Work Text:
Trouble Is a Friend
“In theory,” Erik asks, pale eyes on the game of chess between them, long fingers steepled as he contemplates his next move, “could you make someone love you?”
Raising an eyebrow Charles leans back in his armchair, quite proud of himself for not flinching. Oh Erik.
There has never been another person, another mind – be it human or mutant – that has fascinated Charles quite like Erik’s does. At the same time, there has never been another individual quite that leery of his telepathy and what he might do with it. There has also never been another mouth spilling words quite as sharp and cutting, hitting home in all the painful ways, with thoughts hidden behind mental walls of steel.
No one has ever managed to hurt Charles quite like Erik does.
“I would say that depends on your definition of love,” he answers blandly, keeping the pain and the internal conflict and the old self-loathing from his voice as he always does. In that, life with his mother and stepfather and Cain was an excellent teacher. It strengthened his façade of mild disinterest like nothing else could, a façade not even Raven sees through – no matter how often Charles has attempted to invite her in.
Erik glances up sharply, his pale gaze like a knife.
“Surely you know it.”
His voice is half fondness, half mockery, and as Charles watches the long fingers flick and the metal Knight move he cannot help but remember the night before, all summer’s heat and the slickness of sweat and the thrill of two bodies moving in tandem, two minds dancing a tantalizing tango of temptation and need and pleasure. He cannot help but remember the hot breath next to his ear, spilled by the pair of lips that thusly excels at hurting him, and the words he has longed to hear ever since jumping off a boat in order to stop a single intriguing mutant’s suicidal crusade.
I love you, Charles, god, I love you!
Only words, though, no pictures, never pictures – for all that Erik is so adamant in his propagation of Mutant Pride he is awfully wary of Charles’ mutation.
“How would I?” he answers as mildly as ever, reaching out to capture a Bishop. They play chess much the same way they navigate life: Erik always has a complicated, decade-spanning plan and a single-minded focus, and Charles relies on his instincts. A telepath, one might think, ought to have good enough instincts, at least when it comes to people. Perhaps not when it comes to chess, but he has spent so many mornings in hiding, brooding over the day’s chess puzzle in the newspaper and hoping that Kurt would not find him, that he excels at the game without needing to use his telepathic abilities. Also, he is rather on the brilliant side if he does say so himself. Arrogant, yes, battered, oh yes, but a brilliant scientist all the same.
Erik darts him another of those piercing glances that stab ever-so-deeply.
“I am sure that, by now, you must have peeked,” he accuses drily and so terribly casually.
Charles does not flinch, again. Just like he does not flinch every time his mind reaches out instinctively to fondly brush against Erik’s, only to be stopped by thick steel walls and sharp barbed wire. It is obvious why he would choose the latter to ward Charles out much like he once was warded in, and it hurts the telepath – both because the reminder of what his dear friend has gone through pains him, and because his mental fingers brush against the barbed wire every time. Sometimes the headaches stay for days, as do the heartaches. No matter their relationship, Charles appears to be incapable of giving this incredible man enough reason to finally trust him. Sometimes he wonders where Erik learned to pull up such effective mental defences, but, really, he believes it is simply – Erik. The older man is one single defence mechanism, all tense posture and paranoid alertness and ever-present readiness to fight. Charles could overcome the metal walls and barbed wire if he wanted to. He knows the limits of his mental abilities, and Erik has warded himself off to all sides, but he could still enter from above. Also, he believes that not even a full sphere of metal could keep him out, were he really inclined to intrude. No mind but a telepath’s might ever be completely safe from a telepath, not even the mind of a mutant with a genetic predisposition for ruthlessly defending himself; body, mind and soul.
“I wish you would trust me,” he replies mildly, the pain banished from his voice as forcefully as always. “Normally that would be a requirement for a functioning relationship.”
Of course he recognizes the hypocrisy in that statement – does he himself not deny the other part of what makes him Charles Xavier? Oh, he has tried – dropping hints, indirectly inviting the other in – but, much like Raven, Erik always shies away from what is really personal. And he has to take care of himself, too. Of his heart. There are only so many blows and rejections he can take before breaking.
“A relationship with a telepath is hardly normal, is it?”
We are hardly normal, are we?
Raven has said that so often, but is has a wholly different meaning now. Erik’s insinuation that being a mutant is perfectly alright, but being a telepath is not leaves another deep gash in a long line of wounds that cover his heart.
“How does me being a telepath affect your definition of love?” he still inquires as mildly as ever, moving his Queen to take it out of the path of Erik’s Rook.
Another sharp glance, another deep gash. The older one wields his pale gaze like a weapon, and Charles doubts that he will ever understand why his beloved feels the need to thusly threaten him with it.
“If you were the one who shaped it?”
A new accusation, masked as a sarcastic question.
This time his mask shatters, the calm and unaffected façade melting away like ice on a scorching summer’s day. The Pawn he wanted to move falls, unnoticed, as Charles sits frozen in shock.
Erik smirks, and were he a different man – one who knew less about this particular mutant, and every single one of his expressions – Charles would not have seen the translucent sheen of worry in the pale eyes. Erik is a twisted person, and god, the telepath wishes the other would let him come close, would let him in.
“I promised I would not enter your mind without your explicit permission,” he slowly reminds the other, picking up the shards of his mask and carefully putting it back in place. “And I keep my promises.”
The pale eyes are sharp and speculative again, now that Charles has regained his composure. Does Erik want to see him fall apart, is that the reason for this conversation? For a few more endless moments the piercing gaze is directed at him, drilling into his own eyes, before Erik suddenly diverts his attention back to the game laid out between them.
“An easy promise for you to make,” he nods oh-so-casually, his black Rook taking out a white Bishop. “After all, you could remove any memory I might have of you ever doing so, should you wish to.”
This time it is not a Pawn that takes the brunt of Charles’ shock but the crystal glass filled with his favourite scotch. Almost detached from his body – a sensation he knows from evenings spent with the consumption of too much alcohol, but he has barely drunken anything today – he watches as his numb hand knocks the goblet off the table as it shakes violently when he understands the meaning of Erik’s harsh words, his own eyes indifferently following the fall and observing as the golden liquid spills across the expensive red carpet.
Why?
“Just like you could kill me at a moment’s notice, without me ever expecting it,” he forces himself to answer as calmly as possible, his own gaze still locked on the formerly golden puddle now turned into a dark red stain. It awfully reminds him of the colour of blood, and were he to look closely, he knows – there is more than enough blood to be found on the various precious carpets in this mansion, metaphorical and other.
Erik grits his teeth. Charles does not look up to see it, but he hears the tiny noise.
“That is different, Charles!” he growls, and from the corners of his eye the younger once sees fists clenched in desperate anger.
And that is who Erik is, isn’t it? All anger and rage and hatred. Charles knows that there is also good in him, though. He does not need to read the carefully warded off mind to know that. But – sometimes it is awfully hard to remember it.
“How so?” he asks mildly, calm mask firmly back in place. Ever since Cain finally died, no one has managed to thusly shake his composure. “If we are talking about abusing the perks of our respective gifts, where is the difference?”
Abuse.
He regrets having used that word the moment it has dropped from his lips, knowing that Erik will jump for it like a starving dog for the last bone, and that he will pick every possible meaning until there is nothing left. It is a word that always dances at the back of his mind, guilt ever waiting to rear its ugly head. His power allows him to take the free will of others, twist it and turn it into what he would like it to be, and in a way that is worse than killing. The difference – the real difference – is that he uses it as little as possible, limiting himself so that he might not take from others what is rightfully theirs, whereas Erik never hesitates to use his power to his own advantage.
Nor does Raven.
For all that those two cry the loudest that everyone should be allowed to use their gifts freely, they are also the ones who criticise him the most for using his.
“Oh yes,” Erik purrs, his voice like liquid fire. Incredibly hot, but it burns. “The difference is that you abuse your power the moment you use it!”
This time Charles is the one to grit his teeth. He knows where this opinion is coming from, having thought along similar lines often enough. Guilt has kept him awake for weeks at a time, and often using his gift has only ever brought him more pain, instead of relief. Even at the age of five he had understood that he could make people believe they had changed their mind, but really changing it – would mean changing them as well. Whatever he did, whatever he altered or erased or created, it would cost his victims parts of themselves.
“And yet you suggested that I use it to freeze Shaw in place once we have caught him, so that you might kill him,” he reminds Erik, who snarls at the mention of his tormentor’s name. “You find fault with my choice of moral limits even as you ask me to cross them.”
An angry gasp ripples through the older one at that accusation, his body snapping into a defensive position. Charles knows that there is no use attempting to reason with him the moment Shaw is part of the equation. Still, some things ought to be said aloud. Perhaps they will make Erik think after all.
“That is not what this discussion is about!” he hisses angrily, his carefully casual position having made way for rigid tension. His eyes capture Charles’ once again, pale and dark and stabbing oh-so-deeply.
A single accusation in one piercing gaze, and yet he might as well throw the might of his mutation against the younger one’s without regard for the difference in their gifts. It would be no less painful.
“What is it about then?”
Oh, Charles knows – but if Erik wants to make wild accusations he will have to do it himself. Charles has already dug himself a deep enough grave by using that blasted word, he does not need to help Erik hurt him even further. The older one will manage well enough on his own.
Erik takes a deep breath, and slowly wrestles his own composure back into place. He steeples his fingers once more, and a single compelling thought makes his Queen move in to threaten Charles’ King.
“Could you make someone love you?”
Charles sighs, and moves his King into safety. There is no use trying to run any longer, is there?
“Why are you so adamant about this when you must know how uncomfortable it makes me?”
Erik’s thoughts are a predator’s. Instead of accepting this opening, offering a personal answer to receive one in turn, he moves in for the kill. Charles really should have known.
“And why would you have any reason to feel uncomfortable with discussing this?”
Hi tongue, like velvet and honey, spills such terrible suggestions, and Charles finds himself unable to face the pale gaze, even though he knows what that implies. Why does Erik always have to make everything a battle?
Charles loves him, oh, but he does. It is not easy, though.
With Erik it never is.
Well – perhaps it is time he set up his own attack, instead of relying on defensive manoeuvres only.
“Why would you have any reason to suspect such behaviour from me? Is it because you would do it, were you in my place?”
Erik would. Charles knows that Erik would – he has grown up in a world that has taught him to take whatever he needs by force, or not receive it at all. Had he the power of telepathy, half the world would be doing hi bidding at this point. Erik is ruthless, and always believes that the end justifies the means. Charles knows him so well, despite never having entered his mind, despite never having encountered the darkness that must be lying in wait there, threatening to finally swallow him whole. The moment Erik can see an advantage stem from the usage of Charles’ special abilities – like the freezing of Shaw – he will forgo all his prejudices and flimsy moral reservations.
It is only when his own mind is concerned that he feels so strongly about the usage of telepathy.
The older one opens his mouth, perhaps to spill a protestation that he would never – however, he closes it again, clearly aware that Charles would see through the lie. For a few moments he stares at the game, his mind on both of his next moves.
“Do humour me, Charles,” he then prompts mildly, in an obvious change of strategy. “Let us assume that this is a hypothetical discussion about telepathy in a world where it does not exist.”
Sometimes Charles feels like his is always the one to make concessions. Then he remembers that Erik is here, trying his best to work with a team when he has worked alone all his life. Trying to trust them when he has only had himself to rely on for so long. Trying to help humans when they have never been ready to help him.
Alright.
Perhaps some drapes ought to be lifted in order to make this work. Maybe Erik has not accepted the offered pathways to Charles’ soul because he did not know how, not because he did not want to. Oh, he knows that this will hurt – the older one will surely strike out in order to protect himself the moment he feels it might be necessary. But Charles loves him. There has never been another who has fascinated him the way Erik does. To find someone like him, in a time when homosexuality is barely tolerated, and to find him in another mutant no less, is a priceless gift. And he is not about to waste it. It will be worth a few sacrifices.
It has to be.
Erik’s Rook is in position to capture the white King, and with a sigh Charles leans back and closes his eyes for a moment, before tipping it over.
Checkmate.
“Hypothetically,” he slowly begins, his own eyes boring into Erik’s now. He wants the other to see, understand. “Hypothetically, a telepath might make another believe they love someone. He could not, however, really make them love the other person. Even though he could force them to think of a person of his choice more often, even though he could create false memories – it would not be the same. In a romantic context the body’s response would be missing. Hormonal reaction, racing heart, the simple pleasure of remembering another’s embrace with more than just your mind. Also, the person – thusly restricted in their thinking processes – would change fundamentally as well, for as long as that illusion would be in place.”
He then averts his gaze, which is still terribly open, and hears Erik lean back as well. The older one nods slowly, squinting. He has not accepted Charles’ surrender, then.
“And how do you know that?”
It is never enough for Erik, is it? Charles offers him an opening, a peace-offering, a door into his heart – and Erik sees a weakness, an invitation to attack.
“What I gave you was a hypothetical analysis of a telepath’s potential abilities,” he reminds the other mildly, his eyes on the fallen white King and his words wrapped in the comfort of familiar scientific phrasing.
Erik rolls his eyes.
“You know fully well that your assessment was not hypothetical.”
He seems angry now, impatient, and somehow relieved at the same time. For all that Charles has spent days, weeks, studying this man, for all that he professes to know him better than anyone else – Erik still is incredibly hard to read sometimes.
“You asked me to humour you.”
There are only so many wounds Charles is ready to risk, only so many sacrifices he is prepared to make after all. Perhaps a different plan of attack is in order.
Erik jumps to his feet and the younger one flinches, startled by the sudden movement.
“Then do it!” the tall man yells, “Humour me! Tell me what I want to know!”
There are so many things Charles could say to answer that.
Sit down, my friend, there is no need to yell.
Or, instead, you might humour me for once.
An answer for an answer.
Why would I tell you, when you will only twist my words and use them to hurt me?
There are many things he could say to hurt Erik.
Is there a reason you are so obsessed with this?
Instead, he decides to give this conversation one last chance before giving up on it. Taking a deep breath he leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, intent eyes on Erik until the other sits down again – tense, eyes still roaming wildly, but he sits. Charles clasps his hands together as to keep them from fidgeting with nervousness.
“My friend,” he begins slowly, “surely you can imagine that there are reasons I do not wish to talk about this. I have strict moral rules I abide by and iron control now, but I was a child once. And children are wont to beg for what they need in whatever way they are capable of.”
A hidden admission he has never made to anyone, and yet.
Erik’s gaze is dark and angry. Cold.
“Do not talk to me of need, Charles! You never felt hunger. You never felt desperation. You never lacked for anything!”
Charles closes his eyes. He thinks of Cain’s anger, and Kurt’s hatred. Reminds himself that if he could accept hurtful words from someone who barely tolerated his existence and stow them at the back of his mind, then he surely can take hearing them from a friend. The man he loves.
“I have never been hurt and violated the way you have been,” he agrees, and does not miss the short flash of relief in his beloved friend’s eyes.
Relief, that he will not belittle the pain the older one had to live through. Why would he even think that Charles might belittle it?
“And I thank ever deity that might exist for it. That does not mean, however, that I was not hurt as well. That I did not feel desperate, too, and that I really never lacked for anything. Certainly, it was nothing compared to the crimes you had to experience.” But they had been crimes none the less – Kurt had not been an innocent for a long time, and neither had Cain. “Just like I cannot imagine the horror of what you survived, you cannot imagine what I had to live with.”
Not genocide, thank every possible god for that.
And yet, it shaped him much like Erik’s past has shaped the older one. Where he has built himself a façade of mild disinterest to hide his hurt behind, ever searching to bring others the peace he could not have, Erik hides behind a hard exterior and tries to make himself believe that on the inside he is just as hard, always ready to make others feel the pain he had to experience. The world is not a fair place.
The pale eyes immediately explode into anger once more.
“That is not the same!”
“Of course it is not,” Charles agrees easily. “You witnessed genocide. What was done to you can never be made right, no matter the honesty and vigour of the attempt.”
Erik releases a deep breath and deflates, pacified.
Charles understands. It is only the truth, after all. After what the older one has gone through – no one ought to make light of those terrible crimes. He only wishes Erik would understand as well.
“You are right. And whatever happened to you, it cannot have been worse.”
Long fingers wrap around a white Rook taken behind the enemy lines.
Gods, the way such a past must shape and pain a soul – especially one so desperate to be free as Erik.
Charles has always felt too intensely for others. Perhaps it is one of the downsides of his gift, being able to pick up all the pain and desperation every single person he encounters is going through. It is not something he can influence. If he cared less, though, it might have been easier.
“It was not. However, that does not mean it was not terrible for me too. I meant what I said, that you could not imagine it – because your mother loved you.”
Erik jumps to his feet once more.
Oh, Charles knows – he knows that he used a trigger word, but what else is he supposed to do if he wants to make the other understand?
“You know nothing about my mother!”
Charles keeps his gaze steady, and banishes all the old hurt to the back of his mind.
“I know that she loved you,” he repeats. “She loved you, Erik, like any good mother should, and whatever the two of you had to go through, however cruelly she was taken from you – she would have done anything for you, and you did everything for her. She loved you, and no one can ever take that away from you.”
Erik stands, staring in silence.
Charles can almost watch his razor-sharp mind put the pieces together, and can only pray that his dearest friend will not use this open target to fire another jagged arrow of piercing words, hitting deeper than any other ever did.
Then Erik’s pale eyes widen almost comically as he – finally – understands and he virtually falls back into his armchair, suddenly boneless.
“You could make someone believe they love you, but it would not be the same,” he repeats slowly, pale eyes alight with pity.
Charles gives him a wan smile, an attempt at a casual shrug.
“I was five,” is all he manages to say. “It did not work. It was not the same.”
Erik sighs, sharp features painted in remorse.
“I did not expect that,” he admits softly. “Otherwise I would not have spoken the way I did.”
Liar, Charles knows his eyes say.
Erik knows it too.
The telepath shrugs once more, averts his gaze.
“I am sure that you understand now why I was so reluctant to talk about it. And perhaps it also gives you reason enough to finally believe that I would never influence your mind in any way without your permission.”
A naïve hope, perhaps, but he has always been an optimist, much like Erik is almost the definition of radical pessimism. They really are like yin and yang, the two of them.
Erik nods slowly, thoughtfully; slender fingers once again steepled.
“You have more than earned my trust,” he admits calmly, piercing gaze back in place. “I know that. It is in no way your fault that I find it so hard to offer it to anyone – and you deserve my distrust least of all people.”
There is an amount of affection in both his voice and words that Charles has never heard there, not even when the admission of love had been gasped into his ear as they had moved as one.
“Would you consider telling me, then, why you were so adamant to receive this particular answer from me?” he dares ask, eyes wide and hopeful.
It is another risk, certainly. But is love not a risk in itself? And some risks – some risks have to be worth taking.
Erik freezes mid-breath, only to exhale with a weak laugh. It is a sound perhaps no one has ever heard fall from those sharp lips.
“It is rather personal,” he admits, and Charles nods.
That much is obvious. Otherwise, his beloved friend would not have chosen words and gazes quite so cutting, would not have sliced quite so deeply.
“I thought so. But – I love you, Erik, and I wish to be one with you. In body, mind and soul. Body, that we certainly manage well enough.” He smiles wryly, and even Erik’s wary lips twitch for a moment. “Moreover, you claim to love me, much like I love you, which covers soul. And I hope – I hope, Erik – that, one day, you will allow for our minds to merge as well. It will be as hard for me as it is for you. Sharing our thoughts that way, it would be no one-way ticket. You would see as many of my dreams and fears and secrets as I would see of yours, but I believe that having to spread all that open for you would be worth it.”
He holds the older one’s pale gaze with his own, and it is exhilarating to see not immediate refusal but thoughtful contemplation in the beautiful eyes suddenly no longer all that guarded.
“There have been many things in my past that I would rather not talk about, that I wish to bury and forget they ever happened. People. Cain, Kurt, my mother – if I never have to mention or even think of them again it will be too soon.” Even though interest shines clearly in his sharp features Erik does not interrupt to ask about the names mentioned. “And there are more than enough aches and open wounds I do not want anyone to know of, ever. But I love you, and I wish to share all that I am with you. The good and the bad. And perhaps – perhaps showing you will be easier than telling, easier than speaking of it. I have never met anyone quite like you, and I would be a fool indeed if I ever willingly let you go again.”
He inhales deeply after this veritable speech, ready for rejection in any form and colour.
Yet, at the last words the sun appears to burst through the clouds in Erik’s mind and the smile he offers the younger one is almost open. It certainly is honest. And quite dazzling.
“It is embarrassing,” Erik warns, reaching out to hold Charles’ hand in a blatant display of affection he has never even attempted to make before.
It takes the telepath a few moments to understand what he is talking about, having lost sight of the original question.
“I seriously doubt that – personal does not naturally equal embarrassing.”
For a short moment Erik’s smile widens, before falling apart as he averts his gaze.
“I have never met anyone like you, either,” he begins slowly, carefully picking his words as his slender thumb draws circles against Charles’ open palm. “Before you, after my mother’s death, I trusted no one, and did not want to do so either. I filled my heart with hatred so there would be no place for love – love that would only bring me pain in the end. You, however, tore down all my carefully constructed walls and suddenly I found myself wanting to trust, wanting to love. It scared me Charles, and it still does.” An admission as hard to make as any, for a man like Erik. “It was the first time I really lost my heart, against my own will, and I feared… I feared that it might just be an illusion. That what we share is no more than a wild fantasy, created by your incredible mind. Because god, there is nothing I ever wanted more than a family – and no one I ever wanted to have found it in but you.”
There is a shining sheen of what perhaps is as much embarrassment as desperation in his eyes, and Charles leaves his armchair to kneel at his friend’s feet without even thinking about it. He reaches for Erik’s other hand, now clenched in agony, and knows that there is no use fighting the smile dancing on his lips.
“My dearest friend – I already thought of you as family before I even knew you returned my feelings. And if you doubt that, allow me to show you. Allow me to invite you into my mind, to share with me my pain, my pleasure, my love. Allow me to prove to you my sincerity. Please.”
For a few agonizing, never-ending moments Erik sits in indecisive silence, frozen. Then his pale eyes finally find Charles’ once more, and what emotions his gaze carries words could not express.
And then he nods.
And Charles beams and reaches out to touch his own temple with one hand, his friend’s with the other, carefully approaching the intriguing swirl of bright light that is Erik – only to be met by anxious expectation instead of metal walls and barbed wire for the first time.
And as the older one stumbles into his own mind alight with awe and love, as they drown in sudden affection and closeness and pleasure, together – Charles thinks that yes, some risks really are worth taking.
Erik only laughs softly and pulls him into a scorching kiss.