Work Text:
“Erik - ”
“Leave me alone, Charles!” Erik shouts, fists clenching at his sides and face going red, and Charles pauses, keeps his grip around the fabric in his hand lax and light, his body loose and unconcerned though his heart is pounding furiously in his chest. Outside he can hear the sounds of the city waking up coming in through the open window, the low hum of traffic and far-off voices and gulls calling, the sizzle of hot sunshine on the sidewalk and the waking-up of the people all around them, none of whom are fighting already this early in the morning on a beautiful Saturday with nothing to do but fuck, if Erik would stop being so stubborn.
Why does he even bother trying to do nice things for Erik, to Erik, he wonders, catching hold of his breath before he can let it out in a growl. His attempts only get thrown back in his face as often as not.
“Alright,” he says after a long moment of silence, and puts the shirt down on the bed beside the leash, laying it out smooth and flat atop the covers and stroking out the wrinkles with the flat of his palm. The cotton is soft, would feel lovely on Erik’s skin. Charles looks up at his submissive where he’s looming in the doorway and keeps his face calm, calm, calm, absolutely does not scream.
Erik looks nonplussed, mouth slightly open on his next protest, curtailed by Charles’ refusal to yell back at him.
Charles forces himself to smile serenely, and walks right past Erik and out of their bedroom. It’s difficult to make it look so effortless not to reach out and grab Erik by the hair, but he does it, doesn’t give in to the urge to show him who’s boss here - he’s spent his whole life advocating for equal partnerships, and goddammit he’s not going to become a hypocrite now just because his new sub is being a brat.
If he’s not going to spend the day playing with Erik then he can at least get some work done.
The living room is cool and quiet, the balcony doors open wide to the morning breeze and letting in the salt smell of outside, and it should be lovely except that this is where the argument started - Charles has never been so grateful for the early, unofficial training his mother had given him in hiding his emotions effectively. It’s hard not to glare now at the floor pad by the couch where Erik’s torn off the cushion and thrown it at the wall, the pad itself left naked and exposed, but he manages somehow, though he can feel Erik’s eyes burning on the back of his neck and waiting for a reaction. His chest feels tight with restrained anger, like wearing a corset, and Charles pauses on his way to the study - damn it, he thinks, it’s beautiful outside. He’s not sitting indoors.
He grabs his briefcase from the study and takes it out onto the balcony, along with a spray bottle of sunscreen. He hadn’t even managed to ask Erik if he wanted to go to the beach tomorrow before things kicked off, so he might as well get the use of it now. The chairs are already heating up in the sunlight, the cast iron drawing in warmth and passing it into his skin when he drags one out to sit, something he enjoys more now that he pays so much more attention to metal - Raven had helped him pick them out with Erik in mind before they’d bonded, ready for when they moved into the apartment. Charles is trembling with anger and frustration, his breathing slightly ragged around the edges, but he pulls himself together - calm, Xavier - and flips up the clasps fastening his briefcase, takes out the next set of papers to mark and lays them on the tabletop, weighing it down with his laptop battery to keep it from blowing away.
The sunshine is blissfully hot, beating down on his shoulders and the top of his head. He sighs and picks up the first essay. If he is a little harsh with the red pen today then he will allow himself the indulgence. His students will simply have to learn to behave better too, the way Erik will.
He can hear Erik thumping around the apartment behind him, rage unspent and doing everything noisily, even his bare feet on the carpeted floor somehow thudding like a herd of elephants - he pauses by the open balcony doors, and Charles starts his marking, lips the only thing he allows to draw tight, where Erik can’t see them. He restrains himself from turning to look at his sub. There’s a huff of breath, and then Erik is off for another circuit, not quite willing to start shouting at Charles again but unable to stop moving. Erik has a kind of wild energy in him sometimes that Charles can feel crackling now between them, energy that has Erik storming from place to place, never quite able to settle; normally Charles indulges him, acts as a lightning rod to direct that energy into some quite - ha - electrifying sex, and without that release Erik is lost, fuming and without an outlet, lost at sea without a steadying hand to point him in the right direction.
Not today. If Erik is going to ask - shout at - Charles to leave him alone, he’s going to have to learn that Charles will respect his wishes and leave him to deal with his own emotions until informed otherwise.
When Charles eventually comes in to get some iced tea, stepping into the relative cool of inside like a balm on sun-heated skin, he finds Erik sat - perhaps coiled would be a better term - by the long windows, just inside the apartment with his back to the balcony. His strong profile is lit sharply by the light coming in from outside, and it hides his expression in shadow for the moment before he snaps his head around to glare at Charles. Much as Charles hates to admit it, it’s at least a little satisfying to feel the aura of irritated confusion rising from Erik when Charles just walks past him without even acknowledging his presence. Charles usually tries not to be a vindictive Dominant, but Erik would try the patience of a saint.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Erik asks, as Charles opens the refrigerator to take out the chilled jug he’d left there last night. Opening the fridge door lets out a blast of cold air that makes him shiver immediately, and he basks for a moment before reaching for the jug handle, sets it aside on the kitchen island. His submissive shifts with a sound of rustling cloth on glass, getting to his feet. “We both know you could force me to do it, Charles, hell, you could make me kneel and like it if you wanted. So why don’t you?”
Lemon or mint. Hmm.
“Charles?”
Definitely lemon. Charles takes a slice from the fridge instead of the mint and puts it down on the countertop for a moment, licking the juice from his fingers. When Erik stalks over into the kitchen it’s difficult to ignore him looming over Charles close enough he can feel Erik’s breath on the top of his head, rapid and angry, but he manages it, somehow, reaches past him for one of the glasses stacked by the sink and pours. His hand brushes against Erik’s abs, and it’s an effort not to pet them the way he usually would, especially as Erik is bare-chested, his skin hot and firm and sheened with a fine layer of sweat from the early heat.
“Well?” Erik demands, and Charles just takes his glass and pops the lemon in it, then does not so much as look at his sub as he goes back out to the balcony. Erik actually growls in frustration behind him, left stranded and alone in the kitchen while Charles steps back out into the sunshine. “Are you ignoring me?”
The thing is - the thing that Erik has yet to understand, yet to believe, is that there is not a minute of the day in which Charles isn’t thinking about how to look after Erik. Charles is incapable of ignoring him.
Erik is tall, and strong, and beautiful, and refuses to bend just because Charles says so, and has to fight him at every turn - is incapable of simply folding, and wears his collar as though he is the one who put it there. He doesn’t underestimate Charles for being physically smaller, for liking to ride Erik’s cock better than he likes fucking Erik in the ass. And if Charles relishes a challenge - and he does, confirmed it over and over for Emma before she would consider letting him have her baby brother - then it would be nice, sometimes, if Erik would just concede a little to loving Charles in return.
It’s very frustrating to be a Dom who knows exactly what his submissive wants and needs and be unable to give it to him.
“Fine,” Erik says eventually, and stomps off to do who knows what. As long as he stays in the apartment Charles is happy to let him be.
The pile of papers moves from his left side to his right, one by one, as the morning progresses. It’s hot outside, but Charles is too comfortable in the sun to move - he stretches from time to time, like a cat, and reapplies the sunscreen twice, as he hardly needs more freckles to add to his collection. He says nothing when Erik comes to stand behind him at the threshold between the balcony and the apartment, watching Charles work but not quite stepping out to join him. It’s as though Erik has found a bruise and cannot stop prodding at it, moving from place to place and never quite settling down.
“You missed a spot,” his submissive says the third time, in a voice that is low and gravelled with feigned disinterest.
Charles keeps his mouth shut. Erik fidgets for a moment as Charles’ pen scratches across the page, and then he’s moving forward, his shadow falling over Charles’ marking and his hand reaching out for the sunscreen. There’s a click as he unlocks the spray, and then a cool mist settles over the back of Charles’ neck, followed by strong fingers rubbing it into the skin, massaging his nape and skidding in the slick lotion.
It feels wonderful, and Charles grits his teeth - he’d like nothing more than to let his head tip forward and allow Erik to think he’s forgiven - to point out how well Erik is serving him, voluntarily offering service - but he can’t, it would undermine everything if he lets Erik think he can just pretend nothing has happened and that Charles will simply fold whenever Erik has a hissy fit, will concede even an inch to Erik’s tantrums. So instead he keeps writing the note at the bottom of Greta’s paper - good try, but your thought processes are unclear at times - and stays torturously still. He doesn’t lean back into the firm, kneading pressure of Erik’s hands on him, ignores it when Erik crowds up behind him so that Charles’ shoulders are pressing against Erik’s taut belly, and says nothing when Erik huffs and says “Fine. Burn, then,” removes his hands like he’s the one who’s been burned and stalks off again like an affronted tiger, thoughts roiling with palpable dissatisfaction.
Charles runs his fingers over the sleek metal of his bonding bracelet and sighs, buffing the dripped sunscreen from it with the pad of his thumb.
Concentration is difficult when he can overhear Erik thinking such wonderful thoughts about Charles pinning him down and forcing him to submit, with mingled fear and desire, both wanting it desperately and refusing to admit that he wants it, which has always been Erik’s problem. It’s probably more intrusive than Erik would like Charles to be, but he keeps tabs on him anyway, and even when Erik eventually settles on the couch - up top, not on the floorpad - with a book and a can of coke, he’s sat himself at the far end, which might be farthest away from Charles but also puts Erik in a position where he can’t help but see Charles, eyes flicking up and down between his Dominant and the page he’s read thirty-eight times now.
“He’s defensive,” Emma had said in one of the later meetings during that year of negotiations and contracted engagement, an expression of unusual honesty crossing her face. “He doesn’t know how to cede control to someone else. So I hope you can be patient with him, Charles.”
“Patience,” Charles had replied with a grin, perhaps, in retrospect, naively, “is somewhat of a personal speciality.”
Charles finally finishes the last paper around midday, laying it aside with the others and dropping his pen to the tabletop with a certain satisfaction. Flexing his cramped fingers, he lifts his arms up over his head and stretches - his shoulders and back feel overtight and crooked, and his spine realigns with a sharp crack of relieved pressure that feel so good he holds the pose for a moment more before letting his arms drop and getting up from his chair, turning to go back inside.
Erik is watching him from his perch on the couch with his green eyes hot like the colour of the sky before a storm, and there’s a resonance between them where Charles’ mind keeps them connected, a dizzy feeling like a shared rush of blood to the head. His submissive - his, Charles thinks fiercely, in a burst of possessiveness he knows Erik feels by the way he rocks back as though struck, eyes widening and a flush starting on his chest and throat as his head tilts back to expose it as if for a bite. There’s a moment where Charles wonders if now is the moment to take over, to step in, but then Erik swallows loudly and brings his chin back down to glare at Charles instead. When Erik turns his gaze back down to his book in his lap it only draws to both of their attentions how hard Erik is, his cock tenting out the linen pants he wears at home.
Charles walks forward and back into the shade of the apartment, keeps his gaze locked on Erik as he comes closer; Erik tries so hard to ignore him back but when Charles comes behind the couch and drags his hand through Erik’s hair his sub sighs, a sound he chokes off at the end when it’s already too late to take it back. Charles strokes his fingers through the soft thick locks of it where they’re curling a little in the humidity and lets his fingertips trail onto Erik’s cheek, thumb rubbing across the hollow behind Erik’s earlobe where the skin is thin and fragile. Then he pulls away, and steps back and out of reach. He doesn’t pause to watch Erik’s eyes close, but he hears the shudder of his breath all the same, feels the way Erik’s head dips forward even while he pushes back into Charles’ hand to chase the caress.
Instead of pushing the issue Charles fetches the jug of iced tea from the fridge, grabs his book from their bedroom, and goes to take a long bath alone.
The warm water and scented oil is soothing as he sinks into it, book left unopened on the closed lid of the toilet. He can feel Erik rambling around the apartment uneasily, unable to settle - he’s no longer angry, not really, but his righteous indignation of the morning has faded instead into uncertainty, and so he wanders, touching various of their possessions as he passes as though seeking reassurance. Charles sips at his iced tea and waits, submerged and relaxed, and sure enough eventually Erik comes to settle down against the wall outside the closed bathroom door, back pressed against the cool plaster and knees curled up against his chest, arms resting across the top and - most tellingly of all, when Charles takes a stealthy, unannounced peek through his submissive’s eyes - palms up and vulnerably open. He’s not quite kneeling, but he’s not far off, either.
Charles splashes a bit, experimentally, the water lapping loudly at the sides of the tub, and at first Erik tenses up as though he’s about to flee, but then he relaxes back against the wall, the sound of Charles moving about reassuring him that he’s not been left somehow while he wasn’t looking. Erik stays there the rest of the time Charles spends in the bath, quiet and calming, and only goes when he hears the sound of the water draining away, and Charles pulling a towel from the rail to dry himself off.
Alright, Charles thinks to himself as he pulls on a fresh set of clothes over his damp skin, let’s see what we get now, and takes his book with him out into the living room.
There’s a plate of cold cuts and potato salad on the coffee table by the end where he usually sits, and the cushion has been put back on the floorpad where it belongs, though there’s no sign of Erik. Charles casts around for him and finds his submissive sitting out on the balcony where Charles had been that morning, doing some of his own work on his laptop. His bare, muscular back - lovely - is set to Charles, though his attention is entirely on Charles and, more specifically, the fork he had set down with the lunch he’d left for Charles to find.
The leather of the couch creaks when Charles sits down, and he can practically feel Erik’s ears pricking up as he settles himself - he can feel Erik’s held breath, a pause in the typing - before reaching forward and taking the plate from the table, picking up the fork and sitting back to eat. He puts the plate in his lap so he can hold his book in one hand while the other holds his fork, and Erik relaxes. Typing resumes on the balcony, rapid-fire clicks and clacks of keys.
Charles smiles to himself and sets to.
Erik comes inside an hour later, and Charles is absorbed enough in his book that he doesn’t look in Erik’s direction at all. His clean plate has been laid aside on the couch cushion beside him and his hair is mostly dry, though his skin is damp again from the heat; he’s too lazy to get up and turn the AC on, and it’s too nice outside to close the balcony doors anyway, even if Erik hadn’t been out there. So he pays very little attention to Erik until his submissive is coming around the front of the couch, standing just to the side of Charles, looking down at him with indecision playing loudly in his mind. Charles doesn’t turn away from his book, waits to be interrupted, and then -
It’s good to know he can still be surprised. Erik slowly, awkwardly, kneels, settling down on the floorpad next to Charles’ feet and laying his head in Charles’ lap under the book, tense and hiding his face in Charles’ thigh but undoubtedly, indisputably kneeling.
Charles is - for want of a better word - flabbergasted. Flabbergasted and delighted. But he reins it in, and instead of making a big thing of it he transfers his book to the other hand and lays his palm on Erik’s hair, strokes it gently until his submissive shudders and sighs, relaxing into it at last.
“Thank you, Erik,” he says quietly, scratching a little at Erik’s scalp to make his toes curl. “I’m very pleased with you.”
There’s a little hum of pleasure that goes through Erik then, no matter how much he tries to deny that he likes it when Charles is happy with him. And Erik stays there, even when Charles bends forward to place a kiss on his temple.