Silver's good enough for me
Here I am, jumping into another fandom. I'M SORRY, BATMAN. I'll come back, I promise. I don't even know where to post this! I'M SO NEW.
Part 1 of 2, or, possibly, 3. And yes, I checked to make sure disposable razors were available at the time. And yes, I pretty much want to watch Sweeney Todd over and over again right now. WHY DON'T I HAVE A KNIFEY ICON? WHY?
Title: These are my friends; see how they glisten
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik (pre-slash)
Rating: PG (for now)
Disclaimer: Absolutely none of the characters here are mine, and I didn't even come up with the premise.
Prompt: SHAVING, from uniformly, who clearly knows my buttons.
It isn't that Charles hasn't travelled before. The Xavier family has summer homes in several far flung places; there have been innumerable trips with friends from University; trips that him and Raven had gone off on like giggling school children (mostly because that was what they had been); short, ridiculous getaways with pretty girls who made it past the night promised by the pick up speech; and so much else...
But Charles is unused to traveling like this, a different bed each night, every day spent hurtling forward save for a few precious hours. Nor were their accommodations his usual--they stayed close to where the target was, and that was often in a sleepy little town, or in a bad neighborhood, or just somewhere far from anything else, where a lavish hotel has never been needed. And Charles, beatific as he might be, had never been at his best in the morning.
Which is why Erik is smirking at him and his sleep rumpled hair, his slightly crooked jacket, when he tumbles into the diner booth.
"It's easy for you," Charles mumbles, "You just--black on black and you're done, and those turtlenecks don't even have buttons."
Erik takes a sip of coffee--blacker than the shirt on his back (and, Charles suddenly knows because he isn't quite as good at filtering out other people's sensory impressions when he first wakes up, lukewarm, which means Erik has been awake and waiting for him, again, blast)--and hides what little mirth is still tugging at his lips.
"Drink your tea," Erik says, his voice perfectly distant and sounding slightly bored. It almost convinces Charles, at least at this time of morning. Well. It convinces Charles a little, even though he should know better. "It's there. In front of you. In case you hadn't noticed."
"...oh," Charles says, because he hadn't.
It takes him two cups before he straightens up, shoulders squaring, jacket seeming to magically slide into place. He beams at Erik.
"Thank you; that was very kind of you," he says, now at ease and sounding like Erik just did him the best possible favor in the world, "Very helpful."
"It's only in the interest of getting us on the road faster," Erik says dryly, and his eyes are downcast as he takes the last sip of his coffee, and he doesn't look at Charles.
--
It doesn't get any better, and the gulf doesn't get any smaller. It's not that he ever expected that he, himself, would adjust--that was too much to wish for. No, Charles had been hoping that as the weeks wore on, Erik might, perhaps, be under slept or groggy or too out of it to slick back his hair in the morning, but no: he is always the same perfectly composed creature. His clothes are never askew, his hair is never out of place, his posture is never slumped. Even when once or twice they end up well and truly lost, and have to spend a night in the car, sleeping in shifts--come his turn Erik can fall asleep at any time, any place, and wake up to do what duty falls to him.
He's a solider, and Charles knows this, but Charles is...
"...terrible at this," Erik says one morning, gesturing across the table, "What did you do to yourself? And how did you miss a spot on your left cheek?"
"Bleeding from my chin was distracting, thanks," Charles grumbles. He is only on his first cup of tea and the waitress hasn't even brought his eggs yet. "What, you've never cut yourself shaving?"
"No," Erik says blandly, and Charles blinks, sighs, laughs at himself softly.
"No," he echoes, realizing what he'd asked, "I suppose not."
"Partly because I've been shaving for more than, oh, a month or so," Erik says, with deadpan lightness.
"I do not look that young, thank you," Charles objects, from somewhere inside his tea mug. "And stop thinking so loudly about what an amateur I am, if you please. Inside voi--thoughts. And I don't sound like--what does that translate to?--a petulant child."
Erik holds up a hand, as if offering a truce.
"It's a smaller cut than I would expect," he says, "Most men could do worse."
"What, really?" Charles asks, incredulous even if he'd been jokingly defensive before, "I don't know many people who manage to shave worse than I do, really, I mean, it's nearly impossible, what with the safety razors--"
"The what," Erik asks.
"The, the, you know," Charles says, putting his cup down so his hands can flutter, "Thing. Shaving thing." He is miming out broad downward strokes.
Erik just looks at him, and it's a testament to how not-entirely-awake Charles is that this only makes him mime out more exaggeratedly instead of switching tracks and just projecting what he means.
"With the plastic and the--"
"You use one of those?" Erik asks, with no attempt to hide his scorn.
"I." Charles purses his lips. "Well, yes."
Erik shakes his head in wonder. The sense of honest bafflement coming off him would be insulting, except that the waitress just put eggs and waffles down in front of Charles, so he's distracted.
--
It takes three days before Erik throws up his hands at the slumping form that is Charles in the morning.
"I can't stand it," he says, "I just can't."
Charles mumbles something unintelligible into his tea (waiting for him, as usual) and doesn't even try to snake out a tendril of awareness to see if he can figure out what Erik's talking about.
--
It's hardly dawn and Charles isn't sure what wakes him up: the terse knocking on his door or the insistent call of Charles, Charles, CHARLES--
He stumbles to the door, taking the time to make sure he has pajama pants on, because he feels no fear of danger in Erik's call, but not managing to think as far as a shirt because he's busy fumbling with the lock.
"Don't you ever sleep?" Charles croaks out, and it's not really a question. He's seen it, a little.
"Not like you do," Erik says, eying him, "Apparently."
"Mmm," Charles says, hoping wit isn't expected of him right now. He thinks he sees a moment of hesitation, but that must be his grogginess talking, and anyway, in the next moment, Erik is clapping a hand over his shoulder and steering him towards the bathroom.
"It's time," Erik says.
"Guh?" Charles says.
"For you to learn how to shave," Erik says.
"What," Charles says, followed by, "How are you even dressed right now?"
"Charles, it's six-thirty."
"Exactly," Charles says, thrilled that they're getting somewhere at least.
Erik sighs, not out loud, but inside his head, but there's something else on the edges of that, something that Charles tries to sleepily chase because it's close to the surface, and it feels like it might be a secret smile. It makes Charles want to smile back--
But then Erik flips the light switch, and then all Charles does is wince, and all he wants to do is get back in bed. He stands there, squinting, and Erik is doing things with his hands, putting out a mug and running water until it's hot and all kinds of other things Charles is not paying attention to at all. He wants to make a joke about how oddly paternal this is, but he's not asleep enough to forget that Erik probably wouldn't think it funny. Charles is lost in his thoughts, in the sleeping thoughts of the couple next door, in the boredom of the person manning the hotel's front desk--
When he blinks back to himself, Erik has sat him down on top of the closed toilet and he has a hot towel on his face.
Ow, he complains, without much vigor.
Erik ignores him, so Charles repeats himself, louder, and he is rewarded by the feeling that is Erik's urge to smile, even if nothing changes on his face.
"I'm doing this for you today," Erik tells him, "And you're doing it to yourself tomorrow, under my supervision, and then you are never using one of these--" the plastic, single blade thing Charles has been using is hovering in the air, while Erik gives it a flicker of disdain, and flings it into the trash, "ever again."
"At home I have an electric one," Charles says, muffled by the towel, sending along the mental reassurance to Erik that he's much better with one of those. I can get another. If I promise to get another today, can I go back to bed?
"No," Erik tells him, and then he floats something out of his pocket that makes Charles sit up.
The straight razor unfolds itself in the air, graceful in the arc it traces. It's hovering, just hovering, but Charles is suddenly a little more awake.
"So. The hot water, the lather," Erik is saying, as a brush--with a metal ring around the handle--is also in the air, dipping into the mug, working up a lather, "These are not absolutely essential, but they do help."
He twitches the towel off of Charles's face, which is pink and flushed
From the heat, Charles almost thinks at him, but he knows it would sound defensive. It's just that he's so pale, after all--he colors easily.
"Use small strokes," Erik is going on, "until the end, and then use long strokes."
Softly, deftly, Erik's hand meets the razor in mid air, holds it--and the surge of disappointment that Charles feels is so strong that he makes an audible noise, a soft swallow, from the effort of beating it down.
Still, the backwash must touch Erik, a little, because he raises an eyebrow.
"I'm just surprised that you're not...that you're using your hands."
"Stop talking," Erik orders idly, with any real heat, "And I'm here to teach you how to do it, so I can't very well teach you how I do it."
"Oh," Charles says again, before he can stop himself. "Huh."
"Talking," Erik warns, and Charles falls obediently silent.
The metal touches his skin in the light of twitches, cold against his flushed, pink skin. Erik is deft, of course he is, even when he's using his hands, and he flicks the foam off the blade every now and then, neatly, as he travels down the line of Charles's jaw, his cheeks, his chin. Charles stays perfectly, achingly still--not just in body, but in mind. He's no stranger to holding in his thoughts, his feelings, not when projecting is so easy, but it's different now. The tension makes him feel like a harp, high strung but out of tune, as if he's going to tear himself apart.
"You can breathe," Erik tells him, "I'm not going to cut you, you know."
No. Right. Of course not.
Charles lets out a big breath, hopes it doesn't shake.
"You want to keep about a twenty degree angle between the blade and your skin," Erik murmurs, "At least at first."
Charles sucks in a breath this time, too quick.
The razor freezes as that, and he feels a whiplash of annoyance from Erik.
"Are you trying to get me to cut you, Charles?" he mutters, "You can't, you know. Some of us aren't sloppy just because it isn't noon yet..."
And Charles squirms a little, he can't help it, but the edge moves with him as it did when he breathed: Erik has steady, quick hands, and the blade is never too deep, but also never too far from his skin. It makes Charles shift again, as if he is uncomfortable on the cold seat--which he is, once he makes himself notice, not that it's the worst of his problems right now.
"Be still," Erik says, and this time he lets the blade come just a bit closer, not enough to bleed, but enough for it to be a warning about what could happen. Charles stills.
Erik continues in silence.
"Are we done?" Charles asks hopefully, when most of the lather is off.
"Talking," Erik says again, followed by, "And no. As boyish as you might be..." Erik is lathering him up again; Charles is going to die, how has his life come to this, "...you can't just go over your skin once. You should give it at least two passes. Three once you develop the ability to grow a beard, one day in the distant future."
Charles mentally sighs but doesn't share. He doesn't want to share--keeping his feelings in check while stringing together telepathic words is easy, but not when it's someone who knows him, who knows the sensation, who knows how to reach out over the connection once it's there, and not when Charles is keeping himself so very far away, and so very still.
What would Erik think, if he felt it?
What would he find, anyway?
Charles closes his eyes, partly to focus while he answers the question, partly to not give away the anticipation he'd feel, waiting for the razor to come back. There are times when Charles can close the loop of his own self and read his own emotions like he would someone else's--it's like looking in a mirror, but more tiring. Now is the time for it. He is awake now, brilliantly awake; the nerves near his skin are on fire and reaching for every bit of sensation; he's nervous, so nervous, because he feels the awkwardness of being taken to a different place by this than Erik is; there is a subtle tinge of what could be guilt, because Charles hates to be deceptive even by omission; there is a tug of shame, deep down, covering the most interesting, brightly colored, hidden thing...
shame want nervous almost-fear, Charles registers, and his eyes flutter open just as the razor touches his neck, scrapes cold against the grain of his hair this time, instead of with it.
He breaths, and he was wrong about it being the last thing, because one more thing turns over, showing him its face.
Oh.
Charles says nothing, does his best to feel nothing, for the second pass.
It doesn't work, and he feels everything. What should be a simple ritual of hygiene takes forever, and Erik's face is the calm kind of tuned-out that happens when someone is engrossed in routine. His thoughts are content and almost--by Erik standards, anyway--peaceful, and Charles realizes that for him, this is so entirely standard issue, so easy, so devoid of significance, that it might as well be as simple as breathing.
None of that changes the fact that he could make the metal sing in his hand; that he wouldn't even need to do such a thing, with Charles pale and limp and bared before him--and Erik wouldn't even need that, wouldn't need Charles to acquiesce, not Erik. There is no murderous intent in that blade but there could be--Charles doesn't need his power to know that Erik will always keep his blades beautifully sharp. The slide of the knife against his skin is rhythmic and certain, devoid of hesitation. How easy would it be for Erik to adjust his grip, to change the blade's course, to draw it over the beating bit of skin that covers Charles's vital pulse, right--
"There," Erik is saying, and he doesn't have to move for the water to turn on, for the razor to rinse itself, dry itself, and snap back closed with a noise that makes Charles jump as Erik is toweling his face off, "Nothing to wake a man up like a good shave."
He stands back and smiles, like he fully expects Charles to spring up into action with a song in his heart and suddenly have the most productive day of his life.
"Guh," Charles says, shaking his head groggily, because he is exhausted, body twanging, mind scattering and reforming and turning in on itself with contradictions. He gets up and makes an aborted stumble back towards bed, before he glances back up at Erik. It's worse than when he first woke up. Keeping himself that mentally silent and tucked away is so much harder, for whatever reason, than broadcasting. It's like he's meant to be a radio tower, when his feelings are strong. His feet are cold on the bathroom tile, and his back feels stiff, and his nipples are--
Charles folds his arms over his chest.
All in all, he looks more wrecked than he did when he answered the door.
"I'll go order you tea," Erik sighs, after his eyes do a quick, evaluating sweep, and he starts collecting his things.
"No, no, no," Charles says, waving a hand around and then pinching the bridge of his nose, "No. Um. And thank you, for, um." He gestures up at his face. "I'll be--just give me ten minutes."
Erik cocks a skeptical eyebrow at him and exits.
Charles stands in his room, bewildered--so that's how it is, he thinks, with a resigned sigh--and realizes that ten minutes is no time at all, so he groans and starts to get dressed.
When he meets up with Erik again, he takes the cup of tea that's there anyway, silently, and nods.
He hopes tomorrow's lesson will be forgotten before it begins. It would be easy, so easy, to just nudge, too make Erik forget. Yes, there's a risk of being caught, but his understanding with Erik is so frail, so tentative, that surely it should be protected...
"Charles, you're bleeding at the lip," Erik says.
"Oh," Charles says, yet again, but he only stops for a second before worrying more at his lip. He would never. He can think about it, he can even wish that he were that kind of person, but he would never. Especially not to Erik. Especially not to just save his own self from embarrassment. He bites down. Damn.
"That's it," Erik says, standing up, "Today, I'm driving."
Charles doesn't even disagree.
Part 1 of 2, or, possibly, 3. And yes, I checked to make sure disposable razors were available at the time. And yes, I pretty much want to watch Sweeney Todd over and over again right now. WHY DON'T I HAVE A KNIFEY ICON? WHY?
Title: These are my friends; see how they glisten
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik (pre-slash)
Rating: PG (for now)
Disclaimer: Absolutely none of the characters here are mine, and I didn't even come up with the premise.
Prompt: SHAVING, from uniformly, who clearly knows my buttons.
It isn't that Charles hasn't travelled before. The Xavier family has summer homes in several far flung places; there have been innumerable trips with friends from University; trips that him and Raven had gone off on like giggling school children (mostly because that was what they had been); short, ridiculous getaways with pretty girls who made it past the night promised by the pick up speech; and so much else...
But Charles is unused to traveling like this, a different bed each night, every day spent hurtling forward save for a few precious hours. Nor were their accommodations his usual--they stayed close to where the target was, and that was often in a sleepy little town, or in a bad neighborhood, or just somewhere far from anything else, where a lavish hotel has never been needed. And Charles, beatific as he might be, had never been at his best in the morning.
Which is why Erik is smirking at him and his sleep rumpled hair, his slightly crooked jacket, when he tumbles into the diner booth.
"It's easy for you," Charles mumbles, "You just--black on black and you're done, and those turtlenecks don't even have buttons."
Erik takes a sip of coffee--blacker than the shirt on his back (and, Charles suddenly knows because he isn't quite as good at filtering out other people's sensory impressions when he first wakes up, lukewarm, which means Erik has been awake and waiting for him, again, blast)--and hides what little mirth is still tugging at his lips.
"Drink your tea," Erik says, his voice perfectly distant and sounding slightly bored. It almost convinces Charles, at least at this time of morning. Well. It convinces Charles a little, even though he should know better. "It's there. In front of you. In case you hadn't noticed."
"...oh," Charles says, because he hadn't.
It takes him two cups before he straightens up, shoulders squaring, jacket seeming to magically slide into place. He beams at Erik.
"Thank you; that was very kind of you," he says, now at ease and sounding like Erik just did him the best possible favor in the world, "Very helpful."
"It's only in the interest of getting us on the road faster," Erik says dryly, and his eyes are downcast as he takes the last sip of his coffee, and he doesn't look at Charles.
--
It doesn't get any better, and the gulf doesn't get any smaller. It's not that he ever expected that he, himself, would adjust--that was too much to wish for. No, Charles had been hoping that as the weeks wore on, Erik might, perhaps, be under slept or groggy or too out of it to slick back his hair in the morning, but no: he is always the same perfectly composed creature. His clothes are never askew, his hair is never out of place, his posture is never slumped. Even when once or twice they end up well and truly lost, and have to spend a night in the car, sleeping in shifts--come his turn Erik can fall asleep at any time, any place, and wake up to do what duty falls to him.
He's a solider, and Charles knows this, but Charles is...
"...terrible at this," Erik says one morning, gesturing across the table, "What did you do to yourself? And how did you miss a spot on your left cheek?"
"Bleeding from my chin was distracting, thanks," Charles grumbles. He is only on his first cup of tea and the waitress hasn't even brought his eggs yet. "What, you've never cut yourself shaving?"
"No," Erik says blandly, and Charles blinks, sighs, laughs at himself softly.
"No," he echoes, realizing what he'd asked, "I suppose not."
"Partly because I've been shaving for more than, oh, a month or so," Erik says, with deadpan lightness.
"I do not look that young, thank you," Charles objects, from somewhere inside his tea mug. "And stop thinking so loudly about what an amateur I am, if you please. Inside voi--thoughts. And I don't sound like--what does that translate to?--a petulant child."
Erik holds up a hand, as if offering a truce.
"It's a smaller cut than I would expect," he says, "Most men could do worse."
"What, really?" Charles asks, incredulous even if he'd been jokingly defensive before, "I don't know many people who manage to shave worse than I do, really, I mean, it's nearly impossible, what with the safety razors--"
"The what," Erik asks.
"The, the, you know," Charles says, putting his cup down so his hands can flutter, "Thing. Shaving thing." He is miming out broad downward strokes.
Erik just looks at him, and it's a testament to how not-entirely-awake Charles is that this only makes him mime out more exaggeratedly instead of switching tracks and just projecting what he means.
"With the plastic and the--"
"You use one of those?" Erik asks, with no attempt to hide his scorn.
"I." Charles purses his lips. "Well, yes."
Erik shakes his head in wonder. The sense of honest bafflement coming off him would be insulting, except that the waitress just put eggs and waffles down in front of Charles, so he's distracted.
--
It takes three days before Erik throws up his hands at the slumping form that is Charles in the morning.
"I can't stand it," he says, "I just can't."
Charles mumbles something unintelligible into his tea (waiting for him, as usual) and doesn't even try to snake out a tendril of awareness to see if he can figure out what Erik's talking about.
--
It's hardly dawn and Charles isn't sure what wakes him up: the terse knocking on his door or the insistent call of Charles, Charles, CHARLES--
He stumbles to the door, taking the time to make sure he has pajama pants on, because he feels no fear of danger in Erik's call, but not managing to think as far as a shirt because he's busy fumbling with the lock.
"Don't you ever sleep?" Charles croaks out, and it's not really a question. He's seen it, a little.
"Not like you do," Erik says, eying him, "Apparently."
"Mmm," Charles says, hoping wit isn't expected of him right now. He thinks he sees a moment of hesitation, but that must be his grogginess talking, and anyway, in the next moment, Erik is clapping a hand over his shoulder and steering him towards the bathroom.
"It's time," Erik says.
"Guh?" Charles says.
"For you to learn how to shave," Erik says.
"What," Charles says, followed by, "How are you even dressed right now?"
"Charles, it's six-thirty."
"Exactly," Charles says, thrilled that they're getting somewhere at least.
Erik sighs, not out loud, but inside his head, but there's something else on the edges of that, something that Charles tries to sleepily chase because it's close to the surface, and it feels like it might be a secret smile. It makes Charles want to smile back--
But then Erik flips the light switch, and then all Charles does is wince, and all he wants to do is get back in bed. He stands there, squinting, and Erik is doing things with his hands, putting out a mug and running water until it's hot and all kinds of other things Charles is not paying attention to at all. He wants to make a joke about how oddly paternal this is, but he's not asleep enough to forget that Erik probably wouldn't think it funny. Charles is lost in his thoughts, in the sleeping thoughts of the couple next door, in the boredom of the person manning the hotel's front desk--
When he blinks back to himself, Erik has sat him down on top of the closed toilet and he has a hot towel on his face.
Ow, he complains, without much vigor.
Erik ignores him, so Charles repeats himself, louder, and he is rewarded by the feeling that is Erik's urge to smile, even if nothing changes on his face.
"I'm doing this for you today," Erik tells him, "And you're doing it to yourself tomorrow, under my supervision, and then you are never using one of these--" the plastic, single blade thing Charles has been using is hovering in the air, while Erik gives it a flicker of disdain, and flings it into the trash, "ever again."
"At home I have an electric one," Charles says, muffled by the towel, sending along the mental reassurance to Erik that he's much better with one of those. I can get another. If I promise to get another today, can I go back to bed?
"No," Erik tells him, and then he floats something out of his pocket that makes Charles sit up.
The straight razor unfolds itself in the air, graceful in the arc it traces. It's hovering, just hovering, but Charles is suddenly a little more awake.
"So. The hot water, the lather," Erik is saying, as a brush--with a metal ring around the handle--is also in the air, dipping into the mug, working up a lather, "These are not absolutely essential, but they do help."
He twitches the towel off of Charles's face, which is pink and flushed
From the heat, Charles almost thinks at him, but he knows it would sound defensive. It's just that he's so pale, after all--he colors easily.
"Use small strokes," Erik is going on, "until the end, and then use long strokes."
Softly, deftly, Erik's hand meets the razor in mid air, holds it--and the surge of disappointment that Charles feels is so strong that he makes an audible noise, a soft swallow, from the effort of beating it down.
Still, the backwash must touch Erik, a little, because he raises an eyebrow.
"I'm just surprised that you're not...that you're using your hands."
"Stop talking," Erik orders idly, with any real heat, "And I'm here to teach you how to do it, so I can't very well teach you how I do it."
"Oh," Charles says again, before he can stop himself. "Huh."
"Talking," Erik warns, and Charles falls obediently silent.
The metal touches his skin in the light of twitches, cold against his flushed, pink skin. Erik is deft, of course he is, even when he's using his hands, and he flicks the foam off the blade every now and then, neatly, as he travels down the line of Charles's jaw, his cheeks, his chin. Charles stays perfectly, achingly still--not just in body, but in mind. He's no stranger to holding in his thoughts, his feelings, not when projecting is so easy, but it's different now. The tension makes him feel like a harp, high strung but out of tune, as if he's going to tear himself apart.
"You can breathe," Erik tells him, "I'm not going to cut you, you know."
No. Right. Of course not.
Charles lets out a big breath, hopes it doesn't shake.
"You want to keep about a twenty degree angle between the blade and your skin," Erik murmurs, "At least at first."
Charles sucks in a breath this time, too quick.
The razor freezes as that, and he feels a whiplash of annoyance from Erik.
"Are you trying to get me to cut you, Charles?" he mutters, "You can't, you know. Some of us aren't sloppy just because it isn't noon yet..."
And Charles squirms a little, he can't help it, but the edge moves with him as it did when he breathed: Erik has steady, quick hands, and the blade is never too deep, but also never too far from his skin. It makes Charles shift again, as if he is uncomfortable on the cold seat--which he is, once he makes himself notice, not that it's the worst of his problems right now.
"Be still," Erik says, and this time he lets the blade come just a bit closer, not enough to bleed, but enough for it to be a warning about what could happen. Charles stills.
Erik continues in silence.
"Are we done?" Charles asks hopefully, when most of the lather is off.
"Talking," Erik says again, followed by, "And no. As boyish as you might be..." Erik is lathering him up again; Charles is going to die, how has his life come to this, "...you can't just go over your skin once. You should give it at least two passes. Three once you develop the ability to grow a beard, one day in the distant future."
Charles mentally sighs but doesn't share. He doesn't want to share--keeping his feelings in check while stringing together telepathic words is easy, but not when it's someone who knows him, who knows the sensation, who knows how to reach out over the connection once it's there, and not when Charles is keeping himself so very far away, and so very still.
What would Erik think, if he felt it?
What would he find, anyway?
Charles closes his eyes, partly to focus while he answers the question, partly to not give away the anticipation he'd feel, waiting for the razor to come back. There are times when Charles can close the loop of his own self and read his own emotions like he would someone else's--it's like looking in a mirror, but more tiring. Now is the time for it. He is awake now, brilliantly awake; the nerves near his skin are on fire and reaching for every bit of sensation; he's nervous, so nervous, because he feels the awkwardness of being taken to a different place by this than Erik is; there is a subtle tinge of what could be guilt, because Charles hates to be deceptive even by omission; there is a tug of shame, deep down, covering the most interesting, brightly colored, hidden thing...
shame want nervous almost-fear, Charles registers, and his eyes flutter open just as the razor touches his neck, scrapes cold against the grain of his hair this time, instead of with it.
He breaths, and he was wrong about it being the last thing, because one more thing turns over, showing him its face.
Oh.
Charles says nothing, does his best to feel nothing, for the second pass.
It doesn't work, and he feels everything. What should be a simple ritual of hygiene takes forever, and Erik's face is the calm kind of tuned-out that happens when someone is engrossed in routine. His thoughts are content and almost--by Erik standards, anyway--peaceful, and Charles realizes that for him, this is so entirely standard issue, so easy, so devoid of significance, that it might as well be as simple as breathing.
None of that changes the fact that he could make the metal sing in his hand; that he wouldn't even need to do such a thing, with Charles pale and limp and bared before him--and Erik wouldn't even need that, wouldn't need Charles to acquiesce, not Erik. There is no murderous intent in that blade but there could be--Charles doesn't need his power to know that Erik will always keep his blades beautifully sharp. The slide of the knife against his skin is rhythmic and certain, devoid of hesitation. How easy would it be for Erik to adjust his grip, to change the blade's course, to draw it over the beating bit of skin that covers Charles's vital pulse, right--
"There," Erik is saying, and he doesn't have to move for the water to turn on, for the razor to rinse itself, dry itself, and snap back closed with a noise that makes Charles jump as Erik is toweling his face off, "Nothing to wake a man up like a good shave."
He stands back and smiles, like he fully expects Charles to spring up into action with a song in his heart and suddenly have the most productive day of his life.
"Guh," Charles says, shaking his head groggily, because he is exhausted, body twanging, mind scattering and reforming and turning in on itself with contradictions. He gets up and makes an aborted stumble back towards bed, before he glances back up at Erik. It's worse than when he first woke up. Keeping himself that mentally silent and tucked away is so much harder, for whatever reason, than broadcasting. It's like he's meant to be a radio tower, when his feelings are strong. His feet are cold on the bathroom tile, and his back feels stiff, and his nipples are--
Charles folds his arms over his chest.
All in all, he looks more wrecked than he did when he answered the door.
"I'll go order you tea," Erik sighs, after his eyes do a quick, evaluating sweep, and he starts collecting his things.
"No, no, no," Charles says, waving a hand around and then pinching the bridge of his nose, "No. Um. And thank you, for, um." He gestures up at his face. "I'll be--just give me ten minutes."
Erik cocks a skeptical eyebrow at him and exits.
Charles stands in his room, bewildered--so that's how it is, he thinks, with a resigned sigh--and realizes that ten minutes is no time at all, so he groans and starts to get dressed.
When he meets up with Erik again, he takes the cup of tea that's there anyway, silently, and nods.
He hopes tomorrow's lesson will be forgotten before it begins. It would be easy, so easy, to just nudge, too make Erik forget. Yes, there's a risk of being caught, but his understanding with Erik is so frail, so tentative, that surely it should be protected...
"Charles, you're bleeding at the lip," Erik says.
"Oh," Charles says, yet again, but he only stops for a second before worrying more at his lip. He would never. He can think about it, he can even wish that he were that kind of person, but he would never. Especially not to Erik. Especially not to just save his own self from embarrassment. He bites down. Damn.
"That's it," Erik says, standing up, "Today, I'm driving."
Charles doesn't even disagree.