Chapter Text
It’s already dark out, night air cutting, by the time Erik makes it out. There's the typical huddle of determined smokers outside the entrance and the parking lot is just as full as when they got here, but snowfall makes everything seem mute and remote. Erik trudges out to the truck, opens it without his keys, and pulls Charles's chair into the passenger seat.
He sits there without turning the ignition, letting himself feel the cold. Charles’s dismissal stings, his sloppy attempt at manipulating Erik’s mind at once galling and concerning. Erik stares at his hands, knuckles white as he clutches at the wheel.
Charles doesn’t want him here. He made that clear enough. He wants to be alone. He doesn’t want Erik around him at all for this, for whatever reason. Erik sits there shivering for a long time, cycling through the day in his mind, dissecting every action he’d taken. It’s not any secret to anyone that most of his decisions are just fucked-up mistakes. He’d messed up with Magda, and now he’s done it with Charles, he should just start driving home because that’s a sensible plan thought up by someone with a goddamn working brain.
Sighing, Erik turns on the engine with his powers. He runs the defroster, starts counting his breaths, in and out, clearing his mind for the drive.
He only gets to twelve before his cell phone starts buzzing, loud and demanding in the silence of the car.
Fumbling through his pockets for it, all he can think is thank god I’m still here, what if they hurt him. The phone’s on the sixth ring before he manages to get his coordination together to answer.
“Charles, I’ll be right in,” he blurts, already reaching to kill the engine with his powers.
“That’s the spirit,” is what he gets in return, in an entirely female voice.
Erik pulls the phone away to frown at the caller ID. It’s no help, beyond proving that the call isn’t from Charles’s phone, or, indeed, from this area code.
And it’s not as if he really needs to look, after all.
“I’m still on the road, remember? Erik, please. I know I only have a few minutes,” he hears, and he shakes off his confusion to shoulder the phone again.
“I remember,” he answers, tersely. It doesn’t answer why she’s bothering him now. It’s a rare occasion that she’ll think to call, even if they’ve always got on well enough. At least it’s doubtful to be anything to do with him, since she doesn’t even own a proper cell. He tries to think of a response that won’t make him sound too much like he’s pissed she’s just now figured out how to work the latest in her long chain of pay-as-you-go mobiles.
“What do you want, Irene?”
She doesn’t say anything for a minute, there’s just background sounds. Some distant noise from the other line, maybe of a television or conversation. Tired and impatient to start on the drive home, Erik grumbles at her to get on with it, that he’s had a long enough night as it is.
“Well, you do have the choice,” she says. It’s almost nonsensical, and she sounds absent-minded, like she’s paying more attention to the television or whoever’s with her.
Sighing, Erik waits her out. With anyone else, he’d probably hang up. But he’s known Irene for a very long time, now--actually, longer than he’s known Charles. It was harder to tell when they were thirteen-year-olds on a listserv, but she’s always been this distracted. It’s like she’s balancing every timeline, weighing her future options.
“You should get some dinner,” she chooses to say. Erik rubs at the bridge of his nose.
“That was the plan. Where are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. Biloxi,” she says. Out of the way enough, Erik thinks, for it to be the end destination of this summer vacation thing she’s taken the kids on while Raven’s stuck working, and he wonders why there, anyway, and when’s she coming back--
“Don’t fish, Erik, and I meant you should get some dinner there. Where you’re at, that’s the important thing. The cafeteria will be open another hour.”
“I’m not eating that slop willingly.” He just went out for groceries yesterday. There’s no need to spend any extra money for food, particularly for hospital food; no need to eat in what’s essentially an too-vulnerable mess hall.
“Maybe it’s better. They probably have tea.”
The non-sequitur doesn’t throw him too much. Why else would she be trying to get him to stay here, other than to stay with her brother-in-law?
“You can still fuck up tea,” he tells her. Maybe he’s just got low blood sugar and doesn’t know it. Maybe he just needs to eat here so he won’t fall asleep at the wheel on the way home, so he won’t wipe out somewhere on the road, and perversely he--
“Go on, it can’t be that awful. Eat dinner, get your impossible boyfriend the shitty tea he deserves,” she says, and before he can protest she blurts out the last of it. “We care about you.”
Erik lets out a long, shaky breath. Sometimes he hates this, the timelines she sees, the extent of Charles’s telepathy. Bad enough he upsets people when he says toxic bullshit like that, but even just thinking it, or having some alternate self beyond his control acting it out--he’s always hurting someone.
“Irene, Charles doesn’t want anything from me. Not tonight,” he tells her, instead.
He feels a bit stupid having to say so. Surely her powers picked up that much if she’s calling at all. Charles’s dismissal seems--at least to Erik--to have been the turning point of the entire night, there’s no way Irene could have missed it.
“Sure he does. Just try it,” she insists. “You know Charles, he’s always trying to do that thing.”
Irene’s not any more specific. Honestly, she doesn’t have to be. That thing only ever refers to Charles’s constant tendency to decide he’s got everyone’s best interest all lined up, so to hell with anyone else. It’s a pattern that Erik knows isn’t entirely healthy, but that he can’t help finding reassuring, sometimes. There’s matters he’ll always fight Charles on, but… At the same time, there’s all too many occasions when it’s just simpler this way, letting Charles choose.
“Yeah.” He sits for a moment, just listening to the staticy noise from the other line.
It’s never easy, changing course. Even with the weather, the long drive, the fact he’ll spend a night alone and awake, worrying after Charles when he’s too far off to do any good--getting on the road would be far less difficult than what Irene’s proposing.
He looks back over at the lights of the hospital, hazy through the falling snow.
“You’d say if there was food poisoning in my future.”
“I wonder.”
Erik smiles to himself. It feels suddenly too long since he’d last seen her. Or just talked to her, just the two of them, though in retrospect he supposes most of their interpersonal communications occurred long enough ago that they were held over dial-up. They’d fallen out of touch for years before she just happened to bump into Raven. He’s never believed much in coincidence, at least not when it comes to Irene.
“Always knew you had it out for me,” he says. He pauses a second, and then he’s unable to help himself, he needs to ask.
“What would have happened?”
He knows it annoys her, that even Raven is included in the blanket moratorium on asking about the future, but it’s like picking at a scab--not healthy, but everyone has an instinctive drive to do it anyway. Obsessively, Erik wants to know the end result of every stupid decision he has or hasn’t made.
This time, Irene answers quickly. “You and Charles would have had a miserable night.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“Mmm,” she spaces out for another long moment. There’s a bunch of sirens and an explosion in the background. Erik’s reasonably sure now that it’s a television. He at least hopes as much. “Not really. Nothing tragic, though. Just--needless.”
“I’m already having a miserable night, why stop it now,” he says, mostly talking to himself, and Irene makes an exasperated noise.
“Why not stop it now? You’ve always been a glutton for punishment,” she tells him, and he snorts. There’s no arguing that.
“No, nothing tragic,” she repeats, slow and thoughtful. “You know, Erik, I never can figure out what it is everyone expects. The apocalypse? I’m sorry to disappoint. You and Charles wouldn’t have even broken up. But still miserable, remember, don’t try and talk yourself out of anything.”
She delivers the whole monologue at her most absent-minded, nearly inflectionless. When she continues on, her sudden dismissal is nothing but expected.
“--and now that it’s sorted, I have to go. Tantrums.”
“All right,” he says. Better not to keep asking. “Tell Anna Marie hello, then.”
“Mm, no, it’s the baby. He’s about to appear in here,” she says. Better to not ask, Erik reminds himself.
“I’m sure you have it under control. Listen, Irene--call anytime, okay? Safe travels.”
“Same to you.” For a moment, she sounds entirely present. When she continues, though, the moment is clearly over. “Oh, and by the time you get in, he’ll probably have moved up from the emergency room, just ask someone, okay? Bye.”
The line’s already dead before he can reply. It’s typical Irene, but it takes him long enough to sort out his thoughts and pocket his phone again, he doesn’t doubt Charles has long since left the ER.
He sighs again, wishes that he was doing anything and was anywhere else than this. He locks the truck. The walk back is insurmountably long.
At least, when he gets there, cafeteria isn’t entirely crowded. But it’s not entirely open either, Irene was wrong about that. It’s just one cashier, a bunch of prepack crap, and a coffee stand that are still running, the line’s long since been shut down. Erik takes the least troubling salad on display. Picking at it, he watches the coffee stand, willing the likely-underpaid worker to stay there. She’s bagging cookies, millions of them from the appearance of things. The packaging is superfluously decorative. This is, he supposes, what a hospital is like when it’s not just there because the government demands it. At least the food tastes the same.
He sits there until it seems as if the--well, “barista” seems a bit charitable, given the equipment on hand--underpaid employee is about to close up. Forced to stop wasting time, he heads over. The tea selection isn’t awful. He buys himself black coffee, even if his anxiety needs nothing less. He feels awkward, out of his element despite the fact he’d just been hospitalized himself, not that long ago.
You can’t tip in a hospital. He knew that. God, what’s he thinking? His stomach churns, the information desk isn’t even open. He has to ask a security guard about Charles, they ring up the unit and everything, like it was lockdown. The fifth floor, he’s told, and go on up.
He takes the stairs. When he gets there, the unit is loud, a commotion of alarms and frazzled staff. No one pays him any mind at all when he goes to look for Charles’s room.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Charles has a roommate. Erik pauses outside the door, thinking of how Charles might react once they see each other. But it’s absurd to keep delaying when he’s come this far, and when he opens the door he does so with his powers, by far more sure than he feels.
The roommate appears to be asleep, the room is surprisingly silent for how noisy it is outside. Erik closes the door, quietly as he can, and strides back, past the curtain dividing the beds.
Charles is turned away from him, the blankets drawn up. One arm’s out, hand curled around the covers, IV tubing taped to his skin. The hospital gown is a few sizes too large, the neck slipping and exposing Charles’s shoulder and and the thin line of his clavicle.
Stepping closer, Erik sets the tea down on the table beside Charles’s bed. Like this, Charles seems delicate. Small.
At least there’s a chair in the room already. Legs feeling unsteady, Erik collapses into it.
Was Charles this pale when he left?
“Erik?” Charles mumbles. A gentle brush of telepathy goes over his mind. Erik tries not to feel guilty. That Charles had been sleeping, that had at least been something, and Erik is just sorry to wake him now.
“Yes,” he whispers, leaning forward. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”
Charles snuffles, a disgusting and long noise, and blinks up at him. Erik feels ridiculously fond of him, despite it, and he reaches over to push Charles’s hair back. The skin under his eyes looks bruised, like he’s been awake for weeks.
“You look hideous,” he says, and Charles smirks in agreement.
“Yes, thank you.” He reaches up to take Erik’s hand, and stares up at him. “You’re here. You didn’t leave.”
“Hmm. Think you can play your little tricks on me when you’re like this, do you?”
“Apparently not. God, but you’re a welcome sight. I’m so glad.”
Erik can’t help smiling, tracing his thumb over Charles’s knuckles. Of course, he’s glad as well--happy to be with Charles, to be greeted like this--but he can’t think of what to say.
“And you brought tea,” Charles continues. “You’re an angel.”
“Don’t get excited, it’s cafeteria issue.”
“All the same,” Charles says. He hauls himself up, taking the tea to cautiously sip at it. “Lovely.”
“I truly doubt that,” Erik says under his breath. He watches Charles as he takes a few more sips before setting the cup back aside.
He looks so tired, Erik thinks again. Perhaps Irene was wrong, it wouldn’t be the first. Needless misery or not, Charles needs his sleep. Erik sips at the burnt acidic coffee he spent a dollar too much for, and Charles shifts himself again, lying back down. Curled on his side, he's obviously watching, his eyes still a little glassy from fever. Erik tries not to react to the scrutiny and just sits there, drinking his ulcerating coffee.
“Erik,” Charles says after a long moment, “Why don’t you come here.”
Frowning, Erik picks at the cardboard sleeve on his coffee. He scoots the plastic chair closer, near as he can with the table and IV pole in the way, his knees crammed against the dead plastic of the hospital bed.
“Better?” he asks. Charles huffs, a short, exasperated noise.
“No, you--Look. Please. Just come here,” Charles repeats, patting the mattress by his side.
Erik tries to keep himself from appearing utterly perplexed. It’s a hospital bed. It’s barely made for one adult, much less two. However small Charles may look in it, Erik doubts he can wedge himself in.
“There’s plenty of space.” Charles lifts himself up, gets his hips over to free up a half-inch of mattress. “I swear. Look, loads of room. Get your skinny ass in.”
Erik stands, coffee still in hand, and--suddenly remembering, looks over at the thin curtain.
“Oh, god. A, he’s asleep. B, he left his hearing aids at home. And C, he’s actually sick. He could care less what you and I get up to, so long as he’s getting enough zofran.”
With a sigh, Erik sets his coffee on the table by Charles’s tea. He looks down at Charles.
“Fine. But--” he glances again at the curtain, and lowers his voice. “There’s not rules against this?” he asks. Having been kicked out by Charles once, he doesn’t want to repeat the experience with anyone else.
“It’s not a--” Charles cuts himself off, blushing. “Shit. Erik, I wasn’t--I didn’t mean that.”
Not a psych ward, he was about to say. The words are obvious, even unsaid, and Erik lets the anger rise in him, lets himself feel the burn of it deep in his chest, and lets it go.
Saying nothing, he leans down to pry off his boots, and crawls in the narrow bed.
“You weren’t thinking,” Erik tells him, keeping his voice carefully neutral. He wraps one arm around Charles’s waist. “But you’re right. It’s not.”
In the gown, Charles even feels small, his weight somehow less substantial. He winds his arms around Erik, minding with the left, where the IV remains connected. Erik closes his eyes, soaking in the warmth of Charles’s telepathy, in the gentle scratch of Charles’s nails on his scalp.
“I am sorry,” Charles says. “And not just for that. I’m sorry for kicking you out, I’m sorry for not telling you how sick I was this morning. I’m sorry for pushing you away.”
Erik pulls him closer, presses a kiss to the exposed skin over Charles’s collarbone. He almost interrupts, almost tells Charles it’s all okay, that he forgives him for all of it. But this is more than an apology. He’s quiet when Charles stops talking, letting Charles formulate whatever it is he needs to say.
«I’m so sorry for pushing you away. But the last time I had to be in a hospital bed was years ago,» he sends. Erik can see it in his mind: a Charles motionless in bed, thin and pathetically young, the tug of pain from incisions low on his back; the fevers that ran through him; complications, we’ll have to go in again. «I was only a teenager, and Raven was only younger, and mother found it all quite dull. I’m afraid I’m not used to anyone seeing me like this.»
The IV pump makes an odd chirp, startling Erik. Charles’s hand slides down to cup his nape. “Antibiotic's done. It’s just kicking back over to the fluids,” he explains. His voice is worn. “I still can't imagine why anyone thought that required a sound effect.”
Easing back, Erik curves his hand over Charles’s bicep. “Before, you always did this alone,” he says. It makes sense, now, every move Charles has made.
It’s the last piece he needed, settling in Erik’s mind.
«I want to be by you,» he sends, «but if that’s how you’ve done things, if you’re not comfortable being seen like this--I can go. I’ll leave for you.»
“No.” Charles’s hands tighten around him. «Don’t you dare.»
Erik smiles against Charles’s shoulder. «Okay, then. If you insist.»
«I insist,» Charles thinks. He brushes Erik’s jaw, pressing gently so Erik looks up, so they’re face-to-face again.
“I always did this alone. But I’m not eighteen anymore,” he jokes, “and I’m not alone, either. We’re neither one of us alone, not anymore.”
He says it with such conviction, Erik almost wants to look away. Sometimes it stuns him, the force and intensity Charles has, but he keeps his gaze level. “In sickness and health, is that it?” he asks, voice unsteady.
Charles flashes a grin. “Something like that.”
“And you’re sure,” Erik quietly adds, “that you want to throw your lot in with me? I’m sort of--” the first word that comes to mind is broken, the next monster, but he doesn’t want to upset Charles again. “Sort of a mess,” he concludes.
“‘Sort of,’” Charles repeats, but it doesn’t sound unkind. «Seriously, Erik, look at us. We’re both a mess, we’re both a great irreparable mess. But at least we can muddle through together?»
The last, Erik thinks Charles meant to be a statement. But there’s something uncertain in his thought that makes it come out a question, and Erik leans in to kiss him again.
«In good times and in poor, then», he thinks, and Charles laughs.
“That’s not how it goes, I don’t think. Isn’t it ‘in richness and poorness’?”
Erik rests his forehead against Charles’s, feels the barrier between their minds go even more hazy, pressed as close as they are.
«Obviously money doesn’t matter, you rode here in my truck,» he sends, and Charles’s mind sparks with amusement before he’s even done with the thought.
“Well, then,” Charles whispers, cupping the side of Erik’s face with one hand. Charles’s fingertips are cool against his temple, when they’re usually so warm; the bands around his wrist scratch up against Erik’s skin. But it’s easily ignored when they’re connected so deeply, mind-to-mind. «In good times and poor it is.»