but Charles was also right and they both knew that too. Technically they hadn’t been sharing a room; Erik kept his clothes in a room down the hall, went there when Hank made his visits, showered there, sometimes retreated there when he became overwhelmed, as he still often did. But more nights than not he carried Charles in from the balcony sometime long after midnight and crawled under the ridiculously plush duvet with him for a few hours before one of their nightmares woke them both.
It hadn’t worked, at first. Sleeping next to Raven had been strange enough; he wasn’t used to another body in his space, and even with both of them on opposite sides of the motel bed Erik had been more than half-tempted to sleep on the floor. Only the scratchy, dubiously-hygienic carpet and the thought of Raven looking at him with pity the next morning kept him glued to his side of the mattress, sheets locked between clenched fingers, staring at the wall until, exhausted and overwhelmed, he blinked and somehow it was morning.
Sleeping with Charles, in the mansion, had been outright unthinkable for the first few nights. Erik had dozed uncomfortably in chairs, read until dawn, sat with his back ramrod straight against the headboard and watched for hours as Charles slept, his forehead pressed into Erik’s leg, his unconscious frown hidden under his tangled hair. Part of it was paranoia, a kneejerk distrust of anyone within arm’s reach—it had been so long since anyone had come that close without intending to hurt him—and a refusal to let his guard down around anyone who could be dangerous (and Charles was the most dangerous man he had ever met).
But the rest of Erik’s insomnia was voluntary: he hadn’t believed he would ever have this again, and he’d be damned if he missed a minute of it. The sensory input felt new only because it was so old—sheets warm from Charles’s body heat, the same thick, silky strands of hair between his fingers, the way Charles reached for him in his sleep like he could still be trusted. Erik savored the closeness at least as much as it unsettled him, especially since each night he fell asleep convinced that Charles would be gone in the morning—a hallucination vanishing into nothing, kidnapped again, or, as seemed most likely, so full of renewed hatred for Erik and his methods that he wanted nothing to do with either of them.
It hadn’t happened yet, but Erik couldn’t shake the conviction that it was only a matter of time.
The fantasies that had occupied him for ten years hadn’t happened yet either. Not when waking up with Charles’s arm thrown across his chest was still enough to startle him and he had to remind Charles of basic facts about his own life every day.
“Raven’s only been gone a week, Charles. She’ll be back as soon as she can.” Said calmly after Charles asked plaintively where his sister was, if she was still mad at him.
“No, Sean’s not here. He went to Vietnam.” Guiltily grateful that Charles simply nodded and changed the subject, never asking when he would be back.
“They’re yours, Charles,” when Charles asked why he could hear children downstairs. “They’re all under the age of twelve and they can’t wait for you to teach them about genetics.”
Erik thought he could be forgiven occasional sarcasm, given the circumstances.
“Fine. I’ll help you move your things. Tonight, after the children are asleep so they don’t make a fuss,” he said.
He was tempted to add something irritable, like but don’t expect me to carry you everywhere when we’re downstairs too, but bit down on it before it could escape. He and Charles had never needed weapons or powers to hurt each other—they’d always managed just fine with words. Even his ten years of solitude and meditation hadn’t kept him from falling into old, antagonistic patterns the moment they were in proximity to each other for more than five minutes. As these past days at the mansion had proved, he and Charles got along best when they didn’t speak at all, when they existed in an unsustainable idyllic world where they defined normality. It was the world Erik would fight for and give to Charles one day, but it was proving difficult to remember that this short glimpse wasn’t the real thing.
Perhaps moving downstairs was for the best. He would have to find Charles’s wheelchair—by himself, because he doubted Charles would remember and it was unbearable to think of asking Hank—and watch as atrophied muscles and shaking hands and damnable pride all made basic mobility even more exhausting and painful than it usually was, and know that it was his fault. That chair was an unforgettable reminder that Erik had done more permanent damage to Charles than those sadistic humans and that he hadn’t come anywhere close to redeeming himself yet. Until he could bring Charles into a world that recognized how powerful he was, how perfect, and gave all mutants the respect and safety they deserved, he would be seeking atonement the same way he had sought revenge.
Erik could be patient, in the service of the right cause.
“I’ll go—” find your wheelchair “—make sure the room’s inhabitable,” he said. Then, with a vague gesture at Charles’s face, “You might want to do something about—all that.”
Charles looked confused. “About what?”
“When was the last time you looked in a mirror?”
He meant it teasingly but Charles tilted his head, obviously thinking hard. “I don’t know. I don’t have much need, do I?”
It took a moment for Erik to process that Charles wasn’t kidding. Regaining a sense of himself physically been so crucial to his recovery in the days since his own escape that it seemed impossible that the same wouldn’t be true for Charles. It hadn’t occurred to him that, aside from when he was on the serum, Charles hadn’t felt in control of his body for longer than Erik had been imprisoned—and nothing in the past week, including his rescue, would have changed that.
Not that Charles had been neglecting himself, precisely. He had showered regularly, washed his hair, brushed his teeth with the devotion of someone who had been denied the opportunity for weeks, but he’d made no effort to shave, dress in anything but clean pajamas…or look in a mirror, since there were none in the bedroom or bathroom within his reach. Erik blinked stupidly, wondering how he had missed this. Quickly he lifted the standalone mirror atop the dresser by its metal frame, floated it across the room, and affixed it to the wall, in Charles’s line of sight.
“You’re going to scare the children,” he said, watching Charles narrow his eyes at his own reflection. “You look like you’ve been wandering in the woods for months. Small animals could be living in your hair.”
Charles flashed him something between a grin and a glare, then ran his fingers through his hair and what was turning into quite an impressive beard. While he stared at himself contemplatively, almost like he was assessing a stranger, Erik noticed that his hands were shaking again.
“Come on then,” he sighed. “If you’re determined to do this we’ll do it right.”
“What—” Charles began, but Erik was already in the bathroom, opening and slamming cabinet doors until he had a straight razor, shaving cream, shampoo, comb, scissors, and several towels laid out in a neat line beside the sink.
“I won’t have you accidentally slitting your throat doing something I could do in my sleep,” he said when he came back into the bedroom to find Charles still looking doubtful.
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” Charles asked.
Erik nearly smiled. “If you’re expecting reassurance from me you really do have a lot still to remember.”
“I remember you think you’re hilarious,” Charles shot back, for a moment so fully his old self that Erik had to remind himself that this had happened before. There would be snippets of conversation, seconds, sometimes even minutes when Charles seemed completely recovered—confident, charming, innocently arrogant, half an instant away from telepathically whispering a joke or snarky observation. Erik would watch him with a hunger he knew Charles must be able to sense, half-anticipating and half-dreading that knowing look Charles always gave him when he caught Erik’s more predatory thoughts—but it never came, and something behind Charles’s eyes would falter instead, and he would sink into himself, become physically smaller somehow, and Erik would remember that this ordeal was nowhere near over. Sometimes he worried that it might never be.
“Come on,” he said again, instead of responding to the challenging glint in Charles’s eyes. “That beard is going first.”
Somehow, with far more cajoling than he’d thought himself capable of without resorting to threats of violence, Erik got Charles into the bathroom and perched on the other side of the sink with a towel draped around his neck and shoulders.
“Are you all right?” he said. Charles’s fingers were wrapped tightly around the edge of the marble countertop, white at the knuckles, nerves or the physical strain of relying so heavily on muscles in his upper body that were still regaining their strength, Erik couldn’t tell which. “You could sit in the bathtub—”
“Just get on with it, Erik,” Charles said.
It took about forty-five seconds for Erik to realize that he might not have thought this situation through entirely. Between the two victories that were Charles not digging his heels in like the stubborn bastard he was and Charles looking like himself again was a period of silent, searing closeness. Erik had no choice but to stand between Charles’s legs, keep his eyes trained entirely on Charles’s face and his focus sunk into metal that was in constant contact with his skin. He kept his own hands at his sides—his fine control was better when he could feel his powers in the metal with as little interference as possible, including his own skin—until Charles tilted sideways a little and grabbed Erik’s arms to catch himself, and then he kept them at Charles’s elbows to steady them both.
The only time he touched Charles’s face was to apply the shaving cream to his just-trimmed beard, but that was almost easier. Fingertips were practically nothing compared to the heightened sensitivity he felt when his perception was channeled through metal. Now his powers were so deeply immersed in the sharp steel that he could feel the heat of Charles’s skin through it, the blood pulsing just one slip-up away from its surface, his elevated heartbeat, the sharper jawline from too much weight lost too fast, the slightest difference in texture between now-smooth skin and not. Erik concentrated on keeping his breathing even and matched to the razor’s slow, steady swipes, tried not to think about how long it had been since he’d touched anyone this intimately, and how much longer before that had been the last time it had been Charles—that would have been before Cuba, the night before when they’d fucked in the study like the world was about to end, and he needed to not think of that right now.
Once or twice Charles tried to break the awkward silence. Each time Erik snapped, “Be quiet and let me focus,” even though there was nothing he wanted more than a distraction from what was quickly becoming too much sensory input. Lust was one thing and anxiety another, but together they were a new kind of overwhelming, one he had long since forgotten how to handle in a way that didn’t involve broken bathroom fixtures.
He was so focused on maintaining control over himself and the razor that he didn’t notice Charles’s tremors until they had spread from his hands to his whole upper body.
“What—?”
At the same time Charles said shakily, “Step back, Erik. Now. Step back now.”
He did, all the way to the bathroom wall, watching warily as Charles rubbed his forehead. “What’s wrong?”
“My head feels strange. My mind is…vibrating.”
“Your telepathy.”
“I don’t know,” Charles said in a tone of voice that meant yes.
Remembering the last time this had happened, Erik made his thoughts small, built mental metal walls up high around them to prevent himself from reaching out to Charles on purpose or by instinct. The result would be the same, if Charles’s telepathy perceived him as a threat.
“I hate this,” Charles muttered, shaking his head like he was shaking off a punch. “I hate this, I hate it, it’s not mine anymore, whatever they did—” Suddenly he looked up, eyes wide with new knowledge. “I’m dangerous.”
Old knowledge, for Erik. Comforting, though clearly Charles thought the opposite. “Of course you are. We all are. But you’re good, too. You always have been.”
“You were good too, once. Now look at us.”
“You told me I still could be, a long time ago.” Erik tried to ignore the stab of hurt at the idea that Charles might have changed his mind.
“I did, didn’t I,” Charles said, like he had nearly forgotten something Erik had treasured for a decade. It had sustained him more than he liked to admit, that memory of his body humming with power and Charles looking at him with tears in his eyes and a hope and faith in him that Erik didn’t have in himself. Of course he had known even then that he would disappoint Charles—though he’d had no idea how catastrophically—but Charles forgave the way that Erik held grudges, quickly and then forever, and even the painful realization a few years into his imprisonment that Charles wasn’t coming for him hadn’t quite erased the conviction that he was out there, somewhere, believing that there was good in Erik when everyone else had decided he was irredeemable.
Erik swallowed an angry retort that wasn’t based in anger at all, changed the subject quickly. “How’s your head?”
“A bit porous.” Charles sounded distant, like he had to reach back in time to find the words. “I may lie down when we’re done here, but I do appreciate the help, Erik, truly. You should keep going. I’m fine, there’s nothing wrong.”
Charles’s smile seemed strained, but he was easily tired these days and it would be a big step, moving downstairs—he was probably more nervous about that than he let on. Erik smiled back and looked around, wondering when he had stepped so far away and why. He took advantage of the distance to appraise Charles’s half-shaved face, nodded at the years it took off his appearance even if his eyes still seemed far too old, made a mental note to get him to eat more. He remembered a few of his mother’s old recipes, chicken soup with matzah balls, latkes, the rare pot roast when they could afford it, and he wasn’t above guilting Charles into eating every single one of them.
The rest of the job passed quickly, in comfortable silence. Charles had his eyes closed, perhaps dozing already, and Erik found himself lulled into something nearly trance-like, nothing in the world more pressing than the razor in his hand, warm from his skin and Charles’s. Finally he wiped away the last of the shaving cream with a warm washcloth and stepped away again, tapping Charles’s shoulder until he opened his eyes.
“What, are you done already?” he said, surprised.
“Told you I was good with a blade, in my sleep or in yours,” Erik said. Then, dryly, “I’m glad you find my company so stimulating.”
The haircut could wait, he decided, until after Charles had rested.