Bit shorter than usual, because I've decided that I'd rather update more often than have long chapters. I tend to update faster on LJ because of the character limits, and generally it's twice as fast there as here. Not today! I feel like you deserve the faster updates, because your reviews really help me keep going. Really! I read them all more than once, because they're that amazing and inspiring, and I keep coming back to them every time I feel my endurance flagging.
This chapter sort of breaks my heart a little, which is saying something since for the most part I'm not affected by my own writing. Even beating Charles up in "Waiting Games" didn't make me feel as sorry for him as I do here. Something good happens in this chapter too though!
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xiv.
True to his word, Erik brought a chess set that evening. However, he stayed long enough only to exchange a few rounds with Charles before excusing himself, claiming an early morning and a full schedule for the next several days. Charles studied the board for a long time after Erik left, until the black and white checkers blurred into an indistinct gray and he decided it was time to go to sleep.
The next day was a dull blur. Charles tried turning on the radio, but the songs were all the same ones that had played four years ago, and were frequently interrupted by bursts of static. He called Beth four times until he sensed her tightly-wound frustration at being continually interrupted, and Charles worried that if he kept calling her she might not come for a genuine emergency. He reasoned that she had not been a very interesting conversationalist anyway.
All of this took place before noon, and the rest of the day stretched before him like a cat staring malevolently out from its master's favorite armchair.
The books were as dull as before, but Charles attempted to read Plato, since it had made a favorable impression upon his younger self. He now found it to be a rather uninteresting statement of things he could have guessed for himself coupled with outright falsehoods, and despite his every attempt to soldier on through it, it was only one o' clock when he set it down. Trying to write down a journal resulted in only a number of scratched-out introductions and a half hour of successfully wasted time.
Charles realized, with a start, that he had not used his voice for hours, and had a sudden and extremely irrational fear that the silence had stolen it for good when he opened his mouth and, for a moment, couldn't speak; then the words came, loud and senseless without an audience, and he felt embarrassed for the moment of panic.
After all, it was only one day.
With every other option exhausted and his mind idle, Charles began, inevitably, to imagine being kissed by Erik. The only information he had to go on was his five-year-old memory of what amounted to a peck on the lips, but while he was sure that kissing a man would be different from kissing a woman, he had an extensive library of such occurrences to draw from.
He imagined Erik's hands in his hair, angling his face up to meet—stubble? No, Erik was always clean-shaven; could probably shave while using his hands for some other task. He would be controlling, certainly, but Charles didn't know enough about Erik's rather barren love life to guess whether he'd be rough or gentle. He pictured both scenarios: teeth knocking against his, scraping his lips in a frenzied rush; or slow, sensual, with large hands sweeping along the curve of his neck and trailing down his chest.
Charles expected to feel disgust. Certainly he felt a twist in his gut, and it wasn't a comfortable feeling, but it was—what? Dread, nervousness, anxiety, embarrassment; and then of course there was the lingering bitterness over being used, but… Not disgust.
Charles decided that this was probably because Erik, while lacking in certain areas necessary for Charles' interest—most of them, admittedly, around his chest—was not himself objectionable. He was clean, fit, intelligent; from many people's point of view, not a bad catch. Perhaps most importantly, with the way the world was currently, he was safe.
This is absurd, Charles thought. Here he was, rationalizing that being coerced into sexual relations with the person responsible for the largest extinction event since the end of the Mesozoic might be acceptable simply because the idea itself didn't make him sick.
You're giving up, Charles, he accused himself. You're giving up and nothing's even happened yet.
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xv.
After spending all afternoon thinking about it, Charles half expected to be jumped by Erik the moment he came through the door. He wasn't, of course, and nothing unusual occurred that evening; Erik preformed the Ritual of the Feet, which was as eventful as always, then exchanged another few rounds of chess, humming absently at Charles' suggestions that he might like more to do during the day.
All too soon, Charles was again faced with the silence of his rooms, and when he went to bed it was more to escape awareness than because he felt tired.
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xvi.
The next day was worse. With the exception of attempting to converse with Beth, Charles tried everything he had the day prior to even less success. He even kept the radio on, despite the fact that it kept fizzing out during important parts of the songs. Charles attempted to fill in the gaps from memory, but he just couldn't remember the words, or even many of the melodies.
Eventually he found himself motionless, staring out the window nearly unblinkingly, watching the movements of those below; looking for familiar faces. After a while he noticed that the radio had stopped playing songs entirely, and had been filling the air with static for some unknowable duration.
That night, Erik was less talkative than usual, and spent much of his visit staring at the board silently. Charles attempted to draw him into conversation, but he had done nothing, and had nothing to say.
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xvii.
Charles began to feel as if he'd done something wrong, and the more he considered it, the more he felt that it was probably his continuing lack of response to the cell culture he'd been injected with six days prior.
But that's ridiculous, he thought to himself, even as he willed his legs to move. It's supposed to take a week.
Still, that night, he couldn't help but notice that Erik frowned as he ran the metal rod down the soles of Charles' feet; that he had begun to refer to if the cure worked, rather than when.
"I thought I felt something that time," Charles muttered, and the lie sat heavy and humiliating between the two of them. Erik, thankfully, pretended that he hadn't said anything.
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xviii.
…I can't survive this, I'm going to give in, this is torture, this is inhumane...
But of course it was only silence, and men had endured far worse for far longer.
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xix.
It took a week exactly.
Erik had been talking about Africa, about how many of the more arid regions had, strangely, reverted to nearly tropical conditions due to an odd combination of altered ocean currents, precipitation caused by the ash in the atmosphere, and cooler weather.
"I've arranged a study to determine whether these effects will be permanent, and if it would be worth it to establish a base in Namibia," Erik said, and then, abruptly, stopped.
Charles' knee had jumped beneath the weight of his hand.
They both stared, for a while, before Charles looked back up to see a cautious smile flirting with Erik's face. "I felt that," Charles declared, almost unable to believe it.
Erik touched the rod to Charles' other foot, and this time the movement was more noticeable and the feeling more tangible, although it was nonetheless very general and faint. Even still, it was more than Charles had felt from that part of himself in five years, and for a moment, he couldn't breathe as they both watched his toes, expectantly.
Finally he exhaled. "I can't move them," he admitted, disappointed despite the success.
Erik nodded, running his fingers over Charles' ankles, tucking his feet into the pair of black slippers Charles had taken to wearing and now realized, belatedly, that he could feel. "It will take time," Erik assured him, controlling his expression carefully. "Your spine is only just starting to transmit signal again. This… This is a big step. This is good. You're recovering faster than predicted."
Erik tucked his legs back down onto the chair, and Charles felt a flare of frustration that his legs, so close to being freed, must once again be trapped. He wanted to say something—finally had something to say—but he didn't know where to begin.
Clearing his throat, Erik shifted on the couch. "I had thought that after, if the cure worked… You might like to see Mystique. Tell her the good news yourself."
"I would, yes," Charles replied, and the words felt almost mechanical; too regular, too empty of any one of the emotions currently running circles through his brain.
The other man appeared to be uncomfortable on the couch, and stood. "Charles, I…" He paused, looking down at the floor, and no further speech seemed to be forthcoming.
His throat felt dry, ready to crumble, but Charles forced himself to ask, "Yes, Erik?"
"I…" Erik began again, his eyes too bright, too dark, and then he bent down, leaning one hand on the arm of the chair, and Charles had an absurd moment to think are my brakes down? before Erik's other hand wove into his hair and Erik's mouth was against his, urgent and wet and with the helmet complicating things by digging into his face and it was too much—
—Charles broke the kiss and, corralled by the hand in his hair, tucked his nose against Erik's throat and breathed, "Erik, I can't, I don't, I can't…"
Erik pressed them together in an awkward one-armed hug, his hand sliding down to the back of Charles' neck. Then he drew away, just far enough to look into Charles' eyes as he brought his other hand up to cradle the telepath's cheek. "I know," he murmured back.
Charles could see that he did know; could tell, in a moment of clarity that made him wonder whether it was his telepathy and not his legs that was working again, that Erik knew exactly what he was doing, and that made it easier.
It made it easier, when Erik leant into him again, to give no resistance; to let Erik kiss him with the careful reassurance he wouldn't express through words; to relax into the hands holding his face steady, Erik's thumbs shielding him from the edges of the helmet. To, when prompted, allow Erik's tongue to run along the insides of his teeth, and even to respond.
It was easy, and tomorrow, Charles knew, he would see Raven.
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