Fic: Perfection. (XM:FC, Charles/Erik, PG-ish)
Perfection. X-Men: First Class, Charles/Erik, PG-ish. I've done it and gotten it out of my system, the obligatory will-they-won't-they mansion fic. I did not even attempt mutant politics. Please don't judge me too harshly.
Erik has been trying to read for the last forty-five minutes, in defiance of the periodic screaming coming from the roof.
I.
No one has thrown away Angel and Armando's things. Raven and Moira packed up what little there was into cardboard boxes, and had it shipped upstate with everything else. They all came with bags and wallets and wire-rimmed sunglasses; photographs of their parents, old friends, favorite film stars. Now there are vinyl records and jewelry and trinkets in bedside drawers, things scattered across the tops of their dressers in the upstairs rooms. If he focuses he can feel the links in their necklaces and bracelets, the buckles on their shoes and the tacks in the soles. The locks on their suitcases. They brought more with them than they know.
Erik brought less. There is a garment bag draped over the armchair in his room now, with brand-new clothes inside. Hand-tailored suits in his size. Almost perfectly in his size. Charles didn't ask, the first time. "You stand straighter than most people," he'd said afterwards, ruefully, before he sent them away to be rush-tailored again. Erik had complained about the cost, but Charles had waved it off, saying something about a CIA expense account. When he saw the house for the first time, Erik knew it was a lie. "We were recruiting," Charles says. "I wanted us to make a good impression."
"You wanted it to look like we had funding."
"We do," says Charles. "Of a sort."
He is standing in the doorway to Erik's borrowed room, which is unnervingly large and smells like wood polish. Erik has been trying to read for the last forty-five minutes, in defiance of the periodic screaming coming from the roof. Charles keeps staring at the book in Erik's hand like he's itching to say something. He's obviously been running, up the stairs or through the gardens, trying to keep everyone from exploding or gravely damaging the plants. There's a red flush high on each cheekbone, a sloping slash of color against the white. Erik puts the book down over his lap. "I don't mean to pry," says Charles, "but have you really never read The Origin of Species?"
"Not read, no," says Erik.
"Ah," hums Charles. "I'll leave you to it." And he does. The stillness in the house lasts nearly an hour. Erik is thumbing idly through the next chapter when Raven knocks on his door and comes in without invitation. Apparently that trait is shared by every member of this household.
"Sean won't jump," says Raven. "And Charles is too softhearted to kick people out of fourth-story windows."
Erik is happy to oblige.
"I had it recited to me," Erik tells him, that night. Surely he must already know. But he feels compelled to voice it. Charles is staring at him across the top of the chessboard; his eyes are perfectly still. "Certain passages. There must in every case be a struggle for existence."
"Well," says Charles. "That much is true."
II.
On Thursday Erik pads down to the kitchens to eat a pile of eggs and rye toast and to bury his head in the freezer under a bag of peas. He's been dreaming the submarine again, watching it vanish before his eyes, rotors spinning, as the world dissolves. In his dreams there is no voice in his head. In his dreams, he drowns. It's overly literal and infuriating and his teeth ache from grinding together. Charles is already there at the counter, playing solitaire and tapping his fingers along to a song nobody else can hear. "Good morning," he says, absurdly pleasant. He's wearing a tidy old man's sweater and pressed slacks, as if it wasn't five in the morning. Erik mocks him half-heartedly for being a health nut, a virtuous little sun-worshiper, for rising early and chasing worms. Charles grins and hums to himself and yawns wide and unembarrassed, like a Labrador. In the afternoon Erik finds him in the study, slumped over the side of his desk and snoring into a pile of confidential field reports. He stands there for too long and watches Charles's chest rise and fall.
"It's alright," says Raven, later. She curls up next to Erik on the sofa, while the rest of the kids crowd around Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. They are all glassy-eyed from exercise and too much dinner. Charles's training regimen is not calorically rigorous. Raven yawns and lets herself slip back into blue for a moment, into her magnificent cat's body, under her clothes. Her eyes are yellow and they flicker faintly along with the television. "He'll be able to tune it out, soon."
"Tune it out?"
"Everyone's nightmares. We're all having them." She rests her head against the cushions. "Every time I close my eyes, I see people falling."
He can understand that.
"And Charles- sees that also?"
"No." She frowns. "He's used to me. But it takes him a little while to adjust to new people. He told me his first month at Oxford, he barely slept at all." She stretches and sighs. "Between nightmares and co-eds."
"Co-eds?" Raven shoots him a look. "Ah. Your brother is popular."
"He's a complete-"
"Raven," says Charles, suddenly, from somewhere behind the sofa. "Be a darling, come and help me with dessert."
"How did you know I was out there?" Erik asks. He has just let go of the submarine again and now he's in Charles's study, nursing a scotch and staring into an unseasonable fire. It was already burning when he came downstairs, as if Charles expected someone to walk in with freezing dreams still clinging to their skin. He thinks about registering on Charles's internal scale. It feels impossible. He has always thought of himself as a void in the world, a blank spot moving under clouds. Not meaningless, but nonexistant. A uninhabitable space. He wonders if that is what Charles sees: a cave, an erasure where light and sound ought to be. No wonder he keeps trying to fill it with nonsense, with sociability and team-building exercises.
"You're not a blank spot," says Charles. "Erik, that's absurd."
"I'm a sharp knife," says Erik. Charles frowns and Erik can actually feel the second when Charles's mind touches his, without entering. Just sitting on the surface. It's a finger hovering silently over a piano key. It makes him want to rise up to meet it, to crash it down around him, just to hear the note struck. "But you could be a god."
Charles's eyes widen.
Stop it. He actually sounds angry. You think that's what I'd like to hear? He's inside Erik's head, and for once he doesn't apologize or shift his eyes guiltily or perform Charles Xavier, Reluctant Eavesdropper. He's genuinely mad and Erik feels the force of it behind his eyes. If Charles pressed harder, there would be real pain- and it would be blinding. His sight would blur and his ears would ring, and there would be a soft wet pop: the sound of his blood vessels collapsing, the world hollowed and spent. Erik closes his eyes and feels the sensation of vertigo. The vacuum. It's absolutely beautiful. What would that make Shaw?
Erik doesn't have an answer for that.
Metal bends until it snaps, until the raw edges splinter and divide. Glass melts, or is ground into sand. Erik thinks about Emma. She was perfectly clear as a diamond. He could look straight through her. There are other ways of not existing.
"I'm sorry," says Charles, the next morning. He's in a rumpled sweatsuit and his cheeks are red again from running. He's been panting behind Erik for the last two miles, and Erik can't take it anymore. He stops, and after a second Charles nearly thuds into him. They stand apart from one another and Charles apologizes again.
"There's no need."
"There is," Charles wheezes, "in fact an enormous need. I behaved abominably."
"You spoke your mind."
"No," says Charles. "I really didn't."
"So speak it now." Charles lets out a small, tired little laugh.
"Later, perhaps." He steps closer. "Look- I can't deny your strength. You're a hell of a weapon when you want to be. But that doesn't even scratch the surface." He smiles up at Erik. "That's what I wanted to say. I'm sorry I said it so badly."
When all the children have gone to bed, Erik finds him in the study again, hunched over another field report. "Nothing yet," Charles says. His mouth has a frustrated little twist at the corner, as if a tack is holding it in place. Erik paces the room, stretching his senses to touch the handles of the cabinets, the tips of the pens, brass lamps and coins in the tray. It's steadying. He thinks about Shaw, Schmidt: the lamps tremble. "My friend," says Charles. "You should get some rest." Erik turns back and looks at him, long enough that Charles glances away for just an instant, a flicker of blue iris. There are deepening rings under his eyes.
"I'm not tired," says Erik. "Would you like a rematch?"
"Careful," Charles warns. He's smiling. "I feel like winning."
"It's going to hurt," Schmidt tells him. This is a dream: Erik is not a child anymore, but he is on the table at the camp with his wrists pinned down, and he is aware that he is screaming. Schmidt is above him with goggles on. "Pain is felt by animals. You must rise above it. Embrace it." Schmidt makes the first incision. "I am doing this for you, Erik," he says. "I am doing this-"
-you may lie awake, says Charles. In the middle of the night, listening to the disorder of your veins.
It is a surprise, even in dreaming. Erik hears him close by, so close that it is almost a breath on his cheek. Charles's voice is steady. An anchor, a chain: strong enough to grasp at through the haze. He is reading aloud from a book. Erik can hear the faint scrape of the page turning, or else he dreams it, too. Charles goes on. There is only one thing for it then- to learn. Erik can feel himself floating down, away from the lights in the ceiling and Schmidt's refracted, insect eyes. He feels solid. Safe. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Erik's heart thuds heavily. He dreams he is an undiscovered vein of copper, green and blood-red in the rock. An unbroken line. There is no sound and no air and nothing but the warm press of the earth all above and around him. Things are so still that he feels the planet turning slowly. So slowly. When he wakes up, he is face-down in a pillow on the study's most uncomfortable sofa. It's almost dawn, and there is a thin film of scotch in his glass. His sweater's too hot and his shirt is wrinkled and the buttons have left marks in his skin.
He rolls over and blinks and looks at Charles.
Charles is sitting on the floor with his back propped against a chair; his head has rolled to one side and his cheek is resting on the seat. There's a pink mark on his face where the weave's pressed too deep. He is flopped-over and boneless and snoring softly. There's an open book split over his thigh. Erik glances at the cover, and is not especially surprised. It explains the bit in his dreams where he was a massive grey goose worrying about international border crossings.
He goes down onto one knee and touches Charles's shoulder. Charles stretches and winces himself awake, and they stare at each other, one above and the other below.
"Why?" asks Erik.
"You must know."
"I don't," says Erik. Charles's calm eyes search him. Erik wonders what they see.
"Because," he says. "You-"
And Erik leans down.
II.
"Vacansopapurosophobia," says Charles.
"Gesundheit," says Erik. Charles is somewhere behind him, only inches away. Erik can feel a warm swell of his laughter rippling through the springs in the mattress.
"It's fear of-"
"My Latin is fine," Erik says. "Say what you mean."
"You think you're blank," Charles clarifies, sounding subdued. They aren't touching. Erik is glad that he is facing away, that he cannot watch Charles's face as he speaks. He stays curled on his side, at the edge, sheets knotted under his armpits and knees drawn up. Last night he fell asleep here, in this bed, and slept like a rock for almost eight hours. It is bare and horrifying. When he woke up he felt like gathering all his things and running into the woods, like escaping: jumping into a moving truck, disappearing into a crowd. When he woke up he felt naked. There is no relief for this feeling.
Yes, says Erik, in his head. He knows Charles is listening. There is a telepathy of the flesh, too: one that even Erik understands. There will be no hiding anymore.
Charles is silent for a long time. Around them in the house, there are sounds of life: feet on the stairs, doors opening and closing. They must already be wondering at their absence, so wholly out of character. The two earliest risers, still missing, gone from their opposite ends of the breakfast table. Gaps. They will have to think of an excuse for their laziness, a lie. He will have to listen to Charles speak the lie while Charles's kind eyes radiate the truth at him, and then Erik will have to run a thousand miles away from here and never come back. What is it they say- yes, joining the circus. Changing his name. He will have to begin again. Wipe the slate. Erik winces at how foolish that sounds: there is no such thing as a fresh start. Not ever; not really. Only for very young children and amnesiacs.
"It's the hardest part of writing," Charles says suddenly. It sounds like a thought from another track, a parallel train. Perhaps he was listening in and perhaps he wasn't.
"Pardon?"
"Starting," he says. He sighs and Erik feels him shift on the mattress, feels his breath warmer and closer against his back than before. "You have that damn empty page in front of you, daring you. Taunting you. Then of course when you begin- when it's really flowing- you jam the keys." Charles gives him a flash of memory, just a tiny snip of himself bashing a typewriter in frustration, and Erik lets out a brief, helpless laugh.
"I'm seeing a crack in your calm façade."
"Still waters," says Charles, "get more turbulent when publishing deadlines loom."
"You're a complete terror, I'm sure."
"You have no idea," he sighs.
Yes, Erik thinks. This is part of the problem.
Erik is standing at the top of the landing, showered and dressed and hesitating. He should take the first step. He can hear them all below, rambling through the common rooms and in and out of the French doors, slamming the frames so hard the glass rattles. Or perhaps that's just Sean. He can feel their buckles and glasses like little homing beacons, cold fireflies on a subconscious register. Iron in the blood. He is urgently aware of them. His hand flexes around the banister, but he doesn't move. He feels Charles behind him before he is close enough to hear, to touch. There are tacks in his shoes.
Charles presses a fingertip to the space just below his shoulderblade; twists it gently and loops it, as if he was writing with his index finger dipped in ink. He curls a C and an H around Erik's spine and after a second Erik stops spelling along. Charles dots a period at the end of the sentence, then a fleeting press of his palm. It's so incredibly warm.
"There," he says.
Erik follows him down the stairs.
If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.
-T. H. White
Erik has been trying to read for the last forty-five minutes, in defiance of the periodic screaming coming from the roof.
I.
No one has thrown away Angel and Armando's things. Raven and Moira packed up what little there was into cardboard boxes, and had it shipped upstate with everything else. They all came with bags and wallets and wire-rimmed sunglasses; photographs of their parents, old friends, favorite film stars. Now there are vinyl records and jewelry and trinkets in bedside drawers, things scattered across the tops of their dressers in the upstairs rooms. If he focuses he can feel the links in their necklaces and bracelets, the buckles on their shoes and the tacks in the soles. The locks on their suitcases. They brought more with them than they know.
Erik brought less. There is a garment bag draped over the armchair in his room now, with brand-new clothes inside. Hand-tailored suits in his size. Almost perfectly in his size. Charles didn't ask, the first time. "You stand straighter than most people," he'd said afterwards, ruefully, before he sent them away to be rush-tailored again. Erik had complained about the cost, but Charles had waved it off, saying something about a CIA expense account. When he saw the house for the first time, Erik knew it was a lie. "We were recruiting," Charles says. "I wanted us to make a good impression."
"You wanted it to look like we had funding."
"We do," says Charles. "Of a sort."
He is standing in the doorway to Erik's borrowed room, which is unnervingly large and smells like wood polish. Erik has been trying to read for the last forty-five minutes, in defiance of the periodic screaming coming from the roof. Charles keeps staring at the book in Erik's hand like he's itching to say something. He's obviously been running, up the stairs or through the gardens, trying to keep everyone from exploding or gravely damaging the plants. There's a red flush high on each cheekbone, a sloping slash of color against the white. Erik puts the book down over his lap. "I don't mean to pry," says Charles, "but have you really never read The Origin of Species?"
"Not read, no," says Erik.
"Ah," hums Charles. "I'll leave you to it." And he does. The stillness in the house lasts nearly an hour. Erik is thumbing idly through the next chapter when Raven knocks on his door and comes in without invitation. Apparently that trait is shared by every member of this household.
"Sean won't jump," says Raven. "And Charles is too softhearted to kick people out of fourth-story windows."
Erik is happy to oblige.
"I had it recited to me," Erik tells him, that night. Surely he must already know. But he feels compelled to voice it. Charles is staring at him across the top of the chessboard; his eyes are perfectly still. "Certain passages. There must in every case be a struggle for existence."
"Well," says Charles. "That much is true."
II.
On Thursday Erik pads down to the kitchens to eat a pile of eggs and rye toast and to bury his head in the freezer under a bag of peas. He's been dreaming the submarine again, watching it vanish before his eyes, rotors spinning, as the world dissolves. In his dreams there is no voice in his head. In his dreams, he drowns. It's overly literal and infuriating and his teeth ache from grinding together. Charles is already there at the counter, playing solitaire and tapping his fingers along to a song nobody else can hear. "Good morning," he says, absurdly pleasant. He's wearing a tidy old man's sweater and pressed slacks, as if it wasn't five in the morning. Erik mocks him half-heartedly for being a health nut, a virtuous little sun-worshiper, for rising early and chasing worms. Charles grins and hums to himself and yawns wide and unembarrassed, like a Labrador. In the afternoon Erik finds him in the study, slumped over the side of his desk and snoring into a pile of confidential field reports. He stands there for too long and watches Charles's chest rise and fall.
"It's alright," says Raven, later. She curls up next to Erik on the sofa, while the rest of the kids crowd around Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. They are all glassy-eyed from exercise and too much dinner. Charles's training regimen is not calorically rigorous. Raven yawns and lets herself slip back into blue for a moment, into her magnificent cat's body, under her clothes. Her eyes are yellow and they flicker faintly along with the television. "He'll be able to tune it out, soon."
"Tune it out?"
"Everyone's nightmares. We're all having them." She rests her head against the cushions. "Every time I close my eyes, I see people falling."
He can understand that.
"And Charles- sees that also?"
"No." She frowns. "He's used to me. But it takes him a little while to adjust to new people. He told me his first month at Oxford, he barely slept at all." She stretches and sighs. "Between nightmares and co-eds."
"Co-eds?" Raven shoots him a look. "Ah. Your brother is popular."
"He's a complete-"
"Raven," says Charles, suddenly, from somewhere behind the sofa. "Be a darling, come and help me with dessert."
"How did you know I was out there?" Erik asks. He has just let go of the submarine again and now he's in Charles's study, nursing a scotch and staring into an unseasonable fire. It was already burning when he came downstairs, as if Charles expected someone to walk in with freezing dreams still clinging to their skin. He thinks about registering on Charles's internal scale. It feels impossible. He has always thought of himself as a void in the world, a blank spot moving under clouds. Not meaningless, but nonexistant. A uninhabitable space. He wonders if that is what Charles sees: a cave, an erasure where light and sound ought to be. No wonder he keeps trying to fill it with nonsense, with sociability and team-building exercises.
"You're not a blank spot," says Charles. "Erik, that's absurd."
"I'm a sharp knife," says Erik. Charles frowns and Erik can actually feel the second when Charles's mind touches his, without entering. Just sitting on the surface. It's a finger hovering silently over a piano key. It makes him want to rise up to meet it, to crash it down around him, just to hear the note struck. "But you could be a god."
Charles's eyes widen.
Stop it. He actually sounds angry. You think that's what I'd like to hear? He's inside Erik's head, and for once he doesn't apologize or shift his eyes guiltily or perform Charles Xavier, Reluctant Eavesdropper. He's genuinely mad and Erik feels the force of it behind his eyes. If Charles pressed harder, there would be real pain- and it would be blinding. His sight would blur and his ears would ring, and there would be a soft wet pop: the sound of his blood vessels collapsing, the world hollowed and spent. Erik closes his eyes and feels the sensation of vertigo. The vacuum. It's absolutely beautiful. What would that make Shaw?
Erik doesn't have an answer for that.
Metal bends until it snaps, until the raw edges splinter and divide. Glass melts, or is ground into sand. Erik thinks about Emma. She was perfectly clear as a diamond. He could look straight through her. There are other ways of not existing.
"I'm sorry," says Charles, the next morning. He's in a rumpled sweatsuit and his cheeks are red again from running. He's been panting behind Erik for the last two miles, and Erik can't take it anymore. He stops, and after a second Charles nearly thuds into him. They stand apart from one another and Charles apologizes again.
"There's no need."
"There is," Charles wheezes, "in fact an enormous need. I behaved abominably."
"You spoke your mind."
"No," says Charles. "I really didn't."
"So speak it now." Charles lets out a small, tired little laugh.
"Later, perhaps." He steps closer. "Look- I can't deny your strength. You're a hell of a weapon when you want to be. But that doesn't even scratch the surface." He smiles up at Erik. "That's what I wanted to say. I'm sorry I said it so badly."
When all the children have gone to bed, Erik finds him in the study again, hunched over another field report. "Nothing yet," Charles says. His mouth has a frustrated little twist at the corner, as if a tack is holding it in place. Erik paces the room, stretching his senses to touch the handles of the cabinets, the tips of the pens, brass lamps and coins in the tray. It's steadying. He thinks about Shaw, Schmidt: the lamps tremble. "My friend," says Charles. "You should get some rest." Erik turns back and looks at him, long enough that Charles glances away for just an instant, a flicker of blue iris. There are deepening rings under his eyes.
"I'm not tired," says Erik. "Would you like a rematch?"
"Careful," Charles warns. He's smiling. "I feel like winning."
"It's going to hurt," Schmidt tells him. This is a dream: Erik is not a child anymore, but he is on the table at the camp with his wrists pinned down, and he is aware that he is screaming. Schmidt is above him with goggles on. "Pain is felt by animals. You must rise above it. Embrace it." Schmidt makes the first incision. "I am doing this for you, Erik," he says. "I am doing this-"
-you may lie awake, says Charles. In the middle of the night, listening to the disorder of your veins.
It is a surprise, even in dreaming. Erik hears him close by, so close that it is almost a breath on his cheek. Charles's voice is steady. An anchor, a chain: strong enough to grasp at through the haze. He is reading aloud from a book. Erik can hear the faint scrape of the page turning, or else he dreams it, too. Charles goes on. There is only one thing for it then- to learn. Erik can feel himself floating down, away from the lights in the ceiling and Schmidt's refracted, insect eyes. He feels solid. Safe. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Erik's heart thuds heavily. He dreams he is an undiscovered vein of copper, green and blood-red in the rock. An unbroken line. There is no sound and no air and nothing but the warm press of the earth all above and around him. Things are so still that he feels the planet turning slowly. So slowly. When he wakes up, he is face-down in a pillow on the study's most uncomfortable sofa. It's almost dawn, and there is a thin film of scotch in his glass. His sweater's too hot and his shirt is wrinkled and the buttons have left marks in his skin.
He rolls over and blinks and looks at Charles.
Charles is sitting on the floor with his back propped against a chair; his head has rolled to one side and his cheek is resting on the seat. There's a pink mark on his face where the weave's pressed too deep. He is flopped-over and boneless and snoring softly. There's an open book split over his thigh. Erik glances at the cover, and is not especially surprised. It explains the bit in his dreams where he was a massive grey goose worrying about international border crossings.
He goes down onto one knee and touches Charles's shoulder. Charles stretches and winces himself awake, and they stare at each other, one above and the other below.
"Why?" asks Erik.
"You must know."
"I don't," says Erik. Charles's calm eyes search him. Erik wonders what they see.
"Because," he says. "You-"
And Erik leans down.
II.
"Vacansopapurosophobia," says Charles.
"Gesundheit," says Erik. Charles is somewhere behind him, only inches away. Erik can feel a warm swell of his laughter rippling through the springs in the mattress.
"It's fear of-"
"My Latin is fine," Erik says. "Say what you mean."
"You think you're blank," Charles clarifies, sounding subdued. They aren't touching. Erik is glad that he is facing away, that he cannot watch Charles's face as he speaks. He stays curled on his side, at the edge, sheets knotted under his armpits and knees drawn up. Last night he fell asleep here, in this bed, and slept like a rock for almost eight hours. It is bare and horrifying. When he woke up he felt like gathering all his things and running into the woods, like escaping: jumping into a moving truck, disappearing into a crowd. When he woke up he felt naked. There is no relief for this feeling.
Yes, says Erik, in his head. He knows Charles is listening. There is a telepathy of the flesh, too: one that even Erik understands. There will be no hiding anymore.
Charles is silent for a long time. Around them in the house, there are sounds of life: feet on the stairs, doors opening and closing. They must already be wondering at their absence, so wholly out of character. The two earliest risers, still missing, gone from their opposite ends of the breakfast table. Gaps. They will have to think of an excuse for their laziness, a lie. He will have to listen to Charles speak the lie while Charles's kind eyes radiate the truth at him, and then Erik will have to run a thousand miles away from here and never come back. What is it they say- yes, joining the circus. Changing his name. He will have to begin again. Wipe the slate. Erik winces at how foolish that sounds: there is no such thing as a fresh start. Not ever; not really. Only for very young children and amnesiacs.
"It's the hardest part of writing," Charles says suddenly. It sounds like a thought from another track, a parallel train. Perhaps he was listening in and perhaps he wasn't.
"Pardon?"
"Starting," he says. He sighs and Erik feels him shift on the mattress, feels his breath warmer and closer against his back than before. "You have that damn empty page in front of you, daring you. Taunting you. Then of course when you begin- when it's really flowing- you jam the keys." Charles gives him a flash of memory, just a tiny snip of himself bashing a typewriter in frustration, and Erik lets out a brief, helpless laugh.
"I'm seeing a crack in your calm façade."
"Still waters," says Charles, "get more turbulent when publishing deadlines loom."
"You're a complete terror, I'm sure."
"You have no idea," he sighs.
Yes, Erik thinks. This is part of the problem.
Erik is standing at the top of the landing, showered and dressed and hesitating. He should take the first step. He can hear them all below, rambling through the common rooms and in and out of the French doors, slamming the frames so hard the glass rattles. Or perhaps that's just Sean. He can feel their buckles and glasses like little homing beacons, cold fireflies on a subconscious register. Iron in the blood. He is urgently aware of them. His hand flexes around the banister, but he doesn't move. He feels Charles behind him before he is close enough to hear, to touch. There are tacks in his shoes.
Charles presses a fingertip to the space just below his shoulderblade; twists it gently and loops it, as if he was writing with his index finger dipped in ink. He curls a C and an H around Erik's spine and after a second Erik stops spelling along. Charles dots a period at the end of the sentence, then a fleeting press of his palm. It's so incredibly warm.
"There," he says.
Erik follows him down the stairs.
If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.
-T. H. White