Erik rarely ventured out into town on his own. He was usually assigned as a baby-sitter for the children, which he grumbled about but never refused to do. He took them to see movies, have ice cream and, on one memorable occasion, clothes shopping. Charles had had to listen to the other man's complaints for days. Apparently girls of a certain age were worse than baby-sitting a sack of fleas. Erik had had more luck keeping the boys under control than the clothes-shopping girls.
Charles enjoyed himself as they walked down the old-town front of Salem Center. It was a nice day, though snowy, and the sun was out, giving it all a kind of wonderful atmosphere. Christmas was everywhere and Erik looked at the decorations with a mixture of dread, despair and annoyance. It wasn't his first Christmas at the manor and it wouldn't be his last, but he had never really gotten into the spirit like others. That he had gotten a knit sweater from the children at his first Christmas had been a source of fun and hilarity for Charles. The sweater still existed, somewhere under a pile of boxes and whatnot in the depths of their shared closet space.
Red lights winked at them from shop windows. There were reindeer, Santa Clauses of all sizes and gaudiness, singing snowmen, fake trees and angels of various sizes and color choices. The bakery looked like a gigantic cookie box and it smelled delicious even out on the streets.
Charles was smiling brightly, nodding at the people on the streets as they shopped and dragged complaining children along, the men spending a lot of time in the hardware store while their wives did the shopping. Erik felt the pull of metal all around him, but most pronouncedly at the hardware store.
::Want to wait while I shop?:: Charles teased.
::Don't tempt me:: came the grumbled reply.
Not that there were any concrete shopping plans anyway. Charles had wanted to get out of the manor for a few hours and Erik had been only too happy. So they had gone to town, which was about thirty minutes drive from the Xavier mansion. Erik was aware of the fact that he was playing shadow, that he was severely encroaching on Charles' privacy. Yes, they were a couple. Yes, they shared a room. Yes, they were telepathically connected. It still didn't mean that Erik was wherever Charles was, or vice versa.
Right now he felt more protective than he could remember. If the twins contacted his telepath again, he would be there. Physically, too.
Charles was pretty much aware of those thoughts if the mild amusement in the blue eyes was any indication.
Screw it all, Erik thought darkly. He didn't care.
Charles didn't do a lot of Christmas shopping. If he wanted to give everyone at the mansion something he would run out of money soon. Erik had voted against a gift exchange. He had never celebrated Christmas in his life and he wasn't the person to feel festive on demand. He liked the atmosphere through the holidays, he would watch sappy movies, but he drew the line at carol singing and decorating a tree.
A tree existed, of course. A huge affair in the common room that sparkled and blinked and smelled of the forest. The students took great delight in decorating it. Erik usually sat at the other end of the room, surreptitiously watching them, just in case an accident happened. Charles never commented on his 'mother henning', though Azazel had no such qualms.
Walking through town, wrapped up in thick coats and warm hats, the two men window-shopped for a while, then had a light lunch, went back outside, and finally found themselves in the park. The pond had frozen over, the pathways were packed in snow, and children of all ages were playing, building snowmen and having snowball fights.
Charles looked happy. Relaxed. Like he had no care in the world. Erik smiled a little, trying not to stare too much, but it was hard. Charles looking like this made him want to kiss him, made him want to bury his hands underneath the clothes and feel the warm skin. He wanted to get him home, lock the door and not let this wonderful man out until next year.
::Who would feed me?:: Charles asked.
Erik looked away from the laughing eyes, the knowing expression. His face was already reddened from the cold, but now a flush of heat warmed it. He shifted, uncomfortably away how exposed they were.
::They don't see us:: Charles murmured and stepped in front of him.
"What?" he stammered.
Charles grinned. "You always told me that even we need to train; especially me. I am training. No one has been aware of us since lunch."
Erik stared. He really stared. Hearing Charles, understanding what he meant, comprehending the scale…
Hell!
It had been hours since lunch! It was already growing a little dusky and they would have to get back to the car and drive home soon…
How could he still underestimate this man? The sheer power…
Erik wanted to pull him close, wanted to ravish him, wanted to dive into that impossibly sexy mind and feel the thrum of the power, wanted to be part of it.
"You are," Charles murmured, almost nose to nose with him. "You are very much part of me."
He kissed him. Rough and demanding and shoving him back against a tree. Charles dug his fingers into the thick coat, held Erik close, wanted him closer.
::What you do to me…:: he whispered harshly. ::God, Charles…::
The demonstration of power only drove home that despite everything, Charles Xavier wasn't weak or defenseless. He needed the anchor, but he had existed without it for all his life.
::I need you. Always will:: Charles whispered. ::I always did. Until we met I never knew…::
Erik kissed him again, biting at the lower lip, shaking hard. It was something he felt; what he had felt from the start but hadn't understand.
No one saw them. No one gave them even a passing glance. Charles was influencing them all…
Hell, Erik thought again. He knew how powerful his lover was, but this demonstration had him scared and elated in one.
"Home," Charles whispered.
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"I want to learn about it," Erik said the next morning as he shoveled whatever had been placed in front of him into his mouth, eyes scanning the pages of the morning papers.
Charles leaned over his shoulder, scanning the print, trying to find whatever Erik was talking about on the page of the newspaper, reaching over to lift one corner which had folded forward. Having failed to find anything that would interest his partner to any real degree, he dropped a kiss to the side of Erik's throat.
"About what?"
Erik closed and folded the newspaper, placing it on the table where it stayed for all of ten seconds before Alex stole it.
It would be a small miracle if the paper had been delivered, which it hadn't been. It would have been a bigger miracle if it had been the New York Times. It wasn't. It was actually the Washington Post and it had been brought by teleport. Azazel, for whatever reason, had spent the last night somewhere else, probably in the Washington D.C. area, and he had dumped the newspaper on the table when he had walked in.
Erik had only raised an eyebrow. Charles hadn't said a word when he had seen the unfamiliar paper. Azazel had disappeared again with a grin.
Outside the manor, the snow was high enough to warrant a snow plough and they would have to do something about it sooner or later. Charles figured it would be a good training exercise for some of their students, and he was immensely looking forward to it.
"About the anchor," Erik clarified, turning his eyes and a smile on Charles, catching him by surprise.
"I've told you everything, Erik, there's nothing I'm keeping from you. I wouldn't..."
Reaching out, Erik wrapped gentle fingers around one wrist. "It's not information I'm asking for. I know you've told me everything you know. I want to find out what more you and I could do with it, how to protect it – how to protect you – from other mutants. Other telepaths."
The twins, specifically, but he didn't say it.
"I have defenses," Charles assured, pulling out the chair next to Erik and seating himself. "I taught myself how to block from a very early age."
"I'm not saying you're not amazing," he told him with a smile. "But they've already hurt you, Charles, they've put you in a coma and they've made you sick, and I want to work out what you and I can do together." He could see the skepticism in Charles' face. "You know, you and I could rob banks, break into the federal reserve, steal… a space rocket! We could do anything, together. We're stronger together, you said it yourself. Imagine how it would be if nothing, no one, could break us apart, no matter what? Imagine if we could be together even when we're not."
He felt a little bit guilty about using that particular argument, he knew how much the anchor meant to Charles. He had been increasingly surprised over the first few months of having it about how much it came to mean to him.
"It's a good idea, despite your motives," Charles said with a smile, and goddamnit when was he going to learn? It was difficult enough keeping strong surface thoughts and feelings from a powerful telepath but linked to one it was almost impossible.
Do you really want more?
He looked at Charles, his lover, his partner, into blue eyes he'd be happy to drown in, and nodded.
"I want it all," he murmured, keeping his voice low although Alex and Sean were involved in their own debate over something in the paper. "Charles, everything you are, everything you're willing to share with me."
Leaning into him, Charles let his forehead drop against Erik's temple.
"I am willing to share my very soul with you," he whispered. Erik closed his eyes and let the heat from Charles skin soak into his own.
He loved this man so much that sometimes it left him breathless and terrified. To have something this powerful in his life wasn't something he'd seen coming, wasn't something he'd ever imagined he would have. It was something he would protect with his life.
Charles lifted his head. "So where do we start?"
He pushed the strangely humbling thoughts from his mind and sat up. "Let's start with what we can do," he decided, turning in his chair.
"All right."
"I can talk to you, communicate with you." But Charles shook his head.
"You can't. I can push my thoughts into your head and I can listen to your replies. If I wasn't speaking and listening, we wouldn't communicate because you're not a telepath!"
"But I am connected to one," Erik insisted, "that has to count for something."
"It does. It means you get the raw end of the deal. Whenever my mind overloads, whenever it's too much and I'm in danger of losing myself I have an anchor to you, a link that's exclusively mine so that I… can find myself."
"But you can use it to track me, to see through my eyes."
"I don't need the link to do that, as you know. It just helps at long distances."
This was getting them nowhere. "It must be more, Charles! When it was broken, after the attack, you were in pain and I couldn't feel you."
"I was in pain because there was a hole in my mind! It's a one way thing. You wouldn't expect the seabed to be able to call a ship's anchor down would you?"
The tone of his voice wasn't negative, as such, and there was something he wasn't saying, Erik could tell. He knew Charles too well.
"What aren't you telling me? You said you thought it was a good idea for us to train."
Charles sighed softly and shook his head. "No. I was wrong, we should just leave things as they are."
"I don't want to leave things as they are. I told you, I want everything. So what are you leaving out?"
Charles flattened his hands on the now otherwise empty breakfast table. The kids had vanished, possibly in anticipation of a full-blown domestic fight.
"It's a connection," he said eventually, each word individually dragged from him, "like a cable. It's one way because that's how I created it. But like most connections, it could be two-way. Not all the time, not permanently. It would be like… having a part of me in your head. We'd have to be careful, but in times of danger I could open it up, like an open channel on a radio."
"That's perfect!" It was just what Erik had been looking for.
"It's far from perfect, my friend. It would expose you to anything that chose to attack me, to anyone trying to read my mind. It would mean our thoughts, feelings, experiences would be shared; all of it, everything. And it would end in you getting a terrible headache because you're not used to having more than one person in your head!"
The idea was unbelievably exciting, and there was a part of Erik's mind that was imagining all sorts of applications for it that weren't danger-related.
"I could learn to get used to it the way you have."
"I've had years of practice!"
"And hopefully so will I. At least let's try it."
"We need to be careful. I've never done anything like this before, it's all theory. If something goes wrong…"
"It won't. And you won't hurt me, I have complete and utter faith in you."
"Bastard."
Charles was smiling, recognizing the very words he used all the time trying to talk his students into doing something they didn't want to do, or more didn't have the confidence in themselves to do. Erik knew he'd won.
"All right. But we take it slowly and if either of us thinks that something is wrong, we say so. You have to promise, Erik. If I hurt you…"
Erik knew. If they hurt each other, they'd never be able to forgive themselves. "I promise. So where do we start?"
tbc...