new fic, not exactly fluffy this time
So you know I've been writing all the fluffy things ever, lately? Right, well, this is not that. (See the Warnings...) But there is hopefulness at the end of this one, I swear.
Title: Shine (Sweet & Divine)
Word Count: 5,949
Rating: R, I think? see warnings...
Warnings: mention of past non-con and (non-major) character death; also self-harm and not-exactly-attempted suicide, mostly past as well. But I promise you that there is movement toward healing and hope by the end! I couldn’t leave them that broken, and there is definitely both hurt and comfort in equally large measures here.
Disclaimers: characters are the property of Marvel and I only do this out of affection for them. Title and opening lines from the Foo Fighters’ “Razor.”
Notes: So a while ago I was inspired by interesting_gin’s chillingly beautiful work-in-progress that is the Off-Balance series, and I wrote this little one-shot as sort of a missing scene/tribute fic for her, with her kind permission. And then I realized I knew, for many reasons, what happened next. So here it is. (There might be one more part, just to carry on all the healing from the end of this one, but we’ll see.) Um, it’ll probably help if you at least read my little previous scene, for the set-up. But you should go read interesting_gin's series anyway because she is an amazing writer with a much better Charles voice than mine.
wake up it’s time
we need to find a better place to hide
make up your mind
I need to know, I need to know tonight
He wakes up feeling guilt.
That’s nothing new, of course. Guilt, and chilly isolation, and hot self-loathing, have been his constant companions, these past few weeks. He’s quite used to all of them by now.
But this guilt is different. For one thing, it isn’t his.
He keeps his eyes closed. He knows he’s in a hospital-he can hear the quietly ominous sounds of monitors and machinery around him, and, if he lets himself feel it, the low-level hum of worry and harried bustling and the ever-present shadows of deaths past, present, and future-but he doesn’t want to open his eyes and face it all, just yet. He doesn’t want to have to see anyone’s expressions.
Also, this is definitely not his bed, and he misses, with irrational strength, his own pillowy mattress.
Erik had bent the bedframe, accidentally, the first time they’d ever had sex, transcendent joy radiating out around them both in every conceivable way. They’d both laughed, afterward, and Erik, only slightly embarrassed, had tried to bend it back into place, and Charles had told him he’d got it right when really it remained just a little uneven. He’d wanted it that way, a tangible reminder of everything they’d only just discovered: they’d changed the world, just a tiny bit.
But Erik’s been sleeping in his own room lately, and the uneven bed is very cold without that warmth. He wonders suddenly if Erik would have come back, to sleep beside him, if he had asked.
He couldn’t ask, though. For one thing, he still feels a bit ill, unnerved and shaky, at the thought of another body, another hard physicality, beside him, possibly touching him.
For another, he doesn’t want to make Erik offer something that Erik isn’t prepared to offer on his own. Charles can’t ask him for anything. He doesn’t deserve anything from Erik, from anyone; he knows that, and if he knows that, surely other people do as well. And he doesn’t want Erik’s company only out of some misplaced sense of responsibility that might make him say yes to the request.
His arm hurts quite a lot, beneath bandages. Other places hurt, too, though not as badly. After a minute he decides that the rather painful sore spot on his shoulder must be from colliding with the towel rack, back in his bathroom.
It’s Erik’s guilt that he’s been feeling. He knows that without even trying. He’s known it since he woke up, cold and aching and half-disappointed and half-relieved to find that he could still wake up.
He could try to help, perhaps. He’s been inside Erik’s head-they’ve been inside each other, in every way possible-and he knows, or at least he used to, all of the sharp-edged varieties of Erik’s pain. Rage like embers and ash. Grief and loss and vengeance like bloody icicles. He’d thought once that he might be able to melt some of that ice away. But that feels like another lifetime now and he’s pretty sure he can’t actually help anyone anymore.
And he just doesn’t have the energy to care that he can’t. He can’t care. There’s no room left to care, between the memories and the ghosts in his head and the all-encompassing need for everything to just stop, to go away, to never have happened.
He feels guilty about not being able to feel anything, and that guilt is his, and it cracks open his heart like a bullet, and sits there displacing vitality with each breath. He isn’t sure whether he should have to care about that, either.
He remembers wanting to live. He’s a little surprised by that, though on closer examination, he supposes that, yes, it’s still true. He’s just not quite sure why.
But there is a why. Because Erik’s pain is practically screaming at him, and, even now, he can’t ignore Erik in pain.
Erik’s despair sneaks into his heart, through the cracked spaces there, and demands his attention, and Charles can’t hear the rawness of it and not care, just a little but more than he expected he could ever again.
This is a new kind of guilt, not something he’s ever felt from Erik before, and it’s shocking, coming from the man who is always calmly amused by a world that has already done its worst to him, who always has a plan, who calculates every move ten steps in advance, the way he plays chess, at a distance so that nothing can hurt him.
But Erik is hurting now; Erik is terrified and doesn’t have a plan for this, no contingencies, not even any means of revenge because Charles hasn’t left him any target to kill, and Charles can hear him thinking, not out loud, but shouting regardless. Shouting, what can I do why won’t he wake up what if I wasn’t in time Charles please please don’t leave me I can be strong for you but I’m not strong enough for this and I don’t know what to do and why didn’t I know why didn’t I see this sooner I could have tried harder I’m sorry I let you go there alone never again you’ll never have to be alone again if you’ll just wake up Charles please I’m sorry please wake up please…
And Charles finds himself surprised. He can still feel something, after all. He knows two things now. He doesn’t want to die. And he doesn’t want Erik to hurt like this because of him.
He frames a single thought, very carefully.
I’m here, he says, also not out loud, just into Erik’s head, as softly as he can because he’s not yet certain how secure his control is. And Erik’s words dissolve into a desperate flood of emotion, dizzying relief and lingering terror and still-present guilt and painfully bright hope and aching concern and something else hidden and brilliant and nameless, all of that tumbling over and around them both and knocking them off-balance until Charles pulls back, breathless, needing to separate them while he still can.
He opens his eyes, tries to sit up, can’t-restraints bite into his arms like flashbacks-and implodes with panic. He can’t be held down. If he can’t move he can’t get away, he can’t-but the straps must have metal bits on because they’re already being yanked away by unseen forces, and of course Erik can feel him projecting, and he tries desperately to rein in the fear and make himself be calm.
He can’t form words, but Erik reaches out to hold him, and those long-fingered, scarred hands are warm when they touch his skin, rest on his shoulders. Odd, Charles thinks, with a strange sense of detachment. He’d have expected himself to flinch away from being touched. But he’s leaning into Erik’s warmth and finding reassurance there, instead.
“Charles,” Erik says, voice shaking, “Charles-don’t move too much, please, you don’t have to sit up, you almost-” Died, they both think, but neither one of them gives the word breath.
Restraints? Charles asks, because he doesn’t quite trust himself to talk out loud yet, but he’s regained some sort of stability over the mental projection, at least.
Erik swallows. “They said-regulations-you are on something called-” -suicide watch, Charles, you tried to-I’m so sorry, Charles, I should have been there, please stay with me and don’t let me ever leave you alone-
You’re here now, Charles says, because he is. They both are. You came to find me. And I’m still here, too.
These things are true, as well. He doesn’t say I’m all right because they both know that’s not true, but Erik is holding his hands now, both of them, heedless of bruises and bandages, and he’s starting to wonder if maybe, as long as those warm fingers stay wrapped around his, he might be able to see all right, somewhere in the distance.
Erik starts to say something else-why didn’t you tell me?-and then obviously feels Charles flinch at the question, the words asking for reasons, asking more from him, and the thought cuts off abruptly, to be replaced by you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, and Charles says Thank you in return.
“If it helps,” he adds, still carefully, out loud to see if he can, “I didn’t exactly try to-to do what you think. It was more of an accident-”
You ACCIDENTALLY held a straight-razor to your arm?! Erik shouts.
No! I mean…I know what I did. But I didn’t plan on-I wasn’t actively trying to-He gives up on words and just pulls out the images, offering them for inspection even though Erik winces away at the sight. His father’s razor, offering sharpness without judgment against his skin. The early shallow lines. The shock of that final-oh, bad pun, he thinks, blackly amused-cut, deeper than he’d meant to make it.
The terrified realization that he might actually have just done something irreparable, and the equally desperate knowledge that he didn’t want to be beyond repair, after all. That was when I tried to reach you, you see. I thought-I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to be able to see you one more time.
He looks at Erik’s face, and then says, “I’m sorry,” and says it again in their heads for good measure. I’m so sorry. I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t, I didn’t want to hurt you, I shouldn’t be asking you for anything-
“Charles,” Erik says wearily, “you are an idiot.” And so am I. I thought you would need space. Time. I didn’t think you’d ever…You can ask me for anything. Always. His eyes are exhausted, red-rimmed with relief and worry, but his hands, still holding Charles’s cold fingers, are firm and confident, like promises, like the only real piece of the world. And you will not hurt me by asking, not ever, you will hurt me by NOT asking, do you understand? Tell me you understand.
Charles manages to nod. He does understand, though he’s not sure he can believe-except that he can feel the truth of it, like the all-encompassing heat of summer sunlight, soaking through his skin alongside the heat of Erik’s fingers and chasing away some of the icy numbness.
Maybe he can believe those thoughts. Maybe he can believe things again. Someday. If not quite today.
Is everyone else-Raven, the children-are they all right? He can’t imagine what they must be thinking. Doesn’t know how he can face them with this weakness.
“They’re fine. The children don’t know.” Erik actually smiles, just a little. “We told them you had appendicitis, actually.”
“You lied to them?”
“I thought-I didn’t know what you would want me to say. If you would want them to know. I thought if you wanted to tell them, afterwards-” -and oh thank whatever god there might be that there is an afterwards, what would I have done if- “you could. Or I could. Or whatever you’d prefer.”
Charles nods again, because that makes sense. The person he’d used to be would have hated the thought of lying to the children who looked up to him, but this…they shouldn’t have to deal with this. Not yet, at least. He’ll probably have to tell them eventually, of course; certainly Raven deserves to know, and then he may as well admit it to them all.
But not now. Not so soon. Not while he’s still figuring out what he did mean to do, what he might do now, how or if he can piece himself back together. “You said…we?”
“I had to tell Moira,” Erik admits, and Charles catches a fleeting glimpse of memory, Erik running down the hall, red blood on shaking hands, Erik shouting at Moira to make the damn ambulance turn up faster, to get Charles to safety as soon as possible, whatever contacts she had to call or threaten or beg favors of, anyone and anything that might possibly help. “I’m sorry. Is that-do you mind?”
“No.” The answer is automatic, to make Erik feel better, but then, surprised, he decides that he meant it. Moira is a good person, and she knows about grief and pain. She’ll understand.
In the wake of that realization, a face appears at the edge of the door, unfamiliar and intrusive and official in appearance. A nurse. Here to check on him.
He doesn’t want to be checked on, and certainly not by someone who doesn’t even know him. Whose thoughts he can already hear, a mixture of pity and an odd kind of fascination-so young and handsome and what would drive someone to do that and maybe it’s his lifestyle you know there have to be consequences-that last bit because, he realizes, Erik is still holding his hands and looking at him with naked concern.
Go away, he thinks at the nurse. Please. Just go. He would be worried about hurting her-he’s worried about hurting everyone, including himself-but he’s tired enough, on so many levels, that the suggestion only drifts out lazily, slow ripples in a stream, and the nurse shakes her head slightly and then wanders off.
Erik watches her go, expression suggesting that he wants to comment, but then, very clearly, he stops the thought before it can take form, and just looks silently back at Charles instead.
“Erik?”
“What is it? Do you need-something? Anything?”
“I think…I’d like to not be in the hospital anymore. Can we do that? Please?”
He can hear Erik’s thoughts chasing each other around-is that a good idea? back to the mansion? or somewhere else? but what if he needs to stay here? what if something goes wrong oh god don’t let anything else go wrong and what if I can’t help, what if I can’t be enough for him? but if he needs this, if he is asking me for this-and waits, patiently, while Erik makes a decision.
He really doesn’t want to be here, in this place that feels like death and loneliness and grief, anymore. But he’s not strong enough to argue if Erik says no to this request.
What Erik does say, finally, is, “All right. Do you want to go home?” and Charles bites his lip to hold back tears that spring abruptly too close to the surface, because Erik made that decision, against all rational judgment, for him.
“No,” he says instead. “Not the mansion.” He can’t say home. Not now, anyway, not with the memory of his blood bright against the bathroom tiles. “Just not here.”
Erik holds his hands a little more tightly. “I can find us a hotel. If you want that.”
Charles nods, and the next few minutes are a blur of motion, Erik holding him gingerly as he gets up, Charles reaching out to build shields like fragile glass around them, keeping their not-very-stealthy departure unnoticed as they make their way through the tangle of corridors and doctors and patients and pain. No one will remember them having been there. He has enough control, or maybe enough desperate pride, left for that.
It’s an illusion, of course-he was there, in that hospital, arm laid bare and bloody over layers of older scars-but if no one remembers it, then maybe it never happened. Maybe the illusion can be real.
Erik gets them a cab and Charles, because it’s easier even though his head is by now hurting quite a lot, keeps the driver from ever noticing that Erik isn’t alone. The presence of a heavily bandaged man in a ridiculous hospital gown might be difficult for them to explain, after all.
He shuts his eyes and leans on Erik’s shoulder and doesn’t let himself listen to Erik giving orders about a destination or the driver’s nasal reply or anything except the low susurration of the world around him, the sound of tires on the road, the murmur of the wind, the thunder of Erik’s heartbeat, and his own, all blurring together in a single whispering symphony.
After a while he feels the car stop, and Erik asks, sounding worried, “Charles? Can you hear me? Can you stand up?” and he nods and gets to his feet. The pavement feels very realistically cold against his bare toes, and Erik mutters something in German and then actually picks him up, cradling him in both arms.
“Sorry I forgot to find you shoes.”
“It’s fine.”
Erik’s mouth tenses at that, but he doesn’t set Charles down again.
“Really fine. I don’t mind the cold.” He doesn’t. He doesn’t mind the suggestion of sensation. Anyway, you can’t carry me forever.
Watch me. That tone leaves no room for argument. So Charles doesn’t try.
Besides, the pavement is rather icy. And Erik’s arms are indisputably warm.
Erik gets them checked in-Charles is still distracted, because he is busy also distracting all the minds around them, but he does notice that Erik himself pays for the room, not using either the CIA account or the credit card that has access to a certain portion of the Xavier funds-and then takes them both off to the elevator as quickly as possible.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.” And Charles now suspects that Erik might be using his ability to accelerate their upward progress, just a bit, consciously or not. There is a lot of metal in an elevator, after all.
“It’s not as if I’m terribly impoverished, Charles. And between you and the CIA I haven’t needed to purchase anything in months. Don’t worry.”
“I know you’re not.” He does know. Erik has never been wealthy, of course, but money is a weapon like anything else and Erik is very good with every kind of weapon, and not above profiting from his targets, in the past. But you still don’t have to. Not for me.
Charles-The elevator shakes with exasperation, and then again with guilt over feeling exasperation when the whiteness of bandages across a thin arm catches Erik’s eye. Sorry!
No, it’s all right. You-you actually wanted to, didn’t you? He’s rather shocked by that-Erik wants to help him, wants to take care of him, doesn’t need to be asked or coaxed at all-but he can hear the veracity of it the way he can hear every heartbeat, where his head rests against Erik’s chest.
Of course I wanted to!
Then…He swallows, hard. Looks up to meet Erik’s eyes, that cooler, lighter, more complicated shade of his own. Then thank you.
And Erik shakes his head, and Charles doesn’t quite know what that means, but they’ve made it to the room now and Erik puts him down, cautiously, on the closest twin bed, as if he thinks that Charles is made of crystal or amber or soap bubbles or something else evanescent and brittle that will crumble if not held together with reverence.
Twin beds. Because, he thinks, Erik still doesn’t want to sleep next to him.
But then, who would? He’s broken and unclean in all the ways that matter. He’s been taken apart inside-physically, mentally-and he’s taken someone else apart, too, and he’s not that fragile because he knows that he can kill with a thought and he’s exactly that fragile because he knows that he can kill. With a thought.
Erik sits down next to him, and picks up his hand again. The curtains are open and he can see the starlight watching them, distant twinkle like the death and birth of galaxies. It’s not unsympathetic.
“I think you should rest,” Erik says, softly. The words fall out into the silence of the room like light spilling into an oasis. A safe space. Anonymous as only a hotel room can be, waiting to be filled with whatever they bring into it. No memories. No ghosts. Just the two of them and the companionable starlight.
In response, Charles inquires, “Do you think I can have clothing at some point? I’d like to preserve whatever dignity I still have intact,” and it sounds so much like something he would’ve said weeks ago that he stops, surprised, and laughs.
Erik suddenly looks a lot more worried. Possibly contemplating the likelihood of Charles finally, completely, having lost his mind. It’s not an unrealistic concern, considering the circumstances.
Charles shakes his head, tries to explain out loud, can’t, and then just says it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s just that I sounded so NORMAL-and lets the terrible incongruity of the moment-dignity, honestly, does he still have any?-spill out of his thoughts and into Erik’s, and after a minute Erik almost smiles.
It’s not really funny, but it has to be anyway. It’s that or cry.
“I could go try to find you some clothes…” Erik sounds dubious about this plan. I don’t want to leave you alone.
“I think there’s a bathrobe in the closet,” Charles says, and then starts laughing again, and when he can’t quite breathe Erik puts both arms around him and offers, “I can get you the bathrobe,” and Charles tries to grin through the tears and answers, “Yes, please, it has to be better than this, I believe it’s made out of demonic paper,” and when Erik gets up to cross the room the starlight pointedly highlights the shine of dampness at the edges of his eyelashes, too.
He hesitates when the realization that he’s about to strip off the horrible hospital gown actually sinks in. He’s going to be naked, albeit momentarily. With someone else in the room. And even though it’s Erik and Erik has seen him naked before, back when nakedness equaled exuberance, he’s not sure he can do it now.
Erik sees him stop moving, and Charles knows the exact second that Erik guesses what he’s thinking because those pale eyes freeze into angry glaciers and the anger is directed both outward, at the man with the cool Cajun drawl who isn’t here anymore, and inward, at Erik himself, who in his own head let it all happen.
“Charles,” Erik says, picking words like broken heirlooms out of collapsed ancestral rubble, “do you want me to-I can wait outside, if you’d rather-or you don’t have to-”
Charles remembers how to breathe, looking at those aching eyes, and says, “No, you don’t need to leave, just maybe turn around, if you don’t mind?” and tells himself he means it.
Erik nods and faces away and Charles slips out of and into clothing as fast as he can and then thinks, surprised, oh, that wasn’t so bad, because it wasn’t, after all. Not everything has to be, apparently. Surprising, that.
“You can-” Before he even finishes the sentence, Erik has spun around to inspect him all over, as if afraid that Charles might have shattered into tiny pieces while he wasn’t looking.
Erik, really. I’m not-He stops because he doesn’t know what he’s not, and then tries a peace offering. “I am a bit tired, actually. I haven’t been sleeping much, lately. Would you mind?”
“Of course not. You should sleep.” Erik shuts the curtains, blocking out the curious gaze of the stars, and watches while he gets into bed, and then slides into the other twin bed, a few feet away, gazing at him. “Lights on or off?”
“Oh, off.” It doesn’t matter; he can have nightmares under fluorescent lamps as easily as he can in darkness. “Or whatever you want.”
Erik frowns at him, but the light flips off with a definitive click. “All right. If you need anything-”
“You’re here. I know.” I know you are.
Always. And there’s that indefinable other emotion again, something hot and protective and nameless and oddly wistful under it all, and Charles holds on to the beauty of it like a lifeline in the darkness.
It’s not quite enough, he realizes, after a while.
When he shuts his eyes he can feel phantom sensations, hands reaching for his body in the dark, and when he opens his eyes the lines of the clock and the dresser twist into a terrifyingly familiar shape for just a second and he almost screams because there has to be some sound instead of deadly silence around him.
But he doesn’t, because it isn’t real.
He touches the bandages, presses hard against the row of stitches that he can’t see under white fabric, and feels the rewarding brightness of pain. The sharp sting means that this is reality. He’s still here.
He doesn’t have the razor with him, obviously. Erik’s probably thrown away every razor in the mansion already, or will as soon as he gets the chance.
Perhaps if he presses harder, breaking the stitches, the pain and the blood can carry away some of the guilt, and remind him how to feel other emotions, in some unfathomable way.
Perhaps that’s a rather stupid idea.
Erik? he asks quietly, and Erik, who hasn’t been asleep at all, sits up instantly.
What is it? What do you need?
You said I could ask you for anything.
Anything, yes. Please. Let me help.
Could you…I don’t want to be alone, at night, Charles whispers, and looks away, because he’s not quite sure what he’s asking for. I don’t know if I can-I’m not sure I can share a bed yet-but I don’t want to be alone with this.
Erik breathes in, sharply, at that last statement. Charles, I will sleep on the floor beside your bed if you want me to. Or over here. Or wherever you want me to be. Wherever you no longer feel alone.
You got us twin beds. It’s a question. He knows that Erik understands that, because he hears the indignant Of COURSE I want to sleep next to you, how can you think I wouldn’t! and he almost smiles, except that his arm hurts where he’s been abusing the stitches and he’s afraid he might’ve done some actual damage to them.
I just didn’t think you’d want-do you want me to come over there? I will.
Yes.
He hears the almost-soundless rustle of Erik getting out of bed, and then his own bed dips as Erik sits down next to him. Are you all right?
Charles hesitates, shakes his head, and holds out his arm. Did I-I’m sorry, I think I might be bleeding.
Erik, shocked, floods both their thoughts with obscenities in German, harsh and furious, and Charles says again I’m sorry, as Erik flips the light back on and examines the blooming spots of red on white cotton. They’re not that large. He didn’t snap any of the threads holding himself back together, after all.
Erik doesn’t look up at the apology, just mutters something about being glad he stole bandages from the hospital, and his hands don’t shake when he gets said bandages out, and they both know that’s only because he’s not letting them.
“Done,” Erik says when he finishes, but then just stays there, hands resting on Charles’s arm like he’s trying to fix everything by force of will alone. Magnetic, Charles thinks, and smiles.
“What?”
“You. You’re very good at that.”
“I had to learn. You know that.”
“I didn’t mean that.” I meant everything. Taking care of me. Being here.
If I were, none of this would have happened. That’s one of those late-night truths, an admission under the starlight and the darkened sky, guilt that might never be spoken aloud, or admitted at all, at any other time.
But that’s wrong anyway, Charles knows it is, and he has to ensure that Erik knows it too. You didn’t know what would happen when-well, any of it. Neither did I. And this isn’t your fault, either. You’ve been trying to help. I’ve just been terribly bad at telling you I need it. I need you. That’s another one of those starlight confessions. This one is true.
Please stay here next to me, he adds into the sudden silence. Not over there. Not on the floor, either-really? the floor?-but here. With me.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Erik stretches out beside him, carefully, on the twin bed. Not touching him. Not anywhere. They’re both too scared for that.
The bed isn’t quite large enough for both of them, or rather it isn’t large enough for both of them plus all that petrified space, but they make it work anyway, for the moment.
The light stays on and he can sense Erik radiating tension next to him, making the metal bedframe quiver with it, and neither of them can relax like this, but somehow that’s strangely comforting because the tension is an emotion, too, as real as Erik’s solidly familiar presence, and he doesn’t have to touch the pristine new bandages again to feel this one.
He breathes in, and out, and feels Erik trying not to watch him in case that makes him uncomfortable, and he thinks about Erik’s arms around him, earlier, and about how some things aren’t that bad after all, and about asking for what he needs, something he thinks Erik might need, too.
He’s still terrified, of course, but he tells himself that he’s all right, that he can do this, that he is in control and can retreat if he needs to because Erik won’t judge him.
And then inches a single bare foot over, carefully, and finds the first spot that he can reach with his toes, which turns out to be Erik’s ankle.
Erik, shocked, doesn’t react at first. The concerned hum of his thoughts, however, snaps off into the white blankness of surprise.
Charles…?
It’s all right. You can touch me. I think.
Erik reaches over, cautiously, and takes his hand, and Charles doesn’t move away, and Erik’s eyes meet his from inches away, wondering and nearly hopeful now and desperately, heartbreakingly, relieved. Still all right?
Yes.
The lamplight falls calmly across the whiteness of the pillowcase between them, across the tanned skin on the back of Erik’s hand holding his, accepting all the words they don’t say out loud and transforming them into gold, some mysterious alchemical process of change and alteration and purification, distilling the world into its simplest essence.
Charles, Erik whispers, I love you.
Oh, Charles says, astonished, I love you, too, and he does, with every bit of his broken self, everything he was and is and might someday be again, if Erik wants him, if Erik wants to hold onto all those pieces while he attempts to fit them back into place.
Yes, Erik answers, yes, I will, I will always hold you together. And that brilliant unnamed feeling comes rushing out over both of them again, dizzying as a tidal wave, and it’s not unnamed any longer, because it’s unquestionably love, and it’s unquestionably real.
And it’s not just a bright little lifeline of emotion now. It’s a beacon, steady and clear and blazing the way towards safe harbors, Charles thinks, and smiles, and squeezes Erik’s hand in his because he doesn’t have words for all of that but he wants Erik to know how he feels, how tightly he wants to hold on. Erik squeezes back.
How long-?
I think since the second I let you leave for New Orleans. Before you-before any of this. I would have come to find you anyway-I meant to-
I’m sorry you found this me instead.
No! Charles, no, I mean yes-I mean I would take everything back, would make this right for you, if I could, believe me-
I do.
-but you never have to apologize to me. Not for anything.
I killed him. Charles admits this to the serenely listening lamplight, because he can’t look at Erik. And before that he-I didn’t let it happen, you know, I tried to fight back-I did fight back and I couldn’t stop it and then I killed him.
I know you didn’t let it happen. I know you, Charles. And he deserved to die. Erik asserts this with such viciousness that Charles blinks in surprise and has to look at him again.
But I-
He deserved to die. Some people do. For what he did to you, he should be counted among them. And you deserve to live.
You say that as if it’s simple.
I don’t know how else to say it. You know how I feel. About him. About you. I love you. Is that enough?
I love you, too, Charles answers, and then hesitates, turning that last question over in his mind, under the artificial glow of the lamp, weighing it against the ever-present reminder that throbs gently beneath bandages, along his arm.
After a minute he says, quietly, Do you remember what I told you in the hospital? Why I decided to try to reach you, then, at that moment?
This time Erik is the one who looks away, at the dull corner of the bedside table and then up at the lamp, as if it might be able to burn those memories out of his head. The light turns his eyelashes into spikes of shadow and gold. You said you wanted to see me again. I remember that.
Yes. I wanted to stay. To let you touch me again even if I’m terrified. Not to leave you.
Charles-
I think maybe-if you want that too-that could be enough. I can try to let it be enough. I can’t promise that it will be; I don’t think this will go away overnight. Even if I want it to. But I can promise to try.
The words settle into the quiet of the room, softly bumping into the featureless and comforting hotel furniture, and stay there, like a prophecy, like commitment, under the gilded gaze of the lamplight.
I told you that I love you, Erik answers at last, and I always will. Never doubt that. Never. And if you need me to-
“Erik?” Charles says out loud, interrupting. It’s not eloquent, but then, eloquence is low on his list of concerns at the moment.
Erik stops talking to stare at him.
“Don’t move,” Charles tells him, and then leans over, not thinking about it, and kisses him, quickly, a brush of lips against startled lips.
Erik’s eyes go comically wide. Charles would laugh except his heart has caught up to what he’s just done and has started pounding as if it wants to leap out of his chest.
But he’d had to. He needed Erik to know. To know that Charles still wants him, will always want him, even if the idea of actual sex currently seems like the stuff of nightmares.
“Charles,” Erik says, “you-are you-was that-” and then gives up. Charles shrugs one shoulder at him. “I thought maybe I could.” And he’d been right. Not easy-his pulse echoes in his ears like thunder-but possible. Still. Again.
He has possibilities again.
And Erik is still staring at him wide-eyed and holding his hand a bit too hard and trying to find words and Charles adds, “I love you,” because he hasn’t said it out loud yet and perhaps they finally should.
And it seems that those are also the words that Erik’s been searching for, because he says them as well, very clearly, offering his “I love you” at almost the exact same second.
And their voices drift out into the room, together, finding sanctuary in the light.
Title: Shine (Sweet & Divine)
Word Count: 5,949
Rating: R, I think? see warnings...
Warnings: mention of past non-con and (non-major) character death; also self-harm and not-exactly-attempted suicide, mostly past as well. But I promise you that there is movement toward healing and hope by the end! I couldn’t leave them that broken, and there is definitely both hurt and comfort in equally large measures here.
Disclaimers: characters are the property of Marvel and I only do this out of affection for them. Title and opening lines from the Foo Fighters’ “Razor.”
Notes: So a while ago I was inspired by interesting_gin’s chillingly beautiful work-in-progress that is the Off-Balance series, and I wrote this little one-shot as sort of a missing scene/tribute fic for her, with her kind permission. And then I realized I knew, for many reasons, what happened next. So here it is. (There might be one more part, just to carry on all the healing from the end of this one, but we’ll see.) Um, it’ll probably help if you at least read my little previous scene, for the set-up. But you should go read interesting_gin's series anyway because she is an amazing writer with a much better Charles voice than mine.
wake up it’s time
we need to find a better place to hide
make up your mind
I need to know, I need to know tonight
He wakes up feeling guilt.
That’s nothing new, of course. Guilt, and chilly isolation, and hot self-loathing, have been his constant companions, these past few weeks. He’s quite used to all of them by now.
But this guilt is different. For one thing, it isn’t his.
He keeps his eyes closed. He knows he’s in a hospital-he can hear the quietly ominous sounds of monitors and machinery around him, and, if he lets himself feel it, the low-level hum of worry and harried bustling and the ever-present shadows of deaths past, present, and future-but he doesn’t want to open his eyes and face it all, just yet. He doesn’t want to have to see anyone’s expressions.
Also, this is definitely not his bed, and he misses, with irrational strength, his own pillowy mattress.
Erik had bent the bedframe, accidentally, the first time they’d ever had sex, transcendent joy radiating out around them both in every conceivable way. They’d both laughed, afterward, and Erik, only slightly embarrassed, had tried to bend it back into place, and Charles had told him he’d got it right when really it remained just a little uneven. He’d wanted it that way, a tangible reminder of everything they’d only just discovered: they’d changed the world, just a tiny bit.
But Erik’s been sleeping in his own room lately, and the uneven bed is very cold without that warmth. He wonders suddenly if Erik would have come back, to sleep beside him, if he had asked.
He couldn’t ask, though. For one thing, he still feels a bit ill, unnerved and shaky, at the thought of another body, another hard physicality, beside him, possibly touching him.
For another, he doesn’t want to make Erik offer something that Erik isn’t prepared to offer on his own. Charles can’t ask him for anything. He doesn’t deserve anything from Erik, from anyone; he knows that, and if he knows that, surely other people do as well. And he doesn’t want Erik’s company only out of some misplaced sense of responsibility that might make him say yes to the request.
His arm hurts quite a lot, beneath bandages. Other places hurt, too, though not as badly. After a minute he decides that the rather painful sore spot on his shoulder must be from colliding with the towel rack, back in his bathroom.
It’s Erik’s guilt that he’s been feeling. He knows that without even trying. He’s known it since he woke up, cold and aching and half-disappointed and half-relieved to find that he could still wake up.
He could try to help, perhaps. He’s been inside Erik’s head-they’ve been inside each other, in every way possible-and he knows, or at least he used to, all of the sharp-edged varieties of Erik’s pain. Rage like embers and ash. Grief and loss and vengeance like bloody icicles. He’d thought once that he might be able to melt some of that ice away. But that feels like another lifetime now and he’s pretty sure he can’t actually help anyone anymore.
And he just doesn’t have the energy to care that he can’t. He can’t care. There’s no room left to care, between the memories and the ghosts in his head and the all-encompassing need for everything to just stop, to go away, to never have happened.
He feels guilty about not being able to feel anything, and that guilt is his, and it cracks open his heart like a bullet, and sits there displacing vitality with each breath. He isn’t sure whether he should have to care about that, either.
He remembers wanting to live. He’s a little surprised by that, though on closer examination, he supposes that, yes, it’s still true. He’s just not quite sure why.
But there is a why. Because Erik’s pain is practically screaming at him, and, even now, he can’t ignore Erik in pain.
Erik’s despair sneaks into his heart, through the cracked spaces there, and demands his attention, and Charles can’t hear the rawness of it and not care, just a little but more than he expected he could ever again.
This is a new kind of guilt, not something he’s ever felt from Erik before, and it’s shocking, coming from the man who is always calmly amused by a world that has already done its worst to him, who always has a plan, who calculates every move ten steps in advance, the way he plays chess, at a distance so that nothing can hurt him.
But Erik is hurting now; Erik is terrified and doesn’t have a plan for this, no contingencies, not even any means of revenge because Charles hasn’t left him any target to kill, and Charles can hear him thinking, not out loud, but shouting regardless. Shouting, what can I do why won’t he wake up what if I wasn’t in time Charles please please don’t leave me I can be strong for you but I’m not strong enough for this and I don’t know what to do and why didn’t I know why didn’t I see this sooner I could have tried harder I’m sorry I let you go there alone never again you’ll never have to be alone again if you’ll just wake up Charles please I’m sorry please wake up please…
And Charles finds himself surprised. He can still feel something, after all. He knows two things now. He doesn’t want to die. And he doesn’t want Erik to hurt like this because of him.
He frames a single thought, very carefully.
I’m here, he says, also not out loud, just into Erik’s head, as softly as he can because he’s not yet certain how secure his control is. And Erik’s words dissolve into a desperate flood of emotion, dizzying relief and lingering terror and still-present guilt and painfully bright hope and aching concern and something else hidden and brilliant and nameless, all of that tumbling over and around them both and knocking them off-balance until Charles pulls back, breathless, needing to separate them while he still can.
He opens his eyes, tries to sit up, can’t-restraints bite into his arms like flashbacks-and implodes with panic. He can’t be held down. If he can’t move he can’t get away, he can’t-but the straps must have metal bits on because they’re already being yanked away by unseen forces, and of course Erik can feel him projecting, and he tries desperately to rein in the fear and make himself be calm.
He can’t form words, but Erik reaches out to hold him, and those long-fingered, scarred hands are warm when they touch his skin, rest on his shoulders. Odd, Charles thinks, with a strange sense of detachment. He’d have expected himself to flinch away from being touched. But he’s leaning into Erik’s warmth and finding reassurance there, instead.
“Charles,” Erik says, voice shaking, “Charles-don’t move too much, please, you don’t have to sit up, you almost-” Died, they both think, but neither one of them gives the word breath.
Restraints? Charles asks, because he doesn’t quite trust himself to talk out loud yet, but he’s regained some sort of stability over the mental projection, at least.
Erik swallows. “They said-regulations-you are on something called-” -suicide watch, Charles, you tried to-I’m so sorry, Charles, I should have been there, please stay with me and don’t let me ever leave you alone-
You’re here now, Charles says, because he is. They both are. You came to find me. And I’m still here, too.
These things are true, as well. He doesn’t say I’m all right because they both know that’s not true, but Erik is holding his hands now, both of them, heedless of bruises and bandages, and he’s starting to wonder if maybe, as long as those warm fingers stay wrapped around his, he might be able to see all right, somewhere in the distance.
Erik starts to say something else-why didn’t you tell me?-and then obviously feels Charles flinch at the question, the words asking for reasons, asking more from him, and the thought cuts off abruptly, to be replaced by you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, and Charles says Thank you in return.
“If it helps,” he adds, still carefully, out loud to see if he can, “I didn’t exactly try to-to do what you think. It was more of an accident-”
You ACCIDENTALLY held a straight-razor to your arm?! Erik shouts.
No! I mean…I know what I did. But I didn’t plan on-I wasn’t actively trying to-He gives up on words and just pulls out the images, offering them for inspection even though Erik winces away at the sight. His father’s razor, offering sharpness without judgment against his skin. The early shallow lines. The shock of that final-oh, bad pun, he thinks, blackly amused-cut, deeper than he’d meant to make it.
The terrified realization that he might actually have just done something irreparable, and the equally desperate knowledge that he didn’t want to be beyond repair, after all. That was when I tried to reach you, you see. I thought-I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to be able to see you one more time.
He looks at Erik’s face, and then says, “I’m sorry,” and says it again in their heads for good measure. I’m so sorry. I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t, I didn’t want to hurt you, I shouldn’t be asking you for anything-
“Charles,” Erik says wearily, “you are an idiot.” And so am I. I thought you would need space. Time. I didn’t think you’d ever…You can ask me for anything. Always. His eyes are exhausted, red-rimmed with relief and worry, but his hands, still holding Charles’s cold fingers, are firm and confident, like promises, like the only real piece of the world. And you will not hurt me by asking, not ever, you will hurt me by NOT asking, do you understand? Tell me you understand.
Charles manages to nod. He does understand, though he’s not sure he can believe-except that he can feel the truth of it, like the all-encompassing heat of summer sunlight, soaking through his skin alongside the heat of Erik’s fingers and chasing away some of the icy numbness.
Maybe he can believe those thoughts. Maybe he can believe things again. Someday. If not quite today.
Is everyone else-Raven, the children-are they all right? He can’t imagine what they must be thinking. Doesn’t know how he can face them with this weakness.
“They’re fine. The children don’t know.” Erik actually smiles, just a little. “We told them you had appendicitis, actually.”
“You lied to them?”
“I thought-I didn’t know what you would want me to say. If you would want them to know. I thought if you wanted to tell them, afterwards-” -and oh thank whatever god there might be that there is an afterwards, what would I have done if- “you could. Or I could. Or whatever you’d prefer.”
Charles nods again, because that makes sense. The person he’d used to be would have hated the thought of lying to the children who looked up to him, but this…they shouldn’t have to deal with this. Not yet, at least. He’ll probably have to tell them eventually, of course; certainly Raven deserves to know, and then he may as well admit it to them all.
But not now. Not so soon. Not while he’s still figuring out what he did mean to do, what he might do now, how or if he can piece himself back together. “You said…we?”
“I had to tell Moira,” Erik admits, and Charles catches a fleeting glimpse of memory, Erik running down the hall, red blood on shaking hands, Erik shouting at Moira to make the damn ambulance turn up faster, to get Charles to safety as soon as possible, whatever contacts she had to call or threaten or beg favors of, anyone and anything that might possibly help. “I’m sorry. Is that-do you mind?”
“No.” The answer is automatic, to make Erik feel better, but then, surprised, he decides that he meant it. Moira is a good person, and she knows about grief and pain. She’ll understand.
In the wake of that realization, a face appears at the edge of the door, unfamiliar and intrusive and official in appearance. A nurse. Here to check on him.
He doesn’t want to be checked on, and certainly not by someone who doesn’t even know him. Whose thoughts he can already hear, a mixture of pity and an odd kind of fascination-so young and handsome and what would drive someone to do that and maybe it’s his lifestyle you know there have to be consequences-that last bit because, he realizes, Erik is still holding his hands and looking at him with naked concern.
Go away, he thinks at the nurse. Please. Just go. He would be worried about hurting her-he’s worried about hurting everyone, including himself-but he’s tired enough, on so many levels, that the suggestion only drifts out lazily, slow ripples in a stream, and the nurse shakes her head slightly and then wanders off.
Erik watches her go, expression suggesting that he wants to comment, but then, very clearly, he stops the thought before it can take form, and just looks silently back at Charles instead.
“Erik?”
“What is it? Do you need-something? Anything?”
“I think…I’d like to not be in the hospital anymore. Can we do that? Please?”
He can hear Erik’s thoughts chasing each other around-is that a good idea? back to the mansion? or somewhere else? but what if he needs to stay here? what if something goes wrong oh god don’t let anything else go wrong and what if I can’t help, what if I can’t be enough for him? but if he needs this, if he is asking me for this-and waits, patiently, while Erik makes a decision.
He really doesn’t want to be here, in this place that feels like death and loneliness and grief, anymore. But he’s not strong enough to argue if Erik says no to this request.
What Erik does say, finally, is, “All right. Do you want to go home?” and Charles bites his lip to hold back tears that spring abruptly too close to the surface, because Erik made that decision, against all rational judgment, for him.
“No,” he says instead. “Not the mansion.” He can’t say home. Not now, anyway, not with the memory of his blood bright against the bathroom tiles. “Just not here.”
Erik holds his hands a little more tightly. “I can find us a hotel. If you want that.”
Charles nods, and the next few minutes are a blur of motion, Erik holding him gingerly as he gets up, Charles reaching out to build shields like fragile glass around them, keeping their not-very-stealthy departure unnoticed as they make their way through the tangle of corridors and doctors and patients and pain. No one will remember them having been there. He has enough control, or maybe enough desperate pride, left for that.
It’s an illusion, of course-he was there, in that hospital, arm laid bare and bloody over layers of older scars-but if no one remembers it, then maybe it never happened. Maybe the illusion can be real.
Erik gets them a cab and Charles, because it’s easier even though his head is by now hurting quite a lot, keeps the driver from ever noticing that Erik isn’t alone. The presence of a heavily bandaged man in a ridiculous hospital gown might be difficult for them to explain, after all.
He shuts his eyes and leans on Erik’s shoulder and doesn’t let himself listen to Erik giving orders about a destination or the driver’s nasal reply or anything except the low susurration of the world around him, the sound of tires on the road, the murmur of the wind, the thunder of Erik’s heartbeat, and his own, all blurring together in a single whispering symphony.
After a while he feels the car stop, and Erik asks, sounding worried, “Charles? Can you hear me? Can you stand up?” and he nods and gets to his feet. The pavement feels very realistically cold against his bare toes, and Erik mutters something in German and then actually picks him up, cradling him in both arms.
“Sorry I forgot to find you shoes.”
“It’s fine.”
Erik’s mouth tenses at that, but he doesn’t set Charles down again.
“Really fine. I don’t mind the cold.” He doesn’t. He doesn’t mind the suggestion of sensation. Anyway, you can’t carry me forever.
Watch me. That tone leaves no room for argument. So Charles doesn’t try.
Besides, the pavement is rather icy. And Erik’s arms are indisputably warm.
Erik gets them checked in-Charles is still distracted, because he is busy also distracting all the minds around them, but he does notice that Erik himself pays for the room, not using either the CIA account or the credit card that has access to a certain portion of the Xavier funds-and then takes them both off to the elevator as quickly as possible.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.” And Charles now suspects that Erik might be using his ability to accelerate their upward progress, just a bit, consciously or not. There is a lot of metal in an elevator, after all.
“It’s not as if I’m terribly impoverished, Charles. And between you and the CIA I haven’t needed to purchase anything in months. Don’t worry.”
“I know you’re not.” He does know. Erik has never been wealthy, of course, but money is a weapon like anything else and Erik is very good with every kind of weapon, and not above profiting from his targets, in the past. But you still don’t have to. Not for me.
Charles-The elevator shakes with exasperation, and then again with guilt over feeling exasperation when the whiteness of bandages across a thin arm catches Erik’s eye. Sorry!
No, it’s all right. You-you actually wanted to, didn’t you? He’s rather shocked by that-Erik wants to help him, wants to take care of him, doesn’t need to be asked or coaxed at all-but he can hear the veracity of it the way he can hear every heartbeat, where his head rests against Erik’s chest.
Of course I wanted to!
Then…He swallows, hard. Looks up to meet Erik’s eyes, that cooler, lighter, more complicated shade of his own. Then thank you.
And Erik shakes his head, and Charles doesn’t quite know what that means, but they’ve made it to the room now and Erik puts him down, cautiously, on the closest twin bed, as if he thinks that Charles is made of crystal or amber or soap bubbles or something else evanescent and brittle that will crumble if not held together with reverence.
Twin beds. Because, he thinks, Erik still doesn’t want to sleep next to him.
But then, who would? He’s broken and unclean in all the ways that matter. He’s been taken apart inside-physically, mentally-and he’s taken someone else apart, too, and he’s not that fragile because he knows that he can kill with a thought and he’s exactly that fragile because he knows that he can kill. With a thought.
Erik sits down next to him, and picks up his hand again. The curtains are open and he can see the starlight watching them, distant twinkle like the death and birth of galaxies. It’s not unsympathetic.
“I think you should rest,” Erik says, softly. The words fall out into the silence of the room like light spilling into an oasis. A safe space. Anonymous as only a hotel room can be, waiting to be filled with whatever they bring into it. No memories. No ghosts. Just the two of them and the companionable starlight.
In response, Charles inquires, “Do you think I can have clothing at some point? I’d like to preserve whatever dignity I still have intact,” and it sounds so much like something he would’ve said weeks ago that he stops, surprised, and laughs.
Erik suddenly looks a lot more worried. Possibly contemplating the likelihood of Charles finally, completely, having lost his mind. It’s not an unrealistic concern, considering the circumstances.
Charles shakes his head, tries to explain out loud, can’t, and then just says it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s just that I sounded so NORMAL-and lets the terrible incongruity of the moment-dignity, honestly, does he still have any?-spill out of his thoughts and into Erik’s, and after a minute Erik almost smiles.
It’s not really funny, but it has to be anyway. It’s that or cry.
“I could go try to find you some clothes…” Erik sounds dubious about this plan. I don’t want to leave you alone.
“I think there’s a bathrobe in the closet,” Charles says, and then starts laughing again, and when he can’t quite breathe Erik puts both arms around him and offers, “I can get you the bathrobe,” and Charles tries to grin through the tears and answers, “Yes, please, it has to be better than this, I believe it’s made out of demonic paper,” and when Erik gets up to cross the room the starlight pointedly highlights the shine of dampness at the edges of his eyelashes, too.
He hesitates when the realization that he’s about to strip off the horrible hospital gown actually sinks in. He’s going to be naked, albeit momentarily. With someone else in the room. And even though it’s Erik and Erik has seen him naked before, back when nakedness equaled exuberance, he’s not sure he can do it now.
Erik sees him stop moving, and Charles knows the exact second that Erik guesses what he’s thinking because those pale eyes freeze into angry glaciers and the anger is directed both outward, at the man with the cool Cajun drawl who isn’t here anymore, and inward, at Erik himself, who in his own head let it all happen.
“Charles,” Erik says, picking words like broken heirlooms out of collapsed ancestral rubble, “do you want me to-I can wait outside, if you’d rather-or you don’t have to-”
Charles remembers how to breathe, looking at those aching eyes, and says, “No, you don’t need to leave, just maybe turn around, if you don’t mind?” and tells himself he means it.
Erik nods and faces away and Charles slips out of and into clothing as fast as he can and then thinks, surprised, oh, that wasn’t so bad, because it wasn’t, after all. Not everything has to be, apparently. Surprising, that.
“You can-” Before he even finishes the sentence, Erik has spun around to inspect him all over, as if afraid that Charles might have shattered into tiny pieces while he wasn’t looking.
Erik, really. I’m not-He stops because he doesn’t know what he’s not, and then tries a peace offering. “I am a bit tired, actually. I haven’t been sleeping much, lately. Would you mind?”
“Of course not. You should sleep.” Erik shuts the curtains, blocking out the curious gaze of the stars, and watches while he gets into bed, and then slides into the other twin bed, a few feet away, gazing at him. “Lights on or off?”
“Oh, off.” It doesn’t matter; he can have nightmares under fluorescent lamps as easily as he can in darkness. “Or whatever you want.”
Erik frowns at him, but the light flips off with a definitive click. “All right. If you need anything-”
“You’re here. I know.” I know you are.
Always. And there’s that indefinable other emotion again, something hot and protective and nameless and oddly wistful under it all, and Charles holds on to the beauty of it like a lifeline in the darkness.
It’s not quite enough, he realizes, after a while.
When he shuts his eyes he can feel phantom sensations, hands reaching for his body in the dark, and when he opens his eyes the lines of the clock and the dresser twist into a terrifyingly familiar shape for just a second and he almost screams because there has to be some sound instead of deadly silence around him.
But he doesn’t, because it isn’t real.
He touches the bandages, presses hard against the row of stitches that he can’t see under white fabric, and feels the rewarding brightness of pain. The sharp sting means that this is reality. He’s still here.
He doesn’t have the razor with him, obviously. Erik’s probably thrown away every razor in the mansion already, or will as soon as he gets the chance.
Perhaps if he presses harder, breaking the stitches, the pain and the blood can carry away some of the guilt, and remind him how to feel other emotions, in some unfathomable way.
Perhaps that’s a rather stupid idea.
Erik? he asks quietly, and Erik, who hasn’t been asleep at all, sits up instantly.
What is it? What do you need?
You said I could ask you for anything.
Anything, yes. Please. Let me help.
Could you…I don’t want to be alone, at night, Charles whispers, and looks away, because he’s not quite sure what he’s asking for. I don’t know if I can-I’m not sure I can share a bed yet-but I don’t want to be alone with this.
Erik breathes in, sharply, at that last statement. Charles, I will sleep on the floor beside your bed if you want me to. Or over here. Or wherever you want me to be. Wherever you no longer feel alone.
You got us twin beds. It’s a question. He knows that Erik understands that, because he hears the indignant Of COURSE I want to sleep next to you, how can you think I wouldn’t! and he almost smiles, except that his arm hurts where he’s been abusing the stitches and he’s afraid he might’ve done some actual damage to them.
I just didn’t think you’d want-do you want me to come over there? I will.
Yes.
He hears the almost-soundless rustle of Erik getting out of bed, and then his own bed dips as Erik sits down next to him. Are you all right?
Charles hesitates, shakes his head, and holds out his arm. Did I-I’m sorry, I think I might be bleeding.
Erik, shocked, floods both their thoughts with obscenities in German, harsh and furious, and Charles says again I’m sorry, as Erik flips the light back on and examines the blooming spots of red on white cotton. They’re not that large. He didn’t snap any of the threads holding himself back together, after all.
Erik doesn’t look up at the apology, just mutters something about being glad he stole bandages from the hospital, and his hands don’t shake when he gets said bandages out, and they both know that’s only because he’s not letting them.
“Done,” Erik says when he finishes, but then just stays there, hands resting on Charles’s arm like he’s trying to fix everything by force of will alone. Magnetic, Charles thinks, and smiles.
“What?”
“You. You’re very good at that.”
“I had to learn. You know that.”
“I didn’t mean that.” I meant everything. Taking care of me. Being here.
If I were, none of this would have happened. That’s one of those late-night truths, an admission under the starlight and the darkened sky, guilt that might never be spoken aloud, or admitted at all, at any other time.
But that’s wrong anyway, Charles knows it is, and he has to ensure that Erik knows it too. You didn’t know what would happen when-well, any of it. Neither did I. And this isn’t your fault, either. You’ve been trying to help. I’ve just been terribly bad at telling you I need it. I need you. That’s another one of those starlight confessions. This one is true.
Please stay here next to me, he adds into the sudden silence. Not over there. Not on the floor, either-really? the floor?-but here. With me.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Erik stretches out beside him, carefully, on the twin bed. Not touching him. Not anywhere. They’re both too scared for that.
The bed isn’t quite large enough for both of them, or rather it isn’t large enough for both of them plus all that petrified space, but they make it work anyway, for the moment.
The light stays on and he can sense Erik radiating tension next to him, making the metal bedframe quiver with it, and neither of them can relax like this, but somehow that’s strangely comforting because the tension is an emotion, too, as real as Erik’s solidly familiar presence, and he doesn’t have to touch the pristine new bandages again to feel this one.
He breathes in, and out, and feels Erik trying not to watch him in case that makes him uncomfortable, and he thinks about Erik’s arms around him, earlier, and about how some things aren’t that bad after all, and about asking for what he needs, something he thinks Erik might need, too.
He’s still terrified, of course, but he tells himself that he’s all right, that he can do this, that he is in control and can retreat if he needs to because Erik won’t judge him.
And then inches a single bare foot over, carefully, and finds the first spot that he can reach with his toes, which turns out to be Erik’s ankle.
Erik, shocked, doesn’t react at first. The concerned hum of his thoughts, however, snaps off into the white blankness of surprise.
Charles…?
It’s all right. You can touch me. I think.
Erik reaches over, cautiously, and takes his hand, and Charles doesn’t move away, and Erik’s eyes meet his from inches away, wondering and nearly hopeful now and desperately, heartbreakingly, relieved. Still all right?
Yes.
The lamplight falls calmly across the whiteness of the pillowcase between them, across the tanned skin on the back of Erik’s hand holding his, accepting all the words they don’t say out loud and transforming them into gold, some mysterious alchemical process of change and alteration and purification, distilling the world into its simplest essence.
Charles, Erik whispers, I love you.
Oh, Charles says, astonished, I love you, too, and he does, with every bit of his broken self, everything he was and is and might someday be again, if Erik wants him, if Erik wants to hold onto all those pieces while he attempts to fit them back into place.
Yes, Erik answers, yes, I will, I will always hold you together. And that brilliant unnamed feeling comes rushing out over both of them again, dizzying as a tidal wave, and it’s not unnamed any longer, because it’s unquestionably love, and it’s unquestionably real.
And it’s not just a bright little lifeline of emotion now. It’s a beacon, steady and clear and blazing the way towards safe harbors, Charles thinks, and smiles, and squeezes Erik’s hand in his because he doesn’t have words for all of that but he wants Erik to know how he feels, how tightly he wants to hold on. Erik squeezes back.
How long-?
I think since the second I let you leave for New Orleans. Before you-before any of this. I would have come to find you anyway-I meant to-
I’m sorry you found this me instead.
No! Charles, no, I mean yes-I mean I would take everything back, would make this right for you, if I could, believe me-
I do.
-but you never have to apologize to me. Not for anything.
I killed him. Charles admits this to the serenely listening lamplight, because he can’t look at Erik. And before that he-I didn’t let it happen, you know, I tried to fight back-I did fight back and I couldn’t stop it and then I killed him.
I know you didn’t let it happen. I know you, Charles. And he deserved to die. Erik asserts this with such viciousness that Charles blinks in surprise and has to look at him again.
But I-
He deserved to die. Some people do. For what he did to you, he should be counted among them. And you deserve to live.
You say that as if it’s simple.
I don’t know how else to say it. You know how I feel. About him. About you. I love you. Is that enough?
I love you, too, Charles answers, and then hesitates, turning that last question over in his mind, under the artificial glow of the lamp, weighing it against the ever-present reminder that throbs gently beneath bandages, along his arm.
After a minute he says, quietly, Do you remember what I told you in the hospital? Why I decided to try to reach you, then, at that moment?
This time Erik is the one who looks away, at the dull corner of the bedside table and then up at the lamp, as if it might be able to burn those memories out of his head. The light turns his eyelashes into spikes of shadow and gold. You said you wanted to see me again. I remember that.
Yes. I wanted to stay. To let you touch me again even if I’m terrified. Not to leave you.
Charles-
I think maybe-if you want that too-that could be enough. I can try to let it be enough. I can’t promise that it will be; I don’t think this will go away overnight. Even if I want it to. But I can promise to try.
The words settle into the quiet of the room, softly bumping into the featureless and comforting hotel furniture, and stay there, like a prophecy, like commitment, under the gilded gaze of the lamplight.
I told you that I love you, Erik answers at last, and I always will. Never doubt that. Never. And if you need me to-
“Erik?” Charles says out loud, interrupting. It’s not eloquent, but then, eloquence is low on his list of concerns at the moment.
Erik stops talking to stare at him.
“Don’t move,” Charles tells him, and then leans over, not thinking about it, and kisses him, quickly, a brush of lips against startled lips.
Erik’s eyes go comically wide. Charles would laugh except his heart has caught up to what he’s just done and has started pounding as if it wants to leap out of his chest.
But he’d had to. He needed Erik to know. To know that Charles still wants him, will always want him, even if the idea of actual sex currently seems like the stuff of nightmares.
“Charles,” Erik says, “you-are you-was that-” and then gives up. Charles shrugs one shoulder at him. “I thought maybe I could.” And he’d been right. Not easy-his pulse echoes in his ears like thunder-but possible. Still. Again.
He has possibilities again.
And Erik is still staring at him wide-eyed and holding his hand a bit too hard and trying to find words and Charles adds, “I love you,” because he hasn’t said it out loud yet and perhaps they finally should.
And it seems that those are also the words that Erik’s been searching for, because he says them as well, very clearly, offering his “I love you” at almost the exact same second.
And their voices drift out into the room, together, finding sanctuary in the light.