Chapter Text
I : The Insuperable Mr Lehnsherr and the Insurmountable Mr Xavier (Esq.)
Charles is about halfway through his Earl Grey when Emma Frost seats herself across from him at his little table, folding gracefully into the tight corner with her usual poise and sliding off her jacket to hang it over the back of her chair without so much as asking.
He glances up at her over the papers he’s marking for a brief acknowledgement before finishing the note he’s writing; the student is thinking along the right lines but needs a little further push if she’s to really excel. Emma, on the other hand, is emitting such an aura of tolerant waiting that she is - as she intends - impossible to ignore.
“How lovely to see you, Emma,” Charles says, and lays down his pen with a faint click on the table, looking up at her at last. He waits, patiently, until she tilts her head to the side and exposes her throat in greeting before he does the same. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Can’t two old friends meet unexpectedly and share a few words?” Emma asks, the corner of her mouth curling into a wry smile.
It’s three o’clock on a lovely September afternoon - one Charles had intended to spend finishing up his grading before getting the beginnings of his next presentation down on paper. It’s no secret that he likes to spend his free time in the corner cafe a couple of blocks off-campus; though the postgrads know where to look, none of the undergrads seem to have discovered his little hideaway. And yet, somehow, Emma knew where to find him.
In the small cafe her sleek white dress seems out of place, tailored and crisp against the shabby-chic of the university district. She looks almost like a rich heiress in a movie, come to find her submissive where he’s run from her and win him back - except Charles is no submissive.
“A dark roast coffee, black, for the lady,” he calls without looking away from Emma, raising a hand to his chin and tapping his forefinger against his lower lip thoughtfully. “As much as I’d like to pretend we were as close as all that, Emma - and you know I like you a great deal - you may as well own up to whatever it is you’re here for. We can catch up after.”
“I don’t need a coffee,” she says, flicking her fingers dismissively at the submissive barista, who looks torn between the two of them, unsure who to listen to. “I have reservations for afternoon tea at The Plaza. I only came here to fetch you.” She gets up from her seat, already swiping at her skirt to remove imaginary dirt.
Charles’ chin lifts, his hands coming to rest folded on the table. His voice, when he speaks, is firm and expects obedience, and he backs it up with a flare of telepathy, batting away her attempt at quiet persuasion. “Sit back down or go alone. I have no intention of going elsewhere.”
He can feel it when Emma bends, even though outwardly she sighs as though greatly put-upon, sitting back down and crossing her legs so that her skirt rides a little up her thighs. It certainly has an effect on the poor barista, who comes over quickly with the coffee and nearly drops it onto the table before retreating, flushed and flustered.
“If you insist, then. I know Raven has been making inquiries for a bondmate for you,” Emma says, reaching for her drink without so much as acknowledging the near-ruin of her clothing. “I have a proposition that I think you might be interested in, though I had intended to make a better show of wooing you with it.”
Charles raises an eyebrow, intrigued despite himself. “Then you should be wooing Raven. She’s my proxy.”
“This is a little… irregular.” Emma sips at the coffee slowly, eyes never leaving Charles’. “Have you ever met my brother, Erik?”
Both of Charles’ eyebrows fly up this time, and he sits back in his chair, surprised despite himself. “Your submissive brother? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t his nickname ‘The Insuperable Mr Lehnsherr’?”
Emma snorts, unladylike and genuine, and her eyes crease up at the corners in a way she would probably hate if she saw it in a mirror. “Pfft. This isn’t a Georgette Heyer novel, Charles. If we’re going to be giving fanciful sobriquets you might as well be ‘the Insurmountable Mr Xavier’.”
“Oh, never that. I’m quite fond of a good mounting.”
“‘The Intolerable’, then,” Emma says, eyes twinkling. “Despite its origins, this coffee is very good. I shall have to hunt you down more often.”
“Let’s go back a moment to the part where I believe you were offering me your brother for my bondmate,” Charles says in his best calm voice, but inside he’s bubbling with a curiosity that he tries to keep damped down.
There’s a hot tingle of what he might as well admit is interest in his belly, because for all the socialite scene’s gossiping ways there’s usually a seed of truth to any rumour you hear more than once, and Erik Lehnsherr is generally considered to be one of the most stubborn and unattainable submissives in New York. Possibly on the Eastern Seaboard. At the age of nearly thirty he’s never shown any interest in being bonded, and little to no interest in submitting to anyone, including his sister.
He’s also, although Charles has never seen him, supposed to be extremely handsome.
“Offering is too strong a word for it. Suggesting, perhaps.” Emma pauses for a moment before setting down her mug with a quiet chink of china on the tabletop. “If Erik was looking to be genuinely bonded, finally, then I would have been happy to just approach your sister in the conventional way and let things sort themselves out. However… Erik is rather more complicated than that. I thought it would be better to talk to you first, and let you decide if you want me to talk to Raven or not.”
It’s impossible not to be intrigued, and there are easier ways to communicate complicated things between two telepaths. Charles reaches out for her mind, questioning, but finds only a diamond wall between them, keeping him out.
<<?>>
“Use your words, poppet,” Emma says, wagging an elegant finger at him. “No peeking, you know that’s not allowed.”
“I wasn’t.”
She smiles, tapping the white leather of her bonding bracelet where it lies flush around her left wrist. “I did. Telepaths always do.”
“Then it’s hardly fair,” Charles says, but he huffs good-naturedly as he finishes the last of his tea, then leans forward to prop his elbows on the table, dropping the pretence of neutrality. The wood is cool against his skin where he’s rolled up the sleeves of his Oxford shirt, forearms freckled still from the summer. “Alright, then. I’m interested in hearing more, at least. What makes Erik so complicated?”
Emma pauses, then, leaning forward a little, she says, in a calm, milk-and-honey voice, “He plans to get bondbroken the moment he’s been bonded long enough to scrape by propriety.”
It's like being slapped in the face. Charles stops, halfway through raising a hand for another cup of tea. “What?”
“Erik wants out from my house and into his own with the minimum amount of fuss. Which means getting bonded, getting deflowered, and then getting bondbroken so he can be an independent divorced sub.” Emma shrugs, a fluid motion that sends her hair slipping over one shoulder. “He thinks he’s keeping the thought quiet, but he forgets that I’m also his sister and I know him too well to think he’s changed his mind.”
“And so you’re suggesting I go through all the procedures and ceremonies of taking him for my bonded, only to have him throw me over the first chance he gets?” Charles sits up straight, back and away from Emma, and squares himself, jaw clenching.
He refuses to acknowledge the disappointment already replacing what had been excitement - ridiculous, given that he hadn’t really been offered Erik in the first place. “No, thank you. I’m looking for someone who wants to be bonded to me, Emma, a partner, not someone who’s not even interested in giving it a try. I’m serious about getting bonded, and I resent your trying to make me - well, frankly, Erik’s green card to independence. He’s well within his rights to just move out.”
“We both know that being an unbonded, undivorced submissive living on his own isn’t going to be the minimum of fuss,” Emma says, very seriously. “And no matter how talented he is, it will have effects on his career and on his social life. Without going into detail, he’s experienced that sort of life before, and he is never going to choose that for himself.”
Outside a cab honks loudly at a couple of cyclists crossing the street, and Charles watches the leaves falling slowly from the red and golden fall-clad trees, letting disinterest colour his whole affect. “I fail to see how that’s my problem.”
A sharp noise of exasperation, and then Emma reaches out and lays two fingers on his forearm, light and uncontrolling but, instead, almost submissive, requesting rather than demanding his attention. “Because I have always thought that if he ever decided he did want to be part of a couple, you would be my first choice.”
When Charles turns back to look at her, blinking in slow surprise, Emma’s typical air of lofty amusement is utterly gone, her gaze firm and solemn. She continues, her voice steady and unwavering. “Erik is difficult, and stubborn, and he will never submit to anyone who doesn’t earn it from him, and though I would never say this to him - because he would never listen to me - he could be very good for somebody willing to put in the time and effort to earn it. Someone who’s not going to force him down, but not let him keep pretending he doesn’t want to go. Erik is a pain in my ass, but he’s my little brother, and I want him to be happy. And - Charles, I’ve known you ever since you were a baby. There’s not a bad bone in your body.”
Charles has always been a little vain, and it’s impossible not to be flattered, but… “Look,” he says, and leans forward again, reaching up with one hand to shove his hair back out of his face when it flops forward, “that’s a lovely thing for you to say, Emma, and I really appreciate that you have such a high opinion of me, but surely if you like me so much then you wouldn’t be asking me to be your brother’s Dominant for the month or so before he throws me over. I don’t want my first - ideally only! - submissive to divorce me.”
“You’re missing the point,” Emma says, and leans forward too, over the table and his grading, raising one sleek eyebrow in sly invitation. “I’m not saying you should just let him go. I’m saying you should seduce him.”
There is a long silence broken only by the sound of traffic outside.
“What,” says Charles, and then moves his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose for a minute, closing his eyes against Emma’s knowing face. It doesn’t help. “Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting I bond myself to your brother on the off-chance I might be able to make him love me instead of following through on what is obviously a well-thought-out plan to achieve total independence from all Domination.”
“Yes,” she says, nodding. “For his own good. And yours. You’ll love him.”
“Is that an order?” Charles asks, only half joking, and Emma says, “No. It’s a promise.”
Jesus Christ. He opens his eyes and looks at her slantways, past his hand, taking in her expression and what little she’s letting him read from her mind. There’s no hint of falsehood there, no misdirection - Emma believes what she’s saying, is deadly serious, the persuasion laid over determination like a knife blade under fur.
They’re used to him in here, so when he drops a polite request for an Irish coffee into the barista’s mind the girl just goes for the whisky instead of kicking up a fuss, which is good, because he’s going to need a stiff drink for this. At least the sun is past the yardarm. The elderly coffee machine comes on with a rattle, and Charles doesn’t so much as turn, too busy cataloguing the line of Emma’s jaw, pressed tight, and the slight curl of her fingers, tense atop his paperwork. “You love him a lot, don’t you?” he asks quietly. “Erik.”
“He’s my brother.”
“Half-brother.”
“You have less blood in common with Raven than I do with Erik.”
“What makes you so sure we’d work?” He’s not even sure why he’s even considering this instead of walking away. Charles lowers his hand at last, drawing in a deep breath that he exhales in a rush, trying to let the unsteadiness out of his lungs and away. “I respect your opinion, Emma, you know I do, but this would be a big risk for me. Not just socially - I hate thinking like that, but it would affect my position politically with people who care about this sort of thing. And it would be a personal risk, too. I wouldn’t be doing this as a favour to you. It would be real, for me.”
Emma makes a thoughtful noise, then finally she sighs and reaches out to him, hand and mind at once, laying her palm across Charles’ and opening a door to him in that diamond wall. “Moira did say you’d need more persuasion,” she says ruefully - and with her telepathy she invites him in.
It doesn’t even need a step forward, they’re so close. Instead Charles just looks, and sees -
Sees an impression of a man. No physical attributes, but a mind - a mind, oh, like an intricate map, or blueprints, organised and thrumming with purpose. There’s intent there, and determination, and intelligence, there’s a man who cares about things with strength and passion, who doesn’t suffer fools gladly but loves fiercely, without giving quarter. A man who would submit if only he found someone worth submitting to, who longs for it and fears it and doesn’t think he’ll ever get it. The idea of Erik is coloured by Emma’s exasperated affection for him, the only member of her blood she has ever truly loved, whom she fights with and for and has fought for, whom she wants to look after even though he won’t let her -
“That’s enough of that,” Emma says, and pulls back before Charles is ready to stop looking, closing herself off again and leaving only the surface of her thoughts behind, glassy and reflecting only his own stunned expression back at him.
“Oh,” Charles says, and sits back heavily in his chair, only then noticing the coffee that’s been left for him while he was in Emma’s mind. He picks it up with a hand that is only steady because he forces it to be and takes a long swallow, the whisky burning down his throat and warming his belly.
He feels like he’s half in love already, with someone he’s never even met. He feels stunned, like someone has come and hit him upside the head.
“So you’ll do it?” Emma asks.
And when he closes his eyes and simply nods he can feel her smile.