This piece has been idling on the back-burner of my brain for months, so I decided to go ahead and write it. I originally meant it to be part of a multi-chapter story of Cherik one-shots, set while they're all at the mansion in First Class. But I never got around to writing any other chapters, and I can't promise that I ever will. Maybe someday. In the meantime, I hope y'all enjoy this. My experiment in writing in second-person.

For my own reference: 108th fanfiction, 11th story for X-Men, entry for Day 7 of Caesar's Palace 2016 Shipping Week.

You love Erik, but he isn't exactly easy to love. If you so much as put your hand on his arm, he pulls away from you. He pulls away from even the slightest gesture of affection. And if you ever try to touch him in front of Moira or the kids, he glares daggers at you and becomes even more distant than usual for the rest of the day.

It's almost pathetic, really, how much you look forward to every evening, when Erik makes tea. He drinks black coffee every morning and tea every evening. After training is over, after dinner, he boils water and brews tea in a cup — he never bothers making a whole kettle of it, since you and he are the only tea-drinkers in the mansion — and he always makes a cup for you, too.

"Charles, I'm making some tea. What kind do you want?" he always calls, and every evening, you answer, "Lemon honey." You dread the evening when he makes you a cup of lemon honey tea without asking what flavor you want, but thankfully, it doesn't come.

You don't really care for lemon honey tea. You prefer earl grey. But you do love saying it. How sweet those words taste, how deliciously they roll off your tongue whenever you say them to Erik. Lemon, honey, you hear in your head, and it's like you're calling him honey — like you're calling him honey right in front of Moira and the kids and everybody.

You have to take what you can get with Erik. You have to hide terms of endearment within your tea.

You hate to admit it, but your heart is the tiniest bit glad for those nights when Erik has a nightmare. You're glad for the way he turns to you in bed after he startles awake, the sweet way he clings to you and lets you hold him.

You've been intimate with him in other ways, of course. You have sex with him, but Erik always wants to get right to the point during sex. He never wants to make it last longer, like you do. You could go for hours, or even all night long, just kissing him and touching him — but even when you're in bed together, Erik doesn't have any time for tenderness or romance.

Which is why you almost look forward to those nights when he thrashes around and startles awake at 2 am. He never wakes up screaming or crying — he doesn't have any time for melodrama, either — but he does wake up shaking and scared. You love it when he curls up against your chest like a child. You're grateful that the darkness hides your smile as you get to run your fingers through his hair and cup the back of his head.

"You're safe now, Erik, you're here with me now," you whisper over and over in your calmest voice, as you gather him to you, rubbing your hands up and down his arms and back, stroking his cheek until he falls asleep again. You touch him as much as you can in those short, precious, late-night moments, because when else would ever get the chance to? When else would Erik ever admit that he wants or needs to be soothed like this? Even after he goes back to sleep, you lie awake beside him for a long time, listening to him breathe, just so you can keep on stroking his cheek.

But the next morning, Erik is always his serious, distant self again. There's never any trace at all of the broken man who trembled in your arms in the night.

Then came the night when you actually saw inside Erik's head during his nightmare. You didn't mean to. Perhaps Erik's nightmare was so vivid that he projected it, or perhaps your sleeping mind wandered over into his. Either way, that night, you were the one tied down to the operating table. The metal was cold against your back, and you struggled helplessly against the too-tight straps over your chest and waist and legs. The smells of alcohol and chloroform were so sickening that you almost gagged, and they got even stronger when Herr Doktor moved into your line of vision, wearing a clean white apron over his scrubs. You couldn't stop the hot tears when he leaned over you and started tightening the vice against your temples, to keep your head still, and when he heard you crying, he chided, "Now, Erik, let's not make it harder than it has to be." You could understand him, somehow, even though he was speaking German.

You woke up, thank God, before it could get any worse.

Your stomach pitched when you woke up, as if you were about to vomit. You were sweating and your heart was racing, still full of fear over what Herr Doktor was about to do. But Erik startled awake around the same time you did, and you forced yourself to be calm for him, like always. "Erik, you're all right now," you said reflexively, drawing him close. Your back still held the cold touch of Herr Doktor's operating table, but Erik was warm and reassuring in your arms.

No wonder he always clings to you like this after a nightmare.

You held him and stroked his head and arms and back with the softest touches you could muster, but as soon as he was asleep again, the worst feeling of self-loathing washed over you. You slowly, carefully untangled yourself from Erik and sat up in bed, brooding and hanging your head. Erik is reliving horrors in his nightmares. Unspeakable things. You shouldn't be glad when this happens. You shouldn't enjoy getting to be close to him if it comes at this cost.

Yet, when Erik has another nightmare a few weeks later, and you get to gather him close again, you can't help smiling in the dark. You try to ignore how Erik's body trembles under your hands, and you don't let yourself think about what horrific things he's just seen. And you can't deny that you do enjoy this. You can't deny that it's your guilty pleasure.