Summer Fic Exchange: Room and Board
Title: Room and Board
Author: smilebackwards
Recipient: sturmundwank
Characters/Pairing: Erik/Charles
Rating: R
Warnings: Underage sex. References to abuse.
Word Count: ~4700
Summary: "How long had you been banging your head against the wall before I arrived?" Erik asks curiously after the resident nurse has lain Charles down on a cot and given him two ibuprofen to swallow and an icepack to hold against his head. Boarding school AU.
When Charles is eight years old, something happens.
"Goodnight, mother. I love you," he says as he's tucked into bed, his mother's movements precise, touching only the covers.
Her lips shape the word goodnight, but Charles hears, suddenly, a noise like the scratch of a record and then, hollow, like an echo, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's not your fault, but I can't love you.
In the corner of his mind where he plays pretend, there's a picture of his mother, younger, with her hair pulled up tight, twirling in a pink dress. She on a stage, lit up by a thousand bulbs, surrounded by red roses and the thunderous sound of applause.
"What?" Charles says, disoriented.
"I said, goodnight, Charles," his mother replies, switching off the light.
Charles dreams, restlessly, of whispers pressing in on him. When he wakes up, they're louder.
--
"I love you," Charles says, the next night, and his mother says, "Goodnight, Charles." I did it for your father, he so wanted a child. He sees her pink dancing dress on a hanger in the back of the closet, watches her close the door.
--
By the time Charles is sixteen he has told his mother he loves her enough times to know that he was unexpected, that she had wanted an abortion, had told his father they could try again in a few years, just wait until she'd done Swan Lake and Giselle.
Charles' father had taken her hands on bended knee, eyes pleading, and said, "This one will be special."
When he was younger, Charles tried telling his mother that he loved her more frequently, to try to make up for things, let her know how grateful he was, but it only made her thoughts turn guilty. She was relieved when he stopped altogether.
On a rainy day at the end of April she presents a man with mussed blond hair and steel grey eyes. "Charles," his mother says, "This is Mr. Alistair. He's here to talk to you about a special school." She sounds almost pleased. It must be very prestigious, Charles thinks, or very far way.
Charles tries to avoid touching people. It makes the voices louder, shows him things he doesn't want to see. But his mother is watching and he can never do less than his best for her, not when she gave up so much for him. He reaches out for Mr. Alistair's hand.
Telepath, Alistair is thinking and that alone would be enough to knock the breath out of Charles--his secret known by a stranger--but there's more: a girl with gold blonde hair and ice blue eyes in a circular room, a wired helmet on her head, a flash of a large brick mansion, two boys fighting in the grass, one throwing fire, the other ice, laughing.
Charles, who has spent his life surrounded by quiet books and disengaged tutors, always followed by the whispered thoughts of the household staff no matter what cold, empty corner he hid in, hands pressed tight over his ears, useless, has never felt so relieved. There are other people like him. And more than that, a school. A school where someone might be able to show him how to turn off the whispers.
"It's wonderful to meet you," Charles says, voice choking.
"I'll leave you two to talk," Charles mother says and then slides back out of Charles' life with the ease of long practice.
Alistair considers Charles with steady eyes. "She doesn't know," he says, indicating Charles' mother with a jerk of his head toward the door she just exited.
Charles laughs, "Good God, no," he says, "She'd be horrified. Everyone would. They consider me quiet, odd, but they can hardly judge the depth of it. I do think my step-father suspects. Of course, he'd never say anything though because if he truly believes I can read minds, he knows I have a great deal more leverage over him than he does me."
Alistair looks somewhat discomfited. Charles can hear him thinking, you really ought to come with me. "It doesn't sound like an ideal place for a burgeoning young telepath," Alistair says.
"No," Charles says, thinking of the way Kurt's eyes follow him, the creeping malice of his thoughts, of Cain who resents the attention his father pays Charles, however unkind and unwelcome, of his own mother who feels so little when she looks at him, bare scraps of wistfulness, guilt, detachment. There's nothing and no one here that Charles would stay for. "I dare say it's not. If you'll have me, I would very much like to come and live at your school instead."
--
Coming to Rochester's School of the Gifted is perhaps the best choice Charles has ever made he decides as he unpacks his trunk in the room he's been assigned to share with three other boys.
He's already met a lovely blue-skinned girl who took one look at him--struggling with his bags, no idea where he was meant to go, half-asleep from the long drive--and declared immediately that he was adorable and she was adopting him as her brother. She'd press-ganged two passing boys into helping Charles with his luggage and once they'd located his room, unslung his duffel bag from her shoulder, kissed him on the cheek affectionately, and said, "I'll let you get settled in. Come eat breakfast with me in the morning." Her thoughts fluttered warm and soft against his mind, wordless feelings, more like the kiss she'd brushed across his cheek than the hollow whispers that followed Charles relentlessly in Westchester.
The boys Charles is rooming with--Alex, Sean and Hank--are equally kind when they introduce themselves. Charles, who has never had a friend in his life, never imagined that making them would be so easy.
Charles begins to doubt his decision later that night. During the evening, his roommates' thoughts had been quiet enough to ignore, background white noise, but their dreams echo around Charles like foghorns.
Alex is in a plane crash that repeats endlessly, fire and debris and Scott, Scott, Scott. Sean is swimming through an ocean of clownfish, scattering them like orange confetti with his laughing sonic screams. Hank's dream is all numbers; equations and theories running past too fast to make sense of.
Charles feels dizzy, sick. He's falling, wet, frustrated. Fire, water, math. He staggers from his bed and to the communal bathroom at the end of the hall. When he was younger, Charles used to hide in the bathtub when the whispers got too much, like it was a bomb shelter. It didn't really help, but the smooth coldness of the porcelain was comforting then, and it's comforting now when Charles sinks to the floor, pressing his face against the tiled wall.
He closes his eyes and bangs his head lightly and repeatedly against the wall until all he can see is the bright flashes of white behind his eyelids, all he can hear is a dull pounding, thump thump thump.
--
"I am aware," Charles says when he feels someone enter the bathroom and stop short at the sight of him, "that this does not look like a way to maintain sanity, but I assure you, that is what I am attempting to do."
When he opens his eyes, there's a boy with sharp features and green eyes looking at him calculatingly. "Wouldn't you rather try going to the nurse?" the boy asks.
"Does she by chance have some sort of telepathy dampening medication?" Charles asks without much hope.
"At the very least, she has painkillers," the boy shrugs. He reaches out to haul Charles up off the floor and Charles flinches back, ready for a barrage of images and sound worse than the dreams and nightmares he's trying to push away. The boy's hands still under Charles' elbows. "Are you all right?" he asks.
"Yes," Charles says, surprised, "Yes, I'm fine." The only thing he hears is a few bars of music, gently soothing, and a woman's voice singing words in a language he would hazard a guess is German.
"Good," the boy says as Charles gets his feet under him. "I'm Erik Lehnsherr."
"It's lovely to meet you, Erik," Charles says. "Thank you very much for your help."
--
"How long had you been banging your head against the wall before I arrived?" Erik asks curiously after the resident nurse has lain Charles down on a cot and given him two ibuprofen to swallow and an icepack to hold against his head.
"Well," Charles considers, "Lights out was at twelve o'clock. Dreams usually occur during REM sleep which starts approximately ninety minutes after first falling asleep, meaning I probably got my first taste of Alex's nightmare and subsequently began my mental meltdown around 1:30 a.m. However, I didn't stagger to the bathroom until at least half an hour later. What time did you wake up to use the bathroom?"
"Six o'clock," Erik says, sounding appalled. "I usually go for a run in the morning before classes."
"So perhaps four hours maximum," Charles says carelessly. "I'm very sorry I interrupted your morning routine, by the way."
"I think my preventing you from giving yourself what is surely further brain damage is more important," Erik says.
Before Charles can decide whether to take that as a compliment or not, Nurse Erin shoos Erik out of the infirmary so she can ask Charles a series of questions about his medical history and check his pupil reaction before sending him down to breakfast.
--
In the dining hall, Charles' eyes automatically search out Erik. He finds him easily, sitting at a table at the back of the hall, no one within ten feet of him on either side. Charles frowns.
A table over from Erik, something catches his eye. Raven is waving at him and Charles remembers the night before, how she'd invited him to sit with her.
Charles has always eaten breakfast alone at a the head of a table meant for twenty. Two clear choices for company is frankly mindboggling. As it turns out, Erik makes the choice for him. By the time Charles has filled a tray with eggs and bacon, Erik has disappeared from the hall entirely.
Charles puts his tray down beside Raven. "Hi, Charles," she says brightly. "This is my friend Angel," she adds, introducing the girl beside her who has sheer dragonfly wings fluttering at her back. Angel nods at him coolly.
"Hello," Charles says politely. "Did you just see Erik leave? I wanted to talk to him again."
Raven spits out a mouthful of orange juice. "Erik Lehnsherr talked to you?" she says.
"Yes," Charles says, perplexed. "Is that a problem?"
"No," Raven says slowly, with an edge of yes. "He's just a bit...standoff-ish. Erik only got here a few months ago and there were a lot of rumors surrounding why. He generally doesn't interact with people and they don't interact with him."
"I heard he killed a man in Frankfurt just to watch him die," Angel says, scraping peanut butter onto her toast.
"He was perfectly cordial to me," Charles says, offended on Erik's behalf. "He helped me down to the infirmary this morning."
"What?" Raven says, alarmed. She sweeps him with a look, checking for injury. "Why were you in the infirmary?"
"I'm quite all right," Charles assures her, feeling a bit of warmth in the region of his breastbone, born from her clear concern. "It's only I'm not very good at shielding and my roommates are rather vivid dreamers."
"You're a telepath, then," Raven says. "They'll probably put you in classes with Mr. Cantor. That's who Emma works with."
"Who do you work with?" Charles asks curiously.
Raven smiles and suddenly she's blonde and pale before she flips back to blue. "Ella Stark takes the shifters," she says, smiling.
"That was the most fantastic thing I've ever seen," Charles says enthusiastically, his jaw practically dropped to the floor.
Raven laughs. "It's actually pretty ordinary compared to some of the things you'll see around here," she says.
--
Charles grew up basically alone, the only social situations he entered the gilded parties his mother occasionally dragged him along to until he accidentally brushed hands with a man who was thinking of killing his wife--cutting her with a knife, blood all over, and taking her body down to the churning black water of the river, dumping it away--and he'd collapsed to the floor shaking and screaming. Doctors had whispered of epilepsy and poked and prodded Charles until he ran and hid in all his secret places in the mansion whenever he felt their cold probing minds enter the house. In the end they'd simply pronounced him "delicate" and he'd had even less contact with the world outside the mansion.
So when Charles finds Erik in his History class and sits down beside him happily with a cheerful, "Hello," only to have Erik look at him coldly, like they've never met, he doesn't know what to think except that everyone is thinking it for him, at him.
Don't sit there, a girl in the front row is thinking, eyes anxious, lower lip caught between her teeth. No one ever sits there.
A boy's voice, somewhere from the right, whispers, Two freaks among the freaks? and someone else says, almost with relish, Lehnsherr is going to tear him apart.
The coin Erik is fiddling with slips from his fingers to clatter loudly against the desk top. Erik hunches his shoulders over his desk and his mental voice is so much quieter than everyone else's, but Charles can still hear him. You should stay away from me, Erik's thoughts echo, stay away from me, stay away.
Charles doesn't know why he puts his hands over his ears; it never helps. What helps is distance, so Charles lurches out of his chair and out of the room. He gets halfway down the hall before he slumps to the floor, back against the wall.
--
You should stay away from me, Erik thought, but when Charles recovers, pulls himself up from the floor with the help of a tiny decorative table topped with a vase of pale roses, he remembers more than the words. The tone of Erik's thoughts wasn't angry or sharp, just resigned.
--
"What are you doing here?" Erik asks, when he finds Charles tucking cotton sheets onto the previously empty second bed in his room. All Erik's weight is shifted onto his back foot.
"I'm your new roommate," Charles says, stolidly. "I'm not used to having so many people around and Mr. Cantor said it would take time to build up my mental shields. Best to room with one person instead of three until I'm better."
"But," Erik says.
"And I'm not going to stay away from you," Charles says, climbing up on his newly made bed and taping up a poster of the periodic table. He turns to give Erik his most charming smile. "We're going to be best friends," Charles tells him.
Erik stares at him and then his eyes flicker to Charles' poster. "It's crooked," he says, lips turned up in the beginnings of a smile.
--
Erik has a mind like a file cabinet full of razors. Sharp, blood-tipped memories, locked safely away, but documented, remembered, catalogued A to Z.
When Erik helps Charles practice his control every night, he lets Charles glimpse them, but never come close enough that he might get cut.
--
After Charles manages to hold up a successful shield for almost a full day, people's thoughts bouncing harmlessly away as Charles smiles, giddy with the feeling of finally, finally not being constantly besieged, Mr. Cantor tells him he can try Cerebro.
Charles is surprised to find that Cerebro basically belongs to Hank, who built it out of spare parts and boredom, and uses it to help find new students for the school.
"I didn't know you were a scientist," Charles says, pleased, after Hank has explained the basic concept of using the machine. "I'm rather keen on heading to university at Oxford to study genetics."
"I was going to be starting at Harvard myself," Hank says excitedly, "but then my parents took me to the beach and I lost one of my shoes in the undertow. There was a bit of an incident and I ended up here instead."
Erik rushes through the door and skids to a sudden stop beside Charles, hands reaching and fairly shoving Charles behind him, like Hank is someone Charles needs to be protected from. "Erik? What on earth?" Charles says.
"You're not putting him in that thing, McCoy," Erik growls at Hank. "He's not even trained. Emma can barely manage to use it and she's had control over her telepathy for years."
Hank blinks. "Well, yes," he says, "but Mr. Cantor tested Charles on the psychic ability spectrum and he's a great deal stronger than Emma. I didn't think it would be a problem."
"I'd like to try, Erik," Charles says, putting a reassuring hand on Erik's shoulder. "This is how the school found me, after all. Think of all the other children who think they're alone when they don't have to be."
Erik slumps. "You're sure about this?" he asks.
Charles has his doubts, but he can tell that saying so to Erik now will probably end in Erik dragging him out of Cerebro by his belt buckle and the metal of his watch. "Perfectly," he says instead.
"No more than five minutes," Erik tells Hank, glaring. Hank swallows and nods. "I'll stand right here, Charles," Erik says, taking up a position in front of the platform Hank has maneuvered Charles to stand on.
"That would be wonderful, Erik. Thank you," Charles says, even though he can't see what purpose it will serve beyond solidarity and perhaps easy access for Erik to rip Hank to shreds if something goes wrong. He takes the helmet Hank hands him, dozens of wires trailing out of it like multi-colored snakes, and puts it on.
"Ready?" Hank asks, hand on the power switch.
"Go," Charles says and then he's gone. It's like he can feel every single one of his neurons fire to life. He laughs, wild and unrestrained, and reaches for the shapes of people's minds. He skims past men and women in office attire, people waiting at train stations and huddled beneath bridges, thoughts coming at him like bullets, one word at a time--want, rain, Sarah, breakfast.
Some people shine brighter than others and Charles brushes across their minds like a caress. He finds a boy who can speak to animals, finds a girl who lights fires with a snap of her fingers, but then he finds himself falling too deep. His name is Brian, Mary, Adam. He has two children, three brothers, a job as an accountant. He can't find Charles.
Somewhere in the distance he can hear Erik calling for him, "Charles! Charles!" and he runs toward him, plunges into the safe space of Erik's mind. There's the scream of metal, a gunshot, then Erik's German lullaby that always cuts off on the phrase die Sterne lan ihr Glitzen stahn and starts again.
Charles breathes. He knows he's standing right beside Erik, only a step away.
When he blinks his eyes open, all Charles can see is Erik's face, furious and worried and stricken. Erik doesn't back away. He uses one hand to rip the helmet off Charles' head and the other to grab Charles by the shoulder and pull him into a hug. "Charles," Erik says, "Charles, are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Charles says, letting his weight rest against Erik's chest.
--
Erik barely lets Charles out of his sight for the rest of the week. He hovers solicitously and skips all the classes he doesn't share with Charles to sit in on Charles' classes instead, ousting whoever usually has the desk beside Charles.
"Erik," Charles finally says, after Erik follows him into the bathroom, "I appreciate your concern, but I am fine."
Erik puts a hand on Charles' wrist, right over his pulse. "It felt like you were drowning," he says quietly.
"Good Lord," Charles says, horrified. "Did I project that to you? I'm truly sorry. I lost control."
Erik gives him the look he reserves for when Charles shows that he has even less socialization than Erik himself. "I don't want you to be sorry, Charles," Erik says. "I want you to be all right."
"I am all right, Erik," Charles says. "I promise." He wonders if he's been projecting his nightmares too. Charles still dreams of churning black river water, of the feeling of being dumped away, but that's a childhood haunting, something he internalized before he learned even a semblance of a shield, his mind as impressionable as hot wax. It has nothing to do with Cerebro, and if Charles wakes up gasping in the night, he only ever has to look across to where Erik is sleeping on the other side of the room to get his breath back, force the river water from his lungs.
Charles turns his wrist so Erik is holding his hand instead.
Erik does what he's been refusing to all week and pulls back from Charles, snatches his hand away like he's been burned. "I have to..." he says, pointing his thumb toward the door like it will help Charles interpret his meaning. He turns on his heel and walks quickly away.
Charles stares after him. "I'm all right," he says into the empty air. It feels somehow less true now.
--
Erik spends the day somewhere Charles can't divine and then shows up for dinner acting like nothing happened. Really, nothing did happen, Charles thinks, but he still feels off-balance, out of sorts, and Raven looks between him and Erik with curious, concerned eyes.
The coin Erik always carries like a talisman flashes between his fingers, too quick to follow.
It's a repeating pattern the next day and the next and the next. Erik sways toward him and then away, magnetized and repelled. Charles can feel Erik's powers grip his watch, pulling his hand toward Erik; he can feel the rivets in his jeans, the silver buckle of his belt, twist his hips in Erik's direction. Then there's the flash of Erik's coin and his German lullaby blares until Charles winces and Erik throws up a barrier solid as steel over his thoughts.
Charles feels like he's back where they started all those months ago, banging his head against a wall.
--
For the first time in seven months, Charles receives a letter from his mother. She wants him to come home for Christmas.
Before the frankly agonizing past two weeks of being alternately ignored and stared at by Erik, Charles might have tossed the letter away, claimed it lost if his mother ever bothered to ask afterward, to spend the holiday at the school with Erik. Now, it's almost appealing. Perhaps Erik has grown tired of Charles' continuous presence. Perhaps what they need is time apart.
Erik helps him heft his suitcase into the trunk of the hired car and Charles reaches into his jacket pocket to pull out eight small tea lights, one for each day of Hanukkah.
"Don't forget me," Charles says, smiling as he puts the candles in Erik's hand.
"Never," Erik says.
--
When Charles comes back from winter break spent in Westchester, he's seventeen. He has a healing bruise, high on his cheekbone, from Cain and aching ribs, wrapped up tight under his blazer, from Kurt.
He knows he shouldn't have, but Charles can see the truth so easily now and when Kurt poured more brandy into his mother's already thrice-emptied glass, cuffed Cain too roughly for a sarcastic comment, asked Charles when he was going back to school, something between annoyance and eagerness in his voice, he had to tell it. He doesn't love you.
Charles isn't sure whether he meant to say it to his mother or Cain or himself, but it's true for all of them. No one loves anyone in Westchester truly.
When Erik finds Charles in their shared room, bruised and unhappy, arms looped around his knees in a contained self-hug, all the metal in the room trembles and shakes.
"Hello, Erik. How was your holiday?" Charles says wanly. Do you love me? he wonders, despondent.
"Yes," Erik says.
Charles gapes. "What?" he says, voice weak and wavering.
"Charles, you just projected that at me like a speeding freight train," Erik says. "And the answer is yes."
"You--" Charles starts, but Erik cuts him off.
"Yes," Erik says and seals his lips over Charles'. Charles kisses him back, eyes fluttering closed. They fall back on Charles' bed, Erik leaning over him.
"Wait," Charles says when he has to take a breath. Erik groans. "But I thought you didn't want this," Charles says, confused. Erik's hands are warm where they cover Charles' hips and he should probably just let it go, not look a gift horse in the mouth, but Charles is a scientist at heart, he has to know things, and this is important. "You kept pushing me away."
Erik looks at him, all his sharp-edged memories in his eyes. "Someday I'm going to do something terrible, Charles," Erik says. "I'm going to hurt someone who hurt me and I know you won't approve. I can't have you and then lose you."
"I don't understand," Charles says.
"I don't think I really want you to," Erik admits. Charles moves to push him away, and Erik holds on tighter. "But I've decided I'm not going to lose you."
Charles knows you don't get to choose who you keep and who you lose. He knows Erik knows it too, probably better than Charles, but when Erik kisses his way up Charles' neck, Charles lets himself disbelieve it. "You'll never lose me," he says and Erik's kisses go from sweet to burning. He scrapes Charles' jawline with his teeth, tears at his clothing until they're both naked and Erik has his hand around both their cocks, tugging slow and steady as Charles rips up his back with his fingernails sobbing, "Erik, Erik, faster."
"You're always going to say my name like this," Erik says, his voice gone ragged. "You're always going to want me, to love me."
"Yes," Charles chants, "yes, yes, yes. God, Erik."
Erik twists his wrist, tightens his grip, strokes faster and faster until Charles can't take it anymore and he comes all over Erik's hand. Erik presses Charles down flat on the bed and finishes on his chest.
Charles is utterly wrecked, still shaking and gasping as Erik cleans them off with the edge of a sheet and shushes him to sleep, held close in Erik's arms.
--
"Charles," Raven says on a low whistle when Charles sits down beside her for breakfast, "what did you get up to last night?"
Charles can feel his face flush hot. "How did you..." he trails off.
Raven laughs and points at his neck. "You've got quite a mark there," she says, grinning.
Charles has a sudden flashback to the night before, Erik sucking harsh kisses into his neck and then soothing them with his tongue. One of them must have lasted the night. He tugs his shirt collar closed, fastening the top button in a way he knows makes him look fussy but which will hide the evidence.
"I think Erik is my boyfriend now," Charles admits.
Raven stares at him. "Is this news to you?" she asks.
"Well," Charles starts, but then Erik swaggers into the room and takes the seat beside him, stealing Charles' fork and using it to spear a bit of scrambled egg off his plate. He turns to grin at Charles and Charles can't help smiling back.
Erik takes in Charles' buttoned-up collar and his grin turns distinctly sharp. He reaches up to unbutton not only the top button, but the two below it so Charles' collar gapes wide, Erik's mark on his neck easily visible to the world.
"Is that really necessary?" Charles asks, hands going up to cover the mark modestly.
"Yes," Erik says, non-debatable. He puts his arm around Charles' shoulder, one more proof of possession.
Charles can hear people around them thinking in questions: Did you see that? and When did that happen? and Jesus Christ, Lehnsherr actually likes another human being?
Charles laughs. "Well, all right," he says.
Author: smilebackwards
Recipient: sturmundwank
Characters/Pairing: Erik/Charles
Rating: R
Warnings: Underage sex. References to abuse.
Word Count: ~4700
Summary: "How long had you been banging your head against the wall before I arrived?" Erik asks curiously after the resident nurse has lain Charles down on a cot and given him two ibuprofen to swallow and an icepack to hold against his head. Boarding school AU.
When Charles is eight years old, something happens.
"Goodnight, mother. I love you," he says as he's tucked into bed, his mother's movements precise, touching only the covers.
Her lips shape the word goodnight, but Charles hears, suddenly, a noise like the scratch of a record and then, hollow, like an echo, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's not your fault, but I can't love you.
In the corner of his mind where he plays pretend, there's a picture of his mother, younger, with her hair pulled up tight, twirling in a pink dress. She on a stage, lit up by a thousand bulbs, surrounded by red roses and the thunderous sound of applause.
"What?" Charles says, disoriented.
"I said, goodnight, Charles," his mother replies, switching off the light.
Charles dreams, restlessly, of whispers pressing in on him. When he wakes up, they're louder.
--
"I love you," Charles says, the next night, and his mother says, "Goodnight, Charles." I did it for your father, he so wanted a child. He sees her pink dancing dress on a hanger in the back of the closet, watches her close the door.
--
By the time Charles is sixteen he has told his mother he loves her enough times to know that he was unexpected, that she had wanted an abortion, had told his father they could try again in a few years, just wait until she'd done Swan Lake and Giselle.
Charles' father had taken her hands on bended knee, eyes pleading, and said, "This one will be special."
When he was younger, Charles tried telling his mother that he loved her more frequently, to try to make up for things, let her know how grateful he was, but it only made her thoughts turn guilty. She was relieved when he stopped altogether.
On a rainy day at the end of April she presents a man with mussed blond hair and steel grey eyes. "Charles," his mother says, "This is Mr. Alistair. He's here to talk to you about a special school." She sounds almost pleased. It must be very prestigious, Charles thinks, or very far way.
Charles tries to avoid touching people. It makes the voices louder, shows him things he doesn't want to see. But his mother is watching and he can never do less than his best for her, not when she gave up so much for him. He reaches out for Mr. Alistair's hand.
Telepath, Alistair is thinking and that alone would be enough to knock the breath out of Charles--his secret known by a stranger--but there's more: a girl with gold blonde hair and ice blue eyes in a circular room, a wired helmet on her head, a flash of a large brick mansion, two boys fighting in the grass, one throwing fire, the other ice, laughing.
Charles, who has spent his life surrounded by quiet books and disengaged tutors, always followed by the whispered thoughts of the household staff no matter what cold, empty corner he hid in, hands pressed tight over his ears, useless, has never felt so relieved. There are other people like him. And more than that, a school. A school where someone might be able to show him how to turn off the whispers.
"It's wonderful to meet you," Charles says, voice choking.
"I'll leave you two to talk," Charles mother says and then slides back out of Charles' life with the ease of long practice.
Alistair considers Charles with steady eyes. "She doesn't know," he says, indicating Charles' mother with a jerk of his head toward the door she just exited.
Charles laughs, "Good God, no," he says, "She'd be horrified. Everyone would. They consider me quiet, odd, but they can hardly judge the depth of it. I do think my step-father suspects. Of course, he'd never say anything though because if he truly believes I can read minds, he knows I have a great deal more leverage over him than he does me."
Alistair looks somewhat discomfited. Charles can hear him thinking, you really ought to come with me. "It doesn't sound like an ideal place for a burgeoning young telepath," Alistair says.
"No," Charles says, thinking of the way Kurt's eyes follow him, the creeping malice of his thoughts, of Cain who resents the attention his father pays Charles, however unkind and unwelcome, of his own mother who feels so little when she looks at him, bare scraps of wistfulness, guilt, detachment. There's nothing and no one here that Charles would stay for. "I dare say it's not. If you'll have me, I would very much like to come and live at your school instead."
--
Coming to Rochester's School of the Gifted is perhaps the best choice Charles has ever made he decides as he unpacks his trunk in the room he's been assigned to share with three other boys.
He's already met a lovely blue-skinned girl who took one look at him--struggling with his bags, no idea where he was meant to go, half-asleep from the long drive--and declared immediately that he was adorable and she was adopting him as her brother. She'd press-ganged two passing boys into helping Charles with his luggage and once they'd located his room, unslung his duffel bag from her shoulder, kissed him on the cheek affectionately, and said, "I'll let you get settled in. Come eat breakfast with me in the morning." Her thoughts fluttered warm and soft against his mind, wordless feelings, more like the kiss she'd brushed across his cheek than the hollow whispers that followed Charles relentlessly in Westchester.
The boys Charles is rooming with--Alex, Sean and Hank--are equally kind when they introduce themselves. Charles, who has never had a friend in his life, never imagined that making them would be so easy.
Charles begins to doubt his decision later that night. During the evening, his roommates' thoughts had been quiet enough to ignore, background white noise, but their dreams echo around Charles like foghorns.
Alex is in a plane crash that repeats endlessly, fire and debris and Scott, Scott, Scott. Sean is swimming through an ocean of clownfish, scattering them like orange confetti with his laughing sonic screams. Hank's dream is all numbers; equations and theories running past too fast to make sense of.
Charles feels dizzy, sick. He's falling, wet, frustrated. Fire, water, math. He staggers from his bed and to the communal bathroom at the end of the hall. When he was younger, Charles used to hide in the bathtub when the whispers got too much, like it was a bomb shelter. It didn't really help, but the smooth coldness of the porcelain was comforting then, and it's comforting now when Charles sinks to the floor, pressing his face against the tiled wall.
He closes his eyes and bangs his head lightly and repeatedly against the wall until all he can see is the bright flashes of white behind his eyelids, all he can hear is a dull pounding, thump thump thump.
--
"I am aware," Charles says when he feels someone enter the bathroom and stop short at the sight of him, "that this does not look like a way to maintain sanity, but I assure you, that is what I am attempting to do."
When he opens his eyes, there's a boy with sharp features and green eyes looking at him calculatingly. "Wouldn't you rather try going to the nurse?" the boy asks.
"Does she by chance have some sort of telepathy dampening medication?" Charles asks without much hope.
"At the very least, she has painkillers," the boy shrugs. He reaches out to haul Charles up off the floor and Charles flinches back, ready for a barrage of images and sound worse than the dreams and nightmares he's trying to push away. The boy's hands still under Charles' elbows. "Are you all right?" he asks.
"Yes," Charles says, surprised, "Yes, I'm fine." The only thing he hears is a few bars of music, gently soothing, and a woman's voice singing words in a language he would hazard a guess is German.
"Good," the boy says as Charles gets his feet under him. "I'm Erik Lehnsherr."
"It's lovely to meet you, Erik," Charles says. "Thank you very much for your help."
--
"How long had you been banging your head against the wall before I arrived?" Erik asks curiously after the resident nurse has lain Charles down on a cot and given him two ibuprofen to swallow and an icepack to hold against his head.
"Well," Charles considers, "Lights out was at twelve o'clock. Dreams usually occur during REM sleep which starts approximately ninety minutes after first falling asleep, meaning I probably got my first taste of Alex's nightmare and subsequently began my mental meltdown around 1:30 a.m. However, I didn't stagger to the bathroom until at least half an hour later. What time did you wake up to use the bathroom?"
"Six o'clock," Erik says, sounding appalled. "I usually go for a run in the morning before classes."
"So perhaps four hours maximum," Charles says carelessly. "I'm very sorry I interrupted your morning routine, by the way."
"I think my preventing you from giving yourself what is surely further brain damage is more important," Erik says.
Before Charles can decide whether to take that as a compliment or not, Nurse Erin shoos Erik out of the infirmary so she can ask Charles a series of questions about his medical history and check his pupil reaction before sending him down to breakfast.
--
In the dining hall, Charles' eyes automatically search out Erik. He finds him easily, sitting at a table at the back of the hall, no one within ten feet of him on either side. Charles frowns.
A table over from Erik, something catches his eye. Raven is waving at him and Charles remembers the night before, how she'd invited him to sit with her.
Charles has always eaten breakfast alone at a the head of a table meant for twenty. Two clear choices for company is frankly mindboggling. As it turns out, Erik makes the choice for him. By the time Charles has filled a tray with eggs and bacon, Erik has disappeared from the hall entirely.
Charles puts his tray down beside Raven. "Hi, Charles," she says brightly. "This is my friend Angel," she adds, introducing the girl beside her who has sheer dragonfly wings fluttering at her back. Angel nods at him coolly.
"Hello," Charles says politely. "Did you just see Erik leave? I wanted to talk to him again."
Raven spits out a mouthful of orange juice. "Erik Lehnsherr talked to you?" she says.
"Yes," Charles says, perplexed. "Is that a problem?"
"No," Raven says slowly, with an edge of yes. "He's just a bit...standoff-ish. Erik only got here a few months ago and there were a lot of rumors surrounding why. He generally doesn't interact with people and they don't interact with him."
"I heard he killed a man in Frankfurt just to watch him die," Angel says, scraping peanut butter onto her toast.
"He was perfectly cordial to me," Charles says, offended on Erik's behalf. "He helped me down to the infirmary this morning."
"What?" Raven says, alarmed. She sweeps him with a look, checking for injury. "Why were you in the infirmary?"
"I'm quite all right," Charles assures her, feeling a bit of warmth in the region of his breastbone, born from her clear concern. "It's only I'm not very good at shielding and my roommates are rather vivid dreamers."
"You're a telepath, then," Raven says. "They'll probably put you in classes with Mr. Cantor. That's who Emma works with."
"Who do you work with?" Charles asks curiously.
Raven smiles and suddenly she's blonde and pale before she flips back to blue. "Ella Stark takes the shifters," she says, smiling.
"That was the most fantastic thing I've ever seen," Charles says enthusiastically, his jaw practically dropped to the floor.
Raven laughs. "It's actually pretty ordinary compared to some of the things you'll see around here," she says.
--
Charles grew up basically alone, the only social situations he entered the gilded parties his mother occasionally dragged him along to until he accidentally brushed hands with a man who was thinking of killing his wife--cutting her with a knife, blood all over, and taking her body down to the churning black water of the river, dumping it away--and he'd collapsed to the floor shaking and screaming. Doctors had whispered of epilepsy and poked and prodded Charles until he ran and hid in all his secret places in the mansion whenever he felt their cold probing minds enter the house. In the end they'd simply pronounced him "delicate" and he'd had even less contact with the world outside the mansion.
So when Charles finds Erik in his History class and sits down beside him happily with a cheerful, "Hello," only to have Erik look at him coldly, like they've never met, he doesn't know what to think except that everyone is thinking it for him, at him.
Don't sit there, a girl in the front row is thinking, eyes anxious, lower lip caught between her teeth. No one ever sits there.
A boy's voice, somewhere from the right, whispers, Two freaks among the freaks? and someone else says, almost with relish, Lehnsherr is going to tear him apart.
The coin Erik is fiddling with slips from his fingers to clatter loudly against the desk top. Erik hunches his shoulders over his desk and his mental voice is so much quieter than everyone else's, but Charles can still hear him. You should stay away from me, Erik's thoughts echo, stay away from me, stay away.
Charles doesn't know why he puts his hands over his ears; it never helps. What helps is distance, so Charles lurches out of his chair and out of the room. He gets halfway down the hall before he slumps to the floor, back against the wall.
--
You should stay away from me, Erik thought, but when Charles recovers, pulls himself up from the floor with the help of a tiny decorative table topped with a vase of pale roses, he remembers more than the words. The tone of Erik's thoughts wasn't angry or sharp, just resigned.
--
"What are you doing here?" Erik asks, when he finds Charles tucking cotton sheets onto the previously empty second bed in his room. All Erik's weight is shifted onto his back foot.
"I'm your new roommate," Charles says, stolidly. "I'm not used to having so many people around and Mr. Cantor said it would take time to build up my mental shields. Best to room with one person instead of three until I'm better."
"But," Erik says.
"And I'm not going to stay away from you," Charles says, climbing up on his newly made bed and taping up a poster of the periodic table. He turns to give Erik his most charming smile. "We're going to be best friends," Charles tells him.
Erik stares at him and then his eyes flicker to Charles' poster. "It's crooked," he says, lips turned up in the beginnings of a smile.
--
Erik has a mind like a file cabinet full of razors. Sharp, blood-tipped memories, locked safely away, but documented, remembered, catalogued A to Z.
When Erik helps Charles practice his control every night, he lets Charles glimpse them, but never come close enough that he might get cut.
--
After Charles manages to hold up a successful shield for almost a full day, people's thoughts bouncing harmlessly away as Charles smiles, giddy with the feeling of finally, finally not being constantly besieged, Mr. Cantor tells him he can try Cerebro.
Charles is surprised to find that Cerebro basically belongs to Hank, who built it out of spare parts and boredom, and uses it to help find new students for the school.
"I didn't know you were a scientist," Charles says, pleased, after Hank has explained the basic concept of using the machine. "I'm rather keen on heading to university at Oxford to study genetics."
"I was going to be starting at Harvard myself," Hank says excitedly, "but then my parents took me to the beach and I lost one of my shoes in the undertow. There was a bit of an incident and I ended up here instead."
Erik rushes through the door and skids to a sudden stop beside Charles, hands reaching and fairly shoving Charles behind him, like Hank is someone Charles needs to be protected from. "Erik? What on earth?" Charles says.
"You're not putting him in that thing, McCoy," Erik growls at Hank. "He's not even trained. Emma can barely manage to use it and she's had control over her telepathy for years."
Hank blinks. "Well, yes," he says, "but Mr. Cantor tested Charles on the psychic ability spectrum and he's a great deal stronger than Emma. I didn't think it would be a problem."
"I'd like to try, Erik," Charles says, putting a reassuring hand on Erik's shoulder. "This is how the school found me, after all. Think of all the other children who think they're alone when they don't have to be."
Erik slumps. "You're sure about this?" he asks.
Charles has his doubts, but he can tell that saying so to Erik now will probably end in Erik dragging him out of Cerebro by his belt buckle and the metal of his watch. "Perfectly," he says instead.
"No more than five minutes," Erik tells Hank, glaring. Hank swallows and nods. "I'll stand right here, Charles," Erik says, taking up a position in front of the platform Hank has maneuvered Charles to stand on.
"That would be wonderful, Erik. Thank you," Charles says, even though he can't see what purpose it will serve beyond solidarity and perhaps easy access for Erik to rip Hank to shreds if something goes wrong. He takes the helmet Hank hands him, dozens of wires trailing out of it like multi-colored snakes, and puts it on.
"Ready?" Hank asks, hand on the power switch.
"Go," Charles says and then he's gone. It's like he can feel every single one of his neurons fire to life. He laughs, wild and unrestrained, and reaches for the shapes of people's minds. He skims past men and women in office attire, people waiting at train stations and huddled beneath bridges, thoughts coming at him like bullets, one word at a time--want, rain, Sarah, breakfast.
Some people shine brighter than others and Charles brushes across their minds like a caress. He finds a boy who can speak to animals, finds a girl who lights fires with a snap of her fingers, but then he finds himself falling too deep. His name is Brian, Mary, Adam. He has two children, three brothers, a job as an accountant. He can't find Charles.
Somewhere in the distance he can hear Erik calling for him, "Charles! Charles!" and he runs toward him, plunges into the safe space of Erik's mind. There's the scream of metal, a gunshot, then Erik's German lullaby that always cuts off on the phrase die Sterne lan ihr Glitzen stahn and starts again.
Charles breathes. He knows he's standing right beside Erik, only a step away.
When he blinks his eyes open, all Charles can see is Erik's face, furious and worried and stricken. Erik doesn't back away. He uses one hand to rip the helmet off Charles' head and the other to grab Charles by the shoulder and pull him into a hug. "Charles," Erik says, "Charles, are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Charles says, letting his weight rest against Erik's chest.
--
Erik barely lets Charles out of his sight for the rest of the week. He hovers solicitously and skips all the classes he doesn't share with Charles to sit in on Charles' classes instead, ousting whoever usually has the desk beside Charles.
"Erik," Charles finally says, after Erik follows him into the bathroom, "I appreciate your concern, but I am fine."
Erik puts a hand on Charles' wrist, right over his pulse. "It felt like you were drowning," he says quietly.
"Good Lord," Charles says, horrified. "Did I project that to you? I'm truly sorry. I lost control."
Erik gives him the look he reserves for when Charles shows that he has even less socialization than Erik himself. "I don't want you to be sorry, Charles," Erik says. "I want you to be all right."
"I am all right, Erik," Charles says. "I promise." He wonders if he's been projecting his nightmares too. Charles still dreams of churning black river water, of the feeling of being dumped away, but that's a childhood haunting, something he internalized before he learned even a semblance of a shield, his mind as impressionable as hot wax. It has nothing to do with Cerebro, and if Charles wakes up gasping in the night, he only ever has to look across to where Erik is sleeping on the other side of the room to get his breath back, force the river water from his lungs.
Charles turns his wrist so Erik is holding his hand instead.
Erik does what he's been refusing to all week and pulls back from Charles, snatches his hand away like he's been burned. "I have to..." he says, pointing his thumb toward the door like it will help Charles interpret his meaning. He turns on his heel and walks quickly away.
Charles stares after him. "I'm all right," he says into the empty air. It feels somehow less true now.
--
Erik spends the day somewhere Charles can't divine and then shows up for dinner acting like nothing happened. Really, nothing did happen, Charles thinks, but he still feels off-balance, out of sorts, and Raven looks between him and Erik with curious, concerned eyes.
The coin Erik always carries like a talisman flashes between his fingers, too quick to follow.
It's a repeating pattern the next day and the next and the next. Erik sways toward him and then away, magnetized and repelled. Charles can feel Erik's powers grip his watch, pulling his hand toward Erik; he can feel the rivets in his jeans, the silver buckle of his belt, twist his hips in Erik's direction. Then there's the flash of Erik's coin and his German lullaby blares until Charles winces and Erik throws up a barrier solid as steel over his thoughts.
Charles feels like he's back where they started all those months ago, banging his head against a wall.
--
For the first time in seven months, Charles receives a letter from his mother. She wants him to come home for Christmas.
Before the frankly agonizing past two weeks of being alternately ignored and stared at by Erik, Charles might have tossed the letter away, claimed it lost if his mother ever bothered to ask afterward, to spend the holiday at the school with Erik. Now, it's almost appealing. Perhaps Erik has grown tired of Charles' continuous presence. Perhaps what they need is time apart.
Erik helps him heft his suitcase into the trunk of the hired car and Charles reaches into his jacket pocket to pull out eight small tea lights, one for each day of Hanukkah.
"Don't forget me," Charles says, smiling as he puts the candles in Erik's hand.
"Never," Erik says.
--
When Charles comes back from winter break spent in Westchester, he's seventeen. He has a healing bruise, high on his cheekbone, from Cain and aching ribs, wrapped up tight under his blazer, from Kurt.
He knows he shouldn't have, but Charles can see the truth so easily now and when Kurt poured more brandy into his mother's already thrice-emptied glass, cuffed Cain too roughly for a sarcastic comment, asked Charles when he was going back to school, something between annoyance and eagerness in his voice, he had to tell it. He doesn't love you.
Charles isn't sure whether he meant to say it to his mother or Cain or himself, but it's true for all of them. No one loves anyone in Westchester truly.
When Erik finds Charles in their shared room, bruised and unhappy, arms looped around his knees in a contained self-hug, all the metal in the room trembles and shakes.
"Hello, Erik. How was your holiday?" Charles says wanly. Do you love me? he wonders, despondent.
"Yes," Erik says.
Charles gapes. "What?" he says, voice weak and wavering.
"Charles, you just projected that at me like a speeding freight train," Erik says. "And the answer is yes."
"You--" Charles starts, but Erik cuts him off.
"Yes," Erik says and seals his lips over Charles'. Charles kisses him back, eyes fluttering closed. They fall back on Charles' bed, Erik leaning over him.
"Wait," Charles says when he has to take a breath. Erik groans. "But I thought you didn't want this," Charles says, confused. Erik's hands are warm where they cover Charles' hips and he should probably just let it go, not look a gift horse in the mouth, but Charles is a scientist at heart, he has to know things, and this is important. "You kept pushing me away."
Erik looks at him, all his sharp-edged memories in his eyes. "Someday I'm going to do something terrible, Charles," Erik says. "I'm going to hurt someone who hurt me and I know you won't approve. I can't have you and then lose you."
"I don't understand," Charles says.
"I don't think I really want you to," Erik admits. Charles moves to push him away, and Erik holds on tighter. "But I've decided I'm not going to lose you."
Charles knows you don't get to choose who you keep and who you lose. He knows Erik knows it too, probably better than Charles, but when Erik kisses his way up Charles' neck, Charles lets himself disbelieve it. "You'll never lose me," he says and Erik's kisses go from sweet to burning. He scrapes Charles' jawline with his teeth, tears at his clothing until they're both naked and Erik has his hand around both their cocks, tugging slow and steady as Charles rips up his back with his fingernails sobbing, "Erik, Erik, faster."
"You're always going to say my name like this," Erik says, his voice gone ragged. "You're always going to want me, to love me."
"Yes," Charles chants, "yes, yes, yes. God, Erik."
Erik twists his wrist, tightens his grip, strokes faster and faster until Charles can't take it anymore and he comes all over Erik's hand. Erik presses Charles down flat on the bed and finishes on his chest.
Charles is utterly wrecked, still shaking and gasping as Erik cleans them off with the edge of a sheet and shushes him to sleep, held close in Erik's arms.
--
"Charles," Raven says on a low whistle when Charles sits down beside her for breakfast, "what did you get up to last night?"
Charles can feel his face flush hot. "How did you..." he trails off.
Raven laughs and points at his neck. "You've got quite a mark there," she says, grinning.
Charles has a sudden flashback to the night before, Erik sucking harsh kisses into his neck and then soothing them with his tongue. One of them must have lasted the night. He tugs his shirt collar closed, fastening the top button in a way he knows makes him look fussy but which will hide the evidence.
"I think Erik is my boyfriend now," Charles admits.
Raven stares at him. "Is this news to you?" she asks.
"Well," Charles starts, but then Erik swaggers into the room and takes the seat beside him, stealing Charles' fork and using it to spear a bit of scrambled egg off his plate. He turns to grin at Charles and Charles can't help smiling back.
Erik takes in Charles' buttoned-up collar and his grin turns distinctly sharp. He reaches up to unbutton not only the top button, but the two below it so Charles' collar gapes wide, Erik's mark on his neck easily visible to the world.
"Is that really necessary?" Charles asks, hands going up to cover the mark modestly.
"Yes," Erik says, non-debatable. He puts his arm around Charles' shoulder, one more proof of possession.
Charles can hear people around them thinking in questions: Did you see that? and When did that happen? and Jesus Christ, Lehnsherr actually likes another human being?
Charles laughs. "Well, all right," he says.