If Erik is easiest to read when his mind is open, then now he is as clear as the perfect blue of tropical shoals where before there have only been fathomless black depths. He wants, that much can be traced like the raised lines of Braille, though that want is riddled with the inability to name itself. He has only the vaguest idea of what moving further would entail, after a certain point.

But then none of that dampens the percolating sparks lighting need behind his eyes, doesn't keep him from finally drawing his hand around Charles' and holding on what he can tell is probably tight enough to hurt. (And even then he can't make himself let go, or loosen his grip; in years he has had nothing that would lessen him by its loss; if he has this, if that can possibly be allowed, then he'll keep it as ferociously as he has clung to his own self-preservation.) "First you insult me and then you say that, I--"

He sounds a little dazed, but there are worse things. "I don't know what to do with you."

Which...is a question, isn't it. Stroking his thumb over the pulse in Charles' wrist actually makes him shiver, eyes lidding, and he has a strange disjointed second to wonder how something so small can unravel him so much. "You tell me. Tell me what you want, I need to hear it."