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Charles wakes at 5:46 AM for no reason at all, and something is different.
Phantom pain is never like this. Phantom pain always starts at the base of his spine and arcs down to his toes. It’s the sharp kind of pain that scrapes against his bones until he’s almost shaking with it. It’s never this faint; never pins-and-needles.
This is not different, he thinks, but it is, and he almost hates himself for wrenching the covers off both himself and Erik to check, because he believes for a second that he’s whole again. He’ll be angry for letting his body lie to him again.
Erik stirs beside him. He looks his legs and everything is the same. The same awkward jut of his knees, the almost-grotesque ridge of his tibias, the bruises and scrapes he’s always getting and never realizing until times like these, when he makes himself look.
Erik sighs quietly. Kisses Charles’ shoulder, sleepy and a little sad. The guilt is rolling off of him in waves and Charles hates it more than he’s ever hated anything.
He prepares to be disappointed, so he thinks of the school, and he thinks of Raven, and he thinks of his love, thinks only of Erik and that he knows he won’t be leaving, and that he has most of what he’s ever wanted. And he knows that this won’t work, that his body is inventing hopes that should only stay in his dreams, but he thinks to himself, earnestly, this is not the biggest loss to have endured.
He breathes easily, with Erik bare and warm at his side, and he wills his toes to move.
It almost hurts at first. It’s the same feeling of sleeping with an arm pinned at the wrong angle all night, waking up, and moving against that pinching shock.
But then there’s a resulting twitch, and this pain is the most glorious kind he’s ever felt.
“Charles,” Erik breathes, tensing. And then he does it again, just the slightest of twitches, but it’s so much more than nothing.
There’s another feeling, the whisper of the comforter against his toes. His heart stutters and he grasps at Erik blindly, but he’s not there. He’s leaning over at the foot of the bed, brushing his fingers against Charles’ toes. There’s movement again. Erik laughs in a way Charles has never heard anyone laugh before. It’s almost hysterical.
Charles could cry from the sensation alone. He swallows against it and meets Erik’s expectant eyes. He hears half-insane pleas knocking around inside Erik’s skull, doesn’t mean to but they’re just so loud and desperate.
He nods; says, “I can feel that.” in a voice that’s tremulous and hardly there.
The rest of their morning goes something like this:
Erik running his fingers up the arches of Charles’ feet, along the bones of his too-thin ankles, upupup even though he still can’t feel his legs; Charles wishing he could feel that kiss pressed to his knee, but it almost doesn’t matter because he can feel his toes and Erik is smiling.
Charles urges him back up. He presses his burning eyes into Erik’s shirt, curls and uncurls his toes into the sheets, and doesn’t look back up until the sun is spilling everywhere.
--
Recovery is slow. It’s agonizingly slow. Charles is not quite as good at being patient as Erik is. Hank says it’s because oligodendrocytes produce myelin sheaths in central nervous system injuries, and they’re slower on the upkeep than Schwann cells, by a lot.
It’s been months. He feels his feet and his calves, most of the time. And, occasionally, there’s a brilliant shock of sensation in his thighs, some places.
Erik is sitting cross-legged on their bed, Charles’ foot in his lap. He’s pressing back gently with his palm, stretching the atrophied calf muscle like Hank’s said to do. He says it won’t be such a rough transition to walking if the muscles are used to some movement. Charles is still stuck on that concept: walking.
“Mm. A bit harder, dear.” Charles murmurs.
Erik obliges after a moment. The muscle strains with the good kind of burn.
“Good?” he checks.
“Mhm.” Charles hums back, almost punch-drunk. He’d almost been irrationally embarrassed about this at first. Erik’s large hands looked wrong on his legs. But Erik has never balked at the jutting bones, the muscular decay, the accidental scrapes and bruises, and how ghoulish it all looks. Charles hears, in the surface thoughts he can’t help but hear, that Erik enjoys doing this. He likes the small shifts of muscle under his fingers, the quiet noises of approval from Charles as his hands knead and pull and stretch him, and the boneless way Charles sinks into the sheets most nights.
Erik switches legs. Presses a soft, lingering kiss to Charles’ ankle before his hands get to work. He shivers when Erik doesn’t stop. He feels how warm Erik’s lips are, feels his breath ghosting on slightly chilled skin, all the way up to his knee.
His heart constricts when Erik looks up at him. He crawls up Charles’ body, pressed into the full length of him. Erik looks at him with bright and serious eyes, stares at his too-red mouth, and kisses Charles soundly.
Charles likes kissing more than he ever has. He swears his upper body has gotten more sensitive to compensate (or maybe it’s just Erik), but it’s never been like this. Now he aches for it, needs the feel of lips bruising against his own, needs Erik licking at the inside of his mouth obscenely, needs those palms trailing down his heaving ribs.
Erik’s tongue curls wetly into his, and it’s honestly all he can do to keep from moaning. His fingers find the nape of Erik’s neck to touch and stroke the skin there, just the way he likes.
And that’s all it takes, because even though Charles can’t feel Erik’s arousal poking into his thigh, he knows it by the way he shivers almost violently. He lifts his hips from Charles’ and stops kissing him because he so badly doesn’t want to stop.
“Sorry,” he says with a note of shame. His breath comes in warm puffs against Charles’ neck. The appetite’s there, but the hunger isn’t.
“Oh, Erik,” Charles says. “Don’t be.” And he means it, because Charles wants to be sorry, he is sorry, and god, does he miss sex (always so wholly satisfying with Erik), but that doesn’t mean Erik should have to, too.
“Here, I’ll—” he starts, reaching a hand to Erik’s erection, but Erik surges away, like he always does, and quiets him with an honest, “It’s alright,” and a sound kiss to his forehead.
Charles flinches away.
“It’s not alright.” he says for the first time. “If you’d let me just…just please you like this, it wouldn’t be so unfair—”
“Unfair? Not having…this,” Erik frowns at him and gestures at their hips. “is such a tiny price to pay for your life, Charles. If anyone has a right to complain about things being unfair, it’s you.”
You ridiculous, noble fool.
He’s pretty sure Erik means to project that at him.
“Why won’t you let me touch you?” Charles asks, hating how shakable he sounds. “You know I…that I want to make you feel good. I’m sorry I can’t like I used to—”
And there’s such lurid honesty there, especially in that last statement, that Erik’s expression nearly breaks.
“It’s not that.” Erik interrupts, eyes so wide and imploring that Charles believes him, even with his telepathy tightly reined in. “I can’t…”
The temptation to peak at his thoughts has never been so strong. Erik swallows past the words he won’t let himself say. Charles needs to know, needs to know if there are new ways he can map out Erik’s body with his hands, with his mouth, get him wanting and pliant and needy again.
“Tell me.” Charles speaks against his temple and tries not to sound as desperate as he feels.
Erik won’t look at him. He just sighs. Squares his shoulders and says,
“I don’t want to if you can’t.”
“Oh, I,” Charles starts, and then stops himself because he really doesn’t know what to say.
“I know that…that you want it. For me. But, that you wouldn’t be enjoying it in the same way I would be,” and then Erik looks at him, intensely uncomfortable and almost wincing under his own words, but he’s looking at him. “I just. I can’t.”
Charles is suddenly upset with himself. He knows it’s irrational; that feeling inadequate really isn’t warranted, but that doesn’t make it sting any less. He’s not sure whether or not to be touched Erik can’t stand to be the only one taking – but he wouldn’t be. It’s just not in the way Erik means, and Charles knows it.
He wants to argue, but the words die on his lips when he sees the tired conviction in those eyes.
Then Erik says, “Charles, listen,” and pushes their foreheads together, throwing his mind open. His eyes snap shut with the onslaught of relief, of closeness. It’s unshakeable and perfect so Charles twines his fingers in Erik’s hair, sighing.
Then he realizes what a difference there is between knowing and understanding, because now he gets it. He understands that his own pleasure is intrinsically connected with Erik’s, and that as much as Charles would enjoy simply giving, there is a need so strong to touch Charles back that it’s almost a compulsion. And he understands, now, that the rejection has got nothing to do with his body (from the dark little infantile thing made of insecurities that sometimes whispers at him), because he’s always been this beautiful to Erik.
It’s just this mental block, this unyielding need to just give. Charles knows why when he sees guilt at the heart of it.
“I’ve never blamed you.” he says, almost frightfully honest. “And…and, really, what could you have done differently?”
It’s meant to be a rhetorical question, one with the answer of ‘nothing’ because it’s that obvious to Charles, but then Erik bites back with, “I could have let it happen like it was supposed to.”
“Erik, it was supposed to happen this way. That’s why it happened this way.”
A lot of things surge in Erik’s brain at that. Charles expects anger, mostly. He expects a demand to get out of his head and he wonders if they will maybe sleep apart.
None of that happens. Maybe it’s just Charles because he’s too goddamn innocent and unassuming and he means it, or maybe Erik is just too tired to be angry anymore, but—
It doesn’t happen.
Instead, Erik’s eyebrows peak, pointed grief, and he presses himself in instead of away, and he cries very quietly into Charles’ neck.
He can’t quite tell if this is a new fracture or an old one mending. But he holds Erik to him and gives, all the same.
--
“I thought there was too much astrocytic scarring.” Hank admits wistfully. “I thought it was obstructing all your axonal pathways and I thought you’d never feel a thing below the waist for the rest of your life.”
Charles smiles uneasily at him. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m sorry, Professor! I didn’t mean—”
Charles cuts him off with a hiss. An arc of pain laces up the back of his right thigh. His legs almost give out, but he steadies himself on the parallel bars along either side of him. Hank’s supporting arm is around him in an instant.
“I think that’s enough for today.” he says, moving to guide Charles back to his wheelchair.
He has been standing, with assistance from the handrails, for a full one and a half minutes. And all he has to show for it is another nerve pain flare-up and bone-deep exhaustion.
He remembers when he could run laps with Erik (after running with Hank got redundant); remembers stretching his aching muscles during their cool down and laughing for no reason because the endorphins made him giddy; remembers Erik pinning him against the wall of the west side of the mansion and they were sweaty and almost sticking together; remembers sliding his thigh between Erik’s and swallowing his noises.
And then he remembers the night before, how there’s some element of trust that’s brand new and means quite a bit more, and he tells himself to stop being so damn maudlin when he’s got more than he ever has.
Erik finds him supine in bed a few hours later. He’s quiet, but Charles wakes the moment he slips under the sheets anyway.
He makes his face serene even as his white-knuckled grip under the covers tightens. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job at faking sleep, until Erik sets his lips at his temple and asks, “How was physical therapy?”
He comes alive then, smiling even though it doesn’t feel quite right on his face now; says, “Oh, it went very well! I stood about 45 seconds longer than I could manage last time.”
He’s not lying, not technically.
“You’re hurting, aren’t you?”
The question mark is barely audible.
“Oh, it’s tolerable, honestly.”
His roving thumb soothes the frown on Erik’s lips. Charles hears wish he’d just tell me, and he’s pretty sure that’s not meant to be a projection, but they’re both getting unfairly perceptive with each other.
But it’s true; gait training makes the nerve pain worse. Sometimes it’s so piercing he swears he can feel hair-like fractures splitting his bones open. Sometimes he misses being numb, but only for a second, and then Erik is trying to soothe the pain out with his hands and then he stops wishing that.
He unravels Charles again tonight. Wrings him out in the best way, knowing the places to squeeze and knead firmly and the places to barely touch at all. He presses his palms in the divot behind Charles’ knees, slides up, and finds the raised tissue of scar at his lower back that hurts the most. Erik’s thumbing the ridges of his vertebrae and it’s good, so he shivers and grins into his pillow.
Erik can’t make all of it go away, but Charles swears his brain stops misfiring pain signals quite so much and the edges of the ache is blunted; softened.
He twists to his side, finds that it’s not even that hard to do anymore with his hips, and says, “Thank you. I really mean it, I—”
Erik hushes him with a burning kiss and says of course, always without his mouth.
Sometime later, they find sleep, and Charles can feel Erik pressed against all of him.
--
Weeks pass, and he doesn’t need a catheter anymore.
He smiles brightly at everyone and doesn’t hate Hank, not even a little bit, after he makes Charles stand on one leg for 35 seconds.
He feels good enough to use Cerebro for the first time since physical therapy. He isn’t sure what he was expecting Raven’s reaction to be, but it isn’t quite this.
“Charles, don’t be stupid! This can wait until you’re completely recovered. You used to get migraines from this damn machine on a good day. Why would you want to push your luck this soon after the…after the accident?”
“Trust Charles to know his own limitations, Raven.” Erik says, but the note of worry belies his words. Charles is sure he’s the only one to hear it, and he smiles gratefully at Erik, but then—
“You can stop pretending.” she shoots back snappishly.
Hank, busily recalibrating Cerebro, pauses for a moment behind the machine.
Pretending what? Charles hears from both Hank and Erik, and then, from only Erik: Does she know?
She strongly suspects, Charles sends back, and he’s not really sure how he feels about that. Erik’s jaw tenses and he pointedly stares at nothing. He senses Erik would really love nothing more than to leave, but then Charles is wheeling himself to the platform, and Hank gives him the thumbs-up, and Charles says,
“Ten minutes, tops.” and he makes a point to smile at all of them brightly, because they need it, because he wants Hank to know it is okay to want Raven, because he wants Raven to know he is sorry that she had to find this out on her own, and because he wants Erik to know that he loves him.
Erik uncrosses his arms. Cannot stop looking at Charles, eyes almost rounded for a second. He’s holding himself still.
Then there’s the surge, and he’s in several minds at once. They’re fleeting; disappearing and reappearing sporadically. But Erik, he stays put. He’s warm and familiar and secure, and, this time, there is no headache.
--
The high of independence doesn’t leave him for days. It makes him feel a little more than brazen, and he decides he wants to try a shower. Hank thinks it’s a bad idea and that Charles should stick with baths until he’s strong enough to cross a hallway.
But Hank doesn’t know that Erik will be there with him. Probably best it stays that way.
The experience is something he’s completely unprepared for.
He stands under the water, face upturned, eyes shut. It’s sensation everywhere; along his neck, down his chest, his back, his legs. It’s delicious and whisper-warm all across his skin. It’s his nerves prickling everywhere in the best kinds of ways. There’s a pressure behind his eyes and in his throat that he doesn’t try to silence, because it doesn’t matter here.
Erik’s behind him, has got his hands settled lightly on Charles’ hips. He dips his head forward to share the spray and rinse the suds from his hair. Charles decides he doesn’t mind the rivulets of soap and kisses Erik’s neck, stretched so conveniently before his mouth.
He thinks of Erik coming home, Erik loving him more than he hated Shaw, Erik trying to repress his guilt for Charles’ sake, Erik anxiously gripping the rails around Cerebro’s platform because he knows all too well what it’s like to be a lab rat, Erik, on the eve of World War III, spread long-limbed atop the coverlet and saying I love you, Erik smiling that ductile smile of his when he hears it back.
Something unhinges in Charles’ chest, just then.
He runs his tongue along the corded tendons of Erik’s neck, the sharp curve of his jaw; says, “I love you.” just to say it.
Erik shudders and dips his head to find Charles’ lips. They’re parted and warm and wet already. He hears in Erik’s head, what are you doing, Charles and I don’t want to stop I don’t want to stop, god, I love you too.
The kiss is chaste and nipping at first. But then Charles cranes his neck to the side and runs his tongue along the curve of Erik’s lip, and it isn’t so chaste anymore; it’s tongues stroking languorously, the obscene pursing and shifting of lips, and wet popping noises loud enough to be heard over the shower. Charles is babbling slaphappy litanies between kisses; Erik’s name between oh god and please, over and over.
Erik breaks the kiss off with a small moan. And he’s forgetting, forgetting, hands roaming and finally cupping the swell of Charles’ ass in those great big hands of his. Charles can feel the rise and fall of his chest against his back, even his heartbeat, and the warm shape of arousal pressed against him. The press of all of Erik, of his hands, his cock, his heartbeat, is too much. That sharp physical need unfurls in him then. Erik’s filling all of him with it.
And then, with the feeling, there’s the jut of his own cock. He starts trembling from the arousal alone. He’s not yet completely used to it and it’s almost overwhelming.
Erik’s posture stiffens behind him when he realizes. The physical reaction itself is not terribly unusual, but after the accident, there was no connection between his brain and his lower half. Mental arousal never made a difference. He could be watching Erik undress or reading a dissertation on single-nucleotide polymorphism and he’d be as likely to get hard in either situation.
But this is different, because with the feel of Erik’s shortened breaths ghosting down his back and thumbs rubbing circles on his hips, his cock pulses.
“Is that…” Erik starts tentatively.
“Yes, it’s,” Charles all but moans, struggling to come up with a word that’s not so clinical and unsexy, but it’s too much to ask of his fried brain. “It’s…uhm, psychogenic. Please, oh, do keep going.”
And apparently, Charles was worrying himself over nothing, because Erik shudders against him like ‘psychogenic’ is the sexiest thing he’s ever heard come out of Charles’ mouth.
It is, something clear and wanting and definitively Erik echoes in his head. That’s when he realizes he’s unconsciously settled in Erik’s mind. It was always unnatural before, to keep in his own head during sex with Erik, but it was never difficult. And it never just happened like this.
There’s an apology brimming behind his lips and he begins to sever the connection, but something in Erik’s mind reaches out, holds him snug and secure. And Erik says please stay while he pulls Charles flush to him physically, too.
It’s perfection. It’s like he fits here; like he belongs here, in Erik’s mind. He starts to laugh with relief, but then he can’t, because Erik wraps his hand around Charles’ cock and then he’s nearly sobbing with that old/new flavor of want. He can’t remember it feeling this heavy and aching before, and he needs. He’s not quite strong enough to stand and thrust upward into the feeling at the same time, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s perfect this way.
And then, Charles decides he needs to feel Erik come, too. He needs to feel Erik quaking and breathing his name, quiet and affectionate and hungry all at once. So he grips the rail on the sliding door for support and rubs himself on Erik. It’s effortless. Instinctual. There’s the water and soap all over the both of them, and it makes the slide of Erik’s cock between the cleft of his backside so easy.
And oh, there are no words for how he’s missed this, this closeness, the richness of pleasure settling warmly in all of him. Erik is groaning softly into his ear, damp breath curling under his jaw. That sensation alone is almost over-stimulating. And if he’s sensitive there, well – the tight, wet slide of Erik’s fist around his cock – that goes without saying. It feels so good it almost hurts.
“Erik,” he calls breathily, barely recognizing his own voice. Says to him mentally, I won’t last long with the way you’re touching me.
He feels the hot bleed of Erik’s own closeness, too. It’s been so long and their nerves are overwhelmed with it.
So Erik slows down purposefully. He thrusts shallowly against, not inside, and Charles ruts against him in perfect tandem with his heartbeat. He wants Erik inside so badly, but he needs the preparation, and that’s better suited for a bed.
Charles doesn’t realize how much he’s missed this until now. They’re okay without it. They would have been. But nothing could replace the feeling of Erik’s arm at his waist holding him steady, how his legs are parted and smoothing against either side of Charles’ with each thrust, the sound of his own name being breathed reverently against his cheekbone. It’s the feeling of being caged in by Erik. It’s warm and secure and safe.
And that’s why he can’t keep himself in his own head anymore, he realizes. The barriers are simply just not there anymore.
Erik goes to work on his neck. Wet, sucking kisses up the column of his throat, his jaw, mouthing the skin until it almost aches, until Charles can’t take it anymore and he angles his head to kiss Erik proper.
“Charles,” Erik pants against the corner of his mouth. “I’m so close.”
Charles knows, because they’re so enmeshed in each other’s heads he could be Erik and Erik could be him; too close to differentiate. And he feels it, too, the thrilling burn of arousal engulfing him, swallowing him and snapping slick wet heat in his limbs and his cock and his mind; their minds.
And then Erik stills, hand going slack on the ache between Charles’ thighs for a moment. But that doesn’t matter because they’re coming; they’re both coming because Charles is in Erik and Erik is in Charles in the way they’ve never truly been before.
There’s a snap and a raucous clatter from somewhere nearby. It barely registers. Charles is consumed with the euphoria, raw and arcing and reinnervating. Erik holds him, and he’s suddenly grateful for it, because he’s not so sure he can stay standing anymore.
Erik’s rocking him gently to and fro as the feeling ebbs. The water beats on his overly sensitive skin and it’s almost uncomfortable (almost) but the slide of its heat burns on his insides, too, in the best way.
He can still feel Erik trembling a little.
“Are you okay?” Charles asks after a long moment. His voice sounds sort of throaty, and he wonders if he made more noise than he realized.
“Yes, I’m absolutely…yes. Are you?”
“Yes. Oh, yes, of course.” he replies honestly. He can feel Erik’s grin against his shoulder; it’s not often he smiles like that.
After they shut off the shower off and open the sliding doors, it’s obvious what the clattering was earlier. There’s a fractured dowel rod on the floor, along with the warped remains of their metal toothbrush holder. But the worst part is probably the twisted lump of metal they used to call a faucet.
All Charles says is, “oh,” like it’s an afterthought, and-that-explains-it sort of tone.
And Erik says, “That’s never – I’m so sorry, that’s never happened before. I’m sorry.”
But Charles is laughing, partly from the endorphins, but mostly because Erik’s power always delights him, and he’s telling him that it’s okay, really.
They stop being surprised the next several times it happens, but Charles never starts minding.
--
Charles wakes at 4:01 AM for no reason at all.
He tries deluding himself into believing he can drop right back off, but his mind is stubbornly bright and awake. Erik’s bare and pressed into his side, still and silent. Sometimes it’s unnerving how quietly he breathes. Charles stares at his chest for the rise and fall, feels stupid for it, and decides to just start the day.
Gingerly, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and dresses in Erik’s discarded sleep shirt – doesn’t even stop to think about it – and his own pants, grabs his cane, and makes his way to the kitchen.
He doesn’t expect to see anyone at this hour, so he’s surprised and a little worried when he senses Raven. He thinks for just a moment of going back to bed, but she’s already broadcasting, having heard him shambling (damnable awkward gait, still), asking, What are you doing up so early?
“I could ask you the same question, dear.” he counters, finally emerging from the shadows. Raven’s sitting at the table in her natural form, fingers cradling a cup of coffee.
He makes his way to the cupboards for tea and hears the inevitable question at his back:
“Oh my god. Is that Erik’s shirt?”
“Yes.” he says, and doesn’t explain anything because he doesn’t need to. He tenses for an onslaught of questions and maybe accusations, maybe some anger because he’s always told Raven everything and now there’s this…separateness that never used to exist.
He’s expecting, How long? Why didn’t you tell me? They’ll hate you for this, too, you know.
But Raven, she’s not as predictable as Charles thinks. She’s surprising and mortifying, and she says, “You and…you and Erik, oh god; that’s what’s up with the busted water pipes and broken metal fixtures around the house, isn’t it?”
“Raven!” he cries. “Please don’t tell that to any of the children!”
“Tell them what? That you and Erik are together or that he orgasms with the power of a thousand suns?”
Charles buries his face in his arms on the counter and makes a low, pitiful noise. Dying-animal pitiful. It’s the sex coupled with the telepathic connection that makes Erik’s control slide, he’s sure. But he’s not about to tell Raven that.
“Hey,” she says, voice sobering. “It’s alright, really.”
She gets up and pats the space between his shoulder blades a little awkwardly, but it’s nothing if not genuine.
He doesn’t look up until the kettle starts whistling. And even then, he can’t quite look at Raven.
“I had a feeling since…well, right after Cuba.” She sounds hesitant in bringing it up. “It’s fine. I just kind of wish you told me sooner, is all.”
“I meant to.” he tells her honestly, trying to squelch the guilt bubbling inside. “Really, I did.”
“Shh. It doesn’t matter.”
He finally looks at her and she smiles at him, cheeky and carefree and it’s just like her, he realizes. For the first time since Cuba, she’s—
“If he makes you happy,” she says blithely, and then, “Make this worth it.”
She kisses the top of his head and thinks of Hank.
--
In the end, nothing much changes.
Except when they go recruiting, it just goes without saying that he and Erik go together now.
Except that Raven is so much closer to feeling like she belongs than she ever has been.
Except the mansion is slowly becoming populated with misunderstood children and young adults, and Charles’ heart almost feels too full most of the time.
Except even though he can safely shower alone now, well—that doesn’t mean Erik skips the opportunity to join him sometimes.
Except when they make love, Charles sometimes digs his heels against the dimples in Erik’s lower back and urges him in, deep as he can go, on nights neither of them can sleep.
Except when Erik has nightmares, Charles is deeply-seated enough to soothe the pain before it even wakes either of them up.
Except Erik is not here because of his guilt; he’s here despite it.
“Because there’s nowhere else.” Erik murmurs into Charles’ hair, vows it, and Charles grins blindingly in his chest as the sun comes up.