Archive of Our Own ^beta

1. 

Silence rang out. It was heavy enough to be suffocating, and Charles wasn’t sure if the tightness in his throat was from the weight of the air or the worry that was climbing up his throat. His sister...

“Say that again,” Erik demanded in a growl that deepened his accent into something dark. 

“The base has been attacked,” Moira said, too calm for the absolutely heart-wrenching news she was so easily delivering, as if she were telling them the weather. 

Charles pushed forward without a single ounce of hesitation. While he did try his utmost to follow a... moral code, of sorts, that went out the window when his sister was in danger. Moira’s mind had always been quite organized—the way that she compartmentalized made sense for her line of work, but it did make it more difficult to find the answer he was looking for. 

Good thing Charles had a rather compelling incentive. 

Combing through Moira’s mind only took a moment, and by the time Charles came back to himself, he was even more frustrated than he’d been before. 

She doesn’t bloody know a thing, Charles pressed into Erik’s mind, his thoughts echoing with an annoyance that was only spurred on by Erik’s own sharp worry. I’m going to see if I can reach them.

From here? Charles you know that’s outside your range—

I don’t care.

Charles leaned back against the hard, leather head-rest of Moira’s car, letting his eyes fall closed as he pushed his awareness outside of himself and ignored Erik’s pointed thoughts. They were a near hour out, still, and Charles’ heart was beating an anxious rhythm against his chest that he couldn’t calm, not with the news that his sister and all the children they’d gathered together had been attacked.  

God, what had they done? 

Taking a deep breath, he pushed through the still-growing lump in his throat as he did his best to narrow his attention towards Raven. Her mind was familiar after a decade and a half together, but Charles hadn’t ever tried something like this before. While he had a rough estimation of what his range was, it wasn’t something he’d ever had reason to push. 

He pushed now. Charles let his mind expand in the same way he did when he was listening to a specific thought, only this time his destination was his sister. They zipped past houses, giving Charles glimpses of thoughts that were there and gone again as they drove. Taking a deep breath, Charles brought two fingers to his temple to narrow his focus and then brought forward everything he could remember of Raven’s mind. 

Holding the shape of her close, Charles sharpened his focus tighter. He had no idea if he could do this, but he had to try. Raven could be hurt, she could be dead, and Charles had to know. 

He had to know. 

He could sense her. She was hazy, and little more than an impression, but it felt like she was just outside his field of reach so he kept reaching, pushing himself further, further, further—

Erik’s distress slipped through his focus and tugged Charles back into his own mind so hard he physically slammed back against his seat. Charles let out a gasp as he arched his back, surprised enough that he was being drawn in before he could do anything to stop it. Erik’s mind was screaming with panic, so loudly that it drowned out all of Charles’ other senses as he lost himself in Erik’s turbulent mind until he could pull himself back out. 

What the hell?

“Erik, calm your damn mind,” Charles snapped, opening a single eye to glare at the man sitting beside him. Erik looked the picture of calm—his shoulders were loose, as was the expression he had drawn over his face. 

His mind, however, was an absolute mess. 

Charles let himself delve deeper, just for a moment, and found himself shocked at the swirling mass of panic centred around Erik’s memory centre, where he was replaying the individual interactions he’d had with each of their young mutants. Charles reared back, his mouth dropping open as he stared at Erik in surprise. 

“Goddammit Charles you’re bleeding,” Erik hissed, covering his thumb with the sleeve of his jacket before reaching out to press it against Charles’ nose. “Gott, you idiot. Moira, do you have any tissues?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Erik made a wordless noise that sounded much like a growl, though Charles decidedly ignored it as he slapped Erik’s hand away from his face. “Why did you do that?”

Blinking, Charles tried to focus on the commotion at hand and not how much Erik cared for their young wards. 

“I was trying to reach Raven,” Charles muttered, before he slumped back against the seat. 

His eyes fell closed despite his effort to keep them open. Every ounce of energy he had fled his body at once as his immense use of telepathy caught up with him, and immediately a headache began to pound against his temples. 

Bugger, that hurt. 

“You damn idiot. Rest until we get there,” Erik told him firmly enough that Charles didn’t even think to question the order. 

Charles kept his eyes closed. He figured the light wouldn’t do him any good against the way his head was pounding. They still had longer to drive than Charles wished for, and he sat tensed up and anxiously awaiting what they would find at the base. The call to Moira had been short and to the point. Charles didn’t know how bad things were or if anyone had been hurt, or... or worse. 

All he knew is that someone had attacked his little sister and the mutant children he’d promised greatness. 

During the drive, Charles did his best to rebuild the stone foundation around his mind that had crumbled when Erik had shocked him back into himself so jarringly. It was tedious work with how much pain was already beaded along his mind, but he forced himself through the numbing work, if only to block his mind against the tidal wave of emotions that were still leaking off Erik. 

When the pain got to be more than he could handle, he silently reached out and squeezed Erik’s thigh in support. Erik’s mind didn’t quiet, but it did calm. 

Charles focused on calming his own mind for the rest of the drive. He would be no good to the children if he was this upset when they arrived, especially with the way it felt as though his eyes were burning behind their lids. Running through worst-case scenarios wasn’t helping, and the way Erik’s mind was swinging with anxiety was only making his own scattered thoughts worse. 

Despite the way he was focusing his thoughts inward, he felt a brush of something cool and familiar along the edges of his consciousness, and he quickly sat upright. 

“Something’s wrong,” Charles breathed, grabbing Raven’s mind and then skimming the surface of her familiar thoughts. Charles blinked his eyes open and saw the edge of the compound from his windshield, and his heart slammed against his chest. 

“Charles?” Erik asked rather rudely. 

Charles shook his head and made a gesture for Erik to hold on, before he slipped deeper through his sister's mind. Horrified at what he found, he whispered, “Oh for Heaven’s sake,” as he placed shaking fingers against his temple to check on the others. 

“Charles, what the hell do you mean something is wrong?” 

“Armando and Angel are missing,” he whispered, voice shaking. 

“What do you mean they’re missing, Charles?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but then Moira was turning onto the drive that led to the front of the compound and Charles was pushing his door open before the car had come to a stop, rushing to his sister to pull her into a hug and make sure she was alright. 

He tucked Raven against his chest as he held her close, breathing her in and ignoring the way his heart felt like it was going to race outside of his chest. This was too close. 

God, what had they done.

He slipped into his sister’s mind in a rare moment of weakness, moving straight to her memories and ignoring everything else. He didn’t need to read her mind to know how shaken up she was—that much was beyond obvious with the way she was clinging to him. No matter how upset she would be with the invasion of her privacy, Charles needed to know what had happened before he lost his mind. He riffled through Raven’s recollection of events hurriedly, his stomach turning over itself and filling with nausea that he did his best to push down.

Oh, Armando...

Charles shot his eyes over to Alex to find the young boy hunched in on himself. Charles could only imagine what the boy was feeling, but kept his own mind reined in tightly. He didn’t have time for that now, no matter how badly he wanted to help. 

He could feel Erik’s worry as he rushed after him, but Charles didn’t allow himself to reach out when he untangled himself from Raven. Now wasn’t the time for that, no matter how very sorely he could use the support. 

“We'll make arrangements for you to be taken home immediately,” Charles said firmly, not sparing a glance at Erik as he set heavy eyes on Alex, his gaze skipping to the defeated slope of Sean’s shoulders. 

He could feel the grief pouring from his sister, echoed strongly by Alex, who felt something deeper than any of the others, even though Charles tried not to feel it in a bid to stay sane enough to support the others. Grief, wrapped up with a wretched sense of responsibility that tore at Charles' heart seeped from the boy’s mind. Charles knew that whatever happened to Alex, he would make sure to keep an eye on him. It was the least he could do after getting him involved in this mess. 

“We’re not going home,” Sean muttered under his breath, looking up at Charles from behind darkly tinted classes. The boy looked over at Alex, and said, surely, “He’s not going back to prison. 

“He killed Darwin,” Alex said, but Charles felt the way he believed it to be a lie. No, the poor boy didn’t blame Shaw in the least. 

“All the more reason for you to leave,” Charles said firmly, employing the same voice he’d used while teaching horrendous first years who often argued more than they listened. He couldn't have any of them hurt. He couldn’t have any more of them lost. “This is over.”

“Darwin’s dead, Charles,” his sister said, as if he didn’t know, as if he didn't physically ache with the knowledge that he and Erik, above all, had caused it, “and we can’t even bury him.

And then Erik, because he was an absolute fool, announced, “We can avenge him.”

Charles narrowed his eyes and pulled Erik aside, but all he could feel was the worry leaking from Erik’s mind despite the way he could tell the metallokinetic was trying to hold it back. 

“They’re just kids,” Charles said, pleaded, thinking about the little girl that he had taken in so many years ago and had cared for every day since, stuck on how he almost lost her to this pointless crusade. 

But Erik didn’t seem to care. “No, they were kids. Shaw has his army, we need ours.” 

There was a crazed edge to Erik’s eyes and something desperate in his voice, and Charles pressed forward with his mind before he could even think of holding himself back. 

I won’t turn these children into weapons, Erik.

They already are weapons, Charles, and they’re in danger because of it. Let us keep them safe.

He softened, not because Erik said they needed an army or call their children weapons, but because he could tell at once that Erik wouldn’t let them get hurt if it was within his power to stop it. There was a protective sort of fury to Erik’s mind, a feeling Charles felt twined around his own chest. 

They had caused this... but perhaps they could keep them safe, too. 

He turned back to the mutants they had gathered, mutants that were hardly adults, and took a deep breath. “We’ll have to train,” Charles called, not missing the way they perked up. “All of us. Yes?”

There were agreements all around, and a rush of muted pleasure wafted to him from their collective minds. 

“We can’t stay here. Even if they reopen the department, it’s not safe.” Hank took a deep breath, and Charles could see how unsettled he still was by the gleam in his eyes. “We’ve got nowhere to go.”

Charles met Raven’s eyes and knew the two of them were thinking the same thing. Charles hadn’t been back to Westchester in a decade and he hadn’t planned on changing that any time soon, but... they needed a place to stay. They needed a place to train, and the mansion would work wonders for what they needed. 

Shit. 

“Yes we do,” Charles said calmly, answering Hank with a nod of his head. 

Collectively, the others let out a breath. A sense of calm washed over them, and Charles felt every pound of pressure that placed upon his shoulders. 

Erik marched up to Sean as soon as Charles was finished speaking, which shocked him from the worry eating at his belly at the thought of returning to a house that hadn’t been a home in very, very long. Charles went to open his mouth to cut in, but before he got the chance Erik was dropping down into a crouch and eyeing the young boy critically. 

What was he...

Erik’s hand reached out, and his thumb brushed away a smudge of dirt off Sean’s pale cheekbone. It wasn’t something Charles had even noticed, focused as he was on his sister and the tremulous emotion pouring from Alex. 

“Are you hurt?” Erik’s voice was a gruff demand, hardly a question and more of an order. 

Sean shook his head but said nothing. From his mind, Charles could tell that he was taken aback by the show of care, and Charles had to agree. Erik stood gracefully, a line of lean muscles that Charles couldn’t help but eye appreciatively as Erik moved forward to squeeze Alex’s shoulder. 

“Alright?” Erik asked, but Alex shrugged him off with a dismissal before the boy stood up and walked away. 

Erik turned to him with a heavy look. Charles sent him a nod, doing his best to paint a picture of calm across his face he wasn’t entirely sure he felt. It didn’t matter if they were truly confident or not—what mattered was that the children thought they were. 

Charles took a deep breath and made an effort to look better than he felt. 

Well, they certainly had a lot to do. 

2. 

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Alex shouted at Hank, before he slammed his hands down onto the counter and stormed off. 

Charles took a deep breath as he watched Alex all but sprint down the hall. The boy was bleeding with sorrow in such a way that it seeped from his mind, deeper than any of the others and slinking through Charles’ shields no matter how strongly he thought he reinforced them. He hadn’t ever felt such a swell of guilt in his life, and it hurt him to feel it from such a bright young boy. 

Even after he’d turned out of the hallway, Charles could feel the angry mess of Alex’s thoughts as he stomped to his room.

The confusion from the rest of the room was palpable even without Charles’ telepathy. Hank had simply asked Alex if he was up to help with breakfast. It hadn’t been anything more than a kindly-worded request to help fry the large pot of scrambled eggs he was making from them all, and Alex had reacted rather violently. 

“What did I say?” Hank asked, a sincere pout on his lips and something like regret colouring his thoughts. 

“I don’t believe that it was anything you said, Hank, do not worry,” Charles assured him, moving to meet Erik’s eye. 

I am going after him.

Are you sure that’s a good idea? Perhaps I should check in with him.

Are you sure that’s a good idea, Charles? Erik didn’t say anything else, but he did raise a questioning eyebrow. 

Taking a deep breath, Charles raised his head to meet Erik’s determined eyes. Alright. But I’ll be coming as well once I deal with these three.

Erik gave him a nod before he left the room swiftly. Charles watched him go before focusing back on the other three in the room, doing his best to drum up an enthusiastic smile. 

“Alright, let’s not let breakfast go to waste!” 

Charles clapped his hands together before he got the others moving. He kept his thoughts peripherally aware of Alex’s mind, keeping the boy’s storming thoughts at the edge of his awareness as breakfast got rolling. Once Hank, Raven and Sean all had an assigned task, Charles excused himself to slip down the hall. 

Alex’s thoughts were still tremulous. Charles ached to comfort him, and could only hope the boy was finding something akin to comfort with Erik. While he trusted the other man a great deal for the short time they’d known each other, Charles wasn’t able to push his worry away as he hurried down the hall towards the isolated room that Alex had claimed as his own. Erik was... blunt at best, horrifically rude at worst, and he wasn’t sure that was what Alex needed. 

“Alex, I am not the one to fight here.”

Erik’s voice was laced with steel. Charles came to a stop just outside the door, stilling his mind from reaching out and instead deciding to listen. He knew that Alex was uncomfortable with the idea that Charles could read his thoughts—which had been something he’d accidentally picked up when they first met, before Charles had realized the levels he needed to go to in order to block out Alex’s strong thoughts. 

“I’m not fuckin’ fightin’ with you.” Alex sounded absolutely horrible. Charles had to press a hand against his wall to keep himself from overstepping his bounds as he waited in the hall. 

“Then what do you call the way you’re acting? The way that you have been acting?”

Alex made a wordless noise of frustration and shouted, “I don’t fuckin’ know!” 

Silence rang out resoundingly loud. Alex’s heavy breath was easy to hear even from the hallway, and Charles had to close off his mind even tighter as Alex’s emotion spilled towards him. Footsteps sounded from the room, and then the creaking of bedsprings.

“I killed my mother.”

Charles stumbled back a step and had to bite into his fist to keep down the bile that rose in his throat upon hearing Erik’s simple and honest confession. He had seen the day that Erik was talking about, had seen everything, and to know that Erik still blamed himself so wholly made Charles sick to his stomach. 

“When I was a boy, a man aimed a gun at my mother and told me to move a coin. I could not, so he shot her in front of me.” Erik’s voice held only a whisper of emotion, a sadness that Charles could hear only for the way it was thrumming through his mind. He wasn’t sure what made his heart ache more: what Erik was sharing, or the simple, disconnected way he was sharing it. 

“That is a pain I have carried with me for nearly two decades, Alex. I am not here to offer you pretty words, as I don’t have them. I don’t know how to make it better. I don’t know when it’s supposed to get better, either. But I do know that you are not alone, which is a very precious thing.”

“Ya know... this isn’t as comfortin’ as you might think it is.” Charles heard Alex mutter, and a soft smile curled around his lips as Erik chuckled quietly. 

“I am not trying to be comforting, Alex. I am trying to be realistic.” Charles held in a snort at the tartness in Erik’s tone. 

Silence once again rang out. Charles considered stepping in and offering his own comfort, but he forced himself to stay where he was and cast his mind out instead. An overstep, perhaps, but not as invasive as stepping into a private moment. Some of the self-loathing that had been colouring Alex’s thoughts slipped away, and the tension that had built upon Charles’ shoulders lessened a fraction. Erik’s own thoughts were racing, crashing through his mind like a storm-moved ocean, so Charles did his best to gentle the tide. 

“I loved him,” Alex whispered, and Charles’ heart broke apart even further as he raised his hand to cover his mouth once more. 

“Ach, du Armer.” 

The bed creaked some more, and Charles felt a warm sense of comfort come from them both. A quick look at Erik’s mind, and Charles was able to see the way they were holding one another. 

“The world is going to hate you, Alex. Whether it’s because you’re queer or because you’re a mutant, this world is going to do everything in its power to ruin your happiness.” Erik took a deep breath, and Charles felt the phantom brush of chapped lips against his forehead as Erik bussed a kiss to Alex’s crown. 

“Do not let it. And do not ruin it yourself.”

“How do I do that?” Alex asked, his voice so quiet Charles didn’t hear it through his own ears. He ached to reach out, but he knew Erik had Alex in his arms and, despite how much it irked him to stay back, Erik was what Alex needed. 

“I don’t know, but perhaps we can do it together?”

There was nothing else said from there. Charles felt a smile curl around his lips as he went back to the kitchen, content that Erik had it covered. 

He was glad that he did, as he had to refocus Sean on buttering toast, get Hank back to frying eggs, and get Raven started on getting everyone up drinks. 

Children, he thought, with a rather fond shake of his head. Charles knew, as he listened to them joke with each other as they all worked to get breakfast on the table, that they were all still weighed down heavily with grief. Despite the way they were managing, how they were all managing, there was a quietness that you couldn’t miss, one that crept in and carried an unfair heaviness. 

But it was one that they were working through together. Charles hoped that Alex would allow for his peers to be there for him, but only time would tell. 

“The eggs are almost done,” Hank called out, so Charles got busy setting the table. 

Charles slipped back into Erik’s mind, allowing the soft, rose-colouring of his thoughts to wash over him.

Should we set a place for you two?

There was a pause, a moment of silence that Charles didn’t intrude upon. He was certain that Erik had known Charles was just outside the hall, but he hadn’t said anything about it. Really, Erik’s full focus had been on Alex and comforting the boy, which made Charles feel a little guilty about the doubt he’d had. It wasn’t that Charles doubted Erik, but the other man hadn’t ever come across as the most paternal of sorts. 

Clearly, he’d been mistaken. 

Erik let slip a series of emotions that made Charles’ heart feel bruised, knowing that Erik had once lived through them. His hands stilled as he was placing down a plate, and he dropped his head to hide his burning eyes, and moved a hand to cover his mouth to choke down something like a sob, turning the children’s attention away as he composed himself. 

Erik...

Scheiße, Erik swore, before embarrassment, hot and heavy, filled their mind space. You shocked me, Charles. 

I apologize, my friend. I hadn’t meant to intrude, nor had I meant for you to share more with me than you are willing to give.

Silence stretched out as Charles continued setting the table, allowing Erik a moment. While the man had spoken about his past in starts and stops, they’d never had a clear discussion about just how much Charles saw that night in the water. There was nothing about Erik’s past that Charles hadn’t seen, but he would still give Erik the privacy he deserved for thoughts he wanted to keep to himself.

Thank you for going to him, Charles pressed softly, making sure to layer his thoughts with the complete awe he had for Erik’s strength. 

It made more sense. I know what he’s feeling, and I know it well. Another moment of silence, and then, Yes, set us seats.

Charles couldn’t keep down his grin, and it didn’t slip all throughout breakfast. 

3. 

“You were thinking the same thing,” Erik told him, a tease in his voice and glee in his eyes as he grinned widely at Charles. 

Charles rolled his eyes and didn’t deign Erik with an answer as he started climbing down the very tall ladder as quickly as he could. He could hear Sean’s screaming from a distance, ringing through his ears as he dropped a few rings from the metal ladder to the platform that turned into a staircase. 

He turned to look, and felt his stomach plummet as he watched Sean plummet, only Sean was plummeting toward the ground faster than Charles could even comprehend. 

Oh, heavens. 

He hurried down the stairs, taking corners sharply as his shoes rattled against the metal and made for a noisy decline. 

Charles?

Not now, Erik! Charles snapped, any of his earlier pleasure completely gone with the reality of what had happened looming over him. 

Sean could die!

He could hear Hank and Erik behind him, the two of them bickering as they climbed down after him, but their voices were lighthearted, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Charles did his best to ignore them. Instead, he brought the hand that wasn’t using the railing to propel himself further down the staircase up to his temple so he could place two fingers to his hairline. Sean had soared far away after his first loop, and Charles pushed himself even as he hurried down the satellite. 

Charles couldn’t pick up more than wisps, stray, fleeting thoughts that felt like elation, and they did nothing to calm his worry. 

He focused on the steps in front of him instead of tracking Sean’s flight, moving fast enough that watching after Sean would have almost guaranteed his own fall. There was something heavy and gnawing in his chest, a worry he’d previously only felt towards Raven’s safety. 

It took long minutes to get to the ground, but eventually his feet touched grass. Charles whirled around as he tried to find Sean, cursing the sun as he held up a hand to shield his eyes. He spotted something in the distance, something that couldn’t be more than a bird, only... Charles winced as the figure shot straight upwards, which explained the ringing in his ears.

Not a bird, then. 

“Erik, what is wrong with you?” Charles snapped as soon as the other two men had joined him on the grass field. 

“Relax, Charles,” Erik said with humour in his voice. How the man was finding humour in such a horrifying situation was beyond him. 

“How am I supposed to relax Erik?”

“The boy is fine! Look at him, he’s having the time of his life.” Erik’s voice was far too calm for the situation at hand. Charles twisted his lips into a frown, looking at Erik as sternly as he could as he pushed his disappointment into the man’s mind. 

“Fine?” Charles demanded, placing his hands on his hips. “Erik, he could have died!”

Erik snorted, the ass, and then rolled his eyes. Oh, for god’s sake!

Charles turned sharply to look at Hank, and did his best to soften his growing annoyance at the young man’s wide eyes. “Well? How do you think he’s doing?”

“H-Honestly Erik is right.” Hank’s face turned beet red, and Charles only lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. “Now about the dying thing! Sean could have died. But Sean’s doing exceptionally well for his first time flying.”

A sense of “I told you so” washed Charles’ way, slipping across his thoughts at Erik’s heavily-projected smugness. 

We are talking about this later, Charles projected into his mind, not wanting to have what he knew would become an argument in front of Hank, but wanting it to be very clear to Erik that Charles was not impressed with his actions. 

And Erik, the bastard that he was, grinned at him easily as he watched Sean fly about. Talking about what?

Do not play dumb about this, Erik. I can’t believe you threw him off the tower!

You seemed to find it funny, Erik thought back with a pout, bringing up the shocked, slightly dazed smile Charles had worn before what had just happened set in and he’d hurried down the satellite. 

I was in shock! I certainly am not laughing at the way you threw one of our children off a satellite tower!

A wide, shark-like smile spread slowly across Erik’s face. The man took a step forward, close enough that it felt like he was towering above Charles despite only having a few, mere inches on him, and his thoughts were tinged with rose-coloured affection as he asked, Our children, Charles?

Charles opened his mouth to say something, anything to make sense of what he’d so carelessly thought, wrapped up in panic and anger and so much worry that it rolled his stomach, when Hank stepped up. 

“It looks like he’s coming back!” Hank, the blessed boy that he was, announced loudly enough to draw both of their attention. 

Charles pulled his eyes away from the heaviness in Erik’s, and ignored the way he could feel his cheeks burning with a blush. Hank was correct—instead of looping around the sky, Sean seemed to be heading straight towards them at quite the speed. 

“How is he going to land?” Charles asked frantically, his worry only mounting as Sean came towards them from such a great distance. 

“I have no idea,” Hank muttered, and when Charles looked over at him, he looked just as worried as Charles felt. 

His heart beat rapidly against his rib cage as Sean closed in. Charles could finally make out the bright yellow stripes on his winged harness and was getting a better sense of the boy’s erratic thoughts, tinged around the edges with his own landing-related panic. 

“Gentle,” Erik called out loudly, and then, through the link that seemed to be open between them more often than it was closed, Erik’s mind light up with the beautiful symphony of his mutation, his metal-sense signing with awareness and Charles selfishly, greedily slipped deeper into Erik’s mind to feel it for his own. 

He only paid half a mind to Sean, who was barrelling towards them with his arms stretched out at his sides, only the occasional, short scream to keep up from dropping straight down leaving him. Just as Charles was distantly becoming concerned, his attention was snagged by Erik, whose thoughts hardened into resolved steel. And then, just as Charles was falling into Erik’s thoughts, submerging himself in the bitter-sweet flood of emotions Erik drew upon to utilize his mutation, he realized what he had missed. 

Sean’s descent slowed. Erik wrapped his power around the metal harness attached to the boy’s flight suit and held steady. Sean used little bursts of his sonic scream as he got closer and Erik’s mutation held Sean tighter, and then—

He crashed right into Erik’s open arms, and Erik held him steady.

Then he immediately started babbling. 

“Did you see me! Erik! Erik! Did you see me? I was flying! I was flying!” Sean made a noise of pure joy, loud enough that Charles’ ears rang even from a few feet away, but Erik didn’t move an inch. “I was flying! I was flying and you caught me!”

Erik’s deeper laugh joined Sean’s bright, light giggle, and their shared joy leaked across the space between them, so loud that Charles picked it up without a thread of effort on his part. They held each other tightly, Sean’s pale fingers white-knuckled where they were wrapped around Erik’s sweatshirt. 

“I always had you,” Erik told him seriously; it was a mere whisper directly into Sean’s ear, but Charles heard the words before Erik had even decided to voice them. And he was right, wasn’t he? Erik had thrown Sean off the satellite, but Sean had never been in any true danger. 

Charles had just assumed the worst. 

He assumed that Erik had pushed Sean without a second thought. Erik had even teased him about thinking it, but never, never would Charles have pushed Sean if he wasn’t ready. The anger he’d felt still lingered, a quiet echo without substance, now that he knew Erik had only pushed Sean because he was ready, even if the boy was not. 

“That was incredible!” Erik then said, louder, and the pride in his voice was clear even without Charles’ telepathy. 

Erik pulled back enough that he could hold onto Sean’s shoulders. He looked over Sean carefully—Charles listened to the check-list Erik went through in his own mind to make sure the boy was safe and whole, Sean babbling on the entire time. Sean’s face was pulled into a smile that stretched impossibly wide, mirrored on Erik’s own face as Sean talked, his hands waving around the two of them, while Erik continued to listen attentively. 

Charles observed silently, his own mind whirring as his heart rate slowly came down to something normal. Erik held Sean close and listened with a wide grin stretched across his face as the boy explained what it felt like to fly, and the elation he showed was genuine. Charles was almost shocked; he knew that Erik wanted the others to learn control, but he hadn’t realized that Erik was quite so... invested in their success. 

Something soft climbed up from his belly, something he wasn’t sure he was yet ready to name. 

A small, private smile spread across Charles’ face as he watched Erik intently listen to Sean’s flight babble, before he decided to leave the boy in Erik’s capable hands and check in with Hank’s findings. 

4. 

Charles did his very best to listen to Hank as he spoke about Alex’s newest suit. The contraption the young man had made truly was marvellous, but Charles had... other things on his mind. 

Namely: one Erik Lehnsherr. 

Who was, quite literally, on his mind. 

Are you sure I can’t convince you to come join me? Erik had gotten incredibly good at projecting his thoughts over the last few weeks, and he shamelessly exploited it now. 

Charles wasn’t sure how he’d gotten the hang of it so quickly, but he thought that, perhaps, the way his own mind seemed to yearn for the familiar brush of Erik’s thoughts had something to do with it. 

N-No. Charles felt like an absolute fool for stuttering in his thoughts, but it wasn’t his fault Erik so happened to push the image of his forearm, flexed, littered with veins, curling up a weight into his mind. Dear lord, working out should not look that good. No, I am busy with Hank.

Do I want to know what you two are up to? Erik asked him, but there was an undertone to his thoughts that felt suggestive. 

Doing his best not to curl up his lip at the thought (Hank was still speaking excitedly about the way his device funnelled the energy of Alex’s mutation into a single blast), Charles firmly pushed back with, Erik, I am not in the mood.

I’m only kidding, Charles, Erik assured, but his amusement was forced. 

Only kidding, or still jealous? Charles thought slyly, trying to lighten the mood. 

A few nights ago, Hank had drawn Charles down to his lab to help work on a rather interesting formula. Charles’ expertise weren’t focused in such sciences, but he found that he and Hank worked quite well together, and by the time he’d managed to pry himself away from the workshop Hank had created for himself, it had been nearly three in the morning and Erik had been waiting for him with an untouched game of chess set before him. 

That had been an argument that now, days later, only filled him with a fond warmth. Erik was such a truly ridiculous man, Charles thought, with a fond roll of his eyes that he chose for Hank to think nothing of. 

I was never jealous! Erik snapped, but it was playful in a way that caused a grin to slip across Charles’ face. 

Hank is currently telling me about Alex’s suit, Charles explained instead of teasing further, pressing some of Hank’s excited chattering into Erik’s mind. 

Oh, that must be absolutely riveting, Erik thought dryly, and, since you could only hide so much when your thoughts were as twined together as theirs, somewhat snidely. 

Don’t be so rude to him, Erik. You know that it bothers him, Charles knew his thoughts were tinged with disapproval, but it wasn’t something he’d hidden from Erik, who got on well with everyone but Hank. What has the boy ever done to you?

He knew well that Erik wasn’t the young scientist's biggest fan—it wasn’t like Erik had ever done anything to set a different impression, after all, but Charles had never been sure why. 

Hank hadn’t done anything to Erik. At least, there hadn’t been anything Charles, nor Hank, had been able to think of when the boy had come to him for advice regarding the matter. Charles hadn’t known what to say because he hadn’t known why Erik acted as he did, so he’d done his best at comfort that felt like it had fallen short.

There was a long moment before Erik responded, and it was short when he did. He hasn’t done anything, Charles. 

Then why do you treat him so poorly? Charles asked, hoping for an honest answer and instead getting a long, oppressive silence during which he listened to Hank explain why he chose the metal he had, not absorbing a single word. 

But with Erik’s words came a series of memories, overlaid with a pain that twisted Charles’ chest and pulled him in even as he tried to ground himself in Hank’s smooth voice. It didn’t work, and before Charles was able to tear himself from Erik’s mind, he was being sucked into Erik’s memories, reliving just what Hank made Erik think of because he was a scientist. 

Schmidt’s wide, terrifying smile and the sickness that built in Erik’s belly every time he saw it. A sterile lab, filled with gleaming metal that shone under the dim, yellowed bulbs, exposed and hanging from the ceiling. A doctor, another doctor, so many doctors who wore lab coats and smiles like Schmidt’s, smiles that filled him with nothing but dread. Long metal instruments, plastic instruments when those stopped working, pain and pain and pain—

Oh, Erik, Charles through desperately, reaching out but finding nothing but heavy, steel beams guarding Erik’s grief. Tentatively, he reached out with a simple, Erik? 

This isn’t something I want to talk about. Erik's thoughts were a choppy sea, and old grief was crashing against the surface of his mind even as Erik tried to force it down. Drop it.

I... alright. Charles took a deep breath before he was able to push away the heavy feeling in his chest as the lump in his throat. 

Good lord, Erik had been hurt so greatly and at the hands of so many. No wonder he had trouble around Hank, whose love for science drove every action he took. 

But... Charles didn’t want to stop the conversation there, and he didn’t think that Erik wanted to either. What are you doing now? he asked, instead of anything heavy.

Charles listened to Hank as he waited for Erik to come back to him. He was sure that the man would—their shared mind space was still open and thrumming with a distant awareness of one another—and he waited patiently. 

The sudden warm, wet sensation of water cascading down his back took Charles’ breath away. Before he could stop himself he was slipping deeper into Erik’s mind, deeper still as Erik opened up for him so beautifully, so willingly, like he wanted Charles in his mind just as badly as Charles wanted to be inside it. It was impossible to keep himself from falling deeper with the way that Erik was pulling him in and letting him feel, with the way Erik wanted him to feel. Erik’s hands Charles’ hands slid down Erik’s chest Charles’ chest , gliding silky across the ridged muscles of Erik’s abdomen, before the tips of Erik’s fingers Charles’ fingers pressed into the v of his hips. Erik’s head his head fell back against the cool, tiled wall, and Erik Charles—

He ripped his mind from Erik’s so suddenly it hurt, a bright flash of pain blinding his vision as he sucked in a startled, sharp breath.

Charles was distantly aware of Hank calling his name, stood up and leaned over the table to rest a hand on Charles’ arm and give him a little shake. He did his best to focus on the present, breathing heavily against the burn in his lungs as arousal, hot and heavy, warred within his belly. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Charles said as he caught his breath, brushing away Hank’s concern. “I apologize. S-Sean’s mind is quite loud.”

“Ah, well that’s rather fitting,” Hank joked, and Charles forced out a strained laugh that he didn’t believe, but Hank allowed without question. 

“Please, Hank, carry on,” Charles told him steadily, drawing his mutation into himself and placing cement along the high, brick walls he’d built around his thoughts as a young boy, ensuring that Erik wouldn’t be able to slip back in until they’d had a conversation about what was and was not appropriate to telepathically share. 

“I was just explaining how I can’t make Alex’s aim any more precise. The wires I need to fiddle with are too small, too fragile, and I don’t have anything thin enough.” Hank held up his hands, which were rather large. “I could make the suit better for him. I have the materials. The plans have a ninety-five-percent chance of working out. But I don’t have the tools—nor could I even acquire the tools—to make it work.”

Charles hummed consideringly, beginning to say something before being cut off. 

“I can help,” Erik called from the door, startling Hank so badly that the poor boy nearly toppled out of his chair. Charles expected the smile gleaming on Erik’s face even as he looked over, and found his bubbling annoyance melted away the moment he met Erik’s eyes and saw the soft, apologetic look within them. 

“Really?” Hank’s voice was filled with a wondrous sort of enthusiasm reflected in his thoughts. Charles knew it well—he’d grown up as a boy wanting nothing more than to be liked by others. 

“It’s metal you need to manipulate, yes?” Erik asked with a raised eyebrow, before Hank’s glasses lifted off his face. They hung in the air in front of him as the arms folded together, before they gently floated down to the table. “I can do that. Tell me what to move.”

“Oh, Erik, thank you!” Hank gushed loudly, and then he launched immediately into a very long explanation about just what Erik’s ability would allow them to do.  

Erik, are you sure? Charles asked, doing his best to still focus on Hank even as he held himself back from diving into Erik’s mind like he so badly wanted to. 

It isn’t fair to hold the sins of others against him, Erik told him evenly, though Charles noticed the way his hand flexed into a fist. He’s not... bad. Annoying, but not bad.

Charles held in a snicker as Erik moved into the kitchen and took a place at the head of the table to watch Hank attentively. Hank explained to him exactly what he would need done and then went off on a tangent about just how he’d come to the conclusion that this would work: shrinking down a much, much larger model into something miniature. 

“Wait. Could you do something like that for Charles?” Erik asked, his eyes bright. “If... Cerebro. I know we don’t have it anymore, but you built it?”

Hank’s cheeks flushed an endearing pink under Erik’s attention, and his smile was small but pleased. “Yes?”

“Well, could we not apply the same ideals? If this is something you’ve shrunk down... what if we did it with Cerebro? My control is not finite but I can begin practising with that as soon as possible.”

Hanks’ eyes lit up, and before him, Hank and Erik began speaking back and forth quickly, excitement strumming from both of their minds. Charles tuned them out and instead focused on the easy cadence of their minds and watched the thoughts bouncing between them as they spoke and theorized. Erik’s ideas were choppy at best, but Hank was turning his fleeting thought into something that might actually work as something built between them. 

Thank you, Erik. Charles layered his thoughts with the warmth he felt wrapping around his heart. 

He only hoped they didn’t make him something ridiculous like a helmet. That would not go over well. 

5. 

“You kissed Raven,” Charles said, the second Erik walked into his bedroom. There was an accusation in his voice, and he knew his tone was cold. 

His heart felt colder. 

Erik looked at him, and silence stretched between them, fraught with tension. Charles’ fingers curled around the bottle of Scotch he held. They were aching. He took another swig, and didn’t feel the way it burned down his throat under Erik’s heavy, heavy gaze. 

He could judge him to hell, for all Charles cared. 

“Yes.”

It was a simple word for a simple admission. Charles sucked in a sharp breath, having hoped against hope he’d somehow been wrong despite the way he’d felt Erik’s lips for the first time through Raven’s mind, against Raven’s lips and not his own. 

God. 

Charles had to raise a hand to cover his mouth with his knuckles to keep down the waning nausea. He sucked a speck of blood into his mouth, annoyed by the way his skin had split against his bedroom wall. He felt like he was going to be ill, even though he’d already emptied his stomach twice over. 

“Why would you do that?” Charles asked, and his voice broke into something small and weak and hurting, so he continued with his mind, which had always been his strongest muscle, his greatest weapon. Why the hell would you do that? To me? To us? To everything we could be?

“I did nothing to us, Charles,” Erik spat into the space between them, words heavy and acidic and burning at Charles' heart as he stumbled back a step. 

Did... did Erik not... had Charles been that wrong?

“How could you say that?” Charles asked, begged, trying to understand through the blur of Scotch coating his thoughts and making him feel heavy and slow. “H-has... all of this meant nothing?”

“The kiss meant nothing,” Erik told him with a patience he hadn’t seen from the man before. 

The room was dull. Charles had a fire going, ready for the chess game he and Erik were supposed to enjoy. Another lamp was on, on the opposite side of the room. Erik’s face danced in shadows. At some point, he’d closed the door behind him, closing the two of them in Charles’ suite. Erik stood in his space like he—like he belonged! 

He had. He did?

God, Charles felt like he didn’t know anything but anger. 

“How could it mean nothing, Erik?” Charles asked, lowly, scathingly, burning with so much hurt that it felt as though it were eating him from the inside out. “You kissed my sister. My bloody sister!”

Erik didn’t seem ashamed. He didn’t even look upset that Charles was shouting at him, the bloody asshole. He wore a neutral expression that Charles couldn’t read and he—he refused to look into Erik’s mind. Not like this. Not now. 

“Yes.” Charles felt like his heart was splitting apart, like there was something in his chest that was once whole, but Erik had broken it in half. “Someone had to show her she could be loved in her skin, Charles, and you certainly weren’t doing it. That’s all I did, nothing more, nothing less. I don’t appreciate your accusations.”

Charles stumbled a step back, and then another when he couldn’t get his bearings. 

A sharp, bitter laugh burned from his thoughts, and suddenly his thoughts were moving faster than he could keep up with them, tumbling about his head. Charles felt like a spectator in his own mind, turning over memories as he searched, searched, searched for something that made sense. 

Erik, searching him out to demand answers once they’d both boarded the CIA’s ship, a towel wrapped around the thin point of his waist and very little else to cover the miles of skin he seemed so comfortable in. The weight of his fingers around Charles’ wrist as he’d asked, bright-eyed and shark-grinned, for Charles to tell him what he was thinking. 

Erik, almost leaving, wrapped in a black turtleneck. The way he’d come back, how amused he’d felt at Charles’ delight, and how delighted he had felt as Charles agreed with him and backed his decision to locate their own kind. 

Erik driving, driving, driving for long stretches of time, one hand on the wheel and the other out the window or, on nights they drove down dark, winding roads, on Charles’ thigh. Sleeping with their backs pressed together, crammed onto a single bed and wanting, yearning, needing more and feeling the same fire burning under Erik’s skin and neither of them doing a thing about it.

Erik’s terrified fury as he wrapped metal around diamond and pulled it tight enough he almost murdered a woman. Erik’s worry, palpable, as they left Russia. The gentle cadence of his thoughts as he’d held Alex close and became something the boy had never had, something real and solid and dependable. Erik, teasing him about calling the kids their children. Erik, the weight of his hands against his skin, the water on his back. 

Erik, Erik, Erik—

Erik, who he loved, who kissed his sister to...

“T-this was about her looks?” Charles asked, the taste of ash in his mouth, a taste he washed away with another long swig of Scotch. 

It didn’t help. 

“Don’t you dare say it like that, Charles,” Erik growled dangerously, a voice he’d never used on Charles, a voice that cut at his broken heart. 

“I didn’t say it like anything!”

Charles wasn’t the only one who heard the falsity in his voice, as Erik’s face twisted into something angry. 

“You said it like it’s the curse you so think it is, forcing her to wear a skin that isn’t hers to blend in!” Erik’s words were sharpened into something hurtful, each one landing in his chest and making him bleed as Erik’s anger, Erik’s rage, seeped into Charles’ mind and Charles, heavy as his thoughts were, could do nothing but let it spur on his own fury. 

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it, Erik?” Charles asked hotly, taking two steps forward and working to keep himself steady, fuelled by anger and little more. “Do you not understand what would happen to her if she walked down the street blue? I’ve been protecting her!”

“You’ve been protecting yourself,” Erik snarled, his lip pulling back over his teeth and—

“I have been protecting her!” Charles roared, slamming the bottle down onto the chess table beside them with enough force it shattered and spilled amber liquid into his carpet. “You have no idea what people would think of her if she—”

Erik cut him off to demand, “And you do?”

“Of course I do, Erik!” Charles cried, throwing his arms out around him as his eyes flooded with hot, burning tears, a familiar fear climbing up his belly, too heavy. He knew. He always, always knew. 

“Yes, because you know everything,” Erik snarled again, but this time his words were heavy and thick with sarcasm that bit at his skin, causing welting wounds under his flesh where he was thin and fragile, where the little boy who wanted to be loved his away from Erik’s sharp words.

Charles narrowed his eyes and laughed, bitterly. “Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know the fear in people’s minds, Erik.”

“What about your own fear, Charles?”

Charles reared back like he’d been hit. This wasn’t about him. This had never been about him. This was about Raven and Erik and the betrayal he was trying to hold onto, the betrayal that hurt, yes, but hurt so much less than what Erik was trying to make him feel. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, words bitten off and angry. 

“Humans aren’t the only ones afraid of us,” Erik snapped, his mind filled with so much bitterness that Charles sucked in a shocked breath even as Erik took another step closer, looming over Charles like a threat he’d never seen him as. “You’re afraid. Scheiße , every day you are terrified of what we are!”

“Of course I’m afraid!” Charles cried, tears finally spilling over and bleeding hotly down his cheeks. “Of course I am afraid, Erik! Do you have any idea what they would do to us if they found out? We are only safe because they don’t know, because not enough of them know, Erik!”

“We are better than them, Charles.”

“Who bloody cares, Erik!” Charles shouted, slapping open palms against Erik’s shoulders before he twisted his fingers so tightly into the soft material of Erik’s sweater that he lost feeling in the shaking digits. “Who cares if we are better than them? They don’t! They won’t care and they will come for us, don’t you understand that?”

The fight drained out of Erik and Charles let his own anger follow suit, replaced only with the fear he’d lived with since he first woke up, nine-years-old and hearing voices in his head that he learned were the thoughts of others. 

He was terrified because he knew enough to be terrified. He knew the evils people kept in their minds, the thoughts they pushed down, ignored, but thoughts they had all the same. What would it take, for someone to turn? Charles knew too well. 

“We’re stronger than them,” Erik said softly, his words a mere whisper in the space between them.

“Maybe.” Charles swallowed heavily, and let out something like a gasp when Erik cupped his face to wipe at his soaked cheeks. He was desperate, terrified—he was nothing and everything and he was the heat of Erik’s hands against his skin and the terror rumbling in his chest. In a whisper, he asked, “Maybe, but Erik, what if we aren’t? What if we aren’t strong enough and t-they come for her? What if they take her away from me, w-what would I do if they took her away from me?”

“That is why we need to take a stand. We need to come together—”

“Building an army is not the answer, Erik,” Charles snapped, letting his hands fall to his side so he could ball them into fists and focus on the cutting pain of his nails digging into his palm. 

“Then what is! You tell me, again and again, that humans have good in them. That they deserve a chance, but it’s a chance you won’t even give them!”

Charles took a deep breath and held down a stupid, broken noise. “They do have good in them, Erik. You don’t understand—”

“I am not the one who doesn’t understand, Charles! Gott, do you even hear yourself speaking?”

“I won’t take that chance,” he said, slowly, forcing his words out behind clenched teeth, up through a knot in his throat that made him feel like he couldn’t breathe. “I won’t take that chance with my s-sister.”

Charles’s voice broke down into nothing, a sob bubbling up from his lips that spilled over until he was crying and couldn’t stop as he spoke the greatest fear he’d ever felt into his dim bedroom. 

“Oh, Schatz, come here.” Erik’s words were a whispered comfort as he pulled Charles into his arms, who went, so willing. Erik folded him up and Charles held on as tight as he could. 

It felt like he was unravelling as he spilled his grief into Erik’s sweater, two decades of lived-fear and precaution after precaution, of slipping into minds and ensuring no one ever saw too much, of making sure they were safe from a world that would want to kill them, bubbling up to the surface and making it impossible to feel anything other than turmoil.

Erik held him and said nothing, but Charles could feel the way he pressed comfort and understanding at Charles’ mind. Erik had a reason to hate humans, after all. 

“Raven is strong, Charles,” Erik told him quietly but surely. “She’s a grown woman and she is incredible. But you’ve held her back.”

“I know” Charles whispered, buried the words into Erik’s skin where they couldn’t hurt him anymore. “Erik, I know.” 

“Then why have you hidden her away? Why have you made her feel like she isn’t enough?”

Charles laughed, broken and bitter, “It’s never been her strength I’ve worried about.”

Erik held him tightly, brushing a hand down his hair as he said, “Oh, Schatz, you are so much stronger than you know.”

Charles had nothing to say to that, not with the way it felt like his already broken heart was crumbling even further. Old hurts, scars he’d kept hidden under his skin, were bleeding anew. Charles clung to Erik like the child he’d never been, leaning against Erik and trusting the taller man to hold him up. And Erik did. Erik held him as Charles cried, as he allowed his heart to weep as he, after so many years of denying what he knew he was doing to his sister, finally admitted that, perhaps to Raven, he’d been wrong. 

“Raven deserves to be who she is,” Erik told him clearly, his lips brushing against the shell of his ear; a comfort Charles so desperately needed. “You need to show her that, Charles. Not me, not with a simple kiss. You need to show that she is deserving of your love in her true form.”

Charles, tucked away into Erik’s neck and wrapped up in Erik’s arms, floating on Scotch and the intoxicating feeling of Erik’s mind open to him, Erik’s mind drawing him in, wanting him, nodded his head. 

“I will,” Charles vowed, not to Erik, but to himself, to the little boy that found a girl like him and, desperate to not be alone a minute longer, took her in and offered her a world he knew he couldn’t give her. 

He didn’t know how. He didn’t know what it would look like. But he knew he would find a way to give her that world. 

1

All Charles wanted was a nice, calm morning in bed. 

After weeks of long nights spent in the cold, sterile walls of a hospital and more weeks spent in a room on the main floor that, despite the boys’ help to transform the room into a large suite, still felt strange, Charles just wanted a nice, easy morning in bed without the usual rustle and bustle he’d become so familiar with. He wanted to sleep in and wake up lazily. He wanted to sip morning tea and read the paper. He wanted to pretend as though everything were as it once was.

It wasn’t as it once was, and he knew it never would be, but was a quiet morning really so much to ask for? 

Apparently so. 

Erik, who had woken him up with the sun, was both rustling and bustling around his bedroom. He picked up Charles’ nightclothes and tossed them into the laundry hamper. He dusted the mantle above the fireplace. Then, he went so far as to sweep out Charles’ bathroom, despite the fact that Charles hadn’t worn outside shoes around his bedroom since moving into this room. 

And Erik didn’t even look like he was close to done. 

Good lord. 

Charles must have made a noise, some sort of sound, because a moment later Erik was rushing back towards him and helping to prop Charles up against a load of pillows. 

“Thank you, Erik,” he said sincerely, despite the twitch forming in his left eye. 

All he got was a tight-lipped smile before Erik was off. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Erik fretted, his hands hovering in the air before they started smoothing down the soft, knitted blanket wrapped around Charles’ legs. Then he tucked the blanket in under Charles’ feet. Oh, for Heaven’s sake. “Do you want more tea?” The tea tray lifted into the air before Charles even had a chance to open his mouth, sailing towards them before it hovered at Erik’s shoulder. “There’s more tea.”

Charles nodded slowly, and with a forced smile, said, “Yes I see that. Thank you, dear.”

Erik hadn’t said anything about the pet names that had littered their speech in the weeks since that horrible night when Charles had cried himself to sleep in Erik’s arms. They’d had other, more pressing things to worry about the morning after, and every morning after that morning had been spent focused on the fact that Charles could no longer walk. 

But just because they didn’t talk about it didn’t mean that the two of them were blind to what it meant, even if Erik had yet to act on it. Charles had tried to act on it, but, despite the way he seemed to hover around Charles for all hours of the day, Erik had kept him at an arm's length when it came to the simple intimacies they’d shared before, pulling away or closing off his mind when Charles tried to reach out. 

All in all, it was rather quite annoying, and Charles had to admit he was at his wit’s end with it all. 

Erik patted his foot with a faraway look in his eye before moving to pour another cup of tea as he went off on another rant. 

“And breakfast? Charles, you haven’t eaten yet, and you know that the doctor stressed how important it is that you eat at regular times,” Erik’s voice rose with worry, both in pitch and speed, and by the time he was finished speaking, he sounded ridiculous. 

“I know very well what the doctor told us, Erik.” A deep breath, and Charles forced his shoulders to relax. 

Thankfully, Hank and his impeccable timing once again saved the day. 

“Breakfast delivery!” he called, pushing into the room with his foot and holding a long tray loaded high with food. 

Charles was just opening his mouth to speak, a smile gracing his lips at the blue, furry appearance his friend wore, when Erik turned around suddenly. 

“Thank you, Hank.” Erik said sharply, before the tray left Hank’s hands and floated through the room. 

A moment later, and the door was swinging shut in Hank’s face. 

“Erik!” Charles said sternly, a frown crossing his face as he sent Hank an apology that was only brushed off. “What was that about?”

Erik grumbled something under his breath. Ever since Cuba, ever since that wretched helmet had kept him from Erik's mind, there had been a distance between them that made Charles ache. It felt like Erik was a stranger, like the man before him was someone he’d never known, someone whose mind would feel foreign should he slip in for a touch. 

But Charles wouldn’t. Erik had blocked him out and while he’d come back, while he’d forced the teleporter to take them to a hospital and had stood by Charles’ side for the last few months, Charles wouldn't take more than Erik was willing to give. 

And, lately, it didn’t seem like Erik was willing to give very much. 

“Here we are!” Erik announced with a grin. 

Charles knew what would happen. Erik would leave him to eat in peace as he went to check on the children and make sure their needs were being attended to. He and Alex would go on a run around the property before he sat with Sean to go over the math problems Charles had been helping Sean work through. After that, he and Raven would spar while having a brief, stilted conversation about Charles, before Erik would be back to help him around his room, assist him with going to the bathroom, and then take him for a walk. 

That afternoon would be spent outside with the children. Later, Erik would help Hank reinforce the underground tunnels with metal, creating something Charles wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be privy to. Then Erik would cook dinner for them all, bring Charles his serving to eat, together, in front of the fireplace, and then he would excuse himself for bed and leave Charles alone until the next morning. 

Then that very same thing would happen the next day, and the day after that. They wouldn't play chess. Erik’s warm hands would touch his skin, but not with a single trace of desire. 

And Charles would, once again, spend the entire day feeling more alone than he’d felt since he was a young boy, who knew far too much to be happy. 

Their lives would go on and on, and Charles would go on to sit and watch, always sit and watch, forced to be an inactive participant as the ones he loved lived fully around him. Because Charles couldn’t live fully—or could, but didn’t yet know how, because everything was still so bloody new. Charles would be able to live, yes, but it would never be the life he’d imagined for himself, during the sticky-sweet months of summer training, the months he fell in love with Erik who, now, cared for them in all the ways that Charles couldn’t.  

Heavens, there was so much he couldn’t do. 

Erik placed the tray down across Charles’ lap and then stepped back.

No. No, Charles wasn’t going to keep telling himself he couldn’t when he could, in some way, make it work. 

This was it.

“Erik, sit on the bloody bed right now,” Charles snapped, his patience worn too thin and his heart too sore. “You have not eaten breakfast either and Hank made enough for the two of us. Sit. Down.”

Erik stilled. His hands fell to his sides as his entire frame seemed to still, to wait, until he deflated in a rush of breath through his nose. Charles couldn’t feel his mind but he could see him, and Charles knew Erik well enough to read his face even without being able to read his mind. 

He looked exhausted. 

“Please,” Charles said, quietly, and let every ounce of desperation bleed into his voice. “Erik, please. Sit down with me?”

There was a moment of silence before Erik nodded, and let out a soft, “Very well, Charles.”

It wasn’t the answer he may have wanted, but it wasn’t Erik leaving, either. He knew that there was something fractured between them, but Charles wasn’t going to let it keep cracking as he sat around and did nothing. Charles had never known love like he felt for Erik, which was an all-consuming sort of desperation that had left him lying awake night after night in a bed too big and a room too cold to be alone. 

No, he wasn’t going to allow them to drift any further apart, no matter how stubborn Erik was being. 

“Thank you,” Charles said as kindly as he could, tracking Erik’s movement as he slowly walked to the other side of Charles’ bed and sat, rather stiffly, with his legs stretched out in front of him. “I’ve missed eating breakfast together, my friend.”

Erik snorted and looked up at Charles from under his lashes. 

“You’ve missed stealing my breakfast, you mean?” Erik asked, with a hint of teasing that Charles hadn’t heard in far too long. 

He let out a shocked laugh, and his eyes crinkled with his smile. “It isn’t my fault you’re such a slow eater, Erik! If you ate your pancakes quicker, there would be nothing for me to steal.”

Erik grumbled, but it was warm with humour. Warmer still was his smile as he held Charles’ eyes, and something impossibly large and weightlessly heavy built up from the pit of his stomach. 

“I’ve missed you,” Charles said seriously, looking heavily at the side of Erik’s face when his eyes dropped, and wishing for Erik to look back up at him. 

Erik smiled tightly, but he didn’t give an answer. He didn’t relax, either, which made Charles frown. There was such a large part of him that wanted to reach forward and submerge himself in the familiar warmth of Erik’s mind, but he held himself back with a strength he’d not previously known. 

But, looking at Erik now, Charles could only wonder why he was being so distant. 

He could ask, certainly, but did he want to ask? What if Erik was being distant because he no longer wanted Charles in the way he’d wanted him before?

Well. Charles had already lost his legs. What else was there to be scared of?

“You have cared for all of us so well,” Charles started seriously, keeping his voice soft as he reached out to take Erik’s hand and twine their fingers together. “You’ve done so much for the children and so much for me, Erik, and I appreciate you more every single day that you’ve stood by my side.”

“Our children,” Erik whispered, barely a breath as he dropped his eyes to his lap before looking back up. 

Oh, that was certainly promising. 

Charles laughed, a gentle, surprised noise that felt like possibility. “You’ve done so much for our children, and for me. Let me take care of you, my love?”

Erik’s breath caught in his throat, and his cheeks tinged pink in a way that sped Charles’ heart until it was racing against his chest. 

“I’m fine, Charles. It’s your own health that you should be worrying about,” Erik told him firmly, looking just as disapproving as Charles would have expected from him. 

“You’re worrying enough for the both of us,” Charles teased, unable to keep down his grin. “Let one of us worry about you, alright?”

A long moment of silence stretched between them, filled with all the things that neither of them were saying. If there was one thing Charles had been certain about, since the very moment the bullet collided with his spine, it was that Erik loved him. The way Erik had cared for him and the family they’d built together had only proven just how fierce that love was, and Charles... 

He only needed to remind himself of that. As soon as he did, he knew at once that he was tired of waiting. Tired of assuring himself that Erik would still be there later. 

What if he wasn’t? Erik was doing so much for them all; he cared for the children and he cared for Charles, each and every day. It barely seemed like Erik had a moment for himself, and—oh Lord, Erik didn’t have a moment for himself, did he? He couldn’t, not with the way he single-handedly cared for the children and how involved he was with Charles. Yes, Erik stayed on his own overnight, but he always left as Charles was falling asleep and arrived again before he woke up.

Oh, my friend, how did I not notice that you were running yourself ragged? Charles thought, wanting to press the thought forward but holding himself back by the skin of his teeth.

There was no way that Erik was getting any care. He certainly wasn’t getting any from Charles, and he knew that Erik, as foolhardy as he wasn’t, wouldn’t accept care from the children—save, perhaps, Alex, who was still mourning sharply. Charles thought that Erik wasn’t willing to give, but maybe he just had nothing left in him? 

Thinking about it now, it was so clear to Charles that all Erik had been doing was giving and giving, but that no one was giving anything back to him.

Charles couldn’t let that continue. 

There was no time for waiting, now, not when Erik looked like he was going to keel over when Charles really looked at him. 

“Very good,” Charles said, doing his best to sound calm and confident even as his heart raced and his belly shook with nerves. “Now get yourself comfortable, I’m going to be feeding you this lovely breakfast our children made for us and you aren’t going to utter a single sound of protest.”

Erik sputtered, but it only took one firm look from Charles to silence him. 

Good. 

Hank had prepared for them a hearty breakfast. There were fried eggs with running yolks like Charles enjoyed, slices of French bread, toasted crisp and slathered with warm butter, bacon and sausage links and then Alex’s breakfast potatoes, which were absolutely incredible and smelled amazing. 

There were two cups of juice despite the one large serving plate piled with food. Well, at least the children and he were on the same page, even if Erik hadn’t seemed to have caught up. 

That was alright. Charles was catching them both up now, and that’s what mattered. 

It was with a smile that Charles broke open the yoke of an egg with the crisp crust of the French loaf. He sunk the edge in with only the briefest of glances before bringing his eyes back to Erik’s dark gaze, and felt warmth spread across the tip of his thumb as he pressed a little too hard. 

Under Erik’s watchful gaze, Charles brought the piece of bread up to Erik’s mouth and, with laboured breath, watched Erik’s mouth fall open. Erik’s tongue was resting against his bottom lip, a sweet flash of pink, and Charles carefully brought his hand closer, and then closer still until the yolk-soaked bread was resting against Erik's bottom lip and his tongue was darting away so his lips could close around a bite. 

His lips, which brushed against Charles’ thumb and forefinger before he slowly brought his hand down to his lap. His heart was beating violently in his chest, so quickly he was sure Hank would worry about him should he know, but Charles didn’t care, didn’t care about anything, not when Erik was looking at him with dark, lust-blown eyes, and his Adam’s apple was bobbing as he swallowed, oh so inviting. 

It was an invitation Charles had held off on long enough. If he knew nothing else in the world, he knew that the time he’d thought they would have could be as fleeting as life itself. 

They’d waited long enough. He’d waited long enough. 

I’m going to kiss you now, Charles thought into Erik’s mind, unable and unwilling to hold himself back a moment longer, completely breathless as anticipation filled him until he was burning with it. 

Tja, das solltest du wohl besser! Erik demanded, a fire in his eyes and so much sweet, soft affection wrapped around his thoughts that Charles felt like he could live within his mind for the rest of his life. 

And then, because Charles was a man of his word, he leaned over to steal Erik’s lips in a warm, buttery kiss that he knew, with absolute certainty, would last the rest of his life.