Thank you all for your lovely reviews! I had some questions about whether the "cure" was going to work, and since I had planned to answer that this chapter but, well, didn't quite make it that far… Let's just say that everything I write in this (except for specific timeframes) is based on real science, and real science takes time.
That said, um, I did warn you that this wasn't a happy story, so, uh, I can't be held accountable for any broken hearts? *flees*
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xi.
The memory came to him in sudden, astonishing detail, as if it had been waiting for that moment to pounce.
Wearing their new suits for the first time, ready to fly to Cuba, unaware, for the moment, of what had happened to Hank—Erik and Charles had lingered after the students in the lab, the other man fidgeting in his leather, Charles grinning.
"I look ridiculous," Erik had grumbled, brushing his hands over his thighs in a covert attempt to retrieve the suit from where it seemed intent on migrating.
But Charles—standing not tall exactly, but standing, on legs he hadn't yet learned not to take for granted—had thought they looked brilliant, all of them, in their sharp contrasting colors. He'd clapped Erik on the arm to distract the man from tugging at his suit buckles.
"You look good, Erik," Charles assured him, "We're lucky we didn't lose Hank to Paris."
Erik had stopped what he was doing, self-conscious of his self-consciousness, and smiled back, crookedly. "You're not just saying that?" he asked, dark humor masking his sincere interest. He could, of course, probably still kill people while butt-naked and painted blue, but he had some measure of pride as well.
Charles had swayed into Erik to bump against his shoulder, chuckling; Erik's hand caught onto his arm in reply. "You look more than all right, my friend," he insisted, and Erik's eyes were so startled and bright, the green in them caught by the laboratory lights, his mind such a fine point of contentment and anxiety—
—That Charles really shouldn't have been surprised when Erik glanced around to check that the students were gone; when his hand moved from Charles' shoulder up to the telepath's cheek; when he closed that last bit of space between them and pressed his lips to Charles' in a closed-mouthed but emphatic kiss, unhurried but not lingering, the tips of his fingers digging in behind Charles' jaw.
Then Erik had pulled away, a pleased smirk warring with stark terror for control of his face, and Charles had searched his eyes and mind desperately for some clue that maybe this was just something that people from the continent did, just another one of those peculiar mainland European oddities where it was normal for one male friend to kiss another and—no.
Erik was in love with him.
Erik was in love with him, and Erik—who had not yet committed genocide, who still believed in that place between rage and serenity—deserved more than "it's not you, it's me." Deserved to be unremittingly happy, and loved.
And so, with a shaky smile, still feeling the damp of Erik's mouth evaporating cold on his skin, Charles had given Erik's arm one last palsied squeeze and began, warmly, "Erik, my dear friend…"
Then Moira had ducked into the lab and asked, incredulously, what they were waiting around for, and weren't they all supposed to be in a hurry, so Charles had promised Erik, "After; we'll talk after."
But there had never been an "after," and in hindsight, if Charles could have changed—
Well, he would have changed a lot of things.
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xii.
The ghost of a triumphant smiled passed over Erik's face, and Charles wished suddenly that he hadn't torn out the loose string, because knotting it between his fingers was a poor substitute for plucking at it. "Er. That is. I had more pressing—uh—important things on my mind," Charles added, after a too-long pause, and Erik's smile became more substantial.
He didn't act on it, however, not yet; Erik would take that information, store it away, and bring in out again for later use. For now, he merely lowered himself down onto the couch, something Charles now knew as the signal that he should move himself so that Erik could perform the ritual of the steel rod.
"We think we'll be able to clone genes soon," Erik informed him as he set to work, his words allowing Charles to finally breathe freely.
"Oh?" The geneticist tried not to let his jealousy show. With enough copies of a given gene, isolated from the genetic soup of its host, they'd be able to study the expression of sequences Charles, in his years of study, could only guess at.
"Yes, we've found that bacteriophages cut the DNA of E. coli in very specific places in order to insert their own genes. If we could duplicate that, we could insert any sequence we wanted into a bacterial cell and let that cell do the work of making copies for us." There was no change in the ritual, but instead of replacing Charles' socks and tucking his legs down again, Erik held the telepath's feet cradled in his lap, gently kneading the unresponsive flesh with his thumbs.
"Is that so?" Charles asked, somewhat coldly.
Erik glanced up, his eyes creased with fondness. "In time, Charles; in time. There are still plenty of discoveries for you to make."
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xiii.
Charles hadn't bothered with alarm clocks in a long time—he never had anything urgent to do anymore—but he found it hard to sleep in an unfamiliar bed in a strange room, so he was already in his chair, a thick robe shrugged over his bare shoulders and bunched over his boxers, when his assistant arrived that morning.
He looked away from the chill gray courtyard back into the golden glow of his suite, and felt instantly at ease as Beth's unobtrusive thoughts washed into his. "What are you doing here so early?" he asked, curious. Beth, he knew with a surety he rarely felt these days, would not hurt him even if she'd hated him.
"Breakfast," she replied, but she had brought no food.
"Ah," Charles agreed, nodding. "With Erik." He felt the same twinge of uncertainty and nervousness he felt every time he thought about talking to Erik after the night before, but Beth didn't know anything about the breakfast other than that there would food.
She left him to the shower, where he sat on a built-in shelf and scrubbed himself down—one point of pride Charles refused to give up, even though it took a long time and hot water was a luxury—and when he got out she'd arranged clothes for him; some of the new ones that Erik had provided.
Before she helped him get fully dressed, however, Charles lay back on the bed and allowed Beth to stretch his legs, rotating and pulling them in every direction as he stared resolutely at the ceiling. This was another ritual, one that he had endured for all four years of his internment; his assistant, he knew, didn't think anything of it, but it galled Charles to watch such an obvious display of his inabilities. If the cure worked, at least, Charles wouldn't have to deal with the pain of tightened tendons because he would be as limber as a twelve-year-old girl.
Finally he was dressed and presentable, wearing a loose brown suit, his hair brushed from his eyes, and his legs neatly perpendicular to the lines of the chair. Charles thought it was all maybe a little formal for breakfast, but then again Erik was the supreme ruler of the world now, or near enough like.
Beth moved to take the handles of Charles' chair, and he waved her off with a slight smile. "I know where to go, it's all right." So she walked behind him as he followed the path in her mind, coasting over the smooth, even floors past occasional guards, all of them as blank and empty as suits of armor.
The room was not a banquet hall, which came as some surprise to Charles; he had expected something large and grand, with some sort of really long table so that he'd have to crane his neck just to look across. Beth had never been inside, so when he opened the door they were seeing it new, for the first time.
Windows. The windows were all that Charles could see, for a moment, as he sat transfixed by the frame-faceted landscape of the New York countryside beyond. This was no mere view into the courtyard, or of tamed and groomed grounds; these were mountains, unlike the sharp peaks of Canada in their time-softened roundness, shrouded in forest.
"I thought you might be feeling a bit cooped up," Erik's voice said, and Charles noticed him finally, sitting at a small table below the wall of windows. He occupied the chair as if he not only owned it, but that perhaps, when he sat down, the chair sprang into being simply so that he would not be inconvenienced. It did not, however, prevent him from looking absurd and out of place, his red costume and helmet jewel-bright against the drab (but so, so spacious) world outside.
The other side of the table was conspicuously empty, and Charles moved to take that space. "I have to wonder sometimes, Erik, whether you brought me here just to prove to me that you could find a better mansion than mine."
Erik's little disbelieving chuckle convinced, rather than dissuaded, Charles that this was at least partially the case. "You can't believe that I genuinely want you by my side?"
Charles, who had been re-adjusting the wheels of his chair so that he was just the right distance away, paused. "Yes," he admitted finally. "I believe that you're also trying to prove that your side is better than mine."
"Clearly I need to locate my chess set," Erik mused. "I'm starting to realize that the board and pieces were really only insulation from your wit." He raised the fingers of one gloved hand absently, and Charles realized with a start that they weren't alone; being surrounded by people he couldn't read was like being surrounded by dim paper silhouettes that occasionally moved, and one of those person-shapes had just nodded and left through a side door.
Erik watched the man go, then turned his attention back to Charles and leaned forward. "I do really want you to stand next to me, Charles; or even sit, if that's the case. I want you at my right hand when we write the words that will bring order back to the world."
Charles huffed and looked away from Erik's earnest gaze, down into the lacy threads of the tablecloth. He traced his finger over a spot in the pattern that looked smoother than the others. "Then I think you'll find that fewer ears will listen to you."
The other man tilted his head, the movement exaggerated by the shape of his helmet. "How do you mean?"
"Your Brotherhood, as you say—and by the way, I saw quite a lot of women there as well—think little enough of me when I'm simply in the room. I imagine they'll be much less open to the idea that I might be in a position of power."
Erik seemed about to grin, as if perhaps Charles was joking, before his lips smoothed into a line of concern. "You think that they think less of you…? Why?"
Charles shrugged and glanced down at his legs ruefully before staring out between the panels of the window.
He was shocked to feel a hand touch his, stopping his fingers from their obsessive lace-stroking. Erik's gloves were warm and rough, and Charles looked back up at him to see that his expression was deadly serious.
"They're nervous around you, my old friend, but not because of—of some mistake. They fear you because you're Charles Xavier, and for an entire year, almost single-handedly, you made our every attempt at war look like a child's tantrum," Erik explained firmly, and then lowered his voice to add, "Seeing you by my side, they won't be thinking of you as weak or frail. They'll be admiring me, because I dare to be near you."
Charles slid his hand out from under Erik's and used it to push his chair back from the table slightly, as clear a signal he could make without actually saying anything. Erik let him, scrutinizing the telepath's posture as he too leaned back.
"This isn't really appropriate conversation for breakfast, is it?" he admitted, and glanced around. "Speaking of—"
Erik hadn't warned him, and the thoughts of the cook were like a bucket of scalding hot water being poured over his head; sudden, startling, overwhelming in its intensity. Charles couldn't help the small noise he made in his throat, saw Erik look over at the sound, smiling from the corner of his eye—the telepath felt a deep stab of resentment, even as some sort of pathetic gratitude bubbled up around it, seizing upon the fresh, unfamiliar taste of a new mind.
The cook was just an ordinary person—well, mutant—but how he was ordinary! He hadn't got enough sleep the night before; he hadn't stayed in a relationship with a woman for longer than a month in over six years; he loved to use cinnamon in everything, from hot chocolate to bacon. He was extraordinary, in his own ways.
He was also aware of—and Charles had to glance over at Erik to see if he suspected—a number of people spread throughout the mansion who were quietly anti-extinction insurrectionists.
Charles thanked him for the omelette and coffee set before him, observing as a plate of buttered toast and a carafe of orange juice separated the table into halves. Utensils rapidly found their way to either side of his plate, and an empty glass landed near his knife. Then the cook retreated to a further corner of the room to wait.
"Well, this is all very opulent," Charles remarked dryly, his hands still spread away from the table.
"Thank you," Erik replied, claiming some of the toast.
Charles sipped at his coffee silently, cutting into the omelette. It contained mushrooms, which he did not care for, but while mutants didn't suffer terribly from the haze of radiation spilled from countless ruptured power plants, chickens were somewhat more susceptible, so he didn't complain.
Erik was still talking, of course, about maybe getting Charles something a little more striking to wear, or what projects he might find interesting in the labs if at some point he could go there, and Erik's enthusiasm did not seem to be hampered by Charles' monosyllabic responses.
As Charles watched Erik take it upon himself to pour Charles a glass of orange juice—as if he could just walk into the supermarket and grab more off the shelf—and as he offered salt and pepper and more toast and cream for his coffee, Charles began to come to a grim realization, and he was so sure of its truth that he wondered if perhaps his powers included seeing into the future.
He was probably going to end up having sex with Erik. Not right then, of course, and probably not for a while, but Charles knew the matter was going to come up eventually, and that when it did, he would, and almost certainly not be because Erik forced him to. Erik had changed, and had done terrible things, but Charles didn't think he'd changed that much.
No, it would happen because Erik, damn him, was the only person who could provide Charles with the things he needed to make life bearable, and if Charles had to choose between living forever in dull solitude or occasionally having sex with his mass-murdering former (and male) best friend, well, he knew himself well enough and honestly enough to guess which choice he'd make.
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