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

[mentis]

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.

Comments

[mentis]

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."

[violenthearted]

"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.

[mentis]

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.

[violenthearted]

"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."

[mentis]

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."

[violenthearted]

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."

[mentis]

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.

HAHAHasdgad you changed the warning i see

[violenthearted]

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."

i had to warn people of charles and his terror.

[mentis]

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."