Forgive Us Our Transgressions 7/16
“Charles,” Erik said smoothly, appearing in the door of his study. “I brought lunch.”
“You didn’t have to do that, my friend,” Charles smiled at the metal tray that Erik wielded, kept aloft with his powers alone, and piled high with sandwiches and lemonade.
“We can’t have you starving. Not when you need to be out saving the world.”
Charles paused in the act of clearing his desk of papers, going very, very still.
What, exactly, had Hank shown him in the lab that morning?
“One mutant child at a time, “Erik concluded, dropping into the chair across from him.
Charles gave him a relieved smile. “Ah, you know me too well.”
Erik leaned forward, giving him an inscrutable look. “Do I?” he asked.
Charles faltered.
“Charles,” he said, reaching out to grasp his hand, where it hovered uncertainly over the sandwiches. “How close were we? Before?”
Charles’ breath caught, his senses narrowing in on the warmth of Erik’s hand over his. “You were my best friend.”
“But,” Erik rose from his chair, coming around to Charles’ side of the desk. “Is that all I was? Because, sometimes I get this feeling…”
“Yes?” Charles whispered.
“That there was something more.” Erik leaned in close, ducking down until his breath ghosted over Charles’ flushed face.
“Like what?” Charles asked, fighting to maintain his composure.
“Like everything,” Erik said, and then closed the distance between them.
It was barely a kiss-more of a ghosting of lips over lips, and yet it took Charles’ breath away.
It had been years-long, endless, torturous years-since he had felt Erik’s lips on his own, and he instantly wanted more, before this kiss had even ended.
“Erik,” he murmured.
“Forgive me, my friend,” Erik said, pulling back a fraction of an inch. “If I am wrong.”
“You’re not,” Charles admitted, leaning forward. “You’re not wrong.”
It might be wrong, Charles might certainly be wrong, but Erik wasn’t, not in assuming that Charles wanted this too.
He had, for longer than he’d like to admit. Perhaps he had never stopped wanting it.
But as he watched Erik recover, open up and fit so seamlessly into life at the mansion, Charles couldn’t help but want him to stay, to be in his life forever.
To be like they were, once.
He pressed his lips to Erik’s, relearning the shape of them, the soft slide of their mouths together, the heat of his breath, puffing out over Charles’ sensitive mouth.
He tilted his head, drawing Erik closer, panting into the other man’s mouth.
A whimper escaped his lips as Erik drew back.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“I didn’t want to presume,” Charles said, a safe enough answer, although the weight of what went unsaid settled heavily upon him. “I wanted you to truly want me back, not just because I told you we were…together.”
“You silly, noble man,” Erik admonished with a grin, winding his long fingers into Charles’ hair and drawing him forward. “How could I help but want you?”
Even as Charles leant into the kiss, the words struck at him. Had he somehow made this happen? Forced Erik’s hand?
It didn’t feel forced now, though, as Erik’s fingers raked through his hair, tugging lightly to direct Charles’ mouth where he wanted it. It certainly felt like Erik wanted him as he surged closer, parting his lips to lick at Charles, gently cajoling him to open to Erik’s tongue, desire pulsing in his mind.
Doubts had plagued him since the moment he saw Erik lying in his front foyer, unconscious and desperately ill. But now he shoved them aside, refusing to think of anything but the press of Erik’s tongue against his own, the way it curled, hot and wet, against his teeth. He reached out, hooking a hand behind Erik’s neck, dipping his fingers in under the line of his turtleneck. He loved Erik’s throat-he always had-all the more tantalizing for the way the man kept it covered, encased in the turtlenecks that fit him like a glove. His neck was thick and masculine, but long enough to be elegant, to add to the sleek grace of his every movement.
Charles dug his hand in, wrapping his fingers around the nape of Erik’s neck and stroking the fine hairs he found there.
The man groaned into his mouth, and Charles was gratified that, no matter how much had changed about his former lover, he still knew how Erik liked to be touched.
The heated tangle of teeth and tongues lasted a few, blissful minutes and then Erik drew back, his pupils wide and wanting as he gazed down at Charles. “We should have lunch like this more often,” he said with a satisfied grin.
Charles was too far gone to balk at the cockiness in Erik’s voice. “And breakfast, and dinner,” he added.
“Hmm,” Erik murmured, pleased. He reached down, curling his hand around Charles’s head, his thumb lightly caressing his ear. “What about a nightcap, tonight?”
“Yes,” Charles breathed, leaning into the touch.
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Their walk that afternoon was delayed, but after a hurried lunch, full of long looks and flushed cheeks, they headed out to the grounds, Erik stationing himself at the back of Charles’ chair, although he didn’t need the help to get himself around.
Still, it was nice that Erik wanted to, wanted to be close, and so Charles let him, enjoying being able to relax and let Erik choose their path.
They headed for the trees today, down a slate-lined path that Hank had installed soon after Charles’ injury. The gravel was murder to navigate in his chair, but Hank-with the help of the other boys-had done all he could to make every part of the mansion, including the grounds, accessible to Charles after the accident.
He had pitied himself quite a bit in those first few months, not so much for the loss of his legs but for the loss of Erik. And yet, he had such good friends who had remained by his side, doing all they could to make the transition to being a paraplegic-and a heartbroken one, at that-as easy as possible.
Those same friends who were allowing him to have this moment-Erik back in his life, not full of guilt or anger, but just happy to be with Charles. Not burdened by Charles’ injury, but blissfully pushing his wheelchair along, unaware that he was the one who put Charles in it.
“Charles,” Erik began thoughtfully. “I know that we haven’t talked much about the things I don’t remember.”
Charles tensed, unconsciously holding his breath.
“But I’ve been thinking. The mutant population is quite small, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Charles answered with a frown. His question wasn’t what Charles had been bracing himself for, worried that Erik would ask about their relationship, or his family, or why he didn’t seem to have any belongings, or acquaintances, or a home.
“So that means the majority of the world are normal, non-powered people?”
“Yes.”
“Do they…accept us?” Erik asked hesitantly. “It’s only that I’ve noticed that we’re quite isolated out here. No one seems to come or go. We don’t go into town except when we need supplies. We don’t seem to interact with anyone who isn’t like us.”
“Oh,” Charles said. He hadn’t expected Erik to notice that, not yet. The mansion was secluded, cut off from the rest of the world by design, but Charles had hoped Erik would just see it as a blissful country idyll, rather than the fortress it really was. “Well, that’s true. Humans, non-powered people, have only been aware of mutants for a few years.” Charles frowned, forcing thoughts of the beach and all those guns turning on their small group, out of his head.
“And they don’t accept us,” Erik prompted.
“Well…” Charles hesitated.
“Charles, it’s alright,” Erik came around to the front of his chair, crouching down to bring them eye-to-eye. “I’m not surprised. Imagine if we were like them, ‘normal’ people, and we found out there were people with powers like ours. Or Ororo’s, or, god, Scott’s. They must feel so helpless, so unable to match that kind of power.”
Charles could only stare at Erik’s earnest face for a moment. It was exactly what he had always told his friend-to see things from the human’s point of view, to try and understand their fear, the fear that drove them to fight back, even when the mutants had not attacked them first. To fight back against what they could only perceive as a threat.
Erik had never agreed, had always refused to see it his way.
Until now, apparently.
“They are frightened,” Charles agreed. “And that sometimes leads to them…making poor decisions. Sometimes it prevents them from seeing us for what we are.”
“People,” Erik supplied. “Just like them.”
“Exactly,” Charles said, giving the man a small smile. His own thoughts, coming unprompted from Erik’s mouth.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
“And yet,” Erik continued thoughtfully, straightening up and beginning to push Charles’ chair again. “Is hiding really the best option?”
Charles frowned. Now that sounded more like the Erik he had once known. “Well…”
“I mean, of course it’s best to let the children flourish in an open and encouraging environment,” Erik said gently. “I’m not questioning that. But if non-powered people are really afraid of us, doesn’t hiding away encourage that fear?”
“We’re not hiding,” Charles argued, a bit petulant, knowing he had had this argument with Erik a million times over, mostly about Raven. And yet, the words were new to this Erik. “Not really. We don’t want to push them when they’re not ready.”
“But what will make them ready, if you just sequester yourself out here? Let me guess, the only time they see mutants, it’s the ones using their powers irresponsibly-whether accidentally, or on purpose, for crime or murder?”
Charles closed his eyes-it was absolutely true. But what Erik didn’t know was that the mutants exposing their powers to the humans, the mutants generating all that bad press, were Magneto and his followers.
“Yes,” he admitted. “The majority of news stories about mutants are sensationalist pieces, about a child whose power got out of control. Or a mutant trying to intimidate humanity with a show of force.”
“Intimidate humanity?” Erik questioned.
“Some mutants,” Charles said carefully. “Do not take the humanity’s rejection well. They think that we are the superior species, and they make their views known.”
Erik scoffed behind him, a low, indignant noise. “And how do they think that will help? Making the non-powered not only fear them, but hate them?”
Charles bit his lips. This could be his chance, to thrust his views upon Erik, to tell him that the Brotherhood was evil, that their politics were wrong, that Charles’ way was the only way.
And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to do so. “It certainly has not helped the cause,” he admitted, cautious with his words.
“And yet you, who are doing so much good, stay hidden away out here in the countryside.”
It wasn’t entirely true-Charles and the other teachers at the Academy appeared in public as the X-Men, when necessary. But of course, humanity was never grateful for their actions, it seemed. Instead, the headlines would just proclaim the dangers of a mysterious force of powerful mutants, taking the law into their own hands. Unhinged vigilantes, they were called. Charles snorted quietly. Of all the things he had expected to be called in his lifetime-nerd, freak, queer-that was not one of them.
“What are you suggesting?” Charles asked with a sigh.
“Don’t be angry, my friend,” Erik said, so non-confrontational these days. “I only meant that you could do so much good for our kind, if you put yourself out there. If people could see the things you do for these children. The research that you’ve done on mutant genetics. People fear what they don’t understand. But they will never understand our kind if we don’t help them.”
Charles craned his head, looking back on Erik in wonder. His old friend’s own words, but so different now. His belief that mutants shouldn’t have to hide had not changed, but his proposed methods certainly had.
“Come here,” Charles murmured, reaching out a beckoning hand. Erik smiled, hurrying around to the front of Charles’ chair.
“Yes?” he asked, with a pretence of coyness that was hardly suited to his stern face, his commanding presence. And yet, it made Charles’ blood heat.
He reached for him, needing to express his gratitude for having Erik at his side-this new Erik, so similar and yet so different from the old. Erik bent down, meeting him in a rush of lips and teeth and tongues.
“Erik, I-“ he murmured against the other man’s mouth. “I love you.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. He had never said those words to Erik, although he had felt them for years. It had all been too much, too fast, before. The flurry of finding other mutants, of the CIA, the Russians, and Shaw. He and Erik had been flung into each other’s arms, and they hadn’t had a moment to analyze what they were doing together, what they were to each other.
Not until the silence that came after. It was only into the void of loneliness that Charles could speak those words, could admit the depth of his feelings for the man who had left him, injured him, betrayed him.
He could only hope he wouldn’t regret saying them now.
“Oh, Charles,” Erik said, bringing a hand up to cradle his face. “You are a remarkable man. I don’t know what came before these few weeks, but I suspect that I have always felt the same.”
There were few things that Charles had wished so desperately to be true.
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Chapter Eight
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