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"You're insane."
"And you're being stubborn."
Erik glares at Charles from his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. "I agreed to you helping me explore my abilities, I never agreed to handcuffs." The door to Charles's office is securely locked, the professor having decided that some uninterrupted quiet would help Erik focus. Erik is sitting in a plain wooden chair in the center of the room, having gone along with that much of Charles's "exercise." He's having some difficulty with what Charles proposed next. "Why do you have handcuffs just lying around, at any rate?"
Charles flushes slightly, one pair of metal cuffs clinking in his hand and two others lying innocuously on the desk, but his face is set in determination. "Erik, stop being difficult. You said you'd train today."
"I don't see how handcuffing me to my chair is training," Erik says flatly, glaring at the offending metal in Charles's hands. Normally he loves the sense of metal around him, knowing he could bend it all to his will if he wanted to, but those hateful things Charles is holding are the enemy. "I could break those in seconds, it's not even worth the effort."
"Then you'll hardly have anything to complain about, won't you?" Charles's voice is pleasant enough, but there's a hard edge under his even tone. "Just let me; I promise you'll see the point once I do."
"Why are you so determined to get me in handcuffs?"
Charles goes a little pink at that, but doesn't rise to the bait. "I am not dignifying that with a response," he says distantly, glancing out the second-story window to the grounds of the mansion. Erik snorts, and Charles looks back at him in irritation. "Don't you trust me, Erik?"
They've known each other for less than a year and Erik's never trusted anyone in his life. Of course he doesn't. But saying that would somehow feel...dishonest. He almost trusts Charles; at any rate, they have something that goes beyond simple trust and in his particular circumstances, that's probably close enough.
Charles is watching him with a knowing glint in his eyes, and Erik frowns at him. Charles smiles. "Is that a yes, then?"
"Why don't you read my mind and tell me," Eric snaps, irritated by his own capitulation.
Charles laughs lightly, but there's something hovering just under his voice, a need that Erik doesn't quite understand. "Say it out loud."
"Why?"
Charles flushes a little pinker, but speaks as if Erik's curious tone hadn't triggered a blush for some reason. "I'd prefer your verbal consent. Sometimes mental consent gets...hazy."
Erik arches an eyebrow, but nothing more is forthcoming. He shrugs then, an easy roll of his shoulders, and puts his hands behind the back of his chair. "Fine, then. Yes, do what you like with your bloody handcuffs."
Charles's eyes widen and his face floods with color, and then he smiles, brilliant and ecstatic. "Excellent," he breathes, taking the three pairs of cuffs and hurrying forward, ducking behind Erik's chair. He's babbling in that excited, scientific way he gets when he finds something fascinating, his words nearly bleeding together. "Thank you, Erik, really, I've been really curious to test some of these limits of your power--" That nearly gives Erik pause; what limits are involved in breaking handcuffs? But Charles's breath is warm on the back of his neck and Erik has to repress a shiver at the sensation, and he drags his mind back to what Charles is saying. "I'm sure your powers extend farther than you think they do--you just need the right motivation to control them. And if nothing else, this might break that awful habit of yours where you have to gesture to do anything." Charles insists Erik doesn't need to physically reach out to move metal; Erik would resent this if Charles hadn't told him that the telepath's own gesture when he uses his powers, the touch to his temples, is largely for the benefit of whoever's watching him. Charles can be so arrogant in his sureties sometimes.
Quickly, efficiently (strange that he's so deft at it), Charles cuffs one of his wrists, threads the chain through the bar at the back of the chair, then cuffs the other, tugging experimentally to see if they're closed. Erik repeats the test when Charles stands up and moves away, checking the weight of them, the give--not using his powers yet, just seeing what he has to work with. Erik feels him take the second pair of cuffs and secure his left ankle to the chair leg, then do the same with his right. He tests them too, seeing how far he can move his legs, how securely he's bound. It's surprisingly narrow. Charles knows what he's doing with these (and why now of all times is that thought vaguely exciting).
Charles crosses back into Erik's line of sight, grinning with barely-suppressed excitement. He leans back against his desk, studying Erik carefully. "Right. Go on, then."
Erik nearly laughs. He almost feels sorry for Charles's elaborate preparations; this won't take long at all. "If you insist," he says with a trace of flippancy, and reaches out to the metal binding his wrists.
There's nothing there.
He jerks in surprise, twisting in his chair to look over his shoulder and make sure they're still solid around his wrists. He stares down at his bound ankles, furiously reaching out to them, too, and finding the same blankness. Charles laughs delightedly, clapping his hands and nearly crowing with delight. "I knew it!"
"What the hell are these made of?" Erik growls, wrenching at his wrists. He hates these blasted cuffs even more now, with their lie of being metal and Charles's obvious delight at his failure.
"I had Hank make them," Charles says with that hateful air of self-satisfaction, crossing one ankle impishly over the other as he leans on his desk. "It's an alloy of my own designing. Mostly silver, but I won't bore you with the details." He holds up his right hand, his thumb and forefinger nearly touching, and grins at Erik through the almost negligible gap between them. "What you do need to know is that there's a tiny bit of iron in them. Just for you. I'm quite interested to see if you can get a grip on them."
For a moment, Erik's sure Charles is mocking him. But no. His friend looks so excited, so caught up in the grip of scientific discovery that whatever harsh words Erik's preparing to throw at him die on his tongue. Bastard, he thinks only, not particularly caring if Charles hears that, and turns his thoughts inward again. There's still nothing around his wrists, nothing he can sense, at least, and the effort of looking for something that isn't there is making sweat start to stand out on his forehead. He lets go with an explosive breath, glaring up at Charles. "It's a very interesting metal," he says through gritted teeth, and Charles smiles broadly at him.
"Try again," the professor suggests, something sharpening in his eyes as he speaks. Erik wants to argue, to say that it's stupid and he's not going to play Charles's stupid game, except now he wants to win the stupid game, and--well, and...
And there's something vaguely thrilling about being stuck, for one of the first times in his life, by something metal and by someone he doesn't think is going to try to kill him. He's at Charles's mercy, essentially. If he can't figure out how to break these cuffs, Charles could keep him here forever. Could do anything to him. Anything he wants to. Anything Erik wants him to.
His throat hitches and he swallows down the sudden hot blast of desire in his chest, closing his eyes tightly and focusing on the handcuffs. No. He can't think about Charles right now, about the things they could do if Erik stays trapped by these infernal devices. He wants to get free. He can get free (and then cuff Charles and do all those things to him in return--no no stop it no).
He stretches out again, well aware that he's sweating like a pig, now, that his breath is coming in frustrated pants, that Charles is watching his every twitch and gasp (it's an almost painfully erotic thought and Erik can't be bothered to try and fight that one while he's concentrating) and there, he has it, the most nebulous of fogs around his wrists. Around his ankles, farther away and harder to see, but definitely there, he's definitely got it now. He reaches out with invisible hands, like he's blindfolded and groping in the dark for something just out of reach, but it's impossible to close a grip around a gaseous haze. He can't do it.
His ruthless drive is warring with his increasingly heated blood. He wants to get these things off, wants to prove to Charles that his powers are as limitless as the telepath's. But a darker corner of his mind hopes they never come off, that he never gets free, that Charles keeps him forever and ever because Erik never will be and never wants to be free of him--
There's a faint gasp at the edge of his consciousness, and Erik snaps out of his distraction to find himself staring at Charles, who is staring at him.
There's a deep flush high in Charles's cheeks, his chest rising and falling a little out of sync, and that rasp of breath that pulled Erik back to his senses is musical in its irregularity. His eyes are wide and blue and burning dark, and as Erik catches his breath and meets his eyes, a single flash of Charles's thoughts scorches into his mind.
want please Erik mine mine forever so beautiful so beautiful Erik just like this just like I wanted please Erik please I want and you want please please
Charles gasps again, snaps his eyes shut and spins away from him and the link is gone, leaving Erik struggling to draw breath against the intensity of it, the suddenness. "God--" Charles chokes, his back rigid and tense, the muscled planes standing out beneath his shirt and Erik's mouth is so so dry now, "Erik, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to let that--oh, God--" His voice sounds torn from his throat, and Erik can only stare at him, trying to breathe around the sudden realization that behind his calm veneer Charles is practically sobbing with need, that Charles wants this, wants him, hell, he planned this--
He planned this. He planned this. This was a seduction. And Erik had been a more than willing participant once Charles had hooked him. He'd be angry if he weren't so damn impressed.
"Charles," he tries to say, needing to look into his telepath's eyes, but his voice is harsh and foreign, not his own. He swallows, hard, forcing moisture into his throat, and tries again. "Charles, look at me."
Charles's breath comes roughly as he braces himself against his desk, his head down and his shoulders shivering with the force of his rigidly imposed self-control, and he doesn't turn around. "I'm sorry," he grinds out, his voice clipped and tense. "I'm so sorry, that doesn't--I don't normally--" He clears his throat, and his voice sounds less pained when he finishes, "Lose control like that." He almost laughs, a faint exhalation, so faint that Erik almost doesn't hear the half-to-himself murmur that follows. "What you do to me, God..."
"Look at me, Charles," Erik commands, his own self-control starting to fray at that soft confession. He rattles the handcuffs impatiently, trying to draw Charles's gaze, but the sound only sends a shiver down Charles's back--a beautiful shiver, a tempting shiver, but not one that makes him turn.
And he's talking again, his beautiful voice brokenly tumbling over itself as he tries to explain-- "I'm sorry, it was all so stupid of me, I just thought--I thought that you did, too, and I needed to know, Erik, and now I've gone and--" He breaks off with a growl of frustration, one hand raking through his own sweat-drenched hair. "Stupid, Charles, stupid--"
He's too busy berating himself to hear Erik's words, so Erik takes one of those last mental pictures that nearly broke his concentration and hurls it at Charles, thinking it so loudly there's no way he can ignore it, and Erik loves the moment when Charles physically staggers. He catches himself on the desk, standing for a frozen second before whirling to stare at Erik, flushed and wide-eyed and hardly daring to believe.
"You really--?" Charles manages to ask, his throat closing on the last words.
Erik nods slowly, unable to say or do anything but think it louder, send Charles every detail he can think of in silent invitation--
Charles moans, then, a harsh and ragged sound that goes straight to Erik's already painful groin, his eyes squeezed shut against the image. "Tell me," he grinds out, still holding himself upright with his desk.
"What--"
"Tell me," Charles nearly growls, his eyes opening and fixing on Erik with such blatant lust that it makes his breath stop in his chest. "Tell me, Erik, say it out loud, I need to hear it, just say it--"
He's beginning to understand why the verbal consent is so important, now, and the words fall from Erik's lips in a rush. "I want you, I want you, you stupid brilliant bastard, come here--"
Charles is on his knees on the carpet in front of Erik's chair before Erik can react, reaching shaking hands up to his face and dragging him down into a kiss almost violent in its need. It's a borderline painful kiss, raw and desperate as they try to consume each other, take all of each other, open and devouring. Erik reaches for him unthinkingly--
And the handcuffs stop him short, the mocking clang sending a spike of pure rage through him. He tears his lips from Charles's with a curse, Charles's shaky groan (either at the sound of the cuffs or at his profanity) doing nothing for his temper. He has Charles on his knees in front of him, he's already won, he doesn't want to try to get these stupid things off anymore. "Charles, get these off, I need to touch you--"
"No," Charles rasps, stretching up to meet his eyes, his hands on the arms of the chair on either side of Erik's torso. "No, Erik, you can break them, just focus--"
"Forget these verdammten handcuffs, Charles, and just--"
Charles's hand darts to Erik's belt and he swallows the rest of his sentence with a choke, his eyes fixed on that hand. He looks quickly up at Charles's face, and sees the deathly serious intent there. "Break them," Charles orders, somehow both composed and completely destroyed, his lips swollen and torn from Erik's kiss. "Or you don't get to come."
Erik stares at him, his chest rising and falling rapidly as they gaze at each other. They're actually doing this, he thinks dizzily. This is happening. ...This isn't going to happen if Erik doesn't play along with Charles's stupid rules--
With another muttered curse, he closes his eyes and reaches desperately out for the metal around his wrists and ankles. But Charles's hand is undoing his belt and his zip and tugging and pulling things down and ohGod ohfuck CharlesCharles he can't concentrate, it's hard to start with and Charles is making it impossible. He clenches his teeth together, his voice strained-- "Charles, I can't concentrate when you're doing that."
"Make yourself," Charles orders again. To Erik's sudden shock, Charles's breath ghosts warmly over his erection, not enough but more than he was ready for. His whole body jerks in response and three pairs of cuffs clatter against each other. Another moaned breath hits him and this time Erik knows Charles likes the sound of Erik's restraints.
Kinky bastard, he thinks, wondering dizzily how many times he's called Charles a bastard tonight, and forces his thoughts back to the handcuffs. He tries again, trying to sharpen the haze that might be metal around his wrists into something he can grab, something he can manipulate-- Colors explode behind his eyes and he's dizzy, his blood rushing in his ears as he tries, tries, tries--
In one smooth movement, Charles closes his mouth around Erik's erection and swallows him down, and Erik's mind flies apart. "Fuck, Charles--!"
Focus, Charles thinks at him, his mental voice thick and heavy with lust, and Erik hates him sometimes, hates him with a white-hot passion that might not actually be hate at all but Erik hasn't known the difference in years, now. Concentrate.
"I'm trying," Erik growls, his breath stuttering in his chest as Charles's tongue flicks along the underside of his shaft. Trying, but his mind doesn't have room for anything but the heat of Charles's mouth, the weight of his hands on Erik's bare thighs, the tiny sounds Charles is making as he, oh God, sucks Erik's cock--
The handcuffs, Erik, Charles reminds him, more coherent than Erik would like him to be right now. Handcuffs get off--or you don't.
Erik swears in three different languages, body shaking with frustration as he tries to calm his mind, because he doesn't just want this, it's becoming a physical need. He can't speak, can't say anything but Charles in increasingly broken tones, and that's not something he feels he can do with any dignity. Fuck, he's already so close, so close...
Charles pulls away from him then, removing his mouth from Erik's erection with a deliciously wet sound, replacing it with his hand after an agonizingly long moment of nothing. Erik's head falls back onto his neck, staring up at the ceiling as Charles works him slowly, deliberately.
"Handcuffs," Charles drawls, his voice nearly wrecked from the fucking magnificent blowjob he was just giving. "I mean what I say, Erik."
"I know you do," Erik pants, and he tries to block out the amazing feeling of Charles's hand on him as he tries one more damned time, reaching out for the metallic haze around his extremities. It's hard, it's so hard, especially with Charles's lovely hand on--oh, fuck, his mouth's back too. Nnngh. Erik can't keep this up.
Do you need motivation? Charles thinks, his voice reverberating in Erik's mind as he sucks lightly on the head of Erik's cock.
"What do you have in mind?" Eric gets out in a strangled tone, still trying to get a hold on the handcuffs. They're starting to seem more solid in his powered senses, but he wouldn't put it past himself to be delirious with lust and frustration by now.
And Charles flashes him an image then. In his mind Erik sees himself flushed, panting, still handcuffed to the chair and still painfully hard, while Charles kneels naked on the floor in front of him, his own hand around his own cock, jerking himself off because Erik's still tied to the chair, because Charles is just short of begging for it and the only way Erik can give them both what they want is to break the damn cuffs--
Fury clouds Erik's mind then, scalding and instantaneous, and he's acting without thinking. His mind flexes, takes the heat of his power and forces it outward to hit everything metallic it touches--
The damned cuffs rip off his wrists and ankles and go flying across the room. Charles gasps in delight, his eyes huge as he exclaims, "Erik, you did it, I can't believe--!"
In one motion Erik cuts him off, grabbing his shoulders and dragging him to his feet with a hand not quite at his throat. He flings Charles back against his own desk and with a single thought unbuttons his trousers, unzips them, drags them and everything down and out of Erik's way as he pins Charles to the desk with his body.
Charles is gasping, writhing underneath him, and sweet God he looks as hard as Erik feels. Erik hadn't quite realized how deeply erotic this has been for both of them--after all, no one had been sucking Charles's cock, but now he's delirious with knowing how much Charles loves it. Really loves it.
He'd wanted to do something almost-cruel to Charles in payback for this bloody handcuff trick. But now--now--
He just wants to fuck him, wants to hear what he sounds like when he comes, how his face looks, wants to come in his mouth or (Erik shudders) inside him.
Charles makes a broken sound of pleasure and Erik looks sharply down at him. "You're projecting," Charles moans, arching against Erik and hissing with the sensations. "I heard that--heard it all--you can have it, Erik, you can have all of me, anything you want--"
"What do you want, Charles?" Erik demands, his own voice ragged and close to breaking. Charles has been demanding verbal answers from him all day, but Erik doesn't care about Charles's physical voice. True, it's beautiful, rich and harmonious and good enough to send goosebumps down his back, but everyone has a physical voice. Charles's mind is unique, the best part of him, the glorious part that can reach all the way into Erik and twist him inside out and leave him wanting more more more, and that's what Erik wants right now.
Charles half-laughs, shivering against him. "What do I want, good God, Erik--"
"Don't tell me," Erik growls, his arms tense on either side of Charles's shoulders, staring down at him with an intensity that would have frightened lesser people. "I don't want--I mean--fuck, Charles, just--" With a muttered curse, he throws language to the wind and pushes his mind out to the telepath shaking under him. Come here, you bastard, I want you, he thinks again, almost desperately, want you in my head, need you in my head--
He can feel Charles holding back, even in a haze of lust and blind desire trying to be the responsible one. "Erik, are--are you sure, you have to be--"
Charles, I'm sure, now for fuck's sake take me take me--
Charles stifles a cry as his mind bursts into Erik's, filling him, melding them so closely that it isn't Charles-in-Erik's-head or Erik-in-Charles's-head, it's just the two of them, completely merged. One. Together.
Erik can't breathe. He can't, it's too good--Charles's powers are almost haywire with the desire coursing through the other man, and he's never felt something so intense, so visceral. Erik can feel it when he touches Charles, when he reaches between them to wrap one of his hands around both their erections. Charles lets out a stuttering groan and Erik feels the desire that sound starts in him, and then impossibly he feels his own hand on Charles, the rough drag of his palm and his own hardness against Charles's--
And like opening a floodgate, all of Charles's thoughts hit him in a rush.
Erik my Erik so beautiful strong Erik proud knew you could so proud now please Erik please I want oh God more all of you all of me please Erik love ERIK
Erik gasps, tears springing to his eyes from the sheer force of it and he can't stop his own thoughts from bleeding back to Charles--how gorgeous he looks strung out like this, so open, so wanting, how much Erik wants this, the raw aching desire spiraling in the pit of his stomach-- He feels it, and Charles sobs as he feels it, and Erik can feel him feeling it and it's a never-ending feedback loop of pleasure and watercolor emotions and no wonder Charles is such a slut if it's always this intense for him, always this good--
"No," Charles stutters, the verbalization surprising, but Erik knows now that when something matters to Charles, he tries to say it out loud. "Not always--just--" He draws a deep, gasping breath, hips wrenching up into Erik's fist, babbling words that weren't as connected as he'd like them to be just to make Erik see-- "Just you, only you, you're--Erik, you're first, the only I've ever--God, keep doing that--ever been able to--the first one of us, who understands, who I can--Erik, it's so good, I can't, I can't, more, please--"
Erik groans and covers Charles's gasping lips with his, the unexpected admission tearing at some place deep inside of him. Just knowing, now--this is the first time, the only time Charles has ever been like this, safe enough to share this power and feel this echoing pleasure, get this strung-out, this destroyed, and it's all Erik's doing--makes Charles his, primal desire flooding out of his body and his thoughts into Charles and finding a rising answering tide.
Erik's hips snap against Charles, his hand still holding their painfully hard erections together as they swallow each other's sounds, desperately seeking release, ecstasy, anything more. It's there, it's just there, twisting inside him, but he can't, not yet, he needs Charles to--
And as soon as he thinks it Charles's hand joins his, fingers twining around his, squeezing their shafts together and moving almost feverishly with him. You just have to ask, Charles groans in his head, and Erik almost laughs, a laugh that he swallows almost instantly when Charles flashes another thought into his head--anything Erik anything do anything for you kiss you hold you fuck you especially suck you off god nearly came when you showed me that thought Erik Erik don't keep me waiting don't don't
Erik strangles down a hoarse shout as he comes, harder than he ever has in his life, his forehead pressed against Charles's as he spills over Charles's hand and chest and desk. The pleasure is blinding, so good it literally hurts, and Erik's own whiteout pleasure hits Charles like a blow. Charles actually screams, his head slamming back against his desk as his hips stutter up into Erik's grip, against him, and Erik knows without a doubt that Charles has never come like this, never screamed like this, never, never. So many nevers that Erik's erased now.
His arms hold him up for only a few more moments before they give way and he sinks down onto Charles, who's literally laying on his desk, staring up at the ceiling trying to remember how a person breathes. Erik is still mostly standing; at any rate, his feet are on the ground, but all the same, he covers Charles's torso with his and feels their breathing even out together.
They're both too shocked at the intensity of what they've just felt to say anything just yet. It's so much. Almost too much--but no, Erik thinks fiercely, you can never hit "too much" before "not enough", and where Charles is concerned, there will never be enough to satisfy Erik.
"I'm on my desk," Charles finally says aloud, just now realizing. His voice is faint, and weakly, Erik begins to laugh.