Archive of Our Own

Yawning, Charles set down the list of coordinates he'd been cross-referencing and reached instead for his tea. In front of him was a large atlas where he'd been plotting locations; beside that, the ever-present notebook he used to record their progress. Though detailed, they were cryptic. Erik's wariness had rubbed off on him at least that much: even the long list of coordinates in front of him was already mostly redacted. Many of the mutants he'd detected through Cerebro were yet children, and the CIA should have no business knowing their whereabouts.

They still had so much to do, so many to discover and contact. Erik had gone to bed at least two hours ago, but tonight Charles was busy rethinking their tactics with this new list. Many of the mutants they'd met thus far were still wary of being found out even amongst kin; some of them wouldn't even acknowledge they were any different than the humans around them. And there were many more than Charles could ever have hoped for. So many, in fact, that there simply wouldn't be time to meet with each and every one right now. They'd have to be more selective in their approach.

Charles checked the time again as he set down the empty teacup. No, Erik had gone to bed at least three hours ago. Where Charles' exuberance made late nights commonplace, Erik's pessimism seemed to have the opposite effect.

Or perhaps he was just catching up on years of lost sleep.

Marking his place on the list, Charles finally closed the atlas and collected his notes. Since their return to the facility, Erik was sleeping more soundly, and Charles only knew that because Erik had agreed to let him sleep in the same dormitory to be sure of it. Though there were several cots in each, the facility was so understaffed thus far that they'd each had a dormitory to themselves. Likewise, Raven had her own separately from Agent MacTaggert, though that division was more between the CIA and the not-quite-CIA--or as Erik preferred to simplify it, between human and mutant.

In the hall, Charles passed the room he had been sleeping in before, right next to the modest reference library, and continued on toward Erik's, which was naturally as far from the common spaces as possible. His distance was what kept Charles from realizing his nightmares any earlier than their stay in the hotel in Chicago--

--and what had kept Charles from noticing them tonight.

Almost every surface and furnishing of the facility was concrete or metal. He hurried his step when he first noticed the tinny ringing in the walls along the hall, his worries confirmed when he could feel the almost electric vibration of the door when he pushed it open and pulled it firmly shut behind him.

"Erik? Erik, I'm here--"

The room itself was singing with his torment. Wincing, Charles dropped his things on one of the metal chests and hurried to the side of the cot where Erik was sleeping, managing not to run into anything in the dimness his eyes hadn't adjusted to yet. Gently, he set his hand on his shoulder, wary at first that Erik might lash out at him, but he was still, only breathing harshly, muscles stiff with tension. "Erik, it's all right. It's Charles. Be calm."

He'd worried that perhaps the nightmares would return, given just how deeply Erik carried their origins, but he'd tried not to assume the worst, and he'd especially tried not to trespass on Erik's privacy any more than was explicitly requested. But as the sound of Charles' voice and the respectful efforts of his mind had no effect, Charles didn't think twice about turning to lie down behind him again, in his clothes, in a space only a little larger than he'd been afforded by the narrow bed of the hotel room.

He kept his hand on Erik's shoulder, his forehead bowed toward him as though he could draw the darkness of his dreams into his own mind, if that's what it took. The human brain was as fragile as it was complex. Given the right circumstances, its distress could spiral endlessly into the depths, finding no purchase, no bottom to its pit of self-induced horrors. Charles imagined Erik lost in the descent and reached for him, pleading without words for Erik to find him and reach back.

Half the hour passed before the room was finally quiet. Nearly asleep, Charles let the silence stretch almost ten minutes more just to be sure it was real, and would have spent the rest of the night there against him if all the tea he'd been drinking weren't making that a physical impossibility. Loathe as he was to get up, biology gave him no choice.

Carefully, he eased himself away, trying not to creak the springs of the cot too loudly. But before he could fully stand, Erik's hand closed swiftly and tightly on his arm.

Charles sat down again with a grimace of discomfort, covering Erik's hand with his to reassure him. "Toilet, Erik. I promise I'll be right back." Charles could see his face better now, vision adjusted to capture the light filtering in through the narrow window at the far end of the room. Erik looked only half awake, eyes barely open toward the door, silently miserable. "Try to stay awake. Only a minute."

Though Erik didn't look at him, his hand slowly relaxed, letting Charles up. He hurried into the adjoining lavatory, feeling it had never taken longer to empty his bladder, before he returned and shed all but the requisite item of clothing on his way back to Erik's bed. Pulling the blanket from the cot he had been sleeping in, Charles wrapped it around himself and climbed in to settle carefully against Erik's back once more.

Erik said nothing, but Charles heard him sigh, barely audible, as though from relief, or comfort, or maybe it was nothing more meaningful than his snore. Whatever the case, there was nothing more important than the stillness in the room and the eventual sound of Erik's relaxed breathing. Charles listened to be sure it persisted, and was soon carried off by its soothing monotony, warm and comfortable in what little room there was.

* * *

In the morning, Charles nearly fell out of the bed, still wrapped up in the tangle of his blanket. It was only Erik's quick reflexes that caught and held him long enough for Charles to get his feet on the floor and sit properly on the edge of the bed. The concrete was marvelously cold, but he resisted the urge to draw up his legs in the blanket and take up even more of Erik's bed.

"Good morning," he offered, quite awake now on peril of injury.

Erik didn't seem to share his cheer, artificial or not. He got up from the bed, his back turned as he pulled on some clothing, having slept in none. "I'm sorry you had to do that again." Fastening his trousers, he glanced back at Charles over his shoulder.

Charles smiled gently. "I meant what I said, Erik. If anything you need is within my power to give, it's yours."

Sighing, Erik set his hands on the brushed metal surface of the dresser against the wall, leaning into it. He shifted to rub a palm over his face, then pushed his hair back from his forehead. "I thought they'd be gone longer."

Charles pursed his lips, studying him. "I thought so, too. But I should have afforded more weight to what you've been through. This may always be just a temporary solution."

Erik lifted his eyes, his gaze catching Charles sharply over his shoulder.

Charles frowned. He wished there was more he could do, but without plundering the depths of Erik's psyche at fair risk to them both, this was the most effective technique he knew. "We can keep trying with this, for now. It might just take more time. This room is ours for right now. It doesn't do any harm."

Erik turned away again, silent for a moment before he straightened. He rolled his shoulder until the joint cracked.

"Fine."

* * *

That night, Charles was sure to cut himself off from the teapot hours before bed. Subsequently, Erik was still awake when Charles started to doze off mid-coordinate on the atlas.

Pulling a hand down his face, Charles sat back in the desk chair and looked instead to Erik, giving his eyes a chance to focus on something further away. He sat on the couch a few feet from the edge of desk. Shaw's file was in his lap.

Earlier, Charles had held his tongue, but fatigue now loosened it. "Does Agent MacTaggert know you have that?"

Erik flipped one of its pages. "All the locks are metal and she's not as stupid as they seem to think she is. Of course she knows."

Toying with his pen, Charles frowned. "I suppose I can't argue with that."

"But you will."

Charles opened his mouth to protest, but Erik had him, and they both knew it. Closing the file, Erik stood up and gestured with it. "Out with it, so we can go to bed."

Defeated, Charles gathered his things. "I just wonder if you're learning anything new from that." He stood up, catching Erik's glance, his voice low though he could detect no one in their wing of the facility at this hour. "You left here with it the night we arrived. Surely you read it then. Now you're only tormenting yourself."

Unfazed, Erik pulled open the door and strode out into the hall, making Charles hurry to catch up. "I've been tracking him for the better part of fifteen years. Don't think it's easy for me to sit now in the lap of some witless government institution and do nothing."

For another few strides, Erik's gaze was set steadily forward before he finally glanced to Charles at his side.

Charles shook his head lightly, eyes on the floor. "I don't. I don't think it's easy." He chewed his lip, thinking how Raven was always telling him he interfered too much where he didn't understand. "I'm sorry, Erik."

He could feel Erik's eyes on him as they turned the corner. His voice was light when he finally answered, pushing open the door to their room.

"When you do something you need to apologize for, I'll tell you."

* * *

A few hours later, in the beds they pushed together, Charles woke with a jolt.

Alert but stubbornly groggy, he listened, but there was no sound in the dark dormitory that might have disturbed him. He could sense no one nearby but Erik, who slept quietly beside him, his hand resting on Charles' stomach in the small space. Charles breathed silently beneath it for a moment, listening as best he could to the hallway, to the world outside the narrow window, but all was calm--

All but the sudden tremor in Erik's fingertips, two of them resting directly on Charles' skin between the sleep-tousled state of his pajamas, making Charles jolt again. He caught Erik's wrist by reflex and held it a few inches away from him, safely away from the stirrings of his involuntary response.

Erik went on sleeping. His hand still twitched faintly in Charles' grip as he dreamed. Charles couldn't immediately tell how pleasant a dream it was, but at least it wasn't a nightmare. Charles wasn't sure what he'd do if this simple closeness ceased to work, if he could be right next to him and be helpless to stop the railing, the suffering, the torment of a terrible past warped to re-emerge in the present, undiluted by time. He wasn't sure what his next step would be, but he knew he'd do whatever it took, because Erik had opened himself to Charles in this small way, and let Charles in, and Charles would never turn his back on that.

I'll keep you safe, Charles thought, though he knew that was naive, and a little foolhardy. A man as capable as Erik was rarely in any real danger. It was only here, in the dark, that maybe he needed Charles, where no one else could see, where no one else would know. It was the invisible enemies that Charles could protect him from.

Charles nearly fell asleep again. As he relaxed, Erik's fingers reached his stomach again, and he jerked to attention once more. No, that wouldn't do. Shifting a little further away, Charles turned to set Erik's hand between them.

But as soon as he released it, Erik's grip twisted to catch his arm, and Charles was pulled across the cot until he was nearly against him, face to face. Charles could immediately feel the change in temperature, whether it came from Erik's body heat or the sudden furnace that lit itself in Charles' stomach.

Erik hadn't opened his eyes. His reaction, however severe, had failed to wake him.

Charles held his breath, forcing his eyes closed. This isn't anything, he told himself. He thought I was leaving. It's just a defensive reflex. It's not . . . It's not--

Listening to his own heartbeat, Charles waited until it finally slowed before opening his eyes again. Erik's face was still smooth and unchanged. Another minute passed, and Erik's grip relaxed, letting the blood return to Charles' arm. His nerves tingled in the dark as Erik rolled to his back.

It was suddenly much colder. Charles closed his eyes tightly, awake for a troubled hour before he finally joined him in sleep.

* * * * *

In the morning, Charles woke up alone. For a moment, a dull panic threatened to squeeze the breath from his chest, but a feverish, dreaded check confirmed that his dreams had been only that. Nothing had happened last night. All of that, after he'd finally fallen asleep again, had been in his head, and he wasn't accustomed to pushing those thoughts into other people's heads, no matter how deeply asleep he was.

He knew better than to blame the subconscious for the sorts of things it came up with, but as he rose from cot, achingly hard, it was difficult not to judge.

Charles, what is wrong with you?

* * *

The long shower helped separate his thoughts, the darker, heavier remains of the night settling deep to leave his mind clearer. When he sat down for breakfast in the cafeteria he did so at Erik's table--because the agents left Erik an entire table--as he always did. He was even able to look Erik in the eye as Erik lifted his gaze from the newspaper he was reading.

He folded it to the page he had open and set it down next to Charles' tray, turned so that he could read it.

Charles took it up and tried focusing on it. The publication was Russian; it took him four tries to get the gist of the first paragraph. Normally it would have taken him two, sometimes fewer if the lexicon was more biology than politics.

Hiding his present ineptitude, he guessed at the rest. "You think Shaw has something to do with this?"

"If not his direct involvement, then at least his influence. Probably through that minx he has with him."

"That's certainly a possibility," sighed Charles, reaching for his coffee as he set the paper aside, careful not to do so dismissively. "Though difficult to prove."

"Of course," clipped Erik, but Charles was relieved to note that his anger was not directed toward him. "That's how he operates."

Charles nodded sympathetically, lifting the coffee to his lips again and drawing its bitterness with an almost meditative awareness over his tongue. He couldn't have sat anywhere else or Erik would be suspicious, or worse, hurt, but now Charles was regretting his decision to have breakfast at all. Erik's eyes were such a piercing gray, so pale a color that they seemed to reflect whatever was projected onto them. And right now they only reflected the bold hunger Charles remembered from his dream--or maybe from what they'd actually done--

Charles set down his coffee before he spilled it. "Erik, I think--" Though it sped up his pulse to do so, he leaned forward so that he could lower his voice. "I think I should try sleeping in my own bed tonight." Cautiously, he lifted his eyes from the table.

Erik nodded. "You're not feeling well."

Charles blinked at Erik's guess. He wasn't going to use that excuse, but--

"You look like hell," Erik added.

"Ah," said Charles, ignoring Raven's 'I've been telling him that for years' at the table behind him, where he hadn't even noticed her until now. Erik shot her a glare, but his eyes were focused on Charles again soon enough.

"Yes," he finally agreed, lying, but only if he mentioned exactly what his illness was. "I hope I haven't already made you sick."

Erik only smirked, picking up the paper again and folding it. "I come from hardier stock than you," he said, rising from his seat. "I'm sure you can call me if you need me."

Erik stood there, his eyes resting on Charles a moment longer before Charles realized he was actually waiting for confirmation. "Yes, thank you," he answered, quickly.

"Just stay out of Cerebro," quipped Raven, behind him, as Erik took his tray and walked off. "Or we'll all be mentally ill."

Charles finally turned to glower at her. Hank was laughing a little too generously. "Thank you for your concern, Raven."

She smiled back at him. "Any time."

* * * * *

Charles had studied too much psychology, most of it with a directness that Jung and Freud could only imagine, to attribute very much importance to what went on in someone's head while he was asleep. What had shamed him initially soon faded into the background of his life's minor embarrassments, and by the end of the third day, he was only too happy for the newscast he was watching in the media room to be interrupted by none other than Erik. He looked like he was on his way back from the gym. Erik spent most of his time between the gym and this room, watching all manner and language of news broadcast, often skimming through some journal or newspaper at the same time.

"I don't usually see you in here," said Erik. He'd slung his towel over his neck, probably on his way to the showers adjoining their room before he'd detoured on sight of Charles.

"Broadcast television is rather uncomfortable for me, to be honest." Charles rose to his feet enough to dial the volume down, then sat again. Erik dropped himself into another chair. "They talk too slowly. It's all wrong."

"Because you can't hear what they're thinking?"

Charles smiled. "That's right. Not even the corona, so to speak, which should be there even when I'm trying not to listen. I only ended up here because I'm bored out of my mind. Hank barred me from Cerebro."

Erik pulled his towel from his shoulders to wipe roughly under his chin. "I don't like that thing even when you're well."

Leaning back in his chair, Charles watched him with a faint smile. "You don't like any of this. You'd still rather be running this show on your own."

Erik looked at him sharply. He was only here because Charles asked him to be here. Charles hadn't forgotten. "In the end, I will be."

"Not completely."

"Fine. But they'll be no help to us. They'll try to apply some useless code of law to him and Charles, he will crush them."

Charles frowned lightly. Shaw had remarkably powerful friends on his side; he hoped Erik wasn't right, or they were letting these people walk directly into harm's way.

"Let's just focus on evening up the sides, hm?" Charles stood up with a stretch, trying to force the edge out of the conversation. "There are some fights we can't win alone."

Erik lifted his eyes to him, then slowly stood with a bow to his head that reminded Charles of the weight of water, of the sea that nearly dragged him down, especially as Erik's thought bit through him like the ocean's chill.

But how many have to lose with me?

* * * * *

Charles woke in Erik's bed while the night through the narrow window was still a deep blue unspoiled by dawn.

Erik was behind him, his body folding where Charles' folded, so that even without seeing him Charles knew where every part of him was: his knees tucked in the bend of Charles' legs, his hand against Charles' stomach under his pajamas, his breath falling on the back of his neck, stirring Charles' hair.

He remembered falling asleep in his own bed, separate from him. More vaguely, he remembered waking to the sounds, to the ringing that set his teeth on edge, to the remorse that closed around his chest. There was no memory at all of climbing into Erik's bed. That was just a reflex. Erik had needed him. But Erik was quiet now. Erik was calm.

Charles closed his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep again, but Erik's fingers were making the slightest movement against his bare stomach, low enough to have found the very beginning of a trail of coarser hair. Involuntarily, his breath was quickening, just the opposite of what he was striving for.

Slipping his hand down, he covered Erik's with his own, fighting the sudden filthy urge to ease it lower, instead taking it gently and moving it from him.

Erik's arm tightened over his side. Charles nearly groaned to feel Erik gradually hardening, the cloth of his pajamas doing little to mask the shape and heat of it against his backside. Erik's breath fell warmer, closer, on his neck. His hand relaxed against Charles' stomach, no longer stroking his skin, but it hardly mattered now. Charles' heart was beating triple time.

Erik was right behind him. Erik was right there against him. Charles could feel his nose against the back of his neck, Erik's breath still washing down his spine. If Charles turned his head . . .

Charles' lips parted as he drew his breath through his mouth to stay quiet. Why couldn't he forget the taste of him? Why could he so easily recall the way Erik had pushed his tongue into his mouth to plant that memory there, why did he want Erik's long fingers around his cock again, why was Charles so hard for it--

There wasn't enough air in the room, suddenly. The night through the window looked cold and clear but inside the room it was stifling hot.

Erik shifted, the supple press of his lips unmistakable against Charles' hairline. Charles shuddered, rigid.

I want--

Erik's lips parted with a warm sigh against his neck.

I want--

Oh--

God--

Charles was slowly turning under Erik's arm. There was hardly any room for it. He felt Erik's breath skip over his ear, his cheek, finally his mouth as he rolled to face him.

Erik's mouth was hot when it met Charles', and Charles couldn't silence the moan that escaped him as Erik's tongue found his, no pretense, no slow coaxing, just full and deep and immediate.

Erik's knee pressed between his legs. His hand on Charles' backside pulled Charles to fit against the crook of his hip, and Charles couldn't help grinding against him, a dripping, frustrated teenager who would burst at the slightest provocation. He pressed his angle until he could feel Erik, just as hard, pressed hot against his hip, and rolled firmly into him, trembling with the ragged groan that escaped Erik's throat.

He was panting too hard to close their kiss. His muscles ached where they'd locked each other in feverish contact, driving the friction between them until he felt Erik's cock pulse against him.

He held his breath with Erik's, hungry to hear the stifled cry Erik pressed to his lips as he came. Erik's hand pressed down in the midst of it to find Charles' cock in the tangle of his clothes, rubbing him until Charles jerked hard against him, twice, until he dissolved into another shudder.

The room was still stifling. Charles felt a mess of sweat and worse, but Erik hadn't moved, hadn't pushed him away. The tension was slowly bleeding out of Erik's long limbs, taking Charles' strength with it, hardly a few minutes after they'd begun. From silence, into silence again, from dark into dark. Unspoken, unseen.

Easy.

It was easy.

He watched Erik lick the moisture from his lips, his breathing quieting until his lips were no longer parted. Had he ever opened his eyes? He hadn't needed to. Charles with his desperation had been obvious, uncouth, conveying everything Erik needed to know.

Charles finally closed his eyes. The room was starting to feel less warm, less feverish, and he knew it was the last thing keeping him awake. Once he lost that, and he was losing it fast, he'd slip back into the dark, back into secret, and he'd come out the other end like it had never happened. He knew it already. He was counting on it.

Because now there was no excuse. Now it was no accident.

Now he wanted it.

* * * * *

Charles woke late. By the time he had steamed himself red in the shower and emerged into the hallway to trod toward an inevitable breakfast, Erik was on his way down the corridor in his direction, already finished in the cafeteria.

There was no one else in the hallway. Charles couldn't very well ignore him, and Erik didn't seem inclined to pass him without stopping for conversation. Lifting his face, Charles smiled to greet him, like any other morning. No difference at all.

"The coffee pot is broken," said Erik, and Charles was caught so off guard that for that moment between Erik's words he merely stared. "You might as well go back to bed."

"You seem to be handling it well," Charles answered, recovering, hoping it was convincing.

"Sheer force of will." Erik gestured in the direction he was headed. "Just on my way to drown myself in the pool."

It took Charles a moment to realize Erik was making a joke, though no one else might have known it from the perfect deadpan of his face. Charles shook his head with genuine amusement, and, in a way, amazement. Even in that corona he'd mentioned last night, he could sense nothing extraneous, no emotion outside the exchange they were having right now. "You're on your own, this time."

Erik smirked, stirring to continue in the direction he was walking, and so did Charles.

"Don't they have tea?" Charles suddenly called, his voice carrying easily along the brushed metal walls.

"They won't know what to do with it," Erik called back.

* * *

Breakfast was a tepid affair. What he'd kept together in Erik's presence was slowly unraveling without it, so that he was certain anyone in the vicinity could pick up the thread and follow it inevitably to him. He simply had no explanation. He had no defense. And it seemed as though he'd never need it.

Charles was a talker, a communicator, whether people wanted to hear what he was on about or not. He understood by explaining. And if this could never grace his tongue--

He looked up, startled, as someone joined him at the table. "Now isn't a good time, Raven," he protested.

"I haven't even said anything yet," she drolled. "Besides, since you're leaving again tomorrow--"

"Leaving?"

"You're heading out again on the great mutant search. It's on that calendar you make sure I check every day."

"Ah. Right." Charles shook his head lightly to clear it. The trip was already planned based on the coordinates he'd been plotting. Even with the hiatus they had plenty to work with. He should have been focusing on that, but--

"You're not still sick?"

Sick? Oh. "No, I'm quite well now." 'Over-tired' was what he'd been forced to tell Hank, and he'd done plenty of resting without the strain of Cerebro.

"Then what's the matter with you?" She frowned as she looked over his face, no longer sarcastic or belligerent as was her usual mode of affection for him. "You're usually not so . . ."

"Unfocused."

"I was going to say 'scatter-brained,' but yeah."

Charles smiled lightly. By scientific curiosity, or perhaps morbidity, he imagined telling her, Erik and I, we--, but it refused to be put into words, and robbed him even of the fantasy of sharing it. It simply didn't translate.

"There's just a lot to think about," he decided. It was no lie. "We're in the real world, now, Raven. I've always depended on theories; now I have to put them to the test."

He appreciated that she seemed to weigh his words, even if she sometimes only pretended to listen to him.

"Well, speaking of the real world," she proposed, when she'd paid her dues, "I thought we might go sightseeing."

He frowned. "Sightseeing? Raven, we have work to--"

"No, you have work to do, and you work too hard anyway." His head was still tilted discouragingly, and she matched his persisting frown. "Come on, we haven't been, yet, and now you're leaving again."

Her eyes had taken on a rare, plaintive appeal. It was true that he'd seen little of the city beyond these walls, and she'd seen even less, though Charles had to wonder that Hank hadn't taken the obvious opportunity to show her around. Moreover, since he'd met Erik, and since they'd embarked on this 'great mutant search,' Charles had hardly spent any time with her at all.

It would probably be good to get out, to re-establish where he came from. In fact, it was probably necessary for his sanity. "All right, get your things," he agreed, and her grin warmed him in the more acceptable places. "I'll ask Moira for the car."

* * * * *

There was never any question.

Last night they'd stayed up late planning their travels, and Charles had slept so hard that when he woke up he couldn't tell if anything had happened. Worse, he wasn't really asking himself. The answer was irrelevant.

From the moment they'd met, everything fell into place with Erik. Erik was the jar of sharp stones, and Charles felt like the water that filled in the spaces, without effort or even conscious desire. Gravity pulled him in and around and against, and he took whatever shape he needed to.

Because he knew he wouldn't leave Erik alone again. Even if he seemed safe from nighttime horrors for a few precious nights at a time, they seemed always to come back, and even if Charles might eventually drive them away he couldn't bear to continue testing him, setting him out like bait. It was better just to stay with him. It was better to be sure.

Alone in another hotel room, unpacking his suitcase with the sound of Erik's shower filling the small room, Charles noted the extra cot folded against the wall, but did not move to set it up.

There was no question.

* * *

Even in the hotbed of the club, rich with carnal allusions, Erik didn't imply. Erik didn't joke. Erik didn't acknowledge it in any way, despite hundreds of opportunities.

They'd put Angel, the young female mutant they'd met there, on a plane back to Washington. At the hotel, Charles spoke over the telephone in coded language with Moira, telling her when to expect her. "Tell Raven," he said. "I think she'll be pleased."

Moira asked what route they were taking in the morning, and Charles watched Erik strip down to his underwear like he was alone in the room, like there wasn't anything for Charles to see. Charles didn't miss a beat of conversation. Charles wasn't distracted. He'd been jumping through hoops to keep up with Erik's smooth implicit denial, and it hadn't taken him very long to master it. Not when his conditioning was so positively reinforced.

Erik got into bed, leaving exactly one half for Charles.

He hung up with Moira.

* * * * *

There was a clock on Charles' side of the bed. Erik had fallen asleep again, warm and close behind him. The clock was unreadable, its hands in a meaningless configuration while Charles' mind wasn't awake enough to understand it. Beyond the clock, hanging on the wall, was a mirror. Earlier it had given back the more welcoming tones of sunset; now it was cold and blue, reflecting another side of the world, another plane of time, where the clock made perfect sense. This Erik, the one whose hand was still curled between Charles' legs, was not the Erik of the daylight; neither was Charles himself, nor was this place even real, when it could be excised so neatly from the world around it, no strings to attach it, or to complicate it.

How many days had it been? How many mutants, how many miles on the road, how many unused cots, calls to Moira--They were in Richmond. Somewhere on the other side of Richmond. Nowhere, thought Charles, the clock blurring out before he finally closed his eyes to drift off again, his hand finding Erik's. We're not anywhere.

* * * * *

"You look tired."

Charles looked up from the handle of the car door at his words, meeting Erik's eyes over the broad roof. With nothing further, Erik shifted and disappeared into the car.

Drawing open the door, Charles joined him. Settling, he pulled their map from his bag.

"We've been busy."

* * * * *

When they finally returned to the facility, a sudden panic sent Charles directly to their dormitory, much as he tried to ignore it, much as he tried to greet Raven and Moira unrushed, much as he should have been checking in on the mutants they'd sent on ahead of them.

He pushed open the door, dreading the signs of inhabitance.

But they must have given the new recruits Charles' old room. This one was still theirs.

Charles drew his breath slowly and released it, stepping back to let the door close. Turning, he traced his steps back down the hall, to pick up his manners where he'd left them.

* * * * *

"So what do we do with them now?" Erik asked.

Dressed for bed, Charles closed the lid of his trunk and looked across his cot to where Erik was sitting on his. The band of Charles' watch dangled from Erik's palm; the fingers of his other hand hovered over it.

Charles straightened. "We see what they're good at. And what they're not good at. We get to know them."

Erik looked up at him from beneath his brow. "I don't need them."

"I'd still like to know them," said Charles, smiling lightly. "I know this isn't the stuff your dreams are made of, but it is the stuff of mine."

Relaxing his hand, Erik held out the watch to Charles. "Here. It was stopped."

Furrowing his brow, Charles stepped forward and took it.

He hadn't even noticed.

* * * * *

The cot creaked innocently as Charles shifted, pressing his face further into Erik's hair to stifle his sigh. Erik's lips were pressed warm and wet to his neck; now and again the scrape of his teeth was followed by the comfort of his tongue.

He slipped his hand down Erik's stomach so that Erik rolled his hips toward the touch before Charles even got there, and he sighed again to feel the rigid heat Erik pressed into his palm. He was thrusting lazily into Charles' grip, his mouth tracing a line across Charles' jaw until their lips met, and Charles groaned softly to feel Erik's tongue pressing between his teeth.

Erik's movements were quickening. His hand joined Charles' and held it there, as though he wanted Charles to feel him come.

The knock at the door jolted Charles' eyes open.

Daylight.

It was morning.

Erik blinked in the bright light from the window--Erik, the Erik he spoke to every day--Erik, the same Erik he was never supposed to--

The knock sounded again, and Charles twisted out of the bed, stumbling to find his robe. His heart was thudding so loudly in his ears that he couldn't make out the words on the other side of the door. His legs were shaking with their sudden use, with the blood rushing back to his head.

When he pulled open the door, he stood at its opening, barring the sight of their bed, the only bed that had obviously been slept in.

Moira met his eyes, though what she saw, Charles didn't dare speculate.

"Shaw's nearly to Russia," she said. "Our plane leaves tonight."

Charles swallowed, trying to focus on her, trying to wash Erik's taste from his mouth. "Yes," he acknowledged. "Of course. We'll be out."

Moira nodded. She glanced toward the room behind him, but he was sure she saw nothing, she couldn't have seen anything, before she retreated down the hall. By the time Charles turned back to the room, shutting the door behind him with a cold, nauseated dread, Erik had already left his bed for the shower.

Shit.

II.

It was a mercy that Erik was so single-minded when it came to Shaw. It was a mercy Charles could silence his through the cacophony of others.

They sat through briefings, settled plans, studied maps, memorized code words. It took the entire day. Though the two were never alone, they spent hour after hour hardly three feet away from each other. When it was unbearable, when Charles wasn't sure he could speak evenly, or look at him with the right expression, he let someone else's thoughts replace his own. There were never fewer than four other agents in the room. Sometimes he needed them all at once just to cancel out the force of his own panic, though he spared Moira that lowly role.

But no matter his efforts, his heart never seemed to slow to its natural rhythm. His breath never quite filled his lungs. No matter how deeply he tried to draw it, it kept catching like a gasp.

When they were sent to pack their bags, Charles rose from his seat with Erik and followed him to the door like he was walking to the gallows, refusing to show his crippling dread. If he didn't come up with a suitable excuse before they made it to the dormitory, they'd be alone in the very place that would speak for them in their silence.

Would Erik ignore it even now? He thought he'd seen the very beginnings of a reaction when the knock at the door had disturbed them--or perhaps Charles had only imagined it, projecting his own alarm, his own stomach-flipping shock that what they'd been doing could exist in the real world. He'd been relying on the impossibility of the two overlapping.

Erik stepped out into the hallway. He nearly looked back at him when Moira approached to draw Charles' attention. His view of Erik was soon lost as the other agents filed out between them, leaving Charles with Moira.

Charles watched after him uneasily before he turned to face her, her gaze direct and professional--and unreadable.

Had Moira seen enough to suspect it? Would she--would anyone--jump to such a conclusion?

He didn't dare brush her thoughts to know. Instead he cleared his own head, so forcefully it nearly ached. "Agent MacTaggert?"

"Can we trust him to follow orders?"

Charles blinked. Her eyes were clear and steady, expecting his honesty. Despite his flare of defensiveness, Charles gave it as best he could. "I can't tell you that."

"Charles, we cannot let him be a part of this if he's going to jeopardize our safety, not to mention foreign relations. If you know him as you're capable of knowing him--"

"I cannot know his or anyone else's future actions." He knew Erik's tendencies, knew he was emotionally vested in this as none of them could even imagine, but he couldn't predict. Erik was more than a probability. "If I knew that, Agent MacTaggert, free will would be nothing but a sham."

Moira seemed to appraise him, perhaps trying to read in his manner what he might not be saying, but there was nothing for Charles to imply. Ultimately, people were free to make their own decisions.

Like we made a decision.

We decided it was all right to--

She finally nodded. "I'll see you back here. It's a long flight, be prepared."

A long flight. In close, quiet quarters. Charles kept his expression masked as he excused himself. "I'll just be a moment."

Erik must have had his bag already packed. He was on his way back when Charles saw him in the hall, their eyes meeting briefly, but hardly long enough to convey anything more than acknowledgment of the other. While Charles often imagined Erik's eyes to reveal so much in their clarity, now they were dark and clouded. Sebastian Shaw had taken hold there.

Charles wanted to be grateful for it, that he wouldn't see anything else there, but he couldn't prefer this. It was a mercy, but only for cowards.

Erik had passed him by several paces, but Charles turned and said his name, aloud, almost before he'd decided what to say to him after that. Erik stopped, and turned to look at him.

Charles drew his breath slowly. "I would never invade your thoughts to control them. Don't let Shaw."

Erik flinched. Though he eventually continued down the hall without a reply, a fracture of light had broken the dark.

Charles watched him only a moment before turning and hurrying his pace to the room. On the way, he recited in his head what he knew he'd have to say next time he didn't have Shaw to hide behind.

'About this . . . . About this morning . . . . About us--'

But nothing ever filled in the space afterward.

At the dormitory, he pointedly avoided notice of the bed. Instead he focused on the floor, the wall, his own hands as he collected his things to pack them. Yet, under influence of morbid curiosity, which joined forces with a nagging certainty that he'd forget something if he didn't, he succumbed to it. Shoving another sweater and a pair of gloves into his suitcase, he finally looked up, cautiously, over the edge of its lid.

The bed had been neatly straightened. Charles' pillow had been relocated. And in its place--

A note. The paper was creased, but lying open, and near its top edge he recognized the unmistakable scrawl of his name in Erik's handwriting.

He nearly tripped over himself getting to it, but once it was within reach he was moving through water to pick it up. What would Erik say to him? How would he excuse their actions? Would he try to explain? Apologize? Acknowledge it, for God's sake? Feeling nauseous, Charles picked it up and straightened its crease.

Charles,

Hungry. Out for food.

Charles frowned.

Bring you something bland.

The note was old. Erik had left it for him in the hotel room the evening before they'd recruited Sean Cassidy. Charles had been in the shower.

That had been the night Erik had nearly got Charles off from his mouth on his neck alone--

'About this--'

Charles had carried the marks for a week after--

'It was never--'

Even now, the thought made him lurch for the reprise--

Stop. Charles folded the note, returning to his bed and trapping the bit of paper under the heavy cover of a book he'd displaced from his trunk. It must have ended up in Erik's things and fallen out when he'd come to collect them. Why Charles felt the need to hide it was not as easily deduced.

When he returned to the briefing room, there were three agents approaching from the other end of the hallway. Inside, Erik sat alone at the table.

Charles had roughly twenty seconds to say it. Just enough time to force out the words, just enough time for the agents' arrival to save him from the dead air afterward. 'What we've been doing, we never should have started.'

'I gave you the wrong impression.'

'That's not who I am.'

Taking another few steps into the room, he set his suitcase down and straightened.

Erik closed the magazine he was reading, looking him over across the long table. "Have everything?"

"I think so," said Charles.

* * * * *

They would be meeting their armed escort on arrival. The thought that they indeed required one was an additional knot in Charles' stomach, and as the small jet gained altitude, tightening a different knot, Charles was less disappointed in the behavior the younger mutants had displayed just before departure. It had kept them from coming along, and Charles was no longer so confident that this was the best place for them, even if Erik could stop the bullets and Charles could stop the ones who fired them.

On the jet there were four seats in each cluster, two facing forward, two facing back. Charles had taken one by the window; Erik had sat down across from him. The other two seats remained empty, yet despite their relative solitude, or perhaps because of it, Erik's gaze hadn't stirred from the window since they'd taken off. Now and again his eyes slowly fell shut, but within the minute they were open again, refocused.

Charles checked his watch in the light from his window, the rest of the plane dimmed save for one or two reading lights still lit. If the watch's gears could be trusted now, it was past midnight.

At the edge of his vision, he watched Erik a moment longer, then drew his breath slowly to calm his heart. There was no avoiding it. He'd been keeping his distance all day, but given the circumstances he couldn't keep it forever.

Releasing his seat belt, Charles got up and sat down beside him. The width of the seat was generous, but he was as far toward Erik as possible without their legs touching. He refastened his belt and looked up to see that Erik had finally looked away from the window and was now gazing at him.

Charles' mouth went dry. "You have to sleep," he said, keeping his eyes on Erik's at any cost.

Erik shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Not here," he murmured. There was fear in it. He'd probably never slept on a plane for worry of what his nightmares might cause him to set off.

"I'm right here," said Charles. He swallowed, hoping the color of his face wasn't visible in the dimness of the night-time lighting. "Just as close as I've been."

Erik didn't call him on the lie. He'd been closer. Of course he'd been closer.

Instead, Erik shifted, leaning toward Charles rather than the window. Their shoulders touched, and though Charles worried Erik could feel his thudding pulse in that contact, he stayed where he was.

Even if Erik's eyes were still on his, hardly six inches away. Close enough to--

Charles' breath actually shook when he exhaled, but it was blessedly masked in the turbulence.

"Can you sleep," Erik asked, quietly, "if your mind is listening to mine?"

Charles nodded, though it was barely a movement at all. He remembered the look on Erik's face in Chicago, when he'd so sharply suspected that Charles had seen his dreams.

"Then wake me if you feel them coming."

Now he was asking Charles to see them.

"I will," Charles answered.

But they won't, Charles thought, to himself. He was helpless not to think it. I won't let them.

God, it doesn't matter, it just doesn't--

Erik nodded. The fatigue he let into his expression seemed grateful, and his eyes were soon closed, his head resting against the back of his seat. Charles reclined it, then his own by necessity.

He waited, listening to Erik's breathing, for the next quarter hour, until he was certain Erik was asleep. Only then did he open his mind the short distance between them--only then, so that Charles could continue to hide from what he needed to know.

For now, in Erik's mind, there was nothing. Erik hadn't begun to dream at all, yet.

Charles waited another half hour until Erik's mind finally stirred with activity, reliving a version of the day's events, the sort of dream no one remembered but was nevertheless vital to building memories itself. When Charles was sure it wasn't headed toward anything darker, he let his own mind begin to drift, keeping part of it with Erik as promised.

* * *

Charles woke abruptly, his heart racing ahead of him.

The feel of Erik's fingers on the back of his hand had broken through his dreams, and Charles had jerked his hand away from the armrest before he was fully conscious, before he could realize that it had been an accident. Erik's hand was hovering over the space where he'd touched him, unmoving, and Charles looked up at him to make out, with frustrating slowness, the expression of surprise on his face.

Erik's other hand was on the shade of the window, where he'd pulled it halfway down to block the streaming sun of morning.

"I'm sorry," stammered Charles. Stupid, stupid. He wasn't trying to-- "You startled me."

Slowly, Erik pulled the shade down the rest of the way. As the glare faded, so did Erik's expression. It wasn't just surprise.

It was hurt, too.

"I didn't think that was possible," said Erik, lightly. Charles watched him lower both hands to rest on his lap.

"Sometimes it is," Charles answered, stupidly. Stupid, stupid.

Slowly, Erik leaned back into his seat again. He was not as close as he had been. "Morning's come early," he said. "We have another few hours to sleep."

Charles closed his eyes as he tried to relax in his seat, but his entire body was tense.

Overwhelmingly, Charles wanted to touch him. He wanted to make it up to him, show him that he didn't mean it, he would never recoil from Erik, never leave him, never abandon him--

Steadying his breath, Charles shifted his knee to the side until his thigh brushed Erik's. He kept it there against his warmth.

He felt the tension in Erik's leg, but Erik moved no more than that.

* * * * *

It was evening again by the time they deboarded. Every moment with Erik was chipping away at Charles' ability to function normally.

While the previous day had kept him occupied, and the plane ride had steadied him with a sense of responsibility, there was less to distract him now. Certainly there were further logistics to sort out, but the mission's two mutants weren't required for that. Charles tried to volunteer their assistance, but Moira spared them the tedium and sent them away, nearly closing the door in Charles' face.

If Erik had heard the desperation in Charles' voice, he didn't let on. In fact, when Charles turned away from the door, Erik was so close Charles nearly ran into him. Erik smoothly stepped to the side, but not before Charles caught the scent of the worn leather jacket he had brought with him. Though sharply fragrant, it couldn't mask the muskier scent of the man himself, strong from the long hours asleep on the plane. It reminded Charles of the comfort and exhaustion of their bed, and left him rooted to the floor until Erik was several paces ahead of him.

* * *

They'd be staying at the barracks on base for the evening. They probably hadn't beaten Shaw here, but there was no way to tell where he was. They only knew where he'd be tomorrow.

When Erik suggested they eat something, of course Charles agreed. When Erik sat down at a table, of course Charles sat down across from him. Erik ate quickly, while of course Charles, reaching for conversation, said something disparaging about the food, then immediately shut himself up from saying anything else.

It left him--of course--alone with his thoughts, because Erik tended to silence.

Charles managed to eat half the food on his plate. His mind was determined to poison the rest, destroying his appetite for it, and making him regret what he had already eaten.

I should have waited for him.

Unable to look at it anymore, Charles pushed his plate aside.

That morning. I should have waited for him to come back out.

Gaze resting on the dry, splintering wood of the table, Charles noticed the slight movement in Erik's hand. It went still, then finally reached for the plate and pulled it closer, taking up Charles' fork.

We couldn't have ignored it, then.

Now it's too late. Like some sea creature breaking the surface for a moment, it had disappeared once more in the unreachable depths. He'd drown going after it.

"You're quiet," said Erik. He moved the plate aside again, now empty. "You're never quiet."

"Have you ever read Moby Dick?" mumbled Charles.

Erik didn't immediately answer. Instead his fingertip was rubbing a whorl of smooth wood in thought.

Charles forced his gaze up, though Erik's eyes were no safer.

"Do you think me Ahab?" Erik asked.

Charles blinked.

"And Shaw is my white whale?"

Recovering, Charles smiled lightly. "It fits."

Though it was stiffer, Erik matched the smile. "And you're hoping it doesn't end the same way."

"Aren't you?"

Erik watched him a moment before he stood, his smile shifting to a sadness that seemed to know the future. "Come, Ishmael," he beckoned, heavily. He picked up the plates and moved them to the counter. "I've sighted a chess board on yonder shelf."

* * * * *

At first Charles had been so exhausted, at odds with his internal clock, that he doubted he'd fall asleep at all.

Hours later, he was surprised he managed to wake up before morning--but only until he sensed that Erik was no longer in the bunk below his. It was sufficient to stir him from any level of dreaming.

He waited a few minutes for Erik's return. When the bunk remained empty, Charles quietly climbed down and found his shoes. He'd slept in his clothes, but noticed the frigid temperature immediately.

A thin rod of blue light in the far wall drew his attention: the door to the outside was ajar, no doubt heavily locked against people for whom the metal would not bend. Charles moved silently to it. Their bunks were separated from the rest, but only by empty space, and he didn't wish to wake anyone else. At the door, he pushed it open far enough to let himself out, shivering harder.

"Charles."

Charles turned from the door, where he'd returned it to its position, to see Erik some feet away, sitting with his back to the brick wall of the barracks. The night was clear, illuminating his form, knees drawn up but in repose, not chill.

Charles stepped closer before speaking. "I thought you'd be all right tonight." Watching Erik's face, Charles sat down beside him, leaning forward, away from the cold bricks, and wondering how Erik managed not to.

"It's not that."

If not the nightmares, then Shaw. Charles bowed his head, studying the gravel. He thought of Moira's question, and knew he had been truthful. He also knew where his allegiance was.

"Tomorrow, Erik, keep me with you."

He felt Erik's eyes on him and shifted to face him, saddened by the hardness of Erik's expression, but understanding it. "Not to stop you, Erik. And perhaps, not to help you. But to keep you safe."

Erik's mouth tightened to a line. "And what if I don't keep you safe?"

Charles smiled softly. "It won't be for lack of trying, I know that."

Erik looked as though he wanted to argue, but he gave up, leaning back against the bricks again. When he tipped his head back, his lifted eyes caught all the cold light of the hour, and Charles finally leaned back with him, settling.

He was sure he imagined the distant chime of a clock. Raccoons in a garbage can, perhaps. A fallen rain gutter.

"You don't have to be out here," murmured Erik, head still resting against the bricks so that Charles could see the faint stubble down his neck.

Charles smiled to himself. He wouldn't repeat it again--that Erik would not be alone--only because, despite his words, Erik knew. Instead Charles watched the stillness of the barracks yard stretching mutely before them, blue and grey, empty and unreal, an underworld of quiet and void.

This was the place he'd always met Erik, the Erik who would reach for him, the Erik who would let himself be touched. This was the time Charles couldn't measure.

"Do you ever think," said Charles, hardly voicing it at all, "that it's a different world at night?"

It sounded so stupid to say it. He worried, when Erik was quiet, that he thought it foolish. But you have to agree.

"I used to lie awake most nights." Erik folded his arms over his knees, releasing his breath slowly. "People disappear. There's nothing holding you back. Just a space to move through, unknown and unstoppable. Everything is possible, but nothing can be changed."

Charles watched him as he listened, Erik's rare calm creeping into him like a river slowly changing course, doubling back on itself.

No consequences. What we've done, it never changes anything--

Erik's gaze remained distant for a few slow breaths that Charles was too aware of before he turned his head to look at him.

The non-clock chimed again. It startled some deep part of him that only manifested on the surface when Charles was forced to look away. His gaze dropped, and his head cleared. What are you trying to do?

He frowned suddenly. His mind tore the veil further, irreparable. "Erik--Christ, are you barefoot? It's freezing!" He sighed as he stood up, muscles aching with movement he wasn't entirely sure he was the master of. "Stay here."

And then his legs were moving him back inside, carrying him back to their bunk, escaping, fleeing. He took hold of the blanket in Erik's bunk and freed it, working quietly despite the creaking of bedding springs and joints.

When he turned around to carry it back outside, the sliver of light from the door was gone. Erik had come back in, where it was warmer, and Charles was relieved. He could dimly make out his silhouette as he came to the bunk.

"Oh," Charles murmured, "I was--" His mouth stopped working when he felt Erik's hand close on his arm. Though Charles could hardly see him, he knew it when Erik was suddenly far too close to him, taking the blanket out of his hands and dropping it with a muffled stir on the cot.

He's just--He's just--

Trying to reach something, trying to move Charles out of the way, something, because he couldn't be--

Charles felt the warmth of his breath and buckled, adrenaline keeping his actions sudden and just out of his control. The only way he could back away was to sit down on the bottom bunk.

He'd only drawn Erik with him. He felt the weight of Erik's hand on his leg as he bent to follow, and Charles' breaths came shallow if they came at all when Erik pressed his mouth to his, warm and wet and real. Charles gasped, and it parted his lips further, drawing Erik's kiss deeper. The cot creaked beneath him, or he'd whimpered.

He couldn't find the path to resistance. Stumbling in the dark, he could only follow where Erik led, but not there, not here, there were people--

Erik's hand shifted, his fingertips brushing the inseam of Charles' trousers. Like a spur, it jerked Charles up to stand, to pull away, but the top bunk stopped him with a white flash of searing pain.

Erik released him, and Charles staggered, momentarily blind, to lean into the bunk's support, mouth tightly closed against cursing, the tightness in his trousers easing, though he couldn't stop shaking.

"Are you all right?" Erik asked, quietly.

No--No, no--

You can't speak, you were just--

I'm not all right, this isn't all right--

"I'm fine," Charles breathed, his stomach so tight he could barely force out the words, his head still stinging under his hand. Someone nearby was half-awake from the commotion, and he sent them impatiently to sleep again. He wanted to be sick.

But he held on until the nausea subsided, until the sharp ache in his head turned dull, and no others had awakened. Without another word--he couldn't have withstood another syllable--he climbed up into the top bunk and lay down, cheek pressed firmly into the pillow.

He didn't move until dawn.

* * * * *

On the side of the road leading to the Soviet general's estate, Charles quieted his nerves and climbed into the bed of the truck that would take them the rest of the way. He sat down on the bench behind the cab and watched their escort file in to sit in rows along the sides, their rifles poised and ready.

His head was throbbing where he'd struck it. The reminder of last night was in his very pulse. He should be focusing entirely on where they were headed, yet the thread of pain kept tugging him backward, into his childish confusion, where he couldn't determine what he was so afraid of, though all the signs of fear were unmistakably present.

Erik appeared at the truck's doors and climbed up, sitting in the space Charles had left for him.

He had no qualms with his attraction to Erik's mind. That, he understood. That, he'd made peace with, even if it went beyond respectability, even if others doubted the wisdom in it, and sometimes, so did Charles.

Craving the body that carried that mind was . . . unexpected. Charles didn't think himself the type; he still didn't--couldn't--think Erik the type, either.

"You're nervous," said Erik, quietly. The doors were shut, casting them into darkness. He almost expected Erik's hand on his leg. He almost wanted it there.

"Cautious," Charles amended. They could not be heard over the rumble of the engine as the truck began to move; Charles made sure of it while he paged through the thoughts of their escort, learning tendencies, histories, limitations that might aid him in mitigating disaster, should it strike. One soldier to his right had a nervous tick that was worrisome.

"Their guns are only good for their Soviet counterparts," Erik said, as though he knew Charles' preoccupation. "You and I are the only ones who have a chance at Shaw."

You and I. Charles could all but feel Erik's gaze resting on him in the dark. It was--

Familiar.

"Let's hope the odds will be more favorable than last time," prayed Charles.

"They already are," answered Erik.

* * * * *

Shaw wasn't there.

Though they managed to capture his accomplice, their relationship with the CIA was probably over. Erik had done exactly as Moira had feared, and Charles had shown where he stood. There was never really any question: when Erik had blocked the division's participation in the search for mutants, Charles had stood with him then, too. There would be no going back from this.

And nothing to go back to.

They received the news on their return to the barracks. Moira had just rounded on him with the censure he'd been anticipating when the call came in. Only Charles and the operator heard the voice on the other end, and only Erik recognized the expression on Charles' face.

He stepped forward and stopped Moira mid-sentence, his eyes on Charles. "What is it?"

Charles was already on his way down to a chair, the strength dropping out of his legs.

"An attack."

* * * * *

No one slept on the plane back home. Nearly every mind was alive with anxiety, including Charles'. Though he tried to center himself, his only truly consistent thought was Raven, sobbing to him over the static of a telephone line half the world long.

"You're not responsible," said Erik, finally breaking a silence Charles couldn't. Charles looked up at him from the window, where he sat across from him.

Not 'we,' but 'you.' Because Erik didn't feel that guilt. And he didn't want Charles to feel it, either.

Erik's mind was the one quiet place on the plane. Charles wanted to flee to it, escape within it, but he knew what lay beneath that steadfast blankness was much worse than what Charles was suffering. Besides, Charles didn't deserve to ignore this.

"We just left them there, Erik."

"So did Agent MacTaggert. So did Agent Levene. Do you blame them?"

Charles sighed, resting his head back and closing his eyes. "No," he confessed.

"Then blaming yourself is egotistical."

Charles opened his eyes again. The words actually stung him, though he tried not to show it. If Erik was trying to comfort him, he had a funny way of doing it. But he would, wouldn't he? And if Charles looked past the critique, Erik was right.

Charles nodded, though his eyes were on his hands. The only one to blame, then, was Shaw.

Erik's sworn vengeance on the man was no longer such an unrelatable concept.

* * * * *

They moved their operation, what was left of it, to the Xavier estate. It was up to Shaw, and whatever plans he was setting into motion, how much time they'd have to prepare before they were called upon to confront him again. Where Charles had been afforded the leisure to be frivolous before, now there simply wasn't time for preoccupation about where he slept and what nightly freedoms he enjoyed and then agonized about all day afterwards.

At least, that was what he kept telling himself, with more and more force.

When evening finally closed on their first day at the mansion, Charles led Erik to the room he'd be staying in. Though Charles opened the door and pointed out a number of the room's features, he didn't step past the threshold. If Erik expected Charles would be joining him, Charles couldn't encourage that.

"I'll be in the room next door," he said, finally. He felt foolish for how difficult it was to say out loud. "Not far. The beds are on the same wall."

Erik had stepped into the room, but had turned to listen. As Charles' spoke, there was no reaction on his face. He was merely watching him with a clear-eyed acceptance of the terms, and it gnawed at Charles' resolve more quickly than any objection he might have given him.

"It would be difficult to explain," Charles added, at the floor, his mouth dry, the words rushed. When he looked up again, Erik's brow was furrowed as though he didn't understand--what was so difficult about Charles helping him? Who would care? What wrong had they done?--but Charles pushed on. "I can listen to your mind, like we did on the plane. I'll wake you before you fall too deep." It was a compromise. Charles had told himself he wouldn't leave Erik vulnerable to his dreams again, but sleeping close to him again--

"As long as it doesn't tire you," said Erik, as though he truly didn't care, and had no expectations, about what they did and didn't do with each other.

It was perhaps his most baffling response yet.

"It's like listening for an alarm clock," Charles murmured, distantly.

Erik nodded, accepting this. "Good night, then."

"Good night," Charles answered, automatically, and Erik shut the door.

Charles stood there dumbly for a moment before he forced himself to move. Erik's manner hadn't been so brief as to communicate spite, nor had he lingered in any implication that he wished Charles would stay.

He sighed, pushing open the door of his room, wondering why, in this, he would have preferred those things over Erik's indifference.

I don't understand this, he thought, to himself. I really don't.

* * * * *

Training kept them all busy. Exhaustion could be depended on, and sleep came easily, even to Erik, it seemed. Just a wall and two headboards between them, Charles grew comfortable with their arrangement. After an unprecedented four nights of peace, he had begun to think that, perhaps, this mental connection was as effective as the physical.

Not happily, Charles learned that his body missed it. For Erik, it seemed to make no difference. In his dreaming or even the drowsing just before, Charles caught no impression of anything untoward, nor even the shame or guilt of trying to avoid such thoughts. It was as though, if Charles were not there in front of him, and the circumstances did not allow him to act in secret, it simply didn't occur to him.

Charles often took pride in being the master of himself. Clearly he had miles to go.

* * * * *

It could only last so long. On the fifth night, peace had run out. Charles heard it in his own dreams, the plea from Erik's subconscious.

Charles.

Charles, I'm alone.

Not alone, answered Charles' mind. Not alone. I'm here. I'm coming.

Charles found himself at Erik's bedside, blanketed in darkness, but not completely. Erik wasn't yet in distress, but his brow was drawn down in his sleep, lips parted around his breath. Like someone unaccustomed to sleeping in a large bed, Erik was at the very edge, facing the door.

Charles drew closer, crouching at the side of the bed, then shifting forward to his knees. He spoke aloud, though softly, needing to draw Erik out, not keep him in with another voice in his head.

"Erik, listen to me," he urged in the dark. "Come toward my voice. Wake up, and you'll shut the door through which they try to follow."

Erik was only growing more tense: Charles could see it in the angle of his shoulder, in the line of his mouth. He moved one hand to Erik's bare arm, exposed over the bedding, and took Erik's hand in his other, palm under Erik's palm, fingers curling around his wrist. "Erik. Wake up, for me. Follow my voice. I'm as alone as you if you're not with me."

Perhaps he'd never speak in such tones to Erik's waking self, but here, it was allowed. Here, Charles did not care to censor himself. There was no need.

Erik's hand stirred. His short nails dug into Charles' skin, but Charles held on as tightly. Erik's breathing grew heavier, tripping and stuttering at its pinnacle before it gradually lengthened, his expression growing smooth again.

His mouth was the last to lose its tension. When it did, Charles gently released his arm, but his other hand remained. He wouldn't leave again until he was sure.

The ticking of the nearby clock measured out the seconds into minutes. They seemed fast--noontime seconds, Charles thought as he felt himself nodding off, not fit for the languid pace of midnight. Lifting his elbow to the mattress, he rested his head on his arm, his other hand still warm beneath the delicate weight of Erik's.

Charles wasn't sure whether he drifted off or not, but he only slowly realized that Erik was awake, and watching him, his gaze half-lidded but steady.

Decency, and concern, would have prompted Charles to speak. At the very least he would have asked Erik if he was all right. He would have asked him if he felt safe, if he might want Charles to send him back to sleep. But Erik's gaze, resting on him with a permanence daylight would never allow, kept Charles' lips still. He swallowed behind them.

A shiver rolled up his arm as Erik's thumb brushed the space between his wrist and his palm: back and forth, the movements small but their effect increasing with each innocent rub. Charles couldn't help the tremor in his own fingers, then shivered much deeper as he felt the tendons in Erik's wrist ripple under his fingertips.

Charles legs were beginning to go numb beneath him, but he didn't dare move. Erik's fingers stretched under the edge of Charles' sleeve, sliding the rest of his hand over Charles' wrist, where he deftly unfastened the band of the watch Charles had forgotten to remove. Exposed to the air, the skin tingled, and Erik replaced the confines of leather with the sure grip of his hand.

Charles felt the pressure as Erik's arm folded in, as he tried to coax Charles closer to him, gently pulling him by the wrist.

He remained where he was. His chest suddenly hurt for holding his breath, and he released it before slowly drawing it in again, as silent as he could make it. He wouldn't meet Erik's eyes.

He couldn't. He couldn't do this. It was behind them, now, they were in his childhood house, and they had much bigger responsibilities, to the others, to each other. He couldn't. Russia was forever ago. Their nights at the CIA were even further--and that first time at the hotel was a myth of creation by now.

Erik's efforts subsided.

Charles's knees were beginning to ache through the numbness as Erik gently let go of his wrist. It was time. Time to go, time to get back, to his own bed, to his own--

Erik lifted his hand and slipped it against the side of Charles' face.

It froze the breath in Charles' chest, though it was hot, he was sure of it, when it finally sighed of its own accord against Erik's wrist, nearly dragging Charles' voice out with it. Forever ago. It felt like forever, that other life they'd led, this world that had confused and seduced him time and again. The tingling of his wrist was spreading through him.

Erik's fingers curled lightly behind his ear, and Charles was drifting to him, moving up on knees still devoid of feeling. His hands gripped the edge of the mattress, but the angle did nothing to help him resist. Erik was drawing him closer, drawing him down, and Charles though his eyes were already closed in submission, whispered in the dark his only plea: "Why?"

Erik stopped. His hand no longer coaxed Charles toward him, but his fingertips were moving in the roots of his hair. For a moment he withdrew his touch before it returned, brushing through Charles' hair to the back of his neck, where he urged Charles closer again. "Why not," he murmured, so close Charles felt the words on his lips before Erik pulled him into his kiss.

It was everything Charles wanted. How Charles managed to push away from him, hitting the ground hard on his backside and struggling to his feet before the feeling could return to them, was a blur, painful and indistinct, but it had obviously happened. Charles was standing several feet away, and Erik's hand had fallen to the bed, his face blank, blank, always--

Shaken, Charles backed away. He finally turned and left the room, stumbling, retracing a path to his door he didn't remember taking to begin with, walking on needles as his circulation returned.

Why not.

The door's knob rattled loudly under his unsure grip as he found it and eased it closed.

Why not.

You know why not.

He climbed into bed and buried himself under the bedding, restless and over-warm and stiff to the touch under the fabric of his pajamas.

Why don't I?

* * *

Charles woke with a chill. It was just before dawn, and the house was yet quiet.

Though Charles rarely woke so early, he was unable to fall asleep again, toss and turn as he might. There was too much to do, too much to think about, same as any other day since their arrival at the estate, but today his mind was churning out plans at an inconvenient rate.

Rather than attempt to postpone these thoughts for another few hours, Charles got out of bed, pulling on a robe and pushing his hands through his hair to tame it. He supposed he could sit down at his desk in the library and at least write down a few of his nascent ideas before the bustle of the day drove them out of his head.

He was nearly to the door of the library before he heard the creak at the top of the stairs he'd just come down. It was too loud, and the young morning too quiet, to pretend he hadn't heard it, so he turned and waited in the dim blue light for Erik's descent.

He was wearing his running suit. But instead of heading toward the front doors, he turned and approached Charles.

As he drew close, he held something up for Charles to take, then dropped it into his hand when Charles obliged.

His watch. Because he'd been--

He looked up from it to catch Erik's gaze, but he was already turning. Without a word, Erik withdrew down the hall and disappeared, the sound of the door signalling his exit onto the grounds.

Closing his fingers around the watch, Charles sighed and pushed open the door to the library. How, until the moment the watch touched his hand, could he have forgotten last night?

* * * * *

It turned out they didn't have much time at all. A day later, as Charles finally turned off the television set after the address, he was thankful that they'd all pushed each other--sometimes literally--so hard over the past week. He knew they all had so far to go, and yet at least they'd come this far.

In a way, they'd never be prepared.

Shaw would always be prepared to do more.

* * *

Their chess games had never been so literal. Charles' loss to Erik's queen stood as much for their conversation that night as anything else. In the end, Charles had no more refutation to give. If Erik did not hold the same ideals, then all of Charles' arguments, against recklessness, against vengeance, were meaningless. Charles had run out of pieces on the board.

He didn't go so far as to topple his own king when he leaned back in defeat. Erik, too, left it standing when he rose from his seat: a gesture, perhaps. Or perhaps Charles was reading too far into it. He'd certainly had enough whiskey for it. Did Erik just take his glass? It was empty, anyway.

Erik had gone to the bar. From the sound of it, he was making himself another martini. Charles wondered how he managed all that alcohol so well. Compared to Charles, there was a whole lot less of him to absorb it.

"Despite your misgivings," Erik said, when he was done, "I have a feeling you'll stand by me tomorrow."

Charles sighed, hands folded on his stomach. "I will, Erik. If not with you, then by you."

Returning to the chairs, Erik held out Charles' glass, refilled. "There's a difference?"

Charles looked up at him from under his brow, but sat up and took the glass. "I will not abandon you, no matter your decisions," he responded. Please bear that in mind tomorrow. But Charles could not fetter Erik with that responsibility. If Charles followed where Erik went, it was no one's fault but Charles'.

Lifting the whiskey, he drew a deep swallow of it down. It had a smooth burn to it that led helpfully to his center, which he seemed utterly to have misplaced over the past months. Earlier he'd spoken to Erik of focus, and serenity. He'd never felt more of a fraud. When was the last time he'd known those things, himself?

"You want to protect me from myself," said Erik.

Charles looked over to him. He'd been at the bookshelves, studying the titles there, but now he was turned to face Charles again.

Though his lips parted, Charles didn't speak immediately. "I am trying," he finally answered.

Erik seemed to accept it, but--"I hope you'll know when to quit."

Charles frowned lightly. "Would you?" Surely Erik had come to understand what a real friendship meant. "At what point, Erik, would you leave me to the wolves of my own creation? When would you give up?"

He watched Erik's face, hoping for something, some grasp of why Charles would have the devotion of a fool for him.

When Erik didn't answer, Charles let his gaze fall to his drink, turning it in the lamplight before he sighed and downed the rest of it. No, it wouldn't do to shoehorn Erik into something Charles expected him to feel.

He rose to his feet, steadily enough. "We should be resting. If we cannot divine the future there's no use poking it with rods." Going to him, he held out his hand for Erik's glass. "By the way, you're supposed to say you wouldn't."

Erik was studying him as he handed the glass over, but Charles ignored the attention. He took the glass and turned to bring it with his to the bar.

Behind him, Erik finally spoke up, though it was slow-forming. "I appreciate your intentions."

Charles smiled wearily. Was that the sentiment that accompanied Ahab down to the depths? Appreciation? He set the glasses down.

"Good night, Erik."

He listened for Erik's eventual footfalls, barely audible as he went to the door. The knob rattled lightly as it was turned, but the hinges didn't sound. Erik had stopped.

"Will I see you tonight?" he asked.

Charles kept his back turned. His nerves made a cold freefall down his spine before returning, ablaze. When he could persuade himself to move, he pretended to straighten the various decanters. When he could persuade himself to breathe, he answered the only way that was permissible. "If your dreams trouble you again, certainly."

That wasn't what Erik meant. That wasn't what he was asking. He was--God, he was asking if Charles would--

"Good night, Charles." The hinges creaked through the silence.

Stop him, Charles thought. Stop him. He's asking you. You want this. Quit your miserable equivocating and stop him.

But he couldn't force out the words. He couldn't make their shape, couldn't press the air from his lungs, couldn't find his voice.

The floor boards groaned as Erik shifted his weight to leave.

Erik, wait.

Charles stood rock-still at the bar, fingertips trembling at its edge, his eyes closed. What he couldn't command from his body he'd done with his mind.

Erik had again stopped. He took one step back into the room and was silent as he waited.

Charles' breaths came rough and shallow, as though he'd just plunged into a sea of water.

"Do you--" His throat seized and cut him off, but he drew his breath slow and deep and started again. "Do you want me with you?"

Erik made a few measured paces further in. "Haven't I been clear?"

Charles stomach leapt. How did he do it? How was he so calm, so unaffected? While Charles, like a terrified schoolboy, could barely string three words together.

He braced himself, still gripping the edge of the bar but now leaning on it. Why were these things so hard to say? "You know Chicago was an accident. I didn't--I didn't mean to--"

"I know."

So easy. No apology, no explanation, for why Erik hadn't stopped him, why Erik had let it continue. Charles needed those things.

Slowly, he straightened, letting go of the edge of the bar, his hands aching from its angle. As to a firing squad, he turned around.

"So what does that make this?"

Not an accident, but what? He finally brought his eyes up to Erik's face, though he viewed him from under his brow, almost wincing, as though peering at the sun. When Erik didn't immediately answer, it only made the question more urgent. "Erik, what is this?"

Erik stepped toward him. Charles held his ground, hands on the edge of the bar again, but the closer Erik came, the less opportunity Charles had to flee if he wanted to.

Though Erik paused, it wasn't hesitance that stalled him, but warning. He was giving Charles a chance to stop him.

When Charles didn't take it--couldn't think clearly enough to oppose him, couldn't focus on anything beyond Erik's shirt, whose only details were the shape of his chest beneath it--Erik moved into him, neatly fitting his body to Charles' and tipping his head close as though to kiss him. But their mouths didn't touch: Erik had stopped precisely before contact, training Charles' to lift his face to him, to open to him, his short breaths coming in involuntary gasps.

Behind him, the edge of the bar pressed against his back. In front there seemed no part of him not inflamed with the press of Erik's warmth. He couldn't force his eyes to open. He didn't need to. Erik was so close that the picture of his dominion was crystal clear.

"What is it you're feeling now, Charles?"

Though his words at such a distance were low, and quiet, his hand was much bolder, pressing down between them to cup Charles' groin. Charles was up on the balls of his feet in a shameless instant, lips tightly closed now against his groan, because the door was still open to the hall.

Erik rubbed him slowly, persistently, until Charles was stiff behind the zipper of his trousers, until the brush of Erik's fingertips against the outline of his handiwork sent tremors through Charles that he could no longer hold to silence.

All the while Erik kept his lips just a breath away, though Charles tried, Charles wanted. It wasn't so much cruelty as proving a point.

"That's what this is," Erik murmured there, answering the question. He was withdrawing his hand, and Charles could have wept. "Now come spend the night with me. Or don't."

Charles' objection was almost vocal when Erik finally stepped away from him. Beleaguered, he opened his eyes at last to catch Erik's plain expression: not smiling, not teasing. Just honest.

Leaving him with the decision, Erik turned to walk, unhurried, to the door. He left through it without another word.

As his surroundings gradually came back to him, Charles sank into the nearest chair, lest anyone else walk in to see him in his indecent state. Closing his eyes, he waited for Erik's effect on him to dissipate.

It didn't, entirely. It couldn't. 'That's what this is,' he'd said: it was Charles, blind with want, and Erik, who didn't think anything was wrong with it. It answered so little, but it answered enough. If it was really nothing more than that, then perhaps Charles could justify it, perhaps Charles could understand . . .

Christ, Erik. Rubbing his shut eyes, Charles sighed. People don't do this.

Apart from him, Charles knew full well that friendship had boundaries. Friends did not do the things they did. Friends did not want to. But Erik's presence warped those lines like a magnetic field, and the rules bent around them.

What was the point of bending them back?

If Erik was extending his hand to him, what did it matter what he did with it next?

* * *

The door to Erik's room was, by all accounts, the same as the door to Charles' room. The years, since they were sealed and hung, had not worn them unevenly, or weathered them unequally, nor were their panels unique or their fixtures distinguishable one from the other. But one was far more difficult to stand in front of. One was no ordinary threshold.

He had meant to bring the wine with him. There was more time for nerves when he knew where he was headed. He'd had the bottle in his hand before--But halfway up the stairs he'd known better than to turn back for it. He could only have made this decision once. To ask himself a second time was a gamble he couldn't cheat at.

Steadying his wrist, he lifted his hand and knocked, just twice. There was no one else around to hear it, no one to know that one requested permission from the other, here where there were only bedrooms, and where that could mean only one thing. It echoed down the length of the far-flung corridor he'd chosen for them when they'd first arrived.

The door opened, but by Erik's ability rather than by his hand. True to his word, Erik had not waited up for him. Either Charles would join him or he wouldn't. Though he'd sat up, he was already in bed, and the only light in the room came from the hall behind Charles. It followed the line of Erik's back clean to his hip where the bedding, pushed away, revealed it. He wore nothing to break that illuminated line of skin.

Charles stepped into the room, and his shadow went before him; he shut the door behind him, and his shadow was lost.

But Charles was not. This was not another world, this was the same they lived and breathed in, the same darkness they'd found each other in, and that had been the most real moment of Charles' life. Again he was making the same reckless dive into the water, because Erik was worth any price he paid to get to him. You warp the lines, my friend.

He couldn't see Erik now while his eyes adjusted, but he could feel his attention. Like an automaton Charles' fingers found the buttons and clasps of his clothing and were not idle until he'd left it all on the floor behind him. Even the watch was discarded. It had kept time perfectly since Erik had wound it; tonight it could keep it to itself.

He heard the creaking as Erik moved from the edge of the bed, and Charles followed the sound, climbing into the space he'd left for him. He could see his features better, now, but none so clearly as his eyes, and their question.

"You won't run this time?"

The last two times Erik had touched him, Charles had fled. On the plane, though an accident, he'd recoiled, and Charles had seen it, then, like he saw it on the terrace this afternoon, when Erik's mouth had revealed the splinter of a smile when Charles had told him there was good in him, still.

Erik wanted Charles to accept him. Despite his solitary spirit, despite his practiced indifference, Erik wanted Charles to find him worth keeping.

Setting his hand on the bedding, Charles leaned into him. He felt the immediate thrum of his heartbeat and embraced it. He didn't have to understand this. What had started in innocence did not have to end in guilt.

"I'm not running." He could make out the subtle line of Erik's mouth in the dark, but as though Erik were as wary as Charles was wanting, Erik hesitated. Charles lifted his other hand to the back of Erik's neck, fingers plaintively drawing him closer, though like a paradox the space between them closed by ever smaller degrees. His brow furrowed to be denied. "Kiss me, Erik, I'm not running."

When Erik shifted, his hand covered Charles'. The feel of Erik's thumb curled around his wrist sent the nerves spiraling like penstrokes up the inside of his arm. He stiffened with it, and felt Erik's breath on his lips, then the supple pressure of his mouth.

The sigh that left him was involuntary. It fell from him like so many walls, protecting nothing in the end. He tipped his head, and drew Erik deeper. He remembered trying to stammer to Moira with this taste in his mouth--trying to be still in the Russian barracks--trying to sleep in his bed on the other side of the wall with Erik's taste in his mouth. If it didn't make him so hard, he'd have stood a better chance. Charles, deceiver by nature if not by action, could not falsify what it did to him.

Erik's hand left his. He broke their kiss with a pant, pressing a gentler kiss to Charles' mouth that left Charles hungrier for it, and lowered himself to the bed again.

Charles could see more easily now, just as well as in daylight if not more clearly still. As the line of Erik's torso straightened, the light from the window cast itself as though stricken over his chest, clinging to the rise and fall of it. Under the same light, the angles of his face were sharp, and his eyes rested on Charles with no shroud to dim them, no veil of sleep to mark the boundaries.

Slowly, Charles eased himself down beside him.

He found himself moving carefully, as he used to, as though he might disturb the bed enough to bring them to their senses. It seemed foolish now, but at the time it had been paramount. At the time, he'd been walking a tightrope with no net beneath him--though perhaps it had been there all along, he just couldn't look down to see it.

Erik turned to face him as Charles' head reached the pillow. It was the reprise of so many half-formed memories--Erik's face just inches away, their bodies in the guise of repose--that Charles' heart was thudding in his chest again, driving its flush through him. How many times had he faced him in the dark, shame-faced and feverish? Yet now as he met Erik's eyes there was no mistaking him for some other who hadn't the voice to judge him or the awareness to fault him.

Charles let his eyes close, but only for a moment, only long enough to measure out his breath in silence. This was the Erik of chess games, of conversations, of morning coffee and long car rides. This was the Erik of his respectable life, the Erik he could speak of. This was his friend.

And his friend wanted this.

Erik's hand brushed his bare stomach. Charles knew where it was headed. His body was already bowing toward it.

"Why did you not stop me?" he asked, just before Erik's hand curled around him and his breath hissed from him before he could control it again. "In Chicago. You knew--" he swallowed back a rising tremor as he grew stiffer with Erik's stroking. "You knew I hadn't meant to."

Erik's gaze remained light, though the motion of his hand slowed. It returned to pace with his answer. "I was asleep."

Lips parting to keep his breaths quiet, Charles studied his face, the clench of his stomach drawing them closer together. He knew that excuse. That excuse had become his aegis.

But Erik wasn't finished. Brow furrowed, he added, softly: "And you looked like you'd never forgive yourself."

Charles stilled the thrust building in his hips. He remembered, with painful clarity, the morning after. He remembered not apologizing. He'd said nothing because they'd both done it. They'd both been at fault.

Had Erik not shared that weight with him--if he'd done the right thing and turned away--could Charles have faced him again? Or would everything have fallen apart, their balance lost, with Charles returning stone-faced to Washington to report that Erik Lehnsherr was gone?

The thought was crushing. "Erik--"

"I wanted it, Charles." Erik's words replaced his own on his lips, stopping them at the source, and Charles shuddered. "I know you understand."

Charles' groan surrendered him. More naked than when he'd climbed into the bed, he reached for Erik's body and fit them closer together, opening his mouth to seek the warmth in Erik's.

Erik's hand released him only when he'd shifted close enough to offer the the plane of his stomach instead, and Charles pressed into him, sighing in their kiss to feel the hardening length of Erik's cock against his hip. When Erik pressed his knee up between Charles' thighs, Charles' body gripped his leg for purchase, twisting and thrusting into better contact.

There was nothing about Erik that was inefficient. He didn't keep what he couldn't use. He used his body like a tool; by extension, he used Charles' the same way. There was no time or space afforded for tenderness, or care, or any of the small things Charles would do even for the least of the women he'd tumbled with. Erik handled him with purpose, and Charles' body responded like clockwork. Indeed, they fit together like gears, seeking contact, seeking friction, until there was no air between them, and Charles couldn't breathe if he wanted to. With Erik there was no room for indulgences.

But his kiss was different. His kiss had always been different. If Charles couldn't read minds he could still read his tongue, the way it found the tip of his, the way he made Charles hunger for it before he went further, the way he kept Charles anticipating, enrapt, consumed.

It was as though, in this unexpected and misplaced expression, Erik remembered how to love something.

"Erik," he gasped. "Oh--"

Their kiss broke as Charles lifted his face for air, arching into Erik's thrusts, answering them with his own in the same rhythm of desperation. He pulled--clawed--at Erik's back and felt the scrape of Erik's chin against his neck, then the heat of his mouth against the skin above his collar bone. Erik began drawing up a mark there, where no one would see it, and as though he'd reached more deeply than he knew, Charles came against him with a slow jerk that pulled his entire body into its thrall.

He was still caught in the pulsing lurch of it when he pressed his hand down between them, finding and holding Erik's cock between his hand and his hip. He brushed the swollen head of it until Erik came in wet silence against the pad of his thumb, only his breath audible as it rushed hard over Charles' neck, evaporating the moisture his tongue had left there.

The tension in Charles' muscles finally gave out, leaving him faintly trembling and starved for breath, too hot against the sheets but unwilling, unable to move, to give them room, to be parted from him. He only drew his hand away, rubbing its wetness into the skin of his leg.

His eyes had closed. He couldn't help it, but he opened them now, shifting his head on the pillow until he found Erik's gaze already seeking him.

It would always have been finished here. Here, panting, they would retreat from each other. Erik would roll away, and Charles would withdraw his hands, separate again. They'd fade back into sleep, and forget.

Charles lifted his hand to brush Erik's hair from his forehead. Erik's eyes followed the motion, but soon returned to Charles, his lids heavier from fatigue, though it did nothing to obscure the indomitable color of his eyes. Under their watch, Charles hesitated, then drew close to kiss the perspiration from Erik's lip; though not immediately, he felt Erik's lips against his lower in response.

The temperature had come down. Charles tried to fight the natural tug of slumber, threatening to wash all of this away, but he was comfortable, and drowsy, and for the moment, untroubled. They would have to sleep. Tomorrow's confrontation necessitated it.

But tomorrow was too real to go on dreaming.

* * *

Charles woke with a chill, hours yet before dawn, and pulled the bedclothes closer around him. For once he wasn't wearing anything between them and his skin, and the cold October night had reached him easily. Erik's warmth had been sufficient when he fell asleep, but Erik wasn't there in the space next to him.

But he wasn't very far. Not physically.

Quietly, Charles sat up to study Erik's bare form where he stood in front of the window, just beyond the foot of the bed. He stood like a man unconcerned with himself: his arms at his sides, not folded over his chest in the cold; his balance straight, not canted to any side. For anyone else, it would have been unnatural. But for Erik it seemed a primal state of being, something untouched, hale in form and function.

There was no point in asking what was wrong. Charles could take his pick, and he'd likely be right--Shaw, nuclear war, the future of their kind--even if he wasn't in his thoughts to read them directly. Some of the worst nightmares happened while awake, and they would not be solved as easily as lying together in the same bed.

"Come lie down with me," Charles offered, finally. It was still strange to speak. Silence and darkness went hand in hand, but Charles would no longer honor that union.

Erik turned his face, unsurprised. He studied Charles briefly. "I don't think I can go back to sleep."

"Then we won't."

These were the easy things. It was everything else that wasn't.

He held out his hand until Erik finally moved to take not it but his shoulder, and he pressed Charles back down to the bed until Charles forgot what it had been like to be cold.

* * *

In the morning, Charles slipped out to his own room to wash and dress. Erik was ready when he returned, but he pulled Charles inside by the wrist and shut the door behind him.

"I wouldn't," he said.

While Charles labored to determine what, Erik went on, his eyes holding Charles' gaze as though imparting something very important. "I wouldn't give up."

--Wouldn't give up on him, wouldn't leave him to the wolves, as Charles had put it in the library last night, lost in the sentimental haze of whiskey.

Charles smiled faintly, trying to hold onto that memory, any of their shared memories, rather than face the day ahead of them. He turned his hand to pull Erik a step closer to him.

"I know you wouldn't," he answered.

He lifted his hand to cup Erik's jaw, his face clean-shaven again. Erik moved neither into nor out of the contact, and Charles took down his hand. "I suppose we should get going."