Charles spends the night drifting back and forth between sleep like a yo-yo, and by the time the clock perching on the edge of his nightstand clicked over to quarter past five, he is completely exhausted. Shoving blankets aside for the ninth time that night (or morning, to be precise), he wearily slips his feet into slippers and pads across his room to the door and steps out into the hall.
The mansion is quiet, but the silence is somehow deafening. Charles' childhood instinct kicks in and he peers up and down the hall as he goes, his mind fluttering over burglars and assassins and who knows what else. He wonders if the paranoia that he simply hasn't outgrown is what is troubling him as he climbs down the stairs and wanders blindly to the kitchen, craving water and something to soften the horrid headache pulsing within the thin casing of his skull. Rubbing at his temples, Charles meanders into the kitchen and his mind suddenly clicks at sensing another presence beyond the thrumming of his headache, and he looks up, fingers still plastered to the sides of his head.
Erik is leaning over the counter, one hand curled around a glass of my god, Erik, is that alcohol at five in the morning? and wearing a sleepy expression. His hair is mussed and standing up at one side, and the robe he's donned is left open. Charles suddenly can't remember ever seeing Erik looking so vulnerable and so abashedly real before. He's usually always so immaculate, straight-lines and all; the difference is a shock to Charles.
"Charles?" Erik mumbles, raising his head and studying the telepath with what Charles gathers as somewhere between suspicion and concern. He bites back the unexpected bubble of disappointment forming in his throat, swallows hard, and replies as loosely as he can, with a nonchalant tap to his temple, "Headache."
"Same. I suppose we had too much to drink over chess." Erik sighs, then his mouth stretches into a smirk. "Or maybe you're just disappointed that I won."
"Hmph. That would be it," Charles grimaces, padding around Erik and opening one of the top cupboards. He feels Erik turn around behind him as he reaches up for a glass, being careful to not clink them together and send another pulse of pain through his pounding head. Charles rises up onto his toes with a barely audible grunt of effort when a warm body presses up against his side. Erik gently bats his straining hand away and effortlessly snags a glass, closes the cupboard softly, and hands it to Charles. His face is smooth and blank, but his eyes are averted slightly. Charles grunts his gratitude, turning his back and turning on the tap. His face feels very warm. Come on, Charles. You're the telepath, but anyone could read you like a bloody book!
"Uhm… I'm headed back up to bed," Charles says. "Hope I get a few hours in, at least."
Erik smiles, and it is an awfully tender smile, Charles notes as he looks away. He watches Charles stagger off with an amused curl to his lips. Unknown to the telepath, he's broadcasting his racing thoughts (albeit stuttering slightly from the rapid pound, pound, pound of the swollen tissues at the front of his brain) and Erik has no way of blocking them out.
Charles, cheeks burning, makes for the stairs, head and heart pounding in synchronization. His stomach wavers nervously and he flees to his room like a child frightened by the dark, and he doesn't quite feel whole until he's perched on the edge of his bed clutching the glass of water and trying to calm his mind.
At last he finds a break in his disturbed essence and sips the water, slowly, his finger pads pressing over where Erik had touched the glass. Setting it aside, he flops back, wincing last minute as he jostles his head, then closes his eyes and counts the heartbeats until sleep snags him.
Mid-morning comes on swift wings for Charles; a morning person at heart, he's up and ready to take the day by the horns as he normally is. One of his lesser qualities, Raven might complain, as she prefers to sleep the morning away and rise when the sun is at its highest. Charles can't complain; he's rarely in a foul mood come morning, and he can't remember a time when he wasn't. Headache dissolved and his mood lighter, he's up on his feet and starting the day with all the joy of man's best friend.
Swapping his nightclothes and mussed locks for a neat orderly appearance – if an ironed lavender button-down and dark gray trousers with a slight pinstripe can be considered "orderly" (when Charles honestly believes it to be casual wear), and donning his loafers, he slips down to the kitchen for coffee. Nothing tops a morning like a cup of dark-roasted beans brewed to perfection, with a light measure of sugar and a dash of cream.
Said coffee in hand, Charles has only raised the cup to take his first much-desired sip when he's walloped by a bolt of shock that, after a quick maneuver to place his cup on the counter and not send it crashing to the floor, leaves him breathless and concerned. He already knows the feeling was not his own and, judging from the gallery of disturbing images that came with the sensation, he knows exactly what fellow mutant is having one hell of a distressing nightmare.
Charles is back up the stairs and hovering outside of Erik's bedroom in less than a minute; he'd been prepared to simply push open the door but he's suddenly hesitant, his palm resting on the wood as he battles with an odd sense of forbid. He tries to reason with himself that it's simply a nightmare and that it will end as soon as it's begun, but the thought leaves him guilt-ridden, and he turns the handle without further ado.
The room is astonishingly bright, glimmering like a thousand stars have deposited themselves in Erik's room. Shielding his eyes with his hands, Charles manages to make out several objects bobbing in mid-air; unsurprisingly, they are all metal, drifting in frozen stasis. A hunk of silvery material, unrecognizable in its current crunched shape, drifts past his head. Yes, definitely alarming, Charles decides, approaching the chaotic mess of heavy linen tossed into stilled waves of white. He ducks out of the way of a floating copper orb, a jagged groove down the center. He tugs the cover back from what he supposes is Erik's head and his breath catches, just like in the movies.
Face contorted in concentration and lined deeply from a sleepless night, Erik shifts away as sunlight brightens the world outside his eyelids. Charles is nervous to touch him; firstly, he's slightly afraid of what Erik could do when startled out of a nightmare. Secondly, he's frozen in place staring down upon a bloody Adonis, sculpted to masculine perfection and as roguishly desirable as the coffee Charles left downstairs. Charles' throat bobs as he swallows, torn between soothing his friend and his own primal desires.
Then he hears it, breaking the unguarded barriers within his mind and clawing at his ears like a nuclear explosion, grounding him immediately and leaving him feeling like a swollen puddle in a rainstorm and a kite whirling on the wind, all at once; spoken in agony and desperation, and aching with so much longing, Erik utters, "Charles."
A crash of silverware startles him back to reality and he jumps, shaking the bed. He looks to see what has fallen; it is indeed a melted platter from the early nineteenth century, its complete set of engraved plates and cutlery an oozing mess on the floor, as though superheated. Charles turns his head back to look down at Erik and startles at the wide slate blue-gray eyes staring back in unmasked surprise. The rest of the floating metal objects drop promptly. The clatter is a scream of shrill accusation.
"Good morning." Charles, blazing red with embarrassment, desperate to reclaim his dignity after unsuccessfully attempting innocence, he tries to think up a perfectly good reason as to why he should be hovering over Erik with a guilty flush staining his cheeks.
"Guten… good morning," Erik responds slowly, having recovered from his rude awakening and baring his teeth in a vaguely charming but more prominently threatening-looking smile. Charles is transfixed, still staring stupidly, his brain struggling to shove aside the hazy fog while ordering him to stand up straight. His powers must have been literally shouting in Erik's head because a flicker of amused annoyance tugs his brows over his eyes whiles retaining his smile.
"Coffee?" Charles manages, stepping backwards. His foot lands on a melted stick of metal and he wavers unexpectedly. Erik, quick as a snake, lunges after him and seizes him before he can fall. Charles, balance off, swings forward and sends them sprawling backwards on the bed, their foreheads smashing together and mercilessly reminding them of their early-morning meeting in the kitchen.
"Verdammt!" Erik hisses, gently tipping Charles next to him. "Charles, du bist bemerkenswert."
"I beg your pardon?"
Erik chuckles, the corner of his mouth curling up slightly. "Coffee's fine."