Chapter Text
Erik makes the bed, drawing the covers tight, patting the pillows into shape. He waits for what feels like a long time, watching the long shafts of afternoon light move slowly across the floor. He tidies Charles’ writing desk, stacking the papers, closing the top of the ink, finding the pen underneath the chair and cleaning the nib, replacing everything in the writing case on Charles’ desk, a fine, delicate thing, hammered steel, burnished smooth against his fingers.
He sits on the end of the bed to wait, but it’s dusk when Charles returns, paces over to stand in front of Erik.
“Did you eat?” he says.
“No,” Erik says. Charles’ face is in shadow, unreadable. “Have you forgiven me?”
“I—“
“Please—“ Erik says, and when Charles doesn’t say anything, slips off the bed onto his knees.
“Stop that,” Charles snaps, his voice so fiercely angry that Erik feels it in his chest like a blow, and then Charles’ hands are on him, and Charles is murmuring, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” he tugs Erik back up on to the bed and sits next to him. “This is my fault,” he says. “I should have warned you last night, that I might botch it.”
“You didn’t,” Erik says.
“I only meant for you not to be—” Charles scrubs his hand down his thigh and when he looks up at Erik his eyes are filled with remorse. “afraid of me. Please believe that I never intended to make you—abase yourself so.”
“I don’t mind,” Erik says, and then dares to say, “I like it.”
“I know,” Charles says, resigned. He touches Erik’s knee carefully. “But do you not see how—oddly you are behaving? Yesterday you thought only of escape.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Erik says.
“It does,” Charles says. He hesitates for a moment and then says, “I believe that the person who did this found it very amusing to send you to me so—” he bites his lip. “so confused.”
Charles is so near to him it makes Erik feel light-headed, the length of his body pressed warmly against Erik’s side, close enough that Charles could lean forward a bare few inches and take Erik’s mouth, press him down on the bed and use him—
“Let’s eat dinner,” Charles says, standing so quickly he nearly staggers.
* * * * *
Charles waits for the servants to set the table for dinner and leave the tent before reaching for Erik’s shackles.
“What are you doing?” Erik says, drawing his hands wrists back instinctively.
“I hardly think you need them,” Charles says.
“No,” Erik says. “But you could have stopped me before; you did.”
“Yes, but I had promised my, um, advisors, that I wouldn’t,” Charles says. “They felt you were—quite dangerous.”
“Then leave them,” Erik says. “They aren’t a bother.” And it’s true—they seem lighter, almost loose on his wrists, the insides of them worn and smooth.
“If you wish,” Charles says. They eat in companionable silence, passing serving bowls to each other: roasted chicken, heavily spiced, with dark greens and a pale round grain Erik doesn’t recognize. Charles takes the corner seat again, so Erik sits on his same cushion from the night before. There are little plum cakes, crumbly with brown sugar, for dessert.
“It’s good,” Erik says, leaning forward to pick up a few crumbs with his fingers.
“A favorite,” Charles agrees. He nudges the cake plate towards Erik. “Have another, if you like.”
“I’d rather have—” Erik says.
“No,” Charles says, quickly, but he doesn’t push Erik away when he sprawls on the cushions next to Charles’ knee, wraps his hand carefully over Charles’ bare ankle. It feels good, to touch him, stroke his thumb against the hollow of his Achilles’ tendon. Erik looks at Charles and wonders how anyone could have left him, left his bed.
“What happened to your lover?” he asks, swallowing down some strange jealousy, some other man on top of Charles in his bed, making him cry out—
Charles laughs, a convulsive, grieving sound.
“He died?” Erik says softly.
“No,” Charles says, mastering himself quickly. “I don’t know. He’s—gone, and I don’t know when he’ll return.” He’s silent, picking at the hardly eaten cake on his plate. “We parted on poor terms,” he admits, finally. “I was angry, and I chose my words carelessly. I don’t know if he has—forgiven me yet.”
“What did he do to anger you so?” Erik asks.
“He insisted on throwing his life away on an idiotic quest for revenge,” Charles says, his voice darkening.
“Then I am certain he regretted it,” Erik says.
“No, I doubt that,” Charles says ruefully. “He was a man of very strong convictions.”
Erik nods, distracted by Charles’ legs, the play of the muscles in his calves, the curve of his thigh, wondering if Charles is sensitive there, if he likes to be kissed on the inside of his knee, if Erik’s beard would be too rough against the skin of his thighs—
“He wouldn’t, for example, approve of this at all,” Charles says, touching Erik’s cheek with two fingers.
“Does it matter what he thinks?” Erik asks. He had his chance, he thinks fiercely; gave it up when he left Charles alone.
“Yes, of course,” Charles says; he’s smiling but there’s a dark painful current running beneath his words. He lifts Erik’s hand off his knee.
“Please,” Erik says. “Let me—”
“No,” Charles says.
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I don’t?” Charles says, lifting an eyebrow.
“Well, perhaps,” Erik admits. “But—”
“It’s—Erik, it’s very tempting,” Charles says gently. “A little too much, if I am being honest. We mustn’t. I have already allowed it more than I ought.”
“You want me,” Erik says, and Charles says nothing, only nods, shamefaced. “Then why?” Erik says. He leans in and closes his hand over Charles’, slides his thumb over his knuckles. “I want it, I want only to please you—”
“I said no,” Charles says, too loudly. “And if you wish to please me, do not ask for what I am unable to give.” He yanks out of Erik’s grasp, shoving his dinner plate back with a scraping clatter, and is across the tent before Erik can do or say anything to stop him.
Erik stacks their dinner plates and utensils, replaces the cushions Charles knocked aside, watching Charles carefully from the corner of his eye, sitting at his desk again, shoulders hunched. He draws in a hard breath through his nose, and then cracks open a wax-sealed letter and begins to read. After a little while Erik sits on the bed, waiting. Charles finishes reading the letter before he speaks again.
“Logan has been hunting to replenish our stores; you’ll join him in the morning.”
”But I don’t want—“ Charles looks at him, and Erik stops talking.
”You’ll do as I say,” Charles says.
“And at night?” Erik asks.
“You’ll have your own tent,” Charles says, turning back to his desk. “Logan can show you where to—
“I did not have the information you sought, then,” Erik says.
Charles doesn’t lift his head, but in profile his face is cold, remote. “No,” he says.
“Am I permitted to leave?” Erik says.
“No,” Charles says.
“When—” Erik says, biting down on the panic rising in his chest. “When will I see you?”
“Not for a little while,” Charles says. He's reading again, not even bothering to look at Erik. “It’s better this way.”
Please, Erik is going to say, but Charles doesn't want that; doesn't want him at all. He digs his fingernails into his palms and reminds himself that it's really no use trying to reason with Charles when he’s in one of his self-righteous fits, martyring himself, convinced that if he just maneuvers everyone around the board the right way he can make everything come out right. Erik and Logan hated each other on sight; the only matter on which they have yet managed to agree is a mutual pact of thinly veiled hostility, but that hasn’t stopped Charles from throwing them together at every opportunity, cheerfully insisting that they enjoy each others’ companionship, which is quite evidently ridiculous—
It comes through like dawn, pale light pushing the shadows aside ahead of the glowing, inevitable light of day: Charles’ haunted eyes following him around the tent as he gathered his traveling pack together, his cloak and gloves, an extra water skin and travel rations, checked the buckles on his sword belt. Charles kneeling for him, beseeching, closing his hands around Erik’s and saying, “Even if you confront Shaw, you won't find what you're looking for—” and how he’d pulled free and snapped, “because you won’t fucking help me—”
Dressing silently in the dark, turning to see Charles awake, pale to the lips, poisonous, saying, “go to your death, if you must, then, but don’t expect me to mourn for you—”, and a hundred mornings before that, waking with Charles pressed in against his back, sleep warm.
Charles undone and wanting, trembling in his arms; breathless and sated on top of him, pressing a wicked kiss to his throat; laughing, tumbled back on the bed, reaching up to drag Erik down after him. Riding up into the hills to seek more of their kind, their solitary campfire in the shadow of the forest, how Charles' eyes had glinted, luminous in the moonlight, when Erik had found the courage to beg him for a kiss.
Charles smiling tentatively at him, asking, “It’s summer, you’re certain you’re not too warm in all that?” while Erik pulled his eyes away from Charles’ bare knees, willing his face not to heat up. Facing Charles across a chess board, shoving his thoughts into the smallest box he could imagine, Charles reaching for his bishop, murmuring, “Careful, I could almost see that one.”
New and uncertain of his place in the camp, for all Charles seemed to have no doubts, had drawn him into close counsel, the two of them spreading maps out the length of the table, enclosed in the halo of a single lantern long after the camp was asleep.
The beginning: the ocean of soldiers parting around Charles’ horse as he bolted heedlessly through the enemy lines, without a helm, his hauberk askew, his voice a clarion call echoing in Erik’s mind—
Shaw leaning down to pat his cheek, saying, “oh come now, my boy, you know I only ever wanted you to be happy. I, for one, believe your friend will find you much improved.” Lady Frost laughing, glass-brittle, as she dug her fingers into his forehead. Thinking, well, Charles will say I told you so; dreaming, in his last breath, of the moments they had not yet had.
This moment, perhaps:
Erik goes to him and closes his hands over his shoulders, feels Charles tense beneath him.
“Don’t,” he says, harshly, a warning, but Erik can hear it now, the desperate longing beneath. He brushes Charles’ hair aside and presses his mouth to his neck, behind his ear, where he’s always been terribly sensitive.
“Erik, you mustn’t—” Charles says, reaching up and catching his hands, twisting away from him, and Erik says,
“Then how will I tell you how we will defeat Shaw?”
“You—what?” Charles says, faintly, his face creasing, almost as though he’s in pain.
“I folded myself away,” Erik says, gripping Charles' hands in his, drawing him closer. “But I couldn’t hide what you were to me. Shaw was—very angry.”
"Why—" Charles says. He's pulled one hand free and is reaching for Erik, touching his face, the edge of his jaw, with shaking fingers.
"Because I no longer belonged to him," Erik says. He means to say more: that Lady Frost’s arrogance had blinded her to the extent of Charles’ gifts, that he knows now, the secret of Shaw’s power, the path to victory, but Charles is in his arms, twining his arms around Erik’s neck, slipping in softly against his mind, the slow rising pulse of joy flooding through him, the shackles lying open on the bed behind them, peeled back and melted like candle wax, all he had thought lost returned to him.