Chapter 3: Strategic Moves and Lack Thereof- Charles, 2007

"Ah. Twelve." Shaw offered Charles a smile as Emma led him into the room that was fast becoming all-too-familiar. Standing beside the bed was a man in a T-shirt and jeans, with a curiously slack expression on his face. Charles brushed against his mind, the gesture more automatic than breathing, and found with no small amount of horror that the stranger was nearly empty, his thought processes scooped out and burned black.

"Who is this?" Charles felt his hands clench into fists at his side and Shaw rested a hand on the man's shoulder.

"This is Dave, and Dave has agreed to help us further your training."

"Agreed is a strong word," Charles noted tightly, anger thrumming through his veins like drumbeats. This man did not want to be here, was barely aware he was here. This man was not aware of where he was, was only aware of who he was in the vaguest sense of the word. "What did you do, just pluck the first guy off the street that you saw?"

"Don't worry, he wasn't important," Shaw dismissed with a wave of his hand. "He was just a human, his life would have been meaningless in the grand scheme of things anyway."

"No one is meaningless." The words came out perhaps too sharply, and they tasted like bitter coffee as his father's face flickered through his mind. Emma chuckled from behind him.

"Ten's wearing off on him," she drawled to Shaw. "He's getting a bit of a temper."

"Ten isn't wearing off on me, I just don't bow down to petty bullies." Charles felt a small sting as his nails cut into his palms. Two had warned him not to attack, not to make eye contact, not to tense up, but years of living with Kurt and Cain had trained the opposite instincts into him. He wasn't going to be cowed by a man like Shaw. He wasn't going to be frightened by anyone again, not after so many years and after achieving such hard-won freedom.

He was going to get it back. Had to. He couldn't be a prisoner anymore. He would take Two with him, and Eleven, and Ten. They would make it out.

"He's planning escape attempts," Emma reported dryly from behind him. "Nothing concrete yet, but he wants Two and the others to help and get out together."

Traitor. Charles shot at her. In any other circumstance, he would have been thrilled to meet another telepath. He never had. He had only met four other mutants in his life prior to coming to the manor. He would have loved to sit with her, speak to her, interrogate her and learn from her and question her on those diamond shields, those rigid lines, why her mind felt so cold compared to everyone else's. He felt like there should be some camaraderie, some sense of brotherhood between telepaths. They saw the world and the minds therein in the same way, they shared the same precise sixth sense.

But she didn't feel that camaraderie, clearly.

"Two?" Shaw tilted his head, watching him with a sharp glint of interest in his eyes. "You're becoming friends, then? I admit, I have a soft spot for him."

"Kidnappers usually do," Charles said acidly, and Shaw's eyes glittered.

"Right, then. We're not going to get much chatting done, I can see that. So. Charles," and it unnerved him, how odd it was to hear his own name out loud. It hadn't been that long, but suddenly it felt like too long. "I'm going to need you to stop Dave."

"Stop him?" Charles frowned, and Shaw beamed, placing a knife in the man's hand.

"Yes. Before he kills you. Emma?" He nodded to her and Charles stilled. It was strange how he could feel her in Dave's mind, a diamond spike of cold burrowing in deep beneath the surface. Charles still couldn't see any flaws in the shield but, for a moment, there was something there… And then Dave was turning, tightening his grip on the butcher knife and taking a step forward.

Shit.

"Stop," Charles said, pushing at his intentions, and he obeyed. Shaw shrugged.

"Good, we knew you could do that much. And now with some shielding?" And this time, Emma's spike didn't retreat from Dave's mind, instead digging in deeper. Dave moved forward again, jerkily and yet purposefully, and Charles took a quick step back.

"Stop," he ordered, but the push slid against the diamond of Emma's spike. The knife swung and Charles dodged quickly, ducking to avoid the blade as it sang through the air. He felt a sting as it sliced across his shoulder, and Dave turned, tightening his grip on the handle. "Stop," Charles repeated sharply, backing away from him. Dave faltered, but continued moving, and Charles felt a thrill of panic as he saw just how deeply Emma's spike was embedded. "Shaw, if I stop him I'll break his mind, I would have to carve around Emma and he won't-"

"His life would have been meaningless in the grand scheme of things anyway," he repeated shortly. "Stop him, Twelve."

"He's a person, goddamnit!" Charles caught Dave's arm in his hands as he swung again, pressing up with all his might as the tip of the knife quivered inches from his face. "Stop," he pleaded to Dave, trying to dig for the processes that surely still existed below Emma's control. "Stop, I don't want to hurt you. You don't have to do this, you're still somewhere in there. I know it's not your fault, you aren't in control, but please-"

Dave pushed harder, the edge of the tip pressing into Charles' cheek, and Charles felt panic surge in his chest as blood slid down and onto his lips. He didn't want to die here. He had promised to help Eleven, he had promised to get Two out, he wanted to see him again, he wanted to see Raven and Oxford and find out what Two's lips felt like on his and he didn't want to die here-

"Stop!" He shouted it, mentally and verbally, and then, almost in slow motion, the man was falling to the ground. The knife clattering to the ground beside him, slightly bloodied but harmless and helpless beside its murdered master.

Everything felt oddly numb and silent aside from a ringing sensation in Charles' ears and he stared down at the human at his feet, feeling the world sway around him.

He had stopped. His lungs, his heart, his mind. It had all stopped.

He had murdered him.

"Oh, yes." Shaw nearly purred it. "I think this will be a lovely partnership, Twelve."

And then the world's swaying and the soft ringing stopped, and everything was dark.

"-then it should be easy to-" Ten. Charles heard her voice distantly, her thick accent breaking off in the midst of her argument. "Two! Twelve's back! Shit, he does not look good." Fingers on his face, with them bringing awareness back to his body. He was uncomfortable, he realized slowly, and finally registered that he was laying on a couch, the stiff and sharp places beneath him designating it as one of the couches in the dayroom.

"Scheisse." Two's accent, which was normally rather quiet, not nearly as thick as Ten's, was deeper and thicker than Charles had yet heard it. It was probably so subdued due to being here for a decade, around Americans, he noted dimly. Probably Ten had been taken older in life, so her accent would naturally be stronger. That would have been somewhat interesting any other time, another piece to the puzzle that was Two.

Charles felt another set of hands on his wrists, then on his neck and face. "Fick mich," Two growled, and Charles felt himself being resettled. It felt better like this, though perhaps it was just from the feeling of Two's gentle hands moving carefully across his body. "His pulse is fine, he's just unconscious. We'll have to wait and see what happens when he wakes up. Get a bottle of water. Eleven, do you have any crackers? Twelve might need them." His voice softened just slightly as he spoke to her, as Ten's did. They both liked her and took care of her when they could. It was sweet, really.

It was then that Charles realized with dawning intensity that he couldn't really hear them. Their minds felt far away, so distant that he was hearing echoes of feeling rather than the thoughts themselves. A flicker of fear burned through him, pushing away the heavy weight and fog of sleep, and he pushed his eyes open, though they felt stiff and oddly swollen. Two was looking back at the girls, his hand resting on Charles' arm and assuring Eleven that he wouldn't eat all of her crackers.

Ten was retrieving said crackers from Eleven, her face sober and tired, but there were no thoughts behind that interpretation of her expression. The fear became more potent and Charles caught Two's wrist. "I can't- I can't-" He couldn't form the words, couldn't face the dreadful possibility that suddenly felt too possible, and the world around him was suddenly too deep, like he had been thrown off a boat and all that was beneath him was black, bottomless water.

What if something had broken, what if he couldn't hear ever again, what if this was permanent-

"I can't-" He met Two's eyes, trying to force himself to breathe even though all Charles could do was look at his face and not his mind. His beautiful mind, so bright and brilliant, normally a lighthouse in the dark mental plane but now just the dimmest of stars so far out of reach and Charles was alone, he couldn't hear them, a sense had been stripped away from him and oh God was it permanent it couldn't be permanent please God, don't let it be permanent-

"Hey." Two gripped Charles' shoulders, shaking his head quickly. His expression was calm and even and steady, like the rock, the lighthouse, Charles was starting to think of him as. Two moved a little closer, keeping hold of his arms and not loosing his grasp. "Breathe, you need to breathe. Just breathe. Can you sit up?" He helped Charles sit up very slowly, then moved his legs so his feet were on the floor. Charles mechanically allowed this, the panic swirling and building with horrific intensity into something like terror. What if it was permanent. He had never not been able to hear them, not since he had first manifested-

Two firmly pressed Charles' head down between his knees, not unkindly but not carefully, either. "Breathe," he instructed. "Slow. One, two, three in, one, two, three out. Breathe with me."

Charles didn't release his wrist, too aware of the panic, nausea, and horror thrumming through his veins as memory of this morning sank back in. Shaw, the knife, Dave. He had killed someone, a man with a life and a future. He had murdered someone just to save his own skin… and now he couldn't hear them. Punishment? Divine retribution? He wasn't even sure if he believed in the divine, but suddenly it seemed sickeningly real, sickeningly possible.

"Twelve," Ten barked. "Breathe with Two. You are freaking out."

He flinched back to the present and forced himself to obey, sucking in an unsteady breath when Two directed him to. "I can't hear you," he managed to wheeze once the tightness around his lungs had eased up slightly. "I can't- I can't-"

"It's okay." Two left his free hand on Charles' back, not moving away from the death grip the younger boy had on him. "Keep breathing slow, three in, three out. Come on. There you go. You just hit burnout, Twelve. We've all done it. Whatever he made you do, it wasn't your fault. None of us will make you talk about it if you don't want to. We've all done things we didn't want to do. Just keep breathing. I know it's… weird not being able to use your powers but they're not gone. It's just burnout. You'll just need to sleep, and recover."

Burnout. Charles relaxed slowly with the word, the fear gradually bleeding out of him. Burnout. Burnout was logical, burnout made sense. Two had mentioned it before, one night in his doorway. It was burnout, it was strain from pushing too hard, like a torn muscle. "Oh." He released the grip on Two's wrist, realizing belatedly that it most certainly had been painful.

Three in, three out. Breathe.

Dave wouldn't breathe ever again.

Charles took in a slow breath, feeling it rattle around in his chest. "Sorry," he said, lifting his head to look at Two. "I'm sorry."

"Drink and eat." He held out a bottle of water and Eleven's crackers, expression as soft as when he helped Eleven. In an odd way, that stung. Charles didn't want to be pitied, didn't deserve to be pitied after what he'd done. "You'll feel better after that and natural sleep. And what the hell are you apologizing for, Twelve, being scared after your first burnout?" He snorted, shaking his head. "We all were. I damn near jumped off the roof."

"We could get on roof back then?" Ten sounded mildly impressed and Charles laughed a little, taking the water bottle slowly.

He had killed someone. Sure, it was in self-defense, but that didn't change the fact that he had been alive before meeting Charles, and now he never would be again. Charles uncapped the water with unsteady fingers and took a slow drink.

He hadn't known that it would happen like that, he hadn't ever imagined it would kill him. Break his mind maybe, leave him a shell, or in pain, but kill him, he hadn't known that stop would stop everything, he hadn't ever imagined that it would kill him.

He had murdered a human being to save his own life. Who was to say that Dave's life mattered less than his? Yes, Shaw likely would have killed him anyway if Charles hadn't, but that didn't make it acceptable.

Never again, Charles decided viciously. He would never kill again. Not even in self defense. He couldn't.

His mind, like a broken record, flicked back to the hollow brown eyes, the sound the body had made when it had hit the floor, the clatter of the knife.

"I…" Charles couldn't say the words, couldn't even think them to Two because of the lack of power at the moment. And he didn't want to see the look on Two's face, regardless of whether that look was forgiveness or condemnation. Both were awful. "I'm going to go and sleep. Thank you for the water, I- I appreciate it." He stood unsteadily, his legs weak, and caught his balance with the back of the couch.

"Go slow," Two advised, standing. "Use the wall. Steady yourself, it'll help. Don't try to go too fast." He held out four crackers. "Eat them. It helps to settle your stomach or you might wake up throwing up. Ten had that once, I'm not usually nauseous after."

Charles merely nodded a little, taking the crackers numbly, and moved slowly toward the door.

"Twelve," Ten barked out unexpectedly, and he turned to see her watching him, expression inscrutable. "We've all done it. If you let it break you, then two people die instead of the one. Not your fault." Charles found that his throat felt very tight suddenly and he rolled his shoulders back, avoiding her eyes. "Go to sleep," she ordered, turning her attention back to Eleven. "Wake up yourself. Don't let him win."

Two gave her a smile, relaxing slightly, and nodded, looking back at him. "Sleep," he repeated gently, green eyes intent on Charles' blue ones. "And wake up yourself. We'll see you later."

But when Charles woke up, it was invariably from nightmares of bloody steel and uncomprehending brown eyes. He took to sleeping in the library, waiting until Two had left for his own room each night before slipping down the hall and back to the bookshelves. The dusty titles winked at him from their places, familiar and soothing as old friends. Tolstoy, Kafka, Heinlein, Capote, and Shakespeare surrounded him, small walls made of stacks of books that he surrounded himself with like a fort. It was childish, but effective. When he woke up, stop ripping out of his throat like a blood-soaked prayer, he found himself facing pages and faded covers, a sight almost familiar enough to lull him into thinking that he was waking up in his flat for a few precious seconds.

The burnout faded quickly. It only took three or four days before he could hear Two again. It took a day longer to hear Ten and Eleven, but he didn't question why. He knew why. It was because he wanted to hear Two, wanted to be able to listen to his accented thoughts musing on Dumas' works and the possibility that he would, in fact, kiss Charles at some point, although he had firmly admitted to himself that it would be a terrible idea.

Charles always pretended not to hear these thoughts, instead acting as if he was absorbed in his novels. Two was always grateful that Charles 'hadn't heard,' uncertain if he wanted to tip the scales that were so momentarily balanced between us.

Shaw didn't call Charles again for those few days. He, in fact, didn't call anyone.

"Does he do other projects?" Charles studied the chessboard that Two had found in a closet, musing on the fact that he hadn't seen Shaw's face in four days now. The chessboard was battered and cardboard, the pieces cheap and dirty plastic, but it came with such a familiar rush of home that he had begged Two to play with him. Two had grudgingly accepted, mentally complaining about how unfair it was that Charles could request anything when his eyes were as big as they were. "Is he busy with other things, or are we his main venture?" Charles moved his bishop carefully.

Two's lips twitched at the move, shifting his knight up without hesitation. "He's got other things he does, papers he writes, books he reads, correspondences with other sick fucks. Things of that nature. I've heard he sometimes has other places he visits; we're not the only facility he manages, but we're the main one he's focused on." He considered the board, then sat back. "Sometimes when he's quiet like this, it's worse when it starts back up. He starts calling us two, three a day, every day, so we all go every day."

Charles frowned, letting his fingers hover above a pawn as he considered this. "I see." He moved the pawn; it had to be sacrificed, there was no way around it, then faltered as he released it. Meaningless in the grand scheme of things. A sacrifice that had to happen for the greater good. He shifted his weight, pressing his back against the shelf so he could feel the books digging into his spine slightly. He used the touch to grind himself into the present, to keep himself here and looking at that strong jaw, that battered chessboard, those beautiful hands. Two hadn't asked what Charles had done, and Ten hadn't mentioned it again, though they both had to know exactly what had happened.

Charles thought about it each time he glimpsed his reflection, the odd cut beneath his left eye a damning reminder of the session. It didn't fade as quickly as the burnout, seemed to be as resilient as the nightmares, and Charles suspected with a sickening lurch each time he saw it that it would scar, would remind him forever what he had done.

Had they really all killed someone? Even Eleven? Was it Shaw's way of breaking them, making them complicit in the sadistic game he was playing here? None of them could be innocents, after all, not if they were helping him and doing as he said… Charles dropped his hand, touching the copy of War and Peace to my left.

"How often does he call you?" He cleared his throat. "I know he's mostly been focused on me the past two weeks, but you've been here seven years. I can't imagine he has many limits he hasn't pushed and expanded with you. Is he just waiting until you decide to join his side? Or does he still push you?"

"Both." Two shrugged, thinking through his next move as he looked at the chessboard. Charles tried to keep himself in his own mind to avoid cheating, studiously focusing on Two's spoken words rather than his mental processes. "He wants me to join him, thinks eventually I will. He wants it to be voluntary, like Emma, because then I can be his errand boy. But he also tests me. Keep in mind, I've been here since I was thirteen. My power has changed dramatically in that time, and he finds it interesting to see how limits change and powers adapt as we grow older. He changes the stimulus to see if I react the same way now as I did when I was fourteen, if I can take more and how it affects my abilities now, etc. He's a sadistic bastard, but a very thorough scientist. He wants to know everything he can about us." He looked up at me. "Mostly he calls us about once a week or so. Usually it goes down the line; I'm expecting to get called tomorrow. It's fine. It's not always terrible; sometimes it's finesse work, or just simple tests. Sometimes it's blood and screams, but not always. He does also test basics, on occasion. To see if the base changes with time and stress."

Charles pressed his lips together briefly, feeling a sharp stab of discomfort at the thought of Two going into that small, sterile room. He had many times, of course, and he was more than strong enough to take whatever they doled out. But it still bothered him, in a visceral way that he couldn't quite describe but knew exactly the origin of. "Be careful?" He asked, aiming for light nonchalance as he rested his elbows on my knees. "I know you don't need me worrying about you. And I know Shaw wouldn't kill you, he cares too much about you in his fucked-up way. But be careful anyway, if you can."

Two looked back at the board, ears turning pink slightly. He was happy at the idea of Charles worrying about him, pleased and embarrassed, and it was the most adorable thing that Charles had ever seen in his entire life. "I mean, you can worry," he said, resting a finger on his knight as he pretended to think through his next move. "I worried some while you were there constantly. It's not fun for anyone left after."

Charles searched his face, brushing against his mind fondly. "I see," he agreed quietly, then, to lighten the moment, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He nodded to the board with a smile. "I'll take him in a heartbeat."

His finger stilled on the little piece. "You wouldn't. My knight is my favorite, you're too noble to kill a knight. Aren't you British?" He offered Charles a grin, and Charles was helpless to do anything but return it, warmth spreading through his body like alcohol.

"That means I wouldn't kill the queen, my good chap, not the knight."

Two laughed. "But knights are more important. Knights are like… they're supposed to protect everybody, queens just eat and get fat while their people starve. You'd probably be one of those knights if we lived back then, you're so worried about goodness and morals and nobility." He snorted. "Morals. As if we need them."

"Mm. While you're one of those knights now?" Charles tilted his head, smiling at him. "Keeping Eleven and Ten safe, force-feeding me crackers and checking in with me every night?" He leaned forward, placing his fingers over Two's and guiding his knight slowly to a different spot on the board. He didn't know why, although it was a good move strategically for Two to try in the game, but primarily he just wanted an excuse to finally, finally touch him again, when he wasn't have a panic attack and could enjoy it.

Two didn't move his hand away from under Charles', searching his face. He was thrown off by this assessment, by this view of himself, by this touch. He didn't think of the things he did for other people as taking care of them, Charles realized in mild wonder- he saw it as ensuring they took care of themselves. He never put it on what he had done.

Two's imagination strayed into kissing Charles again, and he flushed slightly. Charles had never been close enough to really see it before, but it made the green of his eyes so much brighter. "I never wanted to be a knight," Two said, belatedly.

"And I never wanted to read minds," Charles noted, his eyes dropping to Two's mouth, his fingers still not raising from where they were twined with Two's fingers. "You don't always get to choose who you are."

Two's lips quirked into a smile, and after an endless moment of near-painful deliberation about how bad of an idea this was, Charles saw the decision solidify. "Tell me if you don't like it," he said, and leaned forward, pressing his lips to Charles' as he buried a hand in Charles' hair. The world dissolved into sparks of fire and electricity and Charles caught his shoulders, pulling him closer. He was dimly aware that he was knocking over the chessboard, that he in fact would have won the game, but that was a vague fact, of literal no importance.

"Erik," he breathed against his lips, crumpling his shirt in his hands, the name falling from him on a rush of air. The name came like a blessing, a rush of thought and memory and identity at the surface of the other boy's mind, and Charles couldn't have missed it if he had tried. Erik, his name was Erik and it was the most beautiful name Charles had ever vocalized, Erik with a 'k.' Not Two, but Erik, the name of a knight, the name of a metallokinetic, the name of the boy under his hands.

He hadn't given it to Charles, so they couldn't punish him for Charles knowing it. Charles decided in that moment that he wouldn't give him his own name, wouldn't risk it, but he knew Erik's name now, could feel it carving itself into his lungs and his heart and his bones as Two-no, Erik- let out a happy, harsh breath at the sound of his name.

His name was Erik, and Charles would never be able to forget it so long as he lived. Erik, whose mind was more intense, more bright, more complex, more compelling than anyone he had ever seen. Erik, who tasted like coffee and hazelnuts and warmth and Erik, who grabbed Charles' body like it was a lifeline at the vocalization of his name.

Erik that's my name no one has called me Erik in so long, god you're so beautiful- his thoughts were chaotic, but a kind of warm chaos that wasn't in the slightest bit off putting, but instead intoxicating. He lifted Charles over the abandoned chessboard, pulling him into his lap so they were flush against each other as he kissed down Charles' jawline and nipped at his neck, murmuring something in what sounded like German. Charles lost the small thread of concentration he had managed to maintain, losing the possibility of translating the words from Erik's thoughts, and made a low noise, feeling his head tilt back. Holy fuck no wonder all his classmates at uni could think about was their last hookup or their next one or that body in the bar because Jesus Christ.

And he was aware that he was probably projecting, his thoughts and feelings probably spilling over into Erik's mind as chaotically as his were with Charles', but he couldn't bring himself to focus on shields and boundaries right now, too distracted with the fact that if he angled his head just to the right, he could catch Erik's lips and bite the lower one.

Erik genuinely growled when he did so and pushed him down to the thick rug, kissing him hard, his hand pulling Charles' shirt untucked and his fingers skimming along his ribs.

Then he stopped, his mind clearing slightly, and pulled back a little as dismay and fear flickered through him. "I don't want Shaw to hurt you," he said, breathing hard as he looked down at Charles, propping himself up on one elbow. If he sees we're together...

"Yeah, he's aggressively and unhealthily possessive of you." The words weren't as important as they once may have been, Charles' eyes too busy tracking the line of his throat as he leaned up, kissing it slowly. He could feel him swallow under his lips and grinned against his skin. "Your point? He's going to torture us either way."

Erik grumbled unhappily, but wound the fingers of his free hand through Charles' hair, leaning down and kissing him again as he let his weight rest down on him more. Charles could tell from his thoughts that he wasn't happy about the idea of what might happen if they found out that they were doing this… but those thoughts were quickly drowned by sensation as he got caught up in kissing Charles and mapping his ribs, chest and stomach with his fingers.

Charles had never felt anything so good, so intense, so intimate. The world burned hotter around them, but Charles' mind flickered back to that dismay and fear, the core of which had been so strong. Erik didn't want to do this, not right now, not right here, he was just a nineteen year-old boy who was getting caught up in the sensation and intensity of the make-out and if they continued and something happened, Erik could regret that-

And so Charles pulled back, dropping back to lay on the floor. "Fuck," he breathed, shutting his eyes. "Okay. Okay, stop." He flattened his hand over Erik's, opening his eyes and searching those pine-green ones as Erik froze immediately. "No, it was absolutely wonderful, don't look like that," Charles said quickly, leaning back up and pressing a quick, chaste kiss to Erik's lips. "It was fantastic, in fact, but… We'll wait for a bit. I don't want you to regret anything, Erik. Decide if you want to risk this." Charles kissed the corner of his mouth in light apology. "And then we'll pick it up later if you do want to."

Erik searched Charles' face, scenarios running through his mind, then closed his eyes, letting his head drop down to rest against that of Charles. "You might be too important to risk," he whispered, curling his hand around Charles' hip. "But I'm not… I want this. Read me, don't think for a second I don't." He opened his eyes, looking down at him and resting a hand on his face. He gave Charles a small smile. "We will kill Shaw, and then we'll pick it back up," he said after a moment, his thoughts full of regret and helpless anger and affection for Charles. "Dammit. I really am going to kill him now," he tried to tease, attempting to lighten the mood, and Charles laughed, relaxing back into the floor with a grin.

"I don't think I believe in killing," he said reflectively, lightly, but it was far, far too close, skirting the edge of a body hitting the ground with that horrible hollow sound, so he added as Erik rolled over slightly to sit beside him, "It was quite a marvelous first kiss, though."

"You've never…?" Erik looked down at him in surprise, his thoughts ringing with musings about how attractive he found Charles and how unlikely this was, and Charles let out a laugh.

"I was a gangly and very unattractive youth," he informed him, as if he were older than seventeen now, "And I was a fifteen year-old graduating high school. My peers didn't exactly find that normal or attractive. And now I'm at Oxford, which is so unbelievably lovely, but the eighteen year-olds and up there hardly want to date a minor who falls asleep because he just can't stop reading that journal article about genetic theory." Charles grinned at Erik as the older boy snorted in disdain, but fondness rang through him regardless. He liked that Charles was academic, liked their conversations and listening to him wax poetic about everything under the sun. "And I've been far too busy, honestly, to care about any of that. There were attractive lads and ladies here and there, but they were hardly interested and their minds were all so… mundane, besides. Not like yours." He reached over, running a hand through Erik's hair lightly and fixing it slightly so it looked less disheveled.

Erik smiled at him. "It's because you went to school in Britain," he said wisely. "If you'd gone to Heidelberg, you'd have people like me all over. Germans are just more interesting."

Charles let out a shout of laughter, grinning up at the ceiling. "Is that it? Such a shame my trip to Germany was cancelled due to kidnapping, then. Imagine all the… stimulation I could be having. Mental, of course, strictly mental."

Erik laughed and rolled over to lay on his stomach, smiling down at Charles. "Well lucky for me you didn't," he said cheerfully, then reached out and tucked hair behind Charles' ear. "I'm sorry he found you and you're stuck here with me," he said quietly, sobering slightly. "But I'm glad to have met you anyway. Even under these unfortunate circumstances."

"I've been in worse places," Charles volunteered, catching Erik's fingers and rubbing his thumb over them slowly. "I mean it, you know. You have the most beautiful mind I've ever seen. It's like…" he searched for a comparison that might resonate with Erik, then, "Liquid mercury. Just… malleable and bright and strong and a little poisonous and so, so, so desperately beautiful. Like you could just sink into it."

Erik flushed a little again, ears burning, but smiled and leaned down, kissing Charles' eyebrow. He was pleased and a little embarrassed, but mostly just pleased and happy. "Well, I should keep you away from German boys," he said, then grinned a little. "And Mercury. That is poisonous and you'd get distracted playing with it." He pulled the chessboard toward them, gathering up the pieces with his free hand and leaving the fingers of his other hand twined with Charles'. "Do you want to play again? I was winning, you were just cheating."

"You wish," Charles scoffed, helping to set the board up again. But he knew with certainty in this moment, as he had from the first moment he had seen Erik's wary eyes and brilliant mind carefully shielded, that he was falling in love with him. He had never had a chance, and every day, like a pool of liquid mercury, he just sank deeper into it.

It wasn't such a bad way to go if it was what killed him, Charles reflected, making the first move on the board.