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Like everything about the Xavier house, Charles's bed is excessive: enormous and overdone, layered with thin embroidered linens that likely do nothing to keep out the cold.
The bed seems tall even to Erik, and Charles, rather shorter, grips the bedpost and gives himself a practiced little boost to get onto the mattress. Around them, the wrought iron frame twists and curls, heavy with pointless decoration. It speaks of too much money and not enough care.
"Have you slept in this monstrosity all your life?" Erik asks, certain of it. There's a matching stepstool to help a child clamber into it, though now it's near the armchairs, covered by a sheaf of newspapers. Erik can feel it, though, the carbon and silicate in the iron that match the impurities in the frame of the bed.
"Yes," Charles answers, and tips his head, his eyes acquiring that peculiar focus that means he's open to Erik's mind. It's only here that Erik allows it. "I hadn't realized you could sense the composition of metal."
"We all acquire skills in the course of developing our talents." Erik smiles, not happily. "I can't imagine what you've learned in the course of developing your gift."
"Acceptance," says Charles.
"That can't be all. Lies and secrets, shames and wrongs..."
Charles hesitates, and piles pillows behind him against the headboard of the impractical bed. He makes a little hill of them for Erik as well, and settles back, folding his hands. "Yes," he admits. "It was frightening when I was young, before I learned to control it. I had nightmares." He smiles in acknowledgment, grasping the curled iron behind him almost fondly. "I used to thrash about. I'd wake myself up banging my head against the bars."
"Why still sleep in it?"
"Waking up was usually a relief," Charles says, "even when it was painful. And I suppose it's what I'm used to."
"Acceptance," says Erik, sardonic, making no move to join him. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Charles is its own pleasure, but Erik likes to face him; the better to see him, all of him.
"I know you think I'm naive. But I've seen into so many minds, and I've seen more reason to hope than to fear," Charles says. But then, he would.
"You know my reasons," Erik lets the memories surge and watches Charles falter.
He swallows, and rallies. "Acceptance. It's a skill like any other, Erik. You could develop it too."
"Why would I ever want to?"
"Not for them. For you."
The nearly-lost memory of the menorah that Charles kindled in him earlier comes alight in Erik's mind again. No sooner does he begin to feel resentment than the intrusion recedes.
"I'm sorry."
Erik nods shortly.
"I told you I sensed the extent of your power," says Charles. "I'm beginning to sense your potential to control it is much greater than what you've been able to exercise so far. But pain and anger are not very compatible with precision and focus."
"I haven't often needed," says Erik, "to be precise. That doesn't mean I'm unable."
"Oh?" Charles rolls up his sleeves and reaches back for the bedframe, wrapping his hands around two curves of wrought iron, fists on either side of his head. "Show me." He smiles again. "After all, I know it's what you've been thinking."
Erik hesitates. He's never had cause to use his powers for anything but an aid to himself and a weapon against others. He's never needed to be careful.
He might twist the frame too tightly, bite through skin, snap bone. He's turned a hundred tons of metal on its axis, even he doesn't know what he's capable of.
It will never be safer to try this with anyone than it is with me, Charles tells him directly, lips unmoving. You could hurt me in a matter of moments; I could stop you in even less time than that.
The iron turns and moves in Charles's hands as smoothly as if it were molten, and Erik guides it, shapes it, watches it slide over Charles's skin. When the iron winds around Charles from wrists to elbows, Erik tests himself-- tests them both-- drawing it tighter.
He expects Charles to stop him. Instead, it's as if he can feel the pressure around his own arms, and he knows exactly how much more tightly it can cinch. He pushes it just that far, no further.
The coil of iron around Charles's forearms is tight enough to dent the flesh a little, but not enough to compromise his circulation or even cause him discomfort.
He doesn't stop Erik from reaching for him either, doesn't stop Erik from taking hold of his waist and pulling him down the bed, til his arms stretch overhead, pinioned.
The sight makes Erik feel like a struck bell, as if he's almost too much alive.
Charles breathes deeply, his eyes dark, closing slowly as Erik touches him.
Training, they've pushed their bodies past tired, past sore, past the point of adrenaline rush, past the reach of libido. Erik has brought himself to the peak of physical condition, justice demands no less of him, but his body barely responds now, even though seeing Charles like this moves him almost more than he can stand. Charles has theorized that using their mutant abilities taxes the metabolism and brain chemistry in ways even he and young Hank McCoy have yet to uncover.
Though I have noticed this particular phenomenon, the mental voice says, dry but playful. If you hadn't been so dedicated to your cause, you might have realized sooner. When you push yourself to the limit, the way we did today--
Erik palms his hip, gratified when Charles stops thinking at him, all that prized focus lost. He slides his hand up to touch the manacles he wound around Charles, lacing their fingers together. Charles could make Erik unshackle him, he could make Erik think it was his own idea, he could make Erik believe he was happy to let Charles go; Charles could even make him forget all this completely.
If Charles is letting this happen, then he wants to be here. Maybe even as much as Erik wants him here, exactly here, just like this.
He settles over Charles, body to body, and Charles makes an animal sound of contentment deep in his throat. No reaching out with his powers now, no charm and patter, no mind games. Just a communion more honest than words, even words spoken from mind to mind. This, Erik can trust.