Chapter 11! By the way, have I mentioned that I've never written anything remotely sexual before this story? No? Well, let me say now, I haven't! Still, I tried to go for something a bit unique here, and thank FSM for my beta idioticonion for encouraging me to go ahead with it! Anyway, the story Charles tells in this is true, and is based on my own experiences on field study in Yellowstone.
Finally, happy birthday, Elelith! I hope this is an adequate present. :)
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xxxix.
"I say we should just bomb them," Zeus declared, thumping his fist on the thick oak table. "Boom, problem solved."
Skink licked his lips in a flicker of movement. "We can't just use nuclear weapons against villages, unprovoked," he cautioned. "Perhaps you forgot, but we need those villages for our own people."
Zeus scoffed and rolled back into his chair. "How is this unprovoked? If the resistance is going to raid our supply lines when we're already sending their little darlings aid, then damn straight it's provoked. Besides, I didn't say we should use big bombs; just, y'know, little ones, to get a little bit of that radiation going. I hear Splinter has a couple ferreted away somewhere."
Splinter's arms remained crossed, and the tall head of state security didn't respond except to fix his inscrutable regard on the other mutant. Charles, due to his gift, was one of a small number of people who knew for certain whether or not the man could speak; indeed he did, but only to a select handful of people, Erik among them. He evidently did not consider replying to Zeus a worthwhile conversation.
Splinter's mutation seemed insignificant at first glance; his sole ability was that he could throw miniscule particles of matter at relativistic speeds. Nonetheless, this made Charles glad that he was one of those few truly loyal Brotherhood members; the telepath guessed that not even Erik's power could stop something moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and with enough kinetic energy even a poppy seed could kill.
Charles did not care to dwell on the mutant—his mind was slick and dark like a midnight murder, and anyway Emma Frost was in there too—so instead he watched Erik's show, studying the Brotherhood leader's profile as the man listened intently. There was fatigue tucked away into the corners of Erik's face, around his mouth and nose and in the skin beneath his eyes, and Charles would have bet that there were white hairs beneath that lurid helmet.
He tried not to think about his promise to Erik, about those hands ungloved and against his skin and—surprisingly—he had some measure of success. The man who sat next to Charles now, on those occasions when he did glance over, seemed as if he might have never touched Charles; had never kissed him, or read him anything that wasn't written in the form of a report. It was strange to see someone so different in Erik's chair, and Charles wasn't sure how to react to that person.
"You're absolutely mad," Skink was at that moment accusing Zeus. "Your first solution to everything is the nuclear option. Whatever happened to diplomacy and moderation?"
Zeus drew breath to respond but it was Infrared who spoke. "Boys, boys; now, neither of you are well enough endowed for any of us to get a kick out of watching you wave it around, so why don't you can it and give someone else a chance to talk?"
While Zeus furrowed his shaggy eyebrows, lips moving silently as he repeated Infrared's words slowly back to himself, Skink adjusted his spectacles and laced his fingers together on the table. "Well, then, Ms. Infrared, if you would care to share your opinion? I'm sure it is eminently reasonable."
Infrared swung her gaze pointedly to Emma, who perched delicately in the chair next to her. They were a sharp contrast to each other: Emma pale and delicate as spun crystal, Infrared dark and sharp and there like pitchblende. It seemed only logical that they would pair together, polar opposites bound together by their shared disdain for the world.
Emma tilted her head in a mocking imitation of shyness, and smiled sweetly. "I think that if we're having problems with the resistance, we should ask our local expert."
Charles waited for that person to speak up until he realized that Emma was staring at him, as was everyone else. Caught off guard, he fumbled; "I haven't a clue," he said. "The last time I had any contact with the resistance was four years ago."
Zeus laughed, short and derisive. "Well then what's the point of you being here? I thought Magneto was keeping you around because you know stuff, not so you could be his pet telepath."
Looking around at Erik to for help, or to perhaps speak up in his defense, Charles instead found that the Brotherhood leader was watching him with wordless appraisal, expression carefully guarded except for just the slightest tinge of humor: waiting to see whether the telepath would sink or swim. Erik was, after all, the same man who had pushed a teenager off a satellite dish in order to teach him to fly.
"Actions do speak louder than words," Charles mused slowly, pulling his attention away from Erik. Perhaps if he spoke for long enough, something would occur to him. Maybe he could even get away with being vague. "So far you've only said that humans will be re-integrated into society. You need to actually pass laws showing that they will. The anti-extinctionists are reasonable; many of them will back off if they think you're listening."
"What do you propose?" Erik asked, voice soft but carrying; it was the same tone he used to question his followers.
Meeting Erik's gaze, Charles felt his throat tighten, because Erik wasn't looking at him like he was a friend, or a stranger, or even an enemy. Instead, it was a patently Magneto look, one that suggested he and Charles were… Alike. Comrades, even. Brothers. The telepath could see why young mutants fell so easily for Magneto's ideals.
Charles cleared his throat, wishing that his power also allowed him to think faster. "Perhaps you could found a city where humans and mutants can live together, as equals. Call it a new city for a new world. In the mountains, maybe; it could be symbolic of—" Charles kept his face carefully straight— "rising above hardship."
There was a long period of silence that Charles hoped could be described as contemplative, while at the same time he dreaded being taken seriously; then Skink cleared his throat. "That would be prohibitively expensive," he declared, and Charles tried not to be disappointed that it hadn't been Erik who replied. The telepath sank back into grateful silence and let the Brotherhood members debate the feasibility and worthiness of his idea. He wanted to care, to take a more proactive role, but Charles was too tired, too confused; he wished that the evening would come faster so that he could get it over with sooner.
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xl.
Badger raised her eyebrows at the necklace but otherwise did not remark on it; Charles suspected that she had simply filed it away into the same category she placed all of the other things about Charles that bewildered and dismayed her soldierly sensibilities.
She stopped Charles before he could get onto the table where he usually went through his exercises. "Not today," she explained with an evil sort of relish. "Today you get a special treat." Badger gestured toward something that had always made Charles wonder, just a little bit, whether someone came in at night to practice gymnastics, although of course he knew its real purpose. It was a pair of parallel steel rails, just wide enough and tall enough for a person to stagger along between.
Charles brushed his hair out of his eyes even though it had not, in fact, been hanging down into them. "Isn't it a bit… Soon?" He flexed his legs in the chair and they informed him that they definitely didn't feel up to the task.
Badger chewed on one of her nails. "Don't play coy with me, buck; I know you've been using your free time to practice standing. Hell, you're like an open book, you know that? Don't ever play poker."
Wincing, Charles refrained from denying his illicit activities and protested, "But aren't there supposed to be steps in between standing and walking?"
"The only step that I see is the one where you stop being a pansy and do it," Badger observed. "So either you get up on those bars, or you wheel on back to your rooms and shut up about not being able to walk, because it'll be your own damn fault."
Charles knew better than to correct Badger on anything regarding politeness, but he was not above casting his eyes skyward as he wheeled past, positioning himself between the rails. They looked like they would be about hip-high to him if he stood; Charles felt some amount of trepidation because he wasn't sure that he wouldn't fall if he tried to pull himself up. Still, he reached for them and was surprised when Badger helped to propel him to his feet with a strength shocking for someone of her height.
"You're not quite that ready," she grunted, as if to deny that she had any desire to help. Nonetheless, Charles had to hide a small smile as Badger's firm grip held him steady on the bars.
Staring down at his feet, Charles felt a sudden wash of vertigo; this wasn't really standing, just as what he was about to do wasn't really walking, but he'd thought… He'd thought there would have been more fanfare. Someone close to him watching, maybe, or some dramatic incident that propelled him to his feet. This seemed very… Anticlimactic.
Well. There was always the moment when he walked on his own. Charles could try to do something special that time; this, perhaps, was merely practice for the future.
Leaning his weight onto one tight-knuckled hand and then the other, Charles shuffled forward a little bit; his feet seemed intent to trip over each other and he had to think about each step, but they were steps, and his legs were still pathetically sticklike but holding.
"Yeah, you think it's easy now," Badger cautioned, keeping slow pace with Charles. "Just wait until your arms crap out; then you'll actually start using your legs."
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When Erik stepped into the room, Charles barely greeted him before moving directly over to the couch; he didn't really want to talk about this, or fumble around awkwardly with pleasantries when they both knew what Erik was there for, and the sooner Erik finished with Charles—so he told himself—the sooner he could start pretending that it would be a one-time occurrence.
In his hurry, however, Charles left the chair just a little farther from the couch than he usually did when he shifted himself over. When he went to stand, Charles' recently abused muscles quivered and gave and there was no way he was going to reach the cushions or get back into the chair, and as he overbalanced and began to fall the telepath's first thought was oh, how embarrassing, followed shortly by this might hurt.
Charles' arm wrenched in its socket, his fall halted; Erik's fingers drove into his bicep where he had caught the geneticist, and he used that grip to haul Charles back up and then lower him carefully onto the couch. Charles hadn't even known the man was standing so close.
"Are you alright?" Erik asked, still holding Charles' arm, but more gently now. The concern on his face was mild, but still more than seemed reasonable considering that Charles had never hit the ground.
"Fine," muttered the telepath, as he straightened the fabric of his pants around the knees. "I just didn't realize how tired I am. I walked today, you know."
Erik's eyebrows sloped gracefully as he sank to the edge of the cushions, sitting almost sideways and with a discreet space between them. "By yourself?"
"Of course; tomorrow I was thinking maybe I'd go for a nice jog," Charles replied. Then he pushed his fingers through his hair and exhaled. "I'm sorry. That was unwarranted."
Chuckling low in his throat, Erik replaced Charles' fingers with his own, cradling the telepath's head. "You're too good for this world, Charles," Erik told him, ignoring the long-suffering stare that earned him.
"That never used to be the case," Charles remarked, the unspoken before you sharper than anything he said aloud.
Erik growled low in his throat and shoved Charles back into the cushions, pinning the telepath there with a hand on his chest. The geneticist forced his tensed muscles to relax and closed his eyes, swallowing spasmodically; this was it, then. He could handle this.
Warm breath caressed Charles' cheek. "Open your eyes," Erik commanded, which only made Charles want to squeeze them more tightly shut. "Don't run away."
Reluctantly, Charles looked at the other man. "You didn't stipulate that I had to be paying attention, Erik." The hand spread over his chest was heavy and immobile, but moved with the in-and-out of his lungs—also, to a lesser degree, with the steady shock of his heart.
Erik's gaze dipped down to Charles' neck—he was still wearing the chain—then back up to his eyes. "Just… Talk about something."
Charles moistened his lips. His mind, when he cast back into it, was perfectly blank. "Like what?"
"Whatever you want," Erik replied, his hand pushing up to frame Charles' throat in the space between his thumb and fingers. The necklace draped out over his wrist. "Your day, science, anything else you think of… I want you here, with me."
"Okay," Charles agreed shakily, glancing away to the opposite wall. His attention caught on a painting, old and browned but with snow-capped mountains clearly visible over a clear lake. "There's—there's a phenomenon called watermelon snow, that occurs in alpine regions where it's cold all year round…"
"Mm," Erik acknowledged, idly unfastening Charles' jacket.
"…But it's in the summer, when the snow's melting back, when it, when the reason for the name becomes clear, because it turns pink or even, even red, sometimes, and smells like… Are you sure you want me to talk?" Charles leaned his head back as Erik's deft fingers went to work at his top shirt button. He sought out the other man's eyes, but Erik was intent on his task.
"Mm," Erik repeated, more firmly this time as the button popped free. "Yes. I'm listening, Charles."
"All right," Charles conceded, looking back to the painting as Erik went to work on the next button. "So, until recently, no one knew why the snow turned red in the mountains—well, any tundra, really, it's been reported on the shores of Greenland too—and they mostly thought that maybe it was from the soil, or blood, or that it fell from the sky with that color, but nobody ever saw red snow falling and it happens over the ice too so it couldn't be the soil, and the idea that it's blood was just—"
Pausing his efforts toward undoing Charles' dress shirt to pluck at the material of the white tee-shirt beneath, a teasing grin parted Erik's lips. "So many layers, Charles."
Charles granted him a swift glare. "It's cold, Erik, and anyway I wasn't going to go out underdressed today just because you might have to take it off later."
Erik's grin softened into a fond smile, and he patted the triangle of exposed undershirt. "Tell me what makes the snow red."
Allowing himself a sigh of irritation, Charles dropped his head back again as Erik returned to his buttons. "Well, one report in the nineteenth century attributed it to meteoric iron, but more recently we discovered that it's actually caused by a species of green algae—green in that they're in the phyletic group of green algae, not that they themselves are green. They have a secondary red pigment in their chloroplasts."
Erik had nearly reached down to the line of Charles' trousers, and he had to stop for a moment to tug the shirt out of the telepath's pants. Charles didn't feel obliged to help, but he curved his back a little to free up the fabric there.
"There's an entire ecosystem at the tops of these mountains, right along the surface of the snow," Charles continued, determined to finish his train of thought regardless of whether the other man was listening—and of course Erik probably was paying attention, even though he didn't look like he was thinking about anything else than the last several inches of Charles' shirt and what lay beneath it. "There are flies that feed on the algae, and spiders that eat the flies, and we didn't know about any of that until this century even though Aristotle wrote about red snow more than a thousand years ago."
"Fascinating," Erik remarked, dropping the edges of Charles' dress shirt to either side of the geneticist's chest. Contemplatively, he spread his hands over the soft cotton covering Charles' belly, his fingers wrapping around to Charles' waist. "Is there a moral to that story?"
"No," Charles replied quietly, breathing shallowly as if to avoid disturbing Erik's hands. "It's just a story. Not even a story, really; more of a bit of history. Sorry."
"Don't be; I enjoyed it." Erik slid his hands down, caught the bottom of the tee-shirt, and his palms pressed flat against Charles' bare sides as his splayed fingers lead the exploration of Charles' skin. The fabric of the undershirt gathered around Erik's wrists, and Charles immediately broke into gooseflesh where his stomach was left exposed—he hadn't exaggerated; it was bloody cold in the room. Then again, he was used to the fireplace in British Columbia.
Charles couldn't bring himself to complain, however; he couldn't speak at all, actually, despite Erik's prohibition of silence. All he could do was watch as Erik devoured the sight of his bare skin, as if even just that little patch above his navel was for some reason worth memorizing. Charles was struck by a sudden, absurd embarrassment: because, well, he'd tried to stay in shape as best he could, but there had only been so much he could do, and why did he care so much about whether Erik liked what he saw anyway?
Erik twisted his wrists to snare the hem of the shirt with his index fingers, pinning it higher up Charles' chest, and ran his thumbs lightly along the line of the telepath's ribs. The other man's hands seemed dark in comparison to Charles, and were coarse with calluses that rasped against his own, much smoother skin. Charles shivered, but at least he could legitimately blame it on the ambient temperature.
Erik's words were rough with reverence as he murmured, "You have the kind of skin that deserves milk and honey."
Charles was immediately indignant; also, a little bit worried. "Please don't do that," he implored. "My skin does perfectly fine when it's not smeared with food."
For a moment, Erik appeared utterly bewildered; then he barked a laugh, shaking his head. "I wasn't going to smear—god, what a dirty mind you have. Besides…" the pitch of his voice dropped again, and Erik ducked down to kiss Charles' belly, then sampled the geneticist's skin with a daub of his tongue. "…You taste fine as you are." Erik's eyes, rising again to meet Charles', creased with amusement. "Although, perhaps honey isn't a bad idea…"
"No," Charles replied, his hands curled into fists at his sides, "that is never going to happen, and if you suggest it, I will throw myself down the stairs."
"Very dramatic," Erik commented dryly, straightening up again. He gathered together both of Charles' shirts and the jacket, businesslike. "But I'll keep that threat in mind in case I'm ever tempted. Arms up."
Charles lifted his arms with a final look of unimpressed disdain—just to show that he was definitely above all this—and Erik pulled his shirts and jacket up over his head all at once. For a stifling, claustrophobic moment, Charles was sure that he was tangled up, trapped in the lightless confines of his own clothing—then he was freed. But of course, he wasn't free; he was still ensnared by simple virtue of being there, nude from the waist up except for the gold chain, icy against his neck because it had come from the outside of his shirt.
Charles tried not to shudder, knowing that he looked pathetic enough without also wrapping his arms around his chest and hunching over for warmth—for once, he wished he had chest hair; if it didn't keep the heat in then it would at least make him seem less boyish, and really that was ridiculous because he was nearly thirty and he had his doctorate.
He stared out at Erik from his tenuous shell of body heat, and there must have been a plea in his eyes because a tiny smile curved Erik's lips and he unfastened his cape, shaking it out over Charles' shoulders and brushing Charles' disheveled fringe back off his forehead. The telepath resisted the urge to pull the cape closed and hide inside; it smelled of Erik—steel and cologne and old wood—was still warm from Erik, and the scarlet lining was surprisingly soft against Charles' skin.
Erik reached an arm under the cape, against the curve of Charles' back, and pulled the geneticist in against himself. In that same movement, he leaned down to capture Charles' mouth with his own, almost violently at first as Charles more-or-less toppled into him. They weren't flush, exactly, because they weren't entirely facing each other, but the red jacket was itchy against Charles' bare chest and punctuated by the scratch of buttons. Charles thought, as he obligingly swept his tongue over Erik's lower lip, that he probably would never look at buttons the same way again, after this; they might even be leaving marks, as far as he knew.
Erik's other hand came to rest on his waist, while at his back Erik skimmed his fingertips down until—Charles gasped against Erik's mouth, arching into him; nobody but himself had touched his scar since he'd regained sensation in his lower body—even then, Charles avoided it—and he discovered now that it had become shockingly sensitive; not quite pain, but too much and Charles had to move, somehow, anywhere, so he clutched his hands in the stiff material of Erik's jacket and pulled as if he could climb up it.
Mercifully, Erik moved on from the spot with a soft noise of amusement, breaking the kiss and tucking his nose into the geneticist's hair as Charles hid his face somewhere in the vicinity of Erik's left clavicle. Now that Erik couldn't see and admonish him for it, he let his eyes fall closed as the other mutant's hands moved up to his shoulders—with a quick detour to readjust the cape—and began to trace the lines of Charles' back; slowly, methodically, categorically. He could almost find it relaxing, with his eyes closed, and Charles recited the names of muscles as Erik found them.
Trapezius, he identified as Erik mapped a symmetrical diamond between his scapulae. Infraspinatus… Deltoid. Charles suspected that Erik thought those words as well; the telepath felt certain that his teres major was not well enough defined to follow by intuition alone, but Erik's fingers brushed over it nonetheless and then swept down the long diagonal of the latissimus dorsi, a muscle broad enough to accommodate the length of Erik's hands as his fingers met in the curve of Charles' lumbar spine and dipped—just a little bit—beneath his trousers.
"Above the belt," Charles mumbled into Erik's jacket, and the vibration of a chuckle did strange things to his stomach.
"Well, I'm not below it, at least," Erik said to Charles' temple, but he withdrew his fingers and grazed them instead over the notch of Charles' waist, light and terribly ticklish and the telepath had to cringe away. It wasn't until Erik touched him there again, however, more deliberately this time, that Charles had to tighten his grip on Erik's jacket until it hurt, and even then the pain wasn't enough to distract from the sudden surge of his heart and the not-quite-uncomfortable tension jolting down his abdomen.
Erik's cape was a bit drafty but this time he definitely couldn't blame it on the chill, because when Erik thoughtfully scraped his nails over the spot once more Charles couldn't quite keep himself from squirming a little and he pressed his mouth into the hollow of Erik's shoulder just in case, and he really didn't want to think about what circumstance might follow those words.
It's only natural, Charles told himself, discovering that now he was breathing in Erik, could smell nothing else but Erik, and that this did nothing to solve any of his problems. You're half-naked against another man's chest, a man who's, who's notentirelyunattractive and who's touching you and you haven't been touched since—since—and it would really be more surprising if you didn't feel some sort of—of reaction—
Then Erik pushed him back into the couch, his fingers tight making bands around the telepath's arms, and this time when Erik kissed him it was like drowning and there was no one out there waiting to jump in and save him. Erik was leaning up on one knee for a better angle as his hands corralled Charles' body; Erik's fingers glanced along his ribs and clavicles, tugging at the gold chain around his neck and tracing around Charles' navel, rough knuckles brushing over the low silhouette of Charles' nipple, and then there was Erik's scent, rich and smooth and male—god, he'd been a fool, hadn't he, thinking he could go through this unaffected, that he could be touched and not feel.
Erik's hand was tangled in his hair, pulling Charles' head back. "Erik, may I—" Charles began, but his breath hitched as the other man's mouth and tongue met his—( sternocleidomastoid, some part of his mind was still babbling)—neck. "Erik may I ask you something?"
"No," Erik rumbled, working his way up to the spot just below Charles' ear and—how did he know about that?—Charles gasped for air and felt like maybe he was going to melt down into the cushions.
"Erik," Charles beseeched—didn't squeak, definitely didn't squeak—and it was to Erik's credit that he immediately pulled away, frowning.
"Is something wrong?" Erik inquired, which was really the most obvious question he could have chosen and Charles hoped his expression conveyed that opinion. It must have, because Erik leaned back against the cushions, wrapped an arm around Charles, and used his nose to push aside the cape on the closer of Charles' shoulders and press his lips to the spur of bone there.
"You're safe here," Erik murmured, and it sounded like he was trying to cast a spell with those words, to make it true through repetition, sealed with another kiss to Charles' shoulder. "You're safe with me."
There was something in Erik's voice that sounded a lot like fear, and that terrified Charles more than anything else. "I don't get it, Erik," he sighed. "I don't know what you want from me, why you don't just hold me down and—" the word stumbled on his lips, harsh and bitter— "and fuck me, if that's what you want, and ow, Erik, that's really not very seductive at all you know."
Erik removed his teeth from Charles' shoulder, pausing to check the divots with the tip of his tongue. "It wasn't supposed to feel good. Stop talking."
Charles met his eyes, searching them for some deeper clue before continuing, "You could do it, you know. I couldn't stop you. I wouldn't stop you; I've even offered, but you don't seem to want that. Why?"
"I don't go to bed on the first date," Erik rumbled stubbornly.
"I've been in your head. You don't go on second dates," Charles stated. "Furthermore, I don't think I can call what you do 'dating.'"
"Good point," the other man agreed, and tried to pull Charles to rest against him. The telepath halted him with a hand.
"That doesn't answer my question," Charles told him. "What are you trying to do? Why all the bargaining?"
Erik glanced down at Charles' bare chest, a small enigmatic smirk on his lips, and tugged the cape back over the telepath. He left his hand beneath, splayed over Charles' stomach. "Maybe I'm not after your body, Charles," he said, and this time Charles did remain silent and Erik seemed content to sit quietly with him. Eventually, Charles could relax again, superficially at least, and he could almost ignore Erik's hands where they still lay on him.
Erik's words were perhaps meant to be reassuring, but Charles found them more worrying that anything else the man could have said. He had very few possessions left, besides his body, and all were things he valued far more than the flesh and bone he inhabited.
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