All along the valley, the trees were showing their appreciation of uninterrupted sunshine and succulent humidity. In the office, the windows were open, and a button had been loosened: impropriety, but the ceiling fan could only offer only so much.
The tidy office was not as stuffy as the stacks and classrooms Charles had left behind when he returned home, but his lack of familiarity with the space left him breathless at times. The receptionist buzzed the intercom, startling him; his composure was regained in less than a second.
"Miss Heller, yes?"
"Mr. Halliday's here."
"Thank you, he can come right in."
The intercom clicked as she laid down the phone. Considering his cufflinks on the desk for a moment, he rolled down his sleeves and managed to get the second one in, just as the door opened. The suit stepped in almost of it's own accord, stiff as suits are wont to be, and the fedora was quickly taken off.
"Dr. Xavier," they shook hands, and the warmth in the man's voice was good enough to coax Charles into removing his cufflinks again.
"Mr. Halliday. Please, feel free to take off your coat."
He laughed, but thanked Charles, draping the coat on the back of a chair. Charles paused.
"It's good to put a man to the voice. I'll only need a minute of your time." Halliday said, standing comfortably at attention in the center of the room, hands in his pockets.
"Please, have a seat. I purposely left enough time for us to speak uninterrupted." Charles stepped behind his desk, mentally rebuilding his afternoon already in his mind. "You said it was urgent?"
Removing his own cufflinks, Halliday avoided eye contact with the young doctor. The shrewd eyes darted once around the room, before he gestured to the heavy file stamped with red ink and marked with thick lines, laying on the desk between them.
"So you've met our man."
"'Met' is a generous way to put it. Reading a report file of some missions, half which have nouns and significant paragraphs blacked out in the xerox of which I have a xerox, doesn't really create familiarity."
"You understand the importance of secrecy with this case."
"I also understand the case is not an official part of the Intelligence Agency, that is, the man I'm to work with isn't at least." He picked up the file again, and pushed it forward, "Nazi hunting isn't exactly budgeted into the debt, is it?" He let his exhasperation out for a moment, "You barely gave me any childhood facts or actual history."
"He's our best operative out there at the moment. We'd like to take him on as a regular member once this agenda is cleared, but he needs to be cleared." He leveled a sober glance, "And even we know little about him."
"And I won't know a thing about him once we're set up. You're afraid of what? That's he'll lose interest once he's had his revenge, and become a nice guy?"
"His attitude, as he continues to fulfill our shared agenda, is increasingly 'kamikaze'." He shifted in his chair and recrossed his legs, the cufflinks chimed against one another in his pocket.
"You want me to report to you it's nothing to worry about."
"Hell, I'll allow treatment for whatever bothers him, as long as it's not going to remove any part of that kid's brain." He ran a hand over his graying buzzed hair, "And it won't look good if he needs more than a couple months."
The intercom buzzed again. He picked up the phone this time, Heller told him there was a call coming through for Halliday. Charles excused himself, allowing the call to be taken privately in his office.
Heller had left her own desk, and he watched the sweat drip from her pitcher of Iced Tea. Humidity be damned, he entered the dark and cool counseling room. He considered the modern affects that Heller had suggested, clean cut and lacking any of her own modern color-clashing outfits, they were also unusually minimalistic. The room looked simple, and, she was right, it was calming.
A knock came at the open door and Heller stepped in.
"I think he's done." She smiled at him.
"Thanks." He said, but she didn't move. "Anything the matter?"
"I'm listening to hear him finish thinking."
Charles laughed. "Miss Heller, if you keep it up, you'll be an invaluable secretary for the rest of your life."
"I don't think much of getting married." She said, but her eyes glazed over for a moment. Inclining her head to the other door, "He's pacing now. A soldier pacing." Her brow creased and she frowned. "Maybe you want to stop him."
Halliday was staring out the window, sleeves rolled up past his elbows and rocking on his feet.
"Our man had to be helicoptered out of a skirmish in South America."
"When you say our man, you mean Mr. Lensherr?"
"Mr. Lensherr, yes." He growled the affirmative. "Was goddamn swimming into international waters after the dingy a damn kraut was using to get away!" He quickly turned to Charles who had frozen, "Pardon me. No offense to the Germans, god knows they've been helpful since we went in, but sometimes this damn man. For all we know the dingy capsized, we only found our man because his partner on this one refused to jump with him, went searching for a boat instead." He smacked the desk with a closed fist.
"You're this aggravated and yet you'd like him to continue in the agency?"
"The damn man got me promoted." He leaned against the desk. "He hasn't got a family, on account of the war. I've been working with him since we picked him up sometime after in Austria.
"We've got him coming in to our facility outside of Langley this afternoon. We could fly him up to talk to you tomorrow."
Charles nodded and pushed the intercom.
"Miss Heller?" She replied with little more than a second's delay. "Could you bring the calendar in here?"
She tottered in on heels that sunk low into the plush carpet and opened the book on his desk.
"I assume my compensation will be working differently than other government kids you've sent me payment for." Charles leaned across his desk, Heller flipped the book for him, and he looked the next day over.
"I actually expected this one to be pro bono."
Charles turned abruptly, but he nodded, lips pursed.
"We'll do as many days as he needs, he needs to get out of the work environment anyway. We've already set him up locally, I wouldn't mind shipping him out tonight." Halliday stood.
Charles pointed for Heller to move the appointment, then directed himself towards Halliday. "If you can assure me he'll be here in the morning, at 10, we'll see whether he qualifies for pro bono."
Charles was at the office early, as he usually was, but instead of reviewing his charts, he was at the window. Heller didn't come in until his first patient came in, and since he'd left the morning free for the kamikaze spy, she probably wouldn't be in until it was almost lunch.
He'd closed the window last night, and gray clouds drew over the bright white sky. Rain was anticipated, and the sweater vest was not an uncomfortable addition under his jacket. He felt stuffy, ever since his receptionist had said he could do to loosen up a bit, and she'd slyly tried to get him to ask her out at the same time. He'd try to imagine life without the oxford standard of attire; sometimes the humidity prevented him, but usually he never gave it a thought: it was what he was used to.
He slowly paced the room, the distant mountains remaining a fixture out of all his windows. The office was too large. There were far too many book shelves. His shoes left the carpet they traversed unkempt and with light and dark contrasting marks. The mist lifted off the tarmac beneath the office and he entered the counseling room, leaving the doors open he exited back into the tiny foyer and then went into his room, leaving all the doors open.
His restlessness was unable to be stilled, and he only stopped pacing at the sight of the taxi turning around in the back parking lot. It was at this moment that Charles remembered to worry about his own personal safety. Imagining several situations in which his patient was not what he had bargained for, and Charles was in one of several terrifyingly painful outcomes as a result. He now worried about being alone, not that Heller would have been a help.
"Erik, do you mind if I call you that?" Charles asked. They sat in the counseling room, quietly secluded from the other offices in the building. Erik nodded, but took a steadying breath.
"Dr. Xavier—"
"Charles, Erik. I cannot cure you of anything. I only offer counsel." He hoped his smile was reassuring.
"Alright, Charles." The look Erik gave him was condescending. "I'm a little curious as to what you are counseling me on. Halliday says I have wonderful work ethic. So, as much as I appreciate your version of an early morning. There isn't really anything much to discuss aside from his shock at how quickly I found our man."
Charles nodded and leant forward.
"You're paid in advance for at least 20 sessions." He spoke quietly. Bluff landed, Erik took a dead breath.
"All right, what do you need me to do?"
"I work with a lot of working men. And as all my other clients, their bosses find that sometimes their best workers lack an ethic in times of emotional distress." Erik was incredulous. "That is certainly not your problem. No, your boss finds in you an unprecedented willingness to die for Nazis who licked envelopes for a living."
"When you put it like that—"
"I'm not. Halliday did."
"It's really just a misunderstanding." Erik met Charles' stare, and smiled with a shrug.
"Did you know suicide is illegal. You fail at it, and you enter not necessarily a rehabilitation center for normal crazy people, but one guarded by prison guards." Erik eyed Charles warily.
"Your boss isn't worried that you're willing to kill yourself in revenge. He knows you are going to kill yourself out of stupidity." Charles paused to calm himself. "I suspect you know he has high hopes for you. Hunting won't always be the job. All men do eventually die, on their own, occasionally unaided. When they're gone, what will you have to live for?"
Erik sat silently in the chair, gaze unfocused.
"It is my job, Erik, to help you find out. Halliday will write up the official prognosis, I'll sign it, and as far as the paper-pushers are concerned, they'll just be up one in the immigrant population."
When Erik did not respond, Charles became faintly aware of Heller's entrance to his office, shrouded by rain tapping the tall window. Grey like England. Charles wanted Erik to just talk, and said as much.
"If you'll excuse me." Erik said, "I would like to think over what you've suggested. We're scheduled for tomorrow, aren't we?"
"Unless you need more time."
"No." Erik stood, and Charles rushed to join him. "Thank you. Charles." Erik gave somewhat of a stilted nod. He left the door open, and brushed past Heller who followed his back with her eyes. She walked into the room only taking eyes off him when the wall came in the way.
"Is it true he survived the camps?" She asked, breathless, possibly infatuated, Charles thought.
He followed her back to his desk. "You know I really can't say."
"No one cares about Hippocrates!" She sang, and Erik turned away from the far-away elevator to look back, just as it chimed and opened.
"If I don't care, what would that say of my profession?" Charles asked her.
Erik was still facing them as the door slid shut again, watching them, the slightest amusement in his eyes.
"You really don't need to say anything to qualify your actions. We had agreed upon them last time." Charles was again hoping that his demeanor was not as exasperated as he felt. This was the fifth day in his acquaintance with Erik, and he did hazard some basic understanding of the man. What's more, he was uncomfortably envious of the focus Erik had in his work. The simplicity of it all was deeply tempting, but Charles what he relinquished every day, what necessities he ignored, to survive.
Here they were, still lingering upon the recent past, history that need not be analyzed too much, Charles felt, and any attempts to go further back were swatted away.
"Miss Heller offered me some lemonade earlier, I don't suppose you would like some?" Charles stood regardless of the answer, and stepped to the commode next to the door. Erik denied the request, but
Charles remained standing, turning only to lean with his hands gripping the commode, facing Erik.
"Her parents emigrated from Europe near the time mine did," Charles said, "They left their families in Frankfurt. Although, my parents actually came from Leeds." His humorous tone didn't meet his face.
"Her family all survived?" Erik asked.
"The ones who left did."
Erik nodded, and rubbed a hand across his mouth, his eyes distant and downcast.
"Where did your family live?"
"Düsseldorf."
Charles's silence prompted Erik to look up and continue without further questioning. By omission he said that those who had not been taken from the city went into hiding.
"I like to think my uncle went into hiding in the countryside, but it is unlikely. Very few people survived the bombings where we had lived.
"After Poland, I returned to find wild flowers and grass growing between broken cinder and logs of charcoal where our house had stood."
"That must have been difficult to contend with as a young boy." Charles said, unable to empathize, and hoping his sympathy didn't sound too clinical.
"I still could not contend with it. No man should." Erik whispered, and Charles winced. He stepped away from the commode and slowly paced. Erik was content to continue the episode now.
"I try to imagine what I was like before all this, when there was no thought about what I was." Erik's nice words were like ice, "But we had always been questioned. My family."
Charles had found the view from the two windows desolate grey again, wind blowing poplars wildly, the things bent under the slightest of touches, rattling their leaves like pagans. He was not quite aware of Erik, but swore he could have reached out and touched the sadness in his presence, only a few paces thatdirection.
His hand had not left it's position on his elbow, but Erik sighed in a way that caused Charles to turn, inquisitive about his patient.
"What does that tell you about my Id, Herr Freud?" Erik joked, but it wasn't much of a sign of happiness as resignation.
Charles resumed his face, sensing the disturbance of calm from the reserved man.
"I'm more of a Jungian, myself." Charles said. "I aspire to have the intuition capable of drawing good conclusions."
"One could not ascertain proper conclusions from feeling alone." Erik was visibly more comfortable.
Charles nodded in affirmation, but the chime told the hour and Erik stood first. They shook hands, as friends might have after they had discussed their wives, the state of politics, and some bit of casual world news, not the cold war, at least. Charles smile was weak, in reference to the bizarre state of things between himself and this patient. Erik took it much more favorably.
"Still Doctor, I'm sure you already have a gut feeling about what is wrong with me." The mischievous curl to his lip was almost mocking, but rather bold just as well.
When Erik had left, Charles felt a chill over run him. He had seen the photographs as a young student. Frankfurt had been all but wiped from the earth. Düsseldorf stood, but had been razed awesomely, and to return to a home in that state from an unjustified purgatory! Somehow he'd forgotten the early history he had read about his patient only a week ago.
When Miss Heller returned from lunch, his eyes were no longer swollen, his face no longer flushed.
It must have been two weeks now, that Halliday had stepped into his office after several curt phone calls detailing the incoming patient, Erik, as he was now calling him. He could not stop thinking of some of the things that Erik told him, but was determined to not sit in the silent, empty house, or the equally lonely offices he occupied. This scenery was not more populated, but it did not prompt marriage proposals from ladies aunts, ladies who had no intention of marrying him, after he had stupidly allowed a dinner to be arranged. It also avoided grocers who scoffed, and librarians who found his Greek skills mesmerizing. They were mocking him, Charles was pretty sure of that. But the poems were under his arm in either case, fresh off the Athens press, pages only cut this morning. His Greek was abysmal, he was sure of this, but he had been reading the newspaper wrapping the book and was surprised how well he got along. So he dared to package the picnic basket with the basic food stuffs and only the Collected Poems of Constantine Cavafy.
Poplars merely rustled above him now, rubbing their limbs and petals with the limp conifers and bright maples. There was actually some sun today. In mind of all this, Charles should not have been as surprised as he was to see Erik ascend the dirt path, coming to pass beneath his shady rest. Blue eyes alight from the exercise, the man looked happier than he had leaving their last session, where upon the topic had been dour enough to cause Miss Heller some distress upon perceiving it. But there was a happy determination as well as he grinned to greet the doctor sitting and reading beneath a tree.
"Good morning." Erik said, barely out of breath, and Charles was astonished at how familiar that pang of jealousy felt to him. He returned the greeting, but wasn't sure how familiar he could allow their acquaintance now. What should he say if Erik asked something personal?
"It's beautiful for once today. The landlord had been telling me lore about the hills ever since I arrived. It's delightful to actually be in the green for once, instead of gazing at it longingly through mists and rain."
Charles nodded, slight uneased by Erik's direct gaze.
"I didn't mean to intrude on your picnic." Erik said, sounding sincere. Another surprise to Charles. "Has your companion left you halfway through the meal?"
Charles tried to understand what Erik saw in the bits of food laying beside him, but then there were inexplicably two plates.
"No, I came up alone." Charles said, "Although you may make what use of it what you like, this looks like, yes, it is an apple." He prompted the thing towards Erik, but it was declined. His laughter rung a little too loudly in the forest. Charles chuckled to compensate, but found that the smile did not want to leave. There was an easy pleasure in just chatting with someone, and Charles was sure that Erik's enjoyment of the situation derived from their natural compatibility. He shook his head at the way he always took the situation apart and was so analytic.
"If you don't mind, I only have one more question." Erik had placed one foot further up the path's bank and was leaning on his knee, bringing him closer, and making the request that much more uncomfortable to Charles. He gave his assent anyway.
"What are you reading?" He cocked his head, "I've been trying to make out the words, but they look like the one language I haven't learned yet."
Charles let the book fall open to his place, and regarded the poem, shaking the memory of it loose from the sudden apparition of his patient in this more intimate and beautiful of settings. The poem was titled Long Ago, and at Erik's slightest prompting, Charles found himself translating the free-form thing without hesitation.
"I'd like to speak of this memory . . .
but it's so faded now . . . as though nothing is left—
because it was so long ago, in my early adolescent years."
Charles looked up from the break, but Erik stood attentive and unmoving, and Charles felt the unspoken word to continue.
"A skin as though of jasmine . . .
that August evening—was it August?—
I can still just recall the eyes: blue, I think they were . . .
Ah yes, blue: a sapphire blue."
The look that past between them could have been described as hostile, but only as a participant could Charles say he broke away with an eager breathless fear. He was fearful again, as he had been before he had even met this patient, but now this man drove a different trepidation into his heart, and wanted to turn back a page and read aloud what he felt—sensation that I love come back and take hold of me—he knew that Erik had said something. Complimented him.
"Thank you." Charles tucked the book away and cleared his throat, exuding an essence of being done with whatever that had been. Erik took his leave with no undue ceremony and that was that. Charles was returned to the verdure, much the poorer for want of blue skies, for once clear of clouds, peeking at him from behind the petals of the poplars.
Erik sat more stiffly after the rains returned; the summer had never been wetter. Charles imagined years in Argentina might let your bones forget the fogs of London or the Rhine Valley. They were in the counseling room once again, but Charles was trying hard not too fidget. Pastels not withstanding, the room did not offer the calm it usually did. They had spoken little, and Charles had prior to Erik's entrance decided it was the day to speak of his mother. She had been in some mentions of the life he led in Germany and for a moment she was visible in Poland, but after that she had disappeared. Through those hours of torture and experimentation, Erik had been alone.
Pad resting on his knee, Charles tried to plan ahead what he would say if the man suddenly clammed up, or his story was not what Charles expected. He drew some escape routes in his mind, and was distracted by the sudden shift in Erik's posture. He uncrossed and crossed his legs, and Charles decided to broach the taboo subject.
She had been killed, shot by the doctor, Charles saw the bitterness with which the title slid off Erik's tongue, and had served some further purpose in the study that Erik had been a part of. Charles could not guess what he was a part of, what purpose the study served, and what purpose the woman's death, heart stopped before her only son.
Little more was said, it took long enough to understand that she had been executed in front of the son she had struggled to give birth to, struggled to keep as her husband had been killed, and struggled to keep at her side as he was separated from cousins and uncles and his only aunt. She had always been weak, and Erik supposed that it was kinder for her to be shot than worked to death in some factory, but the sentiment was insincere and Erik hid the selfishness of his lies. He would have preferred for her to be there to protect him, to stay by him, and to die alongside him in some other way.
Charles could not comfort someone who had felt so acutely. He could not compare his own cold upbringing, his own lying, shouting, weak and greedy step-father to one that Erik had barely known. Their mothers had been weak, but where Erik's had grown wrinkled protecting her most precious possession, Charles' mother had shrunk away from the threat and died before she could divorce her husband.
"Do you blame yourself?" Charles asked.
Barely audible the answer: "No."
Erik's deep breaths did eventually calm the shaking that had begun earlier.
"But I can never forgive." Erik finally said.
"Forgive whom, yourself?"
"Anyone. Those people, my family, my mother."
"She left you." Charles didn't need to ask.
"But I do forgive her, after all. Every time the thought enters my head, I have to."
Charles nodded.
"You were everything to one another." Charles became more firm with conviction, "You still are everything to her, she to you. That cannot be changed."
"Those last few days are all I can remember at times." Erik's hands were flexing in a way that Charles saw a possibly destructive to the joints, open and close with such intense stretching.
"And yet, you spoke of those times right before you were taken." Charles pulled Erik's focus long enough to remind him, "Those festivals, you said your mother was respected in the community." Erik nodded, and Charles continued. "Do you have a specific memory that you recall when I say that."
"Yes, it's probably not the same as it was, but I do." Erik looked up expectantly, and Charles sat back in his chair, unaware he had been on the edge watching Erik search.
"Would you tell me about it?" Charles asked.
Having lunch together was an unexpected outcome of meeting in the library one Sunday morning. The stroll down was only awkward for a moment before Erik joked about some bit of advice Charles had given him, pardoning the breakfast eggs after they were decapitated, so they might rest with some honor. Charles laughed easily at the remarks Erik made, and Charles tried to retain dignity and was much less worried than at their last accidental encounter. And again, there were no awkward questions.
There was some hesitation about lunch however, Charles usually ate something at the hotel, but Erik, Charles noted, was not keen on going into so public a place. But nothing untoward came of it, Charles didn't need to fumble a save, nor Erik pretend to be polite as he declined. They were seated and ordered typical things, the waiter was non-plussed.
Jung came up in conversation again, and Charles was worried to find Erik's willingness to extend the office hours when he asked opinions of silly dreams he had dreamt throughout the years. Nothing ever of consequence, but all dealing with a sort of self-important outlook that Charles found was ironically contrasted with his sometimes suicidal behavior. Heroic feats, talents impossible outside super-man weeklies, and a righteousness that Charles was reluctant to find similar to recent history.
"But nothing separates you in your dreams from others but for some slight genetic mutations, what you're describing is essentially fascism."
Erik shrugged and smiled, "It would be, I suppose."
"Well, they're not about revenge, I'm happy to conclude."
"I wouldn't expect so." Erik's drink had rapidly been empty and the glass now sat beside the salad bowl awaiting deportation. "I took care of my own devils long ago. This last man I've been tracking, he would be some assistant that the trials forgot. I only saw him for a few moments as a child, but he was still-he will be the last." Erik's face was flushed, and Charles found himself heartily involved in the lunch that their salads had replaced, and hoped Erik would leave the psychology until tomorrow. Speaking with the man was much more pleasant anyway. But then, the long-anticipated question.
"What about you, Charles. What dreams do you have?"
Charles pause was polite, his smile only extending to one corner of his mouth. He weighed his options, and opted for a lie of omission.
"I don't dream." Charles said, before returning to his food.
"You're lying." The glass beside Erik was half full again. Charles suddenly considered his own martini hostile, and considered letting the chips of ice melt, and the citrus infect the untouched vermouth. So Charles ignored Erik and continued for another moment in silence.
"I don't need to know the details to know your heart isn't so steely and emotionless."
Charles gasped a laugh of shock. "Is that how you see me?"
"I don't imagine myself too off the mark, Charles, to say you and I are not dissimilar."
Slightly giggly, after stupidly grabbing and drinking more of the martini than he ever should have with a guest, "Are you sure you are not mixing up your negatives, Erik?" The remark was stupid and made no sense. And Charles was very sure he was not drunk, and Erik must be aware of this too.
"There's much that you can understand of a person in what they do not say. What they do not know, perhaps, but also what they choose to not say." Erik had haltingly given forth the conclusion, but Charles was sure he was amused, and looked for a joke in Erik's face.
The glasses were empty, yet Charles could not make excuses—but also those desires that glowed openly in eyes that looked at you—the slight bump against his knee did not startle him, but he cleared his throat as if it had, and returned his gaze to the tender meat on his plate. The chill in his spine was unable to be shaken.
"I'm sorry." Erik's wavering sincerely betrayed only that Charles had not been careful enough.
"I didn't mean to—I hope you aren't offended."
Charles shook his head, "I've been told much more outlandish theories in the field of deduction, you aren't too far from the truth, you might just be judging based on your own past experience."
If Erik understood the lie this time, he didn't say anything and lunch resumed without the enjoyment of before—how they glowed, remember, in eyes that looked at you, remember, body, how they trembled for you in those voices.
"Erik." Charles didn't step closer, but Erik had already opened the room's door and Heller looked up from her sandwich and somehow quickly excused herself into the office. "We weren't able to speak of it this session, but your dreams do offer good distraction, it might be interest to write them down in a dream journal. If nothing else, they can be bed-time stories one day for your children." Charles smiled, his hands in his pockets, and Erik nodded, but did not leave. His hand stirred on the door knob and he shut the door again.
"I just wanted to apologize again for yesterday—"
Come back often, take hold of me in the night
when lips and skin remember . . .
"It's unnecessary." Charles smiled, the grating feeling in his stomach invisible to sight, but hard to suppress in his features. "I was unaware that you saw me in such a light." He spoke softly. "I didn't know I could mislead you in such a way."
"You didn't." Erik bowed his head, a sudden showing of humbleness that did not suit him at all. "I suppose it must be my lot." Erik looked to him, and Charles nodded.
"In either case, I was afraid I had given indication of something that could not have been."
Erik looked slightly taken aback and moved to step into the hall. "Oh no, that you did not do."
Miss Heller was now back in her seat and regarded Erik's face as keenly as she did each day he came in. Once the elevator had slid shut, she came into the office and spoke to Charles' back.
"Did your session not go well today?" She asked.
"Rather well, I touched on all the final points. If your'e able to get Mr. Halliday on the phone, I can tell him his man should be fine to continue as he is." Suicidal urges aside, Charles winced. Maybe he could just recommend another psychologist, one who was more experienced.
"It's just that he looked so sad." Heller continued.
Charles smacked an open palm loudly against the window frame, and caused Heller to jump.
"Damn the oath!" He said, turning towards her. She was genuinely perplexed and the cup of cocoa in her hand was absolutely ridiculous. She didn't try to offer it to him, and she didn't try to stop him as he strode past. Only because of her job did she withstand the shock of Charles leaving work long enough to rearrange the afternoon's appointments.
After wandering the unkempt gardens Charles found the sloppy lilies and tall hedges unsettling in the dusk's light. Not expecting the house to hold much comfort either, he returned to town. The bar was filled with it's usual occupants, so Charles took a seat near the tap and ordered, implying to the man that he would like to keep the pint full for as long as possible. Thus the first beer was not long in his glass. Charles was barely able to resist turning when Erik sat down just out of reach, around the corner and with much more keen concentration than Charles felt he could ever have. Vague envy lifted when Erik carelessly met Charles' too-long-lingering glance and did not smile, only acknowledged him.
They drank and somehow it happened that they were sitting beside one another, and the warm air was heavier than when he had come in. The bar continued to contain a throng of drunkards and sweethearts, and the alcohol was aromatic in his nostrils. Closer now, but still too far to touch, Charles watched Erik carefully and knew that he was being watched as well, lips bruised and brushing the glasses with each sip, eyelids low, lashes hung to hide something, everything but what was being imagined. An illicit and rude remark, a bawdy smile and a daring touch. Charles could swear he felt Erik moving against him even as the distance seemed to stretch further between them. Those solitary inches were useless in restraining the erotic energy that filled them, and maybe that was Erik moaning. Charles looked away, and Erik's eyes bore into his back. When their gaze met again, Erik was flushed as intensely as Charles felt, and the men blamed their drinks. They stayed sitting, shifting, not speaking to one another, as the thoughts became more hidden, and Erik smirked into one beer after another.
Erik finally did leave, stumbling past Charles and Erik's jacket gently rubbing against his arched back. Charles hissed, and Erik smiled to himself, not acknowledging Charles at all, fully aware of the state they were now left in. Neither aware they could do anything different.
"You cancelled." Erik strode into the office, sober, early morning light pleasantly playing in his hair, and angry lines accentuated.
"Good morning." Charles said, slightly surprised he hadn't heard the lift chime. "Yes."
"Why?" Erik demanded.
Charles let his hands rest in his pockets and made the poor man wait a moment before he gave his verdict.
"You're fine. We're done." Charles said.
"You're a damn liar." Erik said, gripping the front of the desk and leaning in closer. "You're getting rid of me."
"That's true." Charles wandered back from the desk, hoping his steps were casual. "Halliday is coming to get you today, or whatever you have worked out."
"No, he's not." Erik circled to the other desk's side, closer to Charles, further from the sunshine. "He called me this morning, I set it straight, I still have issues!"
Charles turned to face him, astonished.
"You do?" He asked.
Erik immediately backed away and Charles inadvertently reached out to touch a pitying hand to Erik's shoulder. Erik slipped away from it, but the two men froze.
"I may have issues." Erik was breathing heavily for some reason, and Charles quirked his eyebrows, watching him. "I may have made some very dangerous decisions and risked a little too much for very little."
This time, Charles' hand rested on Erik's shoulder and stayed there. "You have so much to live for. You cannot give it up for so little." The other hand met Erik's neckline without interference and his fingers stroked the nape of his neck. Taking a moment to understand the silent signal he was being given, Erik's hand went to take his, but suddenly Charles was afraid, unsure of what Erik was doing and surged forward. He pressed his lips into Erik's gasp and Erik pulled him closer, they spoke silently for a moment and Erik ran his hands down the weave of Charles' sweater, curving past the ribs and pushing back up his spine. Charles' bowed his head onto Erik's shoulder, and loosely encircled his waist with limp arms.
"You have no idea what you did to me last night." Erik sighed, holding Charles' head against him, and breathing contentedly. "I thought you were just a tease."
Charles pulled out of the embrace, and took a step back. "I wonder how you have survived this long without killing yourself." Erik smiled and followed Charles the one and a half paces back to his desk.
Erik sat in the chair, and Charles on the edge of the desk, leaning down for another kiss, but not allowing it further, catching the wandering hands. "You are leaving today." Charles said.
"I am. A car will be taking me down to Stewart Airbase this afternoon." Erik reached up for another brush against lips, and Charles accepted the tender caress of a hand. A car door slammed outside and Erik's head fell against Charles' knee.
"I think I'll miss you." Erik said. "Thank you for last night."
Charles laughed. "For what?"
"For letting me think of you. For what you let me do to you." Erik stood and lifted Charles' head with his, tracing the soft folds of his mouth with a light tongue. Pulling away, but pressing a thumb against the swollen lips, and smiling at purple lids.
Erik was gone for an instant, doors locked and then he was heavy against him on the desk's ledge, laying him down on the veneer or paneling or whatever it was, and allowing skin to feel the last chill of an Indian Summer night, as buttons opened and a hand gripped tightly and Erik gasped again.
No one could see us. But anyway,
we were already so aroused
we'd become incapable of caution.
Our clothes half opened—
we weren't wearing much:
a divine July was ablaze.
Delight of flesh between
those half-opened clothes;
quick baring of flesh— . . .
"What are you saying?" Erik laughed into Charles' open mouth, and brushed back the hair from his brow.
Charles pushed Erik away from him and beheld him in that fresh moment after their simultaneous deaths. Poetry couldn't leave him, he'd been going through his book like an infatuated youth, finding ironic poems one after another, maddening because he finally understood them. Here before him, The body's lines. Red lips. Sensual limbs.
"Figures of love, as my poetry desired them." Charles murmured, pulling him close.
"Here I am." Erik said, the clouds finally lifted from his selfish insolence.