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Erik prowls the suite Charles has been assigned by the CIA. He carves an arc around the room as Charles mixes them drinks, taking note of the sitting area, raising a brow at the bed, scanning for exits other than the door.
Charles knows everything and nothing about this man. He’s seen the camps, the tests, the killings. He knows Erik's pain, his helpless rage and consuming revenge, his isolation. But nothing else. Nothing of the small things that comprise him—his humor, his habits, his tastes. Charles hopes for the opportunity to discover these things. He suspects they have much in common, for all it may seem otherwise, and he suspects Erik senses it, too. That it may well be what drew him back, if only for the moment.
Erik arrives at his side just as Charles finishes pouring two dry martinis. He offers one glass to Erik and they meet eyes as their fingers brush in its passing from hand to hand. Neither of them moves to sit.
A moment passes in silence just shy of awkward, and Charles feels heat rise at his collar. He forgets, on occasion, that while those whose minds he’s touched are known to him, he remains a stranger to them. Especially when he has seen as much and felt as deeply as he has with Erik.
Before Charles chooses his words, Erik raises his glass. "Here's to you," he toasts, a small smirk playing across his lips. In his eyes, though, Charles sees something more akin to hunger than humor. "You saved my life."
Charles smiles. "It's a life worth saving," he remarks, and sips at his martini.
"Ah, there are many who would disagree with you." A corner of Erik’s mouth twists, wry, and he turns away, moving toward the sitting area where a chess table is arranged between two chairs.
Charles's heart aches for him. But it only further confirms that he has done right in saving Erik, and in inviting him for a drink when he'd appeared at Charles's door minutes before, making no promises to stay but demanding to know what Charles meant by "part of something bigger." If ever a man needed kindness, it was Erik Lehnsherr.
"I’ve seen what you are capable of," Charles perseveres, hearing the awe in his own voice and not caring in the least. "Your power is magnificent."
Charles has always been the smart boy, the bookworm. Full of knowledge and heart. Charming, but cerebral. Known for the prowess of his mind, not his body. Eric is something else—solid, physical, dangerous. A weapon of a man. But he, too, has a heart. Whether he remembers it or not.
Charles thinks he would like to remind him of that.
Head bent and his back to Charles, Erik stands like stone. Charles takes a final sip of his martini, sets down the glass, and moves to stand beside him.
"Your power is the result of genetic variation. It's a mutation," he explains, watching Erik's fingers drift along the heads of the rooks and pawns on the chess board. "A very stunning mutation. The result of thousands of years of adaptation, catalyzed by the atomic age. You are an evolutionary marvel. You're a mutant, a—"
"I know what I am." Erik snaps, his fingers snatching closed around the nearest chess piece. Charles immediately, instinctively, covers Erik's fist with his hand.
"Good," he says, unflinching under the indignant surprise and confusion in Erik's gaze. "Then let me show you what you can be."
Erik doesn't answer. But he doesn't move either.
Charles takes the drink from him and places it on the chess board as Erik watches, silent. Then he turns Erik's hand and cups it in one of his own. His fingers feel cool to Charles's warm touch, but he offers no resistance as Charles uncurls his fist, revealing the black king in his palm. Charles takes that, too, and props it next to the glass.
Chin tilted down, he looks up at Erik, strokes the side of his wrist with his thumb. He won't make Erik do anything—Erik needs to want this for himself.
If Charles had to guess (he doesn't, of course, but chooses to, for the moment) he'd say Erik already does.
He's right.
In one motion, Erik wrests his hand free and seizes Charles by the nape of his neck, pressing their mouths together. Charles surges into the kiss, the ridge of Erik's lip smooth and perfect under the tip of his tongue. His mouth is martini-cool, and Charles is drawn in so entirely it's as though magnetic force affects him, too. It's more than expected—intoxicating, alarming. Mutation in all its forms has fascinated Charles for years, but he never dared even imagine a thing like Erik.
For a fraction of a second he pulls back, but Erik's fingers tighten on a handful of his hair, denying him, and he chases the heat of Charles's mouth. Not an hour ago Erik had ordered Charles to stay out of his mind, but the effort of reading it isn't necessary now—Erik's emotions bleed like an open wound. Charles allows Erik's lust to seep through him, to swirl through his cells and synapses, to mingle with his own, then puts two fingers to his temple and returns the wave of desire.
Erik breaks off, breathing hard. He has one hand on either side of Charles's neck, their foreheads touching. Charles knows Erik could kill him like this, with a quick whip of simple muscle exertion. But he also knows Erik won't.
"What are you?" Erik pants. "What is this?"
In the space of a breath Charles sifts through the thousand words that don’t need to be said.
"Possibility," he answers.
Erik's face twists for a second, but he nods and keeps nodding, closer and closer, until he's kissing Charles again, hot and thorough.
Within minutes lust is stoked into arousal. It radiates through Erik, searing inside Charles like a white-hot brand. Erik brackets Charles's waist with his hands and steps nearer, very purposefully skimming his own lean hips against Charles. Charles's breath quakes out of him.
One does not have to be a telepath to know where this is headed, but they are on the brink of something else, too. Something undefined—untapped, untrained. It hovers between them. It's what makes them part of something bigger.
"Are you ready for this?" Charles pulls back to ask, breathless. He doesn't want to stop, but he will if Erik needs him to.
"Let's find out," Erik answers, steady on. He pushes at Charles to walk backward, toward the bed, shoving Charles's cardigan off his shoulders.
They cross the room at the pace set by Erik's firm strides, mouths open with hot breath between them. They nip, suck, lick rather than kiss, and Erik untucks Charles's Oxford, hands delving to press against the bare skin of his spine. Charles stops when the backs of his legs hit the bed. He slips his thumbs under Erik's tight-fitting shirt, drags them along the hard notches of hip bone. Erik reaches back, pulls the shirt up and over his head, and tosses it aside.
Grinning wide and surely wicked, Charles does nothing for a moment but appreciate the sight of Erik's sharp angles, honed and deadly and beautiful. He hooks his fingers through Erik's belt loops and yanks him forward, thrumming with want as their bodies flush from chest to groin, then seizes Erik's mouth once more.
Charles handles Erik's belt as Erik flicks through Charles's shirt buttons. He feels a tug at the metal zip of his trousers and chuckles into Erik's neck—he thinks he rather likes Erik's sense of humor.
Once they're stripped bare, Erik corrals Charles flat onto the bed and climbs over him, greedy and fierce. And, Lord help him, Charles loves it. He rolls his hips as Erik ruts against him, pushing up against the hard body above him, seeking friction, seeking more, and causing Erik to lose his breath. He wraps a leg around the back of Erik's thigh, drawing him tighter, and Erik gives a growl of appreciation.
Charles can smell—can taste—the spice and salt of Erik's skin, can feel sweat break out over his body, his blood pulse in his veins. Charles knows everything in Erik's mind; it's this—his body—he wants to learn.
Erik dips an arm between them and wraps a hand around both their erections. Charles arches hard. He groans, head tilted back, and Erik's lips are immediately at his throat. Erik strokes, hand slick with precome and sweat, and a buzzing energy builds in Charles. Under Erik's pumping fist and clever thumb, it increases, intensifies, until Charles feels frantic to move, to act, to release the excess. He bucks into Erik's hand, then sinks his teeth into the flesh at the top of his shoulder.
Erik snarls and Charles feels the tremor in his gut. He wrenches Charles's hands above his head, pinning him to the mattress, and Charles fights against his hold, not because he wants out, but because it feels good to fight. He feels the cords of his neck strain, feels the ache of force in his arms.
Bodies tangled and thrusting, mouths panting between brutal kisses, they push each other, harder, faster.
Charles can feel Erik's heart pound, can detect his desperation and his anger—yes, anger, even now. More than lust, there's rage driving Erik. He's no longer feeling the what’s here and now, feeling Charles. Just seeking the outcome, the payoff, the score.
When he grabs at Charles's hip in an attempt to flip him over, Charles jerks his head away, breaking off their kiss, and stops him with the smack of his palm to Erik's chest. Erik glares, bares his teeth, and Charles senses a rush of fury at being told to stop, to pause, to halt.
Easy, my friend, Charles projects into his mind.
Erik tries to hang on to his anger, but it dissipates into a turmoil of bitterness and sorrow. He has never had or been a friend, not truly, and this marks twice Charles has extended him friendship. Charles moves his hand to Erik's chin, not allowing him to look away. There is no need to steal what is freely given.
Again Erik does not answer. Charles knows he is considering leaving. But again he stays.
Charles runs his hands down Erik's sides, and studies the skin he can see, fitted taut over muscle and bone. The red welt of Charles's bite mark on his shoulder isn't far from a scar at the base of his neck, and there’s a healed slit on one side of his abdomen. Signs of things he does not know.
This time when Erik moves he’s still forceful, but focused now. Hand to Charles's neck, he sucks at Charles's bottom lip before angling lower, mouthing at his jaw, shoulder, chest. Erik palms Charles's erection, cups long fingers between his thighs, and Charles gasps. Heat floods through Charles, and the bedsheets beneath him are no longer cool. He fits his fingers between Erik's ribs and holds on.
Erik is with him now, Charles can feel it. He moves over Charles's body, deliberate and self-assured, as though he knows everything about him. Erik is visceral, thrilling, and Charles is attuned to every touch. But it's not enough. He wants more. He wants Erik. All of him.
He spreads his legs wide and bends his knees.
Erik pulls back in surprise and uncertainty, braced on outstretched arms. His gaze snaps to meet Charles's, looking for confirmation, and Charles pushes up on his elbows and gives it to him in the form of a full-mouthed kiss, loose and pleading. When he leans back, he sees Erik's dumbfounded desire transform into a leer. Erik hooks an elbow at Charles's knee, knocking him flat and canting his pelvis upward, and pushes down for another kiss.
Erik slides two fingers into his mouth then reaches between their bodies, but his breath catches when he feels Charles loose and hot around him. "Charles—" he stutters, and yes—want—fuck blaze through them both as Erik's slicked fingers slip easily in to Charles's ready body.
Charles can stop men with the power of his mind; relaxing his own muscles is child's play. Still, Erik works inside him. For a man who conceives of himself as an instrument of violence, Erik is cautious. Not tender or affectionate, but aware. And curious. Curious about Charles's curiosity, about what he is capable of with Charles, about the possibilities Charles presents.
Yes, Erik, Charles begs with the touch of his mind and twist of his body. Yes. We have so much share. Show me. . . he rolls his hips, plunging Erik's fingers deep, and Erik lets out a groan. Show me everything you're capable of.
Erik does exactly that. He hauls Charles down the bed, hitches his hips, and enters him, pushing in heavy and full and hot.
Charles's mind blanks.
"Scheisse," Erik exhales.
Charles's every thought is obliterated by heat and pressure and pleasure. His body vibrates, alive and electrified. "Erik. Please—"
Erik pulls out, thrusts in, and Charles shouts. He grapples for something to hang on to, mentally cursing and urging and praising. Erik chokes a laugh and thrusts again, and again.
Charles digs his fingers under Erik's shoulder blades as Erik moves in him, heedless of hurt or speed or limits, and Charles loses himself to it entirely. His every atom, from the core of his body out through his fingertips, hits a frequency of physicality he's never reached before. Erik somehow manages to close a hand around Charles's cock and Charles irrationally, naively, desperately wants to beg him to stay forever—nothing this good should be let go.
He bears down around Erik, clutching and clenching as Erik's hips jack faster, sharper, cutting through Charles until he's coming hard in Erik's hand. Tense and trembling and still in the throes, Charles presses two fingers to his temple and shunts his ecstasy to Erik, to show him how good this is, how good he is. Erik squeezes his eyes shut and cries out, collapsing to his elbows and shoving his mouth against Charles's as he comes inside him.
It's dangerous. It's instinct. It's what they are, what they can be, together.
Erik rolls off him, arms sprawled wide, chest heaving. Jolts of electric satisfaction sizzle through Charles. He bites his lip and closes his eyes.
"You can't keep me here." Erik says after a few breaths, accent thick.
Charles turns his head and opens his eyes to the sight of Erik looking back at him, one hand resting over his heart.
"You want me to stay. Für immer. I won't do that."
Charles nods loosely. "I know. It was a mistake for me to ask it. You're free to go, Erik. I wouldn't keep you against your will. It's your decision." He inches his fingers over to brush against Erik's. "I only hope that you will decide to stay."
A moment passes in a silence solemn but comfortable.
"It's a possibility," he states, holding Charles's stare, but committing to nothing.
- end -