Archive of Our Own

The first time Charles suggests they peruse the local pubs Erik thinks nothing of it. They have a quiet drink and fall into an easy discussion on the topic of ranking different brands of European beer. (They instantly agree that any brand would beat its American counterpart hands down.)

The first time he sees Charles flirt with someone, Erik finds himself frozen. Charles goes to get them another round and instead of returning lingers to speak to a young woman. She's nursing a glass of white wine. She has auburn hair. Charles says something and she laughs. Charles smiles and reaches forwards to tuck a few loose strands of hair back behind her ear.

Erik isn't innocent. Far from it as a matter of fact. He watches uneasily as the woman touches Charles' elbow, casting his senses out to catalogue every last person in the room with them, the locations of all the doors and windows, the vast multitude of weapons available not only to him but to anyone who would have it in them to pick up a bottle or break off a table leg.

Erik has found most people capable of such things with very little pressure required.

No one is giving Charles a second glance, but it's only a matter of time. A man three tables behind Erik lets out a loud guffaw and he flinches. When had he become so sloppy as to not put his back to a wall, especially in such a crowded space? Being in Charles' presence has made him too relaxed. Soft. Weak.

Charles glances at him then, a slight frown creasing his forehead. After a moment he picks up the two beers languishing on the bar next to him and asks the woman a question. Erik knows it was a question because Charles has a very particular way of tilting his head when asking one. It communicates interest, a simple trick of body language - one of many - that Charles uses on everyone. He always seems inordinately pleased when Erik doesn't respond as he expects.

Erik relaxes marginally as Charles returns to him, though his hyperawareness of those around him remains.

"Erik, my friend." Charles smiles and slides into the booth next to him. They had begun the night on opposite sides but it isn't unusual for them to become closer as the evening wears on, so Erik doesn't think twice before shifting over so the other man has enough room to sit. "Were you trying to tell me something?"

His tone is light and humorous, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Charles always smiles so much.

The man offers his wrist and Erik's eyes stray over the milky skin of his palm - so soft from never suffering even a day of hard labour - and up to where the metal clasp of his watch has warped.

Erik curses himself, murmuring a quick apology as he orders the metal to revert to its previous state. Once he's finished no one would be able to tell the clasp had ever been anything other than fully functional.

Charles makes a quiet appreciative sound and Erik allows satisfaction to surge through him. Charles' praise always makes him desire more of it. Natural, he reasons: a positive reinforcement placed where all previous have been negative. He sees much of the same need in Charles when Erik compliments his skills as a telepath: the smile becomes shy, the undercurrent of fear Erik feels mirrored in himself showing clearly.

Charles doesn't want people to be afraid of him.

Erik cannot say the desire accurately reflects his own preference.

"Didn't you like her?" Charles asks, head tilting ever-so-slightly, inviting honesty.

Of course it is then that Erik realises his mistake. It isn't like that here. (It's like that everywhere.) They're safe here. (They're not.) He has nothing to fear. (...)

The first time Charles goes home with someone, Erik sits on the edge of his bed in the motel room they're sharing and white-knuckles the sheets until four-thirty-eight am, which is when Charles slips back into the room.

"You're up early," Charles says, sounding sleepy and distracted.

Silently, Erik goes into the bathroom and locks the door.

The first time Charles endangers the mission, Erik tells him "No."

Charles shifts restlessly in the booth seat of the crappy little diner the latest mutant on the list has chosen as their meeting place.

"He'll be here in twenty minutes," Erik reminds his friend through teeth that aren't quite gritted.

"That's enough time," Charles declares, eyes only for the brunette at the counter. "I bet you I can get her number. How much?"

Erik focuses on his breathing, in and out, in and out, smooth and neutral and unaffected. "No."

He isn't sure how he feels when Charles obeys.

The first time Charles brings someone back to their room, Erik doesn't realise until he's returned to the motel and found a sock on the door. For the majority of the time, sharing a room is simply the most logical thing to do. They're able to talk long into the night without one of them being relegated to the floor (the beds in these places are always singles and there's never a sofa in sight) and it doesn't appear suspicious to any outsiders. They are simply two men on a business trip whose employers are too cheap to shell out for two rooms. It isn't an unusual occurrence.

Erik stands there for a long time.

The sock feels childish, as if Charles is still playing at being in university. Erik doesn't know what else he should have used.

A mental warning of some kind? A heads-up would have been polite. Charles - who puts so much effort into being polite and affable, except when he gets in these moods where it's like he'll start clawing at his own skin at any moment if he doesn't take someone to bed. Erik can't understand the notion. He's had a handful of partners over the years and has never been able to appreciate the appeal. It requires familiarity on a level he's intrinsically uncomfortable with.

Everyone you love dies, Shaw tells him. Do you truly believe that statement no longer holds weight simply because you left me?

Erik turns away from the door and stamps his way out of the motel (more a hostel really, though he's stayed in worse places) and into the nearest bar, zeroing in on the first solitary woman he sees. She has blonde hair, half a head of it falling to her shoulders and the other cropped close to the skin. He doesn't recognise what she's drinking.

Instead of booths there are high-set stools surrounding tall circular tables. A disco ball hangs from the ceiling, casting an array of flashing colours in all directions. The barman is wearing a translucent vest, the defined lines of his abs clearly visibly through the sheer material. Erik would never come into a place like this with Charles.

He introduces himself to the woman - "Stacy," she says and he doesn't call her on the lie - and orders two more of what she's drinking. It's too sweet for his taste but it's not as if his tastes matter.

It doesn't take much work to convince her to take him home. She's sure of herself and isn't shy about showing him the bear mace in her purse. Though she seems more concerned about what he wants, which is confusing.

"Are you sure you know what you're getting into?" she asks, boldly placing her hand on the inside of his thigh. "You don't look like you belong in here."

He imagines spilling his guts. She looks like she'd be receptive to a tale of woe - his co-worker doesn't know and has laid claim to their room for the night and yes what a selfish arsehole but it's not like Erik can say anything to him about it can he and he doesn't know what he'd even say besides - just that it would surely be less than the truth of the situation. People are so rarely interested in truth.

"I don't belong anywhere," he says instead. It seems to satisfy her.

The sex is good. She gets on top of him and pins his wrists to the bed and he allows it. She produces a set of handcuffs and he allows it. She rides him facing away so she can see what she's doing as she presses a vibrator behind his balls. She gets rough with him, to a greater extent than what he estimates is normal for her, simply because he keeps making encouraging noises no matter what she does.

She wraps two fingers and a thumb around his balls, drawing them away from his body and squeezing tightly. The sensation makes him shake, though he can hear his voice groaning for more. Twice he catches himself before his powers viciously wrench the handcuffs open.

Afterwards, she allows him to slip out of her and presses the vibrator to the oversensitive head of his cock. He feels raw and cracked open, the sting of salt in his eyes and his heart pounding at a race horse canter in his chest. Is this stomach-swooping loss of control the reason Charles continues to seek out company? Erik thinks he might have all the pieces if only he knew what order to put them in.

The first time Erik realises the glances Charles sneaks at his body after he's showered don't represent masculine envy, but instead desire...

He is aware he is an attractive man. It isn't arrogance, merely a statement of fact. He has been blessed with an angular face. He maintains the fitness of his body to an excelling standard.

Charles' gaze burns into his skin, an almost physical sensation drifting over the flat planes of his chest down to his abdominal muscles, lingering there in a way Erik is sure Charles believes to be subtle. He finds himself taking his underwear into the bathroom with him now, no longer walking around in just a towel.

Charles never makes Erik feel truly uncomfortable, of course. He doesn't make any untoward advances, or use their proximity as an excuse for any behaviour unbecoming. Erik is suddenly hyperaware of not how often they touch, but how normal those touches always are: the knocking of knees under a too-small diner table, the companionly slap of a hand on a shoulder, the nudge of an elbow just before Charles leans in to whisper something he doesn't want the humans to hear. Erik's grown up living in rooms with other men, and it's a natural consequence that sometimes unplanned things will happen: you'll see each other's genitals while changing clothes, wake up in the night to the sounds of quiet-as-possible masturbation, walk in on them taking a shit because they forget to lock the door - or because the locks have been removed.

It's a normal part of life among straight men sharing living spaces, and Erik never gives any of it a second thought until he realises that none of those scenarios are happening with Charles. When Erik is still walking around in a towel after showering, Charles will look all he wants until it's time for the towel to come off, and then he'll always be suddenly engrossed in something else, even if they're in the middle of a conversation. He has a lot of sex, but he never jerks off under the covers while Erik is in the room. The bathroom door is always locked. The one and only time Erik forces it open is after he's gone out to explore the city they're staying in and got himself horribly lost. Three different bus routes and eight hours later he stumbles back into their motel room, his bladder a physical pain in his side. He mutters a hurried apology in the direction of where Charles's silhouette is visible behind a shower curtain and groans in relief as he starts to piss.

Charles laughs, says "I was about to send out a search party" and then after a moment, "You should have found an alley, man."

Misunderstanding, Erik repeats his apology. He isn't ashamed to say he's not really focusing on the conversation.

"No, no," Charles reassures him. "I mean, you didn't have to hold it for so long. No one would care about a quick piss in an alley."

Erik is appalled and, quite abruptly, consumed with terror. The pulse of emotion he broadcasts must be strong, as the next thing he knows Charles has all but flung himself out of the shower, the sharp sensation of static electricity pinging off the walls of the small room as Charles' powers unfurl themselves.

Erik flinches, but Charles is completely focused on the door, his hands outstretched in front of his body in preparation for an attack that isn't coming. The moment hovers, stretches, teetering on the balls of Charles' feet as the man's stance rocks slightly. Offhandedly, Erik registers that Charles is showing excellent form, his hands close together to protect his centre mass, the slight movement radiating upwards from his feet leaving him free to move quickly and precisely if required. It's the fighting method Erik has taught him during their sparring sessions and seeing it mirrored back to him so clearly is what jerks him from his shocked reverie into the ugly realisation that he is still holding his penis, and that Charles is naked.

He almost wrenches a muscle in his hurry to turn away no no I wasn't looking I swear and stuff himself back into his briefs.

"This one?" Shaw asks a guard. In Erik's dreams none of the guards have faces. They never respond either.

"This one?" Shaw asks Erik, the bicep of a teenage girl held tight in his fist. "Everyone you love dies. But there are different kinds of love, no?" He strokes her hair. In reality, Erik had attempted a futile lunge. In his dreams he can't move or speak, the scream that builds inside his chest remaining trapped there as Shaw raises a pistol, she starts sobbing, she's begging Shaw, begging Erik, and Shaw pauses over that - as if it might be the missing piece of the puzzle - before shaking his head in disappointment.

"Erik!"

The tiles beneath his palms are warm.

"Erik!"

The hands gripping him are warm.

"Erik!"

Despite the warmth, he is cold. Every inch of skin, every internal particle, every fibre of his soul is desperate to claw towards the warmth with every ounce of strength left in his bones. "_Everyone, Erik. You understand that, don't you, son?"_

The slap comes as a surprise. Shaw doesn't like to become physical with him in that manner. If physical punishment is due, it is one of the faceless automatons that will dole it out. The way Shaw chooses to touch him is... different.

"Erik, please. Listen to my voice."

All of them, Erik. These people you surround yourself with... They are my property by association.

There is a pressure at the base of his neck. Instead of spreading across his skull, it shifts inwards, tendrils squirming tentatively into his consciousness. He can feel their fear. He hopes they cannot feel his.

There's no escape for you, Erik. You will live and die as my possession.

Shaw's voice cuts off sharply, as if its thread has been cut, replaced by a slowly building warmth that sluices down Erik's spine and outwards through his veins. The sensation leaves him gasping, and somehow he has ended up on the floor, his fingers bruising the pale skin of Charles' biceps with the strength of his grip.

"It's alright," Charles soothes him, even though deep down Erik knows his friend doesn't believe it himself. "It's alright. I've got you."

The first time Erik allows Charles to touch him sexually is the night before they plan to start a war. When his friend initiates, Erik decides the eve of battle is a sensible time for these sorts of things to progress. That was always what the soldiers did.

The process is slow and sweet and gentle and nothing at all like anything Erik has ever known.

Afterwards, Charles holds him as if he is something precious.

Erik wants to mimic the behaviour. But no matter how hard he tries his body simply won't let him. His muscles remain lax and uncooperative long after Charles has surrendered to sleep. Erik lies in the darkness, Charles' breath hot on his neck and the stillness of the room and the quiet that isn't quite quiet enough.

I'll see you soon, darling.