In what is perhaps some kind of minor miracle of the legitimately religious kind, Erik refrains from saying that it doesn't matter what Charles wants, although frankly that may just be because it's poor rhetorical strategy. "It has nothing to do with carrying your weight. Don't talk like I think you're useless when you know it isn't true. It's beneath you."

He doesn't know what Charles is trying to do here, perhaps appeal to Erik's better character. The problem is that as far as Erik's concerned he doesn't have one, not when it comes to this. He's willing to be as ruthless as he has to be, and so tragically it's that that softens his voice, leans him in like Charles has his own magnetic pull. "Charles, please. I won't--I can't see you lowered to that, not when I could stop it. It's nothing I haven't done before."

'That.' Erik doesn't elaborate, but then again that seems to be belaboring the point. "Let me do this," he says, if it's a command (it is) it's just as much an entreaty. "There are--there are things that shouldn't be allowed to happen," and he doesn't add that they've already happened to him, doesn't, can't, it's like trying to spit up cement swallowed wet and then solidified in the throat. To see Charles brought to the depths of basest human need, Erik thinks, and in this way even though he doesn't mean for it it's as loud as an air raid siren--it would kill him, when nothing else has been able to in thirty years.