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Erik Lehnsherr, also known as the Opera Ghost, thinks that perhaps nothing could vex him more than the foppish Englishman courting his star pupil.
Until he meets him, and is certain of it.
When Erik first encounters Charles Xavier – encounters is not the most accurate word, overhears would be better – he dislikes him immediately. The boy (he is Moira’s age, and he never thinks of her as a girl, but Xavier displays none of her calm competence) is charming, wealthy, handsome, an old friend of Moira’s; he is, in short, in a position to ruin her future prospects entirely, and Erik hates him for it. He may be one of Erik’s kind – a mind-reader, Moira says, like Jean in the chorus, but far stronger – but he is still eminently dislikeable. Shaw, after all, is like Erik, and there is no-one on Earth that Erik despises more than Shaw. He cannot let him take Moira away.
Moira loves music, should never leave it; he can see it in her eyes, in the hours she dedicates to her art, above and beyond what she needs for mere adequacy. She can be better than all the others at the opera house. She can be great. There is Emma Frost, true, but Emma sings with technical brilliance and no more heart than an icicle. Erik could not improve her voice if he worked with her a year, and he could not give her a heart she does not possess. Moira has the raw talent and the passion to go with it.
All that, and to have her snatched away by some foppish young Englishman who does not understand what she could be – but he isn’t quite as sure she will be, after a few weeks have passed. For one thing, it’s perhaps unfair to Moira; she is strong-minded, stubborn, even, and knows her own mind. She is not easily swayed – Erik remembers his own first approach to her, which had nearly backfired altogether. And then there’s Xavier, who stays for his sister, ostensibly, and to follow Moira around like a puppy. Erik isn’t sure it’s romance he’s after, or not the type Erik assumed. There is something too needy in his eyes, some loneliness he desires Moira to see that she looks right past.
But Erik can’t be sure it’s not just an act, and a fit of temper over Xavier’s continued presence leads him to write Xavier a note, as well, one he has Angel deliver to be sure it reaches its destination. It has no apparent effect other than to provoke Moira into a truly spectacular anger, one that barrels past his barriers, allows him to forget himself and kiss her. That’s not what he offered to teach her for, not the bargain they made, and besides – she deserves better than him, hiding in the shadows, with a power that sets him apart and a past that is darker than he thinks she realises. He wouldn’t mind, truly, if she found someone, once she’s further along in her career; as long as someone isn’t that damned Englishman.
Then she goes and seduces him – another thing he likes about her, she’s never shy about what she wants – and he can’t lie to himself anymore; he does want her, love her, maybe, certainly need her.
He is a little proud of what he’s managed to achieve at the opera house, half a company of people like him, slowly gathered, forming a community, being able to trust each other. But he’s never quite overcome the urge to hold himself apart, to hide. Angel Salvadore is the only one who knows his face, after he stepped in to help her that night on the street, seeing her spit acid at her attackers. She was the first one he found. Azazel is the only one who knows his voice, or knows it well. There is more to Azazel than meets the eye – Erik has his suspicions about him, thinks they may have met before, though if so Azazel has devised some way to hide his real appearance – but he seems content to let Erik haunt the place, and the management is even cowed enough to pay him a small salary. He’s not sorry about that, even though it’s technically blackmail, or maybe just the exercise of terror – he contributes more to the good running of the place than the general manager does, most of the time.
But he is alone, still, was alone, until Moira, and he needs her companionship, her intelligence, their shared passion. He approached her, about lessons, but she’s returned the favour, setting up a place for herself in his life before he was aware of it. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she leaves.
And then his other passion, older and far uglier, rears its head – Shaw becomes irritated at the intrusion into something he owns, and sends someone to find Erik, kill him if need be, although he does not know it is Erik. If he even remembers him; someone like Shaw makes enemies as he breathes, and Erik does not fool himself that he made even a tenth of the impact on Shaw’s life that Shaw made on his. His mother shot in front of him, his father dead of illness by the time Erik had tracked him down, the torture and cruel kindnesses – it made Erik who he is, but Shaw is old, and practiced in banal evils. Sometimes Erik wonders if some other person wronged by him won’t just work out how to destroy him first, while Erik hides and delays.
Moira flees, of course, or takes a holiday to the country, to put it more politely. With Xavier. And Xavier’s sister, which makes it a fraction less devastating, but that probably just means Xavier wants to do things with decency and marry her, and no gentleman’s wife performs on the stage. It would mean an end to her career as surely as losing her voice. Erik tells himself a dozen times a day, during those weeks, that she wouldn’t, she loves singing, she is not so young as to be swayed by a handsome face, Xavier isn’t even that good-looking, she will return. She told the other chorus girls she would return.
When she does, he is desperate to see her, to speak to her. It strikes him as a clever idea, to attend the masquerade; everyone will be masked, no-one will see his face, and it will be so crowded that his presence will pass unnoticed. Or so he thinks, until Xavier strolls right up to him.
“Hello,” he says, eyes sparkling. “I’m terribly sorry to go without an introduction, but I couldn’t wait to meet you. I’m Charles Xavier.”
Erik shakes his hand, but only because it would cause a scene not to. He exerts a little more force than is necessary. Xavier doesn’t flinch, or even change his pleasant expression. Perhaps not foppish, then. Though certainly very well-dressed.
“Erik Lehnsherr,” he says, because, after all, there is no-one in this whole city who knows his real name, and he didn’t think to have an alias at hand. “But I can’t imagine why you’d be waiting to meet me. I don’t believe we have any common acquaintances.”
“Oh, not acquaintances,” Xavier agrees amicably. “Apart from some of the company – my sister, Raven, performs in the ballet, I believe you know of her. And, of course, you are Moira’s teacher. Moira is a very old friend.”
Erik feels his breath catch; Moira warned him, warned him that the man could read his mind, but he hadn’t thought –
Very few people do, says Xavier’s voice, gently, but his lips are not moving. You mustn’t blame Moira. She’s probably the least likely of anyone to give away secrets to me that she doesn’t intend to. But you are very present in her mind, I couldn’t spend any time around her and not know you.
“Nice trick,” Erik responds, buying time.
“One of them,” Xavier returns dismissively. “Probably the least. I understand you have quite a few of your own, Erik. It seems to be the thing here. It’s fascinating, I never dreamed there were so many of us.”
The power it must take, if that’s the least – what else can Xavier do? What other tricks does he have? It’s frightening, but at the same time – Erik had met no-one before the opera house who could do things like him, and has met no-one since who is as comfortable with their power. Xavier clearly revels in it. It’s more intoxicating than the champagne. “Moira says you would like to make a study, of – people like us.”
“Mutants,” Xavier corrects firmly. “We’re mutants. Mmm, changelings, if you will, as Moira said -”
“I have Latin,” Erik says curtly. He hates it when people assume he’s uneducated – which they do, if he is violent, or curt. It’s quite ironic, for a Jew.
“Also, hmmm,” Xavier frowns, “Greek, French, German, Yiddish...oh, quite the collection. I’m impressed, I can’t lay claim to half as many myself. My first love was always the sciences. Also, I must confide, it’s terribly hard to learn a language when you’re hearing what people are thinking and not what they’re saying. The dead ones were so much easier in comparison.”
“Do you always talk this much, Charles?” Erik asks. He can’t tell if it’s nerves or natural ebullience. On balance, he’d probably prefer nerves. He can work with nerves.
“Only when I’m faced with such an intimidating conversationalist,” Xavier says. He catches glimpse of something over Erik’s shoulder; his whole face lights up. Erik really does hope he hasn’t spotted –
“Moira!” Xavier says happily. “Moira, there you are. I’ve just been having the most fascinating conversation with your colleague. He is your colleague, I assume?”
Erik turns to see Moira. She looks...stunning. Xavier looks stunned. So does he, probably. It’s a deeply unfair advantage on her part.
“It’s a little hard to tell, in that get-up,” Moira responds. Erik realises she’s talking about his costume. He doesn’t know what to say to her. He babbles out something sarcastic, trying not to sound nervous, but all he gets back is “Red isn’t your colour, I think.”
He needs to see her alone. Soon.
Calm as you please, she offers to introduce him to Xavier, who disclaims that they’ve managed that by themselves, although apparently Moira had promised Xavier an introduction to him. Erik’s eyes narrow, at that. What on earth was she thinking? Although the man is, it appears, not quite as irksome upon close acquaintance as he had appeared at a distance. Quite.
Then Moira says she wonders if she knows him at all, and all he can do is deflect, ask what Xavier thinks he knows, and it’s like a punch to the gut when Xavier looks him in the eye and says “Everything.”
It could be true, Erik realises suddenly. If Charles Xavier is as powerful as Moira claimed, he could know. He could know everything about him, all the parts he’s kept hidden, the things he’d never tell Moira willingly, the things he’d never tell anyone. All of it, all the unlovable, violent, lonely parts of him, and Xavier is looking at him with a faint smile on his lips, like he’s glad to know it. Like he wants to know Erik.
The moment feels like it lasts forever, until Xavier breaks the spell by casually suggesting that Moira needs to make her way around the gathering. She promises to see Erik later. And he needs to, still, he needs to see her, but – right now he needs to not be here. He slips away into the crowd without saying goodbye.
Charles Xavier. Well.
*
Xavier has to go and interrupt them in Moira’s dressing room, but Erik isn’t sure he’s sorry for it. He’d been on the point of kissing Moira, and that would have been – well, wonderful, clearly, but also taken them back down a path that Erik is now quite certain is not where Moira should go. Whether it’s Xavier or him, she doesn’t need any distractions of that sort. Her indignance will fade with time, he’s sure.
She makes some suggestion about him and Xavier playing chess before she leaves. He can’t fathom why. He knows she told him he’d like Xavier, once, long ago, but you’d think she’d have realised that’s not going to happen. He will give the man some points for gall, following them as he must have done, and his little speech about his goals was – well –
- if he thought he could trust him at all, it would be more than tempting. Erik was alone for so long, before the opera house. It was more than he’d ever hoped, to know he wasn’t the only one with a power he can’t explain. To know why, why they have these powers, these differences, what has caused it, whether there’s a purpose to it all or just the indifferent working of nature...to make a purpose for them. Erik wants that.
But Xavier is seems so very young, so naive, so convinced of his place in the world. He’s wealthy, Erik knows, one of the English gentry, not unintelligent, sailing through the world on a gentle sea of privilege. That’s obvious enough from the way his eyes light up when Erik announces that his hideaway is not so easily penetrated. He thinks it won’t be difficult. None of those qualities make Erik want to trust him. Moira does, clearly, a point in his favour, but Moira knew him as a child, and those bonds, Erik supposes, linger. She cannot be held disinterested in the matter.
It will, at least, be entertaining when Erik has to retrieve Xavier from one of his traps. None are fatal, but they are designed to discourage, confuse, lead astray. That might knock Xavier free from some of his arrogance.
It’s a surprise, then, and an unwelcome one, when Erik is disturbed from a revision of his opera – not that it will ever see the light of day, but the mere act of creation pleases him – by the sound of splashing in the lake beside his rooms.
It could be Moira, but she has a key to the alleyway entrance. In all his time here, no-one else has ever come close to finding him. He just hopes it’s anyone but Xavier.
He goes outside, floating a lantern behind him. It shows the lake, dark and shining, and...in the distance, something moving across it, slowly. He considers the matter, levitates up, and floats out to see who it is.
“My goodness,” Xavier says, blinking in the light of the lantern and treading water, “Moira never mentioned anything about flying. How on earth does that work?”
“Was it or was it not clear you weren’t welcome here?” Erik snarls, because he actually doesn’t have a clue how the levitation trick works, just that it does, and isn’t inclined to –
“Because it’s probably an application of electromagnetic force,” Xavier goes on, spitting out lake water. “There are some very interesting experiments -”
“Did you really come down here to talk to me about scientific experiments?”
“Certainly, if you like,” Xavier says agreeably. Erik is possessed of a strong desire to punch him.
“I’d wait until we were on shore, then, you’ll have to get rather wet otherwise.”
Erik wonders how Moira stands it, this casual intrusion into her thoughts.
“Probably about the same way she stands you being all silent and bloody intimidating.” Xavier’s tone is sweetly cutting.
Just for that, Erik drags him to shore by his belt buckle, and doesn’t bother checking if his head stays above water. Xavier coughs up half the lake when he drops him on the shore. It’s a petty satisfaction, but he’ll take what he can get.
“All right,” Xavier says, once he’s pushed himself to his feet. “Now we’re done with the niceties, I don’t suppose I could prevail on you for the loan of a towel?”
Erik has to laugh at that, because the man just won’t give up, and loans him not only a towel but some spare clothes, too, while Xavier’s dry in front of the fire. They’re far too long in the arms and legs – Xavier is a good half-foot shorter than him, of a height with Moira – but better than his own, brackishly damp clothes.
“So you do play,” Xavier says when he emerges, still towelling at his hair. Erik is confused until Xavier nods at the chessboard. “Who with?”
“No-one, recently,” Erik admits.
“I could never persuade Moira to,” Xavier replies. “She found it too confining – the rules, you know. Personally, I always liked the challenge. And the contrast to the wider world.”
“Where one does not face a single opponent with an equal allocation of resources and territory.”
“And yet it can teach you so much about how to face more complex situations. Precisely.”
“Black or white?” Erik asks. He has a few hours to spare. Xavier apparently has his measure inside and out; it seems only reasonable to take the chance to get his.
He is rewarded with a beaming smile. The man is – damn him – really too good-looking for his own good, let alone anyone else’s.
Erik hopes that comment was not overheard, but if it was, Xavier apparently is possessed of a measure of self-control, because all he says is “Black, if you please.”
Setting the board up is somewhat awkward – they have only the coffee-table, the piano stool, and Erik’s old armchair to work with, short of inviting Xavier into the kitchen, which seems altogether too familiar (and anyway, Erik doubts Xavier’s ever seen the inside of a kitchen.)
“Quite the contrary,” Xavier corrects him as they line up their pieces. “I used to hang around my family’s kitchen all the time. I drove the cook absolutely mad, I’m surprised she tolerated it.”
“Do you always make confidences to people you barely know?” Erik asks, moving a pawn.
“Well.” Xavier shrugs. “You can’t help making involuntary confidences to me. As you know that, it seems only fair to even the scales a little.”
“Is it hard, to not respond to what people are thinking?”
“Yes,” Xavier says frankly, moving with barely a glance at the board. “Is it hard, to not move things with your mind, when you could?”
“Yes.” Erik ghosts his fingers over a bishop, lands on a knight. “Always. Like tying a hand behind my back, without using any rope.”
“That’s what frustrates me about everyone here.” Xavier’s voice has some heat; so there is more to him than smiles. “Such – such magnificent powers, all of them, and they might as well be wearing chains. One can’t force people to use their abilities to their fullest, but they don’t even have the opportunity to. Even you.”
That cuts a little close. Erik frowns. “Even me?”
Xavier favours him with a smug look. “Even you. Your little tricks, they’re very entertaining, very useful, no doubt – and it’s the smallest things that count, sometimes, brute force has a limited range of uses – but what’s the most you’ve ever done? Rattle that chandelier?”
“More than that,” Erik says coolly. He’s stopped cannonballs, at Shaw’s behest, hurled them back. But his greatest feats require cold rage to power them, and one can only subsist on anger so long.
“And that’s where you’re wrong,” Xavier retorts triumphantly, taking Erik’s bishop with a flourish. “You don’t require rage. You use rage. Or let it use you. You can do better.”
There is a sour taste on Erik’s tongue. “And you’ll improve me, with your science?”
“I know what you’ve seen, in that name. But when I say it -”
“You mean something else. Of course you do.”
“I do. I mean the systematic exploration of our talents, the use of hypothesis and rebuttal to define them, to understand them – by and for the people who have them, not experiments performed on them. The point of the matter should be to improve their lives, not destroy them for the sake of an academic paper.”
“I very much doubt Shaw ever published on me,” Erik says, dry as tinder.
“Nevertheless. You see my point.”
Erik looks at Charles Xavier – really looks – and wonders what it takes, to give a man such boundless...optimism isn’t quite the right word. Such boundless ambition, though not, apparently, for himself. Even knowing everything he does of the world, Erik hears him, and wants. He isn’t even sure what it is he’s wanting.
They play in silence for a while longer, accompanied only by the crackle of the fire, Erik taking a castle and a pawn at the expense of one of his own pawns. It is useful to know that Xavier can shut up from time to time.
“How was your swim?” Erik asks after some time, when he feels like talking again. “I feel obliged to inform you I’ve never worked out if it connects to the sewers.”
“It most certainly connects to the sea, it’s quite brackish.” Xavier makes a face, then frowns. “Are you here for your lesson, Moira?”
That’s a non-sequitur if Erik’s ever heard one, and he blinks, startled, before there’s a sigh from the vicinity of the door leading to the alleyway entrance.
“Yes. You could have saved me rather a lot of fuss with my shoelaces, you know,” Moira says. Erik looks around; she’s got her shoes in hand, must have snuck down the passage after hearing voices. Clever woman. It’s not, after all, a usual circumstance for him.
“I was concentrating,” Xavier retorts, gesturing at the chessboard. “And I’ll confess to some curiosity as to whether you could make it down the passage unheard.”
They banter for a minute or two more before Erik puts an end to things. It’s Moira’s lesson time, and their bargain still holds, as far as he’s concerned. He will not deprive her of it. Xavier leaves with a smile and a promise to return for the unfinished game and his still-drying clothes.
Erik is quite horrified to find himself returning the man’s smile. He’s actually looking forward to it.
*
It’s not just chess, either; it only takes a day or two more for Xavier to borrow one of Erik’s collection of books (he’s never been attached to possessions, except the coin, but he’s surprised at how fiercely possessive he is of them – and that he’s willing to lend one to Xavier) and otherwise work his way into Erik’s life. With Erik’s new determination regarding Moira, he finds himself lonelier than he was; Xavier’s company is welcome.
The very idea that Xavier’s company is welcome is just as horrifying as it was the first time, so Erik surprises both of them by suggesting a trip to Erik’s favourite local drinking establishment. (Favourite for a number of reasons – it’s nearby; it isn’t frequented by the company; no-one bothers him; fights are over very quickly; if someone wants to call him names, none of the other patrons will object if he starts a fight, as long as it’s finished very quickly. It’s always finished very quickly.)
Xavier sticks out like a sore thumb, not no-one pays him any more attention than they do Erik usually.
“Your tricks?” Erik asks, once they’re settled with shots of Scotch. That’s the other point in the place’s favour; it’s dingy, but the quality of the drinks is excellent.
“Naturally.” Xavier takes a sip, makes an approving noise. “I’ve developed quite an expertise in not drawing attention. It saves me no end of trouble.”
“In hiding.”
“You hardly have room to comment in that regard.”
“On the contrary,” Erik objects. “I don’t hide anything about myself, except my face and name – what I am is quite well-known. You, on the other hand...Xavier, you hide everything.”
“Apparently including my conviction that we’re on a first-name basis.”
Erik rolls his eyes. “Very well, Charles, my point is, you have a deeply insightful mind, but you babble about inanities. You’re quite capable of dispassion, but you leave people thinking you’re driven by emotion. You flirt with nearly everyone you speak to, but apart from Moira, it never goes anywhere. You have power beyond imagining, and you use it for party tricks. How are you not hiding?”
“I never said I wasn’t,” Charles replies calmly. “The trick, as with all forms of deception, is to not let anyone know there’s something being hidden.”
Erik smirks. “Well, you’re doing a very good job.”
Charles laughs. “Not really. Anyone who knows me at all seems to see right through it. Raven. Moira. God, I might as well be transparent to Moira. It’s positively embarrassing.”
“You really do care about her, don’t you?” Erik blurts out.
Charles takes a drink before answering. “And now I’m transparent to you as well. Not my best effort.”
“As if I’m not transparent to you. You never gave me any promise not to read my mind. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten that.”
“If it helps,” Charles says, swirling the liquid in his glass, “I haven’t. Rummaged around in your memories, I mean. I make no promises regarding your surface thoughts – to be perfectly honest, it’s too relaxing to not have to guard my tongue, and my mind, at every step – but everything else...”
“...you already looked at.”
“Yes. And then. I only have so much memory; I can’t retain all of yours as well.”
“How terribly reassuring.”
“I do my best.”
They chuckle, and Erik realises something else. “Does that put me on the list of people who know you at all?”
He gets a quirked eyebrow. “I do believe it does.”
“You,” Erik goes on, “enjoy my company. You like me.”
“Guilty as charged.”
Erik makes a face. “Your taste is appalling, so you’re aware. I’ve never been considered delightful company.”
Charles’ face softens a little. “I’ll be the judge of that, if you please. Besides, Moira fell in love with you. That’s a recommendation if I ever heard one.”
Erik’s face freezes.
Charles opens his mouth, closes it, and orders them another round.
As hard truths go, Erik supposes, there are worse ones. And if there’s ever a time-honoured way to not think about loves lost – or loves given up for their own good – it’s drinking.
(It’s waking up on his rug this morning, having not quite made it to bed, that inspires him to get the couch. If he’s ever going to drink with Charles again – which he may or may not, the man has a hollow leg or three – he needs somewhere soft to collapse in between the entrance and his bedroom.)
*
Erik’s romantic affairs have been few and far between – the longest was Magda, in the troubled first years after he escaped Shaw, and that is closing in on two decades gone now. Nor, apart from that first and doomed young love, do any really qualify as romantic. He has slaked his sorrows and lusts with women, and occasionally other men, looking to do the same. That blessed and cursedly stupid tryst with Moira, the one he will not permit himself to repeat, was the first in a long time.
It seems to have woken something in him, because now he’s finally conceded that Charles is at least a decent opponent at chess, a reasonable drinking companion, and just perhaps all-around good company, he’s become unfortunately aware of things like how blue Charles’ eyes are, or the curve of his neck by lamplight, warm and infinitely touchable, or how red his lips get when Erik backs him into a corner on the chessboard and he sits there for minutes at a time, hands steepled in front of him, biting his lower lip. Charles has told him of Moira’s trick, the neat order of her mind, not thinking of things she does not wish him to be aware of. Erik isn’t sure he can manage so well – Moira has a degree of control that he admires – but he tries, he tries.
Apparently he’s not trying hard enough, because one evening he’s sitting on the couch, contemplating the chess board – it’s a useful way to clear his mind of everything but move and counter-move – when he looks up to see Charles looking at him like – like –
Erik doesn’t have words for it, which is all right, it appears, because he doesn’t need any words when Charles leans across the board, cups his chin lightly in one hand, and kisses him.
It’s light, testing, nearly teasing, and Erik doesn’t hesitate to deepen it, sink a hand into Charles’ hair and haul him more firmly towards him. He wants this, wants it, as badly as he wanted Moira before she left, he tried not to but Charles has wormed his way into Erik’s mind and won’t leave –
That’s not particularly complimentary, my friend, echoes in Erik’s head, but he’s smiling into the kiss all the same.
The chess board is probably a lost cause, Erik thinks, but right now there are a dozen things other than chess on his mind. So many, in fact, that he’s completely lost when Charles abruptly breaks off and sits back.
Moira’s almost here, he explains, mental voice curiously calm despite his obvious breathlessness.
Erik is guilty, annoyed, pleased, aroused, and confused all at once. There’s barely time to set the chessboard straight before Moira sails in, bright-eyed and pleased to see both of them.
“Do you know, I knew you’d get long perfectly well if you only tried it,” she comments a little smugly, later that evening. “It’s such a relief.”
“Worried we were going to still going to resort to that duel?” Charles smiles at her.
She rolls her eyes. “Well, with men, you never can tell.”
It’s the confusion, Erik is sure, maybe the frustrated arousal, and possibly the wine – though he’s not even bordering on drunk – that leads him to tell Moira, and Charles, the story of how he knows Sebastian Shaw. It’s short and ugly and everything he wants Moira kept safe from. It makes his skin crawl to know she has to exchange even the briefest of politenesses with the man. Charles – there is nothing in Charles to interest Shaw, unless Shaw realises...but Charles is smarter than that. He knows. He hopes.
Erik’s past is his, and he won’t let it touch anyone he cares about. They deserve better than that, both of them.
*
He doesn’t see Charles for another two days, which should give his ardour time to cool, but decidedly does not. The next time Charles appears – ostensibly to return a book – all Erik can think about is taking him to bed.
“Did you know I proposed to Moira?” Charles says abruptly.
Erik is thrown. “I – recently?”
“Oh, no. Some time ago. Don’t worry: she never did give me an answer, which allowed me to retract the offer gracefully, when we were in Westchester. But I didn’t know if she’d ever mentioned it to you.”
“Of course not,” Erik says in derision. “That might have led to that silly duel. Or – something of the sort.”
Charles smiles crookedly. “I somehow have trouble seeing you allowing yourself to be drawn into any fight as ritualised as a duel.”
“If I’m going to try and kill a man,” Erik returns, “then what’s the point in giving him a fair chance?”
Charles shoots him an amused look. “I will keep that in mind, should I ever take it into my head to propose to her again.”
Erik raises an eyebrow. “As if anyone has a fair chance, against you.”
“As you say. I’ve never set out to kill anyone in my life, but if they want to start something...I have no intention of letting them succeed.”
“Never set out to?” Erik can spot an equivocation when it’s presented.
Charles shakes his head. “An – old and unpleasant tale. Moira and Raven know it. It...taught me the limits of my power.”
“I rather thought you didn’t have any.”
“That was the trouble.”
Erik can’t resist putting a hand on Charles’ shoulder, bringing them close together. “Was there a point, to your non sequitur about your aborted proposal?”
“Only that...” Charles takes a breath. “I have – as you should know, by now, but I forget sometimes that these things must be stated aloud: I have no intention of trying to take Moira away from here, or from her singing, no matter what...no matter what. I thought – I wanted to think – that she needed me. But she doesn’t. I asked her to marry me out of...habit, maybe, expectation. She pointed out to me, in Westchester, that I needed to find out what I wanted. What I needed. I’m...attempting to.”
“I,” says Erik, standing right up against Charles, now, barely an inch between them, “want to take you to bed. If that’s acceptable to you.”
“Quite,” whispers Charles.
Erik’s bed, as it happens, is not particularly large – he hadn’t envisioned anyone else in it, when he’d been furnishing this place – but it’s quite large enough to push Charles down onto it and strip him slowly of his clothing. Charles is startlingly – though hardly unexpectedly – good at this, as good as he is at chess or arguing or making Moira smile, his hands everywhere Erik wants them.
It’s easy to be good when you’re cheating. The challenge would be to not know.
“Then we’ll have to try that sometime,” Erik murmurs, brushing his face against the fine hairs on Charles’ upper thigh, relishing the twitch of Charles’ cock and the way he spreads his legs a little wider. “But right now I’d appreciate it if you let me concentrate.”
The groan he gets at that – and the yes, yes, please do, Charles apparently becomes gratifyingly incapable of speech aloud at times like this – has Erik wondering if he can get through this without embarrassing himself.
Charles loses even the power of mental speech when Erik takes the head of his cock in his mouth. It’s been a while, but Erik remembers this, the rhythm of it, the trick of using your hand and your mouth and concert, the taste and the smell, foreign and familiar at once. He’s never sucked cock purely for the love of the act, but what it does to your partner – to Charles, who’s gritting his teeth and trying so hard not to move his hips, his pleasure spilling over into Erik, too, dangerously good. Erik could get addicted to this, if he let himself.
Stop holding back, Erik thinks, experimentally, and is rewarded by a real jerk of Charles’ hips. He controls it with one hand on Charles’ thigh, loving the unashamed enjoyment he feels from Charles. Charles’ peak comes on him unexpectedly – at least to Erik – and he’s left swallowing and trying not to choke. When he lifts his head, he has to lick at his lips.
He hadn’t missed that so much, but it’s worth it, for the sated look on Charles’ face.
When Charles gets his bearings back – which takes some minutes – he tangles a hand caressingly in Erik’s hair and thinks I can return the favour, or if you prefer –
Yes, yes, I prefer, Erik thinks without a pause. He’s painfully hard and the smallest movement against Charles’ thigh has him trying not to moan, but Charles’ arse is, frankly, illegally attractive and he’s been wanting to fuck him ever since he thought he disliked him. The thought of him spread face-down over, say, a piece of the set, had been quite therapeutic then. Now...there’s no way Erik is passing up that chance, if Charles is willing.
Extremely, Charles assures him.
Erik has to fumble around in the small cabinet beside his bed for what seems like an age but is probably only a minute or two to find the oil he keeps there. When he retrieves it triumphantly, Charles is spread face-down on the bed, exactly as Erik had imagined.
But that’s not what he wants, now. He tugs at Charles’ shoulder, turns him over. “I want to see you.”
Really? Because that’s not what you were thinking.
“Really,” Erik says fervently. He remembers – inappropriately, helplessly – Moira’s face, out there on the rug, as he’d pushed into her, alight with passion. He wants to see what Charles looks like, needs it, needs that openness – Charles can see into the corners of his soul, after all, it’s not even an equal exchange.
I see. Charles strokes down Erik’s arm with his fingertips, careful and soft. Now are you going to do anything with that?
Erik punishes him for that piece of impudence by crooking a finger in up to the first knuckle, earning himself a gasp, but Charles is still relaxed and full of languor from his first peak and it’s the work of only a few minutes to open him up. It’s been so long since Erik did this that he’s cautious, taking time to enjoy the clench of Charles around his fingers, stretch him carefully, watch for Charles’ reactions. Not everyone enjoys penetration, not least because of what some men assume it means about you, but Charles is pushing back, spreading his legs, half-hard again already. Erik works in a third finger, and tries to remember where –
Hitting that spot earns him some noises that go straight to his cock, and suddenly it’s too much, he needs to be in Charles right now.
Yes, yes, do it, fuck me, hurry up –
Erik hurries up so much that he has to pause on the brink and remember to go slow, or try to. Charles encourages him on with legs wrapped around his waist, hand jerking his own cock furiously, and from there it’s just a race to the finish, Erik losing himself entirely in each thrust until he spills into Charles, gasping, mind gone perfectly blank with pleasure.
When he recovers enough to have a coherent thought, it occurs that it wasn’t perhaps his best performance, but Charles’ mental voice is indulgent, and the evidence is sticky all over his chest – and spattered on Erik’s as well – that he enjoyed himself.
I did, indeed. We’ll just have to take it a little slower next time. I could have slowed you down if I’d wanted.
The casual arrogance is breathtaking, but also oddly vulnerable.
“Could you?” Erik says, after he’s retrieved a washcloth. “Slowed me down.”
“I could hold you off as long as I wanted,” Charles says in silky tones that cause Erik to simultaneously shudder and feel a twitch in parts of him that should really be quiescent for quite some time.
There’s a glint in Charles’ eye which says he didn’t miss that. Oh dear.
“Stop worrying and come back here,” Charles demands imperiously, disposing of the washcloth somewhere off the side of the bed. Erik gives up, and collapses back down next to him. His knees aren’t particularly interested in holding him up right now.
He is sated, and comfortable, as he hasn’t been since – and that’s the problem, isn’t it? He wants to lie here for half an hour or so, and then see if they have the energy to go another round. He wants to do this with Charles again, and again. He wants their chess games, their conversations. He doesn’t want to give Charles up.
But whatever he feels about Charles, for Charles – and even in so shockingly short a time, he knows those feelings have taken deep root – it hasn’t touched what he feels for Moira. He’d thought, maybe, that it might; that having made the decision to let her go, he could start a fresh page with Charles; but it’s nothing of the sort.
“Of course not,” Charles says, pillowing his head on Erik’s shoulder. “Why should it? Moira hasn’t died, or gone away. You didn’t fall out of love with her. I like to think I’m good in bed, but I’m not that good.”
“You don’t mind?”
Charles smiles, a little ruefully. “Raven tells me often I’m a hypocrite, but that sort of hypocrisy is quite beyond even me.”
Erik digests that for a minute. “Good.”
“It’ll be all right,” Charles adds, settling in closer. “Trust me.”
And Erik knows he’s lost when all he thinks is, entirely against his better judgment, of course I do.