So this is kind of an important A/N this time: class started again today! I have what is looking to be a very heavy workload—I'm trying to not be here for seven years if it can be avoided—and so I'll probably be going noticeably slower on this from now on, although I will write when I can.
Still! Never fear! I am here, I am working on this, and I am still very eager to show you the end.
Now have some (kind of) porn, and for those of you who also just started school again, good luck and have fun!
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lxii.
"We've so far discovered and suppressed two assassin squads since Friday's broadcast," Infrared reported, "and those were just the ones who were stupid enough to break radio silence. The survivors are with Ms. Frost now; so far it seems each group was operating independently of each other, but there are signs that their memories had been altered prior to reaching us. Ground and air patrols are watching for others; we need to decide whether we'll be sending them farther into the field to catch potential strike teams before they get near, or whether we draw them in closer and keep a tighter net."
Erik shook his head, no more than a twitch against the thoughtful fingers he leaned against his face. In the air above his other hand, a trio of perfect steel spheres orbited lazily; Charles guessed that the metal had not always been that shape. "Splinter's men are there already," he commented. "Keep your forces out; we don't want any of the resistance coming close and signaling back the exact coordinates of our base." This last was said with more amusement than caution, as if such a situation would be more embarrassing than devastating.
Infrared nodded and shot a somewhat alarmed glance toward the silent captain of state security; Charles didn't need to be a telepath to understand that she hadn't even known that the other mutant's people were out among the trees with her own. He couldn't help but reflect that it was a sound strategy; Splinter's organization, which consisted mostly of mutants who had been guaranteed through telepathic screening to be entirely loyal, served the dual purpose of defending both against the resistance and discontent members of their own movement.
As if to prove that point, Zeus crossed his arms and huffed loudly. "So much for peace," he observed. "It's not too late to take my advice and crush these sons of bitches so's they never again so much as say an unkind word against us. Forget all that crap about 'genetic wandering' or whatever; we can beat that too."
Charles raised a perfectly disbelieving eyebrow. "You can't simply fight genetic drift," he told the man, placing a slight emphasis on "drift," "The only way you can fix something like that is by diversifying the gene pool, and the only way you can do that is by having a population that isn't killing itself."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah—genetics and sex and babies and all that," Zeus parroted, waving his hand dismissively. "Whatever. There's a real world outside of your test tubes, you know, and in that world we're wondering what your next brilliant idea for world peace will be."
Charles frowned, then forced an indulgent smile and explained, "My next idea is easy: patience, while we give the old idea time to work."
The electric mutant rolled his eyes. "Oh, easy—sure, easy for you to say, sitting all tidy and comfortable on your ass all day, but some of us have to do work you know—"
"Zeus," Erik warned, reinforcing the name with a meaningful glance. Then he shifted his attention back to the telepath. "Charles? Do you have anything further to add?"
As Zeus burrowed grimly back into his coat, Charles looked around at Erik, feeling guilty almost by proximity. His eyes touched the Brotherhood leader's and then slid away to avoid the strange twist of his stomach; anxiety, he told himself. "Not at this point," Charles admitted.
Erik nodded thoughtfully, as if Charles had just told him something important, then turned back to the table. "Have we got enough information to determine how long repairs to the coastal cities will take?"
They spoke about that for a while, and the consensus seemed better this time around—the damage from the waves was still extraordinary and the Brotherhood couldn't quite use its resources for whatever it chose, but through some brutally efficient consolidation and planning it seemed that they would be able to strategically rebuild some cities while scavenging building materials from the others—New York City sadly numbering amongst the latter, although that had been something of a foregone conclusion given that it had already been essentially condemned before the Atlantic rose up around it.
"The residual radiation would, however, be hazardous to any humans living in your new metropolis," Skink summarized, after the others had spoken their piece.
"It doesn't matter; Legacy will be built using new material," Erik explained, and those Brotherhood members who had not been paying attention before perked up at that.
"Oh, great," Zeus muttered. "At least when it gets destroyed by the cavemen it'll match everything else."
"Your single-minded mulishness is losing its entertainment value," Erik remarked, his deceptively mild tone possibly the reason why the other mutant failed to take the hint and instead scoffed and thumped his large fist onto the table, upsetting his neighbor's pen.
"Well who do you think's going to have to clean up after this mess when it all blows up in our faces? Whose men do you think will be in the line of fire? Did you ask them if they wanted to patrol some dumb city full of humans and traitors?"
"Your militia won't be in charge of policing Legacy," Erik informed him, his steel spheres slowing their rotation slightly as he focused on his subordinate.
"What?" Zeus' hand flattened against the table as he pushed forward in his chair. "But that's the militia's job! Who else would you have do it—that mute asshole's secret police? Yeah, the resistance'll sure love that."
Splinter's eyes glittered back out at him from beneath the brim of his hat, but he otherwise did not react. Erik, on the other hand, let the spheres drop back into his palm and closed his gloved hand around them as he straightened up. "State security won't be handling it either. All peace officers will be paid volunteers from the city."
"Oh, sure, just sign up anyone who walks in and wants a badge—are you going to tell me next that humans can be officers as well?" As Zeus spoke, none of the other mutants nodded or smiled, but instead kept their faces carefully neutral as they watched with interest; a few, such as Infrared, seemed to be almost entertained. Charles understood that they were allowing Zeus to test Erik's boundaries.
Erik paused, very briefly, his eyes flickering for the barest of moments over to Charles; then something in the set of his jaw changed, becoming hard and stubborn. "If they wish to take the risk, yes."
Zeus swore incoherently under his breath, then, louder, spat, "Bullshit! Are you even listening to yourself? Are you insane? Or, no, do you take that helmet off around your pet cripple and let him dig around in your head when nobody's looking?"
The Brotherhood leader narrowed his eyes, the metal starting to lose its shape and run together in his grip. "This isn't up for discussion, Zeus," he hissed.
The room was so still that the sound of denim on metal was perfectly audible as Zeus slid out of his chair and rose to his feet. Electricity simmered around him, every gleaming buckle and button a symbol of confidence as he faced Erik with unmistakable intent.
Erik, for his part, did not stand, but lounged back into his chair, setting the now unrecognizable lump of metal down in front of him and folding his hands together. Charles didn't dare move lest he too became a subject of their animosity, but he leaned away as subtly as he could; not, honestly, that it would make much of a difference to any lightening traveling his way.
"Oh, I'd say it's up for discussion, all right," Zeus corrected, as jittering snakes of light wound between his fingers. "I say you're not in charge of the organization because we all love you so much; you're here because you promised you could get the job done, that you'd get us our rightful place in this world. We didn't figure you on throwing our kind back under humanities' beat-stick."
"Humanity is over," Erik stated. "I'm not allowing them to do anything except for cling to the illusion that they still matter."
"Yeah, and you know what people who think they still matter do? They strike back at anyone who ever treated 'em like they don't."
"Like you are, you mean?" Erik commented, his tone intentionally bland.
Zeus screwed his face up into a snarl and struck out with his hand; light seared through Charles' head and he closed his eyes too late as the room shattered with sound. Ears ringing, Charles glanced around just as the improvised lightening rod that had once been three steel spheres tore itself from the table and speared out toward where Zeus hung pinned to the wall by the metal in his jacket.
Then it stopped, its cruel gleaming point mere centimeters from popping open Zeus' generous gut, and Charles froze.
His fingers were like a brand around Erik's wrist, shocking even to himself; there wasn't a person in the room who was not staring at him, their expressions a homogenous mix of fear and indignation and surprise, and Charles felt more than a little of that himself as he peered down the length of his arm at his traitorous hand.
Erik, too, stared over at him, scrutinizing, one corner of his mouth twisted around in a what the hell are you doing sneer as he nonetheless held perfectly, rigidly still in Charles' grip.
Charles waited; for what, he didn't know, but as more and more time passed without anyone speaking or moving or flattening him into the ground, he felt color begin to touch his cheeks and he pried his fingers off from Erik's wrist, settling his hand back into his lap. He did this as if he had not just lunged over to stop the Brotherhood leader from skewering another man; something that Erik did not, technically, need the use of his hands to do. Something that—Charles began to realize—Erik had probably only meant to threaten, not to actually follow through with.
Charles shifted around so that he could more comfortably stare into the middle distance. Erik, he knew, was still studying him, but he pretended not to notice and eventually the other mutant eased back into his chair. Across the room, Zeus' jacket let him go and the spear coiled back in on itself; by the time it reached Erik's hand, the metal had split once more into three flawless spheres, snapping into orbit one after the other around Erik's beckoning fingertips.
There was a black scar on the table in front of Erik and the air was full of the harsh sweet smell of charred wood, but nobody gave any sign of noticing, although Charles knew they did. As Zeus dropped back into his seat, Erik looked down at Skink and said, "Tell me, which iron ore mines are still operational?"
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lxiii.
Charles followed just a little behind Erik as they traveled back to his rooms; with the exception of the stairs, he was allowed control of his own path, and for that Charles was grateful. It gave him something to do with his hands, something to focus on beyond the roiling anxiety in his gut.
He had stopped Erik in front of his followers. He had reached out and simply seized Erik as if he were some unruly schoolyard bully instead of the ruler of an entire empire of militant mutants, and there hadn't been any repercussions.
…Yet. Charles could feel it between them now, in the stiff set of Erik's shoulders and swiftness of his step. He'd been able to feel it in the conference room, too: Erik's awareness of him, Erik's watching, his consideration. Charles could sense the moment of confrontation drawing near—it would happen the moment they were out of public, he was sure.
The necklace lay heavy over his shirt.
Finally they reached his door, and Erik opened it without touching the knob, standing aside so that Charles could go through first. The telepath was loath to turn his back on the other man, but he went in regardless, holding his chin up with a confidence he didn't entirely feel and upon reaching the sitting room he swiveled to face Erik.
Erik stood just inside the closed door, studying him as if he'd never really seen Charles before, his eyes dark and strangely impersonal; objective. Charles examined him in turn, because he had nothing else to do; he took note of the slightly stooped shoulders, the curl of Erik's cape around his ankle, the nearly raptorial incline of his head. Erik's gait, when he stalked forward, was careful and noiseless like that of a fearsome cat.
Charles tilted his head back as Erik approached, but the other mutant didn't come so near and instead circled around him, still wordlessly scrutinizing. Feeling uneasy, and as if he may almost rather share company with the jungle cat, Charles moved to turn one wheel of his chair, to follow Erik, but his wristwatch caught against his arm before he could reach it.
Charles set his hands back along the armrest and waited, staring at the door as he listened for the scuff of Erik's boots on the wooden floor.
A soft breeze of exhaled air teased the hair at the top of his head; a moment later, as if disturbed from its rest, the gold chain around Charles' neck shook itself awake and crawled up his throat, a cold snake-scale caress—delicate and, Charles knew, immovable, should he choose to struggle.
It drew tight against his skin in the notch beneath his jaw, not so much that he choked but it made an unpleasant presence nonetheless. From deep inside Charles' mind rose a primitive terror, an animal's desire to lash out against the snare, but he drove it back down mercilessly and kept his hands at his sides.
The chain forced Charles to raise his chin as it pulled up; what, he wondered, was Erik doing?
Erik's voice, when he spoke, was soft, and far above; he hadn't yet crouched down to the geneticist's level. "Are you afraid of me, Charles?"
It seemed a strange thing to ask someone he was threatening to asphyxiate. Charles considered: what did Erik want him to say? "No," he replied.
The telepath's skin pinched between the links of the chain. "Charles," Erik warned.
Charles didn't spare the time to consider what he might have said had he in fact been telling the truth. "Sometimes," he admitted.
"Now?" Erik's voice growled into his ear. Charles' neck prickled.
What did he want to hear? Charles wavered, distracted by the feel of the gold links slithering restlessly over his throat. He didn't know whether Erik did it on purpose, or if perhaps the metal achieved a sort of borrowed life under his will as an unconscious extension of himself. Certainly, he reflected, Erik had much better control than when they'd first met.
Charles wondered if Erik could feel the race of his heart through the necklace.
Erik whispered Charles' name, his lips now brushing the curve of the telepath's ear, and Charles shivered. "Yes."
Erik withdrew, and Charles heard the turn of his boot on the floor behind him as the other man paced away, but the metal remained tight against Charles' neck, in fact tugged his head up further so that Charles had to push himself up out of the chair a little just to be comfortable.
"Are you afraid I'll kill you?" Erik's tone was harsh; bitter with anger although not, Charles thought, directed toward him.
It did seem like a legitimate worry given that Erik's mental grip was not, after all, so far removed from strangling, but Charles wasn't lying when he responded, "No. That's not the reason."
The collar slackened, sank, pooled over his shoulders. Charles felt the warmth of Erik before his gloved fingertips settled all in a line down either side of his neck, his thumbs together tracing down the line of Charles' vertebrae. "Then why?" Erik did not sound curious—he sounded tired, an emotion the geneticist could identify with.
Charles let his eyelids flutter closed. There was nothing he felt like seeing at the moment. "You… Perplex me."
"Mm." Erik's fingers left, and there came the sound of his gloves pulling off. A few seconds later, Charles felt the empty fingers touch his wrist and, without opening his eyes, he turned his hand around and took the gloves from Erik.
Erik brushed the hair from the back of Charles neck to clear a space for his lips, soft and ticklish and… Something else, something that made Charles want to shudder but also to keep perfectly still beneath them. "How so?" Erik murmured, close enough that Charles felt the movement of his words in the roots of his hair.
Because I should hate you, and I don't, Charles thought into the shifting red-blackness of his eyelids, his head bowing into Erik's hand as the man pressed another kiss onto the curve of his neck. Instead, he stated, "You brainwash people."
Erik's lips stilled against Charles' skin, then pulled slowly away. "That particular ability isn't among my numerous talents."
Charles opened his eyes and peered down at his hands. One of his fingers had, at some point, tucked inside a glove; he removed it quickly and was instantly colder. "Regardless. You order Ms. Frost to do it."
Erik made a soft noise of concession. "And a few other telepaths in other locations."
Charles turned his head sharply, nearly colliding with Erik's nose; the other man stared back at him, entirely unapologetic. "Erik," he began, and couldn't continue.
The skin around Erik's eyes creased with an embarrassed humor. "I have to protect myself, Charles," he explained. Charles was distantly aware of Erik's fingernails stroking down the side of his throat, but he didn't look away.
"It's terrible, Erik," he protested, loathing the quaver of his voice; the plaintiveness of it.
Erik gave a quick, silent laugh, showing a glimpse of teeth as he grinned. "I may be a terrible person," he mused. Despite his smile, there was a hint of something desperate in his stare, and Charles grabbed for the collar of Erik's cape as if he could pin it there to stay.
"Erik," Charles insisted, shaking the man sharply, "You're not. You don't have to be." But the moment of vulnerability had vanished, had been shuttered firmly behind the steel of Erik's resolve as he reached for Charles' wrist with his free hand and pried the telepath's fingers off from his cape.
Erik's eyelashes hid his eyes as he looked down at Charles' hand, held splayed open by his grip on Charles' fingers. After a moment of consideration, he held it up to his mouth and swept his tongue, wide and flat, over Charles' palm. Then he curled Charles' fingers into a wet fist and held them trapped in the slick of his saliva.
The corner of Erik's lips twisted up as he met Charles' wide-eyed stare. "I am," he insisted. "You can't change that, Charles." He leaned forward and kissed Charles, hard and insistent until the geneticist could hardly hold his head up in the face of it; he had to cling to Erik's shoulders and even then his neck bent uncomfortably.
Charles made a small, miserable noise and Erik drew in a long slow breath through his nose and broke away, resting the side of his helmet against Charles' face in as comforting a way as he could, considering that it was only a lifeless shell. Charles was ashamed to find that he had nonetheless pressed his cheek into the hard surface as if it did, in fact, matter.
"They're not good people either," Erik muttered.
"What?" Charles asked, helplessly lost.
"The people who get brainwashed. They're not good people either."
Charles blinked. "I don't… How…"
Erik pulled back and smiled fondly, bringing up a hand to cradle Charles' head. "You really are an idealist," he marveled. "The resistance might consider you a hero, but for the most part they lack your integrity. They're just as likely to hurt innocent people as they accuse us of being."
The geneticist squinted incredulously at him. "I see," he granted, for the time being.
Erik's smile spread as he pulled Charles in once more. This time he was gentle, almost hesitant as he held Charles carefully in place, starting shallow and slow to go deep and eventually Charles paused, somewhere in the middle of Erik sucking on his tongue, to wonder how this had come to be his life.
Then Erik put his arm around Charles' torso and pulled him out of his chair and Charles remembered oh right, this is how, because Erik had apparently, at some point in the last four years, fallen out of the habit of asking permission. Resigned, Charles reached for Erik's neck and waited for the man to scoop up his legs, but instead Erik drew him to his feet and then held Charles tightly against himself, keeping the telepath standing through his own brute strength.
Erik's eyes shone with amusement as Charles stared dumbfounded up at him, shifting his atrophied legs beneath himself. Erik was still taller than him—would always be taller than him—but this… It was strange, to see Erik from their old height difference, as if he might have just fallen into Erik's arms after a perfectly innocent stumble, subject to the odd intimacy of relying on another's balance.
Charles was also gradually becoming aware of the way their bodies were pressed together, of the spread of Erik's hands across his back, and he began to blush, looking down into the folds of Erik's cape. "That's not the only thing," the geneticist mumbled.
"Hm?" Erik hummed against his forehead.
"You keep poor company," Charles said, trying to sound self-righteous as Erik kissed his way down the side of his face.
The other man paused against Charles' sideburns, and the geneticist felt the slow pull of his lips into a smile. "You're talking about the little altercation today."
Exhaling slowly, Charles tilted his head to the side as Erik continued on to the curve of his jaw. Behind him, Erik's hand sought out the hem of Charles' jacket before sliding up beneath along the smooth fabric of his shirt.
Focus, Charles commanded himself as Erik tugged at his shirts. He fidgeted with the hair at the nape of Erik's neck, mentally breaking it down into protein; molecules; atoms. "He tried to kill you. He's not a politician, he's a bully."
Erik's teeth scraped against his jaw, catching against stubble. Then he pushed forward and nuzzled below Charles' ear with his nose. "I'm stuck with the people I have," he told Charles, resting his lips where his nose had been and daubing his tongue over the spot. Then, almost experimentally, he set his mouth down and sucked.
"Hn," Charles grunted, his eyes losing focus. Meanwhile, Erik had succeeded in pulling up his shirts and skated his hand up beneath, brushing past Charles' scar and up to hold his ribs. "The—the people you fill your government with will determine the… Um. The tone of your new world."
Burying his face into the collar of the geneticist's jacket, Erik inhaled deeply, relishing Charles' smell. His hands stilled and he met Charles' stare. "Do you think I chose someone like Zeus?" Erik asked, with an edge of disbelieving humor. "I had to use whoever presented themselves, Charles."
Pressed up against Erik as he was, it was somewhat awkward for Charles to lean his head back to look at him. They were close enough to almost share breath, and Erik filled all of his vision. "Well, I'm sure you have a much greater pool of talent now."
Erik sighed, and Charles felt it along his own chest, on his face. "It's not as simple as that. These people—my officers—they have an infrastructure of their own. Zeus, for example—I didn't organize the militia; it came to me almost fully formed and with that man at the head of it. If I get rid of him, noxious though he may be, I would lose the support of our most wide-spread military force." He smiled, suddenly, and added, "Anyway, he does that sort of thing at least once every few months. It helps keep everyone else in line."
Charles frowned at him. "That—this is bad, Erik, don't you see?"
Erik huffed a laugh, puffing air over Charles' face, and leaned forward to touch their noses together. His lips brushed Charles' but did not quite meet them. "I see, Charles," he murmured. "I see." Then he began to walk them backward toward the couch, twisting his head around to check where they were going before resting his mouth against Charles' hair.
Still clinging to Erik's neck, still in his arms, Charles tried to keep pace; to shuffle forward in tangent with Erik walking back, and for the most part he managed to keep from tripping. It occurred to him that they must almost look as if they were dancing, and that thought combined with his acute awareness of the way Erik's legs and hips were moving against his brought laughter struggling out from Charles' throat, and he crushed his face into Erik's jacket to smother any sounds that made it out. I'm going insane, he marveled. I'm actually going insane.
Finally, Erik patted Charles' arm to signal him to hold tightly to his neck, then stooped down; Charles made a noise of startled indignation as Erik's hands dove between his legs, wrapped around, and pulled him from his feet. Then they were tipping, falling, or—no, Erik was sitting, and then Charles was in his lap, legs spread over Erik's thighs.
Charles shifted uneasily, both to put some distance between them and because the telepath was unused to being at the same level as Erik; he wondered if, since he was already on top of the man, he should take advantage of the situation, try to grab for the helmet—but no, Erik was still a soldier, still physically stronger than him, and the control was an illusion.
Erik took his hands from Charles legs and slid them up to his sides—if along the way his fingers dipped beneath the curve of Charles' buttocks, well, it was really too briefly to protest—and held the geneticist still while he looked him over. There was something entirely too honest in his expression, too nuanced beyond simple appraisal, so Charles let his own gaze drop to Erik's arms.
The other mutant went to work on the buttons of Charles' shirt and in no time at all it was open and Erik was stripping the layers off of him until Charles sat bemused and chilled and bare-chested, head hanging to look down at his own scrawny chest, silent.
"Charles," Erik chided, assured; he cupped his hand over the telepath's cheek and urged Charles' head up again. His eyes were dark with want but also soft with concern, and perhaps because there was nothing comforting he could say that would not also be a lie, he muttered, "It's all right, Charles," almost too quiet to even hear.
Then he drew Charles to him and kissed him, starting over; slow and sweet and coaxing until Charles opened his mouth to him and Erik moved his hands, smoothing his thumbs through the hollows of Charles' shoulders and down to count his ribs—then back up, beneath Charles' arms, over his scapulae and tangling in his hair.
Tugging at the geneticist's hair, Erik pulled Charles' head back and exposed his neck; in an instant, Erik was there with his mouth to devour the subtle lines of muscle and cartilage, wrapping lips and teeth over Charles' throat, but it wasn't until he moved lower—below where Charles' clothing would cover—that he turned rough, biting and sucking and leaving marks. Charles winced at each one but it didn't—it didn't entirely hurt, and as Erik released his hair and Charles was able to look, to see Erik touch a long finger to a fledgling bruise on his clavicle with an almost single-minded reverence, Charles' breath caught and his heart twinged because there was something fragile about it, although whether it was his own fragility or Erik's he couldn't say.
Leaning forward, Erik licked the chain into his mouth and carried it between his teeth as he returned to kiss Charles again; one of his hands stroked into Charles' scar and as the telepath gasped and arched into him Erik pushed the necklace through Charles' lips, didn't give him the chance to spit it out again as Erik followed with his tongue, working around the hard grit of the gold links, tangling them together.
Erik's short fingernails scratched down Charles' back, too light to tear skin but enough that Charles pressed himself into Erik, subjected himself to the duel scrape of Erik's jacket and buttons against his bare chest as the searing paths of Erik's nails veered around his scar before circling to meet just above his belt, ending with a sharp twist to remind Charles that he had agreed to go no further, that Charles couldn't expect anything more.
Charles tore his mouth from Erik's, threw his head back to gasp for air as the other man moved his hands to stroke down the geneticist's waist, fingers ticklish and thumbs reaching around to smooth Charles' stomach. The chain pooled beneath Charles' tongue, hanging down from the corners of his lips, but he had forgotten how to spit it out. He felt like he was forgetting a lot of things, including the trick to maintaining solid form; he was melting, he was sure of it, and the burning snag of Erik's buttons sliding up his chest as Charles sank confirmed it, and that was all right because if he'd turned into a liquid then there was really no way anyone could reasonably expect him to hold a coherent thought in his head.
Then his cock touched Erik's and everything became perfectly, crystalline clear.
Charles stopped, leaned away from Erik to stare stupidly down to where his hips straddled Erik's, verifying that yes, those bulges were penises, and yes, they were definitely in contact with each other.
He was vaguely aware of Erik watching him as Charles, somewhat belatedly, pushed the necklace out of his mouth and let it fall wetly to his chest. He flexed his thighs, attempting to push himself up or away or anywhere else, but they shook and failed him and all Charles accomplished was to drag himself more thoroughly along Erik's length. Slow, roiling pleasure spread out to the lines of his pelvis, to his navel, though his bones to buzz in the tips of his fingers and toes.
"Um," Charles managed to say, eventually. He looked back up to Erik, who wore the twist of a smirk over his lips. "This isn't…"
"…Part of the bargain?" Erik offered. His hands held Charles' shoulders.
Charles nodded vaguely to himself, gaze falling back down to their laps. "No. It's not."
Erik showed teeth, and he traced a deliberate finger up the geneticist's sternum to flick against his chin, re-capturing Charles' attention. "Well, Charles? Is there anything you'd like to bargain for?"
Charles blinked at him, and after a moment he realized he was actually trying to think of something to trade. He shook his head sharply, to clear it. "I…" he began, unsuccessfully. This was altogether unexpected; he had forgotten, almost, how intense desire could be, and he was almost more distraught that he was able to think those words than of the fact itself.
The fingers on his chin left as Erik lowered his hand, tendons and bone shifting elegantly beneath his skin, and Charles was certain that at any moment Erik would stop—dreaded that Erik would stop—but then no, Erik was definitely going to touch him, was going to touch him, and somehow it was still a surprise when Erik's hand slipped between them and cupped Charles' dick through his trousers.
Charles went perfectly still; didn't even breathe. He burned; no, he felt like he was waiting to burn, to catch fire, to be enkindled—a spark of potential energy waiting for a direction. It was terrifying, exhilarating—wrong, because this was Erik, and it didn't bother Charles so much that he was a man than that Erik had done horrible things: to him, to humanity, to the world. This was Erik and he wasn't Charles' friend anymore and he wasn't even moving his hand, just cradling Charles' cock half-hard and heavy in his palm and yet Charles wanted more.
Then Erik squeezed, gently, and drew his hand slowly up. Charles' mouth fell open as he sucked in air; his eyes fell closed and he swayed forward until the prongs of Erik's helmet dug into his forehead. This was a bad time to be having this crises; Charles suddenly regretted his choice not to conclude his dream two nights before, to take the moral high ground and avoid fantasizing about Erik.
He should have gotten it over with then because alone and in his bed was a much safer place to suddenly realize that he was maybe a little attracted to Erik; safer, certainly, than understanding that while his former friend's hand was stroking his dick. The scent of Erik filled his nose, primal and male and undeniably sexual; he was warm beneath Charles' hands, beneath his thighs, between his legs. Charles felt unprepared for this, and he seemed to feel something flutter and die deep within his chest; some unnamed thing that he couldn't identify but felt sure he would miss, later on.
"You're poaching," Charles managed to say, after swallowing thickly. Erik's chest jumped with laughter under his hands.
"Then stop me," Erik murmured, punctuating his words with a firm tug down Charles' length; the geneticist grimaced and pressed his head into the sharp points of Erik's helmet, hoping the pain would help clear his mind.
"Could I?" Charles whispered.
"Of course," Erik answered, low and languorous. Charles pulled back and looked at him: beneath his eyelids, Erik's pupils were wide and black; his eyebrows were furrowed intently and he was breathing through his mouth. As he stared at the soft, open curve of Erik's lips, Charles felt dizzy at the knowledge that he could make Erik fuck him, if he asked.
Priorities. He had priorities.
"You might take everything away from me," Charles replied, and it wasn't until he heard it in his voice that Charles realized he was afraid.
Erik's mouth closed into a sad line and his other hand—the one that wasn't still toying around between them—came up to rest indiscriminately against Charles' neck, jaw, and cheek. "No," he corrected. "No, I won't take anything away from you, Charles. You've paid for everything that you have."
Charles leaned onto Erik's helmet again, lower this time, and their noses touched; Erik tilted his head back very slightly, inviting a kiss, and Charles wanted to, he wanted to, but—
"Stop," Charles said, and the word was clear and precise. "I don't—I don't want this."
The telepath pulled away in time to see the flicker of amusement in Erik's eyes, because he could feel well enough for himself that Charles' statement was blatantly untrue, but he removed his hand and Charles gritted his teeth against that final sweep of pleasure. Then he shoved himself off of Erik and dropped onto the couch next to him, drawing a pained grunt from the other man in the process.
Erik shifted obliging over until they were no longer touching, and Charles couldn't help but notice the bulge straining against his pants. Erik didn't attempt to hide it, however, and so neither did Charles, although he would have liked to adjust himself if it wouldn't have made his discomfort that much more obvious.
Charles avoided Erik's eyes and made plans to masturbate more often, as he clearly needed to.
He hoped it would help. Erik's calmly brooding patience, however, suggested that it would not.
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