It hurts too much to remember what it was; what they were; to remember that once Erik had touched him with gentle hands, and spoken softly to him; that once they had been after the same thing; it hurts too bad to remember, so he dreams.

Some nights he will lie in bed for hours, thinking of the past (and then regretting it), sometimes he will reach, and reach, and reach; until he thinks he's touching the corners of Erik's mind. It is on nights like those that he can't sleep until he wraps himself around a memory he keeps hidden away; until he concentrates so hard he can feel the ghost of a touch; the whispers in his ear; the love he thought he'd had.

On nights like those he dreams he is not Professor X. He dreams Erik is not Magneto. He dreams that they are them; that they are together. He dreams that Erik loved (loves) him.

He sleeps, and he remembers a time he likes to pretend never happened.

He dreams, and he awakes with Erik's voice loud in his mind; and before he can even take in what he's saying (what he's begging for) he shuts the connection (though he had opened it, himself). And he pretends not to remember his dreams; and when his students ask how he slept (some of the braver ones go so far as to ask why he looks so satisfied), Charles will smile a teachers smile, and simply say "It was a good night."

But when he lies down to sleep after the day has ended he will hear a voice in the back of his mind, pleadingly whispering to him; and he will pretend not to hear it, and he will drift into a restless sleep, with Erik's voice sounding in his mind; and though it's a whisper, it is deafening.

(Forgive me…)

[… No.]