kore_logs | → my my let these songs be an instrument to cut here darling,

Entry tags:

→ my my let these songs be an instrument to cut here darling,

Who: Charles Xavier & Erik Lehnsherr. ( C L O S E D )
What: Reunions
When: Day 66
Where: House 8
Warnings: Emoting everywhere; it'll probably be gross. Also now touching is happening. And dirty talk. DON'T JUDGE ME.

It's been barely a few days and he still hates the emptiness of the house, despises the hollow feeling that echos the space in his chest. Being so thoroughly alone is not a new feeling but the potency of it is, the sensation of poison slowly dripping through his veins and making him slow and sluggish pulls at him. He can barely enter the walls of his home before his skin crawls with how quiet it is. Erik and Raven are gone, he cannot do anything to fight against the fact. He's impotent with it and it makes him wish he were more prone to violence than he is - surely he could smash the place up, rage against the cruel nature of the cape and it's shadowed rulers. All he's been able to do is clear out the kitchen of the reminder of his hidden evil, all he could do is spend his nights huddled in the bedroom on the ground floor, imagining the imprint of Erik on the sheets like some ridiculous thing. He's not used to this level of heartbreak, because that's what it is, a heart breaking for absent loves and he feels sick from it too often.

So he sleeps and then he leaves and spends his days in the library because information is a weapon and he can use that if he can't use anything at all. He refuses to be in that position again; used and then left bereft. Those in charge think they can tame the people here but Charles thinks they are wrong. He knows they are. So he's quick when he gets changed, when he lets water ease off the fingerprints of the monster he had been. It would do no good for him to fixate, not when he can get even instead. Not when next time he can protect the rest of them with knowledge. He has to hope he'll find it.

He's dressed and heading for the door when it happens, when, his thoughts go white and fuzzed out at the edges.

Erik slams into his consciousness so hard that Charles' knees buckle with the intensity of it. Erik. He's like a burst of sunlight at the edges of Charles' darkness, a familiarity that blinds him to everything else. He's half leaning, half holding on to the railings of the stairs for dear life, his breath coming in shallow pants as the relief rips through him. It's the same physical shock of cold that he felt the first time, no less magnified by the absence of huge bodies of water to throw himself in. Charles feels the jolt to his core, the sudden yank of belonging that has pulled him off his feet and threatened his balance. His eyes water and he wants to laugh or cry, wants nothing more than to just let it consume him because Erik is here.

But until the man himself is in front of him Charles is taking nothing for granted. Pulling himself on to his knees is easy, pressing shaking fingertips to his temple even more so. He hasn't been using his power but that doesn't matter, not when he feels the tendrils of anger call out to him like a siren call.

'Erik.'

Beyond the single syllable is a plea that Charles can't quite keep contained. Please be real. Please be safe.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Whether Erik is safe in any capacity may always be a point of contention, at least as far as he can tell it: if nothing else he is at least real. Present. Awake. Out of that dreamlike state from whence he can only call the most flickering of memories, as jagged as the wounds left by a serrated knife. (They might be memories. They might be dreams. It's like trying to remember through sluggish liquid--the pressure of straps at his shoulders, does he remember that or had it only been a thin black skein of nightmare? The red gout of blood against the pristine white of a labcoat and whiter tile floor, had he done that or just hoped for it?)

It takes only one fluid movement to pull himself upright, whereupon he discovers he's much the same as when he'd--he'd passed out, he thought, and wondered if he were crumbling into dust, golems not being known for their permanence. But now he is flesh and fragile bone and blood he can feel iron singing in again, and for a second that's all that matters. If he's a mutant, he knows himself, recalls coming here (or being brought, against his will) and all the passing strangeness that had happened since. That time, though, seems as much like a dream as whatever he's just fought his way out of.

(At least that's how he's choosing to look at it, until someone convinces him otherwise. He'd been able to fight back this time, hadn't been a child, hadn't been helpless.)

He knows two things are real. One, that he woke up on the road leading out to the far edge of town where it would wind away to Elsewhere if there was an Elsewhere to go to, and two: that he is angry. The latter barely counts, it's as much as saying he's breathing, but then--then there is a third, the intrusion into his bristling rage that pulls him to the surface, the voice that bursts behind his eyes and deafens him without making a sound. Charles. If Erik is himself, then it stands to reason--he has to be, Erik can hear him, feel him, that knocked back feeling like someone has opened a door in his head and been utterly bowled over by what was behind it.

Running is--surely, it would be beneath his dignity. He makes himself walk, makes himself look at the blooming spring around him, remembers before everyone had changed overnight they'd talked about growing food now, keeping themselves alive independent of their captors--he makes himself remember. And doesn't run until he can see the house, at which point all bets are off; he doesn't so much walk through the door as slash it open by the metal hinges.

It's not like coming home, but it's close enough. He closes the distance to the stairs in two long strides and crouches in front of the other man at once - their knees are bumping, it's awkward and what a stupid thing to feel as relief that is, that Charles is solid and no longer cold - and closes his hands around his upper arms. "You're all right," he says, without so much as preamble or greeting, not sure if it's a question or a statement. If it's the former he can will it into being. And then just: "Charles."

He's still caught between laughter and a childish urge to cry. He never had as a young boy - not for himself anyway, Raven had always told him he felt too much for other people - and so he lets both in. His eyes are damp and his laughter is relieved and uncontained as his hands curl around Erik's wrists where he's holding on. His pulse is real under his touch and this is the first time in days where he hasn't wanted to pull back, hasn't felt revulsion rise in him like a fog. He lifts his chin, locks his gaze on the other man's face and while he doesn't speak either audibly or internally he is very much a presence in Erik's thoughts as though a dam has burst again.

Raven isn't back, he knows that, would have felt her too. He might have to explain but for now he just wants for nothing more than to keep touching him.

"The cameras, if you please."

It's obvious what he wants, his voice low and shaking and wrecked. He should feel foolish, this bursting swell of love and affection and painful thankfulness that makes him feel dizzy. But he doesn't, can't, not when Erik is here, not when he can hear the door still vibrating. Neither of them are creatures they don't understand and if Charles had felt starving when he was a vampire it's nothing like this, the urge to be the flame cradled in Erik's mind like lighting a cigarette. So he waits because he knows Erik will do what he asks and then he might just have to kiss him like his life depended on it.

Power goes out of him in a wave he has to disentangle himself just a little bit to affect, goes out of him and leaves him dizzy; he could accept that it's just what Charles does to him (has always, a little bit; maybe it's the lack of oxygen)--but it doesn't feel quite like that. If Erik ever got sick he'd think it felt like the onset of a flu--that was, if he'd had one in years, which he hasn't. It passes quickly enough though, even if he can feel he's gone a little pale it doesn't matter right now. The camera in the living room below the staircase still melts in on itself and smokes out, leaving behind acrid wisps of air Erik also ignores in favor of what's directly in front of him.

"Aren't we domineering this morning." It's not false cheerfulness, Erik doesn't have that in him, but it is...as if nothing as changed, a wry dry murmur like he'd give Charles any other day in any other place. He needs to be that right now, be nothing but himself. Consequences can come later.

That said he puts his hands on Charles' face, outlines his cheekbones with the callused pads of his thumbs like he's making sure the slighter man is still real, is nothing but his own self as well, brushing over teartracks and sweeping them to the side. If he were better, less self-oriented, maybe, he'd think about the ache in his bones, the low numb headache and think that if he is getting sick he shouldn't pass it on, but Erik hasn't known how to be anything but self-oriented since he was twenty. So he kisses Charles as if he hasn't seen him in days, which for all he knows he hasn't, can't--there are days in there that he lost, can't get back, but he can have this, can slide his hands down to Charles' shoulders and center his thumbs where his collarbones meet, feel his pulse no longer sluggish and dead, but kicking with life under his fingers.

The minute the camera's meet their fate, Charles is touching him. His hands move from his wrists to his shoulders to his cheek, a desperate slide of proof that this is real and Erik is home. Even full of anger and the sharp bristling panic of threat, tired and worn as he is, Erik is the most beautiful thing Charles has seen in such a long time. He fills up the spaces that had been left to fester like wounds and finally - finally after everything - Charles feels like himself again.

"Did you really expect anything else?" It's too dry and full of humour for how he expected their reunion to be and yet it's right, so like them in a way that makes sense. Charles' heart thumps heavily in his chest and it's carried down to the shaking of his fingertips, to the way they grip themselves in the other man's shirt to pull him forward. He rests his forehead against Erik's instead of kissing him, breathes in the scent of him and lets it settle in his chest. He's real, he's real.

Erik's headache is an echo underneath the heavy blanket of emotion and he concentrates as much of a soothing balm as he can, too shaken up by the reality of this to really focus. His voice is a soft murmur, he's close enough now to count the freckles on Erik's nose and it burns in him.

"Welcome home, darling."

"I scarce esteem location's name," Erik murmurs, grinning; as a rejoinder it would make no sense or at least be strangely stilted, except that he knows Charles' familiarity with Dickinson. Mostly, as ever when he says these things, he's just pleased for his own sake to be educated enough to make the reference, but lest we forget that particular piece also includes a lot of treacle Erik won't directly express about home as a person's simple presence. "Don't start picking out curtains. I promised I'd get you out of here."

There's some indefinable flicker at that, as he hasn't exactly succeeded so far, has he? If anything they've gotten further in, as the events of the last few days have proven. So instead he extends his own concentration to pushing back that balm, not sharp but meaning it; he can deal with a headache. Charles would perhaps be well within his rights to point out that he doesn't have to, and is therefore too stubborn to be alive, but if nothing else at least that probably proves beyond a shadow of mental doubt that Erik isn't a pod person.

He rests linked arms on Charles' knees a while, quiet, just--looking at him, just looking even if everything roiling underneath his skin craves something less wildly romantic and more straightforwardly... just pushing the telepath down for some probably ill-advised sex on the steps, but--they should talk, and Erik is, frankly speaking, a romantic. Often good at hiding it, although maybe not when he's quoting 19th century poetry at people. "How long has it been?"

Not 'how long have I been gone,' notably; he turns the question away from himself, makes it neutral.

He could make some joke about colour or drapes or whatever else he's picked up from the drafts of people's thoughts but he simply smiles, a cautious but luminous thing, like a flickering light bulb coming to life.

"Days." A quiet hum, his hand moving through Erik's hair instead. Charles knows he's a stubborn mule when he wants to be and he'll let him this time, simply runs the pads of his fingertips over the other man's temple as though touch can help too. "I woke up and you were gone. Raven too."

The last part is delivered a little empty, the tone of his voice dipping. It has been like the darkness spread out from every corner and he can't help it, can't stop it. "I thought ..." That he was being punished in some way, that draining Ned dry had caused him to lose them. "I don't know. I asked what happens but all I was told is that sometimes it happens. Nobody could tell me if you were still here. I couldn't feel either of you. I tried."

Erik's hackles are still mostly raised by the presence of a potential threat, the disquiet of the half-sketched memories he can't quite bring into relief sharp enough to examine, but he lets Charles' hand in his hair and at his temples wear the edge off of that, eyes lidding a fraction of a degree. They snap open when Charles elucidates the previous days' events, though, shoulders drawing tight, Erik's long fingers settling around the other man's delicate wrist and holding on as if he can make an anchor out of that. "I won't leave you. Not again."

That he thinks he can say that with any kind of surety speaks of some phenomenal arrogance, given the givens, but he wasn't prepared this time, that's all it was. The next time - and really, he has no reason to thin there won't be one - he'll know what the onset of that falling feeling means, and be able to fight it. "And if she's still here, I'll find her. If not--"

Well. He'll let that speak for itself, namely if Raven has really been taken from them, Erik will add it to a remarkably long list of grievances for which he intends, through time and patience, to exact horrifying vengeance for as soon as the opportunity arises.

"I can only hope that she's home and safe."

Because what else is there? There's no conceivable way to find out - none that he can see anyway - he's heard rumours of people vanishing for good and those like Erik who returned. Charles doesn't know what to think and so he doesn't, just smiles at him soft and a little foolish. He feels almost cruel, that Raven isn't here and he's clinging to Erik like he's the only thing in the world. That he isn't exactly rushing out into the street. But he has to be pragmatic. She could be home, she be all right and he won't have any way of knowing. But Erik is here and his blue eyes are pulling him in and he swallows, lips twisting before he breathes out. "I'm so ..."

Glad, thankful, relieved, sorry? He's not sure. "Sod it."

That's the moment he lists forward, presses his mouth to Erik's in something that could be misconstrued as aggression if not for the noise he makes, desperate and aching and finally happy to touch him the way he wanted. It's not even particularly skilled or deep, it's just the rough press of his body against his. But it satisfies the way his heart pounds for his friend, the sharp tug of need inside him.

Erik makes some noncommittal noise at that; he could point out that Charles is better at hope that he is, or exactly how useful he finds the concept, but ...what would be the point, it won't stop him looking.

Of course, at that point he's summarily distracted from whatever toothy bit of brevity he was about to deliver on the subject of Charles swearing (a thing he will probably always enjoy), and finds himself tangling a hand in the hair at the back of his head with no more intrinsic finesse between the two of them than the pair of fumbling teenagers Erik will resist comparing them to forever. That doesn't really make it any less true, in the moment, especially not since he can't really fail to be aware of the awkwardness of sitting on the steps, for God's sake, it's--all right, at least right now he doesn't care that it's undignified.

When he pulls back it's entirely for the sake of oxygen, and he stays just as close, elbows that are too bony for comfort pressed into Charles' knees and close to his ribs. "We are--" he laughs, under his breath, because what else can he do? "sitting on the stairs. In case it's escaped your notice."

This is actually because it's where Charles was ensconced when Erik wrenched open the door; the fact that it took him this long to comment certainly says something, even if he angled himself at once so he could see the entranceway behind him. "There must be a better venue for conversation."

'Conversation.' Yes.

"Now love, it's hardly my fault you swept me off my feet."

He laughs under his breath, presses his hands on Erik's shoulders and curls his fingers tight for a second. The shirt still doesn't fit him right and it tugs at Charles' heartstrings in a way he hadn't thought possible. He wants to protect Erik against this place, wants to take care of him. No one has ever come close to this with him before. No one had gotten so far under his skin and into his head. With a soft blur of words he hums out, "And then you blew my door off. It was all very dramatic."

His thumb slides helplessly against Erik's plush mouth, mapping out the curve of his lip. He's staring and he cannot help himself, isn't sure he's ever going to be able to look away knowing what it feels like to have Erik's torn from him. Charles will do anything to stop that happening again. Anything at all.

"Help me fix it and then we can find somewhere to talk that's slightly more comfortable, mm?" Hand moving back through his hair, "Or we could just leave the door as it is and still find somewhere else. I don't care."

Erik would, of course, balk at the idea that anyone needs to protect him: given the choice between being coddled and what's apparently happened to him, he'd take the latter, as horrific as it is. That he can take in and use to fuel the engines of his anger, but having a banner over him, even Charles', would just make him soft. Useless. As such it's probably not a surprise that he shakes his head; even as he's turning his cheek into Charles' hand to close teeth gently around his thumb, he's also preparing to pull back and stand up at the base of the steps. "No. I'll take care of it."

The fact that he uses his hands to pick up the door from where it's hanging at a riotous angle, half off its hinges, speaks louder than words might that his mutation feels--off, as if he's used it to its absolute limits when he shouldn't have any, not anymore, and if Charles has any mercy in him at all, he won't mention that. Erik tugs the door back into place and welds the mangled scraps of metal back to their proper form, shoulders set, eyes shuttered. It takes more effort than it should; by the time he turns back to Charles he's noticeably pale, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. True to form he doesn't mention this at all, and the haunted look is gone before it can be so much as remarked on.

Erik's not going to discuss it, that's for certain. "Come on," he says without preamble, as abrupt as his movement back to Charles on the steps and the hand he keeps from shaking by sheer force of will when it closes around Charles' wrist.

Charles turns worried eyes away from Erik because he knows it won't help and because he doesn't want to rock the boat. Not now. Not with him back. He is prickling and a little lost under Charles' administrations so he chooses to let it go for now. He can deal with it when Erik settles, when he has found balance again. A charm offensive always works better when Erik assumes he's winning. So he twists to guide him up the stairs, his feet almost tripping because while the taller man is the graceful one, Charles is a remarkable prat when he wants to be smooth and he just has to laugh and tug him further.

"My hero."

It's a soft, crooning thing, playful if only because he wants to pretend nothing has changed and they are the same they were when they had control over themselves. Raven's door is closed and he avoids it to half drag Erik after him. It's probably not sexy and he pulls a face at himself out of the line of sight. But what he wants is to be able to prove to himself that Erik isn't hiding some sort of wound or affliction and is about to pass out on him. This house has seen too much bloodshed and terror already.

When they cross the threshold that is when Charles eases his hand to the small of Erik's back and nudges him further and closer to the bed. "I'm not blind you know," he murmurs quietly, "Sit."

If nothing else, Erik finds Charles' deep and abiding smoothness incredibly entertaining, so there is that. He's not without a sense of humor, he cracks his dark little jokes as a way of spitting in the face of everything that should have stripped out of him the capacity to laugh, but Charles--he still remembers laughing for sheer joy that late autumn afternoon, that feeling like his chest was going to split open and laughing because there was no other way to let out the huge vaulting light inside of him.

Charles can make him smile for reasons other than the fact that he's angry, a sloping open grin without teeth. His face still feels unfamiliar with the expression; it aches, but not terribly. So he's wry rather than brittle when Charles attempts to foist caretaking on him, sits on the edge of the bed in a deceptive parody of obedience, which ...of course turns out to be the precursor to more or less grabbing Charles by the shirt tails and reeling him in until their knees bump. "I'm fine," he--well, he wouldn't call it lying, just a carefully structured and practiced pattern of ignoring his own pains. "As flattered as I am by your desire to play nursemaid."

Charles would be totally adorable in one of those huge flying nun hats, for the record. "It's only a headache, I can assure you I've dealt with worse."

"You left before we could have a serious conversation about fantasies, how am I supposed to know what's off-bounds?"

He's teasing, his hands framing Erik's too warm face as he leans in. Breath ghosts over Erik's cheek as he grins, that red mouth curving upwards in sweet supplication. "Fine then, if nursing you back to health isn't allowed may I tell you I missed you dearly? Or will that cause you to simply shrivel up inside?"

For all the laughter in his voice and his eyes, the truth does shine out from him. He touches Erik in a way that is both possessive and reaffirming, thumbs tracing the line of his cheekbones and his eyes mapping every worry line in his skin. Charles cannot say when you are gone I lose myself too because he doesn't actually know how to. But Erik carries part of him and if he is taken away, so is it.

"The same way you would if I made you talk about your fantasies," Erik retorts, because he knows what Charles is like, glib and brimming with pickup lines he must have practiced in front of a mirror, at least until someone (...Erik) demands he actually state his explicit wants. Because Erik has absolutely no finesse at all, nor interest in acquiring any, he tends to just baldly say what he means; they are a work in progress, as always.

He lets Charles outline him the way he wants to anyway, though; there's no harm in it, and although Erik would be loathe to say as much it makes him feel more real himself. "And I could say the same," and now his teeth do show in his smile, the kind that aren't very nice, "but I was preoccupied. The usual pokes and prods."

Charles may interpret for himself what that means, but it's not exactly a riddle, given Erik's history as a lab rat. "We're not talking about it," he warns, although not ungently. "There are better uses for your worry."

Which means forthrightly biting Charles' fingertips again is just cheating, but Erik has never claimed to be above shameless manipulation.

For a minute the edges of his mind catch on fire like an oil slick on water. It's easy enough to keep it from Erik, a part of him sealed off while he lets it rage. That someone could take him from Charles and hurt him again makes him angry, makes his fingers twitch before Erik's teeth nip. It doesn't stop him wanting to find those who keep them here but it brings him away from the flame and back to Erik's gaze.

"You cad."

It's said on an inhale, a rough and shaking thing and he dips at the waist to kiss Erik, to press their lips together in a dance of feeling. His hands have to settle on Erik's knees this time to keep himself upright but he doesn't care, just teases his mouth open with his clever tongue and teasing teeth.

"I've never claimed to be anything else," Erik sardonics under his breath, feeling somewhat idiotically fond and judging he must also look that way, considering what the corners of his mouth are doing. It's just as well he didn't catch the pulse of Charles' distress, although he's often thought it would do the telepath good to recognize the cruelty in the world for what it is.

He lets Charles direct the kiss for perhaps as long as thirty seconds, indulging himself in waiting and the pleasant sense of restraint it induces, but of course all good things must come to an end, and so does this, even if it's just Erik basically sweeping Charles' legs out from under him and tumbling them both down onto the bed.

From this distance, which is absolutely no distance at all, tangled in a totally undignified manner as they are: "Are you going to keep insulting my character? It seems a poor use of our time."

Charles has not laughed like this since the moment they woke up and were something different, he has not had the reason to. It bubbles from him like he can't help it, mouth curved up and his blue eyes flashing in amusement. Erik is glorious, he is like an indulgent taste, a naughty kind of want underneath all of his severity. Charles adores him because he can be like this, can send butterflies fluttering in his stomach and keep him guessing with the sharp of his tongue. Nimble fingers immediately move to untuck Erik's shirt and push up beneath the fabric because why shouldn't he be allowed to splay his fingers against the firm warmth of his stomach.

"Darling, I meant it as the highest kind of compliment."

Closing the slightest gap between their lips, Charles kisses him. It's slow but languid and he hums into it with a pleased sound. It's a way of savouring the moment, really. He wants Erik in a way that could consume him but he holds it off. Something about the reunion makes him want to take his time with this, with pressing into him and licking delightedly into his mouth. His shoes get kicked off without preamble so he can hook his leg over Erik's and run his heel against the back of his calf. His hand pressed against his skin and the other curls back in Erik's hair, connected at all points.

"Mm," Pulling away he licks his lips, impish and mischievous at once, "Hello again."

"Hello, Charles," Erik returns, grave and in total excess of formality; even when he's declaring Charles' every ideal to be at best naive he still holds him in an esteem he extends to almost no one else--sometimes that extends to this, this solemn and gentle treatment that really should be at odds with the roughness of his hands and razor-sharp momentum, but isn't. He tolerates Charles' interest in touching him, inasmuch as 'tolerance' involves splaying a hand at the small of Charles' back and dragging him closer until the hand on his stomach is more or less crushed between them. Worse things have happened.

The way Charles moves when he's intent on touch and affection have fascinated Erik from the start; this has not diminished with time--where Erik tends toward precision and impact, Charles is content to get his hands everywhere he can reach, like Erik is some finite quantity he must engage all of before it runs out. Erik ...broadly encourages this, closing his teeth around Charles' lower lip before sliding his mouth to the joint of his jaw, the thrumming column of his neck. "I couldn't be here without you, you know," he murmurs there, as if it's just--fact, something Charles should know already.

It's as close as he'll get to saying that he missed him, probably, if there had been space to miss. He'd like to think he thought of Charles in that quagmire of trapped anger, but all he remembers was the unquenchable burning desire to be out. This is enough, though; it's enough just to be here, ignoring his headache and the chills soothed by Charles' body heat, cradling his face between his hands and pushing him hip-first down into the mattress.

His breathing goes sort of funny the minute Erik pulls him closer, a short, breathless gasp of hair that he doesn't think to hold back. The man holding him is exquisite and Charles knows his attraction and affection shine from him like a beacon and so what would be the point in playing aloof? Charles fell the minute he threw himself overboard, pretending anything else would be ridiculous.

His free arm settles around Erik's waist, mapping out the trim curve of his body, the thing that makes his mouth run dry every time Erik so much as walks into a room. Charles is besotted with how he's built, his hands move everywhere they can because he is greedy for this and only this.

"I would have come for you," he murmurs, kissing the freckle just beyond Erik's mouth, "If I'd have known."

Because they'd told him that Erik could have gone home - he could not feel him - he'd had to assume. And yet, Charles thinks that if this happens again he will tear the place apart mind by mind just to get him back. He's not used to it, the fierce kind of protective urge, the madness that being in love brings.

"I know."

Erik impresses that more or less into Charles' mouth, since talking is no reason to stop exchanging momentum-sloppy kisses, the kind that hit more the side of the mouth or the cheek or the jaw without really caring; the point is to touch. He puts aside his usual precision for as long as it takes to do that, rolls over onto his back and takes Charles with him, looking up into that face, the ridiculous red mouth and tired blue eyes; he looks older than the last time Erik saw him, and he pushes back the fall of hair from over his forehead.

Charles' sensitivity about the burgeoning grey streak in his hair is one of those things Erik's never known what to do with, it was always a sign that that was all Charles had ever had to worry about, with his gentle academic life. Now it seems fragile, something startlingly vulnerable, as if the telepath were the one who'd disappeared. Erik hadn't known he could lose him.

It's too much sentimentality, he can't indulge as much for very long, can't imagine how stupidly soft his face must look contemplating Charles from this angle. So he rocks his hips upward instead, because he is the worst cheat of all time. "At the risk of sounding like I only want you for your body--" ...since that's ever a concern, "no more talking. Unless you do go utterly mad and decide to detail a fantasy or two. I've always liked librarians, I think a professor will do in a pinch."

It's easy to fit himself on top of Erik's angular and strong frame, his hands against his chest and his mouth pressing sweet, lost kisses into his jawline. Everything about Erik is firm but there's a frailty there too, he's lean and wispy under fingertips and Charles wants to keep him safe from everything. It flutters inside him, this urge, this romantic need to keep the man beneath him alive and well, to do everything in his power to give him the life it deserves. He keeps it cordoned off in his mind though, knows how well it would be received, but Erik can probably tell from just touch alone, the greedy desperation that settles into his skin as he hums and tastes the flutter of a pulse with his tongue.

He laughs though, a low giddy thing, lifts his head to stare at Erik blue eyed. "Do you know just the other day I was mistaken for a librarian?" Eyes crinkling at the corner, "So you wouldn't have far to look, really."

Nipping Erik's lower lip then smoothing along with his tongue, playful and teasing all of a sudden. He moves his hips, a little rolling motion that essentially grinds down against the other man, hands shifting to his ribs and dragging his fingernails down his sides lightly, "I must admit now I have a longing for the library back home. The things we could have gotten up to."

Erik can cope with Charles' flights of whimsy better than he can talking over what's just happened right now--he doesn't know the violence Charles has thought of, can't imagine it from the man who sees the good in everyone.

But then maybe he'd understand, after all: Charles's unshakeable faith comes from the fact that he can put a face to every mind that he hears. Their captors are shapeless, voiceless; they could be anyone, or no one. He's still thinking about what he'll do when he has the means for retribution, of course, down underneath in the molten core where his anger smolders every second he's alive, but this, this he can let flood the forefront of his mind, the way Charles needs to touch like green plants need warmth.

Not that he's without his own desires; as remote as he can seem it doesn't take telepathy to know how present he is in the moment, a hiss breaking the air between his teeth as he grips Charles by the hips to hold him in place, arches upward like a wave; like everything else, he'll try to control this even through the vaguely feverish feeling that leeches the color from most of his skin but sets it high in others. "Do that again," he instructs, helpfully, of Charles' dragging nails; as light as they are he can feel them, cool white lines like ice on bruises. "I can't imagine. The hours we could have wiled away reading Victorian poetry."

He does as instructed, slower and tantalisingly light, as though he can tease Erik into health again. In between breaths, he lets his lips map out formless thoughts against his friend's throat. He shakes underneath Charles and if the telepath were a better man he'd stop this right now, fetch him tea, help him, but his great flaw is need. He needs Erik in the same way he needs to be liked, as though once deprived of love Charles will drink of it wherever he can.

"Don't tease, I rather like the idea of you reading Byron to me. We'd be better with the Romantics," Lips moving to Erik's ear, a breathless hum, "I think you'd sound rather pretty. Especially when I make your voice break with my mouth around you, mm?"

Because Erik is always taunting him into being as filthy as he possibly can and his blood is singing in his veins and the hands on his hips and the slow arch of Erik is enough to make him lose a little of his decorum.

Edited (words >|) 2013-05-11 15:23 (UTC)

Erik manages a good ...three solid seconds where he just lets Charles touch him, eyes drifting shut. He's more tired than he wants to be; he refuses to let his own limitations corral this when he's missed it so much, really, he could strip away any fanciful or even more carnal notions and say he's missed Charles being warm. That would cover it.

Fortunately he's not obliged to wrestle with his own urges for very long as Charles outlines his feelings on Romantic poetry; Erik's lashes sweep up and he grins back, eyes hot, all teeth. "Professor Xavier. I didn't know you had it in you."

He could have chosen different phrasing, but why? Blunt innuendo seems to be the best way to encourage this new turn in Charles (they are, he could muse if he were not abundantly busy, finally getting that comfortable with one another; it only took being whisked away to Cape Horror and the possibility of loss to make it happen), that and tugging idly at the tail of Charles' shirt, undoing the bottom few buttons with elaborate casualness. "Though I am afraid all the Byron I can remember would kill the mood."

His grin suggests he is barely holding back the not yet response to Erik's first comment, bringing his knees up to straddle him in a fluid kind of movement. Charles is clumsy in everything but this, and even then he's pushing it. Seated astride Erik, he peers down at him through the fringe that has fallen into his eyes, and his hands go to his shirt, briefly covering his friend's calloused fingers before he speaks, "Here, let me."

It's easy enough to pull the buttons open, Charles has very little care for them at this moment in time. In fact, he's fairly close to ruing the day shirts were ever invented. He just wants skin on skin and taking over is as close to caretaking as he can get. His thoughts are a bubble, a warm cascade that spills up against Erik's mind in helpless adoration. His mouth is red and his eyes bright and his accent takes on the slight thrum of education, Professor Xavier indeed. "I don't know about that, Byron said some pretty things when he wasn't tearing up the country or inspiring popular gothic novels. I rather like there is no instinct than that of the heart, though I can't promise you it's merely my heart being instinctual right now."

A smile that's crooked and mischievous as his shirt gets tossed aside and his hands settle low on Erik's stomach to push fabric up and splay his hands warm and heavy against scarred skin. "Thankfully I'm very clever, I can follow the varying motivations and find a balance."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

→ my my let these songs be an instrument to cut here darling,

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

HAHAHasdgad you changed the warning i see

i had to warn people of charles and his terror.